minor key. No one can tell in what particular way a man will try the
heart of the woman that loves him. My dear father had some failings that
might have made sorrow enough, but mother knew how to accept the
discipline; and in some cases we are reaping the benefit this day, both
of my father’s foibles and my mother’s wise acceptance of them.”
“I have always believed Grandfather Murray to have been a nearly
faultless man.”
“Under some circumstances his failings would have been virtues; but when
a man marries he assumes duties which are paramount, and which demand a
sacrifice of things in themselves innocent and even commendable. He had
a love for travel, adventure, and even fighting, that at times became a
hunger that must be satisfied; and these periods were often of long
duration, and caused my mother infinite alarm and anxiety. I will only
give you two instances, and these two, because they are prominent
factors in our present life.”
“One of them is, of course, Castle Murray in Scotland?”
“Yes. You know the story of its loss and redemption. But that was but
the beginning. The old place seemed to draw father like a magnet, and he
doubtless spent a great deal of money on its improvement; for he built
additional rooms and inaugurated industries which I believe are still in
progress.”
“He was making the land valuable, mother. Was not that wise?”
“It did not look like wisdom to my anxious mother, and when my eldest
brother James died it looked still less prudent. But my brother
Alexander was then ‘Murray of Castle Murray,’ and he was as fanatic as
his father and elder brother had been. His son David was equally proud
of the old grey walls, and you know how Gerard plumes himself on being
heir to the place.”
“Yes, I know; but, mother, the Scotch place is now a very distinctive
and valuable property. You are as proud as any of us, when the
newspapers announce ‘Mr. Gerard Murray and a party of friends _en route_
to Castle Murray, his ancestral home in the Scotch Highlands, for the
shooting season.’ And the years Gerard does not himself go there he
rents the place for an almost incredible sum to some rich American or
Englishman. I am sure we should miss the money, as well as the
distinction, Murray Castle brings us if it was no longer ours. For my
part, I think my Grandfather Murray did a very wise thing in buying back
and renovating the old home, I do believe it will prove one of his best
speculations.”
“I do not doubt your faith, Carlita; and you must remember, I am now
giving you instances of good results from your grandfather’s wandering
fever. For you know wherever he went the lust for land went with him.
He had also the strangest instinct concerning its value. In some occult
way he divined the fortune of land, just as some fishermen point out to
the fleet of boats exactly where the school of herring swim, though no
ripple on the water and no shimmer of the fish show to the ordinary
eye--or, as I myself have seen, a man step out from his comrades and say
‘You may dig here, there is water beneath our feet.’ In some such way,
your grandfather could pick out the corners of certain streets, and even
plots and parcels of unplanted lands, as future desirable locations.”
“I do wish, mother, such an instinct was hereditary, and that it had
come my road.”
“It was a special gift, and perhaps was allied to the second-sight that
was not uncommon among his people. I was going to tell you that about
1850 he went to New Orleans. He had property there, and always kept it,
my mother thought, because it gave him a plausible excuse for a journey
when he could find no other. Well, on this journey he met, in New
Orleans, General Sam Houston. The two men loved each other on sight, and
your grandfather went back with him to Texas. He was infatuated with the
country. He wrote mother the most extravagant love letters, all inspired
by the skies, and the prairies, the wonderful sunshine, the intoxicating
atmosphere, and the seas of flowers nodding, even at his bridle reins.
And my dear mother affected an equal enthusiasm; she told him to enjoy
the trip in all its fulness--not to hurry home. She assured him all was
well--and that she was able to manage affairs a little longer without
him.”
“I suppose she knew that he would stay until the fever of wandering had
exhausted itself?”
“Perhaps she did; but even if so, her sympathy made him more happy. He
remained in Texas nearly a year, and, of course, bought land there. Some
of this land has been very advantageously turned into cash; but there
was one tract he would never part with. To be sure, no one seemed to
want it; and I have heard Texans who came to our house--where they were
always welcome--ask him what motive he had in buying land so valueless.
