CONVERSATION.
In the young man’s kindled mood, composition was easy, and by two o’clock
his article was done.
He was leaning back in his chair, enjoying the consciousness of eighty
dollars earned, when the door opened, and in came the Captain, with
his head very much on one side, and an ominous gravity on his quaint
features. He did not remove his straw-hat, but stood surveying Harrington
with a critical eye, like a marine raven. A slow smile twinkled around
the young man’s bearded mouth, for he instantly divined what the Captain
had come for.
“Well, Eldad,” he said, “it’s the rent, I know. I see rent written in
every lineament of your ingenuous countenance. Come, sit down.”
The Captain slowly lifted his clenched fist and shook it at Harrington,
then lounged about, seated himself on the sofa under the windows, and
cocked up his eye at the trap in the ceiling.
“Could I smoke, John?” he asked, suddenly dropping his glance at the
young man.
“Certainly. Light up, and smoke away.”
Keeping his head on one side, and his round, bright eyes intent on the
smiling Harrington, the Captain produced a short pipe and a match from
the hollow of his left hand, and putting the pipe in one corner of his
mouth, lit the match on his sleeve, and igniting the tobacco, began to
blow a cloud.
“And why didn’t you come to dinner?” he blandly demanded, opening the war.
“Dinner! I declare I never thought of it till this minute,” exclaimed
Harrington, coloring a little.
“It was a brile to-day, John,” pursued the Captain, contemplatively,
smoking. “Briled steak, potatoes, spinach, with a top off of bread
puddin’ and coffee,” he continued, pensively enumerating the components
of the meal. “Together with bread and butter, and apple-sarce. Joel James
eat till he thought his jacket was buttoned. Hannah says, ‘I wonder where
John is?’ Sophrony answers, ‘he’s in his room, for I see him go in at
eleven o’clock.’ ‘Better call him,’ says John H. ‘Better not,’ says I,
‘or you’ll scatter some of his idees.’ So we didn’t.”
Harrington listened attentively to this account of the family colloquy on
his absence from the dinner-table. Joel James was the Captain’s son, a
sturdy schoolboy of ten. Sophronia was his daughter, a girl of fifteen.
John H. was the youngest son, named after Harrington. Hannah was the
Captain’s wife.
“John,” said the Captain, changing the subject, “two hundred and fifty’s
not enough. I’m goin’ to raise it to three hundred.”
“Good!” exclaimed Harrington, with a jovial air. “I knew it was the rent!
Eldad, this rent is our standing grievance. Well, I’m going to lower it
to two hundred.”
“In which event, I’m going to move, bag and baggage,” retorted the
Captain.
Harrington laughed aloud, and sat smiling at the Captain, whose quaint
features were screwed into a grin, and momently lit in little flashes of
red from the bowl of the pipe near his cheek.
“Eldad,” replied Harrington, “if I had my way, you should have the house
rent free.”
“Which I wunt,” said the Captain.
“Of course you won’t,” continued Harrington; “but, Eldad, you were
mother’s mainstay, and have been like a father to me since she died, and
it grates on my feelings to have you paying me money. Well, no matter.
Let it go. But I’ll be even with you one of these days.”
“Well,” returned the Captain, “it’s settled then?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Three hundred, you say.”
“O no, Eldad. Two fifty.”
“Three hundred.”
“Two fifty.”
“Three hundred dollars.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars, Eldad. Not another stiver. I’m resolved
now.”
The Captain sighed, and smoked pensively.
“I lost a customer to-day, John,” he remarked, after a long pause.
“Indeed! Which induced you to increase your expenses, by raising the
rent,” bantered Harrington.
“Collected for him these six years back,” continued the Captain,
pensively. “Lem Atkins, you know.”
“Lemuel Atkins!” exclaimed Harrington, leaning forward. “Why that’s Mrs.
Eastman’s brother.”
“Certain. Cotton merchant on Long Wharf, and a black sheep he is too.
Webster Whig—pro-slavery up to the hub—reg’lar aristocrat every way. He
was one of the Fifteen Hundred Scoundrels, as Phillips called ’em. Ruther
guess all the bad that ever was in his sister and niece was drawn off
before they were born, and bottled up in him.”
