A Lonely Ride

: Selected Stories

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 xpectant reader in danger of being robbed or half-murdered, or

frightened by an escaped lunatic, or introduced to his ladylove 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 California 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,

who 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 waybill, 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 waybilled 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 absorb my attention painfully. 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 consider the statement seriously. 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 traveled 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!"