The narrow strip of land that lay
between him and the estuary was covered at
high tide by, a shining film of water, at low
tide with the cast-up offerings of sea and
shore. <...> In any other community he
might have been the subject of rumor or criticism, but the
miners at Camp Rogue and the traders at Trinidad Head,
themselves individual and eccentric, were profoundly indifferent to all other forms of eccentricity or heterodoxy
that did not come in contact with their own. <...> And certainly
there was no form of eccentricity less aggressive than that
of a hermit, had they chosen to give him that appellation. <...> To the various traders who supplied his
small wants be was known as «Kernel,» «Judge», and
«Boss.» To the general public «The Man on the Beach»
4
Drift from Two Shores
was considered a sufficiently distinguishing title. <...> Whether this arose from a fear of reciprocal
inquiry and interest, or from the profound indifference before referred to, I cannot say. <...> His dwelling, a rude improvement on a fisherman's cabin, had all the severe exterior simplicity of frontier architecture, but within it was
comfortable and wholesome. <...> He
had lived there long enough to see the dull monotony of
one season lapse into the dull monotony of the other. <...> The damp gray sea
that flowed above and around and about him always
seemed to shut out an intangible world beyond, and to be
the only real presence. <...> The booming of breakers scarce a
dozen rods from his dwelling was but a vague and unin5
Bret Harte
telligible sound, or the echo of something past forever. <...> The first sense of oppression over, he came to love at last
this subtle spirit of oblivion; and at night, when its cloudy
wings were folded over his cabin, he would sit alone with
a sense of security he had never felt before. <...> On such occasions he was apt to leave his door open, and listen as for
footsteps; for what might not come to him out of this
vague, nebulous world beyond? <...> For night and day, sleeping or waking, pacing the beach or crouching over his driftwood fire,
a woman's face was always before him, — him face for
whose sake and for cause of whom he sat <...>
Drift_from_two_shores.pdf
Drift from Two
Shores
by
Bret Harte
McKinlay, Stone & Mackenzie
New York
Стр.1
CONTENTS
I
THE MAN ON THE BEACH .......................................... 4
TWO SAINTS OF THE FOOT-HILLS.......................... 40
JINNY............................................................................. 54
ROGER CATRON’S FRIEND....................................... 64
WHO WAS MY QUIET FRIEND?................................ 78
A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS....................................... 88
THE HOODLUM BAND............................................... 97
II
THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT EASY........... 116
MY FRIEND THE TRAMP......................................... 124
THE MAN FROM SOLANO....................................... 136
THE OFFICE SEEKER................................................ 145
A SLEEPING-CAR EXPERIENCE............................. 160
FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.......................... 168
WITH THE ENTRÉES................................................. 174
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Bret Harte
I
THE MAN ON THE BEACH
I
E lived beside a river that emptied into a
great ocean. The narrow strip of land that lay
between him and the estuary was covered at
high tide by, a shining film of water, at low
tide with the cast-up offerings of sea and
shore. Logs yet green, and saplings washed away from
inland banks, battered fragments of wrecks and orange
crates of bamboo, broken into tiny rafts yet odorous with
their lost freight, lay in long successive curves, the fringes
and overlappings of the sea. At high noon the shadow of a
sea-gull's wing, or a sudden flurry and gray squall of
sandpipers, themselves but shadows, was all that broke the
monotonous glare of the level sands.
He had lived there alone for a twelvemonth. Although
but a few miles from a thriving settlement, during
that time his retirement had never been intruded upon, his
seclusion remained unbroken. In any other community he
might have been the subject of rumor or criticism, but the
miners at Camp Rogue and the traders at Trinidad Head,
themselves individual and eccentric, were profoundly indifferent
to all other forms of eccentricity or heterodoxy
that did not come in contact with their own. And certainly
there was no form of eccentricity less aggressive than that
of a hermit, had they chosen to give him that appellation.
But they did not even do that, probably from lack of interest
or perception. To the various traders who supplied his
small wants be was known as «Kernel,» «Judge», and
«Boss.» To the general public «The Man on the Beach»
4
Стр.3
Drift from Two Shores
was considered a sufficiently distinguishing title. His
name, his occupation, rank, or antecedents, nobody cared
to inquire. Whether this arose from a fear of reciprocal
inquiry and interest, or from the profound indifference before
referred to, I cannot say.
He did not look like a hermit. A man yet young,
erect, well-dressed, clean-shaven, with a low voice; and a
smile half melancholy, half cynical, was scarcely the conventional
idea of a solitary. His dwelling, a rude improvement
on a fisherman's cabin, had all the severe exterior
simplicity of frontier architecture, but within it was
comfortable and wholesome. Three rooms — a kitchen, a
living-room, and a bedroom — were all it contained. He
had lived there long enough to see the dull monotony of
one season lapse into the dull monotony of the other. The
bleak northwest trade-winds had brought him mornings of
staring sunlight and nights of fog and silence. The warmer
southwest trades had brought him clouds, rain, and the
transient glories of quick grasses and odorous beach blossoms.
But summer or winter, wet or dry season, on one
side rose always the sharply defined hills with their
changeless background of evergreens; on the other side
stretched always the illimitable ocean as sharply defined
against the horizon, and as unchanging in its hue. The onset
of spring and autumn tides, some changes among his
feathered neighbors, the footprints of certain wild animals
along the river's bank, and the hanging out of parti-colored
signals from the wooded hillside far inland, helped him to
record the slow months. On summer afternoons, when the
sun sank behind a bank of fog that, moving solemnly
shoreward, at last encompassed him and blotted out sea
and sky, his isolation was complete. The damp gray sea
that flowed above and around and about him always
seemed to shut out an intangible world beyond, and to be
the only real presence. The booming of breakers scarce a
dozen rods from his dwelling was but a vague and unin5
Стр.4
Bret Harte
telligible sound, or the echo of something past forever.
Every rooming when the sun tore away the misty curtain
he awoke, dazed and bewildered, as upon a new world.
The first sense of oppression over, he came to love at last
this subtle spirit of oblivion; and at night, when its cloudy
wings were folded over his cabin, he would sit alone with
a sense of security he had never felt before. On such occasions
he was apt to leave his door open, and listen as for
footsteps; for what might not come to him out of this
vague, nebulous world beyond? Perhaps even she, — for
this strange solitary was not insane nor visionary. He was
never in spirit alone. For night and day, sleeping or waking,
pacing the beach or crouching over his driftwood fire,
a woman's face was always before him, — him face for
whose sake and for cause of whom he sat there alone. He
saw it in the morning sunlight; it was her white hands that
were lifted from the crested breakers; it was the rustling of
her skirt when the sea wind swept through the beach
grasses; it was the loving whisper of her low voice when
the long waves sank and died among the sedge and rushes.
She was as omnipresent as sea and sky and level sand.
Hence, when the fog wiped them away, she seemed to
draw closer to him in the darkness. On one or two more
gracious nights in midsummer, when the influence of the
fervid noonday sun was still felt on the heated sands, the
warm breath of the fog touched his cheek as if it had been
hers and the tears started to his eyes.
Before the fogs came — for he arrived there in
winter — he had found surcease and rest in the steady
glow of a light-house upon the little promontory a league
below his habitation. Even on the darkest nights, and in
the tumults of storm, it spoke to him of a patience that was
enduring and a steadfastness that was immutable. Later on
he found a certain dumb companionship in an uprooted
tree, which, floating down the river, had stranded hopelessly
upon his beach, but in the evening had again drifted
6
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