Produced by Duncan Harrod
THE FORTUNES OF
OLIVER HORN
by F. Hopkinson Smith
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE MEMORY OF
"THE MAN OF ALL OTHERS ABOUT KENNEDY
SQUARE MOST BELOVED, AND THE MAN OF ALL
OTHERS LEAST UNDERSTOOD--RICHARD HORN,
THE DISTINGUISHED INVENTOR."
F.H.S.
THE FORTUNES OF
OLIVER HORN
CHAPTER I
THE OLD HOUSE IN KENNEDY SQUARE
Kennedy Square, in the late fifties, was a place of birds and trees and
flowers; of rude stone benches, sagging arbors smothered in vines, and
cool dirt-paths bordered by sweet-smelling box. Giant magnolias filled
the air with their fragrance, and climbing roses played hide and seek
among the railings of the rotting fence. Along the shaded walks
laughing boys and girls romped all day, with hoop and ball, attended by
old black mammies in white aprons and gayly colored bandannas; while in
the more secluded corners, sheltered by protecting shrubs, happy lovers
sat and talked, tired wayfarers rested with hats off, and staid old
gentlemen read by the hour, their noses in their books.
Outside of all this color, perfume, and old-time charm, outside the
grass-line and the rickety wooden fence that framed them in, ran an
uneven pavement splashed with cool shadows and stained with green
mould. Here, in summer, the watermelon-man stopped his cart; and here,
in winter, upon its broken bricks, old Moses unhooked his bucket of
oysters and ceased for a moment his droning call.
On the shady side of the square, and half-hidden in ivy, was a Noah's
Ark church, topped by a quaint belfry holding a bell that had not rung
for years, and faced by a clock-dial all weather-stains and cracks,
around which travelled a single rusty hand. In its shadow to the right
lay the home of the Archdeacon, a stately mansion with Corinthian
columns reaching to the roof and surrounded by a spacious garden filled
with damask roses and bushes of sweet syringa. To the left crouched a
row of dingy houses built of brick, their iron balconies hung in
flowering vines, the windows glistening with panes of wavy glass
purpled by age.
On the sunny side of the square, opposite the church, were more houses,
high and low; one all garden, filled with broken-nosed statues hiding
behind still more magnolias, and another all veranda and honeysuckle,
big rocking-chairs and swinging hammocks; and still others with
porticos curtained by white jasmine or Virginia creeper.
Half-way down this stretch of sunshine--and what a lovely stretch it
was--there had stood for years a venerable mansion with high chimneys,
sloping roof, and quaint dormer-windows, shaded by a tall sycamore that
spread its branches far across the street. Two white marble steps
guarded by old-fashioned iron railings led up to the front door, which
bore on its face a silver-plated knocker, inscribed in letters of black
with the name Of its owner--"Richard Horn." All three, the door, the
white marble steps, and the silver-plated knocker--not to forget the
round silver knobs ornamenting the newel posts of the railings--were
kept as bright as the rest of the family plate by that most loyal of
servants, old Malachi, who daily soused the steps with soap and water,
and then brought to a phenomenal polish the knocker, bell-pull, and
knobs by means of fuller's-earth, turpentine, hard breathing, and the
vigorous use of a buckskin rag.
If this weazened-faced, bald-headed old darky, resplendent in white
shirt-sleeves, green baize apron, and never-ceasing smile of welcome,
happened to be engaged in this cleansing and polishing process--and it
occurred every morning--and saw any friend of his master approaching,
he would begin removing his pail and brushes and throwing wide the
white door before the visitor reached the house, would there await his
coming, bent double in profound salutation. Indeed, whenever Malachi
had charge of the front steps he seldom stood upright, so constantly
was he occupied--by reason of his master's large acquaintance--in
either crooking his back in the beginning of a bow, or straightening it
up in the ending of one.
