Year followed year. This was the twelfth year since Jamie had begun to
make up his theft from his own salary; but it had been slower work
than he had hoped, for he now had to pay almost a collector's price to
get the Spanish gold. He had hurried home one night eagerly, to count
his money; for he made his annual purchase and payment in June.
Sixteen hundred dollars in bills he had (it was curious that he kept
it now in money, and had no longer a deposit in the bank), and he
congratulated himself that he had not had the money at the wharf that
day: he might have given it to St. Clair, to learn Mercedes'
whereabouts; and it would not have reached her, and St. Clair would
have lied to him; while the taking of a dollar more than was
rightfully the bank's--for so Jamie regarded his salary--would really
make him a defaulter.
For the old chest was getting so full now that the clerk could almost
hold his head up among men. The next year, but three rows of gold coin
remained to fill. The smaller coins had all been purchased long ago.
And Jamie (who had only thought to do this, and die, at the first) now
began, timidly, to let his imagination go beyond the restitution; to
think of Mercedes, of seeing her, of making her happy yet. For she was
still a young girl, to him.
The thirteenth year came. Jamie had begun to take notice of the world.
He took regularly a New Orleans newspaper. The balance against him in
the account was now so small! He looked wistfully at the page. However
small the deficit, his labors were not complete till he could tear the
whole page out. And he could not do that yet: the transaction must be
shown upon the books; he might die.
Die! Suddenly his heart beat at the thought. Die! He had never
thought of this, to fear it; but now if he should die before the gold
was all returned, and all his sacrifice go for naught, even his
sacrifice of Mercedes--
The other clerks had lost their interest in poor Jamie by this time;
some of them were new, and to these he was merely an old miser, and
they made fun of him, he grew so careful about his health. Life had
not brought much to poor Jamie to make him so fond of it; but both the
Bowdoins noticed it, and remarked to one another, it was curious,
after all, how men clung to life as they grew older.
In 1859 a rumor had reached them all that St. Clair had gone on some
filibustering expedition to Cuba. Old Mr. Bowdoin mentioned it to
McMurtagh; but he said nothing of sending for the wife. In 1861 the
war broke out, and the poor clerk saw the one sober crown of his life
put off still a year. He was yet more than a thousand dollars short.
He was coming back on a Sound steamer, thinking of this, wondering how
he could bear this last delay,--his scanty bag of high-priced gold
crowded into a pocket,--reading his New Orleans paper carelessly (save
only the births and deaths), when his eye caught a name. Jamie knew
there was a war; and the article was all about some fighting of
blockade-runners with a federal cruiser near Mobile. But his quick eye
traveled to the centre of it, where he read, "Before the vessel was
taken, a round shot killed several of the crew, ... among them ... and
David St. Clair, well known in this city."