portions that happen to escape their ears. Consequently, I desired Marble and Talcott to follow me; and, incontinently, I led the way into the main-top. I was obeyed, the second-mate having the watch, and all three of us were soon seated with our legs over the top-rim, as comfortable as so many gossips, who had just finished their last cups, have stirred the fire, and drawn their heads together to open a fresh-budget. Neither Sarah nor Jane could follow us, thank God!
“There, d–n ’em” said I, a little pointedly; for it was enough to make a much more, scrupulous person swear, “we’ve got the length of the main-rigging between us, and I do not think they’ll venture into the top, this fine morning, in order to overhear what shall be said. It would puzzle even Wallace Mortimer to do that, Talcott.”
“If they do,” observed Talcott, laughing, “we can retreat to the cross-trees, and thence to the royal-yard.”
Marble looked inquisitive, but, at the same time, he looked knowing.
“I understand,” he said, with a nod; “three people with six sets of ears–is it not so, Miles?”
“Precisely; though you only do them credit by halves, for you should have added to this inventory forty tongues.”
“Well, that is a large supply. The man, or woman, who is so well provided, should carry plenty of ballast. However, as you say, they’re out of hail now, and must guess at all they repeat, if repeating it can be called.”
“Quite as much as nine-tenths of what they give as coming from others,” observed Talcott. “People never can tell so much of other person’s affairs, without bailing out most of their ideas from their own scuttle-butts.”
“Well, let them go to–Bordeaux–” said I, “since they are bound there. And now, my dear Marble, here we are, and dying to know all that has happened to you. You have firm friends in Talcott and myself; either of us, ready to give you his berth for the asking.”
“Thank’ee, my dear boys–thank’ee, with all my heart and soul,” returned the honest fellow, dashing the moisture from his eyes, with the back of his hand. “I believe you would, boys; I do believe you would, one or both. I am glad, Miles, you came up into this bloody top, for I wouldn’t like to let your reg’lar ‘long-shore harpies see a man of my time of life, and one that has been to sea, now, man and boy, close on to forty years, with as much blubber about him, as one of your right whales. Well–and now for the log; for I suppose you’ll insist on overhauling it, lads?”
“That we shall; and see you miss no leaf of it. Be as particular as if it were overhauled in an insurance case.”
“Ay; they’re bloody knaves, sometimes, them underwriters; und a fellow need be careful to get his dues out of them–that is to say, _some_; others, ag’in, are gentlemen, down to their shoe-buckles, and no sooner see a poor shipwrecked devil, than they open their tills, and begin to count out, before he has opened his mouth.”
“Well, but your own adventures, my old friend; you forget we are dying with curiosity.”
“Ay–your cur’osity’s a troublesome inmate, and will never be quiet as long as one tries to keep it under hatches; especially female cur’osity. Well, I must gratify you; and so I’ll make no more bones about it, though its giving an account of my own obstinacy and folly. I reckon, now, my boys, you missed me the day the ship sailed from the island?”
“That we did, and supposed you had got tired of your experiment before it began,” I answered, “so were off, before we were ourselves.”
“You had reason for so thinking; though you were out in your reckoning, too. No; it happened in this fashion. After you left me, I began to generalize over my sitiation, and I says to myself, says I, ‘Moses Marble, them lads will never consent to sail and leave you here, on this island, alone like a bloody hermit,’ says I. ‘If you want to hold on,’ says I, ‘and try your hand at a hermitage,’ says I, ‘or to play Robinson Crusoe,’ says I, ‘you must be out, of the way when the Crisis, sails’–boys, what’s become of the old ship? Not a word have I heard about her, yet!”
“She was loading for London, when we sailed, her owners intending to send her the same voyage over again.”
“And they refused to let you have her, Miles, on account of your youth, notwithstanding all you did for them?”
“Not so; they pressed me to keep her, but I preferred a ship of my own. The Dawn is my property, Master Moses!”
“Thank God! then there is one honest chap among the owners. And how did she behave? Had you any trouble with the pirates?”
Perceiving the utter uselessness of attempting to hear his own story before I rendered an account of the Crisis, and her exploits, I gave Marble a history of our voyage, from the time we parted down to the day we reached New York.
“And that scaramouch of a schooner that the Frenchman gave us, in his charity?”
“The Pretty Poll! She got home safe, was sold, and is now in the West-India trade. There is a handsome balance, amounting to some fourteen hundred dollars, in the owners’ hands, coming to you from prize-money and wages.”
It is not in nature, for any man to be sorry he has money. I saw by Marble’s eyes, that this sum, so unusually large for him to possess, formed a new tie to the world, and that he fancied himself a much happier man in possessing it. He looked at me earnestly, for quite a minute, and then remarked, I make no doubt with sincere regret–
“Miles, if I had a mother living, now, that money might make her old age comfortable! It seems that they who have no mothers, have money, and they who have no money, have mothers.”
I waited a moment for Marble to recover his self-command, and then urged him to continue his story.
“I was telling you how I generalized over my sitiation,” resumed the ex-mate, “as soon as I found myself alone in the hut. I came to the conclusion that I should be carried off by force, if I remained till next day; and so I got into the launch, carried her out of the lagoon, taking care to give the ship a berth, went through the reef, and kept turning to windward, until day-break. By that time, the island was quite out of sight, though I saw the upper sails of the ship, as soon as you got her under way. I kept the top-gallant-sails in sight, until I made the island, again; and as you went off, I ran in, and took possession of my dominions, with no one to dispute my will, or to try to reason me out of my consait.”
“I am glad to hear you term that notion a conceit, for, certainly, it was not reason. You soon discovered your mistake, my old mess-mate, and began to think of home.”
“I soon discovered, Miles, that if I had neither father, nor mother, brother nor sister, that I had a country and friends. The bit of marble on which I was found in the stone-cutter’s yard, then seemed as dear to me as a gold cradle is to a king’s son; and I thought of you, and all the rest of you–nay, I yearned after you, as a mother would yearn for her children.”
“Poor fellow, you were solitary enough, I dare say–had you no amusement with your pigs and poultry?”
“For a day or two, they kept me pretty busy. But, by the end of a week, I discovered that pigs and poultry were not made to keep company with man. I had consaited that I could pass the rest of my days in the bosom of my own family, like any other man who had made, his fortune and retired; but, I found my household too small for such a life as that. My great mistake was in supposing that the Marble family could be happy in its own circle.”
This was said bitterly, though it was said drolly, and, while it made
Talcott and myself laugh, it also made us sorry.
“I fell into another mistake, however, boys,” Marble continued, “and it might as well be owned. I took it into my head that I should be all alone on the island, but I found to my cost, that the devil insisted on having his share. I’ll tell you how it is, Miles; a man must either look ahead, or look astarn; there is no such thing as satisfying himself with the present moorings. Now, this was my misfortune; for, ahead I had nothing to look forward to; and astarn, what comfort had I in overhauling past sins!”
“I think I can understand your difficulties, my friend; how did you manage to get rid of them?”
“I left the island. You had put the Frenchman’s launch in capital condition, and all I had to do was to fill up the breakers with fresh water, kill a hog and salt him away, put on board a quantity of biscuit, and be off. As for eatables, you know there was no scarcity on the island, and I took my choice. I make no doubt there are twenty hogsheads of undamaged sugars, at this very moment, in the hold of that wreck, and on the beach of the island. I fed my poultry on it, the whole time I staid.”
“And so you abandoned Marble Land to the pig’s and the fowls?”
“I did, indeed, Miles; and I hope the poor creaturs will have a comfortable time of it. I gave ’em what the lawyers call a quit-claim, and sailed two months to a day after you went off in the Crisis.”
“I should think, old shipmate, that your voyage must have been as solitary and desperate as your life ashore.”
“I’m amazed to hear, you say that. I’m never solitary at sea, one has so much to do in taking care of his craft; and then he can always look forward to the day he’ll get in. But this generalizing, night and day, without any port ahead, and little comfort in looking astarn, will soon fit a man for Bedlam. I just: weathered Cape Crazy, I can tell you, lads; and that, too, in the white water! As for my v’y’ge being desperate, what was there to make it so, I should like to know?”
“You must have been twelve or fifteen hundred miles from any island where you could look forward to anything like safety; and that is a distance one would rather not travel all alone on the high seas.”
“Pshaw! all consait. You’re getting notional, Miles, now you’re a master and owner. What’s a run of a thousand or fifteen hundred miles, in a tight boat, and with plenty of grub and water? It was the easiest matter in the world; and if it warn’t for that bloody Cape Horn, I should have made as straight a wake for Coenties’ Slip, as the trending of the land would have allowed. As it was, I turned to windward, for I knew the savages to leeward weren’t to be trusted. You see, it was as easy as working out a day’s work. I kept the boat on a wind all day, and long bits of the night, too, until I wanted sleep; and then I hove her to, under a reefed mainsail, and slept as sound as a lord. I hadn’t an uncomfortable moment, after I got outside of the reef again; and the happiest hour of my life was that in which I saw the tree-tops of the island dip.”
“And how long were you navigating in this manner, and what land did you first make?”
“Seven weeks, though I made half a dozen islands, every one of them just such a looking object as that I had left. You weren’t about to catch me ashore again in any of them miserable places! I gave the old boat a slap, and promised to stick by her as long as she would stick by me, and I kept my word. I saw savages, moreover, on one or two of the islands, and gave them a berth, having no fancy for being barbacued.”
“And where did you finally make your land-fall?”
“Nowhere, so; far as the launch was concerned. I fell in with a Manilla ship, bound to Valparaiso, and got on board her; and sorry enough was I for the change, when I came to find out how they lived. The captain took me in, however, and I worked my passage into port. Finding no ship likely to sail soon, I entered with a native who was about to cross the Andes, bound over on this side, for the east coast. Don’t you remember, Miles, monsters of mountains that we could see, a bit inland, and covered with snow, all along the west side of South America? You must remember the chaps I mean?”
“Certainly–they are much too plain, and objects much too striking, ever to be forgotten, when once seen.”
“Well them’s the Andes; and rough customers they be, let me tell you, boys. You know there is little amusement in a sailor’s walking on the levellest ‘arth and handsomest highways, on account of the bloody ups and downs a fellow meets with; and so you may get some idee of the time we had of it, when I tell you, had all the seas we saw in the last blow been piled on top of each other, they would have made but a large pancake, compared to them ‘ere Andes. Natur’ must have outdone herself in making ’em; and when they were thrown together, what good comes of it all? Such mountains might be of some use in keeping the French and English apart; but you leave nothing but bloody Spaniards on one side of them Andes, and find bloody Spaniards and Portugeese on the other. However, we found our way over them, and brought up at a place called Buenos Ayres, from which I worked my passage round to Rio in a coaster. At Rio, you know, I felt quite at home, having stopped in there often, in going backward and forward.”
“And thence you took passage in the Dundee for London, intending to get a passage home by the first opportunity?”