To one and all inquiries for Mr. Horn his answer during the morning
hours was invariably the same:
"Yes, sah, Marse Richard's in his li'l room wrastlin' wid his machine,
I reckon. He's in dar now, sah--" this with another low bow, and then
slowly recovering his perpendicular with eyes fixed on the retreating
figure, so as to be sure there was no further need of his services, he
would resume his work, drenching the steps again with soap-suds or
rubbing away on the door-plate or door-pull, stopping every other
moment to blow his breath on the polished surface.
When, however, someone asked for young Oliver, the inventor's only son,
the reply was by no means so definite, although the smile was a trifle
broader and the bow, if anything, a little more profound.
"Marse Oliver, did you say, sah? Dat's a difficult question, sah. Fo'
Gawd I ain't seen him since breakfas'. You might look into Jedge
Ellicott's office if you is gwine downtown, whar dey do say he's
studyin' law, an' if he ain't dar--an' I reckon he ain't--den you might
drap in on Mister Crocker, whar Marse Oliver's paintin' dem pictures;
an' if he ain't dar, den fo-sho he's wid some o' do young ladies, but
which one de Lawd only knows. Marse Oliver's like the rabbit, sah--he
don't leab no tracks," and Malachi would hold his sides in a chuckle of
so suffocating a nature that it would have developed into apoplexy in a
less wrinkled and emaciated person.
Inside of the front door of this venerable mansion ran a wide hall bare
of everything but a solid mahogany hat-rack and table with glass mirror
and heavy haircloth settee, over which, suspended from the ceiling,
hung a curious eight-sided lantern, its wick replaced with a modern
gas-burner. Above were the bedrooms, reached by a curved staircase
guarded by spindling mahogany bannisters with slender hand-rail--a
staircase so pure in style and of so distinguished an air that only
maidens in gowns and slippers should have tripped down its steps, and
only cavaliers in silk stockings and perukes have waited below for
their hands.
Level with the bare hall, opened two highly polished mahogany doors,
which led respectively into the drawing-room and library, their windows
draped in red damask and their walls covered with family portraits. All
about these rooms stood sofas studded with brass nails, big easy-chairs
upholstered in damask, and small tables piled high with magazines and
papers. Here and there, between the windows, towered a bookcase crammed
with well-bound volumes reaching clear to the ceiling. In the centre of
each room was a broad mantel sheltering an open fireplace, and on cold
days--and there were some pretty cold days about Kennedy Square--two
roaring wood-fires dispensed comfort, the welcoming blaze of each
reflected in the shining brass fire-irons and fenders.
Adjoining the library was the dining-room with its well-rubbed mahogany
table, straight-backed chairs, and old sideboard laden with family
silver, besides a much-coveted mahogany cellaret containing some of
that very rare Madeira for which the host was famous. Here were more
easy-chairs and more portraits--one of Major Horn, who fell at
Yorktown, in cocked hat and epaulets, and two others in mob-caps and
ruffles--both ancient grandmothers of long ago.
The "li'l room ob Marse Richard," to which in the morning Malachi
directed all his master's visitors, was in an old-fashioned one-story
out-house, with a sloping roof, that nestled under the shade of a big
tulip-tree in the back yard--a cool, damp, brick-paved old yard, shut
in between high walls mantled with ivy and Virginia creeper and capped
by rows of broken bottles sunk in mortar. This out-building had once
served as servants' quarters, and it still had the open fireplace and
broad hearth before which many a black mammy had toasted the toes of
her pickaninnies, as well as the trap-door in the ceiling leading to
the loft where they had slept. Two windows which peered out from under
bushy eyebrows of tangled honeysuckle gave the only light; a
green-painted wooden door, which swung level with the moist bricks, the
only entrance.
It was at this green-painted wooden door that you would have had to
knock to find the man of all others about Kennedy Square most beloved,
and the man of all others least understood--Richard Horn, the
distinguished inventor.
Perhaps at the first rap he would have been too absorbed to hear you.
