CHAPTER III
A STURDY COLONIST
For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which mydim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the Lord inheaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some very simplemembers of humanity.
A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at mesteadfastly. She had seen that, under tender care, I was just beginningto revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she had learned tosuccor all of them. This I knew not then, but felt that kindness wasaround me.
"Arauna, arauna, my shild," she said, in a strange but sweet andsoothing voice, "you are with the good man in the safe, good house. Letold Suan give you the good food, my shild."
"Where is my father? Oh, show me my father?" I whispered faintly, as sheraised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
"You shall--you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you whenhave long Sunday time to think. My shild, take the good food from poorold Suan."
She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had beenloathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was now inthe quick-reviving agony of starvation. The Indian woman fed me withfar greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with some soothingprocess, into another abyss of sleep.
More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life anddeath, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or anything. No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little bedroom exceptthis careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to sleep whenever I wantedto ask questions. Suan Isco, as she was called, possessed a more thanmesmeric power of soothing a weary frame to rest; and this was seconded,where I lay, by the soft, incessant cadence and abundant roar of water.Thus every day I recovered strength and natural impatience.
"The master is coming to see you, shild," Suan said to me one day, whenI had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the water-fall;"if, if--too much Inglese--old Suan say no more can now."
"If I am ready and able and willing! Oh, Suan, run and tell him not tolose one moment."
"No sure; Suan no sure at all," she answered, looking at me calmly, asif there were centuries yet to spare. "Suan no hurry; shild no hurry;master no hurry: come last of all."
"I tell you, Suan, I want to see him. And I am not accustomed to bekept waiting. My dear father insisted always--But oh, Suan, Suan, he isdead--I am almost sure of it."
"Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for him.Very good; more good than could be. Suan no more Inglese."
Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow,helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread whichmight have been but a hovering dream. I turned my face to the wall, andbegged her not to send the master in.
But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly, andturning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at me. Hisface was plain and square and solid, with short white curls on arugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple chin--fit base forremarkably massive jaws. His frame was in keeping with his face, beingvery large and powerful, though not of my father's commanding height.His dress and appearance were those of a working--and a reallyhard-working--man, sober, steadfast, and self-respecting; but whatengaged my attention most was the frank yet shrewd gaze of deep-seteyes. I speak of things as I observed them later, for I could not paymuch heed just then.
"'Tis a poor little missy," he said, with a gentle tone. "What thingsshe hath been through! Will you take an old man's hand, my dear? Yourfather hath often taken it, though different from his rank of life.Sampson Gundry is my name, missy. Have you ever heard your father tellof it?"
"Many and many a time," I said, as I placed my hot little hand in his."He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was you, Sir."
"Come, now," he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at mywarmth of words; "you must not have that in your young head, missy. Itleads to a miserable life. Your father hath always been unlucky--themost unlucky that ever I did know. And luck cometh out in nothingclearer than in the kind of folk we meet. But the Lord in heavenordereth all. I speak like a poor heathen."
"Oh, never mind that!" I cried: "only tell me, were you in time tosave--to save--" I could not bear to say what I wanted.
"In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you. You must have fought whenyou could not fight: the real stuff, I call it. Your poor father lieswhere none can harm him. Come, missy, missy, you must not take on so. Itis the best thing that could befall a man so bound up with calamity. Itis what he hath prayed for for many a year--if only it were not for you.And now you are safe, and for sure he knows it, if the angels heed theirbusiness."
With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me, knowingthat her soothing ways would help me more than argument. To my mindall things lay in deep confusion and abasement. Overcome with bodilyweakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even feared that to ask anyquestions might show want of gratitude. But a thing of that sort couldnot always last, and before very long I was quite at home with thehistory of Mr. Gundry.
Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England,betook himself to the United States in the last year of the lastcentury. He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-ratefisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most respectable familiesat that time did--to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more thantwice in one season. A highly querulous old lieutenant of the Britishnavy (who had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "therheumatics" in either stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to theCornish coast-guard; and he never rested until he had caught all thebest county families smuggling. Through this he lost his situation, andhad to go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been rousedthat (to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferiorpeople, and among them this Solomon Gundry. Now the Gundries had longbeen a thickset race, and had furnished some champion wrestlers; andSolomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of obstinacy. He made abold mark at the foot of a bond for 150 pounds; and with no other signthan that, his partner in their stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope,of Mevagissey) allowed him to make sail across the Atlantic with all hecared for.
This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he did,together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a thrifty raceat Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and his eldest son wasSampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at its headstrong period,sought the far West, overland, through not much less of distance, andthrough even more of danger, than his English father had gone through.His name was known on the western side of the mighty chain of mountainsbefore Colonel Fremont was heard of there, and before there was anygleam of gold on the lonely sunset frontage.
Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ereSacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though he didnot show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have a wife andson, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears to me the more,the more I think of every thing) no one must assume to be aside thereach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so small that sheshould not care to strike at him. At any rate, good or evil powers smoteSampson Gundry heavily.
First he lost his wife, which was a "great denial" to him. She fell froma cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the substance of herframe prevented her from ever getting over it. And after that he losthis son, his only son--for all the Gundries were particular as toquality; and the way in which he lost his son made it still more sad forhim.
A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from acattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the Indianswas to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few white men asyet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry vowed that, ifthe will of the Lord went with him, that woman should come back to herfamily without robbing them of sixpence. To this intent he startedwit
h a company of some twenty men--white or black or middle-colored(according to circumstances). He was their captain, and his son Elijahtheir lieutenant. Elijah had only been married for a fortnight, but wasfull of spirit, and eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to havecarried this too far; for all that came back to his poor bride was alock of his hair and his blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on thewestern slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and wasburied by the Blue River.
It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thuscut short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from themountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led a sad andlonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although of Cornish andNew England race) to seize the glorious chance of wealth which lay athis feet beseeching him. By settlement he had possessed himself of alarge and fertile district, sloping from the mountain-foot along thebanks of the swift Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And thiswas not all; for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, thewhole of the mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling waterflows. And when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few mencould have done what he did without even thinking twice of it.
For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own river,and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations to polluteit. He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends to back him; buthis fame for stern courage was clear and strong, and his bodily presencemost manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor a cradle rocked in the bed ofthe Blue River.
But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages, andeven hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr. Gundrygradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For now hisgrandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having lost hismother when he first came into the world, was sure to need the morenatural and maternal nutriment of money.
Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wroughtout a plan which he had long thought of. Nature helped him with all herpowers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream. He set up a saw-mill,and built it himself; and there was no other to be found for twelvedegrees of latitude and perhaps a score of longitude.
Erema; Or, My Father's Sin Page 3
