Nan Haggard, the heiress of Dead Hopes mine

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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Chapter I

THE BUEKmG HOUSE. — CHILD AHD FATHEK. — WHY DID HE HOT SATE HIS WIFE ?

Past midnight on a stormy September night. A wild wind was abroad, tossing the tops of the pines and lashing the boughs of the creaking old oaks around Widow Calvert’s cottage.

The widow was lying in her bed with wide-open eyes. Anxiety kept her awake. What if a tree should blow down upon Brindle and her new calf in the pasture shed, or the rain should fall in such a flood as would make the creek rise and carry away the dam of the neighborhood mill?

Presently she started up and ran to the window. A glai’e of light, broader and more continuous than the lightning, illumined the sky in the north. She had seen it from her bed; she saw it more plainly now. She watched it a moment; it grew broader — brighter. She cried out to her daughter, sleeping in another bed in the room:

‘^Rachel! Rachel! wake up! Mr. Haggard’s house on the hill is afire!”

She snatched a great ox-horn that hung by a cord from the wall, and hurrying out on the porch, blew it long and loud — a signal to rouse the neighbors.

The wild, wail-like peal was heard by the keen ears of the hounds on twD adjoining farms. They set up an answering outcry of barks and howls that speedily roused their owners, and brought them out where -they could see

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the glare of the burning house— the new cottage built for his pretty wife by Haggard, the young Englishman who had bought the gold-lands on Haggard Creek and opened a mine.

By the time the active Widow Calvert, hastily dressed, had reached the scene of the fire, out of breath, and followed by her daughter Rachel, others were on the way and coming up.

It was too late to subdue the fire. The cottage was wrapped in flames, fanned to fury by the wind. Where were the occupants? Where were Mrs. Haggard and her child? Had they been alone in the house? No; her husband had come back the day before from England, where he had been for three months past.

Where were they? The group collected before the blazing house looked anxiously around. They called. There was a faint, childish cry in answer; and, guided by the sound, they found Mr. Haggard, sitting propped against the trunk of a tree a little distance from the house, with his little girl clinging to him — so frightened she shrunk away trembling from the kindly hands that touched her.

The man seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness. His eyes were open, but they had no intelligence. He stared at them in a bewildered way when they spoke to him. They raised him to his feet. He could not walk. He staggered in a blmd way like one intoxicated or hurt in the head.

But he showed no sign of any hurt in the necessarily hurried examination they made of his person.

Where was his wife — the lovely young creature who had won the hearts of all the neighborhood by her beauty and sweetness?

It was in vain to ask the husband. He evidently did not comprehend a word or recognize a face among those that pressed about him with eager questions.

They turned to the child. She had let herself be taken

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in tlie arms of Mrs. Calvert, and with her face pressed against the widow ^s motherly bosom, she was sobbing in a silent, spasmodic way.

She was in her little white night-gown only, her pretty brown curls blowing in the wind.

‘‘ Tell us, dearie, where your mamma is? We want to find her and bring her to you,’^ coaxed the widow, as she took up the folds of her stuff gown and wrapped the child in it.

The little one raised her head.

Oh, find her, and bring her to me, please she pleaded.

“ But where is she, baby? DonT you know?’’

No, I don’t know,” «he said, .with quivering lips.

Don’t let her burn up. Get my mamma out of the fire. Please do!”

Is she in the burning house?”

The child repeated her plaintive I don’t know.”

‘‘ How came you here? Who brought- you? Was it your father?”

Oh, I don’t know. I was in my little bed asleep. I heard somebody scream. It sounded like my mamma. I heard it one more time. I called out loud to her and papa, and started to get up. Then somebody ran in and caught me up and wrapped me all in a blanket and brought me out here. My head was all wrapped up in the blanket. I couldn’t see who it was had me. I unwrapped myself; then I saw the big fire up at the window. I ran all about before I saw papa sittin’ here under the tree. I asked him where mamma was, bwt he wouldn’t mind what I said. He wouldn’t talk. I think he’s sick. That’s all I know.”

She told this story in fragments as it was drawn from her by questions. Evidently it was all she knew.

The neighbors looked at one another in bewilderment. Had Haggard left his wife to be burned up in the house?

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If not, where was she? What was the matter with him? Had he received an injury in trying to save his family, or had some one elsO saved the child, and the shock of seeing his house burning, with his wife inside, been too much for his brain, already unnerved by business troubles? Who could tell? And if another had saved the child, where was that other?

