Condensed Novels
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8 CONDENSED NOVELS
by BRET HARTE
Contents:
HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES
LOTHOW, or THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION
MUCK-A-MUCK, A MODERN INDIAN NOVEL, AFTER JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
TERENCE DENVILLE
SELINA SEDILIA
THE NINETY-NINE GUARDSMEN [AFTER THE THREE MUSKETEERS, BY DUMAS]
MISS MIX [AFTER CHARLOTTE BRONTE]
GUY HEAVYSTONE; OR, "ENTIRE."
MR. MIDSHIPMAN BREEZY
JOHN JENKINS; OR, THE SMOKER REFORMED
NO TITLE [AFTER WILKE COLLINS]
Contains:
MARY JONES'S NARRATIVE
THE SLIM YOUNG MAN'S STORY
NO. 27 LIMEHOUSE ROAD
COUNT MOSCOW'S NARRATIVE
DR. DIGGS'S STATEMENT
MARY MCGILLUP, A SOUTHERN NOVEL, AFTER BELLE BOYD
HANDSOME IS AS HANDSOME DOES.
BY CH--S R--DE.
CHAPTER I.
The Dodds were dead. For twenty year they had slept under the
green graves of Kittery churchyard. The townfolk still spoke of
them kindly. The keeper of the alehouse, where David had smoked
his pipe, regretted him regularly, and Mistress Kitty, Mrs. Dodd's
maid, whose trim figure always looked well in her mistress's gowns,
was inconsolable. The Hardins were in America. Raby was
aristocratically gouty; Mrs. Raby, religious. Briefly, then, we
have disposed of--
1. Mr. and Mrs. Dodd (dead).
2. Mr. and Mrs. Hardin (translated).
3. Raby, baron et femme. (Yet I don't know about the former; he
came of a long-lived family, and the gout is an uncertain disease.)
We have active at the present writing (place aux dames)--
1. Lady Caroline Coventry, niece of Sir Frederick.
2. Faraday Huxley Little, son of Henry and Grace Little, deceased.
Sequitur to the above, A HERO AND HEROINE.
CHAPTER II.
On the death of his parents, Faraday Little was taken to Raby Hall.
In accepting his guardianship, Mr. Raby struggled stoutly against
two prejudices: Faraday was plain-looking and sceptical.
"Handsome is as handsome does, sweetheart," pleaded Jael,
interceding for the orphan with arms that were still beautiful.
"Dear knows, it is not his fault if he does not look like--his
father," she added with a great gulp. Jael was a woman, and
vindicated her womanhood by never entirely forgiving a former
rival.
"It's not that alone, madam," screamed Raby, "but, d--m it, the
little rascal's a scientist,--an atheist, a radical, a scoffer!
Disbelieves in the Bible, ma'am; is full of this Darwinian stuff
about natural selection and descent. Descent, forsooth! In my
day, madam, gentlemen were content to trace their ancestors back to
gentlemen, and not to--monkeys!"
"Dear heart, the boy is clever," urged Jael.
"Clever!" roared Raby; "what does a gentleman want with
cleverness?"
CHAPTER III.
Young Little WAS clever. At seven he had constructed a telescope;
at nine, a flying-machine. At ten he saved a valuable life.
Norwood Park was the adjacent estate,--a lordly domain dotted with
red deer and black trunks, but scrupulously kept with gravelled
roads as hard and blue as steel. There Little was strolling one
summer morning, meditating on a new top with concealed springs. At
a little distance before him he saw the flutter of lace and
ribbons. A young lady, a very young lady,--say of seven summers,--
tricked out in the crying abominations of the present fashion,
stood beside a low bush. Her nursery-maid was not present,
possibly owing to the fact that John the footman was also absent.
Suddenly Little came towards her. "Excuse me, but do you know what
those berries are?" He was pointing to the low bush filled with
dark clusters of shining--suspiciously shining--fruit.
"Certainly; they are blueberries."
"Pardon me; you are mistaken. They belong to quite another
family."
Miss Impudence drew herself up to her full height (exactly three
feet nine and a half inches), and, curling an eight of an inch of
scarlet lip, said, scornfully. "YOUR family, perhaps."
Faraday Little smiled in the superiority of boyhood over girlhood.
