Tales of the Argonauts | Page 8

still fresh and
blooming in the little vase. Every thing was there; but every thing
looked strange. The roses should have been withered, for the party
seemed so long ago. She could hardly remember when she had worn
this dress that lay upon the chair. So she came back to the window, and
sank down beside it, with her cheek a trifle paler, leaning on her hand,
and her long braids reaching to the floor. The stars paled slowly, like
her cheek; yet with eyes that saw not, she still looked from her window
for the coming dawn.
It came, with violet deepening into purple, with purple flushing into
rose, with rose shining into silver, and glowing into gold. The
straggling line of black picket-fence below, that had faded away with
the stars, came back with the sun. What was that object moving by the
fence? Jenny raised her head, and looked intently. It was a man
endeavoring to climb the pickets, and falling backward with each
attempt. Suddenly she started to her feet, as if the rosy flushes of the
dawn had crimsoned her from forehead to shoulders; then she stood,
white as the wall, with her hands clasped upon her bosom; then, with a
single bound, she reached the door, and, with flying braids and
fluttering skirt, sprang down the stairs, and out to the garden walk.
When within a few feet of the fence, she uttered a cry, the first she had
given,--the cry of a mother over her stricken babe, of a tigress over her
mangled cub; and in another moment she had leaped the fence, and
knelt beside Ridgeway, with his fainting head upon her breast.

"My boy, my poor, poor boy! who has done this?"
Who, indeed? His clothes were covered with dust; his waistcoat was
torn open; and his handkerchief, wet with the blood it could not stanch,
fell from a cruel stab beneath his shoulder.
"Ridgeway, my poor boy! tell me what has happened."
Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy blue-veined lids, and gazed upon
her. Presently a gleam of mischief came into his dark eyes, a smile
stole over his lips as he whispered slowly,--
"It--was--your kiss--did it, Jenny dear. I had forgotten--how high-priced
the article was here. Never mind, Jenny!"--he feebly raised her hand to
his white lips,--"it was--worth it," and fainted away.
Jenny started to her feet, and looked wildly around her. Then, with a
sudden resolution, she stooped over the insensible man, and with one
strong effort lifted him in her arms as if he had been a child. When her
father, a moment later, rubbed his eyes, and awoke from his sleep upon
the veranda, it was to see a goddess, erect and triumphant, striding
toward the house with the helpless body of a man lying across that
breast where man had never lain before,--a goddess, at whose
imperious mandate he arose, and cast open the doors before her. And
then, when she had laid her unconscious burden on the sofa, the
goddess fled; and a woman, helpless and trembling, stood before
him,--a woman that cried out that she had "killed him," that she was
"wicked, wicked!" and that, even saying so, staggered, and fell beside
her late burden. And all that Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub
his beard, and say to himself vaguely and incoherently, that "Jinny had
fetched him."

CHAPTER II
Before noon the next day, it was generally believed throughout Four
Forks that Ridgeway Dent had been attacked and wounded at Chemisal

Ridge by a highwayman, who fled on the approach of the Wingdam
coach. It is to be presumed that this statement met with Ridgeway's
approval, as he did not contradict it, nor supplement it with any details.
His wound was severe, but not dangerous. After the first excitement
had subsided, there was, I think, a prevailing impression common to the
provincial mind, that his misfortune was the result of the defective
moral quality of his being a stranger, and was, in a vague sort of a way,
a warning to others, and a lesson to him. "Did you hear how that San
Francisco feller was took down the other night?" was the average tone
of introductory remark. Indeed, there was a general suggestion that
Ridgeway's presence was one that no self-respecting, high-minded
highwayman, honorably conservative of the best interests of Tuolumne
County, could for a moment tolerate.
Except for the few words spoken on that eventful morning, Ridgeway
was reticent of the past. When Jenny strove to gather some details of
the affray that might offer a clew to his unknown assailant, a subtle
twinkle in his brown eyes was the only response. When Mr. McClosky
attempted the same process, the young gentleman threw abusive
epithets, and, eventually slippers, teaspoons, and