Luttrell had just made up his mind that he would inform the American
visitor he would receive him, when Harry entered, leading the stranger
by the hand. “That’s papa,” said the boy, and retired.
“I hope I see you in very good health, Sir,” said Mr. Dodge, advancing
boldly, and shaking Luttrell’s hand in a hearty, vigorous manner.
“You live in a pretty lonesome spot here, and as the man said to the
whip-snake in the spout, ‘You ain’t easy to get at.’”
“Perhaps that was one of the reasons that led me to choose it, Sir,”
said Luttrell, stiffly, “and had you got my note, you’d have seen that I
never intended you should incur the inconvenience of coming to it.”
“Well, Sir, it warn’t pleasant; I’ll tell no lie, it warn’t pleasant!
I’m a seafearin’ man, Sir, and I’ve been one all my life; but such a
harbour to get out of, and such a port to get into, and such a craft to
do it in, I never seed in all my born days.”
“You compel me to repeat my regrets, Sir. I am, indeed, sincerely sorry
for your fruitless journey.”
“Well, it warn’t all time lost--we picked up that crew, and that lad of
yours. He’s a fine ‘buoy,’ Sir; I know ‘buoys’ well, and I say it again,
he’ll be a smart man.”
Luttrell bowed a cold and haughty acknowledgment.
“He ain’t a bit like you, not a bit; there’s no pride, no stand off
about _him_; he’s a raal frank, straight-ahead one. I seed it before he
was well aboard. It was all I could do to keep him from swimming after
his cap--a darned old sealskin thing it was--but he said it was his best
one, and he’d not get another in a hurry.”
“His frankness deserved all your praise, Sir, it went to the extent of
exposing his father’s poverty.”
“And if it did--what o’ that? You ain’t ashamed of it, are you? Look at
me, Sir; I have a matter of seventy thousand dollars in the Tennessee
Bank, and a trifle more in Ohio scrip, and I own every timber in the
barque _Prettyman Quincey Squashy_ four hundred and odd tons, a clipper
to sail, and a whale for freight, and I ain’t proud, nor no ways blown
up to burstin’ for that!”
“I am delighted to know of your prosperity, Sir, for your sake,” said
Luttrell, coldly.
“Mind,” said the other, who accepted the words in their most flattering
sense, “I didn’t say it was all got with my hands in my ‘pants-’
pockets. I had a darn’d deal of smart work for it. I was up among the
Injians for four years, I was over the Rocky Mountains trappin’, I was
a cook aboard a South Sea whaler, and”--here he winked one eye, and gave
Luttrell a good-humoured poke with his finger--“and I did a little in
Ebony off the Samsoo River, you understand; unwholesome work it was,
with the baracoons always flooded, and the alligators flopping through
the mud, and stirring up foul air and fever. Ugh!” he cried, with a wry
face, “you’d see an ugly sort of a blotch on your cheek at night, and
before the same hour next evening the ground sharks would be a fitin’
over you. You haven’t got anything to drink, have you?”
“I can, unfortunately, offer you nothing but our mountain whisky; it is
home-made, however, and not bad.”
While Luttrell took a bottle and some glasses from a small cupboard in
the wall, Mr. Dodge employed himself in a leisurely examination of the
chamber and its furniture. “May I never!” exclaimed he, “if it ain’t
a droll sort of crib. Why, Stranger, I’d not live here three months
without making something better to sit on, and handier to eat off, than
these. Just you give me a hatchet, and a hammer, and a handful of nails,
to-morrow morning early, and see if I won’t.”
“I am afraid my furniture deserves all the ill you can say of it,” said
Luttrell, with a faint smile.
“That ain’t a chair--it’s not like a chair.”
“I will not defend it, certainly.”
“And yet it shows why you Britishers never can, by any possibility, be a
great people--no, Sir, never.”
“I am really curious to hear that explanation.”
“Well, Sir,” said he, tossing off a fresh tumbler of undiluted whisky,
“you’re a goin’ to hear it--but ‘don’t be impatient,’ as the bush
squirrel said to the young mouse, ‘I’ve got your mother in my mouth,
but I’ll eat you presently.’ Here’s how it is. When you was makin’
that chair, you had in your mind some old-fashioned, ramshackle,
nine-cornered machine you had seen of your father’s, or your
grandfather’s, and nothin’ would persuade you but to imitate that. It
was wisdom of your ancestors--but we never had no ancestors. We didn’t
begin the world with fifty cranks in our head about how some helpless
old critter ten centuries back would ha’ tried to do this, or to mend
that. There’s the difference between us, Sir; and mind my words, when
we’ve got a ten-inch gun that’ll send a shot from Long Island to the
Battery Point, you Britishers will be a going back to bows and arrows,
and a paintin’your bodies blue, like your ancestors.”
[Illustration: 162]
“The picture is not flattering,” said Luttrell, gravely. “And now, Sir,
let us talk of something more nearly interesting to us. I am informed
by my correspondent that you have seen the catalogue of my small
collection, and desire to examine the objects themselves.”
