"I wasn't sure, Jamie, that you wanted Mary. You know there was some one
else you were often with."
He lay for some time without speaking. At last he said, slowly,--"I
see,--I see,--I see,"--three times. Then, turning his eyes away from me,
he kept on,--"What should you think, Joseph, if I were to tell you that
I had seen Margaret before she came to your place?"
"Seen Margaret?" I repeated.
"Yes," he replied; "and I will tell you where. You see, when I found
mother was dead, and nobody cared whether I went up or down in the
world, that I turned downwards. I got with a bad set,--learned to drink
and gamble. One night, in the streets of Boston, I got into a quarrel
with a young man, a stranger. We were both drunk. I don't remember doing
it, but they told me afterwards that I stabbed him. This sobered us
both. He was laid on a bed in an upper room in the Lamb Tavern. I was
awfully frightened, thinking he would die. That was about two months
before I shipped aboard the Eliza Ann.
"After his wound was dressed, he begged me to go for his sister, and
gave me the street and number. His name was Arthur Holden. His sister
was your Margaret. Our acquaintance began at his bedside. We took turns
in the care of him.
"They were a family well off in the world, with nothing to trouble them
but his wickedness. He would not be respectable, would go with bad
company.
"After he was well enough to be taken home, I never saw Margaret until
that morning after the snow-storm. I was very eager to go for her, for I
felt sure, from what Mr. Nathaniel had said during the night, that she
was the same.
"Riding along, she told me all about Arthur's course, and the grief he
had caused them ever since. It had made her mother ill. He was roaming
about the country, always in trouble, and it was on his account that she
stayed behind, when her father and mother went South. She said he must
have some one to befriend him in case of need.
"And here," continued he, "was where I took a wrong step. I begged
Margaret not to speak of our former acquaintance. I could not bear to
have you all know. I was afraid Mary would despise me, she was so pure.
"Margaret was willing to keep silence about it, for she would rather not
have the people know of her brother. He would have been the talk of the
neighborhood. Everybody would have been pitying her. She used to like to
speak of him to me, because I was the only one who knew the
circumstances.
"But don't think," he continued, earnestly, "that I would have married
Mary and never told her. We had a long, beautiful talk the last evening.
I had never before spoken quite freely of my feelings, though she must
have seen what they were. But that night I told everything,--my past
life, and all. And she forgave all, because she loved me.
"I meant to tell you as soon as we were off; but you turned the cold
shoulder,--you would not talk about home."
Here he stopped. I hoped he would say no more, for every word he spoke
made me feel ashamed. But he went on.
"The day before we agreed to go this voyage, Margaret told me that
Arthur was concealed somewhere in the neighborhood. She didn't know what
he had done, but only that he was running away from an officer. I found
him out, and went every night to carry him something to eat."
"Why didn't she tell me?" I exclaimed. "I would have done the same."
"She would, perhaps," said he, "only that for some time you had acted so
strangely. She never said a word, but I knew it troubled her. If I had
only known of your feeling so, I would have told everything. But I
thought you must see how much I cared for Mary. Everybody else was sure
who Margaret loved, if you were not.
"Oh, Joseph," he continued, clasping my hand, "how beautiful it will be,
when we get home, now that everything is cleared up! But I haven't quite
finished. Sunday, if you remember, Margaret came in late to meeting.
While the hymn was being read, she wrote me on a slip of paper that
Arthur was gone. I wrote her back, 'Good news.' Afterwards she told me
that he came in the night to her bedroom-window to bid her
good-bye,--that he had promised her he certainly would do better.
Margaret was in better spirits that day than I had seen her for a long
while. I thought there had been an explanation between you two. Never
fear, Joseph, but that she loves you."
Jamie seemed tired after talking so much, and soon after fell asleep. I
crept into the berth underneath him. I felt like creeping somewhere.
Sleep was long coming, and no sooner was I unconscious of things about
me than I began to dream bad dreams. I thought I was stumbling along in
the dark, 'Twas over graves. I fell over a heap of earth, and heard the
stones drop down into one newly made. As I was trying to walk away,
Margaret came to meet me. "You didn't bid me good-bye," said she,
smiling; "but it's not too late now." Then she held out her hand. I took
it, but the touch waked me. 'Twas just like a dead hand.
I kept sleeping and waking; and every time I slept, the same dream came
to me,--exactly the same. At last I rushed upon deck, sent a man below,
and took his place. He was glad to go, and I was glad to be where the
wind was blowing and everything in commotion.
The next day I told Jamie my dream. He said it was a lucky one, and he
hoped it meant two weddings. So I thought no more of it. I was never
superstitious: my mother had taught me better.