“It needs no witch to tell that. I had to scull about Rio for several months, doing odd jobs as a rigger, and the like of that, until, finding no Yankee came in, I got a passage in a Scotchman. I’ll not complain of Sawney, who was kind enough to me as a shipwrecked mariner; for that was the character I sailed under, hermits being no way fashionable among us Protestants, though it’s very different among them Catholic chaps, I can tell you. I happened to mention to a landlady on the road, that I was a sort of a hermit on his travels; when I thought the poor woman would have gone down on her knees and worshipped me.”
Here then was the history of Moses Marble, and the end of the colony of Marble Land, pigs and poultry excepted. It was now my turn to be examined. I had to answer fifty curious inquiries, some of which I found sufficiently embarrassing. When, in answer to his interrogatories, Marble learned that the Major and Miss Merton had actually been left at Clawbonny, I saw the ex-mate wink at Talcott, who smiled in reply. Then, where was Rupert, and how came on the law? The farm and mills were not forgotten; and, as for Neb, he was actually ordered up into the top, in order that there might be another shake of the hand, and that he might answer for himself. In a word, nothing could be more apparent than the delight of Marble at finding himself among us once more. I believed even then, that the man really loved me; and the reader will remember how long we had sailed together, and how much we had seen in company. More than once did my old shipmate dash the tears from his eyes, as he spoke of his satisfaction.
“I say, Miles–I say, Roger,” he cried–“this is like being at home, and none of your bloody hermitages! Blast me, if I think, now, I should dare pass through a wood all alone. I’m never satisfied unless I see a fellow-creatur’, for fear of being left. I did pretty well with the Scotchman, who _has_ a heart, though it’s stowed away in oatmeal, but _this_ is _home._ I must ship as your steward, Miles, for hang on to you I will.”
“If we ever part, again, until one or both go into dock, it will be your fault, my old friend. If I have thought of you once, since we parted, I have dreamed of you fifty times! Talcott and I were talking of you in the late gale, and wondering what sail you would advise us to put the ship under.”
“The old lessons have not all been forgotten, boys; it was easy enough to see that. I said to myself, as you stood down upon us, ‘that chap has a real sea-dog aboard, as is plain by the manner in which he has everything snug, while he walks ahead like an owner in a hurry to be first in the market.'”
It was then agreed Marble should keep a watch; whenever it suited him, and that he should do just as he pleased aboard. At some future day, some other arrangement might be made, though he declared his intention to stick by the ship, and also announced a determination to be my first-mate for life, as soon as Talcott got a vessel, as doubtless he would, through the influence of his friends, as soon as he returned home. I laughed at all this, though I bade him heartily welcome, and then I nick-named him commodore, adding that he should sail with me in that capacity, doing just as much, and just as little duty as he pleased. As for money, there was a bag of dollars in the cabin, and he had only to put his hand in, and take what he wanted. The key of the locker was in my pocket, and could be had for asking. Nobody was more delighted with this arrangement than Neb, who had even taken a fancy to Marble, from the moment when the latter led him up from the steerage of the John, by the ear.
“I say, Miles, what sort of bloody animals are them passengers of your’s?” Marble next demanded, looking over the rim of the top, down at the trio on deck, with a good deal of curiosity expressed in his countenance. “This is the first time I ever knew a ship-master driven aloft by his passengers, in order to talk secrets!”
“That is because you never sailed with the Brigham family, my friend. They’ll pump you till you suck, in the first twenty-four hours, rely on it. They’ll get every fact about your birth, the island where you first saw me, what you have been about, and what you mean to do; in a word, the past, present, and future.”
“Leave me to overlay their cur’osity,” answered the ex-mate, or new commodore–“I got my hand in, by boarding six weeks with a Connecticut old maid, once, and I’ll defy the keenest questioner of them all.”
We had a little more discourse, when we all went below, and I introduced Marble to my passengers, as one who was to join our mess. After this, things went on in their usual train. In the course of the day, however, I overheard the following brief dialogue between Brigham and Marble, the ladies being much too delicate to question so rough a mariner.
“You came on board us, somewhat unexpectedly, I rather conclude, Captain Marble?” commenced the gentleman.
“Not in the least; I have been expecting to meet the Dawn, just about this spot, more than a month, now.”
“Well, that is odd! I do not comprehend how such a thing could well be foreseen?”
“Do you understand spherical trigonometry, sir?”
“I cannot say I am at all expert–I’ve looked into mathematics, but have no great turn for the study.”
“It would be hopeless, then, to attempt to explain the matter. If you had your hand in at the spherical, I could make it all as plain as the capstan.”
“You and Captain Wallingford must be somewhat old acquaintances, I conclude?”
“Somewhat,” answered Marble, very drily.
“Have you ever been at the place that he calls Clawbonny? A queer name, I rather think, Captain!”
“Not at all, sir. I know a place, down in the Eastern States, that was called Scratch and Claw, and a very pretty spot it was.”
“It’s not usual for us to the eastward, to give names to farms and places. It is done a little by the Boston folk, but they are notional, as everybody knows.”
“Exactly; I suppose it was for want of use, the chap I mean made out no better in naming his place.”
Mr. Brigham was no fool; he was merely a gossip. He took the hint, and asked no more questions of Marble. He tried Neb, notwithstanding; but the black having his orders, obeyed them so literally, that I really believe we parted in Bordeaux, a fortnight later, without any of the family’s making the least discovery. Glad enough was I to get rid of them; yet, brief as had been our intercourse, they produced a sensible influence on my future happiness. Such is the evil of this habit of loose talking, men giving credit to words conceived in ignorance and uttered in the indulgence of one of the most contemptible of all our propensities. To return to my ship.
We reached Bordeaux without any further accident, or delay. I discharged in the usual way, and began to look about me, for another freight. It had been my intention to return to New York, and to keep the festivities of attaining my majority, at Clawbonny; but, I confess the discourse of these eternal gossips, the Brighams, had greatly lessened the desire to see home again, so soon. A freight for New York was offered me, but I postponed an answer, until it was given to another ship. At length an offer was made me to go to Cronstadt, in Russia, with a cargo of wines and brandies, and I accepted it. The great and better informed merchants, as it would seem, distrusted the continuance of the hollow peace that then existed, and a company of them thought it might be well to transfer their liquors to the capital of the czar, in readiness for contingencies. An American ship was preferred, on account of her greater speed, as well as on account of her probable neutral character, in the event of troubles occurring at any unlooked-for moment. The Dawn took in her wines and brandies accordingly, and sailed for the Baltic about the last of August. She had a long, but a safe passage, delivering the freight according to the charter-party, in good condition. While at Cronstadt, the American consul, and the consignees of an American ship that had lost her master and chief-mate by the smallpox, applied to me to let Marble carry the vessel home. I pressed the offer on my old friend, but he obstinately refused to have anything to do with the vessel. I then recommended Talcott, and after some negotiation, the latter took charge of the Hyperion. I was sorry to part with my mate, to whom I had become strongly attached; but the preferment was so clearly to his advantage, that I could take no other course. The vessel being ready, she sailed the day after Talcott joined her; and, sorry am I to be compelled to add, that she was never heard of, after clearing the Cattegat. The equinox of that season was tremendously severe, and it caused the loss of many vessels; that of the Hyperion doubtless among the rest.
Marble insisted on taking Talcott’s place, and he now became my chief-mate, as I had once been his. After a little delay, I took in freight on Russian government account, and sailed for Odessa. It was thought the Sublime Porte would let an American through; but, after reaching the Dardanelles, I was ordered back, and was obliged to leave my cargo in Malta, which it was expected would be in possession of its own knights by that time, agreeably to the terms of the late treaty. From Malta I sailed for Leghorn, in quest of another freight. I pass over the details of these voyages, as really nothing worthy of being recorded occurred. They consumed a good deal of time; the delay at the Dardanelles alone exceeding six weeks, during which negotiations were going on up at Constantinople, but all in vain. In consequence of all these detentions, and the length of the passages, I did not reach Leghorn until near the close of March, I wrote to Grace and Mr. Hardinge, whenever a favourable occasion offered, but I did not get a letter from home, during the whole period. It was not in the power of my sister or guardian–_late_ guardian would be the most accurate expression, as I had been of age since the previous October–to write, it being impossible for me to let them know when, or where, a letter would find me. It followed, that while my friends at home were kept tolerably apprised of my movements, I was absolutely in the dark as respected them. That this ignorance gave me great concern, it would be idle to deny; yet, I had a species of desperate satisfaction in keeping aloof, and in leaving the course clear to Mr. Andrew Drewett. As respects substantials, I had sent a proper power of attorney to Mr. Hardinge, who, I doubted not, would take the same care of my temporal interests he had never ceased to do since the day of my beloved mother’s death.
Freights were not offering freely at Leghorn, when the Dawn arrived. After waiting a fortnight, however, I began to take in for America, and on American account. In the meantime, the cargo coming to hand slowly, I left Marble to receive it, and proceeded on a little excursion in Tuscany, or Etruria, as that part of the world was then called. I visited Pisa, Lucca, Florence, and several other intermediate towns. At Florence, I passed a week looking at sights, and amusing myself the best way I could. The gallery and the churches kept me pretty busy, and the reader will judge of my surprise one day, at hearing my own name uttered on a pretty high key, by a female voice, in the Duomo, or Cathedral of the place. On turning, I found myself in the presence of the Brighams! I was overwhelmed with questions in a minute. Where had I been? Where was Talcott? Where was the ship? When did I sail, and whither did I sail? After this came the communications. _They_ had been to Paris; had seen the French Consul, and had dined with Mr. R. N. Livingston, then negotiating the treaty of Louisiana; had seen the Louvre; had been to Geneva; had seen the Lake; had seen Mont Blanc; had crossed Mont Cenis; had been at Milan; Rome; had seen the Pope; Naples; had seen Vesuvius; had been at Paestum; had come back to Florence, and _nous voici!_ Glad enough was I, when I got them fairly within the gates of the City of the Lily. Next came America; from which part of the world they received such delightful letters! One from Mrs. Jonathan Little, a Salem lady then residing in New York, had just reached them. It contained four sheets, and was full of _news._ Then commenced the details; and I was compelled to listen to a string of gossip that connected nearly all the people of mark, my informants had ever heard of in the great _Commercial_ Emporium that was to be. How suitable is this name! Emporium would not have been sufficiently distinctive for a town in which “the merchants” are all in all; in which they must have the post-office; in which they support the nation by paying all the revenue; in which the sun must shine and the dew fall to suit their wants; and in which the winds, themselves, may be recreant to their duty, when they happen to be foul! Like the Holy Catholic Protestant Episcopal Church, Trading Commercial Trafficking Emporium should have been the style of such a place; and I hope, ere long, some of the “Manor Born” genii of that great town, will see the matter rectified.
“By the way, Captain Wallingford,” cut in Jane, at one of Sarah’s breathing intervals, that reminded me strongly of the colloquial Frenchman’s “_s’il crache il est perdu,_” “You know something of poor Mrs. Bradfort, I believe?”
I assented by a bow.
“It was just as we told you,” cried Sarah, taking her revenge. “The poor woman is dead! and, no doubt, of that cancer. What a frightful disease! and how accurate has our information been, in all that affair!”