"I allude to the classification. That plant is the belladonna, or
deadly nightshade. Its alkaloid is a narcotic poison."
Sauciness turned pale. "I--have--just--eaten--some!" And began to
whimper. "O dear, what shall I do?" Then did it, i. e. wrung her
small fingers and cried.
"Pardon me one moment." Little passed his arm around her neck, and
with his thumb opened widely the patrician-veined lids of her sweet
blue eyes. "Thank Heaven, there is yet no dilation of the pupil;
it is not too late!" He cast a rapid glance around. The nozzle
and about three feet of garden hose lay near him.
"Open your mouth, quick!"
It was a pretty, kissable mouth. But young Little meant business.
He put the nozzle down her pink throat as far as it would go.
"Now, don't move."
He wrapped his handkerchief around a hoopstick. Then he inserted
both in the other end of the stiff hose. It fitted snugly. He
shoved it in and then drew it back.
Nature abhors a vacuum. The young patrician was as amenable to
this law as the child of the lowest peasant.
She succumbed. It was all over in a minute. Then she burst into a
small fury.
"You nasty, bad--UGLY boy."
Young Little winced, but smiled.
"Stimulants," he whispered to the frightened nursery-maid who
approached; "good evening." He was gone.
CHAPTER IV.
The breach between young Little and Mr. Raby was slowly widening.
Little found objectionable features in the Hall. "This black oak
ceiling and wainscoating is not as healthful as plaster; besides,
it absorbs the light. The bedroom ceiling is too low; the
Elizabethan architects knew nothing of ventilation. The color of
that oak panelling which you admire is due to an excess of carbon
and the exuvia from the pores of your skin--"
"Leave the house," bellowed Raby, "before the roof falls on your
sacrilegious head!"
As Little left the house, Lady Caroline and a handsome boy of about
Little's age entered. Lady Caroline recoiled, and then--blushed.
Little glared; he instinctively felt the presence of a rival.
CHAPTER V.
Little worked hard. He studied night and day. In five years he
became a lecturer, then a professor.
He soared as high as the clouds, he dipped as low as the cellars of
the London poor. He analyzed the London fog, and found it two
parts smoke, one disease, one unmentionable abominations. He
published a pamphlet, which was violently attacked. Then he knew
he had done something.
But he had not forgotten Caroline. He was walking one day in the
Zoological Gardens and he came upon a pretty picture,--flesh and
blood too.
Lady Caroline feeding buns to the bears! An exquisite thrill
passed through his veins. She turned her sweet face and their eyes
met. They recollected their first meeting seven years before, but
it was his turn to be shy and timid. Wonderful power of age and
sex! She met him with perfect self-possession.
"Well meant, but indigestible I fear" (he alluded to the buns).
"A clever person like yourself can easily correct that" (she, the
slyboots, was thinking of something else).
In a few moments they were chatting gayly. Little eagerly
descanted upon the different animals; she listened with delicious
interest. An hour glided delightfully away.
After this sunshine, clouds.
To them suddenly entered Mr. Raby and a handsome young man. The
gentlemen bowed stiffly and looked vicious,--as they felt. The
lady of this quartette smiled amiably, as she did not feel.
"Looking at your ancestors, I suppose," said Mr. Raby, pointing to
the monkeys; "we will not disturb you. Come." And he led
Caroline away.
Little was heart-sick. He dared not follow them. But an hour
later he saw something which filled his heart with bliss
unspeakable.
Lady Caroline, with a divine smile on her face, feeding the
monkeys!
CHAPTER VI.
Encouraged by love, Little worked hard upon his new flying-machine.
His labors were lightened by talking of the beloved one with her
French maid Therese, whom he had discreetly bribed. Mademoiselle
Therese was venal, like all her class, but in this instance I fear
she was not bribed by British gold. Strange as it may seem to the
British mind, it was British genius, British eloquence, British
thought, that brought her to the feet of this young savan.
"I believe," said Lady Caroline, one day, interrupting her maid in
a glowing eulogium upon the skill of "M. Leetell,"--"I believe you
are in love with this Professor." A quick flush crossed the olive
cheek of Therese, which Lady Caroline afterward remembered.
