The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales

by Bret Harte

expanse of open water reflected theafter-glow, and lightened the landscape. And between the two wayfarersand the horizon rose, bleak and startling, the strange outlines oftheir home.

  At first it seemed a ruined colonnade of many pillars, whose base andpediment were buried in the earth, supporting a long parallelogram ofentablature and cornices. But a second glance showed it to be aone-storied building, upheld above the Marsh by numberless piles placedat regular distances; some of them sunken or inclined from theperpendicular, increasing the first illusion. Between these pillars,which permitted a free circulation of air, and, at extraordinary tides,even the waters of the bay itself, the level waste of marsh, the bay,the surges of the bar, and finally the red horizon line, weredistinctly visible. A railed gallery or platform, supported also onpiles, and reached by steps from the Marsh, ran around the building,and gave access to the several rooms and offices.

  But if the appearance of this lacustrine and amphibious dwelling wasstriking, and not without a certain rude and massive grandeur, itsgrounds and possessions, through which the brother and sister werestill picking their way, were even more grotesque and remarkable. Overa space of half a dozen acres the flotsam and jetsam of years of tidalofferings were collected, and even guarded with a certain care. Theblackened hulks of huge uprooted trees, scarcely distinguishable fromthe fragments of genuine wrecks beside them, were securely fastened bychains to stakes and piles driven in the marsh, while heaps of brokenand disjointed bamboo orange crates, held together by ropes of fibre,glistened like ligamented bones heaped in the dead valley. Masts,spars, fragments of shell-encrusted boats, binnacles, round-houses andgalleys, and part of the after-deck of a coasting schooner, had ceasedtheir wanderings and found rest in this vast cemetery of the sea. Thelegend on a wheel-house, the lettering on a stern or bow, served formortuary inscription. Wailed over by the trade winds, mourned bylamenting sea-birds, once every year the tide visited its lost dead andleft them wet with its tears.

  To such a spot and its surroundings the atmosphere of tradition andmystery was not wanting. Six years ago Boone Culpepper had built thehouse, and brought to it his wife--variously believed to be a gypsy, aMexican, a bright mulatto, a Digger Indian, a South Sea princess fromTahiti, somebody else's wife--but in reality a little Creole woman fromNew Orleans, with whom he had contracted a marriage, with othergambling debts, during a winter's vacation from his home in Virginia.At the end of two years she had died, succumbing, as differentlystated, from perpetual wet feet, or the misanthropic idiosyncrasies ofher husband, and leaving behind her a girl of twelve and a boy ofsixteen to console him. How futile was this bequest may be guessedfrom a brief summary of Mr. Culpepper's peculiarities. They were thedevelopment of a singular form of aggrandizement and misanthropy. Onhis arrival at Logport he had bought a part of the apparently valuelessDedlow Marsh from the Government at less than a dollar an acre,continuing his singular investment year by year until he was the ownerof three leagues of amphibious domain. It was then discovered thatthis property carried with it the WATER FRONT of divers valuable andconvenient sites for manufactures and the commercial ports of a noblebay, as well as the natural embarcaderos of some 'lumbering' inlandsettlements. Boone Culpepper would not sell. Boone Culpepper wouldnot rent or lease. Boone Culpepper held an invincible blockade of hisneighbors, and the progress and improvement he despised--granting only,after a royal fashion, occasional license, revocable at pleasure, inthe shape of tolls, which amply supported him, with the game he shot inhis kingfisher's eyrie on the Marsh. Even the Government that had madehim powerful was obliged to 'condemn' a part of his property at anequitable price for the purposes of Fort Redwood, in which the adjacenttown of Logport shared. And Boone Culpepper, unable to resist the act,refused to receive the compensation or quit-claim the town. In hisscant intercourse with his neighbors he always alluded to it as hisown, showed it to his children as part of their strange inheritance,and exhibited the starry flag that floated from the Fort as a flauntinginsult to their youthful eyes. Hated, feared, and superstitiouslyshunned by some, regarded as a madman by others, familiarly known as'The Kingfisher of Dedlow,' Boone Culpepper was one day found floatingdead in his skiff, with a charge of shot through his head andshoulders. The shot-gun lying at his feet at the bottom of the boatindicated the 'accident' as recorded in the verdict of the coroner'sjury--but not by the people. A thousand rumors of murder or suicideprevailed, but always with the universal rider, 'Served him right.' Soinvincible was this feeling that but few attended his last rites, whichtook place at high water. The delay of the officiating clergyman lostthe tide; the homely catafalque--his own boat--was left aground on theMarsh, and deserted by all mourners except the two children. Whateverhe had instilled into them by precept and example, whatever took placethat night in their lonely watch by his bier on the black marshes, itwas certain that those who confidently looked for any change in theadministration of the Dedlow Marsh were cruelly mistaken. The oldKingfisher was dead, but he had left in the nest two young birds, morebeautiful and graceful, it was true, yet as fierce and tenacious ofbeak and talon.

