THE FLOWERS IN THE PRIMROSE WAY ARE SWEET.
As narrated in an earlier chapter, I left England two days before the first lot of forged bills were sent in. I left serene and confident of the future. My departure was a happy event in a double sense. All my negotiations had been carried on at a considerable expense of nerve, and in leaving I left everything in such trim that success seemed certain, with all chance of danger eliminated from the venture. I felt that the trying toil was now all over, with nothing for me to do but to reap the harvest, and that without effort or care on my part.
So, when the late November sun looked down on me—I crossed by daylight this time—standing on the deck of that same wretched Channel steamer, it looked on a happy man. I did not know then that success in wrongdoing was ever a failure. The anxious toil of the London and Continental negotiations was a thing of the past. Was I not young; wealth was or soon would be mine; was I not in perfect health, body sound and digestion good, and, above all, was not the woman I loved awaiting me in Paris, to give herself to me, in all her youth and beauty, and then somewhere across the Western waters would I not find in some tropic seas a paradise, which gold would make mine, where I could bear my bride, and there, turning over a new leaf, live and die with the respect of all good men mine?
Here was a stately structure I was going to erect, but how rotten the foundation! I, in my egotism, fancied, in my case, at least, the eternal course of things would be stayed, and that justice would grant me a clean bill of health. She did give me that, but it was long years after, and only when she had had from me her pound of flesh to the very last ounce.
I joined my sweetheart and her family at the Hotel St. James, Rue Saint-Honore. She was an English lady, and for a whole year our courtship had been going on, and now, our wedding day being fixed a week ahead, we all set out sightseeing and having a good time generally. I now engaged the coachman I had met before as my valet, and a very good, all-around, handy man he proved to be. Of course I was anxious to hear that the first coup on the bank had succeeded, but I was tolerably confident it was all right. Had it fallen through it would have proved awkward for me. In that event the Paris climate would have been too warm for me, and I would have had to find a score of excuses to hasten our marriage and leave for the Western World as speedily as possible.
I had a four-in-hand coach, and we drove everywhere in and around Paris, once to Versailles and on to Fontainebleau, where we dined, a merry party. What a strange world is this, what a stage it is, ever crowded with tragedies, too! How absolutely in the dark we are as to the motives and actions of men.
There I was, the centre of merry pleasure parties in gay Paris. A young dude, driving my four-in-hand, and yet a criminal, waiting in hourly expectation a telegram announcing success in a great plot which, when it exploded, was destined to startle the business world, and to hurl me from the summit of happiness, where I was reveling, apparently free from care, to the misery of a dungeon, banishing the happy smiles from my face and the joyous ring from my voice, leaving in place of the smiles the sombre gloom of the prison, and in place of the snatches of song and eager accents I was wont to speak with, the hushed voice subdued to prison tones.
Late one morning, on opening my eyes, my first thought was: It will be hit or miss at the Bank of England within the next sixty minutes. We had engaged for a coaching party to Versailles and were to dine there. I left for the drive that day with a dim fear that before the sun set I might be under the necessity of leaving Paris in a hurry.
When starting for Versailles I left my servant behind to wait for the expected telegram, and to bring it to me by rail. We were at dinner, and I was just raising a glass of champagne to my lips when I saw my valet, Nunn, crossing the esplanade. He entered the room and handed me a telegram. Tearing open the envelope I read:
"All well. Bought and shipped forty bales."
That meant the first lot for $40,000 had gone through safely. It was certainly a great relief. The next day I received $25,000 in United States bonds, from George in London, my first share of the proceeds. I sold the bonds in Paris, receiving payment in French notes.
On Thursday, the day before our marriage, I had a telegram from Mac and George to meet them in Calais, and to Calais I had to go. I arrived there at midnight, just before the Dover steamer got in, and was on the pier to meet them. We exchanged warm greetings; as we did so Mac placed a small but very heavy bag in my hands, and they began laughing over my surprise. It contained £4,000 in sovereigns, and was stuffed with bonds and paper money. We went to a hotel near by, and there they counted out to me the very nice sum of $100,000 in gold, bonds and French money. As they were going back on the same steamer, and I was to return to Paris by the train carrying the passengers of the steamer just arrived, we had only a brief half hour's talk. After giving me the money we went out and sat down on the pier, and that conversation and scene are forever impressed on my memory. I shall make no attempt to describe either, but could both be put on the stage, with the audience in possession of a full knowledge of the enterprise we were embarked in, there would be seen a picture of human life such as the novelist or playwright never had the imagination nor the daring to depict. To the earnest student of human life it would have been a revelation.