The eventful day of trial came. The public were gathered,
impatient and scornful as the pigheaded public are apt to be. In
the open area a long cylindrical balloon, in shape like a Bologna
sausage, swayed above the machine, from which, like some enormous
bird caught in a net, it tried to free itself. A heavy rope held
it fast to the ground.
Little was waiting for the ballast, when his eye caught Lady
Caroline's among the spectators. The glance was appealing. In a
moment he was at her side.
"I should like so much to get into the machine," said the arch-
hypocrite, demurely.
"Are you engaged to marry young Raby," said Little, bluntly.
"As you please," she said with a courtesy; "do I take this as a
refusal?"
Little was a gentleman. He lifted her and her lapdog into the car.
"How nice! it won't go off?"
"No, the rope is strong, and the ballast is not yet in."
A report like a pistol, a cry from the spectators, a thousand hands
stretched to grasp the parted rope, and the balloon darted upward.
Only one hand of that thousand caught the rope,--Little's! But in
the same instant the horror-stricken spectators saw him whirled
from his feet and borne upward, still clinging to the rope, into
space.
CHAPTER VII.*
* The right of dramatization of this and succeeding chapters is
reserved by the writer.
Lady Caroline fainted. The cold watery nose of her dog on her
cheek brought her to herself. She dared not look over the edge of
the car; she dared not look up to the bellying monster above her,
bearing her to death. She threw herself on the bottom of the car,
and embraced the only living thing spared her,--the poodle. Then
she cried. Then a clear voice came apparently out of the
circumambient air:--
"May I trouble you to look at the barometer?"
She put her head over the car. Little was hanging at the end of a
long rope. She put her head back again.
In another moment he saw her perplexed, blushing face over the
edge,--blissful sight.
"O, please don't think of coming up! Stay there, do!"
Little stayed. Of course she could make nothing out of the
barometer, and said so. Little smiled.
"Will you kindly send it down to me?"
But she had no string or cord. Finally she said, "Wait a moment."
Little waited. This time her face did not appear. The barometer
came slowly down at the end of--a stay-lace.
The barometer showed a frightful elevation. Little looked up at
the valve and said nothing. Presently he heard a sigh. Then a
sob. Then, rather sharply,--
"Why don't you do something?"
CHAPTER VIII.
Little came up the rope hand over hand. Lady Caroline crouched in
the farther side of the car. Fido, the poodle, whined. "Poor
thing," said Lady Caroline, "it's hungry."
"Do you wish to save the dog?" said Little.
"Yes."
"Give me your parasol."
She handed Little a good-sized affair of lace and silk and
whalebone. (None of your "sunshades.") Little examined its ribs
carefully.
"Give me the dog."
Lady Caroline hurriedly slipped a note under the dog's collar, and
passed over her pet.
Little tied the dog to the handle of the parasol and launched them
both into space. The next moment they were slowly, but tranquilly,
sailing to the earth.
"A parasol and a parachute are distinct, but not different. Be not
alarmed, he will get his dinner at some farm-house."
"Where are we now?"
"That opaque spot you see is London fog. Those twin clouds are
North and South America. Jerusalem and Madagascar are those specks
to the right."
Lady Caroline moved nearer; she was becoming interested. Then she
recalled herself and said freezingly, "How are we going to
descend?"
"By opening the valve."
"Why don't you open it then?"
"BECAUSE THE VALVE-STRING IS BROKEN!"
CHAPTER IX.
Lady Caroline fainted. When she revived it was dark. They were
apparently cleaving their way through a solid block of black
marble. She moaned and shuddered.
"I wish we had a light."
"I have no lucifers," said Little. "I observe, however, that you
wear a necklace of amber. Amber under certain conditions becomes
highly electrical. Permit me."
He took the amber necklace and rubbed it briskly. Then he asked
her to present her knuckle to the gem. A bright spark was the
result. This was repeated for some hours. The light was not
brilliant, but it was enough for the purposes of propriety, and
satisfied the delicately minded girl.
Suddenly there was a tearing, hissing noise and a smell of gas.
Little looked up and turned pale. The balloon, at what I shall
call the pointed end of the Bologna sausage, was evidently bursting
from increased pressure. The gas was escaping, and already they
were beginning to descend. Little was resigned but firm.
