ON BOARD THE SCYTHIA.
The two were lifted into the boat. They were shivering in the wind,
but their eyes were on fire with the excitement of the last two hours.
"Don't take us to that steamer," said Lawrence to one of the men who
was rowing; "put us on board something that will carry us to the
land. We must be in Boston to-morrow. Must,--do you hear?"
The young man spoke imperatively. He was possessed by an imperious
longing to get to a clergyman, that he and Prudence might be married
directly; and they must embark on the _Scythia_. That was the one
feasible thing to do,--the one thing now to which he would bend all
his energies. He was burning to get to the shore. He thought he could
almost attempt to swim there,--anything, rather than the perplexities
and delays which would come if they were obliged to go on board that
coastwise steamer.
"I can't do it, you know. I can't do it," answered the man, "'less
we happen to come upon somethin'. There's the steamer hove to 'n'
waitin'. No, I don't see how it can be done."
Lawrence was fuming. How was he going to bear any delays? It was as
if the very air he breathed were poisoning him until he could leave
America behind him. He had a fancy that if America were only far
away, there would be no clouds over his sky.
"What's that?" hurriedly asked Prudence, interrupting the man, who
was again saying that "it couldn't be done, nohow."
A tug was coming puffing and panting along, a little thing, dirty and
reeling in a reckless way over the water, with three men in it, all
of them, by the light of their lantern, gripping pipes between their
teeth.
"Hullo!" shouted Lawrence, leaning forward. "Fifty dollars if you'll
take two passengers up to Boston to-night."
"Hey?"
Steam was shut off, and the two crafts came alongside each other.
Lawrence repeated his offer.
"Why, there's a woman!" was the response. "We can't take no woman; no
'commydations, no nothin'."
He replaced his pipe in his mouth and then said, "I don't s'pose she
could stand it."
"I sha'n't mind," said Prudence, quickly. "Rodney, we'll go aboard."
As she rose, a little black shape, forlorn and draggled, came
fluttering from somewhere in the rowboat and alighted on the
girl's shoulder. Her first impulse was to push the crow from its
resting-place, but she restrained that impulse, and the bird
maintained its position when she stepped into the tug, for she
assumed that the master of it would take them to Boston.
So in ten minutes from the time they had been picked up the two were
steaming towards the city. One of the men had brought forward an
old coat, which he offered to Lawrence, suggesting that he "wrap it
around his wife."
Prudence appeared not to hear the words, but she drew the garment
closely about her and tried not to shiver. Lawrence sat near her; he
put his arm about her and held her to him. Often he turned and looked
down at her face, upon which the lamp shone. At those moments he told
himself that he could not live without her; that he had been insane
to think he could do so.
The little craft rolled and spun over the bay, puffing, and reeking
with odors of oil; sometimes sliding down into black water as it came
upon the wash of a big vessel; but always it held on its way, and
in an hour the lights of Boston began to show plainly, as the craft
moved in and out among the shipping in the harbor.
"I wish that crow had not come," exclaimed Lawrence once, when a
hoarse murmur from behind Prudence came to his ear.
Prudence smiled rallyingly.
"Are you going to be superstitious?" she asked.
"No; but that crow is a link with Savin Hill. I want to forget that I
was ever there."
The girl made a movement nearer her lover.
"I will help you to forget," she said, with a glance, "or"--and she
drew herself up slightly--"there is yet time to go back. Leander
knows it was by accident we were on the _Vireo_. We can take a train
from Boston out to Savin Hill, tell them about our accident, and all
will be as before. You will return to your old life, and I,--God help
me!--I return to mine, in which I must never think of you. It is not
too late, Rodney. Choose."
As she spoke, Prudence held herself aloof, looking at Lawrence. The
crow crept out from behind her and hopped on to her knee, cocking his
sharp eye up at Lawrence and making a chuckling noise as it did so.
"I have chosen," he answered, in a whisper, "and I would not go back.
Do you think I could leave you,--you? No, not though I were to go
through even more dishonor to gain you."
The crow chuckled again. A dark flush rose to the young man's
forehead.
"I will throw him into the sea!" he cried, in a smothered voice.
But Prudence stroked the bird's head with her finger.
"No," she said; "we will send him back to Savin Hill when it is
daylight. He will go. And shall I tie a note for Aunt Tishy to his
leg?"
"No," was the answer. "I don't know yet that I want to send any
word. Dear, let us cast the past behind us. Don't let us refer to
it. We begin to-night a new life. Oh, surely love will atone, my
darling,--my darling!"
"If you are only sure you will be happy." She was gazing up at him.
"Sure!" A tender fury was in his voice. "Prudence, it is paradise to
be with you."
So they sat beside each other in the dirty little tug, and murmured
the extravagant words which are not half enough extravagant, because
no words have ever been made which do much more than hint at any
height of emotion, be it what emotion it may.