  II.

  Arriving at the house, the young people ascended the outer flight ofwooden steps, which bore an odd likeness to the companion-way of avessel, and the gallery, or 'deck,' as it was called--where a number ofnets, floats, and buoys thrown over the railing completed the nauticalresemblance. This part of the building was evidently devoted tokitchen, dining-room, and domestic offices; the principal room in thecentre serving as hall or living-room, and communicating on the otherside with two sleeping apartments. It was of considerable size, withheavy lateral beams across the ceiling--built, like the rest of thehouse, with a certain maritime strength--and looked not unlike a salooncabin. An enormous open Franklin stove between the windows, as largeas a chimney, blazing with drift-wood, gave light and heat to theapartment, and brought into flickering relief the boarded walls hungwith the spoils of sea and shore, and glittering with gun-barrels.Fowling-pieces of all sizes, from the long ducking-gun mounted on aswivel for boat use to the light single-barrel or carbine, stood inracks against the walls; game-bags, revolvers in their holsters,hunting and fishing knives in their sheaths, depended from hooks abovethem. In one corner stood a harpoon; in another, two or three Indianspears for salmon. The carpetless floor and rude chairs and settleswere covered with otter, mink, beaver, and a quantity of valuableseal-skins, with a few larger pelts of the bear and elk. The onlyattempt at decoration was the displayed wings and breasts of the woodand harlequin duck, the muir, the cormorant, the gull, the gannet, andthe femininely delicate half-mourning of petrel and plover, nailedagainst the wall. The influence of the sea was dominant above all, andasserted its saline odors even through the spice of the curlingdrift-wood smoke that half veiled the ceiling.

  A berry-eyed old Indian woman with the complexion of dried salmon; herdaughter, also with berry eyes, and with a face that seemed wholly madeof a moist laugh; 'Yellow Bob,' a Digger 'buck,' so called from theprevailing ochre markings of his cheek, and 'Washooh,' an ex-chief; anondescript in a blanket, looking like a cheap and dirty doll whosefibrous hair was badly nailed on his carved wooden head, composed theCulpepper household. While the two former were preparing supper in theadjacent dining-room, Yellow Bob, relieved of his burden of game,appeared on the gallery and beckoned mysteriously to his master throughthe window. James Culpepper went out, returned quickly, and after aminute's hesitation and an uneasy glance towards his sister, who hadmeantime pushed back her sou'wester from her forehead, and withouttaking off her jacket had dropped into a chair before the fire with herback towards him, took his gun noiselessly from the rack, and sayingcarelessly that he would be back in a moment, disappeared.

  Left to herself, Maggie coolly pulled off her long boots and stockings,and comfortably opposed to the fire two very pretty feet and ankles,whose delicate purity was slightly blue-bleached by confinement in thetepid sea-water. The contrast of their waxen whiteness with her bluewoolen skirt, and with
even the skin of her sunburnt hands and wrists,apparently amused her, and she sat for some moments with her elbows onher knees, her skirts slightly raised, contemplating them, and curlingher toes with evident satisfaction. The firelight playing upon therich coloring of her face, the fringe of jet-black curls that almostmet the thick sweep of eyebrows, and left her only a white strip offorehead, her short upper lip and small chin, rounded but resolute,completed a piquant and striking figure. The rich brown shadows on thesmoke-stained walls and ceiling, the occasional starting into relief ofthe scutcheons of brilliant plumage, and the momentary glitter of thesteel barrels, made a quaint background to this charming picture.Sitting there, and following some lingering memory of her tramp on theMarsh, she hummed to herself a few notes of the bugle call that hadimpressed her--at first softly, and finally