The Storyteller.

Waikato Argus, Volume I, Issue 46, 24 October 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Storyteller.

A [i% It had rained so persistently in San Francisco during the first week of January 1854, that a certain quagmiro in the roadway of Long Wharf had become impassable, and a plank was thrown over its dangerou 8 depth. Indeed, so treacherous was the spot that it was alleged, on good authority, that a hastily embarking traveller had once hopelessly lost his portmanteau, and was fain to dispose of l-.is entire interest in it for then sum of two dollars and fifty cents to a speculative stranger on the wharf. As the stranger's search was rewarded afterwards only by the discovery of the body of a casual Chinaman who had evidently endeavoured wickedly to anticipate him, a feeling of commercial insecurity was added to the other eccentricities of the locality.

The plank led to tlio door of :i building that was a mirvol even in the chaotic frontier architecture of the street. The houses o.i either side—irregular frames of wco I or corrugated iron—bore evidence of having been quickly thrown together, to meet the requirements of the goods and passengers who were once disembarked on what was the muddy beach of tho infant city. Jiut the building in question exhibited a certain elaboration of form and design utterly inconsistent with this idea. The structure obtruded a bowed front bo the street, with a curving line of small windows, surmounted by elaborate carvings and scoll work of vines and leaves, while below, in faded gilt letters, appeared the legend "Pontiac—Marseilles." The effect of this incongruity was startling. It i 3 related that an inebriated miner, impeded by mud and drink before its door, was found gazing at its remarkable facade with an expression of the deepest despondency. " I hev lived a free life, pirdner," he explained thickly to the Samaritan who succoured him, " and every timo since I've been on this oix weeks jamb>ree might have kalkilatec! it would come to this. Snakes l'vo seen afore now, and rats I'm not unfamiliar with, but when it conies to the starn of a ship risin' up out of the street, I reckon it's time to pass in my chocks." " It is a ship, you blasted old soaker," said the Samaritan curtly. It was indeed a ship. A ship run ashore and abuuloned on the beach years before by her gold-seck-in" crew, with the debris of her scat;ereil stores and cargo, overtaken by tho wild growtb of the strange city and tho reclamation of the muddy flit, wherein she lay hopelessly imbedded ; her retreat cut oil' by wharves and quays and breakwater, jostled at first by sheds, and then impacted in a block of solid warehouses and dwellings, her rudder, port, and counter boarded in, and now gizing hopelessly through her cabin windnvs upon tho busy street before her. But still a ship despite her transformation. The faintest line of contour yet left visible spoke of the buoyancy of another element ; the balustrade of her roof was unmistakcably a tad'rail. The rain slipped from her swelling sides with a certain lingering touch of the sea ; the soil around her was still, treacherous with its suggestions and even the wind whistled nautically over her chimney. If, in the fury of some southwesterly gale, she had one night slipped her strange moorings and left a shining track through the lower town to the distant sea, no one would have been surprised. Least of all, perhaps, her present owner and possessor, Mr. Abner Asott For by the irony of circumstances, Mr. Xott was a Far Western fanner who Iml never seen a ship before, nor a larger stream of water than a tributary of the Missouri river. In a spirit, half of fascination, half of speculation, he had bought her at the time of her abandonment, and had since mortgaged his ranch at PuUluma with his live stock, to defray the expenses of filling in the land where she stood, and the iuiprovments of the" vicinity, Jlc had transferred his household goods and his only daughter to her cabin, and had divided the space " between decks" and her hold into lodging-rooms and lofts for the storage of goods. It could hardly be said tint the investment hud been profitable. Mis tenants vaguely recognised that his occupancy was a sentimental rather than a commercial speculation, and often generously lent themselves to the illusion by not paying their rent. Others treated their own tenancy as a joke—+ quaint recreation born of tlie childlike familiarity of frontier intcrcour.it?. A few had left; carelessly abandoning their unsaleable goods to their landlord, with great cheerfulness and a sense of favour. Occasionally Mr. Aimer Nott, in a practical relapse, raged against the the derelicts and talked of dispossessing them, or even dismantling his tenement, but he w,ts easily placated by a compliment to the " dear old ship,"' or an effort made by some tenant to idealise his apartment. A photographer who had ingeniously utilised the forecastle for a galbwy (accessible from the liows in the next street), paid no further tribute than a portrait of the pretty face of liosey Not. The superstitious reverence in which Abuer Sutl held hU monstrous