We had just started for home, but this gale blew us off our course. Soon
after, however, the wind shifted to the eastward, and so kept, for the
biggest part of the time, until we sighted Boston Lights. Jamie was
nearly well. Still he could not walk much. He was quite lame. The
skipper thought some of the small bones of the foot were put out. But
Jamie didn't seem to care anything about his feet. He was just as gay as
a lark, singing all day.
As soon as we caught sight of The Mountains, we ran up our flag. It was
about noon, and the skipper calculated on dropping anchor in the channel
by sundown, at the farthest. And so we should, but the wind hauled, and
we couldn't lay our course. Tacking is slow work, especially all in
sight of home. About ten o'clock in the evening we made Wimple's Creek.
Then we had the tide in our favor, and so drifted into the channel. Our
bounty wasn't quite out, or we should have gone straight in to the
wharf, over everything.
When things were made snug, we pulled ashore in the boat. It being in
the night, we went just as we were, in fishermen's rig. 'Twas a wet,
drizzly, chilly night, so dark we could hardly make out the landing. We
coaxed Jamie to stop under a shed while I went for a horse. I was the
only one of the crew who lived beyond the meeting-house. But I had so
much to think of, was so happy, thinking I was home again, and that
everything would be right, that I never minded being alone. Passing by
the graveyard made me remember my dream. "Joseph," said I to myself,
"you don't dare walk through there!" 'Twas only a post-and-rail fence,
and I sprang over, to show myself I dared do it. I felt noways agitated
until I found, that, on account of its being so dark, I was stumbling
just as I had dreamed. I kept on, however; for, by going that way, I
could reach home by a short cut. When I got behind the meeting-house I
nearly fell down over a heap of earth. My fall started a few stones, and
I could hear them drop. Then my courage left me. I shook with fear. I
hardly had strength to reach the road. That was the first time it
occurred to me that I might not find all as I left them.
As I came to dwelling--houses, however, I grew calm again, and even
smiled at my foolishness,--or tried to.
Mr. Nathaniel's house came before ours. I saw there was a light in the
kitchen, and stepped softly through the back-yard, thinking some one
might be sick. The windows were small and high. The curtains were made
of house-paper. One of them was not quite let down. I looked in
underneath it, and saw two old women sitting by the fire. Something to
eat was set out on a table, and the teapot was on the hearth. One stick
had broken in two. The smoking brands stood up in the corners. There was
just a flicker of flame in the candlestick. It went out while I was
looking. I saw that the old women were dozing. I opened the outside-door
softly, and stood in the porch. There was a latch-string to the inner
one. As soon as I pulled it the door opened. In my agitation I forgot
there was a step up, and so stumbled forward into the room. They both
started to their feet, holding on by the pommels of the chairs. They
were frightened.
"What are you here for?" I gasped out.
"Watching with the dead!" whispered one of them.
"Who?"
They looked at each other; they knew me then.
I remember their eyes turning towards the front-room door, of placing my
hand on the latch, of standing by a table between the front-windows, of
a coffin resting on the white cloth, of people crowding about me,--but
nothing more that night. Nothing distinctly for weeks and months. Some
confused idea I have of being led about at a funeral, of being told I
must sit with the mourners, of the bearers taking off their hats, of
being held back from the grave. But a black cloud rests over all. I
cannot pierce it. I have no wish to. I can't even tell whether I really
took her cold hand in mine, and bid her good-bye, or whether that was
one of the terrible dreams which came to me every night. I know that at
last I refused to go to bed, but walked all night in the fields and
woods.
I believe that insane people always know the feelings and the plans of
those about them. I knew they were thinking of taking me to an asylum. I
knew, too, that I was the means of Jamie's being sick, and that they
tried to keep it from me. I read in their faces,--"Jamie got a fever
that wet night at the shore; but don't tell Joseph."
As I look back upon that long gloom, a shadowy remembrance comes to me
of standing in the door-way of a darkened chamber. A minister in white
bands stood at the foot of the bed, performing the marriage-ceremony. I
remember Jamie's paleness, and the heavenly look in Mary's face, as she
stood at the bedside, holding his right hand in hers. Mother passed her
hand over my head, and whispered to me that Mary wanted to take care of
him.
One of my fancies was, that a dark bird, like a vulture, constantly
pursued me. All day I was trying to escape him, and all the while I
slept he was at my pillow.
As I came to myself I found this to be a form given by my excited
imagination to a dark thought which would give me no rest. It was the
idea that my conduct had been the means of Margaret's death. I never
dared question. They said it was fever,--that others died of the same.
If I could but have spoken to her,--could but have seen, once more, the
same old look and smile! This was an ever-present thought.
But I did afterwards. I told her everything. She knows my folly and my
grief.
It was in the night-time. I was walking through the woods, on the road
to Swampsey Village. Margaret walked beside me for a long way. Just
before she left me, she said,--
"Do you hear the surf on the beach?"