CHAPTER XXXVI.--_Clarence and George with the Hod-carrier._
The lawsuits forced upon the Mechlins, to resist the fraudulent claimstrumped up by Roper and Gasbang, obliged Gabriel to delay returning tohis place at the San Francisco bank. It was very painful to leave hismother and Mercedes still so sick and depressed, but they themselvesurged him to go, fearing that his place would be given to another, andnow, when their pecuniary circumstances were so embarrassed, he couldill afford to lose his position. But he did, for as the bank could notwait for him longer, they took some one else instead. He wished to sparehis family the regret of knowing this, and tried to get anything to doto earn a living. Thus he began that agony endured by so many young menof good families and education, trying to find employment to supportthemselves decently. Gabriel found the task most difficult. He wasdignified and diffident, and could not be too pressing. He waspersevering and patient and willing to work, but he dreaded to seemimportunate, and never urged his services upon any one. But he triedeverything, every means he could think of or Lizzie suggest to him. Attimes he would find some writing to do, either copying or translatingEnglish or Spanish, but this did not give him permanent employment, andbetween one job and another Lizzie's jewelry had to be sold for theirdaily expenses. They gave up the nice little cottage they had hadbefore, and took two small rooms at the house of a widow lady who kept afew boarders. Their living was simple, indeed; but their landlady waskind and courteous and obliging, and her house clean and veryrespectable. Thus many months went by.
George and Elvira and Caroline wrote to them, constantly telling themhow and where they were. Now they were in Germany, as Mr. Mechlin'sphysician advised George to try some German baths in which he had greatfaith. His faith was justified in George's case, for he began to improverapidly before he had been taking the baths a month, and he wasconfident of regaining his health perfectly. This was cheerful news, andLizzie felt great reluctance in writing to George how unsuccessfulGabriel had been, thus perhaps checking his recovery by making him againdespondent; for it was a noted fact, well recognized by the twofamilies, that misfortunes made them all more or less physically ill.
The winter of 1876 now set in, and Gabriel thought he must make up hismind to find some manual labor, and by that means perhaps get permanentoccupation; but here other obstacles, no less insuperable, confrontedhim. He had had no training to fit him to be a mechanic, and what couldhe do? He did not know, and yet his family must be supported. He had notbeen able to send to his mother any money, as his scant earnings wereinadequate to support his wife and babies. There was now another littlegirl to provide for--a little darling, eight months old. Poor people arebound to have children.
About this time he got a letter from Victoriano, telling him how hismiserable legs had failed him again, giving out in the midst of hisplowing. Everett had come to help him plow up a fifty-acre piece of landhe had intended to put in wheat, but lo! before he had plowed two acres,his legs seemed to disappear from under him as if the very Old Nick hadunscrewed his knees and carried them off. Tano added: "And here I am, aperfect gentleman from my knees up, but a mean chicken, a ridiculousturkey, a kangaroo, from my knees down; and this, too, when we can soill afford to have me lying in a sick-bed, perfectly useless. If landwas not so valueless now, we might perhaps be able to sell some,although the price would have to be very low, on account of the delay ingetting our patent and its being mortgaged; but as all hopes in theTexas Pacific are dead, land sales are dead, too, and we might as wellall be dead, for as we have nothing but land to get a living from, andthat is dead, you can draw the inference. However, don't worry about us;for the present, we are getting along very well. Several of the cattlelost in the mountains have come and keep coming, and Everett puts our'_venta_' brand on, and pays mamma, on Clarence's account, cash down forthem. To-day he paid mamma three hundred dollars, and he says he heardthat more cattle are on the way here."
Gabriel was very glad that his mother and sisters would have this littlepittance at least, but he was much alarmed and anxious about Victoriano,and hastened to tell Lizzie he thought they ought to go home.
"I am truly sorry for poor Tano. Really, my sweet husband, you must letme write to George, telling him our circumstances. He can and will helpus, and we might go back to the rancho."