He always laughed a little, and said, ‘It was a fancy of his.’ Then
_they_ would laugh, and tell him that ‘he was rich enough to buy a
fancy.’ All the same, it was easy to see they thought either that my
father had been cheated or else that he was a mighty poor judge of land
and localities. But nothing altered his opinion of the Texas property,
and he took a promise both from my brothers and myself that we would not
sell it for fifty years. Well, Carlita, you know how it turned out?”
“Mother! You mean the oil lands? Good gracious! How could grandfather
know? There was no oil found below ground in his day--how could he
know?”
“So you see, though mother had these periods of loneliness and trial,
_we_ are reaping their harvest; and I am sure she is glad of it.”
“Grandfather was a strange ‘mixture of the elements’; so shrewd and
worldly-wise, and yet so romantic.”
“You may add sentiment to the romance. When he first entered Castle
Murray he saw it exactly as it had been left. No one had touched
anything. The old chief’s chair, as he pushed it from the table when he
had eaten his last meal in the home he was leaving, remained just at the
angle taken; a half-bottle of usquebaugh and an unbroken glass stood on
the bare oak table. The dust of generations lay an inch thick, and on
the hearthstone were a few remnants of half-burnt wood. These remnants
your grandfather carefully gathered, and when the first fire in the
Bowling Green house was lit they kindled it. But no one who ever saw
Leonard Murray buying or selling land would have dreamed that he had
room in his heart for a bit of sentiment like that.”
“I have heard him called a shrewd, hard man.”
“I know. Listen again. You have complained of the superabundance of
white roses at our old country home up the river?”
“Well, mother, they are absurdly out of proportion. They cover walls and
fences and over-run the garden, and ought to give place, in part, to
other flowers.”
“Not while I live. My mother and father carefully reared the first
growth from the seeds of one white rose, which in some way was vitally
connected with their love. There was a quarrel, and my mother rejected
the rose; and father kept it, and then after they were married they
planted the seed, and watched and nourished it, until it became a tree
bearing white roses. From slips of that tree the garden has been
garlanded with roses. I do not wish it changed, until you have put the
last earthly rose in my cold hands.”
“Dear mother! Dear mother!”
They talked over these incidents until Gerard returned; and then as they
took some slight refreshment together fell into speculations concerning
the past and present Bowling Green. Gerard was sympathetic with its
past, but enthusiastic as to its future. And when Mrs. Bloommaert spoke
feelingly of the dignified men who in early days had been the familiar
figures on its pleasant sidewalks, Gerard answered:
“Dear auntie, these dignified old merchants in breeches and beavers and
fine lawn ruffles have most worthy successors in the clean-shaved men of
to-day, sensibly clothed from their soft hats to their comfortably
low-cut shoes. Would it not be delightful to show some of these old,
dignified merchants over the new Bowling Green? Take them through Nassau
Street and way up Broadway? I think they would need all the training
they have been having since they died to bear it.”
“You ought not to speak so lightly of the future life, Gerard.”
“Auntie, your pardon! But do you think that only the incarnated improve?
May not the de-incarnated be progressing also?”
“Of that condition I have no knowledge; but we all know that the first
builders of New York had the hard part. They laid the foundation of all
that has been done.”
“All right, aunt; but the men of to-day have built well and loftily on
their foundation. If they could see the Bowling Green to-day, and the
magnificent commercial city of which it is the centre--if they could see
the elevated roads, the motor cars, the railways, telegraphs, and ocean
cable service and all the rest of our business facilities, I am sure
they would have no words for their astonishment and delight.”
“Well, children, I have lived a long time to-day. I belong to the--past.
I am tired. Good-night, Gerard.”
“Good-night, aunt. Dream of the past, but be sure that however
enterprising, energetic, patriotic, and far-seeing those old-time New
Yorkers were, there is just as much enterprise and energy, just as much
patriotism and prudence, with the New Yorkers of to-day, for
“The bold brave heart of New York
Still beats on the Bowling Green!”
THE END
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=Adventures of Captain Kettle.= Cutcliffe Hyne.
=Adventures of Gerard.= A. Conan Doyle.
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=Alton of Somasco.= Harold Bindloss.
=Arms and the Woman.= Harold MacGrath.