Meantime, the flood-gates of the black clouds overhead had opened with crashing thunders, and the rain poured down in torrents. The people took shelter in the miners’ huts close by — vacant now, for the men formerly employed in the Haggard mine had gone elsewhere to find employment. There had been no work done in the mines for three months. Operations had been suspended for want of money and because further work seemed useless. The mine had failed to hold out its rich promise. The vein had suddenly given out. Was it exhausted or lost? Its failure was the ruin of its owner — the handsome, enterjirising young Englishman who had bought the gold-lands on the creek a few years before. He had used his owii fortune and borrowed money from his friends in England to open the mine and carry on the operations. The yield at first had far exceeded his hopes. He thought he had an Eldorado. He built a pretty Swiss cottage on a picturesque hill near the mines, and brought out his wife and child from England. Scarcely were they established in their new home when calamity came. The gold vein was lost. Haggard did- not know what to do. He felt sure there was no lack of ability in his superintendent. Stephen Brent was an experienced California miner, a man who had made a fortune once in mining operations in the West, but had lost it in unfortunate speculations. No; he felt sure Brent was doing his best. He had perfect trust in his quiet, taciturn superintendent.

Brent was his friend and his prospective business partner rather than his employe. He was a frequent and welcome

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guest at his home, and it had been in Brent's charge that he left his young wife and child when he went to England three months ago for the purpose of selling all his estates there, and repaying the friends who had lent him money, and also, if possible, of getting means to recommence a search for the lost gold vein.

The superintendent had not been seen about the burning house. Two men went to seek him at his temporary bachelor's home — a little cottage close to the mine— but he was not there. His housekeeper said he had been absent three days in the city — forty miles away. He would not be back until next day.

Chapter II. Who Was The Criminal ?

Haggard had been carried almost bodily into a miner's hut out of the storm. He fell upon the floor in a heap, and lay there. His eyes were open, but they were vacant and mindless. He took no note of anything.

The storm raged for more than an hour. The rain fell ' in torrents. They could see it. drowning out the flames of the half-burned house. The men and the two women watched the wild downpour, and uttered futile conjectures about what had become of the wife of the unconscious man on the floor, and the child who had sobbed herself to sleep on the widow's lap.

At last the rain abated. The storm was over; the moon came out through rugged clouds and lighted the still smoking wreck of Haggard's home. The flames had been extinguished before the lower story of the house had been consumed. As soon as it was possible, search was made for the body of Mrs. Haggard. It was found near the unconsumed stairs, and dragged from among the debris — a charred and blackened form horrible for those to look

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upon who had seen her in her living shape of grace and blooming beauty.

So she had really perished in the flames! Why had she not escaped? Why had not her husband saved her as well as the child? What had prevented her from saving herself? Was it terror? Could she have been asleep and waked bewildered and stifled by smoke?

The question why she had not escaped from the burning house was possibly answered by a circumstance that deepened the hon-or of the tragedy. It was found that the skull of the imfortunate victim was deeply indented — fractured without a doubt. Was it by a fall or a blow?

Had she then been murdered — and by whom? It was too horrible and too absurd to conjecture that her husband had killed her and then set fire to the house to hide his crime. He was devotedly attached to her — and yet — who else could have done the deed? Who? Why, some enemy, some disaffected ex-workman oE the mines, or some desperate tramp who thought the lady was alone, not knowing of her husband’s return, but aware that her protector — Brent, had gone to the city. She had kept no servant in the house except an old colored man and his wife, who slept in the basement. They, as the neighbors knew, were five miles away this Saturday night, attending a colored camp meeting, where the old negro was one of the leading preachers. This, too, had no doubt been known to the tramp, though he had not perhaps been aware of Mr. Haggard’s return.

In the struggle between the man of the house and the midnight desperado. Haggard had been stunned and left for dead. The wretch had then killed Mrs. Haggard and fired the house. Who had saved the cliild? The father, probably. He had revived sufficiently to rescue the little girl, and had then collapsed through the internal injuries he had received.

This was the drift of conjecture among a group of neigh-

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bors, now largely re-enforced, who were collected about the smoking ruins in the gray light of early morning. Others held the theory that the fire alone had caused the calamity. The inmates of the cottage had been awakened from sleep by the roaring of the flames. The father had caught up his child, and the mother following, blinded and stifled by smoke, had fallen, probably down-stairs, and received an injury in the head that caused her death. '

The shock had paralyzed her husband^s reason.

Others still whispered among themselves the darker version of the midnight tragedy.

Haggard had come home with his brain unsettled by his financial troubles. In a fit of madness or, perhaps, of jealous anger against his wife, he had killed her, and then, with the instinctive cunning of the maniac, had set fire to the house.