"No, don't write to him about that yet. I'll try to get money enough totake us home. If Tano is sick, I certainly should be there. If he wastrying to plow, I think I can do that, too. Yes, I ought to have stayedat home and worked in our orchard, and we would not have suffered thedistress of mind at my repeated failures. As soon as I make money enoughto pay the board bill I owe and have enough left to pay our fare to SanDiego, we'll go home. Don't write to George to help me, I don't likethat. I can work and help myself."
"Forgive me, my darling," said Lizzie, blushing crimson; "I have alreadywritten to George. I told him I was going to persuade you to go home. Iwrote him a month ago. I expect his answer very soon." Seeing thatGabriel also blushed, Lizzie added: "I am sorry if I offended you."
"You have not offended me. I blushed because I, too, have been keeping asecret from you, thinking you might not approve of it, or feelhumiliated."
"What is it, pray?"
"I have been trying to learn a trade."
"A trade! What trade, for gracious sake?"
"A very respectable one. That of a mason."
"But can you learn that? Where?"
"Anywhere. I have been taking some lessons and earning my two dollarsper day besides."
"Oh, Gabriel, why did you do that?" said Lizzie, her face suffused withblushes.
"There! See how you blush because I want to learn an honest trade, andyet see how your people, the Americans, deride us, the Spanish, forbeing indolent, unwilling to work. For my part, I am willing to provethat I will work at anything that is not absolutely repulsive, to earn aliving."
"But how did you come to select that trade?"
"Because to go down town I had to pass by the houses of the railroadmillionaires which have been in process of construction. There are twoCalifornians from Santa Barbara, whom I know, working there, and to seethem earning their two dollars per day, while I have been losing monthsin search of more gentlemanly work to do, suggested to me the idea ofalso earning my two dollars a day while the gentlemanly occupation isbeing found. Then I thought, too, that I might learn to be an architect,perhaps."
"That is why you have been reading those books on architecture?"
"Yes, and I think I understand a good deal about it already, but I'llcombine practice with theory. The thing now is, as Tano is sick, I mustgo home."
"Yes, let us go. I don't like the idea of your being a mason. Give itup. I think I'd rather see you plowing."
"Yes; in my own land, you mean. Don't be proud. Let me work a littlewhile longer at _my trade_, and we'll go home."
But Lizzie was not willing he should, though she said nothing more aboutit to him. She wrote to Dona Josefa, saying that if she could sparefifty dollars, to, please, send that sum to her to enable them to comehome.
There would be ten days, however, before she could get Dona Josefa'sreply. This was not so agreeable, but Lizzie thought she would get readyto start as soon as the money came.
The cause of Victoriano's second severe attack of lameness, of which hespoke in his letter, was again exposure--exposure to cold and dampness.About the same time that Gabriel was trying to be a mason, and workingas a common day laborer at two dollars per day, Victoriano had beenpruning trees, fixing fences, repairing irrigating ditches and plowing.He had only two men to help him, so he worked very hard, in fact,entirely too hard for one so unused to labor. Work broke him down.
"Plowing is too hard work for poor Tano," Dona Josefa said, looking atVictoriano working in a field near the house, while the sad tears randown her pale cheeks.
"Yes, mamma, it is; and I begged him not to try to plow again, but heinsisted on doing so," Mercedes replied.
"What is the matte
r? Did he fall down?" Dona Josefa exclaimed, alarmed,drawing her chair close to the window.
Mercedes arose from hers, and came to look down the orchard. Yes, therewas Victoriano sitting on the ground, and Everett standing by him.Presently Everett sat down beside him, and an Indian boy, who had alsobeen plowing with another team, came up, leading his horses towards thehouse.
Dona Josefa thought that they wanted to put the boy at some other work,and that Tano was resting, so she sat quietly waiting to see whether hewould walk.
Mercedes now sat by her mother, also to watch Victoriano. She said:
"Mamma, tell Tano not to try plowing, the ground is very damp. He willhave that lameness again."
