The Hermit of Sawmill Mountain [pp. 152-162]

The Hermit of Sawmill Mountain.
To this ranch house and all that it contained, Charles Sydney was made most cordially welcome. Of course, his bright face
and his taste for fine old wines and brandies
made him a prime favorite with the old Don
-whose own sons had degenerated, with the
easy facility of their race, from young landed
proprietors into sheep-herders, zaqueros, and
what-not. Sydney was a favorite with the
women, too-but then he had always been
that. They did not seem to mind his drinking to excess occasionally. They seemed
even to like and encourage it, esteeming it
rather manly-as is the way with their
race.
He had returned to his old habits, you
see. And he seemed almost to live at La
Roblar, abandoning his cottage among the
pines upon the mountain side to the mercies
of Ah Yup and the herders. The sheep did
not need his immediate supervision; and it
was much pleasanter here; and the folks at
home would never know; and -well, his
correspondence was neglected, of course,
and Agnes worried'herself almost sick over
his short letters and his long intervals of
silence.
Of course, there was a reason for all this,
aside from the acquirement of a knowledge
of the Spanish-and while a large part of
that reason lay in the good cheer which prevailed at La Roblar, I very much fear that
a larger part lay in the witchery which lurked
in the'dreamy, passionate, black eyes of the
Don's only daughter, Claudia.
Truly she was a woman to make a man
forget all the world beside in her presenceher form, slight, yet rounded in the perfect
curves of Andalusia; eyes liquid with melancholy, yet breathing the very fire of tropical longing; skin just tinged with olive, yet
showing beneath its satin smoothness the
faintest trace of richest carmine; long lashes,
drooping ever downward; features regular in
outline as some delicate sculpture; dainty,
shapely hands and feet; a curving swell of
throat and neck; and a well poised head
crowned by a shimmering mass of raven hair,
straight as the tail of an ebon charger.
Sydney loved her-almost before he knew
it. What was the cold regard he had felt
for Agnes to the fiery longing for possession
which n6w filled him? And yet-and yet
-sometimes a pale, accusing, beautiful face
would rise before him, and he could find
forgetfulness only when he felt the blood of
the grape tingling in his finger ends.
Is it necessary to tell that Claudia loved
him also? WVell has it been said that "the
Spanish maid is no coquette." Why should
she feel shame in the great gift which had
been showered upon her?
So they loved, and so at last there came
a time when Sydney's passion would be denied no longer-and a day had been set for
their wedding.
The old Don made no objection. Was
not his prospective son-in-law at least apparently possessed of five thousand sheep?
That was enough. He called them his own.
He never spoke of his Eastern relatives.
For all Don Jos6 and Claudia knew to the
contrary, Charles Sydney might have been
without a tie on earth. It was not their custom to inquire as to the character and antecedents of their guests. What was told them
they believed. More they cared not to know.
At first, Charles had told them nothing,
simply from his inability to do so. Afterwards, as he grew to love Claudia, he had
remained silent. Confession meant renunciation-and he was not strong enough for
that.
But he was even more criminally silent
than he had been to Claudia; for he told
Agnes nothing of his new love, his engagement, or his approaching marriage. It is
true he wrote her no such warm letters as of
old he could not carry deception so far as
that-but she attributed this silence to business cares (as he had intimated), and, woman-like, loved and trusted on.
Once, only once, his better nature had
almost conquered him, and he resolved to
tell Claudia and brave everything. It w'as
perhaps a month before the time set for their
wedding. He had received a letter from
Agnes, oh, so delicately sympathetic, telling
him gently that his father had died suddenly
ten days before, and that two days afterward
156
[Aug.