“I think her will the most extraordinary of all,” added Mr. Brigham, who, as a man, kept an eye more to the main chance. “I suppose you have heard all about her will, Captain Wallingford?”
I reminded the gentleman that this was the first I had ever heard of the lady’s death.
“She has left every dollar to young Mr. Hardinge, her cousin’s son;” added Jane, “cutting off that handsome, genteel, young lady his sister, as well as her father, without a cent”–in 1803, they just began to speak of _cents_, instead of farthings–“and everybody says it was so cruel!”
“That is not the worst of it,” put in Sarah. “They _do_ say, Miss Merton, the English lady that made so much noise in New York–let me see, Mr. Brigham, what Earl’s grand-daughter did we hear she was?–“
This was a most injudicious question, as it gave the husband an opportunity to take the word out of her mouth.
“Lord Cumberland’s, I believe, or some such person—but, no matter whose. It is quite certain, General Merton, her father, consents to let her marry young Mr. Hardinge, now Mrs. Bradfort’s will is known; and, as for the sister, he declares he will never give her a dollar.”
“He will have sixteen thousand dollars a year,” said Jane, with emphasis.
“Six, my dear, six”–returned the brother, who had reasonably accurate notions touching dollars and cents, or he never would have been travelling in Italy; “six thousand dollars a year, was just Mrs. Bradfort’s income, as my old school-fellow Upham told me, and there isn’t another man in York, who can tell fortunes as true as himself. He makes a business of it, and don’t fail one time in twenty.”
“And is it quite certain that Mr. Rupert Hardinge gets all the fortune of Mrs. Bradfort?” I asked, with a strong effort to seem composed.
“Not the least doubt of it, in the world. Everybody is talking about it; and there cannot well be a mistake, you know, as it was thought the sister would be an heiress, and people generally take care to be pretty certain about that class. But, of course, a young man with that fortune will be snapped up, as a swallow catches a fly. I’ve bet Sarah a pair of gloves we hear of his marriage in three months.”
The Brighams talked an hour longer, and made me promise to visit them at their hotel, a place I could not succeed in finding. That evening, I left Florence for Leghorn, writing a note of apology, in order not to be rude. Of course, I did not believe half these people had told me; but a part, I made no doubt, was true. Mrs. Bradfort was dead, out of all question; and I thought it possible she might not so far have learned to distinguish between the merit of Lucy, and that of Rupert, to leave her entire fortune to the last. As for the declaration of the brother that he would give his sister nothing, that seemed to me to be rather strong for even Rupert. I knew the dear girl too well, and was certain she would not repine; and I was burning with the desire to be in the field, now she was again penniless.
What a change was this! Here were the Hardinges, those whom I had known as poor almost as dependants on my own family, suddenly enriched. I knew Mrs. Bradfort had a large six thousand a year, besides her own dwelling-house, which stood in Wall Street, a part of the commercial emporium that was just beginning to be the focus of banking, and all other monied operations, and which even then promised to become a fortune of itself. It is true, that old Daniel M’Cormick still held his levees on his venerable stoop, where all the heavy men in town used to congregate, and joke, and buy and sell, and abuse Boney; and that the Winthrops, the Wilkeses, the Jaunceys, the Verplancks, the Whites, the Ludlows, and other families of mark, then had their town residences in this well-known street; but coming events were beginning “to cast their shadows before,” and it was easy to foresee that this single dwelling might at least double Rupert’s income, under the rapid increase of the country and the town. Though Lucy was still poor, Rupert was now rich.
If family connection, that all-important and magical influence, could make so broad a distinction between us, while I was comparatively wealthy, and Lucy had nothing, what, to regard the worst side of the picture, might I not expect from it, when the golden scale preponderated on her side. That Andrew Drewett would still marry her, I began to fear again. Well, why not? I had never mentioned love to the sweet girl, fondly, ardently as I was attached to her; and what reason had I for supposing that one in her situation could reserve her affections for a truant sailor? I am afraid I was unjust enough to regret that this piece of good fortune should have befallen Rupert. He must do something for his sister, and every dollar seemed to raise a new barrier between us.
From that hour, I was all impatience to get home. Had not the freight been engaged, I think I should have sailed in ballast. By urging the merchants, however, we got to sea May 15th, with a full cargo, a portion of which I had purchased on my own account, with the money earned by the ship, within the last ten months. Nothing occurred worthy of notice, until the Dawn neared the Straits of Gibraltar. Here we were boarded by an English frigate, and first learned the declaration of a new war between France and England; a contest that, in the end, involved in it all the rest of christendom. Hostilities had already commenced, the First Consul having thrown aside the mask, just three days after we left port. The frigate treated us well, it being too soon for the abuses that followed, and we got through the pass without further molestation.
As soon as in the Atlantic, I took care to avoid everything we saw, and nothing got near us, until we had actually made the Highlands of Navesink. An English sloop-of-war, however, had stood into the angles of the coast, formed by Long Island and the Jersey shore, giving us a race for the Hook. I did not know whether I ought to be afraid of this cruiser, or not, but my mind was made up, not to be boarded if it could be helped. We succeeded in passing ahead, and entered the Hook, while he was still a mile outside of the bar. I got a pilot on the bar, as was then very usual, and stood up towards the town with studding-sails set, it being just a twelvemoth, almost to an hour, from the day when I passed up the bay in the Crisis. The pilot took the ship in near Coenties slip, Marble’s favourite berth, and we had her secured, and her sails unbent before the sun set.
CHAPTER XXVII.
“With look like patient Job’s, eschewing evil; With motions graceful as a bird’s in air; Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil That ere clinched fingers in a captive’s hair.” HALLECK.
There was about an hour of daylight, when I left the compting-house of the consignees, and pursued my way up Wall Street to Broadway. I was on my way to the City Hotel, then, as now, one of the best inns of the town. On Trinity Church walk, just as I quitted the Wall Street crossing, whom should I come plump upon in turning, but Rupert Hardinge? He was walking down the street in some little haste, and was evidently much surprised, perhaps I might say startled, at seeing me. Nevertheless, Rupert was not easily disconcerted, and his manner at once became warm, if not entirely free from embarrassment. He was in deep mourning; though otherwise dressed in the height of the fashion.
“Wallingford!” he exclaimed–it was the first time he did not call me “Miles,”–“Wallingford! my fine fellow, what cloud did you drop from?–We have had so many reports concerning you, that your appearance is as much a matter of surprise, as would be that of Bonaparte, himself. Of course, your ship is in?”
“Of course,” I answered, taking his offered hand; “you know I am wedded to her, for better, for worse, until death or shipwreck doth us part.”
“Ay, so I’ve always told the ladies–‘there is no other matrimony in Wallingford,’ I’ve said often, ‘than that which will make him a ship’s husband.’ But you look confoundedly well–the sea agrees with you, famously.”
“I make no complaint of my health–but tell me of that of our friends and families? Your father–“
“Is up at Clawbonny, just now–you know how it is with him. No change of circumstances will ever make him regard his little smoke-house looking church, as anything but a cathedral, and his parish as a diocese. Since the great change in our circumstances, all this is useless, and I often _think_–you know one wouldn’t like to _say_ as much to _him_–but I often _think_, he might just as well give up preaching, altogether.”
“Well, this is good, so far–now for the rest of you, all. You meet my impatience too coldly.”
“Yes, you _were_ always an impatient fellow. Why, I suppose you need hardly be told that I have been admitted to the bar.”
“That I can very well imagine–you must have found your sea-training of great service on the examination.”
“Ah! my dear Wallingford–what a simpleton I was! But one is so apt to take up strange conceits in boyhood, that he is compelled to look back at them in wonder, in after life. But, which way are you walking?”–slipping an arm in mine–“if up, I’ll take a short turn with you. There’s scarce a soul in town, at this season; but you’ll see prodigiously fine girls in Broadway, at this hour, notwithstanding –those that belong to the other sets, you know; those that belong to families that can’t get into the country among the leaves. Yes, as I was saying, one scarce knows himself, after twenty. Now, I can hardly recall a taste, or an inclination, that I cherished in my teens, that has not flown to the winds. Nothing is permanent in boyhood–we grow in our persons, and our minds, sentiments, affections, views, hopes, wishes, and ambition; all take new directions.”
“This is not very flattering, Rupert, to one whose acquaintance with you may be said to be altogether boyish.”
“Oh! of course I don’t mean _that._ Habit keeps all right in such matters; and I dare say I shall always be as much attached to you, as I was in childhood. Still, we are on diverging lines, now, and cannot for ever remain boys.”
“You have told me nothing of the rest,” I said, half choked, in my eagerness to hear of the girls, and yet unaccountably afraid to ask. I believe I dreaded to hear that Lucy was married. “How, and where is Grace?”
“Oh! Grace!–yes, I forgot her, to my shame, as you would naturally wish to inquire. Why, my dear _Captain,_ to be as frank as one ought with so old an acquaintance, your sister is not in a good way, I’m much afraid; though I’ve not seen her in an age. She was down among us in the autumn, but left town for the holidays, for them she insisted on keeping at Clawbonny, where she said the family had always kept them, and away she went. Since then, she has not returned, but I fear she is far from well. You know what a fragile creature Grace ever has been–so American!–Ah! Wallingford! our females have no constitutions–charming as angels, delicate as fairies, and all that; but not to be compared to the English women in constitutions.”
I felt a torrent of fire rushing through my blood, and it was with difficulty I refrained from hurling the heartless scoundrel who leaned on my arm, into the ditch. A moment of reflection, however, warned me of the precipice on which I stood. He was Mr. Hardinge’s son, Lucy’s brother; and I had no proofs that he had ever induced Grace to think he loved her. It was so easy for those who had been educated as we four had been, to be deceived on such a point, that I felt it unsafe to do anything precipitately. Friendship, _habit_, as Rupert expressed it, might so easily be mistaken for the fruits of passion, that one might well be deceived. Then it was all-important to Grace’s self-respect, to her feelings, in some measure to her character, to be careful, that I suppressed my wrath, though it nearly choked me.
“I am sorry to hear this,” I answered, after a long pause, the deep regret I felt at having such an account of my sister’s health contributing to make my manner seem natural; “very, _very_ sorry to hear it. Grace is one that requires the tenderest care and watching; and I have been making passage after passage in pursuit of money, when I am afraid I should have been at Clawbonny, discharging the duties of a brother. I can never forgive myself!”
“Money is a very good thing, Captain,” answered Rupert, with a smile that appeared to mean more than the tongue expressed–“a surprisingly good thing is money! But you must not exaggerate Grace’s illness, which I dare say is merely constitutional, and will lead to nothing. I hope your many voyages have produced their fruits?”
“And Lucy?” I resumed, disregarding his question concerning my own success as an owner. “Where and how is she?”
“Miss Hardinge is in town–in her own–that is, in _our_ house–in Wall Street, though she goes to _the place_ in the morning. No one who can, likes to remain among these hot bricks, that has a pleasant country-house to fly to, and open to receive him. But I forgot–I have supposed you to know what it is very likely you have never heard?”
“I learned the death of Mrs. Bradfort while in Italy, and, seeing you in black, at once supposed it was for her.”
