Young Robin Gray

"Young Robin Gray" is a short story by Bret Harte that follows the life of a young man named Robin Gray, who is deeply in love with his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful and spirited Mary. Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, Robin faces various challenges and societal expectations as he navigates the complexities of love, duty, and personal ambition. The narrative highlights themes of romance, sacrifice, and the impact of the gold rush on relationships, all woven into Harte's signature style of vivid characters and rich regional detail. As Robin's journey unfolds, readers are drawn into a poignant tale of longing and resilience.

• Short story

								
The good American barque Skyscraper was swinging at her moorings in
the Clyde, off Bannock, ready for sea. But that good American
barque--although owned in Baltimore--had not a plank of American timber
in her hulk, nor a native American in her crew, and even her nautical
"goodness" had been called into serious question by divers of that
crew during her voyage, and answered more or less inconclusively
with belaying-pins, marlin-spikes, and ropes' ends at the hands of an
Irish-American captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much so, that
the mysterious powers of the American consul at St. Kentigern had been
evoked to punish mutiny on the one hand, and battery and starvation
on the other; both equally attested by manifestly false witness and
subornation on each side. In the exercise of his functions the consul
had opened and shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual
sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final
visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a
feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his
head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck.
The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river
beyond the "measured mile"; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near
the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance
that secured immunity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear.

"Now that job's over ye'll be takin' a partin' dhrink," suggested the
captain.

The consul thought not. Certain incidents of "the job" were fresh in his
memory, and he proposed to limit himself to his strict duty.

"You have some passengers, I see," he said, pointing to a group of two
men and a young girl, who had apparently just come aboard.

"Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein'
him off, I'm thinkin'," returned the captain, surveying them somewhat
contemptuously.

The consul was a little disturbed. He wondered if the passenger knew
anything of the quality and reputation of the ship to which he was
entrusting his fortunes. But he was only a PASSENGER, and the consul's
functions--like those of the aloft-sitting cherub of nautical song--were
restricted exclusively to looking after "Poor Jack." However, he asked a
few further questions, eliciting the fact that the stranger had already
visited the ship with letters from the eminently respectable consignees
at St. Kentigern, and contented himself with lingering near them. The
young girl was accompanied by her father, a respectably rigid-looking
middle-class tradesman, who, however, seemed to be more interested in
the novelty of his surroundings than in the movements of his daughter
and their departing friend. So it chanced that the consul re-entered
the cabin--ostensibly in search of a missing glove, but really with the
intention of seeing how the passenger was bestowed--just behind them.
But to his great embarrassment he at once perceived that, owing to the
obscurity of the apartment, they had not noticed him, and before he
could withdraw, the man had passed his arm around the young girl's half
stiffened, yet half yielding figure.

"Only one, Ailsa," he pleaded in a slow, serious voice, pathetic from
the very absence of any youthful passion in it; "just one now. It'll be
gey lang before we meet again. Ye'll not refuse me now."

The young girl's lips seemed to murmur some protest that, however, was
lost in the beginning of a long and silent kiss.

The consul slipped out softly. His smile had died away. That
unlooked-for touch of human weakness seemed to purify the stuffy and
evil-reeking cabin, and the recollection of its brutal past to drop with
a deck-load of iniquity behind him to the bottom of the Clyde. It is
to be feared that in his unofficial moments he was inclined to be
sentimental, and it seemed to him that the good ship Skyscraper
henceforward carried an innocent freight not mentioned in her manifest,
and that a gentle, ever-smiling figure, not entered on her books, had
invisibly taken a place at her wheel.

But he was recalled to himself by a slight altercation on deck. The
young girl and the passenger had just returned from the cabin. The
consul, after a discreetly careless pause, had lifted his eyes to the
young girl's face, and saw that it was singularly pretty in color and
outline, but perfectly self-composed and serenely unconscious. And he
was a little troubled to observe that the passenger was a middle-aged
man, whose hard features were already considerably worn with trial and
experience.

Both he and the girl were listening with sympathizing but cautious
interest to her father's contention with the boatman who had brought
them from shore, and who was now inclined to demand an extra fee for
returning with them. The boatman alleged that he had been detained
beyond "kirk time," and that this imperiling of his salvation could
only be compensated by another shilling. To the consul's surprise,
this extraordinary argument was recognized by the father, who, however,
contented himself by simply contending that it had not been stipulated
in the bargain. The issue was, therefore, limited, and the discussion
progressed slowly and deliberately, with a certain calm dignity and
argumentative satisfaction on both sides that exalted the subject,
though it irritated the captain.

"If ye accept the premisses that I've just laid down, that it's a
contract"---began the boatman.

"Dry up! and haul off," said the captain.

"One moment," interposed the consul, with a rapid glance at the slight
trouble in the young girl's face. Turning to the father, he went on:
"Will you allow me to offer you and your daughter a seat in my boat?"

It was an unlooked-for and tempting proposal. The boatman was lazily
lying on his oars, secure in self-righteousness and the conscious
possession of the only available boat to shore; on the other hand, the
smart gig of the consul, with its four oars, was not only a providential
escape from a difficulty, but even to some extent a quasi-official
endorsement of his contention. Yet he hesitated.

"It'll be costin' ye no more?" he said interrogatively, glancing at the
consul's boat crew, "or ye'll be askin' me a fair proportion."

"It will be the gentleman's own boat," said the girl, with a certain shy
assurance, "and he'll be paying his boatmen by the day."

The consul hastened to explain that their passage would involve no
additional expense to anybody, and added, tactfully, that he was glad to
enable them to oppose extortion.

"Ay, but it's a preencipel," said the father proudly, "and I'm pleased,
sir, to see ye recognize it."

He proceeded to help his daughter into the boat without any further
leave-taking of the passenger, to the consul's great surprise, and with

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