THE CRIMSON FLAG

Talk and think as one would, The Woman was striking to see; with
marvellous flaxen hair and a joyous violet eye. She was all pulse and
dash; but she was as much less beautiful than the manager's wife as Tom
Liffey was as nothing beside the manager himself; and one would care
little to name the two women in the same breath if the end had been
different. When The Woman came to Little Goshen there were others of her
class there, but they were of a commoner sort and degree. She was the
queen of a lawless court, though she never, from first to last, spoke to
one of those others who were her people; neither did she hold commerce
with any of the ordinary miners, save Pretty Pierre, but he was more
gambler than miner,--and he went, when the matter was all over, and told
her some things that stripped her soul naked before her eyes. Pierre had
a wonderful tongue. It was only the gentlemen-diggers--and there were
many of them at Little Goshen--who called upon her when the lights were
low; and then there was a good deal of muffled mirth in the white house
among the pines. The rougher miners made no quarrel with this, for the
gentlemen-diggers were popular enough, they were merely sarcastic and
humorous, and said things which, coming to The Woman's ears, made her
very merry; for she herself had an abundant wit, and had spent wild hours
with clever men. She did not resent the playful insolence that sent a
dozen miners to her house in the dead of night with a crimson flag, which
they quietly screwed to her roof; and paint, with which they deftly put a
wide stripe of scarlet round the cornice, and another round the basement.
In the morning, when she saw what had been done, she would not have the
paint removed nor the flag taken down; for, she said, the stripes looked
very well, and the other would show that she was always at home.