“If that’s a home brew, Stranger, it does you more credit than the
chair,” said Mr. Dodge, smacking his lips after his third tumbler of
whisky.
“I am proud to have anything worth offering you, Sir.”
“If you’ve a barrel or two; of that spirit to dispose of, we’ll deal,
Sir, that’s a fact;” and Mr. Dodge emptied the bottle into his glass.
“I’m not certain whether my resources extend so far, but if they do, the
whisky is much at your service, and I will feel honoured if you accept
it.”
“Now for the gimcracks--let’s see ‘em,” said Mr. Dodge, as though eager
to show how promptly he could respond to a graceful or generous action.
“Some of the gimcracks are here before you,” said Luttrell, making
a rather awkward attempt to smile, as he repeated the word. “This
curiously misshapen attempt at a figure is, I have every reason to
believe, an image of the idol ‘Crom,’ the object of worship to the Irish
in the days of Paganism. You see he holds in his hand a sort of weapon
like a fork.”
“It ain’t a brand, and it ain’t a fork! The Choctaws have idols that
beat that critter hollow, and they stick eyes in them of a red stone
that sparkles when there’s light on it. What’s this?”
“An ancient Irish spear, or javelin.”
“It’s a whale harpoon, and a rare bad one to boot; the spike ain’t well
fastened, and no lead on the butt-end. Here’s a bowie-knife, ain’t it?”
“It’s the sword of an Irish chieftain, and was found in the tomb of
Thady O’Shaughlen, Prince of the Kiel, and the lands of Maroon; the
inscription that you see here----”
“I see nothing but scratches, made belike with an old nail or a
dinner-fork--they ain’t letters.”
“This inscription signifies ‘I am.’”
“Well, I’m blessed if I believe them’s old--they’re rubbish, Stranger,
jist rubbish--and as for the big dish----”
“It is a shield--a more perfect specimen is not extant. It was the
battle-shield of Brian Ogh-na-Tiernach; he was killed in the great
battle of Gongal-a-Murrah, which some historians have confounded with
the battle of Claddahmore.”
Perfectly insensible to the sneers, or the not less offensive ridicule
expressed by the American, Luttrell went on displaying object after
object with all the zeal of one who gloried in his pursuit, and
delighted in his success as an antiquarian. He drew forth rare scraps of
manuscript, some worn and tattered fragments discoloured by age, and
to all seeming undecipherable; he read out names of kings and saints,
valiant chieftains, and holy martyrs, whom he mentioned with a voice
tremulous with veneration; and he showed signet-rings and amulets they
had worn, as a priest might have displayed the most sacred relics.
“Look here, Stranger,” said the Yankee, as he threw himself into the
old chair, and stretched out his legs to the fullest extent, “there’s
a museum in my native town of Halkanopolis, and I want to make ‘em a
present; it’s to be somethin’ nobody ever seed the like of afore, nor
ever will again. I du think this gatherin’ here is pretty nigh that
ticket! And now, I say, what will you take for the whole bilin’ as it
stands?”
“You have not seen one-tenth of the collection as yet!” cried Luttrell,
whose zeal as an antiquarian was far greater than his eagerness as a
vendor. “There’s the great book of the Three Curses.”
“We can do the swearin’ and cursin’ pretty well without a book where I
come from,” said the Yankee, with a grin.
“Diarmid’s Token, as it is called. This curious gem, with its setting of
pure gold, was formerly believed to be a protection against witchcraft.”
“In my country, Britisher, it’s the witches would want the amulet! We’re
a pretty hard set down there, and can take care of ourselves without any
help from charms. Come, now--let’s deal; what’s the whole figure, in one
word?”
“You are unjust to both of us,” said Luttrell. “You neither know what I
want to sell, or yourself to buy. Let me go on and show you some curious
relics of a later period; they may have more interest for you, perhaps.”
“Not a hickory shaving’s difference, whether you showed me a trowel
that helped to build Babel, or a snuff-box of Queen Bess. If you want to
please me, talk of dollars, Stranger, hard dollars.”
Luttrell’s face flushed with a passing anger; this reducing him to the
position of a tradesman, first displaying and then pricing his wares,
sorely tried a temper that was never proof against much pressure. The
purpose-like cold face of the American, however, showed him that the man
meant no covert impertinence by his demand; but was simply desirous of
finishing a bargain as speedily as might be.
“I am sorry, Sir,” said he, at length, “that you will not let me lay
before you even the few objects that I prize the most; however, as you
give me no choice in the matter, and as circumstances render me anxious
to part with my collection, I obey you. I estimated the whole at three
hundred pounds. My agent informed me that, in London, two hundred was
deemed the value, and I never got a higher offer than a hundred and
fifty, which I refused, but which I will now take, if offered me.”
The American took a very scrubby note-book from his pocket, and made a
short calculation with a pencil.
“Well!” said he, in a drawling, dreary sort of way, “it ain’t much. I
suppose you was years over it?”