"I have told him, but he says he must work now, since we are so poor,and have only land with a title that no one believes in, and no one willbuy. So what is he to do but work? And he has been working very hard allthe fall and winter, but I fear he is getting that lameness again. Hewalks lame already."
They now saw that the Indian boy had run to the house to hitch hishorses to Clarence's phaeton and drive to where Tano was sitting.Assisted by the Indian, Everett put Victoriano in the phaeton, andbrought him to the house.
It was as his mother and sister had feared--Victoriano was again unableto walk. With great difficulty, assisted by Everett and the servant boy,he reached his bed.
"Don't write to George or Gabriel that I am sick. Wait until I getbetter, or worse," said he.
Seeing, however, that there was no change in his condition, he wrote toGabriel himself, telling him of his second attack. Willingly wouldGabriel have taken his little family and started for home, but he didnot have money enough to pay their fare, and he owed for their lastmonth's board. So there was nothing to do but to wait and work as a daylaborer yet for a while. He knew what he earned in a whole month wouldscarcely be enough to pay their board, and that to go home he must writehis mother to send him money for their fare. But his pride revolted. Hehated to do this. He could not bring his mind to it. He hesitated.
About the time that Victoriano was taken sick and Gabriel was trying tobe a mason, George and family arrived in Paris on their return fromGermany. They would only spend a week or ten days in that city, and thensail for New York.
The day before they were to start, a card was sent to Elvira from theoffice of the hotel. Elvira took it very indifferently and read thename, but the words she read seemed to be cabalistic, for she started,turned red and then pale.
She handed the card to George, who read aloud, "Clarence Darrell."
"Ask the gentleman to please come up," said George to the servant, andfollowed him, going to meet Clarence.
The two friends met and clasped each other in a tight embrace; to shakehands seemed to both too cold a way of greeting, when they felt so muchpain and joy that to express their sentiments, words were inadequate.
When Clarence came in, he stretched both hands to Elvira, and she, onthe impulse of the moment, threw her arms around his neck and sobbed.Mrs. Mechlin and Caroline were also affected to tears. Clarence broughtback to them vividly the happy days at Alamar, when Mr. Mechlin and DonMariano lived so contentedly in each other's society.
All were so anxious to learn how Clarence came to be in Paris, and wherehe had been in all these years, and Elvira showered so many questionsupon him, that George told him he must remain with them and tell themeverything.
The family of Mr. Lawrence Mechlin were also in the same hotel, on theirway to New York.
George said to Clarence: "Prepare yourself to be cross-questioned byaunt, for she has been very anxious about you."
Clarence replied he was willing to be questioned, and began hisnarrative by saying how he came to miss all the letters written to him.He said:
"When I was delirious and at the point of death in a cabin at the mines,all the letters that came addressed to me the doctor put in a paper bag,and when he left he considered me still too weak to read letters thatmight cause me excitement, so he took the paper bag and placed it behinda camp looking-glass which hung over a little table beside my bed. I wasso impressed with the conviction that I might not be considered fit tomarry Miss Mercedes, that when, upon asking if any letters had come forme, and Fred Haverly, thinking that I meant other letters besides thosehanded to the doctor, answered in the negative. I did not explain that Ihad not received any at all. I accepted patiently what I considered anatural result of my father's conduct, and said nothing. I went toMexico, and there a fatality followed my letters again. I missed themtwice--once through the mistake of a clerk at my bankers, the secondtime by a mistake of the Secretary of the Legation, who misunderstoodHubert's request about returning the letters to him. From Mexico I wentto South America, crossed to Brazil, and went to England. From England Iwent to the Mediterranean, and since then I have been on the go, likethe restless spirit that I was, believing myself a miserable outcast. Itwas almost accidentally that I came to Paris. I got a letter fromHubert, and in a postscript he said that he hoped I got my letters atlast, for he had sent them with a remittance to my bankers, requestingthat my letters should be kept until I called for them. I was far up theNile when I received his letter, but next morning I started for Pariswith a beating heart, I can assure you. Twenty-six letters I found, andI am more grieved than I can express to you to think that I did not getthem before."