“And how came you to lose him?” interrogated Harrington.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” replied the Captain. “You see, I’ve collected the
rents of eight of his houses for six years back—some of ’em went ruther
aginst my grain, too. Poor houses, scacely fit for human bein’s to live
in, two or three of ’em, and sech as no decent man would own or let out
to anybody. Howiver. He gave me the memorandums of three more about a
week ago. Mighty big rents Atkins gits for these dwellin’s, thinks I to
myself, as I entered them on my book. Spoon o’ horn! I niver guessed it
till I went down there yesterday, an’ found out what sort of houses them
are for which Atkins gits his big rents.”
“That’s fine in Atkins,” remarked Harrington. “Always talking about the
duty of citizens to obey the laws, right or wrong, and here he violates
the statute against letting houses for such purposes. But perhaps he
didn’t know who his tenants were.”
“_He_ know? Lord! he knew fast enough,” replied the Captain. “Laws? All
the laws he obeys are the laws that go for his money. There’s lots like
him. They go for every money law, from the Fugitive Slave Law upward, for
I ruther guess there ain’t no downward from the Fugitive Slave Law. Why,
there’s a Massachusetts law aginst over usury. Who don’t keep it? Who
lets out money for ten per cent., twenty per cent., any per cent. they
can git? Them very sort o’ men that’s always blatherin’ about obedience
to the laws, right or wrong. Ony when a man’s libaty’s consarned, and the
law goes for takin’ it away from him, then they’re awfully law-abidin’
citizens. By the great horn spoon! I’d just like to have the stringin’
up of them law-abiders with a copy of the Revised Statutes round their
necks!”
Harrington leaned back in his chair, with his hands clasped, and his brow
knitted.
“Well, as I was sayin’,” resumed the Captain, “I went into one of them
houses. ‘Young women,’ says I, leavin’, ‘you’d better repent, for the
kingdom of heaven’s at hand.’ I tell you I was mad when I found a similar
state o’ things in the tother two, and I just bounced out, and went right
down to Lem Atkins. ‘Mr. Atkins,’ says I, ‘you’d better employ your
former agent for them houses.’ ‘What’s the matter, Fisher,’ says he.
‘Matter is,’ says I, ‘that I guess you don’t know what sort o’ callin’
’s followed in them tenements.’ ‘It’s not my business, Mr. Fisher,’ says
he, ‘to busy myself with the occupation of my tenants. How dare you speak
to me in that manner.’ I looked him right in the eye. He swelled up like
a turkey-cock, but he didn’t look at me a second. ‘Mr. Atkins,’ says I,
‘no offince, but as I’ve got sons and a daughter, the occupation of your
tenants is a consarn o’ mine, and you must get another man to collect
them rents, for I wunt do it, an’ I pity the man that will.’ He turned
off to his desk. ‘Mr. Fisher,’ says he, ‘you wunt do any more collectin’
for me, so just send up your accounts, and we’ll be quits.’ ‘Very well,’
says I, and I left with his collectin’ off my hands for good.”
“Bravo, Eldad! That was done like a man!” cried Harrington.
“If it wasn’t for bringin’ disgrace on his sister and that splendid
daughter of hers,” said the Captain, rising, with his pipe in his
clenched hand, “I’d just let the thing be known around town, I would.
Say, John, she’s a beauty, though, ain’t she? John, she’s the ony lady I
know that’s good enough for you.”
Harrington colored deeply, in spite of himself.
“Well, the other one’s splendid, too,” said the Captain, as if in answer
to a private thought of the young man, scrutinizing his countenance
meanwhile, with his own head all awry. “Yes, she’s a regular clipper.
I never was so took aback by any human action as by that offer to buy
Roux’s brother. That was ginerosity such as we read of—ony it’s a pity
she didn’t know the harm she was doin’. Yes, she’s a glory, and that’s a
fact. Still, I wish it was tother one.”
“Why, Eldad,” said Harrington, laughing and fiery red, “you’re all at
sea. Surely you don’t think I’m in love with Miss Ames?”
The Captain looked hard at him.
“Well, so I’ve ben told, John,” he replied.
Harrington puckered up his mouth in wonder.
“Bless me, how people will talk!” he exclaimed. “Why there’s not a word
of truth in it. Of course I like Emily very much”—
“And she you,” interposed the Captain.
“And she me? I declare! I shall hear next that she is in love with me, I
suppose!” exclaimed Harrington.
“Well, so I’ve ben told,” coolly responded the Captain; “dead in love
with you.”