There we were, three earnest, ambitious young men, enthusiastic for all that was good and noble. I about to wed a pure-souled woman, who thought me an angel of goodness, and about to fly with my plunder and bride to Mexico. My two companions were returning to London to continue carrying out a giant scheme of fraud against a great moneyed institution, but there we were, with $100,000 in plunder at our feet, sitting under the stars, listening to the dash of the waves, and talking not at all like pirates and robbers, but much more like crusaders setting out on a crusade, or like pilgrims going on a pilgrimage.
I told my friends I should go to the City of Mexico for a year or two, and then meet them somewhere in America where we would unite our wealth to inaugurate some scheme that would benefit thousands in our own generation and millions in the generations to come. We would hedge ourselves about with kindly deeds, so live as to win the respect of all, and when under the sod live in the eyes and mouths of men.
Too soon the whistle sounded, and we had to say good-bye, which we did in an enthusiasm that told how deeply we felt. We were walking in the Primrose Way, its flowers and songs were sweet, and we thought their perfume and melody eternal.
I again arrived in Paris at daylight, but early as it was, my sweetheart, escorted by my servant, was waiting my arrival. It was our wedding morning. During our drive to the hotel, radiant with joy, she told me the separation had been a cruel one, and she was so happy to know we should never be separated again!
At 4 o'clock that afternoon we were married at the American Embassy.
I had told every one I was going to leave the next day for Havre, to embark for New York. Our baggage was all packed and placed in a van, which I accompanied to the Havre station, and had stored there. Sunday I purchased one ticket to Bayonne, one for Madrid and one to Burgos, each from different agencies. On Sunday morning I took a van to the Havre station, and transferring our baggage to the road into Spain, checked all of it to Madrid.
My purpose was to sail by the Lopez & Co. steamer El Rey Felipe from Cadiz to Mexico, which was advertised to sail ten days later.
We were married very quietly on Friday, and our friends, wisely recognizing the fact that young married people like to be alone, the next day said good-bye and returned to Normandy. We spent a quiet and happy Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday night we left—my wife, servant and self—for Cadiz, via Madrid. My wife, like all English people, knew little of geography, and had such hazy notions of America that she thought it quite the thing to go to such an outlandish and far off quarter of the globe as America via a Spanish port. Columbus, she knew, had gone that way, and why should not we?
We had an all-night ride to Bayonne in one of those antiquated compartments used in railway carriages all over Europe, but the ride was not tedious, nor was the night long. This little earth had no happier couple, and, talking of the happy years that lay before us, the night rushed by like a fairy dream.
Where was my conscience? Why, my dear reader, I had sung it such a song that it was delighted with the music, and had, I was going to say, gone to sleep, but it had not. It was wide awake, and we were good chums. We both—conscience and I—had persuaded ourselves it was a virtuous deed to do evil that good might come. My conscience was perhaps as old as the sun, but I myself was young and too inexperienced to see the fallacy of the argument, since I myself was the doer of the wrong; but, of course, I should have hotly denounced any other such philosopher as a villain and rogue.
The night flew by, and to our surprise we found 240 miles had slipped away and we were in Bayonne. Thirty minutes more and we were speeding south, and soon crossed the Bidassoa, the boundary between France and Spain. Then my wife saying, "Now I will sleep," laid her head on the shoulder of the happiest man in or out of Spain, and in ten minutes her regular breathing told me she was in the land of dreams.
The Pyrenees, in dividing France and Spain, stand between two distinct peoples, and as the centuries go by the streams of national life meet, but only to repel each other, never to mingle. One has but to cross the bank to realize that he is among a different race. Dress, food and cooking—social life, religious devotion, modes of thought—are all different. To us here in America it is difficult to realize that so slight a thing as a mountain barrier, easily traversed, crossed by many defiles and good roads, should continue to separate two distinct peoples. But so it is. Stranger still, for nearly all time the inhabitants of the Spanish mountains have been more or less opposed to the people of the Spanish plains, and every century has seen several insurrections among the mountaineers. In 1872 and '73 the Carlists held the mountains and more or less fusillading was going on. The possibility of my way being blocked by the Carlists never entered into my calculations.