“Yes,” said Luttrell, taken suddenly off his guard, “they occupied me
many very sad days and nights. They were labours that lightened sorrow,
and took me away from cares that were eating into my heart.”
“Ah! and how much better you’d have been, stranger, if you’d ha’ been
doin’ something genuine useful, something to make yourself and others
more comfortable, and not a grubbin’ after old shoe-buckles and saints’
shinbones. Well, you don’t think so! No matter; that’s our way o’
lookin’ at it. Now to business. There’s just one thing in these diggins
that has tuk my fancy. It’s the only thing here that I’d give a red cent
for, on my own account; but I do like it wonderful. I don’t suppose
you’ll let me have it to buy, but if you’ll jist give a loan of it,
we’ll say for a year or two--two years--I’ll close the deal, and give
you your first price, fifteen hundred dollars.”
Luttrell’s dark face lighted up at the prospect of relief from much
embarrassment, and his eyes ranged over the room to see what it possibly
could be that had captivated his strange visitor’s fancy. A few gaffs,
a single-barrel gun, and some fishing-taekle, were in one corner, and a
pair of high sealskin boots in another, and a rough wolflike “lurcher”
lay under the table--could it be any of these? It was scarcely credible,
and yet the American had seen none other--he had walked straight from
the landing-place to the Abbey. “What signifies what it is?” said
Luttrell to himself. “It is the caprice of an unlettered fellow, who
would, perhaps, care more for a tobacco-pouch than for my ‘Book of the
Four Gospels.’”
“I have no doubt that I shall accept your offer, and gladly accept it”
said Luttrell; “but it would gratify me if you were to say what it is
that you desire to possess.”
“It’s then just as likely you’d refuse me.”
“And I mistake you much if, in such a case, you’d hold me to my
bargain!”
For the first time the American’s features brightened; the dull leaden
cheek coloured, and the firm-set thin lip curved into a pleasant smile
as he said, “You’re right there, Britisher--you’re right there. I’d not
ha’ clinched the nail, if I saw it was goin’ to fester you! Here’s how
it is, then,” and he drew a long breath to give him courage--“here’s how
it is--I want your ‘buoy.’”
“My what?”
“Your buoy; your son!”
“You want my son,” said Luttrell, drawing himself up, and looking with
an air of haughty insolence. “Have you forgotten, Sir, which side of the
Atlantic you are standing on, and that you are no longer in a land where
men deal in their fellow-men? Or is it that, presuming on what poverty
you have seen here, you dare to insult me with a proposal your own mean
whites would have resented with a bowie-knife?”
“You’d ha’ been a rare chap on a stump, Britisher, that’s a fact!” said
the Yankee, coolly. “Your words come rushin’ out like water out of a
pump; but they don’t squash me, for all that. Hairy Dodge--Dan Webster
always called me Hairy, the short for Herodotus--Hairy Dodge is a hard
grit, and it’s not every millstone can grind him.”
“Will you do me the favour, Sir, to accept the very humble hospitality
I can offer,” said Luttrell, proudly, “and let there be no more question
of any business between us? I think I heard mention of a sick friend who
accompanied you.”
“He ain’t a friend of mine. It was a critter I met at the inn, and who
wanted to come over here to see you, and so we agreed we’d take the
lugger between us.”
“He is ill, I am told.”
“Jist fright--nothing but fright! The first sea that took the boat on
the quarter, he cried out ‘Lord a mercy on us!’ ‘Oh, are ye there?’ says
I; ‘are ye a prayin’ for that sort o’ thing?’ and, surely, he did go
at it, till he grew too sick for anything but groans. There was no use
reasonin’ with him, for all he said was, ‘Put me ashore where you like,
and I’ll give you five hundred pounds.’ He got up to a thousand; and
once, when the peak halyards gave way, and the sail came clattering
down, he raised the bid to half his whole fortune.”
“So that there is no actual malady in the case?”
“Nothin’ o’ the kind. It’s jist fright--mere fright! How you’re ever to
get him off this to the mainland again, is clean beyond me. He’ll not
go, that’s certain, if he can help it.”
“I must look to him, and see that, so far as our very poor accommodation
serves, he wants nothing. You’ll excuse me, I trust, Sir.”
Luttrell spoke in a cold and formal tone, hoping, that his visitor,
seeing no prospect of any transaction between them, would now take his
leave. Mr. Dodge, however, either did not deem the battle lost, or he
saw no reason to retire from the field, for he disposed himself once
more in the old chair, and taking out a cigar about as long as a modern
parasol, prepared to smoke.
“You haven’t any objection to this sort o’ thing?” he asked, coolly, as
he lit it.
“None whatever. I’d say, Make yourself at home, Sir, if it were not that
this humble house of mine is so little like a home.”
“It will look jollier in the evening, when there’s a good fire on the
hearth, and a strong brew of that pleasant spirit smokin’ afore us;”
and Mr. Dodge vouchsafed a strange sort of grin, which was the nearest
approach he could make to a laugh, and Luttrell, stung by the notion
that another was assuming to do the honours of _his_ house, and to
himself too, retired hastily without speaking.