THE LETTERS.
Tuesday evening's mail brought him two letters, post-marked Newbury.
The sight of them came with a sort of a heart-blow. They were not
wholly expected, and he felt that there might still be a little
struggle for him, although he was certain that this must be the last.
The well-known hand of Judge Markham addressed one of them. The
writing of the other he did not recognize; only after he had lost
its envelope, he remembered that it very much resembled the hand that
wrote the Greer warning. He put the letters into an inside pocket, and
tried to go on with his book; like a very young man he fancied that he
was observed. So he took his hat and went to the room he occupied with
Case. He pulled open the unknown, knew the hand, ran down and turned
over to the second page, and found "Julia" at the bottom, and below,
the words "with the profoundest gratitude." It ran:
"NEWBURY, April 8, 1838.
"BARTON RIDGELEY:
"_Dear Sir_,--Is it characteristic of a brave and generous man to
confer the greatest obligations upon another, and not permit that
other the common privilege of expressing gratitude? Were I a man, I
would follow and weary you with a vain effort to utter the thanks I
owe you. But I can only say a few cold words on paper at the risk
of being misunderstood." ("Um-m, I don't see what danger she could
apprehend on that score," said Bart quite sharply.) "When I had
wandered beyond the help of my father and friends, into danger, and,
I think, to certain death, you were inspired with the heart, skill and
strength, to find and save me. Next to God, who led you, I owe my life
to you. When this is said, I cannot say more. I know of no earthly
good that you do not deserve; I can think of no gift of Heaven, that
I do not ask of It for you.
"You will not be offended that I should most anxiously insist that
some little benefit should in some way come to you, from my father;
and you will certainly, when you first return to Newbury, give me
an opportunity to say to you how much I owe you, and how heavy the
obligation rests upon me. You promised me this and will fulfil it. My
mother, who sees this note, wants you to realize her profound sense of
your service to us, enhanced if possible by the noble and manly way
in which you rendered it. She was always your discerning and
discriminating friend."
"Discriminating,"--Bart did not like that, but no matter. That was
all.
"A very pretty letter, my lady Julia," said Bart with a long breath.
"Quite warm. I confess I don't care much for your gratitude--but very
pretty and condescending. And it is kind to advise me that whatever
may have been your estimate of me, your sweet lady mother 'discerned'
differently. What you mean by discriminating is a very pretty little
woman mystery, that I shall never know."
"And now for my Lord Judge:"
"NEWBURY, April 8, 1838.
"BARTON RIDGELEY, ESQ.:
"_My Dear Sir_,--I was disappointed at not finding you at Wilder's,
where your noble exertions had placed my daughter. I was more
disappointed on calling at your mother's the following morning,
hoping to carry you to my house. If anything in my conduct in the
past contributed to these disappointments, I regret it." ("Very manly,
Judge Markham," remarked Bart. "Don't feel uneasy, I should have acted
all the same.") "You saved to us, and to herself, our daughter, and
can better understand our feelings for this great benefit than I can
express them." ("All right Judge, I would not try it further, if I
were you.") "Whoever confers such a benefaction, also confers the
right upon the receiver, not only to express gratitude by words, but
by acts, which shall avail in some substantial way." ("Rather logical,
Judge!") "I shall insist that you permit me to place at your disposal
means to launch you in your profession in a way commensurate with your
talents and deservings." ("Um-m-m.") "I trust you will soon return to
Newbury, or permit me to see you in Jefferson, and when the past
may" ("I don't care about wading the Chagrin, Judge, and helping your
daughter out of the woods was no more than leading out any other
man's daughter, and I don't want to hear more of either. Just let me
alone.") "be atoned for. I need not say that my wife unites with me
in gratitude, and a hearty wish to be permitted to aid you; nor how
anxious we are to learn the details of your finding our daughter, all
of which is a profound mystery to us.
"Sincerely yours,
"EDWARD MARKHAM."
There was a postscript to the Judge's, instead of Julia's, and Bart
looked at it two or three times with indifference, and walked up
and down the room with a sore, angry feeling that he did not care to
understand the source of, nor yet to control. "Very pretty letters!
very well said! Why did they care to say anything to me? When I came
away they might have known--but then, who and what am I? Why the devil
shouldn't they snub me one day and pat me on the head the next? And
I ought to be glad to be kicked, and glad to be thanked for being
kicked--only I'm not---though I don't know why! Well, this is the last
of it; in my own good time--or somebody's time, good or bad--I will
walk in upon my Lord Judge, my discriminating Lady the Mother, and
the Lady Julia, and hear them say their pieces without danger of
misapprehension." And his eye fell again on the Judge's postscript.
Reads:
"Before I called at your mother's on that morning, I set apart the
chestnut 'Silver-tail,' well caparisoned, as your property. I
thought it a fitting way in which one gentleman might indicate his
appreciation of another. I knew you would appreciate him; I hoped he
would be useful to you. He is your property, whether you will or no,
and will be held subject to your order, and the fact that he is yours
will not diminish the care he will receive. May I know your pleasure
in reference to him?
"E.M."
This found the weak place, or one of the weak places, in Bart's
nature. The harshness and bitterness of his feelings melted out of his
heart, and left him to answer his letters in a spirit quite changed
from that which had just possessed him.
To Julia he wrote:
"JEFFERSON, April 11, 1838.
"Miss JULIA MARKHAM:
"Yours has just reached me. I am so little used to expressions of
kindness that yours seem to mock me like irony. You did not choose to
become involved in discomfort and danger, nor were you left to elect
who should aid you, and I can endure the reflection that you might
prefer to thank some other.