The railway from Bayonne to Madrid is owned in Paris, and it seems that the directors were paying blackmail to Don Carlos, ostensibly to him, but really to several marauding bands who plundered under the name of fighting for the Don, upon the understanding that the railroad was not to be meddled with. The directors had been paying 100,000 francs a month. As will be easily believed, there was a difficulty in the distribution of the money among so many greedy and inartistic robbers, and the discontented determined to hold up the railroad itself and stop all trains. Unluckily, the train we were on was the one they proposed to experiment on first, and they proposed drastic measures, too—in fact, had blown up or down a short tunnel, and torn up the rails in front of our train. As we crossed the frontier a French gendarme and Spanish civil guard appeared, demanding passports. It was, of course, a sure thing that I had them all right. It is a safeguard under the protection of which the man who has anything to fear slips through the fingers of frontier guards and police, while the honest man quite frequently neglects the necessary formalities and is detained.
Our train crossed the bridge over the Bidassoa and we were on Spanish soil. Soon we entered the gorges of the Pyrenees, and while speculating whether I should awaken my wife to see the magnificent scenery all necessity for awakening any one on that train was over. Three or four musket shots rang out, our train was off the rail, and after a crash or two came to a sudden stop, and then a babel arose, while the train was surrounded by armed men. It was laughable. It seemed like an opera bouffe, the real thing, this motley array of brigands, all trying to maintain under difficulties the grave Spanish exterior.
One monkey of 18 or 19 years, armed, came to our compartment, and, pointing to my chain, said he wanted it and my watch. None of us understood Spanish, but we all comprehended his meaning readily. I refused to make him a gift, and got rid of him easily.
We were all ordered to alight and our captors seemed inclined to be ugly. Myself and party were about the only well-dressed people on the train, and, seeing a priest close by, I went up to him, and ascertaining he could speak French, I began, in very bad French indeed, to threaten with very dire consequences Don Carlos and every band of Carlists who dares to annoy an English Duke and Duchess, and demanded instant shelter and a guard for my wife, the Duchess. We could hardly keep from laughing, it was so very like a melodrama. My wife thoroughly enjoyed the situation, and I should have done so too, had I not had such strong reasons for quick passage through Spain to blue water on the South, for I desired to speedily put some leagues of Neptune's domain between myself and the Old World.
The priest, although a sallow, sombre fellow, was a very good one, and seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, for, calling the chief to him, he warned him to be careful. That gentleman came up, and drawing himself up said very proudly: "Sir, we are soldiers, not robbers." I said I was very glad to know it, and demanded to be informed if I was a prisoner or not, and was told I was not, but with the same breath he said he would be obliged to detain us for a few days. There was a fonda, or inn, close by, and leaving my wife there, I finally managed by a liberal use of money to secure an ox-cart, and by virtue of great generalship on the part of myself and servant, got all our baggage out of the wrecked train and safely up to the inn.
Spaniards are provokingly slow, but by riding mule-back five miles away I succeeded in seeing the local commander of the Carlist forces, and he promised to send me the next day a pass through the lines, going either south or north. I got him also to include in the pass my fellow passengers. I did this because there was a Portuguese family who had tickets for South America. They were then on their way to embark at Lisbon, and the old gentleman, the head of the family, was very weak and ill.
My safe plan would have been to return to France, make my way to Brest and embark from there to New York, and that would have been my course had I had any conception of the slowness of the Spanish officials and of the fierce storms and snows that dominate the passes of the Pyrenees in Winter.
We were informed by many officials, railway guards, Custom House officers, Carlists, etc., that by crossing thirty miles south we would pass the lines and get to a little town on the railway where trains left frequently for Madrid. The Spaniards about the place would never have let us start out on that perilous trip had it not been for the money there was in it. I had secured at a round price three century old bullock carts, and in the afternoon of the second day we got off. I had all the women and the sick Portuguese in one cart, with the two other carts ahead heaped with luggage. Thus there were eight bullocks, four mules and (unlucky number) thirteen men engaged.
I had very misty notions as to our destination, but took it for granted the baker's dozen of natives I had with me knew what they were about. Snow was everywhere, and we were mounting up, up, up, on wheels, but I supposed the highest altitude was only four or five miles away, and that the down grade would be easy until we reached some snug inn where we would find shelter for man and beast. Then an early start by daylight and our novel jaunt would come to an end in civilization and a railway. But I did not know Spaniards, their country, the Pyrenees, nor what blizzards can blow in sunny Spain.