fancy was naturally enhanced by his purely bucolic exaggeration of its real functions and its native element. " This ycr keel has sailed, and .sailed and sailed," he would explain with some incongruity of illustration, "in a bee lino, makin' tracks for days runnin'. 1 reckon more storms and blizzards hez tackled her then you ken shake at. She's stampeded whales afore now and sloshed round with pirates and feebootors in and outer the Spanish Main, and ncross lots from Marcelleys whore she was need. And yer she aits piaceful-liko just cv, if she'd never lieen out'-r a pertater patch, and hadn't ploughed the sea with fo'sails and studdin' sails and them things civortin' round her masts." Abnor Nott's ontlinsvisin was shvrcd by his daughter, but with moro imagination, and an intelligence stimulated by t'ne scant literature of her father's emigrant waggon and the few hooks found on the cabin shelves. But to her the strango shell she inhabited suggested more of the great world than the rude, chaotic civilisation she saw from the cabin windows or met in the persons of her father's lodgers. Shut up for days in this quaint tenement slie had seen it change from the enchanted playground of her childish fancy 10 the theatre of her active maidenhood, but without losing her ideal romance in it. She had translated its history in her own way, read its quaint nautical hieroglyphics after her own fashion, and possessed herself of its secrets. She had in fancy made voyages in it to foreign lands, and hoard the accents of a softer tongue on its decks, and on summer nights from the roof of the quarter deck had seen mellower constellations take the place of the hard metallic glitter of the Californian skies. Sometimes, in her isolation, the long, cylindrical vault she inhabited seemed, like some vast sea shell, to become musical with the murmitrings of the distant sea So completely had it taken the place of tlnusual instincts of feminine youth that she had forgotten, she was pretty, or that her dresses were old in fashion and scant in quantity. After the first surprise of admiration her father's lodgers ceased to follow the abstracted nymph cx3:)pl with their eyes—partly respecting her spiritual shyness, pirtly respecting the jealous supervision of the paternal Nott. She seldom penetrated the crowded cantre of the growing city, her rare excursions were confined to the old ranch at Petaluma whence she . brought (lowers and plants and even extemporised a hanging-garden on the quarter-deck. It was still raining, and the wind, which had increased to a gib", was dashing the drops against the slanting cabin windows with a sound like spray when .Mr. Abner Nott sat before a table seriously engaged with his accounts. For it was " steamer night"—is that mom Mitous day of reckoning before the sailing of the regular mail steamer was briefly known to commercial San lYancisco —and -Mr. Nott was subject at such times to severely practical relapses. A swinging light seemed to bring into greater relief tint peculiar encased casket-like security of the lowtimbered, tightly-fitting apartment with its toy-like utilities of spice, and mule the pretty oval facft of Rosey Nott appear a characteristic ornament. The sliding door of the cabin comunieited with the main deck now roofed in and partitioned oil so as to form a small passage that led to the open starboard gangway ship where a narrow, inclosed staircase built on the ship's side took the place of the ship's ladder under her counter, and opened in the street. A (1 xsh of rain against the win-low cause I Rosey to lift her eyes from her book. " It's much nicer \w.rr, than at the ranch, father," she said coaxingly, "even leaving alone; its being a beautiful ship instead of a shanty ; the wind don't whistle through the cracks and blow out the caudle, when you're reading, nor the rain spoil your things hung up against tin; wall: And you look more like a gentleman sitting in his own ship —-you know, looking over his hills ami getting ready to give his orders." Vague and general us Miss liosey's