“Yes, that’s just it. An excellent woman has been taken from us, and, had she been my own mother, I could not have received greater kindnesses from her. Her end, my dear Wallingford, was admitted by all the clergy to be one of the most edifying known in the place for years.”
“And Mrs. Bradfort has left you her heir? It is now time to congratulate you on your good fortune. As I un-understand her estate came through females to her, and from a common ancestor of hers and yours, there is not the slightest reason why you should not be gratified by the bequest. But Lucy–I hope she was not _altogether_ forgotten?”
Rupert fidgeted, and I could see that he was on tenter-hooks. As I afterwards discovered, he wished to conceal the real facts from the world; and yet he could not but foresee that I would probably learn them from his father. Under all the circumstances, therefore, he fancied it best to make me a confidant. We were strolling between Trinity and Paul’s church walks, then the most fashionable promenade in town; and, before he would lay open his secret, my companion led me over by the Oswego Market, and down Maiden Lane, lest he might betray himself to the more fashionable stocks and stones. He did not open his lips until clear of the market, when he laid bare his budget of griefs in something that more resembled his old confidential manner, than he had seen fit to exhibit in the earlier part of our interview.
“You must know, Miles,” he commenced, “that Mrs. Bradfort was a very peculiar woman–a very peculiar sort of a person, indeed. An, excellent lady, I am ready to allow, and one that made a remarkably edifying and; but one whose peculiarities, I have understood, she inherited with her fortune. Women _do_ get the oddest conceits into their heads, you know, and American women before all others; a republic being anything but favourable to the continuation of property in the same line. Miss Merton, who is a girl of excellent sense, as you well know yourself, Miles, says, now, in England I should have succeeded, quite as a matter of course, to _all_ Mrs. Bradfort’s real estate.”
“You, as a lawyer–a common law lawyer-can scarcely require the opinion of an Englishwoman to tell you what the English laws would do in a question of descent.”
“Oh! they’ve a plaguey sight of statutes in that country, as well as ourselves. Between the two, the common law is getting to be a very uncommon sort of a law. But, to cut the matter short, Mrs. Bradfort made a _will_.”
“Dividing her property equally between you and Lucy, I dare say, to Miss Merton’s great dissatisfaction.”
“Why, not just so, Miles–not exactly so; a very capricious, peculiar woman was Mrs. Bradfort–“
I have often remarked, when a person has succeeded in throwing dust into another’s eyes, but is discarded on being found out, that the rejected of principle is very apt to accuse his former dupe of being _capricious_; when, in fact, he has only been _deceived_. As I said nothing, however, leaving Rupert to flounder on in the best manner he could, the latter, after a pause, proceeded–
“But her end was very admirable” he said, “and to the last degree edifying. You must know, she made a will, and in that will she left everything, even to the town and country houses, to–my sister.”
I was thunder-struck! Here were all my hopes blown again to the winds. After a long pause, I resumed the discourse.
“And whom did she leave as executor?” I asked, instantly foreseeing the consequences should that office be devolved on Rupert, himself.
“My father. The old gentleman has had his hands full, between your father and mother, and Mrs. Bradfort. Fortunately, the estate of the last is in a good condition, and is easily managed. Almost entirely in stores and houses in the best part of the town, well insured, a few thousands in stocks, and as much in bonds and mortgages, the savings from the income, and something like a year’s rents in bank. A good seven thousand a year, with enough surplus to pay for repairs, collection and other charges.”
“And all this, then, is Lucy’s!” I exclaimed, feeling something like the bitterness of knowing that such an heiress was not for me.
“Temporarily; though, of course, I consider Lucy as only my trustee for half of it. You know how it is with the women; they fancy all us young men spendthrifts, and, so, between the two, they have reasoned in this way–‘Rupert is a good fellow at bottom; but Rupert is young, and he will make the money fly–now, I’ll give it all to you, Lucy, in my will, but, of course, you’ll take care of your brother, and let him have half, or perhaps two-thirds, being a male, at the proper time, which will be, as soon as you come of age, and _can_ convey. You understand Lucy is but nineteen, and _cannot_ convey these two years.”
“And Lucy admits this to be true?–You have proof of all this?”
“Proof! I’d take my own affidavit of it. You see it is reasonable, and what I had a right to expect. Everything tends to confirm it. Between ourselves, I had quite $2000 of debt; and yet, you see, the good lady did not leave me a dollar to pay even my honest creditors; a circumstance that so pious a woman, and one who made so edifying an end, would never think of doing, without ulterior views. Considering Lucy as my trustee, explains the whole thing.”
“I thought Mrs. Bradfort made you an allowance, Rupert; some $600 a year, besides keeping you in her own house?”
“A thousand-but, what is $1000 a year to a fashionable man, in a town like this. First and last, the excellent old lady, gave me about $5000, all of which confirms the idea, that, at the bottom, she intended me for her heir. What woman in her senses, would think of giving $5000 to a relative to whom she did not contemplate giving _more_? The thing is clear on its face, and I should certainly go into chancery, with anybody but Lucy.”
“And Lucy?–what says she to your views on the subject of Mrs. Bradfort’s intentions?”
“Why, you have some acquaintance with Lucy–used to be intimate with her, as one might say, when children, and know something of her character–“This to me, who fairly worshipped the earth on which the dear girl trod!–“She never indulges in professions, and likes to take people by surprise, when she contemplates doing them a service–” this was just as far from Lucy’s natural and honest mode of dealing, as it was possible to be–“and, so, she has been as mum as one who has lost the faculty of speech. However, she never speaks of her affairs to others; _that_ is a good sign, and indicates an intention to consider herself as my trustee; and, what is better still, and more plainly denotes what her conscience dictates in the premises, she has empowered her father to pay all my debts; the current income and loose cash, being at her disposal, at once. It would have been better had she given me the money, to satisfy these creditors with it, for I knew which had waited the longest, and were best entitled to receive the dollars at once; but, it’s something to have all their receipts in my pocket, and to start fair again. Thank Heaven, that much is already done. To do Lucy justice, moreover, she allows me $1500 a year, _ad interim_. Now, Miles, I’ve conversed with you, as with an old friend, and because I knew my father would tell you the whole, when you get up to Clawbonny; but you will take it all in strict confidence. It gives a fashionable young fellow so silly an air, to be thought dependent on a sister; and she three years younger than himself! So I have hinted the actual state of the case, round among my friends; but, it is generally believed that I am in possession already, and that Lucy is dependent on me, instead of my being dependent on her. The idea, moreover, is capital for keeping off fortune-hunters, as you will see at a glance.”
“And will the report satisfy a certain Mr. Andrew Drewett?” I asked, struggling to assume a composure I was far from feeling. “He was all attention when I sailed, and I almost expected to hear there was no longer a Lucy Hardinge.”
“To tell you the truth, Miles, I thought so, too, until the death of Mrs. Bradfort. The mourning, however, most opportunely came to put a stop to anything of the sort, were it even contemplated. It would be so awkward, you will understand, to have a brother-in-law before everything is settled, and the trust is accounted for. _Au reste_–I am very well satisfied with Andrew, and let him know I am his friend; he is well connected; fashionable; has a pretty little fortune; and, as I sometimes tell Lucy, that he is intended for her, as Mrs. Bradfort, no doubt, foresaw, inasmuch as his estate, added to just one-third of that of our dear departed cousin, would just make up the present income. On my honour, now, I do not think the difference would be $500 per annum.”
“And how does your sister receive your hints?”
“Oh! famously–just as all girls do, you know. She blushes, and sometimes she looks vexed; then she smiles, and puts up her lip, and says ‘Nonsense!’ and ‘What folly!’ ‘Rupert, I’m surprised at you!’ and all that sort of stuff, which deceives nobody, you’ll understand, not even her poor, simple, silly brother. But, Miles, I must quit you now, for I have an engagement to accompany a party to the theatre, and was on my way to join them when we met. Cooper plays, and you know what a lion _he_ is; one would not wish to lose a syllable of his Othello.”
“Stop, Rupert–one word more before we part. From your conversation, I gather that the Mertons are still here?”
“The Mertons! Why, certainly; established in the land, and among its tip-top people. The Colonel finds his health benefited by the climate, and he has managed to get some appointment which keeps him among us. He has Boston relatives, moreover, and I believe is fishing up some claims to property in that quarter. The Mertons here, indeed! what would New York be without the Mertons!”
“And my old friend the Major is promoted, too–you called him Colonel, I think?”
“Did I? I believe he is oftener called _General_ Merton, than anything else. You must be mistaken about his being only a Major, Miles; everybody here calls him either Colonel, or General.”
“Never mind; I hope it is as you say. Good-bye, Rupert; I’ll not betray you, and–“
“Well-you were about to say–“
“Why, mention me to Lucy; you know we were acquainted when children. Tell her I wish her all happiness in her new position, to which I do not doubt she will do full credit; and that I shall endeavour to see her before I sail again.”
“You’ll not be at the theatre this evening? Cooper is well worth seeing–a most famous fellow in Othello!”
“I think not. Do not forget to mention me to your sister; and so, once more, adieu!”
We parted–Rupert to go towards Broadway, at a great pace, and I to lounge along, uncertain whither to proceed. I had sent Neb to inquire if the Wallingford were down, and understood she would leave the basin at sunrise. It was now my intention to go up in her; for, though I attached no great importance to any of Rupert’s facts, his report concerning my sister’s health rendered me exceedingly uneasy. Insensibly I continued my course down Maiden Lane, and soon found myself near the ship. I went on board, had an explanation with Marble, gave some orders to Neb, and went ashore again, all in the course of the next half-hour. By a sort of secret attraction, I was led towards the Park, and soon found myself at the door of the theatre. Mrs. Bradfort had now been dead long enough to put Lucy in second mourning, and I fancied I might get a view of her in the party that Rupert was to accompany. Buying a ticket, I entered and made my way up into the Shakspeare box. Had I been better acquainted with the place, with the object in view I should have gone into the pit.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the season, it was a very full house. Cooper’s, in that day, was a name that filled every mouth, and he seldom failed to fill every theatre in which he appeared. With many first-rate qualifications for his art, and a very respectable conception of his characters, he threw everything like competition behind him; though there were a few, as there ever will be among the superlatively intellectual, who affected to see excellencies in Fennel, and others, to which this great actor could not aspire. The public decided against these select few, and, as is invariably the case when the appeal is made to human feelings, the public decided right. Puffery will force into notice and sustain a false judgment, in such matters, for a brief space; but nature soon asserts her sway, and it is by natural decisions that such points are ever the most justly determined. Whatever appeals to human sympathies, will be answered by human sympathies. Popularity too often gains its ascendency behind the hypocrite’s mask in religion; it is usually a magnificent mystification in politics; it frequently becomes the patriot’s stalking-horse, on which he rides to power; in social life, it is the reward of empty smiles, unmeaning bows, and hollow squeezes of the hand; but with the player, the poet, and all whose pursuits bring them directly in contact with the passions, the imagination and the heart, it is the unerring test of merit, with certain qualifications connected with the mind and the higher finish of pure art. It may be questioned if Cooper were not the greatest actor of his day, in a certain range of his own characters.