He would have been bending over his carpenter-bench--his deep,
thoughtful eyes fixed on a drawing spread out before him, the shavings
pushed back to give him room, a pair of compasses held between his
fingers. Or he might have been raking the coals of his forge--set up in
the same fireplace that had warmed the toes of the pickaninnies, his
long red calico working-gown, which clung about his spare body, tucked
between his knees to keep it from the blaze. Or he might have been
stirring a pot of glue--a wooden model in his hand--or hammering away
on some bit of hot iron, the brown paper cap that hid his sparse gray
locks pushed down over his broad forehead to protect it from the heat.
When, however, his ear had caught the tap of your knuckles and he had
thrown wide the green door, what a welcome would have awaited you! How
warm the grasp of his fine old hand; how cordial his greeting.
"Disturb me, my dear sir," he would have said in answer to your
apologies, "that's what I was put in the world for. I love to be
disturbed. Please do it every day. Come in! Come in! It's delightful to
get hold of your hand."
If you were his friend, and most men who knew him were, he would have
slipped his arm through your own, and after a brief moment you would
have found yourself poring over a detailed plan, his arm still in
yours, while he showed you the outline of some pin, or lever, needed to
perfect the most marvellous of all discoveries of modern times--his new
galvanic motor.
If it were your first visit, and he had touched in you some sympathetic
chord, he would have uncovered a nondescript combination of glass jars,
horse-shoe magnets, and copper wires which lay in a curious shaped box
beneath one of the windows, and in a voice trembling with emotion as he
spoke, he would have explained to you the value of this or that lever,
and its necessary relation to this new invention of his which was so
soon to revolutionize the motive power of the world. Or he would
perhaps have talked to you as he did to me, of his theories and beliefs
and of what he felt sure the future would bring forth.
"The days of steam-power are already numbered. I may not live to see
it, but you will. This new force is almost within my grasp. I know
people laugh, but so they have always done. All inventors who have
benefited mankind have first been received with ridicule. I can expect
no better treatment. But I have no fear of the result. The steady
destruction of our forests and the eating up of our coal-fields must
throw us back on chemistry for our working power. There is only one
solution of this problem--it lies in the employment of a force which
this machine will compel to our uses. I have not perfected the
apparatus yet, as you see, but it is only a question of time.
To-morrow, perhaps, or next week, or next year--but it will surely
come. See what Charles Bright and this Mr. Cyrus Field are
accomplishing. If it astonishes you to realize that we will soon talk
to each other across the ocean, why should the supplanting of steam by
a new energy seem so extraordinary? The problems which they have worked
out along the lines of electricity, I am trying to work out along the
lines of galvanism. Both will ultimately benefit the human race."
And while he talked you would have listened with your eyes and ears
wide open, and your heart too, and believed every word he said, no
matter how practical you might have been or how unwilling at first to
be convinced.
On another day perhaps you might have chanced to knock at his door when
some serious complication had vexed him--a day when the cogs and
pulleys upon which he had depended for certain demonstration had become
so tangled up in his busy brain that he had thoughts for nothing else.
Then, had he pushed pack his green door to receive you, his greeting
might have been as cordial and his welcome as hearty, but before long
you would have found his eyes gazing into vacancy, or he would have
stopped half-way in an answer to your question, his thoughts far away.
Had you loved him you would then have closed the green door behind you
and left him alone. Had you remained you would, perhaps, have seen him
spring from his seat and pick up from his work-bench some unfinished
fragment. This he would have plunged into the smouldering embers of his
forge and, entirely forgetful of your presence, would have seized the
handle of the bellows, his eyes intent on the blaze, his lips muttering
broken sentences. At these moments, as he would peer into the curling
smoke, one thin hand upraised, the long calico gown wrinkling about his
spare body, the paper cap on his head, he would have looked like some
alchemist of old, or weird necromancer weaving a mystic spell.
Sometimes, as you watched his face, with the glow of the coals lighting
up his earnest eyes, there would have flashed across his troubled
features, as heat lightning illumines a cloud, some sudden brightness
from within followed by a quick smile of triumph. The rebellious
fragment had been mastered. For the hundredth time the great motor was
a success!