In Boston the two took a carriage at the wharf. Lawrence parted from
his companion in the public parlor of a quiet hotel at the South End.
He explained briefly how they came to be in such a plight, and the
matron of the house furnished Prudence with some garments until her
own should be dry. Once in her room, the girl called for pen and ink
and paper.
"If Rodney will not write to them, I must," she thought.
Sitting at the table beneath the gas-jet, Prudence's face showed
pallid and weary, but there was an invincible light in her eyes, a
crimson on her lips, that spoke of something besides fatigue.
The crow was perched on the back of a chair near her. He had drawn
one foot up in his feathers and closed his eyes.
Prudence held her pen in her hand and looked at Devil. Then she
laughed slightly as she said, aloud, "We made an odd group, didn't
we, Devil? No wonder the clerk stared. A drenched man and woman and a
crow arriving at eleven o'clock at night, with no luggage.
"Will you go back to Savin Hill in the morning, Devil? As for me, I
will never go back. How could I? And Rodney shall be happy. Oh, yes,
he shall be happy; for I love him."
She put the pen to the paper; she wrote, "Dear Aunt Letitia," then
her hand stopped. She sat looking forward; there was a beautiful
light upon her face.
A clock struck somewhere in the building; it struck twelve. The girl
roused herself and looked down at the paper before her.
"After all," she thought, "why should I write? How they will hate me!
Let Rodney tell them what he chooses."
She walked about the room for a few moments. She tried to lie down
on the couch, but she could not remain quiet. A fire of memory, and
hope, and a strange, indefinite fear were in her heart. Her pulses
beat so heavily it was out of the question to try to rest.
It seemed to Prudence that she recalled every word she had ever said
to Carolyn Ffolliott. Plainest of all she remembered how she had
promised not to try to win Rodney back to her. What a ridiculous
promise! Could any one expect such a promise to be kept? Absurd!
Prudence walked about the room again. She supposed it would be
morning sometime. Sometime the hour would strike when she and her
lover would be on the ocean and beyond recall.
It was a strange thing that she could so clearly remember Carolyn's
honest eyes when she had asked for that promise.
Prudence shook herself impatiently. Then she tried once more to write
the note to her aunt. But she could not do it. She tore the paper
across and flung it into the grate; after this she began to walk
again. The crow got down on the floor and hopped along behind her,
sometimes pecking at the carpet. She turned to him in a kind of fury.
She was wishing she had the courage to wring his neck. But she would
make him go back in the morning. She could not have him with her. How
bright his eyes were! Now, as she gazed at him, she fancied his eyes
said:
"You're a liar! You're a liar!"
Thank fortune, he could not speak. She would surely kill him if he
could speak. But she had never killed anything yet, and it must be
rather a dreadful thing to do. Still, of course, it could be done.
Anything could be done.
When it came to be three o'clock the girl was so exhausted that she
laid herself on the bed and pulled the clothes up about her. As her
fingers touched her throat she shuddered, thinking of how she could
stop the crow's breath. She had left the light burning, and she now
lifted her head and glanced about. Yes, there was Devil on the back
of a chair near the fire. She smiled.
"It is like Poe's raven," she murmured. "Perhaps he will say
'nevermore' to me."
Then she resolutely shut her eyes, and was asleep directly.
A few hours later, in the bright sunlight of a lovely September
morning, Prudence scoffed at her fancies of the darkness.
She was dressed in her own clothes, and was waiting for Lawrence. She
had drunk a cup of strong coffee, and had been walking in the little
park near the hotel. No one was out, apparently, save servants and
market-men, and then a man or woman hurrying by with a satchel to
catch a train.
The crow had gone with Prudence. She had permitted him to go, hoping
he would spread his wings and fly away. But no; he hopped sedately
behind her, and when she turned he blinked up at her mildly. Once she
took him in her hand, and flung him up in the air, for that was the
way she and Leander had taught him to fly off home. Now Devil flapped
his wings obstinately, then alighted on the ground near her.
Two or three children stopped to gaze at him. Prudence asked a boy if
he would like to have a tame crow, but he promptly answered that his
cat would eat it.
Thus it happened that when the _Scythia_ left the wharf that day,
near a certain man and woman, who stood together on deck, there was a
little black shape sitting on some luggage. One of the hands began to
take up the bags.
"Hullo! Where sh'll I stow the bird?" he called out.
Lawrence turned, and his face darkened. But a hand was laid softly on
his arm.
"Dear," said his wife's voice, "let us call the crow our mascot.
Surely you can't blame him because he won't forsake us."
Then Prudence promised the man that she would pay him well if he
would take care of Devil during the voyage.
She glanced laughingly at her companion.
"I couldn't give him away, he wouldn't leave us, and I can't kill
him."
Lawrence's face cleared. He put his hand over the hand on his arm.
"Nothing matters," he said, in an undertone, "so long as we are
together."