I have said that the house was full. I got a good place, however; though it was not in the front row. Of course I could only see the side boxes beneath, and not even quite all of them. My eyes ran eagerly over them, and I soon caught a glimpse of the fine, curling hair of Rupert. He sat by the side of Emily Merton, the Major–I knew he was a colonel or general, only by means of a regular Manhattan promotion, which is so apt to make hundreds of counts, copper captains, and travelling prodigies of those who are very small folk at home–the Major sat next, and, at his side, I saw a lady, whom I at once supposed to be Lucy. Every nerve in my system thrilled, as I caught even this indistinct view of the dear creature. I could just see the upper part of her face, as it was occasionally turned towards the Major; and once I caught that honest smile of hers, which I knew had never intentionally deceived.
The front seat of the box had two vacant places. The bench would hold six, while it had yet only four. The audience, however, was still assembling, and, presently, a stir in Lucy’s box denoted the arrival of company. The whole party moved, and Andrew Drewett handed an elderly lady in, his mother, as I afterwards ascertained, and took the other place himself. I watched the salutations that were exchanged, and understood that the new comers had been expected. The places had been reserved for them, and old Mrs. Drewett was doubtless the _chaperone;_ though, one having a brother and the other a father with her, the two young ladies had not hesitated about preceding the elderly lady. They had come from different quarters of the town, and had agreed to meet at the theatre. Old Mrs. Drewett was very particular in shaking hands with Lucy, though I had not the misery of seeing her son go through the same ceremony. Still he was sufficiently pointed in his salutations; and, during the movements, I perceived he managed to get next to Lucy, leaving the Major to entertain his mother. All this was natural, and what might have been expected; yet, it gave me a pang that I cannot describe.
I sat, for half an hour, perfectly inattentive to the play, meditating on the nature of my real position towards Lucy. I recalled the days of childhood and early youth; the night of my first departure from home; my return, and the incidents accompanying my second departure; the affair of the locket, and all I had truly felt myself, and all that I had supposed Lucy herself to feel, on those several occasions. Could it be possible I had so much deceived myself, and that the interest the dear girl had certainly manifested in me had been nothing but the fruits of her naturally warm and honest heart–her strong disposition to frankness-habit, as Rupert had so gently hinted in reference to ourselves? Then I could not conceal from myself the bitter fact that I was, now, no equal match for Lucy, in the eyes of the world. While she was poor, and I comparatively rich, the inequality in social station might have been overlooked; it existed, certainly, but was not so very marked that it might not, even in that day, be readily forgotten; but now, Lucy was an heiress, had much more than double my own fortune–had a fortune indeed; while I was barely in easy circumstances, as persons of the higher classes regarded wealth. The whole matter seemed reversed. It was clear that a sailor like myself, with no peculiar advantages, those of a tolerable education excepted, and who was necessarily so much absent, had not the same chances of preferring his suit, as one of your town idlers; a nominal lawyer, for instance, who dropped in at his office for an hour or two, just after breakfast, and promenaded Broadway the rest of the time, until dinner; or a man of entire leisure, like Andrew Drewett, who belonged to the City Library set, and had no other connection with business than to see that his rents were collected and his dividends paid. The more I reflected, the more humble I became, he less my chances seemed and I determined to quit the theatre, at once. The reader will remember that I was New York born and bred, a state of society in which few natives acted on the principle that “there was nothing too high to be aspired to, nothing too low to be done.” I admitted I had superiors, and was willing to defer to the facts and opinions of the world as I knew it.
In the lobby of the building, I experienced a pang at the idea of quitting the place without getting one look at the face of Lucy. I was in an humble mood, it is true, but that did not necessarily infer a total self-denial. I determined, therefore, to pass into the pit, with my box-check, feast my eyes by one long gaze at the dear creature’s ingenuous countenance, and carry away the impression, as a lasting memorial of her whom I so well loved, and whom I felt persuaded I should ever continue to love. After this indulgence, I would studiously avoid her, in order to release my thoughts as much as possible from the perfect thraldom in which they had existed, ever since I had heard of Mrs. Bradfort’s death. Previously to that time, I am afraid I had counted a little more than was becoming on the ease of my own circumstances, and Lucy’s comparative poverty. Not that I had ever supposed her to be in the least mercenary–this I knew to be utterly, totally false–but because the good town of Manhattan, even in 1803, was _tant soit peu_ addicted to dollars, and Lucy’s charms would not be likely to attract so many suitors, in the modest setting of a poor country clergyman’s means, as in the golden frame by which they had been surrounded by Mrs. Bradfort’s testamentary devise, even supposing Rupert to come in for quite one half.
I had no difficulty in finding a convenient place in the pit; one, from which I got a front and near view of the whole six, as they sat ranged side by side. Of the Major and old Mrs. Drewett it is unnecessary to say much. The latter looked as all dowager-like widows of that day used to appear, respectable, staid, and richly attired. The good lady had come on the stage during the revolution, and had a slightly military air–a _parade_ in her graces, that was not altogether unknown to the _eleves_ of that school. I dare say she could use such words as “martinets,” “mowhairs,” “brigadiers,” and other terms familiar to her class. Alas! how completely all these little traces of the past are disappearing from our habits and manners!
As for the Major, he appeared much better in health, and altogether altered in mien. I could readily detect the influence of the world on him; He was evidently a so much greater man in New York than he had been whew I found him in London, that it is not wonderful he felt the difference. Between the acts, I remarked that all the principal persons in the front rows were desirous of exchanging nods with the “British officer,” a proof that he was circulating freely in the best set, and had reached a point, when “not to know him, argues yourself unknown.” [*]
[Footnote *: The miserable moral dependence of this country on Great Britain, forty years since, cannot well be brought home to the present generation. It is still too great, but has not a tithe of its former force. The writer has himself known an Italian Prince, a man of family and of high personal merit, pass unnoticed before a society that was eager to make the acquaintance of most of the “agents” of the Birmingham button dealers; and this simply because one came from Italy and the other from England. The following anecdote, which is quite as true as any other fact in this work, furnishes a good example of what is meant. It is now a quarter of a century since the writer’s first book appeared. Two or three months after the publication, he was walking down Broadway with a friend, when a man of much distinction in the New York circles was passing up, on the other side-walk. The gentleman in question caught the writer’s eye, bowed, and _crossed the street_, to shake hands and inquire after the author’s health. The difference in years made this attention marked. “You are in high favour,” observed the friend, as the two walked away, to “have —- pay you such a compliment–your book must have done this.” “Now mark my words–I have been puffed in some English magazine, and —- knows it.” The two were on their way to the author’s publishers, and, on entering the door, honest Charles Wiley put a puff on the book in question into the writer’s hand! What rendered the whole more striking, was the fact that the paragraph was as flagrant a puff as was ever written, and had probably been paid for, by the English publisher. The gentleman in question was a man of talents and merit, but he had been born half a century too soon, to enjoy entire mental independence in a country that had so recently been a colony.]
Emily certainly looked well and happy. I could see that she was delighted with Rupert’s flattery, and I confess I cared very little for his change of sentiment, or his success. That both Major and Emily Merton were different persons in the midst of the world and in the solitudes of the Pacific, was as evident as it was that I was a different personage in command of the Crisis, and in the pit of the Park theatre. I dare say, at that moment. Miss Merton had nearly forgotten that such a man as Miles Wallingford existed, though I think she sometimes recalled the string of magnificent pearls that were to ornament the neck of his wife, should he ever find any one to have him.
But, Lucy, dear, upright, warm-hearted, truth-telling, beloved Lucy! all this time, I forget to speak of her. There she sat in maiden loveliness, her beauty still more developed, her eye as beaming, lustrous, feeling, as ever, her blush as sensitive, her smile as sweet, and her movements as natural and graceful. The simplicity of her half-mourning, too, added to her beauty, which was of a character to require no further aid from dress, than such as was dependent purely on taste. As I gazed at her, enthralled, I fancied nothing was wanting to complete the appearance, but my own necklace. Powerful, robust man as I was, with my frame hardened by exposure and trials, I could have sat down and wept, after gazing some time at the precious creature, under the feeling produced by the conviction that I was never to renew my intercourse with her, on terms of intimacy at least. The thought that from day to day we were to become more and more strangers, was almost too much to be borne. As it was, scalding tears forced themselves to my eyes, though I succeeded in concealing the weakness from those around me. At length the tragedy terminated, the curtain dropped, and the audience began to move about. The pit which had, just before, been crowded, was now nearly empty, and I was afraid of being seen. Still, I could not tear myself away, but remained after nine-tenths of those around me had gone into the lobbies.
It was easy, now, to see the change which had come over Lucy’s position, in the attentions she received. All the ladies in the principal boxes had nods and smiles for her and half the fashionable-looking young men in the house crowded round her box, or actually entered it to pay their compliments. I fancied Andrew Drewett had a self-satisfied air that seemed to say, “you are paying your homage indirectly to myself, in paying it to this young lady.” As for Lucy, my jealous watchfulness could not detect the smallest alteration in her deportment, so far as simplicity and nature were concerned. She appeared in a trifling degree more womanly, perhaps, than when I saw her last, being now in her twentieth year; but the attentions she received made no visible change in her manners. I had become lost in the scene, and was standing in a musing attitude, my side face towards the box, when I heard a suppressed exclamation, in Lucy’s voice. I was too near her to be mistaken, and it caused the blood to rush to my heart in a torrent. Turning, I saw the dear girl, with her hand extended over the front of the box, her face suffused with blushes, and her eyes riveted on myself. I was recognised, and the surprise had produced a display of all that old friendship, certainly, that had once existed between us, in the simplicity and truth of childhood.
“Miles Wallingford!” she said, as I advanced to shake the offered hand, and as soon as I was near enough to permit her to speak without attracting too much attention–“_you_ arrived, and _we_ knew nothing of it!”
It was plain Rupert had said nothing of having seen me, or of our interview in the street. He seemed a little ashamed, and leaned forward to say–
“I declare I forgot to mention, Lucy, that I met Captain Wallingford as I was going to join the Colonel and Miss Merton. Oh! we have had a long talk together, and it will save you a history of past events.”
“I may, nevertheless, say,” I rejoined, “how happy I am to see Miss Hardinge looking so well, and to be able to pay my compliments to my old passengers.”
Of course I shook hands with the Major and Emily, bowed to Drewett, was named to his mother, and was invited to enter the box, as it was not quite in rule to be conversing between the pit and the front rows. I forgot my prudent resolutions, and was behind Lucy in three minutes. Andrew Drewett had the civility to offer me his place, though it was with an air that said plain enough “what do _I_ care for _him_–he is a ship-master, and I am a man of fashion and fortune, and can resume my seat at any moment, while the poor fellow can only catch his chances, as he occasionally _comes into port_.” At least, I fancied his manner said something like this.
“Thank you, Mr. Drewett,” said Lucy, in her sweetest manner. “Mr. Wallingford and I are very, _very_ old friends,–you know he is Grace’s brother, and you have been at Clawbonny”–Drewett bowed, civilly enough–“and I have a thousand things to say to him. So, Miles, take this seat, and let me hear all about your voyage.”