And yet, had this very pin or crank or cog, on which he had set such
store, refused the next hour or day or week to do its work, no trace of
his disappointment would have been found in his face or speech. His
faith was always supreme; his belief in his ideals unshaken. If the pin
or crank would not answer, the lever or pulley would. It was the
"adjustment" that was at fault, not the principle. And so the dear old
man would work on, week after week, only to abandon his results again,
and with equal cheerfulness and enthusiasm to begin upon another
appliance totally unlike any other he had tried before. "It was only a
mile-stone," he would say; "every one that I pass brings me so much
nearer the end."
If you had been only a stranger--some savant, for instance, who wanted
a problem in mechanics solved, or a professor, blinded by the dazzling
light of the almost daily discoveries of the time, in search of mental
ammunition to fire back at curious students daily bombarding you with
puzzling questions; or had you been a thrifty capitalist, holding back
a first payment until an expert like Richard Horn had passed upon the
merits of some new labor-saving device of the day; had you been any one
of these, and you might very easily have been, for such persons came
almost daily to see him, the inventor would not only have listened to
your wants, no matter how absorbed he might have been in his own work,
but he would not have allowed you to leave him until he was sure that
your mind was at rest.
Had you, however, been neither friend nor client, but some unbeliever
fresh from the gossip of the Club, where many of the habitues not only
laughed at the inventor's predictions for the future, but often lost
their tempers in discussing his revolutionary ideas; or had you, in a
spirit of temerity, entered his room armed with arguments for his
overthrow, nothing that your good-breeding or the lack of it would have
permitted you to have said could have ruffled his gentle spirit. With
the tact of a man of wide experience among men, he would have turned
the talk into another channel--music, perhaps, or some topic of the
day--and all with such exquisite grace that you would have forgotten
the subject you came to discuss until you found yourself outside the
yard and half-way across Kennedy Square before realizing that the
inventor had made no reply to your attacks.
But whoever you might have been, whether the friend of years, the
anxious client, or the trifling unbeliever, and whatever the purpose of
your visit, whether to shake his hand again for the very delight of
touching it, to seek advice, or to combat his theories, you would have
carried away the impression of a man whose like you had never met
before--a man who spoke in a low, gentle voice, and yet, with an
authority that compelled attention; enthusiastic over the things he
loved, silent over those that pained him; a scholar of wide learning,
yet skilled in the use of tools that obeyed him as readily as nimble
fingers do a hand; a philosopher eminently sane on most of the accepted
theories of the day and yet equally insistent in his support of many of
the supposed sophistries and so-called "fanaticisms of the hour"; an
old-time aristocrat holding fast to the class distinctions of his
ancestors and yet glorying in the dignity of personal labor; a patriot
loyal to the traditions of his State and yet so opposed to the bondage
of men and women that he had freed his own slaves the day his father's
will was read; a cavalier reverencing a woman as sweetheart, wife, and
mother, and yet longing for the time to come when she, too, could make
a career, then denied her, coequal in its dignity with that of the man
beside her.
A composite personality of strange contradictions; of pronounced
accomplishments and yet of equally pronounced failures. And yet,
withal, a man so gracious in speech, so courtly in bearing, so helpful
in counsel, so rational, human, and lovable, that agree with him or
not, as you pleased, his vision would have lingered with you for days.
When night came the inventor would rake the coals from the forge, and
laying aside his paper cap and calico gown, close the green door of his
shop, cross the brick pavement of the back yard, and ascend the stairs
with the spindling bannisters to his dressing room. Here Malachi would
have laid out the black swallow-tail coat with the high velvet collar,
trousers to match, double-breasted waistcoat with gilt buttons, and
fluffy cravat of white silk.