Clarence arose and paced the floor in great agitation, and his friendswere much moved also, for they knew he was thinking that never again, inthis world, would he see his noble friend, Don Mariano.
On the following morning the Mechlins, accompanied by Clarence leftParis. Before leaving, Clarence telegraphed to Mercedes:
"I have just received your letters written in '73. I leave for New York to-morrow with the Mechlins, thence for California.
---- _Clarence Darrell._"
Everett, who had been to town, religiously, to see whether there mightbe a letter from Clarence, or news about him, brought Mercedes thecablegram.
Poor Mercedes, she read the few words many times over before she couldrealize that they were from Clarence. When she did so, she was seizedwith a violent trembling, and then completely overcome by emotion. Ah!yes she would see him again, but where was now her darling papa, who wasso fond of Clarence?
Mercedes sent the dispatch for Mrs. Darrell to see, and when Everettbrought it back, Carlota made a copy of it to send to Lizzie in a letternext day. The Darrells were truly overjoyed, thrown into a perfect stormof pleasure. The old man said not a word. He went to his lonely room,locked the door, and there, as usual since he lived the life of ahalf-divorced man, battled with his spirit. This time, however, heallowed tears to flow as he blessed his absent boy, and thanked God thathe was coming.
"If I had a decent pair of legs to speak of," said Tano to Everett, "Iwould dance for sheer joy, but having no legs, I can only use my tongueand repeat how glad I am."
When Gabriel came home in the evening of the day in which Lizziereceived the copy of Clarence's telegram, she said to him:
"Darling, don't go to that horrid work again. Clarence is coming, andnow he and George will establish the bank."
"Yes, but in the meantime I must earn enough to pay our board; remember,we owe one month's board already. Be patient for a few days longer." Andshe was patient, but anxious. A few days more passed, and she receivedDona Josefa's letter, inclosing seventy dollars, and saying she hopedthey would come immediately, for she wanted Gabriel at home.
"Now we have money enough to pay our board bill, and as George willsurely come to our assistance, why should you go to work as a mason?Darling, leave that work," Lizzie begged.
"Let us see; Clarence's cablegram was dated twenty days ago. They musthave arrived in New York a week ago, and if he don't delay at all, he'llbe here in two or three days," Gabriel said.
"Then why should you work like that?"
"I'll stop to-morrow, but I must give notice of a day or two, at least,for the foreman to get
somebody else in my place."
When Gabriel arrived at his place of employment near Nob Hill, he foundthat his occupation that day would be different from what it had beenbefore, and in the afternoon he was put to work at another place in thebuilding. He would have to carry bricks and mortar up a ladder to quitea high wall. He told the foreman that he would rather not do that, as hehad never done such work and was very awkward about it. The foreman saidhe had no one else to spare for that job, and Gabriel at last said hewould try. He had carried many loads, and was beginning to tremble withfatigue, when upon going up, carrying a hod full of bricks, the ladderslipped to one side a little. In his effort to steady it, Gabriel movedit too much, and it fell to one side, taking him to the ground. As hefell, the bricks fell upon him. He was insensible for some time. When heregained consciousness he was being carried to a wagon which would takehim to the city hospital. Lizzie, to whom the foreman had sent a messagenotifying her of the accident, now met the wagon.
"Where are you taking my husband?" she asked the driver.
"To the city hospital, ma'am."
"But why not take him home?"
"Because he will get attendance there quickly, Madam," said the foreman,who evidently felt he was to blame for a very painful accident.
"If that is the case, let us go to the hospital," Lizzie said, gettinginto the wagon. She sat beside Gabriel, and placed his head in her lap.Gabriel smiled, and his beautiful eyes were full of love, but he couldscarcely speak a word.
The jolting of the wagon gave him much pain, and Lizzie asked the driverto go very slow. "He ought to be carried on a stretcher, ma'am; he istoo much hurt to go in a wagon," said the driver.