Brent, who . came about ten o^clock, while the inquest was being held, scoffed at this solution of the mystery. He was sure Haggard would never have laid a hurtful finger on his wife, crazy or sane — he loved her too well.

Breiit was dreadfully shocked and agitated. Though he was a strongly built giant of a man, with an eye full of fiery power and restless energy, he trembled when they led him to the blackened remains of his friend^s beautiful wife. He would not look at her.

He turned quickly away. A question was put to him — he could not speak in reply to it; the muscles about his mouth were jerking, as could be seen by the movement of his thick mustache.

He was pressed to say what he believed to be the most rea.sonable conje cture concerning the mysterious affair.

He only shook his head. At last he said:

‘‘ It is strange. It passes my comprehension. ’’

Then he sunk his head on his hands again and looked like one stricken.

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Brent takes it hard/’ said a by-stander. “ He thought a lot of both of them.”

The wife in particular/’ spoke up the high treble voice of Miss Brooks, the gossip of the neighborhood. The significance in her tone was understood by those around him.

Haggard Was still in the miner’s cabin. He seemed to become more paralyzed every moment. The neighborhood physician had examined him, and reported that he found no injury. There might be an internal hurt, but his opinion was that the young Englishman had suffered a paralyzing shock of liis already overstrained brain upon re-> alizing that his wife was dead and seeing his home in flames before him. He believed the attack would be fatal. The coma would presently react into brain fever and delirium.

We will see if medical skill can not help him,” said Stephen Brent, rousing from his silent and motionless attitude. I will take him right away to the city. My buggy is here. I’ll get him to the station in time for the noon train.”

He shook off the stunned feeling that had seemed to make him inert, and showed his usual quiet though taciturn energy in getting his stricken friend to the station.

Before the burial of his wife had taken place, the unconscious husband was being borne away to seek more skillful aid than this country neighborhood afforded.

He’ll never come back,” uttered the country doctor, piqued at losing a case. ‘‘ The journey will destroy his one small chance of recovery. He’ll be a dead man within a week. He’ll never come to his reason enough to tell how last night’s work came about.”

The prediction was verified, in part, ten days later by the return of Brent alone to the neighborhood. He told of Haggard’s death. He had died of brain fever produced by a mental shock. He had, however, recovered consciousness a few hours before his death. He would tell nothing

HAGGAED.

about the fire or the cause of his wife’s death; but he was conscious that his own end was at hand, and he had signified his wish to leave his child in Brent^s charge, with the remnant of his shattered fortune in trust for her. A paper to this effect had been drawn up, and he had allied his name to it with a last effort of his fast-expiring strength.

The only heritage of the child was the mine with the lost gold vein, and the thousand acres of wild land that lay around it.

The child had been taken away by the Widow Calvert to her own home after the funeral of the mother. No more pitiful sight had ever been seen in that neighborhood than the desolate little creature presented on the dismal afternoon when her mother was buried in the dreary country grave-yard. Still in her night-gown — her only garment — and wrapped in the widow’s black cloak, with its hood drawn over her brown curls, her little white face looked out with a bewildered, frightened wistfulriess in its wide, dark eyes-and tremulous mouth. She did not comprehend the extent of her desolation. She had seen her mother’s blackened corpse drawn from the ruins of her home and seen her father look at it with the indifference of unconsciousness. But she could not understand that the black, shapeless form was her beautiful young mother — that she would soon be fatherless, as she was motherless, in a strange land, without kindred or fortune. She shivered with a vague horror, and clung to the kind-hearted widow.

What was to be done with her? The neighbors were poor, and had their share of olive branches. None of them felt able to burden themselves with another child.

The widow stood in fear of Eachel’s tongue, but she could not abandon the little one who seemed to look upon her as her only- friend. She put the child before her on the bony brown mare, and took her with her to her little home on the hill-side. Miss Rachel was wroth.

‘‘ YouTl have that puny brat on your hands for good,”

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she declared. She’ll always be twice the trouble she’s worth. They’re never any account to work — the children of that sort of stuck-up people.”

A week later Stephen Brent rode up to the Calvert cottage and spoke to The widow at the gate. The child’s father was dead, he said. He had left a will, making him her guardian and executor of the estate, such as it was.

‘‘ I’ve no real home to take her to, Mrs. Calvert,” he said, and nobody to look after her. I wish you would keep her until I can see what else may be done for her. I’ll pay you for her board every quarter. You can teach her to work and help you about the house.”