"If your sense of obligation is unpleasant, there is one consideration
that may diminish it. A man of spirit, whose folly had placed him
in the position I occupied towards you, would have eagerly sought an
opportunity to render you any service, and would have done his poor
best in your behalf. When it was accomplished he would not have been
covetous of thanks, and might hope that it would be taken as some
recompense for the past, and only ask to forget and be forgotten. No
matter; so little that is pleasant has happened to me, that you surely
can permit me to enjoy the full luxury of having saved you without
having that diminished by the receipt of anything, in any form, from
anybody, by reason of it. It is in your power to explain one thing
to your father; by which he will see that I must be left to my own
exertions so far as he is concerned. I do believe that your gracious
mother was my one friend, who looked kindly upon my many faults, and
who will rejoice if I ever escape from them.
"When in Newbury hereafter I shall feel at liberty to call at your
father's house.
"With the sincerest wishes for your welfare, I remain
"Your obedient servant,
"A.B.E."
To the Judge:
"Hon. EDWARD MARKHAM:
"_Dear Sir_,--I am in receipt of yours. It was, perhaps, necessary for
you to say some words to me. I may not judge of what would be fitting;
I feel that you have said more than was required. I had a boy's
sincere liking for you; but when I failed to secure the good-will
of anybody, it is certain that there were radical defects in my
character, and you but entertained the common feeling towards me.
It was an honest, hearty dislike, which I have accepted--as I accept
other things--without complaint or appeal. There is one near you who
can explain how impossible it is that I can become an object of your
interest or care. I am poor; let me remain so; I like it. Let me alone
to buffet and be buffetted. The atmosphere in which I live is cold and
thin, and exercise is needful for me. I have not deserved well of the
world, and the world has not been over kind to forget it. Leave me to
wage the war with it in my own way. It was God's pleasure to remove
from me those upon whom I had natural claims, and I do not murmur, nor
do I allude to it only as an indication that I am to go on alone.
"I am aware that I do not meet you in the spirit which prompts your
generous and manly kindness--no matter. Think that it proceeds from
something ignoble in my nature, and be glad that you may in no way be
involved in any failure that awaits me.
"I am sure Mrs. Markham has always been most kind to me, and if on the
miserable night when I left my own mother I could have stolen to her
somewhere, and have touched her robe with my lips, it would have been
most grateful to me. We shall meet probably again, and I am sure our
intercourse may be that at least of pleasant acquaintances.
"With the sincerest respect,
"A.B.E.
"P.S.--Your postscript takes me at disadvantage. What can I say? Its
kindness is most unkind. The horse is a mount fit for a Prince. I wish
he might be found useful to Miss Markham; if she will accept him, I
would be glad that he might be devoted to her service. More than this
I cannot say.
"B."
I am inclined to follow these letters back to Newbury. It took a round
week for a letter and its answer to pass between Newbury and Jefferson
both ways. Somehow, it so happened that Julia, on the third day after
mailing hers to Bart, was at the Post-office every day, on the arrival
of the Northern mail, with the air of an unconcerned young woman who
did not expect anything. On the seventh, two letters in a hand she
knew were handed her by the clerk, who looked at the time as if he
thought these were the letters, but said nothing.
On her way home she opened one of them and read it, and paused, and
read, and studied as if the hand was illegible, and looked grave and
hurt, and as if tears would start, and then calm and proud. "When she
got home she silently handed the other to her father, and her own to
her mother; then she went to her room. An hour later she came back,
took her letter, and going into her father's office, laid it open
before him, receiving his in return. This she read with a sad face;
once or twice a moisture came into her eyes in spite of her, and
then she sat and said nothing; and her mother came in and read her
husband's letter also.
"Mother," said Julia, "are all young men really like this proud,
haughty, sensitive fellow? and yet he is so unhappy! Was father at all
like him?"
"I don't know. You must remember that few at his age have been placed
in such trying positions, and had he been less, or more, or different,
we might have been without cause for gratitude to him."
"Well, he graciously permits us to know that he may at least once
again approach 'Your father's house!'"
"Julia! Could he have done it before?"
"Could he not, mother, when he saved my life?"
"Julia, was this poor youth more than human?"
"Mother, I have sometimes felt that he was, and that somehow more was
to be required of him than of common men."
The Judge sat in silence, with an expression that indicated that his
reflections were not wholly cheerful. The frank words that this youth
had always liked him, and that the Judge had cause for dislike, so
generous, were like so many stabs.
"Papa Judge," said Julia, suddenly springing to her father's side,
"may I have him?"
"Have him! Who?"
"Why, Silver-tail, of course," laughing. "There is nobody else I can
have;" rather gravely.
"Will you accept him?"
"Of course I will, and ride him too. I've always coveted him. My old
'Twilight' has almost subsided into night, and is just fit for Nell
and Pearly. They may ride her; and when this prince wants his charger,
as he will, he must come to me for him--don't you see?"
An hour later a splendid dark chestnut, with silver mane and tail,
round-limbed, with a high dainty head, small ears, and big nostrils,
with a human eye, spirited and docile, was brought round, caparisoned
for a lady, and Julia stood by him with his bridle in her hand,
caressing and petting him, while waiting for something ere she
mounted. "Your name shall not be 'Silver-tail' any longer; you are
'Prince'"--whispering something in his ear. "Do you hear, Prince? You
shall be my good friend, and serve me until your own true lord and
master comes for you. Do you hope it will be soon?" Prince slightly
shook his head, as if the wish was not his, at any rate. "Well, soon
or late, you naughty Prince, he alone shall take you from my hand. Do
you hear?" and being mounted, she galloped away.