Harrington stared at him, but the color ebbed away from his countenance,
and a flood of dreadful confirmations overswept him. Her recent sudden
preference for his society, her lavish attentions to him, the fervent
and sumptuous fondness of her manner, rushed in new light upon his
consciousness. Purblind fool that I am, he thought; I mistook it all for
friendship, and it meant love! For a moment, poor Harrington felt as
guilty as though he had known and encouraged Emily’s passion for him. But
no, he thought, this is all a mistake; it cannot be.
“Eldad,” said he, “this is rather a serious matter; more serious than you
may imagine. Come, now, be frank with me. You say you’ve been told Miss
Ames is in love with me. Now who told you!”
The Captain, with his head all atwist, scanned him curiously, slowly
rubbing his chin, meanwhile, with the palm of his brown hand.
“Well, John,” he answered, slowly, “I was asked not to mention it.
Howiver, I guess I will. That young Witherlee told me.”
“Oh!” said Harrington.
“Yis, John,” continued the Captain. “I come in here one day about a week
ago, I guess, and found him sittin’ in your chair, smokin’ his cigar.
He said he was waitin’ for you, and we had a chat. In the course of the
conversation, he let that out. I ruther thought he was tryin’ to pump
somethin’ out of me on that subject, but I didn’t know nothin’, an’ if I
did, he wouldn’t have been the wiser, I guess.”
“What did he say?” asked Harrington.
“Well, not overmuch,” replied the Captain. “Seemed to know all about it,
howiver. Talked as if he was in your confidence. Asked when you were
goin’ to be married. Well, now, he didn’t exactly _say_ it, you know,
but he somehow gave me to understand that you were in love with Miss
Ames, an’ she likewise with you; an’ thought her family wouldn’t make no
objections. That was about all.”
Harrington, with a look of pain, reddened while the Captain was speaking,
and his nostrils quivered.
“I am shocked and grieved that Witherlee should talk in this way,” he
said, sadly. “I shall certainly call him to account for this.”
“John, you musn’t mention it,” said the Captain, anxiously. “He said
he thought I knew all about it, or he wouldn’t have alluded to it, and
he made me promise not to speak of it. It won’t do, John. Fact is, I
oughtn’t to have said a word.”
Harrington leaned his elbows on the table, and for a moment buried his
face in his hands. He had a clear glimpse into the method of the good
Fernando.
“Very well, Eldad,” he said, calmly, leaning back in his chair. “Let it
go, I won’t speak of it. But I assure you there’s not a word of truth
in this statement, so far as I’m concerned, and I hope there is not in
regard to Miss Ames!”
The Captain did not answer, but lounged away, and during the long silence
that followed, walked up and down with a ruminating air. At length he
stopped and fronted the young man, who was absorbed in musing.
“John,” said he, “to-day’s the day, you know.”
Harrington, knowing what he meant, bent his head, looking with
half-absent sadness into vacancy.
“Twelve years ago to-day, John, the good ship Contocook went down,”
continued the Captain, in a hushed voice, with a half-soliloquizing air.
“All the women an’ children saved. That was a comfort, John.”
Harrington again bowed his head silently. Every year, on the twenty-fifth
of May, he was accustomed to hear the Captain speak of this.
“And all the men saved, John,” continued the Captain. “That was another
comfort. All but one, John.”
The Captain paused, solemnly, and took off his hat.
“As good a seaman as ever trod the deck,” he resumed. “As fine a man
as ever breathed the breath of life. Captain John Harrington, aged
forty-two. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!”
There was a long silence.
“And he died in the Lord, John,” continued the Captain. “I don’t know as
he ever got religion. But he died in the Lord.”
The Captain paused once more, muttering the last words below his breath.