They now came to a street-crossing, and several wagons were standingstill, waiting for a line of carriages to pass first.
"Oh, why do we wait? He is suffering so much!" Lizzie exclaimed. "He isbleeding; he might bleed to death!"
"We are waiting for them carriages to pass, ma'am. They are carryingpeople to a reception on Nob Hill, ma'am," said the driver.
On the other side of the street, in a carriage which also had beenstopped that the guests for the Nob Hill festivities might pass, satGeorge and Clarence, just arrived, and on their way to see Lizzie andGabriel. They saw that a man lay in a wagon which stood in front ofthem, and noticing that a woman sat by his side holding his head in herlap, bending over him anxiously, Clarence said to the driver that thereseemed to be some one sick in that wagon, and that it should be allowedto pass.
"Yes, sir; but he is a hod-carrier who fell down and hurt himself. Isuppose he'll die before he gets to the hospital," said the driver,indifferently, as if a hod-carrier more or less was of no consequence."The carriages must pass first, the police says."
As Lizzie raised her head to ask the driver to take some other street,they saw her. Both uttered an exclamation of surprise, and left theircarriages immediately, walking hurriedly to the wagon where she was.
"Lizzie, my sister, why are you here?" George asked.
"Oh, George! Gabriel fell down!" she replied, sobbing, her couragefailing now that she had some dear ones to protect her. "Oh, Clarence,see how you find my darling! We are taking him to the city hospital, butbecause those carriages must pass first my darling may diehere--bleeding to death!"
"Let me go for a physician immediately," said Clarence.
"Wait," George said, "Which is the nearest from here, Lizzie, your houseor the hospital? We must take him to the nearest place."
"The hospital is nearer, sir," the driver answered.
"Then let us go the hospital," George said, getting into the wagonbeside his sister, shocked to find Gabriel in a situation which plainlyrevealed a poverty he had never imagined.
"I shall go for a surgeon, there might not be one at the hospital," saidClarence. "I shall be there when you arrive."
The wagon went so slowly that Clarence, with a doctor, overtook thembefore they reached the hospital. Meantime, Gabriel had whispered toLizzie and George, in a few words, how he had fallen down.
On arriving at the hospital he was carried to the best room, with bestattendance, two rooms adjoining were for his nurses, one to be occupiedby Lizzie and the other by George and Clarence, for neither of themwould leave Gabriel now.
The doctor would give no opinion as to his recovery. If he had internalinjuries of a serious character, they might prove fatal, but of this itwas impossible to judge at present. About eight o'clock Gabriel seemedto be resting a little more comfortably, and Lizzie took thatopportunity to go to see her babies. She found them already asleep. Thekind landlady had given them their supper and put them to bed. She toldLizzie of a good nurse who could be hired to take care of the baby, andthat she would engage her to come the next morning. Lizzie thanked her,and then returned to her husband's bedside, and there, accompanied byGeorge and Clarence, she passed the night.
About daylight, with great reluctance, she was prevailed upon to liedown on a lounge at the foot of Gabriel's bed, and as the patient seemedto be resting quietly, George and Clarence went into the next room topartake of a light collation.
George poured a glass of wine for Clarence and another for himself, andboth drank in silence. Evidently they could not eat.
"Was it possible to imagine that Gabriel could have become so poor thathe had to be a hod-carrier?" George said at last, scarcely above awhisper.
Clarence being as much moved, took some time to reply.
"The thing is to me so shockingly preposterous and so very heart-rendingthat it does not seem possible. And to think that if I had not goneaway, I might, yes, could, have prevented so much suffering! Oh! thefool, the idiot that I was to go," said Clarence, rising and pacing theroom in great agitation. "I will never forgive myself nor my bankerseither, and shall take my money to some other bank. They should neverhave given Don Gabriel's place to anybody else, for it was at myrequest, and to oblige me that they employed him, and they have had theuse of my money all this time. Oh! how I wish you could have establisheda bank here with the three hundred thousand dollars I placed to DonMariano's credit, since he would not accept any payment for thecattle--_my_ cattle, mind you--lost in the snow. But perhaps threehundred thousand dollars would have been rather small capital."
