A WEIGHTY CONFIDENCE.
AT the tavern, when Adam entered, Halberd had succumbed to a plethora of
comfort, which had followed too soon on the paucity thereof, which had
been the program of the three for many weeks. He was snoring fiercely in
a corner. Pike, on the other hand, was inflated with life and activity
of speech. He was bragging eloquently, not only of his own prowess, but
also of that of Halberd and Adam as well.
Adam heard the end of a peroration of self-appraisement in which the
doughty Pike announced that one of his recent feats had been the slaying
of two murderous, giant pirates with his naked fists.
Among the sailors, dock-hands and tavern-loafers who made up the
auditors who were being entertained by these flights of narrative, was a
little, red-nosed, white-eyed man of no significance, who now stood up
and removed his coat.
“If you would like to have a bit of fun with me,” said he. “I’ll play
one of those pirates, till we see what you can do.”
Pike looked at him ruefully, rubbing his chin while thinking what to
answer to this challenge. He then waved his hand, grandly.
“Good sir,” he said, “the Sachem, my honored associate, has such an
appetite for these encounters that until he shall be satisfied I would
have no heart to deprive him of such good material as I can see you
would make for a fight. Doubtless I can arrange for him to do you the
honor you seek, after which I shall be pleased to weep at your funeral.”
“I would rather fight with him than you,” said the would-be belligerent,
“but before he comes, if you would like to have your neck broken——”
Satisfied that this business had gone far enough, Adam strode into the
tap-room, where the jovial spirits had congregated.
“My friends,” he interrupted, “you can put your necks to better purpose
by pouring something down them. Landlord, attend my guests. Pike——”
But the pirate-exterminator had fled, first edging to the door, at the
appearance of his chief, and then clattering up the stairs to the rooms
above with a noise like cavalry in full retreat.
“But if you would like to fight,” started the accommodating manikin,
still in process of baring his drum-stick arms, “why, Mr. Sachem——” but
he was not permitted to finish.
“Leave off the gab,” said a burly sailor. Clapping his private tankard—a
thing of enormous dimensions—fairly over the little head of the
challenger, he snuffed him completely and suddenly lifted him bodily to
the top of the bar, amid the guffaws of the entire company.
Rust lost no time in arousing Halberd, whom he herded to the apartments
aloft with brief ceremony.
Wainsworth, who had been sitting up in his room, writing letters while
he waited for Adam’s return, now heard his friend coming and opened his
door to bid him welcome. With another big hand-shake, and a smile over
their recent mis-encounter, the two went into the lighted apartment,
Wainsworth closing the door behind him.
“It’s a wonder you find me anything more than a small heap of ashes,”
said Wainsworth, “for I have fairly burned and smoked with my eagerness
to see you back.”
“I can smell the smoke,” said Adam. “How very like tobacco it is. And
now that I am here I presume you are quite put out.”
“You are not in love or your wits would be as dull as mine,” his friend
replied. “But sit down, sit down, and tell me all about yourself.”
“I thought you wanted to do the telling.”
“Well, I do, confound you, but——”
“What’s all this?” interrupted Adam. He had caught sight, on the table,
of two glittering heaps of money, English coins, piled in two apparently
equal divisions on the cloth.
“That? Oh, nothing, your share and mine,” said Wainsworth, taking Adam’s
hat and sweeping one of the heaps into its maw with utter unconcern.
“Stow it away and be seated.”
“Well, but——” started Rust.
“Stow it, stow it!” interrupted Wainsworth. “I didn’t bother you with
buts and whyfores when you divided with me. I have something of more
importance to chat about.”
“This is ten times as much as I gave to you,” objected Adam, doggedly.
“You gave me ten times more than you kept yourself, when it meant ten
times as great a favor. I am mean enough only to divide even,” answered
Wainsworth. “Say anything more about it, and I shall pitch my share out
of the window.”
As a matter of fact, Rust had impoverished himself for this friend, when
in England, at a moment most vital in Wainsworth’s career. He had no
argument, therefore, against accepting this present, much-needed
capital. He placed the clinking coins in his pocket, not without a sense
of deep obligation to his friend. It made one more bond between them,
cementing more firmly than ever that affectionate regard between them,
on the strength of which either would have made a great personal
sacrifice for the other. No sooner, however, had Adam cleared his hat
and weighted his clothing with the money, than he realized that the only
good argument he had possessed to oppose to Captain Phipps’ scheme to
take him away from Boston, namely, his poverty, was now utterly
nullified. He started as if to speak, but it was already too late. If
the Captain found him out, what could he say or do?
“Now then,” said Wainsworth, “we can talk.”
“I am an empty urn, waiting to be filled with your tales and
confessions,” said Adam.
Wainsworth settled back in his chair and stroked his small imperial,
hung on his under lip. “Yes, we can talk,” he repeated. He sat upright
again, and once more leaned backward. “I don’t know where to begin,” he
admitted.
“You might start off by saying you’re in love.”
“Who told you I’m in love? I haven’t said so. You’d be in love yourself,
if ever you had met her. She’s a beauty, Adam! She’s divine! She’s
glorious! Odds walruses, you’d be clean crazy about her! Why, you would
simply rave—you couldn’t be as calm as I am if you knew her, Adam! She’s
the loveliest, sweetest, most heavenly angel that ever walked the earth!
Why, I can’t give you an idea! She,—she, she just takes your breath!