Myself and my servant Nunn trudged on alongside the cart with the women. It took an hour to get out of sight of the fonda, and then we struck a fine, wide military road that wound in and around the mountains, but always up and deep in snow. Three, four o'clock came and still no sign of the summit, but with the road winding in and out for miles ahead. The sky began to darken, and without warning down came the snow. Then frequent halts of the caravan to rest the cattle. Deeper grew the snow, and as the darkness began to settle down I realized the responsibility I had unwittingly taken on my shoulders. I had four delicate women in my forlorn party and found myself fast in the midst of a snowstorm, in a wild pass of the Pyrenees. I recognized one blessing, however, and was profoundly grateful—the air was calm—and though the snow fell thick and fast it was not driven by a storm.
Nunn proved to be thoroughly reliable, helpful and full of cheer. Between us we kept up the spirits of the party. But all hands began to grow hungry. Fortunately I had in my baggage a large pate de foie gras. That is a fat goose liver pie, and it was fat, happily so, as it went the further. Then I got rugs and wraps out of my trunks for the women and a couple of bottles of brandy, and administered liberal doses all round. I soon had them happy and full of courage. It was certainly better to have them full of Dutch courage in a fool's paradise than to have them awake to their position, for I quite expected it would end in a night camp-out in the snow and sending an empty cart for supplies. Two hours after dark we came to a dead halt, and my guides—they were beauties—said they could go no further; the oxen could not pull the carts. There was a fonda, they said, two miles away, but did not show any disposition to help to get there, and for that matter did not seem to care whether we did or not. I ordered them to leave the middle cart behind and divide the teams, one team to be added to the front cart and one to be hitched in front of the mules. Our interpreter was one of the Portuguese women, but we did not get on very well, the Spaniards objecting to anything being done, all of them apparently waiting for the Virgin or some of the saints to come to our aid; but as neither did, Nunn and I were exasperated, and finally took the matter into our own hands. By my orders, despite the energetic protests of the drivers, he unhitched the oxen from the middle team, and between us we got them to the mule cart, hitched them in front of the mules and pulled out and past the other carts. Here the Spaniards halted us, and after an angry altercation in the dark—and it was dark—they agreed to go on. So, taking a yoke of oxen from our cart, they were put in front of the four of the first cart, and off we started. Nunn volunteered to stand by and guard the stranded cart; so giving him two blankets and a little brandy we drove off in the darkness. But not until, in sight of all, I had given him a revolver, and each of the unlucky thirteen a good nip of brandy. My anxiety about serious results was over as soon we started, and in an hour and a half we halted in front of a wretched mountain inn, patronized by muleteers, with the first story for a stable, but none of us were disposed to be particular. A supper of Spanish beans was soon ready, and then a bed was made up on the floor, and the women were soon asleep. After seeing that the mules and oxen were fed, I took half an hour's nap. Then with two drivers we started back, taking three yoke of oxen. What a tramp I had back through the snow and storm! I was very happy, however, for I knew my wife and party were safely sheltered, and the excitement of action kept one from being gloomy.
In due time we found our stray, hitched to and started, but it was hard pulling and the exhausted oxen had to come to frequent halts. At last, just as I was beginning to feel tired, we came to the fonda.
The snow had slackened, but the wind was beginning to blow, so Nunn and I carried all the luggage and traps into a corner of the stable below, and tumbling down into the hay we were soon in the land of dreams. In my dreams I was on a shoreless sea in a bark that silently and swiftly circled around. Dark clouds closed in on all sides, while my boat sailed between ever-narrowing walls, the clouds still closing in, until a giant hand grew out from a ragged edge of the cloud wall, which, seizing the prow of my boat, pulled it into the gloom and darkness. I felt the clouds brushing my cheek. I heard the roar of falling water, and felt that my doom was sealed. I thought of my wife, and, trying to call her name, was dumb. I looked behind. Far off and far up there was a glow of rosy light, and within the aureole was her face, full of sorrow, looking at me with pity in every feature. As I looked, her face was slowly eclipsed by a cloud. Then with one cry I plunged into the sea—and awoke.
That dream would easily have joined the long procession of forgotten dreams, but it was recalled many a time during many years. And, try as I might, I felt it to be a portent and a prophecy.
When I awoke in the morning I was dumfounded to find a blizzard blowing that the cattle could not face, and with every appearance of continuance. In reply to my inquiries I learned they sometimes blew in those altitudes for a week. This was unpleasant news for me, and the prospect made me nervous. It was now Thursday, the fourth day since our departure from Paris. And what might have happened in London in that time! Here was I as completely isolated from the outside world and from all news about my companions in England as if on a desert isle. For all I knew discovery might have been made, and full details of the fraud might be blazing in the press of Europe. I began to fear I had run into a trap. To make matters worse, the steamer El Rey Felipe was advertised to sail Monday from Cadiz, and to miss her seemed danger indeed.
