CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM VISITS ADRIAN. ANDREW AND MADGE MCCULLOCH AND BILLY
CORLISS. CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM'S NARRATIVE ENDS.
One day I left Pemberton's and took the road to Adrian. It was an
afternoon in November. The church in Adrian stands on the edge of the
graveyard, in the middle of the village, and there I went about looking
for the McCulloch lot, and found it, and there was Madge's stone. It's a
flat grey stone. There's many more like it, set along on rows. It seemed
a neighbourly sort of place to rest in, if a man chose, after a roaming
life. I stood there till the shadow came along across the churchyard
from the church steeple. Then it grew dusk, and it seemed like now and
then I heard a bell tolling. Aye, it was like a bell tolling. It seemed
to me I could hear it. But there was no bell.
Then I came out and went to look for Andrew McCulloch's house. It stands
north of the Green, looking across the churchyard. I knocked at the
door, then I backed off the step, when it opened, thinking there must
be a mistake about the date, and maybe inscriptions on gravestones was
exaggerated; there was a girl in the doorway that looked and acted
like Madge Pemberton complete. Moreover an old seaman falling off the
doorstep didn't seem to upset her balmy calmness. She says:
“What is it?”
“It's Tom Buckingham come home,” I says. “But I guess you're the next
generation,” and I asked for Andrew McCulloch.
He's a red-faced man with short side whiskers, a chunky, fussy, and
hot-tempered man, but whether Madge Pemberton had managed him, or
whether he'd worn her out, I couldn't make up my mind about the
likelihood. I sat a while talking with him, and watching Madge
McCulloch, his daughter, lay the tea table. I thought how I'd give
something to get her to lay the tea table for me as a habit, and I
didn't see how that was likely to come about.
Andrew McCulloch appeared to think most people in Adrian would be more
to his mind if buried with epitaphs describing them accurate.
It was eight o'clock when I came out and started for Pemberton's. I came
past McCulloch's fence, and heard some one speak near by, and there was
a man sitting on the top rail near the corner. It was considerable dark.
“Been in to see King Solomon?” he says.
“What's that?” I says.
“Major General McCulloch,” he says. “Why, I believe you stayed to tea!
Why, I haven't fetched that in three months!”
“Why not?”
“Oh,” he says, “why, you see, the venerable ecclesiastic he's afraid
I'd want to come to breakfast too. He thinks I am a grasshopper and a
burden.”
I thought it looked like a promising conversation, and climbed on the
fence beside him, and took a look at him in the starlight.
He said his name was “Billy Corliss,” and explained why he sat on the
fence. He said it was on account of Andrew McCulloch. He said he and
Madge McCulloch were agreed, but Andrew McCulloch wasn't agreeable. That
was partly because Andrew wanted Madge to stay where she was, partly
because Corliss had no assets or prospects, and partly because Andrew
had an unreasonable low opinion of him, as a roaming and unsettled sort.
He spoke of Andrew by various and soaring names, implying a high opinion
of him, and especially in speaking of Andrew's warm temper, his respect
got remarkable. He'd call him maybe, “St. Peter,” in that connection, or
maybe “Sitting Bull.” For candour, and opening his mind, and asking the
world for sympathy, I took him to be given that way. He said the town
of Adrian was divided into two parties on the subject of him, and
Madge, and Andrew McCulloch, so I took it Andrew's temper had had some
reasonable exercise.
“St. Peter's got a good run of warm language,” he says, “but his fence
is chilly. He's got a toothache in his shoes, he has, that man.”
“Why don't you elope?” I says.
“That's the trouble,” he says. “When I ask Madge, 'Why not?' she says,
'Where to?' I'd been thinking I'd take a look around the world and see.”
“Don't you do it,” I says. “When you get around the other side, it's a
long way back. It took me thirty years.”
“You don't mean it!” he says. “Why, that wouldn't do.”
“Assets take time,” I says, “but you might get some prospects.”
Then I fell to thinking how it could come about that Madge McCulloch
might get into the habit of making tea for me, seeing I was too old to
marry her, besides her being spoken for. Then I thought she might do it
by keeping a hotel, and I says:
“Speaking of keeping hotels--”
“Who's speaking of it?”
“I am. I kept a hotel once.”
“Seaside?” he says.
“No. Inland a bit.”
“Summer hotel?”
“Aye, summer hotel. Always summer there.”
“Why, she must have paid!”
“Aye, she paid. She was put up in New Bedford,” I says, “and run in
South America.”
“You don't mean it!”
“It's a good business if tended to,” I says. “But you don't tend to
business, you don't. That's the trouble with you. That hotel fell into
the river more'n twenty years ago, and it ain't to the point, but here
Madge McCulloch's been jerking the window shade up and down like she had
something on her mind.”
“It's a signal,” he says, and with that he dropped off and disappeared
toward the back of the house. He left me on the fence.
I thought of the four men that had stood by me most in my time; now one
was a miser and smuggler, and got himself hung; and one was a thief, and
died of a split wishbone, on what he called “a throne;” and one was a
fighter and gambler and poet, and he had a heavy fist, and he turned
remorseful into a Burmese monk; and one was Stevey Todd. And Madge
Pemberton thought at one time I was all right, but she was wrong there.
And I thought how here was Andrew and another Madge, and here was Billy
Corliss, and here was the world galloping along lively. I couldn't but
admire the way it was so made as to keep going, and me thinking it had
come pretty near to a standstill.
