The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jeff Briggs's Love Story, by Bret Harte

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Title: Jeff Briggs's Love Story

Author: Bret Harte

Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2695]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Donald Lainson and David Widger

JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY

By Bret Harte

JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY.

I.

It was raining and blowing at Eldridge's Crossing. From the stately
pine-trees on the hill-tops, which were dignifiedly protesting through
their rigid spines upward, to the hysterical willows in the hollow, that
had whipped themselves into a maudlin fury, there was a general tumult.
When the wind lulled, the rain kept up the distraction, firing long
volleys across the road, letting loose miniature cataracts from the
hill-sides to brawl in the ditches, and beating down the heavy heads
of wild oats on the levels; when the rain ceased for a moment the wind
charged over the already defeated field, ruffled the gullies, scattered
the spray from the roadside pines, and added insult to injury. But both
wind and rain concentrated their energies in a malevolent attempt to
utterly disperse and scatter the "Half-way House," which seemed to
have wholly lost its way, and strayed into the open, where, dazed and
bewildered, unprepared and unprotected, it was exposed to the taunting
fury of the blast. A loose, shambling, disjointed, hastily built
structure--representing the worst features of Pioneer renaissance--it
rattled its loose window-sashes like chattering teeth, banged its
ill-hung shutters, and admitted so much of the invading storm, that it
might have blown up or blown down with equal facility.

Jefferson Briggs, proprietor and landlord of the "Half-way House," had
just gone through the formality of closing his house for the night,
hanging dangerously out of the window in the vain attempt to subdue a
rebellious shutter that had evidently entered into conspiracy with the
invaders, and, shutting a door as against a sheriff's posse, was going
to bed--i. e., to read himself asleep, as was his custom. As he entered
his little bedroom in the att