The next morning, old Mr. James Bowdoin got up even earlier than
usual, with an undefined sense of pleasure. As was his wont, he walked
across the street to sit half an hour before breakfast in the Common.
The old crossing-sweeper was already there, to receive his penny; and
the orange-woman, expectant, sold her apex orange to him for a silver
thripenny bit as his before-breakfast while awaiting the more
dignified cunctation of his auguster spouse.
The old gentleman's mind was running on McMurtagh; and a robuster grin
than usual encouraged even others than his chartered pensioners to
come up to him for largess. Mr. Bowdoin's eyes wandered from the
orange-woman to the telescope-man, and thence to an old elm with one
gaunt dead limb that stretched out over the dawn. It was very
pleasant that summer morning, and he felt no hurry to go in to
breakfast.
Love was the best thing in the world; then why did it make the misery
of it? How irradiated old Jamie's face had been the day before! Yet
Jamie would never have gone to meet her at Worcester, had he not given
him the hint. Dear, dear, what could be done for St. Clair, as he
called himself? Mr. Bowdoin half suspected there had been trouble at
the bank. Mercedes such a pretty creature, too! Only, Abby really
never would do for her what she might have done. Why were women so
impatient of each other? Old Mr. Bowdoin felt vaguely that it was they
who were responsible for the social platform; and he looked at his
watch.
Heavens! five minutes past eight! Mr. Bowdoin got up hurriedly, and,
nodding to the orange-woman, shuffled into his house. But it was too
late; Mrs. Bowdoin sat rigid behind the coffee-urn. Harley looked up
with a twinkle in his eye.
"James, I should think, at your time of life, you'd stop rambling over
the Common before breakfast,--in carpet slippers, too,--when you know
I've been up so late the night before at a meeting in behalf of"--
A sudden twinkle flashed over the old gentleman's rosy face; then he
became solemn, preternaturally solemn. Harley caught the expression
and listened intently. Mrs. Bowdoin, pouring out cream as if it were
coals of fire on his head, was not looking at him.
"There!" gasped old Mr. Bowdoin, dropping heavily into a chair.
"Always said it would happen. I feel faint!"
"James?" said Mrs. Bowdoin.
"Always said it would happen--and there's your cousin, Wendell
Phillips, out on the Common, hanging stark on the limb of an
elm-tree."
"_James!_"
"Always said it would come to this. Perhaps you'd go out in carpet
slippers if you saw your wife's cousin hanged before your eyes"--
"JAMES!" cried Mrs. Bowdoin. But the old lady was equal to the
occasion; she rose (--"and no one there to cut him down!" interpolated
the old gentleman feebly) and went to the door.
The two men got up and ran to the window. There was something of a
crowd around the old elm-tree; and, pressing their noses against the
pane, they could see the old lady crossing the street.
"I think, sir," said Mr. Harley to his grandfather, "it's about time
to get down town." And they took their straw hats and sallied forth.
But as they walked down the shady side of the street, old Mr.
Bowdoin's progress became subject to impediments of laughter, which
were less successfully suppressed as they got farther away, and in
which the young man finally joined. "Though it's really too bad," he
added, by way of protest, now laughing harder than his grandfather.
"I'm going to get her that carriage to-day," said the elder
deprecatingly. Then, as if to change the subject, "Did you see old
Jamie after he left, yesterday?"
"I think I caught him in a florist's, buying flowers," answered
Harley.
"Buying flowers!" The old gentleman burst into such a roar that the
passers in the crowded street stopped there to look at him, and went
down town the merrier for it. "At a florist's! But what were you
doing?" he closed, with sudden gravity.
"All right, governor, quite all right. I was buying them for grandma's
birthday. _That_'s all over. Though I'm sorry for her, just the same.
How does the man live, now?"
"Jamie says he's doing well," answered the other hurriedly. "By the
way, stop at the bank and tell them to give old Jamie a holiday
to-day. He'd never take it of himself."
"Aren't you coming down?" Harley spoke as he turned in by Court
Square,--a poor neighborhood then, and surrounded by the police
lodging-houses and doubtful hotels.
"Not that way," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I hate to see the faces one meets
about there, poor things. Hope the flowers will get up to your
grandmother, Harley; she'll need 'em!" And the old man went off with a
final chuckle. "Hanging on a tree! Well, 'twould be a good thing for
the country if he were." Of such mental inconsistencies were
benevolent old gentlemen then capable.
But when Harley reached the bank, though it was late, Jamie had not
yet arrived. Harley thought he knew the reason of this; but when old
Mr. Bowdoin came, at noon, the clerk was still away; and the old
gentleman, who had been merry all day, looked suddenly grave and
waited. At one Jamie came in, hurrying.
"I hoped you would have taken a holiday to-day," said Mr. Bowdoin.
"I have come down to close the books," replied Jamie, not sharply. Mr.