As half the audience went away as soon as the tragedy ended, the second seat of the box was vacated, and the other gentlemen getting on it, to stretch their limbs, I had abundance of room to sit at Lucy’s side, half facing her, at the same time. As she insisted on hearing my story, before we proceeded to anything else, I was obliged to gratify her.
“By the way, Major Merton,” I cried, as the tale was closed, “an old friend of yours, Moses Marble by name, has come to life again, and is at this moment in New York.”
I then related the manner in which I had fallen in with my old mate. This was a most unfortunate self-interruption for me, giving the Major a fair opportunity for cutting into the conversation. The orchestra, moreover, giving notice that the curtain would soon rise for the after-piece, the old gentleman soon got me into the lobby to hear the particulars. I was supremely vexed, and I thought Lucy appeared sorry; but there was no help for it, and then we could not converse while the piece was going on.
“I suppose you care little for this silly farce,” observed the Major, looking in at one of the windows, after I had gone over Marble’s affair in detail. “If not, we will continue our walk, and wait for the ladies to come out. Drewett and Hardinge will take good care of them.”
I assented, and we continued to walk the lobby till the end of the act. Major Merton was always gentleman-like; and he even behaved to me, as if he remembered the many obligations he was under. He now communicated several little facts connected with his own circumstances, alluding to the probability of his remaining in America a few years. Our chat continued some time, my looks frequently turning towards the door of the box, when my companion suddenly observed–
“Your old acquaintances the Hardinges have had a lucky wind-fall–one, I fancy, they hardly expected, a few years Since.”
“Probably not; though the estate has fallen into excellent hands,” I answered. “I am surprised, however, that Mrs. Bradfort did not leave the property to the old gentleman, as it once belonged to their common grandfather, and he properly stood next in succession.”
“I fancy she thought the good parson would not know what to do with it. Now, Rupert Hardinge is clever, and spirited, and in a way to make a figure in the world; and it is probably in better hands, than if it had been left first to the old gentleman.”
“The old gentleman has been a faithful steward to me, and I doubt not would have proved equally so to his own children. But, does Rupert get _all_ Mrs. Bradfort’s property?”
“I believe not; there is some sort of a trust, I have heard him say; and I rather fancy that his sister has some direct or reversionary interest. Perhaps she is named as the heir, if he die without issue. There _was_ a silly story, that Mrs. Bradfort had left everything to Lucy; but I have, it from the best authority, that _that_ is not true–” The idea of Rupert Hardinge’s being the “best authority” for any thing; a fellow who never knew what unadulterated truth was, from the time he was in petticoats, or could talk!–“As I _know_ there is a trust, though one of no great moment; I presume Lucy has some contingent interest, subject, most probably, to her marrying with her brother’s approbation, or some such provision. The old lady was sagacious, and no doubt did all that was necessary.”
It is wonderful how people daily deceive themselves on the subject of property; those who care the most about it, appearing to make the greatest blunders. In the way of bequests, in particular, the lies that are told are marvellous. It is now many years since I learned to take no heed of rumours on such subjects, and least of all, rumours that come from the class of the money-gripers. Such people refer everything to dollars, and seldom converse a minute without using the word. Here, however, was Major Merton evidently Rupert’s dupe; though with what probable consequences, it was not in my power to foresee. It was clearly not my business to undeceive him; and the conversation, getting to be embarrassing, I was not sorry to hear the movement which announced the end of the act. At the box door, to my great regret, we met Mrs. Drewett retiring, the ladies finding the farce dull, and not worth the time lost in listening to it. Rupert gave me an uneasy glance, and he even dragged me aside to whisper–“Miles, what I told you this evening, is strictly a family secret, and was entrusted to a friend.”
“I have nothing to do with your private concerns, Rupert–” I answered,–“only, let me expect you to act honourably, especially when women are concerned.”
“Everything will come right, depend on it; the truth will set everything right, and all will come out, just as I predicted.”
I saw Lucy looking anxiously around, while Drewett had gone to order the carriages to advance, and I hoped it might be for me. In a moment I was by her side; at the next, Mr. Andrew Drewett offered his arm, saying, her carriage “stopped the way.” We moved into the outer lobby, in a body, and then it was found that Mrs. Drewett’s carriage was up first, while Lucy’s was in the rear. Yes, Lucy’s carriage!–the dear girl having come into immediate possession of her relative’s houses, furniture, horses, carriages, and everything else, without reserve, just as they had been left behind by the last incumbent, when she departed from the scene of life, to lie down in the grave. Mrs. Bradfort’s arms were still on the chariot, I observed, its owner refusing all Rupert’s solicitations to supplant them by those of Hardinge. The latter took his revenge, however, by telling everybody how generous he was in keeping a carriage for his sister.
The Major handed Mrs. Drewett in, and her son was compelled to say good night, to see his mother home. This gave me one blessed minute with Lucy, by herself. She spoke of Grace; said they had now been separated months, longer than they ever had been before in their lives, and that all her own persuasions could not induce my sister to rejoin her in town, while her own wish to visit Clawbonny had been constantly disappointed, Rupert insisting that her presence was necessary, for so many arrangements about business.
“Grace is not as humble as I was, in old times, Miles,” said the dear girl, looking me in the face, half sadly, half reproachfully, the light of the lamp falling full on her tearful, tender eyes, “and I hope you are not about to imitate her bad example. She wishes us to know she has Clawbonny for a home, but I never hesitated to admit how poor we were, while you alone were rich.”
“God bless you, Lucy!” I whispered, squeezing her hand with fervour–“It cannot be _that_–have you heard anything of Grace’s health?”
“Oh! she is well, I know–Rupert tells me _that_, and her letters are cheerful and kind as ever, without a word of complaint. But I _must_ see her soon. Grace Wallingford and Lucy Hardinge were not born to live asunder. Here is the carriage; I shall see you in the morning, Miles–at breakfast, say–eight o’clock, precisely.”
“It will be impossible–I sail for Clawbonny with the first of the flood, and that will make at four. I shall sleep in the sloop.”
Major Merton put Lucy into the carriage; the good-nights were passed, and I was left standing on the lowest step of the building gazing after the carriage, Rupert walking swiftly away.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
“Hear me a little;
For I have only been silent so long, And given way unto this course of fortune, By noting of the lady: I have mark’d
A thousand blushing apparitions start Into her face; a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness bear away those blushes–” SHAKESPEARE
I reached the Wallingford before eleven, where I found Neb in attendance with my trunks and other effects. Being now on board my own craft, I gave orders to profit by a favourable turn in the wind, and to get under-way at once, instead of waiting for the flood. When I left the deck, the sloop was above the State Prison, a point towards which the town itself had made considerable progress since the time I first introduced it to the reader. Notwithstanding this early start, we did not enter the creek until about eight in the morning of the second day.
No sooner was the vessel near enough, than my foot was on the wharf, and I began to ascend the hill. From the summit of the latter I saw my late guardian hurrying along the road, it afterwards appearing that a stray paper from town had announced the arrival of the Dawn, and that I was expected to come up in the sloop. I was received with extended hands, was kissed just as if I had still been a boy, and heard the guileless old man murmuring his blessings on me, and a prayer of thankfulness. Nothing ever changed good Mr. Hardinge, who, now that he could command the whole income of his daughter, was just as well satisfied to live on the three or four hundreds he got from his glebe and his parish, as he ever had been in his life.
“Welcome back, my dear boy, welcome back!” added Mr. Hardinge, his voice and manner still retaining their fervour. “I said you _must_–you _would_ be on board, as soon as they reported the sloop in sight, for I judged your heart by my own. Ah! Miles, will the time ever come when Clawbonny will be good enough for you? You have already as much money as you can want, and more will scarce contribute to your happiness.”
“Speaking of money, my dear sir,” I answered, “while I have to regret the loss of your respectable kinswoman, I may be permitted to congratulate you on the accession to an old family property–I understand you inherit, in your family, all of Mrs. Bradfort’s estate-one valuable in amount, and highly acceptable, no doubt, as having belonged to your ancestors.”
“No doubt–no doubt–it is just as you say; and I hope these unexpected riches will leave us all as devout servants of God, as I humbly trust they found us. The property, however, is not mine, but Lucy’s; I need not have any reserve with you, though Rupert has hinted it might be prudent not to let the precise state of the case be known, since it might bring a swarm of interested fortune-hunters about the dear girl, and has proposed that we rather favour the notion the estate is to be divided among us. This I cannot do directly, you will perceive, as it would be deception; but one may be silent. With you, however, it is a different matter, and so I tell you the truth at once. I am made executor, and act, of course; and this makes me the more glad to see you, for I find so much business with pounds, shillings and pence draws my mind off from the duties of my holy office, and that I am in danger of becoming selfish and mercenary. A selfish priest, Miles, is as odious a thing as a mercenary woman!”
“Little danger of your ever becoming anything so worldly, my dear sir. But Grace-you have not mentioned my beloved sister?”
I saw Mr. Hardinge’s countenance suddenly change. The expression of joy instantly deserted it, and it wore an air of uncertainty and sadness. A less observant man than the good divine, in all the ordinary concerns of life, did not exist; but it was apparent that he now saw something to trouble him.
“Yes, Grace,” he answered, doubtingly; “the dear girl is here, and all alone, and not as blithe and amusing as formerly. I am glad of your return on her account, too, Miles. She is not well, I fear; I would have sent for a physician last week, or the moment I saw her; but she insists on it, there is no need of one. She is frightfully beautiful, Miles! You know how it is with Grace–her countenance always seemed more fitted for heaven than earth; and now it always reminds me of a seraph’s that was grieving over the sins of men!”
“I fear, sir, that Rupert’s account, then, is true, and that Grace is seriously ill?”
“I hope not, boy–I fervently pray not! She is not as usual–_that_ is true; but her mind, her thoughts, all her inclinations, and, if I may so express it, her energies, seem turned to heaven. There has been an awakening in the spirit of Grace, that is truly wonderful. She reads devout books, meditates, and, I make no doubt, prays, from morn till night. This is the secret of her withdrawal from the world, and her refusing of all Lucy’s invitations. You know how the girls love each other–but Grace declines going to Lucy, though she knows that Lucy cannot come to her.”
I now understood it all. A weight like that of a mountain fell upon my heart, and I walked on some distance without speaking. To me, the words of my excellent guardian sounded like the knell of a sister I almost worshipped.
“And Grace–does she expect me, now?” I at length ventured to say, though the words were uttered in tones so tremulous, that even the usually unobservant divine perceived the change.
“She does, and delighted she was to hear it. The only thing of a worldly nature that I have heard her express of late, was some anxious, sisterly wish for your speedy return. Grace loves you, Miles, next to her God!”
Oh! how I wished this were true, but, alas! alas! I knew it was far otherwise!