compliment was, it had its full effect upon her father, who was at times dimly conscious of his hopeless rusticity and its incongrutity with his sorroundingß. " es," In; said awkwardly, with a slight relax ition of his aggrcsiivi.' attitude!: " yes, in course it's more bang-up style, but it don't pay—-Nosey—it don't pay. Ver's the I'outiac that otighter be bringin' in, ez rents go, at least three hundred a month, don't make her taxes, f. bin thinkiu' seriously of sellin' her." As Uosey knew her father hid experienced this serious contemplation on the first of every month for the last two years, and cheerfully ignored it the next day she only said, " I'm sure the vacant rooms and lofts are all rented, father." '■Tint's it," returned Mr. Xolt thoughtfully, plucking at his bushy whiskers with his lingers and thumb as if he weiv. remwing dead and sapless incumbrances in their growth, "that's just what it is -•hem's ez ha/, left their goods—the goods don't pay. The feller ez stored them iron sugar kettles in :;ho forehold after trying to get me to make another advance on 'cm, sc. he. believes he'll

have to sacrifice 'em to me after nil, and only begs I'd give him a chuiee of buying back the half of 'em ten years from now, at double whit I advanced him. The chap that left them ")00 cases of hair aye 'tween decks and then skipped out to Sacramento, imt me the other day in the street and advised in i to use a bottle ez an advertisement, or try it on the the stain of the Pontine for fire-proof piiuf. Tint foolishness ez all he's good for. And yet thar might bo suthiu' in the paint, if a feller had nigger luck. Titer's that New Vork chip ez bought up them (1 imaged boxes of plug terbaker for fifty dollars a thou mid, and said 'em for foundation for tint new building in S.iusjme Street at a thou mid clear profit. It's till luck Uosey." The girl's eyes had wandered to 'he piges of her hook. Perhaps she wis already familiar with the text of her father's monologue. Jiut recognising an additional quorulousness in his voice, sin; laid the book aside and patiently folded her h mds in her lap. "Tint's right—for I've suthin' to tell ye,. The fact is Sleight wants to buy the Pontile out and out just ez she stir.ds with the two lots the stands on." " Sleight wants to buy her? Sleight?" echoed Uosey incredulously. " You bet ! Sleight—the big financier, the smartest man in Frisco." '• Whit doe? he want to buy hi r for •'"asked Uo?ey, knitting In r pretty brows. The apparently simple question suddenly puzzled Mr Nott. lie glanced feebly at his daughter's face, and frowned in vacant irritation. " Tint's so," he said, drawing, a long breath ; " there's suthin' in that." " Whit did he say 1 " continued the young girl, impatiently. " Not much. ' You've got the Pontine, Nott,' scz her. ' You bet !' sez I, ' What'll you take for her and the lot she stands on ? " sez he, short and sharp. Some fellers, Uosey," said Nott, with a cunning smile, " would hev blurted out abig figgers and been cotched. That ain't my style. I just looked at him. ' I'll wait fur you figgers until next steamer day," sez ho, and oil' he goes like n shot. He's awfully sharp. Uosey." " But if he is sharp, father, and and wants to buy the ship," returned Uosey, thoughtfully. " its only because ho knows it's valuable property, and not because he likes it as we do. lie can't take that value awav even if we. don't sell it to him, and all the while we have the comfoit of the dear old Pontine, don't vou see ? " This exhaustive commercial reasoning was so sympathetic to Mr Notts instincts that, he aecpted it as conclusive, lie, however, deemed it wise to still preserve his practical attitude. " I!ut that don't make itpay by the mouth, Uosey, Suthin' must be done. I'm thinking I'll clean out that photographer." " Not just after he's taken such a pretty view of the cabin front/ of tin; Pontiac from the street, father ! No ! He's going to give us a copy, and put the other in a shop window in Montgomery Street." " That's so," said Mr Nott, musingly ; " it's no slouch of an advertisement. " The I'ontiae, the property of A. Nott, Esq., of St ilo, Missouri. Send it on to your aunt I'luebe ; sorter make the old folks open their eyes —eh ? Well, seein' he's been to some expense littin' up an entrance from the other street, we'll let him slide. Isut as to that d d old Frenchman Ferrers, in the next loft, with his struck-up airs and high falutiu stvle, we must get quit of iiiin ; he's regularly gouged me in that ere horsehair spekilation." " How can vou say that, father !" said Uosey, with a slight increase of colour. " It