There is nothing in Boston like her—nothing in the world. Why, man, you
couldn’t sit still if you had ever seen her!” He got up and paced the
room madly. “You could no more sit there and tell me about her as I am
telling you than you could drink the ocean!”
“No, I suppose I couldn’t.”
“Of course you couldn’t. I’m an older man than you are—a whole year
older—and I know what I am talking about. You would go raving mad, if
you saw her. She is the most exquisite—Adam! She’s peerless!”
“Then you are in love?” said Adam. “Up to this last moment I thought
there might be some doubts about it, but I begin to suspect perhaps you
are.”
“Love? In love? My dear boy, you don’t know what love is! I adore her! I
worship her! I would lay down my life for her! I would die ten thousand
deaths for her, and then say I loved her still!”
“That would be a remarkable post-mortem power of speech,” said Adam.
“And I suppose she loves you as fervently as you love her.”
“Of course she does—that is,—now, now why would you ask such a silly
question as that? A love like mine just reaches forth and surrounds her;
and it couldn’t do that if she didn’t—well, you know how those things
are.”
“Oh, certainly. If she loves you and you love her, that makes it
complete, and as I am a bit tired, and this leaves no more to be said——”
“But there is more to be said! Why don’t you ask me some questions?”
“Silly questions?”
“No! Of course not! Some plain, common-sense questions.”
“Well, then, is she beautiful?”
“Odds walruses, Adam, she is the most beautiful girl that ever breathed.
She surpasses rubies and diamonds and pearls. She eclipses——”
“Ah, but is she lovely?”
“Lovely?—She’s a dream of loveliness. I wish you could see her! You
would throw stones at your grandmother, if you could see how lovely she
is. Lovely!—Can’t you invent some better word—something that means more?
Lovely doesn’t express it. Go on, go on, ask me something more!”
“Oh, well, is she pretty or plain?”
“She is most radiantly beautiful.—Look here, Adam, you think I am an
ass.”
“My dear old fellow, I didn’t stop to think.”
“You are making fun of me!”
“Impossible, Henry. You told me to ask you some simple questions. Does
she live here in Boston?”
“She does, of course she does, or I shouldn’t be here, should I? She
lives here and Boston has become my Heaven!”
“Oh, well, thanks for your hospitality. Let’s see,—is she beauti—but I
may have asked that before.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes to keep them
open. “Oh, I do think of another. What is her name?”
“Her name?” chuckled Wainsworth, walking up and down in an ecstasy of
delight. “Her name is the prettiest name in the universe. It’s
Garde—Garde Merrill—Garde! Oh, you just love to say Garde, Garde,
Garde!”
Adam started, suddenly awake and alert. He passed his hand across his
eyes stiffly. His face became as pale as paper. Wainsworth was still
walking restlessly up and down, intent on his own emotions.
“It’s a name like a perfume,” he went on. “Garde, Garde. You can’t think
how that name would cling to a man’s memory for years—how it rings in a
man’s brain—how it plays upon his soul!”
Adam was thinking like lightning. Garde!—She loved Wainsworth—he had
said so. It was this that had made her appear so restrained, unnatural,
eager to return to the house. This was why her answers had been so
evasive. The whole situation broke in on him with a vividness that
stunned his senses.
A mad thought chased through his brain. It was that, if he had spoken
first, this moment of insupportable pain could have been avoided, but
that Wainsworth having spoken first had acquired rights, which he, as a
friend, loving him dearly, would be bound to respect. He thought of the
money he had just accepted from this brother-like friend. He saw the
impossibility of ever saying to Henry that he too loved Garde
Merrill—had loved her for seven years—had heard her name pealing like
the bell of his own very being in his soul! But no—he couldn’t have
spoken! He knew that. He would never dare to say that she loved him, in
return for the love he had fostered for her, these seven years. No, he
could not have spoken of her like this to any soul, under any
circumstances. To him her name was too precious to be pronounced above a
whisper to his own beating heart. He did not realize that, by that very
token of her sacredness to him, he loved her far more deeply, far more
sublimely than could any man who would say her name over and over and
babble of his love.
He only knew that his brain was reeling. He could only see that
Wainsworth, for whom he would have sacrificed almost anything, was all
engrossed in this love which must mean so much. He only realized that
all at once he had lost his right to tell this dearly beloved friend the
truth, and with this he had also lost the right, as an honorable
comrade, to plead his own soul’s yearning at the door of Garde’s heart.
Wainsworth, in his ecstatic strolling and ringing of praises, was
tolling a knell for Adam, saying “Garde” and then “Garde” and again
presently “Garde,” which was the only word, in all his rapid talk that
reached the other’s ears.
Adam arose, unsteadily. Wainsworth had not observed his well-concealed
agitation.
“I—must be going,” said Rust, huskily, turning his face away from the
light. He tried to feign another yawn. “I am no longer good company.
Good night.”
“What, going?” said Henry, catching him affectionately by the shoulders.
“Ah, Adam, I suppose I am a bit foolish, but forgive me. You don’t know
what it is to love as I have learned to love. And, dear friend, it has
made me love you more—if possible—than ever.”
“Good night, Henry,” said Adam, controlling his voice with difficulty.
“Good night—and God bless you.”
“Say ‘God bless Mistress Garde Merrill’—for my sake,” said Henry.
Adam looked at him oddly and repeated the words like a mere machine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------