“I see you are disturbed, my dear boy, on account of what I have said,” resumed Mr. Hardinge; “probably from serious apprehensions about your sister’s health. She is not well, I allow; but it is the effect of mental ailments. The precious creature has had too vivid views of her own sinful nature, and has suffered deeply, I fear. I trust, my conversation and prayers have not been without their effect, through the divine aid, and that she is now more cheerful–nay, she has assured me within half an hour, if it turned out that you were in the sloop, she should be happy!”
For my life, I could not have conversed longer on the painful subject; I made no reply. As we had still a considerable distance to walk, I was glad to turn the conversation to other subjects, lest I should become unmanned, and sit down to weep in the middle of the road.
“Does Lucy intend to visit Clawbonny, this summer?” I asked, though it seemed strange to me to suppose that the farm was not actually Lucy’s home. I am afraid I felt a jealous dislike to the idea that the dear creature should have houses and lands of her own; or any that was not to be derived through me.
“I hope so,” answered her father, “though her new duties do not leave Lucy as much her own mistress as I could wish. You saw her, and her brother, Miles, I take it for granted?”
“I met Rupert in the street, sir, and had a short interview with the Mertons and Lucy at the theatre. Young Mr. and old Mrs. Drewett were of the party.”
The good divine turned short round to me, and looked as conscious and knowing as one of his singleness of mind and simplicity of habits could look. Had a knife penetrated my flesh, I could not have winced more than I did; still, I affected a manner that was very foreign to my feelings.
“What do you think of this young Mr. Drewett, boy?” asked Mr. Hardinge, with an air of confidential interest, and an earnestness of manner, that, with him, was inseparable from all that concerned his daughter. “Do you approve?”
“I believe I understand you, sir;–you mean me to infer that Mr. Drewett is a suitor for Miss Hardinge’s hand.”
“It would be improper to say this much, even to you, Miles, did not Drewett take good care, himself, to let everybody know it.”
“Possibly with a view to keep off other pretenders”–I rejoined, with a bitterness I could not control.
Now, Mr. Hardinge was one of the last men in the world to suspect evil. He looked surprised, therefore, at my remark, and I was probably not much out of the way, in fancying that he looked displeased.
“That is not right, my dear boy,” he said, gravely.
“We should try to think the best and not the worst, of our fellow-creatures.”–Excellent old man, how faithfully didst thou practise on thy precept!–“It is a wise rule, and a safe one; more particularly in connection with our own weaknesses. Then, it is but natural that Drewett should wish to secure Lucy; and if he adopt no means less manly than the frank avowal of his own attachment, surely there is no ground of complaint.”
I was rebuked; and what is more, I felt that the rebuke was merited. As some atonement for my error, I hastened to add–
“Very truly, sir; I admit the unfairness of my remark, and can only atone for it by adding it is quite apparent Mr. Drewett is not influenced by interested motives, since he certainly was attentive to Miss Hardinge previously to Mrs. Bradfort’s death, and when he could not possibly have anticipated the nature of her will.”
“Quite true, Miles, and very properly and justly remarked. Now, to you, who have known Lucy from childhood, and who regard her much as Rupert does, it may not seem so very natural that a young man can love her warmly and strongly, for herself, alone–such is apt to be the effect of brotherly feeling; but I can assure you, Lucy is really a charming, as we all know she is a most excellent, girl!”
“To whom are you speaking thus, sir! I can assure you, nothing is easier than for me to conceive how possible it is for any man to love your daughter. As respects Grace, I confess there, is a difference–for I affirm she has always seemed to me too saintly, too much allied to Heaven already, to be subject herself, to the passions of earth.”
“That is what I have just been telling you, and we must endeavour to overcome and humanize–if I may so express it–Grace’s propensity. There is nothing more dangerous to a healthful frame of mind, in a religious point of view, Miles, than excitement–it is disease, and not faith, nor charity, nor hope, nor humility, nor anything that is commanded; but our native weaknesses taking a wrong direction, under a physical impulse, rather than the fruits of repentance, and the succour afforded by the spirit of God. We nowhere read of any excitement, and howlings and waitings among the apostles.”
How could I enlighten the good old man on the subject of my sister’s malady? That Grace, with her well-tempered mind, was the victim of religious exaggeration, I did not for a moment believe; but that she had had her heart blighted, her affections withered, her hopes deceived, by Rupert’s levity and interestedness, his worldly-mindedness and vanity, I could foresee, and was prepared to learn; though these were facts not to be communicated to the father of the offender. I made no answer, but managed to turn the conversation towards the farm, and those interests about which I could affect an interest that I was very far from feeling, just at that moment. This induced the divine to inquire into the result of my late voyage, and enabled me to collect sufficient fortitude to meet Grace, with the semblance of firmness, at least.
Mr. Hardinge made a preconcerted signal, as soon as he came in view of the house, that apprised its inmates of my arrival; and we knew, while still half a mile from the buildings, that the news had produced a great commotion. All the blacks met us on the little lawn–for the girls, since reaching womanhood, had made this change in the old door-yard–and I had to go through the process of shaking hands with every one of them. This was done amid hearty bursts of laughter, the mode in which the negroes of that day almost always betrayed their joy, and many a “welcome home, Masser Mile!” and “where a Neb got to, dis time, Masser Mile?” was asked by more than one; and great was the satisfaction, when I told his generation and race that the faithful fellow would be up with the cart that was to convey my luggage. But, Grace awaited me. I broke through the throng, and entered the house. In the door I was met by Chloe, a girl about my own sister’s age, and a sort of cousin of Neb’s by the half-blood, who had been preferred of late years to functions somewhat resembling those of a lady’s maid. I say of the half-blood; for, to own the truth, few of the New York blacks, in that day, could have taken from their brothers and sisters, under the old _dictum_ of the common law, which declared that none but heirs of the whole blood should inherit. Chloe met me in the door-way, and greeted me with one of her sweetest smiles, as she curtsied, and really looked as pleased as all my slaves did, at seeing their _young_ master again. How they touched my heart, at times, by their manner of talking about “_ole_ Masser, and _ole_ Missus,” always subjects of regret among negroes who had been well treated by them. Metaphysicians may reason as subtly as they can about the races and colours, and on the aptitude of the black to acquire, but no one can ever persuade me out of the belief of their extraordinary aptitude to love. As between themselves and their masters, their own children and those of the race to which they were subject, I have often seen instances which have partaken of the attachment of the dog to the human family; and cases in which the children of their masters have been preferred to those of their own flesh and blood, were of constant occurrence.
“I hope you been werry well, sah, Masser Mile,” said Chloe, who had some extra refinement, as the growth of her position.
“Perfectly, my good girl, and I am glad to see you looking so well–you really are growing handsome, Chloe.”
“Oh! Masser Mile—you so droll!–now you stay home, sah, long time?”
“I am afraid not, Chloe, but one never knows. Where shall I find my sister?”
“Miss Grace tell me come here, Masser Mile, and say she wish to see you in de family-room. She wait dere, now, some time.”
“Thank you, Chloe; and do you see that no one interrupts us. I have not seen my sister for near a year.”
“Sartain, sah; all as you say.” Then the girl, whose face shone like a black bottle that had just been dipped in water, showed her brilliant teeth, from ear to ear, laughed outright, looked foolish, after which she looked earnest, when the secret burst out of her heart, in the melodious voice of a young negress, that did not know whether to laugh or to cry–“Where Neb, Masser Mile? what he do now; de _fel_-ler!”
“He will kiss you in ten minutes, Chloe; so put the best face on the matter you are able.”
“_Dat_ he wont–de sauce-box—Miss Grace teach me better dan _dat_.”
I waited to hear no more, but proceeded towards the triangular little room, with steps so hurried and yet so nervous, that I do not remember, ever before to have laid my hand on a lock in a manner so tremulous–I found myself obliged to pause, ere I could muster resolution to open the door, a hope coming over me that the impatience of Grace would save me the trouble, and that I should find her in my arms before I should be called on to exercise any more fortitude. All was still as death, however, within the room, and I opened the door, as if I expected to find one of the bodies I had formerly seen in its coffin, in this last abiding place above ground, of one dead. My sister was on the _causeuse_, literally unable to rise from debility and agitation. I shall not attempt to describe the shock her appearance gave me. I was prepared for a change, but not one that placed her, as my heart instantly announced, so near the grave!
Grace extended both arms, and I threw myself at her side, drew her within my embrace, and folded her to my heart, with the tenderness with which one would have embraced an infant. In this situation we both wept violently, and I am not ashamed to say that I sobbed like a child. I dare say five minutes passed in this way, without either of us speaking a word.
“A merciful and all gracious God be praised! You are restored to me in time, Miles!” murmured my sister, at length. “I was afraid it might be too late.”
“Grace!–Grace!–What means this, love?–my precious, my only, my most dearly beloved sister, why do I find you thus?”
“Is it necessary to speak, Miles?–cannot you see?–_do_ you not see, and understand it all?”
The fervent pressure I gave my sister, announced how plainly I comprehended the whole history. That Grace could ever love, and forget, I did not believe; but, that her tenderness for Rupert–one whom I knew for so frivolous and selfish a being, should reduce her to this terrible state, I had not indeed foreseen as a thing possible. Little did I then understand how confidingly a woman loves, and how apt she is to endow the being of her choice with all the qualities se could wish him to possess. In the anguish of my soul I muttered, loud enough to be heard, “the heartless villain!”
Grace instantly rose from my arms. At that moment, she looked more like a creature of heaven, than one that was still connected with this wicked world. Her beauty could scarcely be called impaired, though I dreaded that she would be snatched away from me in the course of the interview; so frail and weak did it appear was her hold of life. In some respects I never saw her more lovely than she seemed on this very occasion. This was when the hectic of disease imparted to the sweetest and most saint-like eyes that were ever set in the human countenance, a species of holy illumination. Her countenance, now, was pale and colourless; however, and her look sorrowful and filled with reproach.
“Brother,” she said, solemnly, “this _must_ not be. It is not what God commands–it is not what I expected from you–what I have a right to expect from one whom I am assured loves me, though none other of earth can be said to do so.”
“It is not easy, my sister, for a man to forget or forgive the wretch who has so long misled you–misled us all, and then turned to another, under the impulse of mere vanity.”
“Miles, my kind and manly brother, listen to me,” Grace rejoined, fervently pressing one of my hands in both of hers, and scarcely able to command herself, through alarm. “All thoughts of anger, of resentment, of pride even, must be forgotten. You owe it to my sex, to the dreadful imputations that might otherwise rest on my name–had I anything to reproach myself with as a woman. I could submit to _any_ punishment; but surely, surely, it is not a sin so unpardonable to be unable to command the affections, that I deserve to have my name, after I shall be dead, mixed up with rumours connected with such a quarrel. You have lived as brothers, too–then there is good, excellent, truthful, pious Mr. Hardinge; who is yet _my_ guardian, you know; and Lucy, dear, true-hearted, faithful Lucy–“
“Why is not dear, true-hearted, faithful Lucy, here, watching over you, Grace, at this very moment?” I demanded, huskily.
“She knows nothing of my situation–it is a secret, as well as its cause, from all but God, myself, and you. Ah! I knew it would be impossible to deceive your love, Miles! which has ever been to me, all that a sister could desire.”