=Artemus Ward’s Works= (extra illustrated).
=At the Mercy of Tiberius.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
=Battle Ground, The.= Ellen Glasgow.
=Belle of Bowling Green, The.= Amelia E. Barr.
=Ben Blair.= Will Lillibridge.
=Bob, Son of Battle.= Alfred Ollivant.
=Boss, The.= Alfred Henry Lewis.
=Brass Bowl, The.= Louis Joseph Vance.
=Brethren, The.= H. Rider Haggard.
=By Snare of Love.= Arthur W. Marchmont.
=By Wit of Woman.= Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Cap’n Erie.= Joseph C. Lincoln.
=Captain in the Ranks, A.= George Cary Eggleston.
=Cardigan.= Robert W. Chambers.
=Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine.= Frank R. Stockton.
=Circle, The.= Katherine Cecil Thurston (author of “The Masquerader,”
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=Conquest of Canaan, The.= Booth Tarkington.
=Courier of Fortune, A.= Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Darrow Enigma, The.= Melvin Severy.
=Deliverance, The.= Ellen Glasgow.
=Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.= A. Conan Doyle.
=Fighting Chance, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
=For a Maiden Brave.= Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
=For Love or Crown.= Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Fugitive Blacksmith, The.= Charles D. Stewart.
=Heart’s Highway, The.= Mary E. Wilkins.
=Holladay Case, The.= Burton Egbert Stevenson.
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=Indifference of Juliet, The.= Grace S. Richmond.
=Infelice.= Augusta Evans Wilson.
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=Long Night, The.= Stanley J. Weyman.
=Maid at Arms, The.= Robert W. Chambers.
=Man from Red Keg, The.= Eugene Thwing.
=Marathon Mystery, The.= Burton Egbert Stevenson.
=Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.= A. Conan Doyle.
=Millionaire Baby, The.= Anna Katharine Green.
=Missourian, The.= Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.
=My Friend the Chauffeur.= C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
=My Lady of the North.= Randall Parrish.
=Mystery of June 13th.= Melvin L. Severy.
=Mystery Tales.= Edgar Allen Poe.
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=Wheel of Life, The.= Ellen Glasgow.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Proverbs xxxi. 22.
[2] In November, 1829, twenty-five years later, Judge Lansing left his
hotel in New York to take steamboat for Albany, and was never seen or
heard of afterward.
[3] This marvellous production remained on the Bowling Green until
1843, when the city’s art critics had advanced so far as to allege
the brilliant statue was not a work of art; and in deference to their
opinion it was sold to a collector of antiquities, who kept it forty
years. Then he died, and it was sold at auction for $300. It is now
in a cigar store on One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, where it
fills the position usually given to the wooden Indian. These facts are
noticed in the hope that the millionaire patriots congregating round
the Bowling Green may find it in their hearts not only to release the
historic statue from its degrading position, but also to place upon the
empty pedestal a statue of Washington worthy of the situation and of
the great city it appeals to.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
but it any one=> but if any one {pg 17}
Three hours after luck=> Three hours after lunch {pg 27}
But Judge Bloomaert=> But Judge Bloommaert {pg 36}
and Mrs. Bloomaert=> and Mrs. Bloommaert {pg 40}
The perparations for this=> The preparations for this {pg 41}
with envy and jealously to-night=> with envy and jealousy to-night {pg
51}
she did not life her eyes=> she did not lift her eyes {pg 54}
themeselves before=> themselves before {pg 62}
New York and Lousiania=> New York and Lousiana {pg 105}
having bought Louisiania=> having bought Louisiana {pg 106}
camillas and voilets=> camillas and violets {pg 135}
take any interst=> take any interest {pg 153}
greater populalation=> greater population {pg 200}
rose tree was in gloom=> rose tree was in bloom {pg 208}
Convice him he is wrong=> Convince him he is wrong {pg 212}
will unmistakable decision=> with unmistakable decision {pg 242}
opening the doors=> opening of the doors {pg 247}
door was nosielessly opened=> door was noiselessly opened {pg 323}
with the Blooommaert=> with the Bloommaert {pg 150}