‘‘I’ll keep her,” the widow agreed, after a short hesitation. “ Eachel will be mad, but Til tell her she may have the board-money; maybe that will pacify her, I hate to give the dear little thing up, that’s the truth. She takes hold of a body’s heart with her pitiful little ways; and she ’pears to take to me. Wouldn’t you like to see her? She’s dreadful down-hearted still, grievin’ after her mar and par. You’ll seem like a friend to her, she’s seen you at her home so much. I’ll fetch her out.”

“ No, no; not now. I can’t see her now. I haven’t time,” he exclaimed, hastily. “I’m on my way to the mines. I want to have the machinery appraised. Everything will have to be sold to pay Haggard’s debts. I must do the best I can to save something for the child.”

“ That’s right. It’s due for old friendship’s sake. Poor man! He seemed such a nice man, too. And such a lovely little critter as his wife was. My! but it was a . dreadful night’s work that. You ain’t found out anything about how it was done, or Who was at the bottom of it?”

“ No, it’s all dark. It was the work of tramps, probably; but it will never be known for a certainty.”

“Yes, it will; wickedness always comes to light soon or late. That night’s black work is sure to be found out, mark my words.”

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Let us hope you may be a true prophet,^^ Brent said cutting the colloquy short by wheeling his horse^s head.

With a brief good-morning he rode away in the direction of the mines.

The widow looked after him^ shaking her head, as she said to herself:

“He wouldn’t see the child. The little thing is the born image of her mother, and I s’pose he couldn’t stand to see her. . Susan Brooks will have it he thought more of Haggard’s -wife — poor, pretty creetur! — than he’d any right to; but law sakes, Susan Brooks is always fermentin’ scandals in them shallow brains of hern.”

A few weeks later it was published in the county paper that the Haggard lands would be sold by the administrator, at public auction, and it was rumored that Brent would buy them in, as he had said the estate was greatly in debt to him for unpaid services in superintending the mine. Before the sale took place, however, Dead Hopes Mine was the scene of another tragedy. One night, just at the break of day, a loud crash like a burst of thunder and a sudden rattling of the window-glass startled those living nearest the mines from their beds, and sent them to the doors and windows, only to see a clear sky faintly streaked with the rosy hue of breaking day.

The mystery was solved by old Sophy, Brent’s black housekeeper, who ran breathless to the nearest neighbor’s, crying out that her master had been killed by an explosion at the mine. She told that of late he often walked in his sleep, going sometimes'd;a-the mine, and sometimes to the ruins of the half-burned house of the Haggards. To-night he had got up from his bed, after midnight, and gone out. He stayed so long her mind misgave her, and she dressed and went to the mine herself. She was nearly there when the explosion took place. She was thrown flat on her back, and as soon as she could get up she went on. She soon

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came upon her master lying lifeless among loose earth and fragments of rock.

She told the story to the neighbors as they hurried to the scene of the disaster.

It was a judgment on him. I knowed it would come; I told hini it would she cried, wringing her hands.

“ A judgment for what? What had he done to be pun- ^ ished for?’^ was asked her.

But she was silent. As to the cause of the explosion she could tell nothing; but one of the men — a former workman in the mine — recalled that they had bored a new drill for the purpose of blasting just before work on the mine was discontinued. It had never been charged. Brent had ordered otherwise. In his sleep-walking state he must have charged it with powder, set the fuse and ignited it, but failed to get beyond reach of hurt before the explosion took place.

He was not dead, however. He was unconscious when they picked him up out of the debris, but he came to his senses. His leg was broken by a fragment of stone, and he had received so terrible a nervous shock that for awhile it was thought would prove fatal. He rallied, after a time, but he never fully recovered from the hurt and the shock. Those who saw him afterward reported that he had a strange, anxious look — that he never smiled, and that his hand shook as though with palsy. He seemed to have a horror of Dead Hopes Mine, for he never returned to it. The sale of the property did not take place. The lands remained waste and uncleared, except for small patches about the dwellings of one or two squatters who found shelter in the abandoned miners’ huts.

Some of the land was let at low prices for pasture and for the wood and water privileges upon it, but most of it remained waste. All the business connected with its letting was done through an agent. Brent himself had no more to do with it. Report said that he had gone to the

North-west, and had there invested in mining lands and made a large fortune.

Lately the country people heard of his return to the city, accompanied by a beautiful woman, whom he had married not long before.

He looks powerful old and broken,^’ said the farmer who brought the news, alongside his dashing wife, though she was a widow, they saj^, with a grown son. She^s a beauty, though, and no mistake.

But he did not come to see nor did he write to his youthful ward — the orphan heiress of Dead Hopes Mine.