was your own offer. You know those tides of curled horsehair were left behind by the late tenant to pay his rent. When Mr tie Ferrieres rented the room afterwards, you told him you'd throw t'lein in in the place of repairs and furniture. It was your own olFer." " Yen,"but I didn't reckon ther'd ever be a big price per pound paid for the darned stud for sofys and cushions and sich." " How do you.know />- knew it, father?" responded Uosey. " Then why did he look so silly at first, and then put on airs when I joked him about it, eh ? " •• Perhaps In; didn't understand your joking, father, lies a foreigner, and shy and proud, and—not like the others. I don't think he knew what you meant then, any more than In; believed In; was making a bargain before. lb; may bo poor, 'nut .1 think he's been—a —a --gentleman." The young girl's animation penetrated even Mr Nott's slow comprehension. Her novel opposition, ami even the prettiness it enhanced gave him a dull premonition of pain, His small round eyes became abstracted, his mouth remained pirtly open, even his fresh colour slightly paled. " You serin to have been tikin' stock of this yer man, Uosey," he said, with a faint attempt at arch ness, " if he wnrn't ez obi ez a. crow, for all his youn;* feathers, I'd think he was makin' up to you." Uut the pissing glow hid faded from her young cheeks and her eyes wandered again to her book. " He pays his rent rejju'arly every stuaiua-

night,"'she said, quietly, us if dismissing an exhausted subject, "and he'll be here in a moment, L dare say." She took up her book, nil I leaning her head on her hand, once more became absorbed in its pages. An uneasy silence followed. The rain beats against the windows, the ticking of a clock became audible, but still Mr Nott sat with vacant eyes fixed on his daughter's fiee, and the constrained smile on his lips. He was conscious that he had never seen her look so pretty before, yet he. could not tell why this was no lenger an unalloyed satisfaction. Not but that he had always accepted the admiration of others for her as a matter of course, but for the first lime he became conscious that she not only had an interest in others but apparently a superior knowledge of them. How did she know these things about this man, ami why had she only now accidentally spoken of them, lit' would have done so. All this passed so vaguely through his unreflectivc mind, that he was enable to retain any decided impression, but the fir reaching one that his lodger had obtained some occult inlluonce over her through the exhibition of his baleful skill in the horsehair speculation. " Them tricks is likely to take a young girl's fancy. I must look after her," he said to himself softly. A slow regular step in the gangway interrupted his paternal reflections. Hastily buttoning across his chest the pea-jacket which he usually wore at home as a single concession to his nautical .surroundings, he drew himself with something of the assumption of a ship master, despite certain bucolic suggestions of his boots and legs. The footsteps approaching nearer, and a tall figure suddenly stood in the doorway. It was a figure so extraordinary that even in the strange masquerade of that early civilisation it was remarkable ; a figure with whom father and daughter were already familiar without abatement of wonder —the figure of a rejuvenated old man, padded, powdered, dyed, and painted to the verge of caricature, but without a single suggestion of luclicrousness or humour. A face, so artificial that, it seemed almost a mash, but, like a mash, more pathetic than amusing. Ho was dressed in the extreme of fashion of a dozen years before ; his pearl grey trousers strapped tightly ever his varnished boots. Ins voluminous satin cravat and high collar embraced his rouged cheeks and dyed whiskers, his closelybuttoned frock coat (dinging to a waist that seemed accented by stays. He advanced two steps into the cabin with an upright precision of motion that might have hid the infirmities of age ami said deliberately \.ith a foreign accent : " You-i-r ac-coumpt ?" In the actual presence of the apparition Mr. Nott's dignified resistance wavered. Hut glancing uneasy at his daughter and seeing her calm eyes lixed on the speaker without embarrassment, he folded hi:-, arms stiffly and with a lofty simulation of examining the ceiling, sail, "Ahem! Rosa! The gentleman's account." It was an infelicitous action. For the stranger, who evidently had not noticed the presence of the young girl before, started, took u step quickly forward, bent stiflly but profoundly over the little hand that held