“Yes, John,” he continued, “that’s the way he died. I’ve been thinkin’
of it all day. It’s been comin’ to me how that rollin’ iceberg tumbled
through the thick fog, in the dead of night, and struck the ship, and
stove in her bows. ‘Back from the boats,’ he shouts, catchin’ up the
hand-spike. ‘The first man that touches a boat I’ll brain. Women and
children first, men.’ ‘That’s the talk,’ sings out some of the sailors,
an’ them that was goin’ to take the boats fell away. ‘Now, then, the
women and children,’ says he. Over the side they went, one by one; he
standin’ by with the handspike. ‘Now the other passengers,’ says he. Over
they went too. ‘Now, men,’ he says, ‘there’s room in that boat for some
of ye, and the rest of us’ll go into the other. Over they went, likewise,
till only he and the black cook was left. ‘The boat’s full, captain,’
says John Timbs, the first mate, ‘but I guess she’ll hold another.’ ‘Jump
in doctor,’ says Captain Harrington to the darkey. ‘No,’ they hollered,
‘white men before niggers, captain, and we’ll have you.’ ‘I’ll stay,
captain,’ blubbers cook, ‘No you won’t,’ says he. ‘Men,’ he says, ‘it’s
a favor I ask. Don’t deny me, or you’ll never know peace. In with you,
doctor,’ an’ he slung the cook over the side. ‘Try now, captain,’ says
they, all beseechin’ together. An’ he let himself down by the rope till
he stood in the boat, an’ the sea begun to come over the gunnels. He was
up into the ship again in a minute. ‘It’s no use, men,’ says he, ‘push
off. Timbs,’ says he, ‘give my love to my wife and boy, if I never see
’em again. God bless ye, men.’ And then the ship lurched for’ard, an’
they pushed off, cryin’ like babes. Last thing they saw through the fog
was the captain flingin’ a hatch overboard, and jumpin’ after it. But
that sea was too cold for a man to be in long. Then when they lost sight
of him, they heard the wallow, an’ saw the lazy swells lift up round the
boat, an’ knew that the ship had gone down.”
The Captain paused, wiping away with his sleeve the salt tears which the
simple epic of a brave man’s death brought to his eyes.
“That was the story, and them was the last words Timbs brought home to
your mother, John,” he continued. “An’ that’s the way he died. Women and
children saved. That’s a comfort. An’ all the men saved, includin’ the
poor old moke of a doctor. That’s another comfort. But he died. An’,
somehow, I kinder feel that’s a comfort too, John. For he died in the
Lord.”
The light lay softly on the pale and kindled features of Harrington, and
the fragrance of the garden floated through his brain like incense.
“It was a manly way to leave the world,” he said. “Life is sweet to me
with the memory of such a father.”
“You think of him often, John,” murmured the Captain.
“Often, Eldad, often. Never as one dead. Always as one alive and well.”
The Captain moved his head up and down, two or three times, in token of
assent, and moved away to the door.
“Well, good bye, John,” he said, suddenly.
“Good bye, Eldad,” returned the young man, rising and following him to
the door.
The Captain departed, and Harrington, closing the door after him, folded
his arms, and began to pace to and fro in deep musing. The sweet and
solemn feeling which the anniversary of his father’s death brought him,
gradually melted away in feelings of sadness and pain, as the torturing
thought came into his mind, that in his free and frank friendship for
Emily he might have won her to love him. The more he reflected upon it,
the more terrible grew the confirmations. His conviction of a fortnight
before, that she and Wentworth were lovers—how could he have been so
deceived!
The spell of the magic moment that had filled his soul with morning, was
disenchanted now, and darkness gathered upon him. Darkness that was not
without light, for he again believed that Wentworth and Muriel loved each
other, and he felt a sorrowful and generous gladness in their happiness.
His heart yearned to Wentworth—yearned to make him rejoice with the
assurance that he was not his rival—yearned to them both in love and
blessing.
He paused in his walk, as through his joy for them struck the sharp pain
of the consciousness that the costly treasure of her love was not for him.
“Heart of my heart, soul of my soul,” he murmured fervently, “I love you,
though I lose you. All that is divine and human is dearer and lovelier
to me because I love you, though you are lost to me. Lost, lost to me
forever.”
His head sunk upon his breast, and his eyes closed. The lilac fragrance
floated in and reeled in a warm gust upon his throbbing brain. Some
silent spirit seemed near him in the sunlit room, and strange comfort
stole upon him like the bliss of a dream.
“Farewell, Muriel,” he murmured, his blue eyes unclosing, dimmed with a
mist of tears, “farewell, farewell. It is one hope the less, and life
calls me still.”
He sunk into his chair, and striving to banish her image from his mind,
began to think how he should deal with Emily. In a little while he
resolved that, however difficult and delicate to do, he must frankly tell
her of what he had heard, and let her know his true relation to her.
His conclusion made, he still sat musing, his spirit clouded with sadness
and anxiety. Suddenly he heard the gate fly open and slam to, and a
firm tread rush over the planked walk, then the door opening, in darted
Wentworth, flushed, electric, panting, furious with rage.