The Robber Bridegroom (12 page)

"Oh, we had a terrible battle, Jamie Lockhart and I," said he. "It lasted through three nights running, and when we were through they had to get the floor and the roof switched back to their places, for we had turned the house inside out. Dozens and dozens of seagulls were dead, that had flown in off the river and got caught in the whirlwind of the fight. Hundreds of people were watching, and got their noses sliced off too, for standing too close."

"It's a wonder Jamie Lockhart did not kill you," said Rosamond.

"Do you know the reason?" said the mail rider. "It's because I killed him first. I beat him to a pulp—there was nothing left but the juice."

"I can hardly believe he would have let you/' said PiOsamond.

176 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM

"The very next morning I saw his ghost/' said the mail rider, "for it came in and said good morning to me, and not a scratch on it."

"And have you seen it since?" she said.

"At this very spot and at this very time yesterday," said he. "Why didn't you tell me in the first place that you were looking for Jamie Lock-hart's ghost? For I know it well."

"Which direction was it going in?" asked Rosamond anxiously.

"In this very direction," said he. "I was riding along, and there it was, sitting on a gate. I knew that shape of a fine tall man with that illusion of yellow hair and that pretence of a coat tied on it like a cape. And I smelled the sulphur when it said, 'A nice evening for August/

"So I said, 'Good evening, Jamie Lockhart's ghost.'

"And it smiled, and there were its same teeth.

"I asked it what it had been doing since the last time I saw it.

" 'Sitting on a gate/ said it.

" 'And are you unhappy or looking for anything?' says I, for I knew how ghosts are.

THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 177

" 'Yes/ says it, I'm looking for my red horse Orion, have you seen its ghost flying along without its rider?'

"So I made haste to tell it where I had seen the horse, which had indeed passed me like the devil himself, going south, and the ghost said it was likely to be waiting by the old tavern door in Rodney's Landing, the very spot where we had had the fight and I had killed it. So the ghost went along with me till we got to Rodney, talking very amiable, but of course nothing we said was true. Though sure enough, there was the horse waiting like a tame mouse beside the tavern door. So it jumped on its back and off it went simply rising into the air, and said it was going to the New Orleans port for the purpose of taking a boat/'

"Oh, I must prevent that/' said Rosamond. "And you must take me along with you today and give me a ride. For I have a message for Jamie Lockhart from another world/'

"Is it a message from out of the past for the old ghost?" asked the mail rider.

"No, it is from out of the future," said Rosa-

178 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM mond. And she put it to him, "Did you ever before hear of an old ghost that was going to be a father of twins next week?"

"Oh!" he said. "Ghosts are getting more powerful every day in these parts. But ghost or no ghost, I wish now I had punched him in the nose, even if there was nothing there, for his rascality."

And he set Rosamond up on his horse in front of him, and laid on the whip, and they rode away down the Trace.

So while they were going along, some bandits rushed down upon them from a clump of pine trees, and told them to stop in their tracks for they meant to rob the mail.

"Pass on!" cried the mail rider. "This lady is soon to become a mother."

So the bandits lifted up their black hats to Rosamond and passed on up the Trace.

At the end of his run, he put her down, and Rosamond thanked him for his favors.

"Now, tell me your real name," said she, "for I must know w r ho it is I had to thank, for the way

THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 179 you have aided a poor deserted wife that is looking for her ghost of a husband/*

At this request, the mail rider turned all red like the sunset, but at last he said, "Tell no one, but I am none other than Mike Fink! It would be outrageous if this were known, that the greatest flatboatman of them all came down in the world to be a mail rider on dry land. It would sound like the end of the world! Don't breathe it to a soul that you saw me this way, and you yourself must forget the disgrace as early as you can/'

"How on earth did it happen?'' asked Rosamond.

"It was enemies," said Mike Fink. "Men jealous of me. They found out that one day, after many years of heroism, I allowed myself to be cheated out of three little sacks of gold and a trained bird, and so they threw me out. All of them jumped on me at one time and it lasted a week, but they sent me up out of the river. They left me for dead on a sand bar in the Bayou Pierre. And so I came to this/'

i8o THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM

''Out of my gratitude to you, I will tell no one of your true identity/' Rosamond promised. "And good luck to you. May you be restored to your proper place."

