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Their Uncle From California
by
Marie started; she remembered her last night’s vision. But some instinct–she knew not what–kept her from revealing it at this moment. She only said a little ironically:–
“Perhaps he missed the wild freedom of his barbaric life in a small bedroom.”
“No. Bridget says he said something about being smoked out of his room by a ridiculous wood fire. The idea! As if a man brought up in the woods couldn’t stand a little smoke. No–that’s his excuse! Marie!–do you know what I firmly believe?”
“No,” said Marie quickly.
“I firmly believe that poor man is ashamed of his past rough life, and does everything he can to forget it. That’s why he affects those ultra-civilized and effeminate ways, and goes to the other extreme, as people always do.”
“Then you think he’s really reformed, and isn’t likely to take an impulse to rob and murder anybody again?”
“Why, Marie, what nonsense!”
Nevertheless, Uncle Sylvester appeared quite fresh and cheerful at breakfast. It seemed that he had lit the fire before undressing, but the green logs were piled so far into the room that the smoke nearly suffocated him. Fearful of alarming the house by letting the smoke escape through the door, he opened the window, and when it had partly dispersed, sought refuge himself from the arctic air of his bedroom in the drawing-room. So far the act did not seem inconsistent with his sanity, or even intelligence and consideration for others. But Marie fixed upon him a pair of black, audacious eyes.
“Did you ever walk in your sleep, Mr. Lane?”
“No; but”–thoughtfully breaking an egg–“I have ridden, I think.”
“In your sleep? Oh, do tell us all about it!” said Cousins Jane and Emma in chorus.
Uncle Sylvester cast a resigned glance out of the window. “Oh, yes–certainly; it isn’t much. You see at one time I was in the habit of making long monotonous journeys, and they were often exhausting, and,” he added, becoming wearied as if at the recollection, “always dreadfully tiresome. As the trail was sometimes very uncertain and dangerous, I rode a very surefooted mule that could go anywhere where there was space big enough to set her small hoofs upon. One night I was coming down the slope of a mountain towards a narrow valley and river that were crossed by an old, abandoned flume, of which nothing was now left but the upright trestle-work and long horizontal string-piece. As the trail was very difficult and the mule’s pace was slow, I found myself dozing at times, and at last I must have fallen asleep. I think I must have been awakened by a singular regularity in the movement of the mule–or else it was the monotony of step that had put me to sleep and the cessation of it awakened me. You see, at first I was not certain that I wasn’t really dreaming. For the trail seemed to have disappeared; the wall of rock on one side had vanished also, and there appeared to be nothing ahead of me but the opposite hillside.”
Uncle Sylvester stopped to look out of the window at a passing carriage. Then he went on. “The moon came out, and I saw what had happened. The mule, either of her own free will, or obeying some movement I had given the reins in my sleep, had swerved from the trail, got on top of the flume, and was actually walking across the valley on the narrow string-piece, a foot wide, half a mile long, and sixty feet from the ground. I knew,” he continued, examining his napkin thoughtfully, “that she was perfectly surefooted, and that if I kept quiet she could make the passage, but I suddenly remembered that midway there was a break and gap of twenty feet in the continuous line, and that the string-piece was too narrow to allow her to turn round and retrace her steps.”
“Good heavens!” said Cousin Jane.
“I beg your pardon?” said Uncle Sylvester politely.