Bowdoin looked at him.
"Mr. Stanchion could have done that. Stanchion!"
"The books are nearly done, sir," said that gentleman, hurrying to the
window.
"I prefer to stay, sir, and close the books myself, if Mr. Stanchion
will forgive me." He spoke calmly; he gave both men a sudden sense of
sorrow. Mr. Bowdoin accompanied him behind the rail.
"Come, Jamie, you need the rest, and Mercedes"--
"She has gone back, sir--and I--have business in New York. I must ask
for three days off, beginning to-morrow."
"You shall have it, Jamie, you shall have it. But why did you not go
back with Mercedes?"
Jamie made no reply but to bury his face in the ledger, and the old
gentleman went away. The bank closed at two o'clock; by that time
Jamie had not half finished his figuring. The cashier went, and the
teller, each with a "good-night," to which Jamie hardly responded. The
messenger went, first asking, "Can I help you with the safe?" to which
Jamie gave a gruff "I am not ready." The day-watchman went, and the
night-watchman came, each with his greeting. Jamie nodded. "You are
late to-day." "I had to be." Last of all, Harley Bowdoin came in (one
suspects, at his grandfather's request), on his way home from the old
counting-room on the wharves.
"Still working, Jamie?"
"I must work until I finish, Mr. Harley."
"It's late for me," said Harley, "but a ship came in."
"A ship!"
"Oh, only the Maine Lady. Well, good-night, Jamie."
"Good-night, Mr. Harley." Jamie had never used the "Mr." to Harley
before, of all the Bowdoins; and now it seemed emphasized, even. The
young man stopped.
"Tell me, Jamie, can I help you in anything?"
"No!" cried old Jamie; and Harley fled.
Left alone, Jamie laid down his pen. It seemed his figuring was done.
But he continued to sit, motionless, upon his high stool. For Mercedes
had told him, between Worcester and Boston, that her David would be in
prison, perhaps for life, unless he could get him seventeen thousand
dollars within forty-eight hours.
She had pleaded with him all the way to Boston, all the way in the
carriage down to the little house. His roses had been forgotten in the
car. In vain he told her that he had no money.
She could not see that St. Clair had done anything wrong; it was a
persecution of his partners, she said; the stock of a customer had
been pledged for his own debt. Jamie understood the offense well
enough. And then, in the evening, he had known that she was soon to
have a child. But with this money all would be forgiven; and David
would go back to New Orleans, where his friends urged him to return,
"in his old profession." Could not Jamie borrow it, even? said
Mercedes.
It was not then, but at the dawn, after a sleepless night, that Jamie
had come to his decision. After all, what was his life, or his future,
yes, or his honor, worth to any one? His memory, when he died, what
mattered it to any one but Mercedes herself? And she would not
remember him long. Was it not a species of selfishness--like his
presumption in loving her--to care so for his own good name? So he had
told Mercedes that he "would arrange it." After her burst of tears and
gratitude, she became anxious about David; she feared he might destroy
himself. So Jamie had put her on the morning train, and promised to
follow that night.
The clock struck six, and the watchman passed by on his rounds. "Still
there?"
"I'm nearly done," said Jamie.
The cash drawer lay beside him; at a glance he saw the bills were
there, sufficient for his purpose. He took up four rolls, each one
having the amount of its contents marked on the paper band. Then he
laid them on the desk again. He opened the day-book to make the
necessary false entry. Which account was least likely to be drawn
upon? Jamie turned the leaves rapidly.
"James Bowdoin's Sons." Not that. "The Maine Lady." He took up the
pen, started to make the entry; then dashed it to the floor, burying
his face in his hands.
He _could_ not do it. The old bookkeeper's whole life cried out
against a sin like that. To falsify the books! Closing the ledger, he
took up the cash drawer and started for the safe. The watchman came in
again.
"Done?" said he.
"Done," said Jamie.
The watchman went out, and Jamie entered the roomy old safe. He put
the ledgers and the cash drawer in their places; but the sudden
darkness blinded his eyes. In it he saw the face of his Mercedes,
still sad but comforted, as he had left her at the train that morning.
He wiped the tears away and tried to think. He looked around the old
vault, where so much money, idle money, money of dead people, lay
mouldering away; and not one dollar of it to save his little girl.
Then his eye fell on the old box on the upper shelf. A hanged pirate's
money! He drew the box down; the key still was on his bunch; he opened
the chest. There the gold pieces lay in their canvas bag; no one had
thought of them for almost twenty years. Now, as a thought struck him,
he took down some old ledgers, ledgers of the old firm of James
Bowdoin's Sons, that had been placed there for safe-keeping. He opened
one after another hurriedly; then, getting the right one, he came out
into the light, and, finding the index, turned to the page containing
this entry:--
_Dr. Pirates._
June 24, 1829: To account of whom it may concern (eagles, pistoles &
doubloons) $16,897.00