As a matter of fact, Rosamond told everyone she met, since she was not able to keep silent about it, but no one believed her, and so no harm was done.

Mike Fink rode away saying, "I will have to ride all night to make up for the deed of kindness I have done, and will probably be set upon by the bandits, who are waiting for my return trip when I have no shield before me, and be murdered for it."

But he was not, and in the end he did get back on the river and his name was restored to its original glory. And it is a good thing he never knew that he helped to restore the bride to a live and flourishing Jamie Lockhart, or that would have broken his heart in two.

So Rosamond went on, and by dint of begging one mail rider after another, and trotting

THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 181 upon one white pony after another black horse, she made her way clear to New Orleans.

The moment she reached the great city she made straight for the harbor.

The smell of the flapping fish in the great loud marketplace almost sent her into a faint, but she pressed on bravely along the water front, looking twice at every man she met, even if he looked thrice back at her, and at last she came to where a crowd of gentlemen and sailors were embarking on a great black ship going to Zanzibar. And sure enough, there in the middle, and taller than all the rest like a cornstalk in the cottonfield, was Jamie Lockhart, waving good-by to the shore.

"Jamie Lockhart!" she cried.

So he turned to see who it was.

"I came and found you!" she cried over all their heads.

Then he took his foot off the gangplank and came down and brought her home, not failing to take her by the priest's and marrying her on the way. And indeed it was in time's nick.

182 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM

So in the Spring, Clement went on a trip from Rodney's Landing to New Orleans, and was walking about.

New Orleans was the most marvelous city in the Spanish country or anywhere else on the river. Beauty and vice and every delight possible to the soul and body stood hospitably, and usually together, in every doorway and beneath every palmetto by day and lighted torch by night. A shutter opened, and a flower bloomed. The very atmosphere was nothing but aerial spice, the very walls were sugar cane, the very clouds hung as golden as bananas in the sky. But Clement Musgrove was a man who could have walked the streets of Bagdad without sending a second glance overhead at the Magic Carpet, or heard the tambourines of the angels in Paradise without dancing a step, or had his choice of the fruits of the Garden of Eden without making up his mind. For he was an innocent of the wilderness, and a planter of Rodney's Landing, and this was his good.

So, holding a bag of money in his hand, he

THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 183 went to the docks to depart, and there were all the ships with their sails and their flags flying, and the seagulls dipping their wings like so many bright angels.

And as he was putting his foot on the gangplank, he felt a touch at his sleeve, and there stood his daughter Rosamond, more beautiful than ever, and dressed in a beautiful, rich white gown.

Then how they embraced, for they had thought each other dead and gone.

"Father!" she said. "Look, this wonderful place is my home now, and I am happy again!"

And before the boat could leave, she told him that Jamie Lockhart was now no longer a bandit but a gentleman of the world in New Orleans, respected by all that knew him, a rich merchant in fact. All his wild ways had been shed like a skin, and he could not be kinder to her than he was. They were the parents of beautiful twins, one of whom was named Clementine, and they lived in a beautiful house of marble and cypress wood on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain, with

i8 4 THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM a hundred slaves, and often went boating with other merchants and their wives, the ladies reclining under a blue silk canopy; and they sailed sometimes out on the ocean to look at the pirates' galleons. They had all they wanted in the world, and now that she had found her father still alive, everything was well. Of course, she said at the end, she did sometimes miss the house in the wood, and even the rough-and-tumble of their old life when he used to scorn her for her curiosity. But the city was splendid, she said; it was the place to live.

"Is all this true, Rosamond, or is it a lie?" said Clement.

"It is the truth/' she said, and they held the boat while she took him to see for himself, and it was all true but the blue canopy.

Then the yellow-haired Jamie ran and took him by the hand, and for the first time thanked him for his daughter. And as for him, the outward transfer from bandit to merchant had been almost too easy to count it a change at all, and he was enjoying all the same success he had

THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM 185 ever had. But now, in his heart Jamie knew that he was a hero and had always been one, only with the power to look both ways and to see a thing from all sides.

Then Rosamond prepared her father a little box lunch with her own hands. She asked him to come and stay with them, but he would not.

"Good-by," they told each other as the wind

filled the sails for the voyage home. "God bless

» you.