"If the silk gives way, then we are lost. Unfortunately I have no
rope nor material for binding it."
The woman's instinct had arrived at the same conclusion sooner than
the man's reason. But she was hesitating over a detail.
"Will you go down the rope for a moment?" she said, with a sweet
smile.
Little went down. Presently she called to him. She held something
in her hand,--a wonderful invention of the seventeenth century,
improved and perfected in this: a pyramid of sixteen circular hoops
of light yet strong steel, attached to each other by cloth bands.
With a cry of joy Little seized them, climbed to the balloon, and
fitted the elastic hoops over its conical end. Then he returned to
the car.
"We are saved."
Lady Caroline, blushing, gathered her slim but antique drapery
against the other end of the car.
CHAPTER X.
They were slowly descending. Presently Lady Caroline distinguished
the outlines of Raby Hall. "I think I will get out here," she
said.
Little anchored the balloon and prepared to follow her.
"Not so, my friend," she said, with an arch smile. "We must not be
seen together. People might talk. Farewell."
Little sprang again into the balloon and sped away to America. He
came down in California, oddly enough in front of Hardin's door, at
Dutch Flat. Hardin was just examining a specimen of ore.
"You are a scientist; can you tell me if that is worth anything?"
he said, handing it to Little.
Little held it to the light. "It contains ninety per cent of
silver."
Hardin embraced him. "Can I do anything for you, and why are you
here?"
Little told his story. Hardin asked to see the rope. Then he
examined it carefully.
"Ah, this was cut, not broken!"
"With a knife?" asked Little.
"No. Observe both sides are equally indented. It was done with a
SCISSORS!"
"Just Heaven!" gasped Little. "Therese!"
CHAPTER XI.
Little returned to London. Passing through London one day he met a
dog-fancier. "Buy a nice poodle, sir?"
Something in the animal attracted his attention. "Fido!" he
gasped.
The dog yelped.
Little bought him. On taking off his collar a piece of paper
rustled to the floor. He knew the handwriting and kissed it. It
ran:--
"TO THE HON. AUGUSTUS RABY--I cannot marry you. If I marry any
one" (sly puss) "it will be the man who has twice saved my life,--
Professor Little.
"CAROLINE COVENTRY."
And she did.
LOTHAW;
OR,
THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
BY MR. BENJAMINS.
CHAPTER I.
"I remember him a little boy," said the Duchess. "His mother was a
dear friend of mine; you know she was one of my bridesmaids."
"And you have never seen him since, mamma?" asked the oldest
married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.
"Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached
myself, but it is so difficult to see boys."
This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-
room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat
involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married
daughters. One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the
fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which
none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe
was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than
L1,000,000; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls;
a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality
of gold leaf. Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with
embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with
mother-of-pearl. Others, more remote, occasionally burst into
melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given
to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private
use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for
publication.
The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and
position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms.
Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were
exactly like their parents,--a peculiarity of the aristocratic and
wealthy. They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their
parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of
their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been
taken for their own children's elder son and daughter. The
daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest
nobles in the land. That exception was the Lady Coriander, who,
there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of L1,000,000,
waited. Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their
breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial
respect to their father's Tory instincts and their mother's
Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the
effect was dazzling as it was refined. It was this peculiarity and
their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the
good-humored St. Addlegourd, to say that, "'Pon my soul, you know,
the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards,
you know." St. Addlegourd was a radical. Having a rent-roll of
L15,000,000, and belonging to one of the oldest families in
Britain, he could afford to be.
"Mamma, I've just dropped a pearl," said the Lady Coriander,
bending over the Persian hearthrug.
"From your lips, sweet friend," said Lothaw, who came of age and
entered the room at the same moment.
"No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave
Isaacs and Sons L50,000 for the two."
"Ah, indeed," said the Duchess, languidly rising; "let us go to
luncheon."
"But your Grace," interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and
had dropped on all-fours on the carpet in search of the missing
gem, "consider the value--"
"Dear friend," interposed the Duchess, with infinite tact, gently
lifting him by the tails of his dress-coat, "I am waiting for your
arm."
CHAPTER II.
