The Bell-Ringer of Angel's Page #10

"The Bell-Ringer of Angel's" is a short story by Bret Harte that revolves around the life of a mysterious bell-ringer in the mining town of Angel's Camp. Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, the story explores themes of love, identity, and community. The protagonist, whose bell-ringing serves as a harbinger of events, becomes intertwined with the lives of the townspeople, revealing their dreams and struggles. Harte's vivid storytelling captures the spirit of the West while delving into the complexities of human relationships in a rapidly changing environment.

• Short story

								


He was brought up cruelly maimed and mangled, his ribs crushed, and one
lung perforated, but still breathing and conscious. He had asked to see
the preacher. Death impending, and even then struggling with his breath,
made this request imperative. Madison Wayne stopped the service, and
stalked grimly and inflexibly to where the dying man lay. But there he
started.

"McGee!" he said breathlessly.

"Send these men away," said McGee faintly. "I've got suthin' to tell
you."

The men drew back without a word. "You thought I was dead," said McGee,
with eyes still undimmed and marvelously clear. "I orter bin, but it
don't need no doctor to say it ain't far off now. I left the Bar to get
killed; I tried to in a row, but the fellows were skeert to close with
me, thinkin' I'd shoot. My reputation was agin me, there! You follow me?
You understand what I mean?"

Kneeling beside him now and grasping both his hands, the changed and
horror-stricken Wayne gasped, "But"--

"Hold on! I jumped off the Sacramento boat--I was goin' down the third
time--they thought on the boat I was gone--they think so now! But a
passin' fisherman dived for me. I grappled him--he was clear grit and
would have gone down with me, but I couldn't let him die too--havin' so
to speak no cause. You follow me--you understand me? I let him save me.
But it was all the same, for when I got to 'Frisco I read as how I was
drowned. And then I reckoned it was all right, and I wandered HERE,
where I wasn't known--until I saw you."

"But why should you want to die?" said Wayne, almost fiercely. "What
right have you to die while others--double-dyed and blood-stained, are
condemned to live, 'testify,' and suffer?"

The dying man feebly waved a deprecation with his maimed hand, and even
smiled faintly. "I knew you'd say that. I knew what you'd think about
it, but it's all the same now. I did it for you and Safie! I knew I was
in the way; I knew you was the man she orter had; I knew you was the man
who had dragged her outer the mire and clay where I was leavin' her, as
you did when she fell in the water. I knew that every day I lived I was
makin' YOU suffer and breakin' HER heart--for all she tried to be gentle
and gay."

"Great God in heaven! Will you stop!" said Wayne, springing to his feet
in agony. A frightened look--the first that any one had ever seen in
the clear eyes of the Bell-ringer of Angel's--passed over them, and he
murmured tremulously: "All right--I'm stoppin'!"

So, too, was his heart, for the wonderful eyes were now slowly glazing.
Yet he rallied once more--coming up again the third time as it seemed
to Wayne--and his lips moved slowly. The preacher threw himself
despairingly on the ground beside him.

"Speak, brother! For God's sake, speak!"

It was his last whisper--so faint it might have been the first of his
freed soul. But he only said:--

"You're--followin'--me? You--understand--what--I--mean?"
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