' The abandoned mine was now a desolate-looking spot. The pits had become reservoirs of stagnant rain-water. Nettles and briers overhung them. Wild vines clambered over the rotting buildings, and grass grew before the doors of the deserted miners’ cabins. Weeds and vines and friendly moss hid the black scars of the half-burned Haggard cottage. Its chimney still stood upright, and part of the staij-case was there, muffled in Virginia creeper.

On wild, stormy nights, when the lightning played about tlie ruins, it was said that the form of the murdered Anabel Haggard was seen standing at the head of that ruined staircase, in her white night-robe.

‘‘ Her ghost will walk until her murderer is found and punished,” said the people.

But the crime of that night of fire and blood remained still a mystery. The widow’s prophecy that light would be thrown upon it had not yet come to pass.

The child -heiress of Dead Hopes Mine was still an inmate of Widow Calvert’s cottage. Brent sent quarterly enough money to pay for her board and a few cheap clothes. The widow taught her to read the Bible and Baxter’s “ Saints’ Rest,” and the “ Pictorial History of the World.” This comprised her library. She knew all the psalms by heart, and nearly everything in the ‘‘ Pictorial History.” She had no companions of her own age. The

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widow and her old-maid daughter stayed at home and worked hard. The child learned early to help them in the garden and the dairy, also to knit and spin. She was fond of her foster-mother, and grieved for her heart-brokenly when she died. This was when Nan was twelve years old. Anabel had been her name — the same as her mother’s — but Miss Rachel said it was ‘‘ too fine for a child as had nothin’ — not even any kinnery ” — and so she was called Nan.

Nan’s life was harder after the death of her good old friend. Miss Rachel had no softness in her composition, and no sympathy with the poetical, sensitive feelings of the little English waif. She put hard tasks on the child; she scolded and found fault with her; called her queer and idle and mooning; forbid her to have pets, and ruthlessly burned the books — old, battered novels — that were lent to the girl by a friend she had lately been so fortunate as to find. But through the instrumentality of this friend — an old lady living on a dilapidated estate close by — Nan had the benefit of a little schooling from the kind-hearted but not very competent country teacher. Mrs. De Lacy spoke to him about Nan, and he saw the child, and was touched by her desolate condition.

She must have some instruction,” he said. ‘‘ It’s a shame to have her grow up without it — and she so bright, and the child of gentlefolks. ”

“ What’s the good of her gentle blood. I’d like to know?” snapped Miss Rachel. ‘‘ It don’t put bread in her mouth nor clothes on her ,back. She’s got no fortime to look to, and there’s no call to be putting high notions in her head. She’ll have to work for her living, mortally as she hates to do drudgery.”

‘‘ Her schooling sha’n’t cost her a cent, and you must spare her from her work to 'come to school half the year at least. It is your duty, Rachel.”

Miss Rachel muttered something about not thanking

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anybody to come and tell her what her duty was; but the quiet voice and steady eyes of Solomon Slow silenced her opposition.

Chapter III

SWEET SIXTEEN. — NAN GETS A BIRTHDAY-PRESENT THAT BRINGS A STORM UPON HER HEAD.

It wanted an hour to sunset. Nan was coming from school along the wood^s path where the shadows lay long and cool.

Her gingham sun-bonnet was pushed back from her head, her tin dinner-bucket swung from her hand, as she walked beside her teacher — Solomon Slow.

Professor Slow, the country folks called him. He too carried his dinner-bucket; also his “ Davies’ Arithmetic ” and his slate. It was his habit to keep ahead of his more advanced pupils by working out at night the sums he gave them for the next day’s lesson.

Mr. Slow, a shy, odd old bachelor, lived with his mother in the old red house half a mile beyond Miss Rachel Calvert’s home.

As they came in sight of the lowly roof that sheltered Nan, a fine young dog came bounding down the road to meet them. He welcomed Nan boisterously by jumping up against her and wagging his bushy tail. Then he took the handle of her lunch-basket between his teeth and trotted on ahead. * .

He did this every afternoon, rewarded on reachmg the gate by receiving the scraps left from Nan’s lunch, usually not very plentiful; for Nan had a healthy appetite, and

Miss Rachel is an eq?Gnomical provider, ” the professor was wont to say, as he added the fragments from his own bucket to Bruin’s feast.

He called it equinomicdl, and he spelled it so. He had struggled with his orthography, for his education was lim-

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ited. His slender pupil trudging there beside him knew more than he did, though she was unaware of her superiority.

There was never a human being more devoid of self-consciousness than Nan. Bruin had come up to them just as they reached the lower fence of the rambling old orchard. A branch of hoary apple-tree overhung the road. Nan picked a yellow apple that shone through the leaves and tendered it to Mr. Slow.