“And Lucy! how has _her_ affection been deceived?–Has she too, eyes only for those she has recently learned to admire?”
“You do her injustice, brother. Lucy has not seen me, since the great change that I can myself see has come over me. Another time, I will tell you all. At present I can only say, that as soon as I had certain explanations with Rupert, I left town, and have studiously concealed from dear Lucy the state of my declining health. I write to her weekly, and get answers; everything passing between us as cheerfully, and apparently, as happily as ever. No, do not blame Lucy; who, I am certain, would quit everything and everybody to come to me, had she the smallest notion of the truth. On the contrary, I believe she thinks I would rather not have her at Clawbonny, just at this moment, much as she knows I love her; for, one of Lucy’s observation and opportunities cannot but suspect the truth. Let me lie on your breast, brother; it wearies me to talk so much.”
I sat holding this beloved sister in my arms, fully an hour, neither of us speaking. I was afraid of injuring her, by further excitement, and she was glad to take refuge in silence, from the feelings of maiden shame that could not be otherwise than mingled with such a dialogue. As my cheek leaned on her silken hair, I could see large tears rolling down the pallid cheeks; but the occasional pressure of the hands, told me how much she was gladdened by my presence. After some ten or fifteen minutes, the exhausted girl dropped into feverish and disturbed slumbers, that I would have remained motionless throughout the night to maintain. I am persuaded it was quite an hour before this scene terminated. Grace then arose, and said, with one of her most angelic smiles–
“You see how it is with me, Miles–feeble as an infant, and almost as troublesome. You must bear with me, for you will be my nurse. One promise I must have, dearest, before we leave this room.”
“It is yours, my sister, let it be what it may; I can now refuse you nothing,” said I, melted to feminine tenderness. “And yet, Grace, since _you_ exact a promise, _I_ have a mind to attach a condition.”
“What condition, Miles, can you attach, that I will refuse? I consent to everything, without even knowing your wishes.”
“Then I promise not to call Rupert to an account for his conduct—not to question him–nay, even not to reproach him,” I rejoined, enlarging my pledges, as I saw by Grace’s eyes that she exacted still more.
The last promise, however, appeared fully to satisfy her. She kissed my hand, and I felt hot tears falling on it.
“Now name your conditions, dearest brother,” she said, after a little time taken to recover herself; “name them, and see how gladly I shall accept them all.”
“I have but one–it is this. I must take the complete direction of the care of you–must have power to send for what physician I please, what friends I please, what advice or regimen I please!”
“Oh! Miles, you _could_ not–_cannot_ think of sending for _him_!”
“Certainly not; his presence would drive me from the house. With that one exception, then, my condition is allowed?”
Grace made a sign of assent, and sunk on my bosom again, nearly exhausted with the scene through which she had just gone. I perceived it would not do to dwell any longer on the subject we had been alluding to, rather than discussing; and for another hour did I sit sustaining that beloved form, declining to speak, and commanding silence on her part. At the end of this second little sleep, Grace was more refreshed than she had been after her first troubled repose, and she declared herself able to walk to her room, where she wished to lie on her own bed until the hour of dinner. I summoned Chloe, and, together, we led the invalid to her chamber. As we threaded the long passages, my sister’s head rested on my bosom, her eyes were turned affectionately upward to my face, and several times I felt the gentle pressure of her emaciated hands, given in the fervour of devoted sisterly love.
I needed an hour to compose myself, after this interview. In the privacy of my own room, I wept like a child over the wreck of the being I had left so beautiful and perfect, though even then the canker of doubt had begun to take root. I had yet her explanations to hear, and resolved to command myself so far as to receive them in a manner not to increase the pain Grace must feel in making them. As soon as sufficiently calm, I sat down to write letters. One was to Marble. I desired him to let the second-mate see the ship discharged, and to come up to me by the return of the sloop. I wished to see him in person, as I did not think I could be able to go out in the vessel on her next voyage, and I intended him to sail in her as master. It was necessary we should consult together personally. I did not conceal the reason of this determination, though I said nothing of the cause of my sister’s state. Marble had a list of physicians given him, and he was to bring up with him the one he could obtain, commencing with the first named, and following in the order given. I had earned ten thousand dollars, nett, by the labours of the past year, and I determined every dollar of it should be devoted to obtaining the best advice the country then afforded. I had sent for such men as Hosack, Post, Bayley, M’Knight, Moore, &c.; and even thought of endeavouring to procure Rush from Philadelphia, but was deterred from making the attempt by the distance, and the pressing nature of the emergency. In 1803, Philadelphia was about three days’ journey from Clawbonny, even allowing for a favourable time on the river; with a moderately unfavourable, five or six; whereas the distance can now be passed, including the chances of meeting the departures and arrivals of the different lines, in from twelve to fifteen hours. Such is one of the prodigious effects of an improved civilization; and in all that relates to motion, and which falls short of luxury, or great personal comfort, this country takes a high place in the scale of nations. That it is as much in arrears in other great essentials, however, particularly in what relates to tavern comforts, no man who is familiar with the better civilization of Europe, can deny. It is a singular fact, that we have gone backward in this last particular, within the present century, and all owing to the increasingly gregarious habits of the population. But to return to my painful theme, from which, even at this distance of time, I am only too ready to escape.
I was on the point of writing to Lucy, but hesitated. I hardly knew whether to summon her to Clawbonny or not. That she would come, and that instantly, the moment she was apprised of Grace’s condition, I did not in the least doubt. I was not so mad as to do her character injustice, because I had my doubts about being loved as I had once hoped to be. That Lucy was attached to me, in one sense, I did not in the least doubt; this, her late reception of me sufficiently proved; and I could not question her continued affection for Grace, after all the latter had just told me. Even did Lucy prefer Andrew Drewett, it was no proof she was not just as kind-hearted, as ready to be of service, and as true in her friendship, as she ever had been. Still, she was Rupert’s sister, must have penetration enough to understand the cause of Grace’s illness, and might not enter as fully into her wrongs as one could wish in a person that was to watch the sick pillow. I resolved to learn more that day, before this portion of my duty was discharged.
Neb was summoned, and sent to the wharf, with an order to get the Wallingford ready to sail for town at the first favourable moment. The sloop was merely to be in ballast, and was to return to Clawbonny with no unnecessary delay. There was an eminent, but retired physician of the name of Bard, who had a country residence on the other bank of the Hudson, and within a few hours’ sail from Clawbonny. I knew his character, though I was not acquainted with him, personally. Few of us of the right bank, indeed, belonged to the circles of the left, in that day; the increasing wealth and population of the country has since brought the western side into more notice. I wrote also to Dr. Bard, inclosing a cheque for a suitable fee; made a strong appeal to his feelings–which would have been quite sufficient with, such a man–and ordered Neb to go out in the Grace and Lucy, immediately, to deliver the missive. Just as this arrangement was completed, Chloe came to summon me to my sister’s room.
I found Grace still lying on her bed, but stronger, and materially refreshed. For a moment, I began to think my fears had exaggerated the danger, and that I was not to lose my sister. A few minutes of close observation, however convinced me, that the first impression was the true one. I am not skilled in the theories of the science, if there be any great science about it, and can hardly explain, even now, the true physical condition of Grace. She had pent up her sufferings in her own bosom, for six cruel months, in the solitude of a country-house, living most of the time entirely alone; and this, they tell me, is what few, even of the most robust frames, can do with impunity. Frail as she had ever seemed, her lungs were sound, and she spoke easily and with almost all her original force, so that her wasting away was not the consequence of anything pulmonary. I rather think the physical effects were to be traced to the unhealthy action of the fluids, which were deranged through the stomach and spleen. The insensible perspiration was affected also, I believe; the pores of the skin failing to do their duty. I dare say there is not a graduate of the thousand and one medical colleges of the country, who is not prepared to laugh at this theory, while unable quite likely to produce a better,–so much easier is it to pull down than to build up; but my object is merely to give the reader a general idea of my poor sister’s situation. In outward appearance, her countenance denoted that expression which the French so well describe, by their customary term of “_fatigue_,” rather than any other positive indication of disease–Grace’s frame was so delicate by nature, that a little falling away was not as perceptible in her, as it would have been in most persons; though her beautiful little hands wanted that fulness which had rendered their taper fingers and roseate tint formerly so very faultless. There must have been a good deal of fever, as her colour was often higher than was formerly usual. It was this circumstance that continued to render her beauty even unearthly, without its being accompanied by the emaciation so common in the latter stages of pulmonary disease, though its tendency was strongly to undermine her strength.
Grace, without rising from her pillow, now asked me for an outline of my late voyage. She heard me, I make no doubt, with real interest, for all that concerned me, in a measure concerned her. Her smile was sweetness itself, as she listened to my successes; and the interest she manifested in Marble, with whose previous history she was well acquainted, was not less than I had felt myself, in hearing his own account of his adventures. All this delighted me, as it went to prove that I had beguiled the sufferer from brooding over her own sorrows; and what might not be hoped for, could we lead her back to mingle in the ordinary concerns of life, and surround her with the few friends she so tenderly loved, and whose absence, perhaps, had largely contributed to reducing her to her present state? This thought recalled Lucy to my mind, and the wish I had to ascertain how far it might be agreeable to the latter, to be summoned to Clawbonny. I determined to lead the conversation to this subject.
“You have told me, Grace,” I said, “that you send and receive letters weekly, to and from Lucy?”
“Each time the Wallingford goes and comes; and that you know is weekly. I suppose the reason I got no letter to-day was owing to the fact that the sloop sailed before her time. The Lord High Admiral was on board; and, like wind and tide, _he_ waits for no man!”
“Bless you–bless you, dearest sister–this gaiety removes a mountain from my heart!”
Grace looked pleased at first; then, as she gazed wistfully into my face, I could see her own expression change to one of melancholy concern. Large tears started from her eyes, and three or four followed each other down her cheeks. All this said, plainer than words, that, though a fond brother might be momentarily deceived, she herself foresaw the end. I bowed my head to the pillow, stifled the groans that oppressed me, and kissed the tears from her cheeks. To put an end to these distressing scenes, I determined to be more business-like in future, and suppress all feeling, as much as possible.
“The Lord High Admiral,” I resumed, “is a species of Turk, on board ship, as honest Moses Marble will tell you, when you see him, Grace. But, now for Lucy and her letters–I dare say the last are filled with tender secrets, touching such persons as Andrew Drewett, and others of her admirers, which render it improper to show any of them to me?”
Grace looked at me, with earnestness, as if to ascertain whether I was really as unconcerned as I affected to be. Then she seemed to muse, picking the cotton of the spotless counterpane on which she was lying, like one at a loss what to say or think.
“I see how it is,” I resumed, forcing a smile; “the hint has been indiscreet. A rough son of Neptune is not the proper confidant for the secrets of Miss Lucy Hardinge. Perhaps you are right; fidelity to each other being indispensable in your sex.”
“It is not that, Miles. I doubt if Lucy ever wrote me a line, that you might not see–in proof of which, you shall have the package of her letters, with full permission to read every one of them. It will be