Then, while his master was dressing, the old servant would slip
down-stairs and begin arranging the several rooms for the evening's
guests--for there were always guests at night. The red damask curtains
would be drawn close, the hearth swept clean, and fresh logs thrown on
the andirons. The lamp in the library would be lighted, and his
master's great easy-chair wheeled close to a low table piled high with
papers and magazines, his big-eyed reading-glasses within reach of his
hand. The paper would be unfolded, aired at the snapping blaze, and
hung over the arm of the chair. These duties attended to, the old
servant, with a last satisfied glance about the room, would betake
himself to the foot of the stair-case, there to await his master's
coming, glancing overhead at every sound, and ready to conduct him to
his chair by the fire.
When Richard, his toilet completed, appeared at the top of the stairs,
Malachi would stand until his master had reached the bottom step, wheel
about, and, with head up, gravely and noiselessly precede him into the
drawing-room--the only time he ever dared to walk before him--and with
a wave of the hand and the air of a prince presenting one of his
palaces, would say--"Yo' char's all ready, Marse Richard; bright fire
burnin'." Adding, with a low, sweeping bow, now that the ceremony was
over--"Hope yo're feelin' fine dis evenin', sah."
He had said it hundreds of times in the course of the year, but always
with a salutation that was a special tribute, and always with the same
low bow, as he gravely pulled out the chair, puffing up the back
cushion, his wrinkled hands resting on it until Richard had taken his
seat. Then, with equal gravity, he would hand his master the evening
paper and the big-bowed spectacles, and would stand gravely by until
Richard had dismissed him with a gentle "Thank you, Malachi; that will
do." And Malachi, with the serene, uplifted face as of one who had
served in a temple, would tiptoe out to his pantry.
It had gone on for years--this waiting for Richard at the foot of the
staircase. Malachi had never missed a night when his master was at
home. It was not his duty--not a part of the established regime of the
old house. No other family servant about Kennedy Square performed a
like service for master or mistress. It was not even a custom of the
times.
It was only one of "Malachi's ways," Richard would say, with a gentle
smile quivering about his lips.
"I do dat 'cause it's Marse Richard--dat's all," Malachi would answer,
drawing himself up with the dignity of a chamberlain serving a king,
when someone had the audacity to question him--a liberty he always
resented.
They had been boys together--these two. They had fished and hunted and
robbed birds' nests and gone swimming with each other. They had fought
for each other, and been whipped for each other many and many a time in
the old plantation-days. Night after night in the years that followed
they had sat by each other when one or the other was ill.
And now that each was an old man the mutual service was still continued.
"How are you getting on now, Malachi--better? Ah, that's good--" and
the master's thin white hand would be laid on the black wrinkled head
with a soothing touch.
"Allus feels better, Marse Richard, when I kin git hold ob yo' han',
sah--" Malachi would answer.
Not his slave, remember. Not so many pounds of human flesh and bone and
brains condemned to his service for life; for Malachi was free to come
and go and had been so privileged since the day the old Horn estate had
been settled twenty years before, when Richard had given him his
freedom with the other slaves that fell to his lot; not that kind of a
servitor at all, but his comrade, his chum, his friend; the one man,
black as he was, in all the world who in laying down his life for him
would but have counted it as gain.
Just before tea Mrs. Horn, with a thin gossamer shawl about her
shoulders, would come down from her bedroom above and join her husband.
Then young Oliver himself would come bounding in, always a little late,
but always with his face aglow and always bubbling over with laughter,
until Malachi, now that the last member of the family was at home,
would throw open the mahogany doors, and high tea would be served in
the dining-room on the well-rubbed, unclothed mahogany table, the
plates, forks, and saucers under Malachi's manipulations touching the
polished wood as noiselessly as soap-bubbles.
Tea served and over, Malachi would light the candies in the big,
cut-glass chandelier in the front parlor--the especial pride of the
hostess, it having hung in her father's house in Virginia.
After this he would retire once more to his pantry, this time to make
ready for some special function to follow; for every evening at the
Horn mansion had its separate festivity. On Mondays small whist-tables
that unfolded or let down or evolved from half-moons into circles,
their tops covered with green cloth, were pulled out or moved around so
as to form the centres of cosey groups. Some extra sticks of hickory
would be brought in and piled on the andirons, and the huge
library-table, always covered with the magazines of the day--Littell's,
Westminster, Blackwood's, and the Scientific Review, would be pushed
back against the wall to make room.