By-and-by, Corliss and Madge McCulloch came across the yard from the
back of the house, and climbed on the fence, and Madge hooked her feet
on the lower rail and talked cheerful. They spread out what was on their
minds pretty confident. I never knew a couple so open-minded.
“Billy wants to run away,” she says, “but he doesn't know where to
yet, unless it's to be a summer hotel in South America that fell into a
river. He thinks it was an interesting hotel,” she says. “Do you think
it would be nice? But how would we get there?”
“It's wrong side up now,” I says; and Billy Corliss says, “Why, there's
a chance for housekeeping ingenious! Let's be social! 'Sure Mike!' says
the dowager duchess, wishing to be democratic. Why, look here!” he says.
“What right's a chimney got to be haughty over a cellar?”
“Oh, keep still, Billy!” says Madge McCulloch, and he closed up, sudden
but cheerful, as if he'd been hit by a kettle.
I said I wouldn't recommend the _Helen Mar_ now, but I'd recommend hotel
keeping as a good and sociable business.
“For,” I says, “the seaman travels around the world seeking profit and
entertainment, but the hotel keeper sits at home comfortable, and they
come to him. I've been a hotel-keeper in South America” I says, “and
might have been one in Greenough for the asking. I chose to be a seaman,
and take a look around the world, being foolish and curious. Now, that
was a mistake, for the man that bides in his place for the main of his
life, has the best of it. He knows as much of the world as another; for
if a man goes romping and roaming, and knows no neighbours and no family
of his own, why, sure there's a deal of the world that he never knows.
That's the moral of me,” I says, “that's the moral of me. Now, as to
hotel keeping,” I says, “I liked that business as well as anything I
ever did. I liked it well,” I says, and I looked around both sides of
me, and stopped, for no Madge and no Billy Corliss was sitting on the
fence. Nothing there but lonesome sections of fence.
“Why,” I says, “here's an open-minded couple. And it's an energetic
couple. Where in the nation did it go to?”
Then I saw Andrew McCulloch coming down from the front door to the gate,
but he turned to the right at the gate, and went stumping away up the
street, and Madge and Billy Corliss got up from crouching beside the
fence, and Madge says:
“Let's go in and get warm.”
And I says to myself, “It's a couple that's got good sense, too,” for
Andrew's fence was chilly.
We went in the house and sat down by the stove.
“As to hotel keeping,” I says, “I've talked that over with Pemberton,
and Stevey Todd, who was the man that run the emigrant hotel with me,
and Pemberton's agreeable, and Stevey Todd don't argue against it. I've
been thinking of building on to Pemberton's, and making a big summer
hotel. It stands in sight of the sea, and it's a likely spot. Now,” I
says, “hotel keeping is a combination of hospitality and profit. The
secret of it is advertising and a peaceable mind to take things as they
come. A good hotel keeper is a moderate man. He sees folks coming
and going from day to day, and how many does he see as comfortable as
himself? Hotel keeping is a good life, you can take my word.”
Then there was a noise in the hall outside, but I went on:
“It's a good life,” I says, and I looked around on both sides of me, and
I saw no Madge McCulloch and no Billy Corliss. Nothing but empty chairs,
and two open doors behind me.
I says, “That's a singular coincidence.”
By the noise in the hall I judged Andrew McCulloch was come back
unexpected, and I judged he might come in ambitious and inquiring,
and not easy to take as he came. I started for the open doors, and got
through one of them hasty, and shut it behind. It was soon enough to
escape Andrew, and too soon to see if it was the right door. It was dark
there except for the starlight through a window, showing crockery on
shelves. The place was no more than a pantry.
I've been in different circumstances by sea and land, but I didn't
recollect at that moment ever being planted in just those, and it seemed
to me a couple, that could plant an experienced seaman that way must be
ingenious as well as open-minded. I heard Andrew McCulloch talking to
himself like the forerunnings of an earthquake, and I says:
“An experienced seaman might get out, but not that way. Experienced
seamen don't put off on the windward side. But,” I says, “it seems to me
experience and ingenuity could keep a hotel.”
With that I put up the window softly and climbed out and dropped to the
ground. I went round the house looking for ingenious couples, and then
across the yard, and there they sat on the same fence, with their feet
hooked as previous, and they appeared to feel calm and candid.
“As to hotel keeping,” I says, climbing on the fence, “it's a good
life,--” and there I stopped.
I looked over at the old churchyard on the Green. It was dark and still
over there. The rows of flat tombstones were grey, like planted ghosts.
“Hic Jacet” means “here lies,” as I'm told. Those folks that once
got their “Hic jacets” over them wouldn't ever get up to argue the
statement; but those that left good memories behind, I guessed they were
glad of it. As for the living, if they were elderly, they'd best go to
bed. With that I got down from the fence.
“Madge,” I says, “do you know why I'm backing you?”
“Yes,” she says, “I know.”
How the nation did she know?
“Happen Billy Corliss may want to run away still” I says, “and maybe
you'll be asking, 'Where to?' and maybe he'll remark, 'Pemberton's.'
Then if you and he should drop into Pemberton's most any time, with a
notion of connubiality, I guess likely he'd have prospects to modify
Andrew McCulloch with afterward, 'Pemberton's seaside Hotel. Peaceful
Patronage Welcome. No Earthquakes nor Revolutions Allowed.'”
Then I left them on the fence and came back to Greenough.