PRISONERS WAITING TRIAL, AT NEWGATE, RECEIVING VISITORS.
I was a prisoner in a wretched inn in a defile of the Pyrenees, with a civil war raging, and no telling what might arise to detain us. Our objective point was only some thirty-five miles away, but with roads deep in snow, with wretched cattle and more wretched Spaniards for drivers, there was poor prospect of making headway. I felt it would never do for me to suffer longer detention.
I determined to leave my wife and baggage in charge of Nunn, to put the $120,000 I had in a bag and start back to the French frontier, cross into France and catch the Saturday steamer from Havre to New York, explaining to my wife that important business demanded my presence in America, that she could follow on the next steamer and that I would meet her on arrival.
In the mean time my unlucky thirteen were happy. For were they not sheltered, with plenty of food and high wages, all out of the pocket of the great lord the Virgin herself must have sent to them? In fact, they were winning from me what to them was a fortune. I was paying each man a dollar a day and $5 for each team and cart.
From my experience I must give the Spaniards a good name for honesty. Of course, they were charging me cut-throat prices, but they were poor, and wealthy lords did not often come their way. Aside from that they were very honest. Many things, such as rugs, shawls, lunch baskets, dressing cases, etc., that must have seemed of value to them, lay around everywhere, but not a single article was missing during the entire trip.
All day long the blizzard blew. It was a novel situation, and how I should have enjoyed it had I only possessed that greatest of all blessings—a good conscience! As it was, I was in misery, and could find no peace, not even in my wife's smiles and evident content to be anywhere with me.
I saw that the cattle were well cared for and that the men had both food and wine. Then my servant skirmished around and decapitated sundry chickens he found. So we had roast chicken three times a day, and as I had a case of brandy in my luggage, we did not suffer. Nunn roasted the chickens, made the punch, got the Spanish men and women to dance for our entertainment, and made himself generally of service. About midnight the storm broke up, and to my great satisfaction the stars came out. That night I slept in the same room with the women, with a sheet hung between us.
At 5 o'clock I had all hands up and breakfast under way. I ordered the drivers and hangers on to have the teams hitched up and ready at daylight. They all ate breakfast heartily enough, but were not zealous about starting out. They made all sorts of pretexts and excuses to avoid leaving their comfortable quarters. Certainly the road was not an inviting prospect, there being quite eighteen inches of snow, but I was determined to start one way or the other, either south with the party or north alone. After long argument they, thinking they had me at their mercy, refused to hitch up the cattle to make the attempt. I at once paid and dismissed them all. Determining to set out immediately alone for the French frontier, carrying only a small bag slung over my shoulder, and concealing the bonds and paper money on my person, I would leave the greater part of the gold in charge of my wife. I knew Nunn would be a trusty guard to her.
I had not given her any intimation of my purpose, but got my bag ready, and, secreting about me the bonds and paper money, I took my wife into a room, and, first telling her she must be very brave, explained my plan, pointing out I must not miss the Saturday steamer. She should follow on the next, and I would leave her $20,000. But she pleaded to go with me, said she would be no encumbrance, would ride mule-back to the railway, no matter how far away. I then called Nunn and told him I should leave him in charge of the baggage, and that we were going to set out at once. I praised his fidelity, and informed him I would make him a present when he arrived all safe in New York with the baggage. But when the sick man and his family were told we were going they raised a howl. The women all hung on me crying and imploring me not to leave them to despair and death. They would all perish, etc.
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I had secured a good saddle mule, but with a man's saddle, and my wife was sensible enough not to make an outcry over the prospect of a ride man-fashion. She came out warmly clad and mounted the mule, and I strapped some rugs and a bundle of lunch behind the saddle. The owner of the mule was at his head, halter in hand, ready to lead off. The entire population were out staring open-mouthed. I delivered a speech to my lucky-unlucky thirteen, telling them in the best way I could that I was going in order to deliver them all over to the vengeance of the military chief of the district. That I should accuse them as robbers and thieves, and that they might look for anguish that would wring their hearts and souls.
They were greatly moved, and, pulling out my watch, I informed them by pantomime and bad Spanish that if they got the teams in harness and the luggage all packed on the carts in twenty minutes I would take them into my favor and resume our journey southward.
Spaniards are proverbially slow. But these Spaniards were not slow, and a very few minutes saw us all once more mounted on our cart, with the two baggage carts following, and on our rocky way southward.