Lothaw was immensely rich. The possessor of seventeen castles,
fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had
other estates of which he had not even heard.
Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their
purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this
accomplishment. Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after
seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to
"tight croquet" the Lady Aniseed's ball, he limped away to join the
Duchess.
"I'm going to the hennery," she said.
"Let me go with you, I dearly love fowls--broiled," he added,
thoughtfully.
"The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,"
continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.
"Lady Montairy,
Quite contrairy,
How do your cochins grow?"
sang Lothaw gayly.
The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence, Lothaw
abruptly and gravely said:--
"If you please, ma'am, when I come into my property I should like
to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady
Coriander."
"You amaze me, dear friend, and yet both your aspirations are noble
and eminently proper," said the Duchess; "Coriander is but a
child,--and yet," she added, looking graciously upon her companion,
"for the matter of that, so are you."
CHAPTER III.
Mr. Putney Giles's was Lothaw's first grand dinner-party. Yet, by
carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself
creditably, and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first
secretly testing its contents with a spoon. The conversation was
peculiar and singularly interesting.
"Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the
thermometer?" said Mrs. Putney Giles to her companion.
"I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal
lines," replied Lothaw.
"I should say it was a matter of latitude," observed a loud
talkative man opposite. He was an Oxford Professor with a taste
for satire, and had made himself very obnoxious to the company,
during dinner, by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known
Chancellor of the Exchequer,--a great statesman and brilliant
novelist,--whom he feared and hated.
Suddenly there was a sensation in the room; among the females it
absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill. His Eminence, the
Cardinal, was announced. He entered with great suavity of manner,
and, after shaking hands with everybody, asking after their
relatives, and chucking the more delicate females under the chin
with a high-bred grace peculiar to his profession, he sat down,
saying, "And how do we all find ourselves this evening, my dears?"
in several different languages, which he spoke fluently.
Lothaw's heart was touched. His deeply religious convictions were
impressed. He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed,
and received absolution. "To-morrow," he said to himself, "I will
partake of the communion, and endow the Church with my vast
estates. For the present I'll let the improved cottages go."
CHAPTER IV.
As Lothaw turned to leave the Cardinal, he was struck by a
beautiful face. It was that of a matron, slim but shapely as an
Ionic column. Her face was Grecian, with Corinthian temples;
Hellenic eyes that looked from jutting eyebrows, like dormer-
windows in an Attic forehead, completed her perfect Athenian
outline. She wore a black frock-coat tightly buttoned over her
bloomer trousers, and a standing collar.
"Your Lordship is struck by that face," said a social parasite.
"I am; who is she?"
"Her name is Mary Ann. She is married to an American, and has
lately invented a new religion"
"Ah!" said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from
rushing toward her.
"Yes; shall I introduce you?"
Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander's High Church proclivities, of the
Cardinal, and hesitated: "No, I thank you, not now."
CHAPTER V.
Lothaw was maturing. He had attended two woman's rights
conventions, three Fenian meetings, had dined at White's, and had
danced vis-a-vis to a prince of the blood, and eaten off of gold
plates at Crecy House.
His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the
University. He was driving over there one day, when he perceived
some rustics and menials endeavoring to stop a pair of runaway
horses attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were
seated. Calmly awaiting the termination of the accident, with
high-bred courtesy Lothaw forbore to interfere until the carriage
was overturned, the occupants thrown out, and the runaways secured
by the servants, when he advanced and offered the lady the
exclusive use of his Oxford stables.
Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he
remembered, she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels
into the light and presented him with ladylike dignity as her
husband, Major-General Camperdown, an American.
"Ah," said Lothaw, carelessly, "I believe I have some land there.
If I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Giles, lately purchased the
State of--Illinois--I think you call it."
"Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me
introduce myself as your tenant."
Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he
seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs
of inferiority and plebeian extraction.
"We have met before," said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his
arm, while they visited his stables, the University, and other
places of interest in Oxford. "Pray tell me, what is this new
religion of yours?"
"It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism.
Embrace it and me."
Lothaw did not know exactly what to do. She however soothed and
sustained his agitated frame and sealed with an embrace his
speechless form. The General approached and coughed slightly with
gentlemanly tact.
"My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this
subject," she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the
General's side. Come with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of
the past."
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