On Wednesdays there would be a dinner at six o'clock, served without
pretence or culinary assistance from the pastry-cook outside--even the
ices were prepared at home. To these dinners any distinguished
strangers who were passing through the city were sure to be invited.
Malachi in his time had served many famous men--Charles Dickens, Ole
Bull, Macready, and once the great Mr. Thackeray himself with a second
glass of "that pale sherry, if you please," and at the great man's
request, too. An appreciation which, in the case of Mr. Thackeray, had
helped to mollify Malachi's righteous wrath over the immortal
novelist's ignorance of Southern dishes:
"Dat fat gemman wid de gold specs dat dey do say is so mighty great,
ain't eat nuffin yet but soup an' a li'l mite o' 'tater," he said to
Aunt Hannah on one of his trips to the kitchen as dinner went on. "He
let dat tar'pin an' dem ducks go by him same as dey was pizen. But I
lay he knows 'bout dat ole yaller sherry," and Malachi chuckled. "He
keeps a' retchin' fur dat decanter as if he was 'feared somebody'd git
it fust."
On Fridays there would invariably be a musicale--generally a quartette,
with a few connoisseurs to listen and to criticise. Then the piano
would be drawn out from its corner and the lid propped up, so that Max
Unger of the "Harmonie" could find a place for his 'cello behind it,
and there still be room for the inventor with his violin--a violin with
a tradition, for Ole Bull had once played on it and in that same room,
too, and had said it had the soul of a Cremona--which was quite true
when Richard Horn touched its strings.
On all the other nights of the week Mrs. Horn was at home to all who
came. Some gentle old lady from across the Square, perhaps, in lace
caps and ribbons, with a work-basket filled with fancy crewels, and
whose big son came at nine o'clock to take her home; or Oliver's young
friends, boys and girls; or old Doctor Wallace, full of the day's
gossip; or Miss Lavinia Clendenning, with news of the latest Assembly;
or Nathan Gill with his flute.
But then it was Nathan always, whatever the occasion. From the time
Malachi unlocked the front doors in the morning until he bolted them
for the night, Nathan came and went. The brick pavements were worn
smooth, the neighbors said, between the flute-player's humble lodgings
in a side street and the Horn house, so many trips a day did the old
man make. People smiled at him as he hurried along, his head bent
forward, his long pen-wiper cloak reaching to his heels, a wide-brimmed
Quaker hat crowning his head.
And always, whenever the night or whatever the function or whoever the
guests, a particular side-table was sure to be moved in from Malachi's
pantry and covered with a snow-white cloth which played an important
part in the evening's entertainment. This cloth was never empty. Upon
its damask surface were laid a pile of India-blue plates and a silver
basket of cake, besides a collection of low glass tumblers with little
handles, designed to hold various brews of Malachi's own concoctions,
which he alone of all the denizens of Kennedy Square could compound,
and the secret of which unhappily has perished with him.
And what wondrous aromas, too!
You may not believe it, but I assure you, on the honor of a Virginian,
that for every one of these different nights in the old house on
Kennedy Square there were special savory odors emanating from these
brews, which settled at once and beyond question the precise function
of the evening, and all before you could hand your hat to Malachi. If,
for instance, as the front door was opened the aroma was one of hot
coffee and the dry smell of fresh wafer-biscuit mingled with those of a
certain brand of sherry, then it was always to be plain whist in the
parlor, with perhaps only Colonel Clayton and Miss Clendenning or some
one of the old ladies of the neighborhood, to hold hands in a rubber.
If the fumes of apple-toddy mingled with the fragrance of toasted
apples were wafted your way, you might be sure that Max Unger, and
perhaps Bobbinette, second violin, and Nathan--whatever the function it
was always Nathan, it must be remembered--and a few kindred spirits who
loved good music were expected; and at the appointed hour Malachi, his
hands encased in white cotton gloves, would enter with a flourish, and
would graciously beg leave to pass, the huge bowl held high above his
head filled to the brim with smoking apple-toddy, the little pippins
browned to a turn floating on its top.