the account, raised it to the lips, and with " a thousands pardons, mademoiselle," laid a small canvas bag containing the rent before the disorganised Mr. Nott .and stiflly varnished. That night was a troubled one to t'ne simple-minded proprietor of the good ship I'ontiae. I. liable to voice his uneasiness by further discussion, but feeling that his late discomposing interview with bis lodger demanded some marked protest, he absented himself on the plea of business doting the rest of the evening—happily to his daughter's utter obliviousness of the reason. Lights were burning brilliantly in counting-rooms and oflices, the feverish life of the mercantile city was at, its height. With a vague idea of entering into immediate negotiations with Mr. Sleight for the sale of the ship —as a direct way out of his present perplexity, be bent his steps towards the financier's olliee, but paused and turned back before reaching the door. He made his way to the wharf and gazed abstractedly ut the lights reflected in the dark, tremulous, jelly-like water. Uut wherever he went he was accompanied ly the absurd figure of his lodger—a figure he bad hitherto laughed at or half pitied, but which now, to his bewildered comprehension, seemed to have a fateful significance. Here a new idea seized him, and lie hurried back to the ship, slackening his pace only when he arrived at his own doorway. Here he paused a moment and slowly ascended the si urease. When he reached the passage he coughed slightly and paused again. Then he pushed open the door of the darkened cabin and called softly : " Mosey ! " •' What is it, father ? " said liosey's voice from the little stateroom on the right—liosey's own bower. •' Nothing : " said Mr. Nott, with affectation <>f languid calmness ; " I only wanted to know if you were comfortable. It's an awful busy night, in town. " Yes, father. ' " I reckon tbar's tons o' geld guin' to the States, to-morrow."

" Yes, father." " Pretty comfortable, eh V "Yes, father." " Well, I'll browse round a spell, and turn in myself, soon." " Yes, father." Mr. Nott took down a hanging lantern, lit it, and passed out into the gangway. Another lamp hung from the companion hatch to light the tenants to the lower deck, whence he descended. This deck was divided fore and aft by a partitioned passage—the lofts or apartments being lighted from the ports and one or two by a door cut through the ship's side communicating with an alley on either side. This was the case with the loft occupied by .Mr. nott's strange lodger, which besides a door in the passge has this independent communication with the alley. Nott hid never known him to make use of the latter door : on the contrary, it was his regular habit to issue from his apartment at three o'clock every afternoon, dressed as he has been described, stride tbdib erately through the passage to the upper deck and thence into the street, when; his strange figure was a feature of the principal promenade for two or three hours, returning as regularly at. eight o'clock to the ship and tin; seclusion of his loft. Mr Nott paused before the door, under the pretence of throwing the light before him into the shadows of the forecastle : all was silent within. Hi; was turning back when he was impressed by the regular recurrence of a pecular rustling sound which he had at first referred to the rubbing of flu; wires of the swinging lantern against his clothing, lie set down the light and listened ; the .sound was evidently on the other side of the partition ; the sound of some prolonged, intervals. \\ as it due to another of Mr. Nott's unprofitable tenants— the rats? Xo. A bright idea flashed upon Mr. Nott s troubled mind. It was de Ferrieres snoring! Ile smiled grimly. "Wonder if Uosey 'd caH him a gentleman if she heard that,'' he chuckled to himself as he slowly made his way back to the. cabin and the small stateroom opposite to his daughter's. During the rest of the night he dreamed of being compelled to give Uosey in marriage to his strange lodger, who added insult to the out rage by snoring audibly through the marriage service. Meantime, in her cradle like nest in her nautical bower, Miss Rosey slumbered as lightly, Waiting from a vivid dream of Yoniee—a child's Venice—seen from the swelling deck of the proudly-riding I'ontiae, she. was so impressed as to rise and cross on tip-toe to the little slanting port, hole. Morning was already dawning over the flat, straggling city, but from every counting-house and magazine the votive tapers of the feverish worshippers of that mammon were still flaring fiercely. [■l-,,!,,,,,,,!,],,,,,!.