"It would have been plenty to begin with, but as the understanding wasthat the bank was to be in San Diego, none of us felt authorized tochange the plan. I doubt if Don Mariano would have drawn any of thethree hundred thousand dollars. You know he mortgaged his rancho ratherthan take any of your money."
"His money, you ought to say, for I had already bought his cattle. Iwish he had not taken so different a view of the matter. Really, themoney was his from the moment I agreed to make the purchase. But tellme, why is it that Mrs. Mechlin lost her homestead. It might have beensold to help the family."
George related how Peter Roper "_jumped_" the Mechlin house in truevandalic style, breaking open the doors with axes and dragging out thefurniture when the family were in great grief, and how this outrage aswell as others were indulgently passed over by San Diego's augusttribunal of justice. George, however, did not know all. He did not knowthat Judge Lawlack upon one occasion, when he had made a decision infavor of Peter Roper and against the Mechlins, discovering uponreflection that he had made a gross mistake, because the authority uponwhich he based his decision, obviously favored the Mechlins, had changedhis decision. He actually called the attorneys of both sides into courtand then amended his own decree and had an entirely different judgmententered--a judgment based upon another authority, which, with hisconstruction of the law, favored Peter. Then again when the Mechlinstried to file another complaint, Peter got up, and in his coarseloquacity, vociferously exhorted his Honor to send all the plaintiffsand their attorney to jail for _contempt of court_ in daring to renewtheir complaint when his Honor had decided that they had no case; thatthe _innocent purchasers_, Roper and Gasbang, were the legitimate ownersof the Mechlin place. Whereupon, his Honor Lawlack hurriedly slid offthe judicial bench,
under the judicial canopy, in high tantrums, andshuffled off the judicial platform, gruffly mumbling: "I have passedupon that before," and slouchingly made his exit.
The plaintiffs, their attorneys and their witnesses, were left to makethe best of _such legal proceedings_! They could not even take an appealto the Supreme Court, for they had no record; they could make nopleadings; Judge Lawlack had carefully and effectively done all he couldto ruin their case. Peter winked and showed his yellow teeth and purplegums in high glee, proud to have exhibited his influence with the Court,and, as usual, went to celebrate his triumph by getting intoxicated andbeing whipped, so that he had a black eye and skinned nose for severaldays.
It was obvious to George and Clarence that the position of Gabriel andLizzie in San Francisco must have been painful in the extreme, and yetthey did not know all. Lizzie had never told anybody all thedisagreeable, humiliating, repugnant experiences she had had to passthrough. She had tried to help her husband to find some occupation morebefitting a gentleman than that of a day laborer. But she gave up hersad endeavors, seeing that she was only humiliating herself to nopurpose. She met at times gentlemen and kind-hearted men, who werecourteous to her, but oftener she found occasion to despise mankind fortheir unnecessary rudeness and most unprovoked boorishness. More painfulyet was the evident change she noticed in the manners of her ladyacquaintances.