If the occasion was one of great distinction, one that fell on
Christmas or on New Year's, or which celebrated some important family
gathering, the pungent odor of eggnog would have greeted you even
before you could have slipped off your gum-shoes in the hall, or hung
your coat on the mahogany rack. This seductive concoction--the most
potent of all Malachi's beverages--was always served from a green and
gold Chinese bowl, and drunk not from the customary low tumblers, but
from special Spode cups, and was, I must confess, productive of a
head--for I myself was once tempted to drink a bumper of it at this
most delightful of houses with young Oliver, many years ago, it is
true, but I have never forgotten it--productive of an ACHING head, I
think I said, that felt as big in the morning as the Canton bowl in
which the mixture had been brewed.
Or, if none of these functions or festivals were taking place, and only
one or two old cronies had dropped in on their way from the Club, and
had drawn up their chairs close to the dining-room table, and you had
happened to be hanging up your hat in the hall at that moment, you
would have been conscious of an aroma as delicate in flavor as that
wafted across summer seas from far-off tropic isles; of pomegranates,
if you will, ripening by crumbling walls; of purple grapes drinking in
the sun; of pine and hemlock; of sweet spices and the scent of roses.
or any other combination of delightful things which your excited
imagination might suggest.
You would have known then just what had taken place; how, when the
gentlemen were seated, Malachi in his undress blue coat and brass
buttons had approached his master noiselessly from behind, and with a
gravity that befitted the occasion had bent low his head, his hands
behind his back, his head turned on one side, and in a hushed voice had
asked this most portentous question:
"Which Madeira, Marse Richard?"
The only answer would have been a lifting of the eyebrow and an
imperceptible nod of his master's head in the direction of the mahogany
cellaret.
Malachi understood.
It was the Tiernan of '29.
And that worthy "Keeper of the Privy Seal and Key," pausing for an
instant with his brown jug of a head bent before the cellaret, as a
Mohammedan bends his head before a wall facing Mecca, had there-upon
unlocked its secret chambers and had produced a low, deeply cut
decanter topped by a wondrous glass stopper. This he had placed, with
conscious importance, on a small table before the two or three devotees
gathered together in its honor, and the host, removing the stopper, had
filled the slender glasses with a vintage that had twice rounded the
Cape--a wine of such rare lineage and flavor that those who had the
honor of its acquaintance always spoke of it as one of the most
precious possessions of the town--a wine, too, of so delicate an aroma
that those within the charmed circle invariably lifted the thin glasses
and dreamily inhaled its perfume before they granted their palates a
drop.
Ah, those marvellous, unforgettable aromas that come to me out of the
long ago with all the reminders they bring of clink of glass and touch
of elbow, of happy boys and girls and sweet old faces. It is forty
years since they greeted my nostrils in the cool, bare, uncurtained
hall of the old house in Kennedy Square, but they are still fresh in my
memory. Sometimes it is the fragrance of newly made gingerbread, or the
scent of creamy custard with just a suspicion of peach-kernels;
sometimes it is the scent of fresh strawberries--strawberries that
meant the spring, not the hot-house or Bermuda--and sometimes it is the
smell of roasted oysters or succulent canvas-backs! Forty years
ago--and yet even to-day the perfume of a roasted apple never greets me
but I stand once more in the old-fashioned room listening to the sound
of Nathan's flute; I see again the stately, silver-haired, high-bred
mistress of the mansion with her kindly greeting, as she moves among
her guests; I catch the figure of that old darkey with his brown, bald
head and the little tufts of gray wool fringing its sides, as he
shuffles along in his blue coat and baggy white waistcoat and
much-too-big gloves, and I hear the very tones of his voice as he
pushes his seductive tray before me and whispers, confidentially:
"Take a li'l ob de apple, sah; dat's whar de real 'spression oh de
toddy is."