Years before, when she was Lizzie Mechlin, she had moved in what wascalled San Francisco's _best_ society. Her family, being of the veryhighest in New York, were courted and caressed in exaggerated degree ontheir arrival in California. Afterwards, for the benefit of Mr.Mechlin's health, they went to reside in San Diego. When Gabriel came tohis position in the bank, she was again warmly received by all hersociety friends. But this cordiality soon vanished. Her family went backto New York, and she and Gabriel returned from San Diego to SanFrancisco to find that he had lost his place at the bank. Then heendeavored to get something else to do. This was bad enough, but when_she_ tried to help him, then her fashionable friends disappeared. Nay,they avoided her as if she had been guilty of some disgraceful act. Thefact that Gabriel was a _native Spaniard_, she saw plainly, militatedagainst them. If he had been rich, his nationality could have beenforgiven, but no one will willingly tolerate a _poor nativeCalifornian_. To see all this was at first painful to Lizzie, butafterwards it began to be amusing and laughable to see people show theirmean little souls and their want of brains in their eager chase afterthe rich, and their discourtesy to an old acquaintance who certainly haddone nothing to forfeit respect. About that time the fever for stockgambling was at its height. The _Big Bonanza_ was, in the twinkling ofan eye, making and unmaking money princes, and a new set of rich peoplehad rushed into "San Francisco's best society." The leaders of the _ton_then, who held title by priority of possession, not forgetting that manyof them had had to serve a rigorous novitiate of years of probationbefore they had been admitted to the high circles, were disposed to beexclusive and keep off social "_jumpers_." But the weight of goldcarried the day. Down came the jealously guarded gates; the very portalssuccumbed and crumbled under that heavy pressure. Farewell,exclusiveness! Henceforth, money shall be the sole requisite upon whichto base social claims. High culture, talents, good antecedents,accomplishments, all were now the veriest trash. Money, and nothing butmoney, became the order of the day. Many of the newly createdmoney-nobility lived but a day in their new, their sporadic, evanescentglory, and then, with a tumble of the stocks, went down head-foremost,to rise no more. But some of the luckiest survived, and are yet shiningstars. Lizzie saw all this from her humble seclusion. Occasionally, atthe houses of those few friends who had remained unchanged in her day ofadversity, she met some of the newly arrived in society as well as a fewof the fading lights, taking a secondary place. All the new and the oldlights she saw, with equal impartiality, shifting their placescontinually, and she began to think that, after all, this transposing ofpositions perhaps was right, being the unavoidable outcome in a newcountry, where naturally the raw material is so abundant, and the chaseafter social position must be a sort of "_go-as-you-please_" race amongthe golden-legged.
Therefore, like the true lady that she was, Lizzie had quietly acceptedher fate, and forgiven fickle society, without a murmur of complaint ora pang of regret. But what certainly was a perennial anguish, acrucifixion of spirit to her, was to see in Gabriel's pale face,--inthose superb eyes of his,--all his mental suffering; then courage failedher, and on her bended knees she would implore a merciful heaven to pityand help her beloved, her beautiful archangel.
What Gabriel suffered in spirit probably no one will ever know, forthough he inherited the natural nobility of his father, he was not likehim communicative, ready to offer or receive sympathy. He was sensitive,kind, courteous and unselfish, but very reticent.
But if Gabriel had never complained, the eloquence of facts had said allthat was to be said. In that hod full of bricks not only his own sadexperience was represented, but _the entire history_ of the nativeCalifornians of _Spanish descent_ was epitomized. Yes, Gabriel carryinghis hod full of bricks up a steep ladder, was a symbolicalrepresentation of his race. The natives, of Spanish origin, having lostall their property, must henceforth be hod-carriers.
Unjust laws despoiled them, but what of this? Poor they are, but who isto care, or investigate the cause of their poverty? The thrivingAmerican says that the native Spaniards are lazy and stupid andthriftless, and as the prosperous know it all, and are almostinfallible, the fiat has gone forth, and the Spaniards of California arenot only despoiled of all their earthly possessions, but must also bebereft of sympathy, because the world says they do not deserve it.
George and Clarence entertained a different opinion, however, and insuppressed, earnest tones they now reviewed the history of the Alamares,and feelingly deplored the cruel legislation that had ruined them.
Lizzie, unable to sleep, had again taken her place by the bedside, andsadly watched the beautiful face which seemed like that of slumberingApollo. Would he recover, or was it possible that her darling would die,now when relief had come? Oh, the cruel fate that made him descend tothat humble occupation.
Lizzie shuddered to think of all the suffering he would yet have toundergo. Oh, it was so inexpressibly sad to think that his precious lifewas risked for the pitiful wages of a poor hod-carrier!