"I am sorry for you, my dear Perry," replied the captain. "Rose is a
glorious, little creature, and you are a whole-souled fellow, and I wish
I could pilot your boat into the port of matrimony; but women are queer
things, you can no more tell which way they'd be likely to jump, than I
can tell what wind will next blow my vessel. Now, I should have thought
she is all alone so, and unprovided--but it is no use talking, cheer up,
Perry. I will do all you ask; I'll disburse the funds for you, and she
shall never know where it comes from; you are a good fellow, Perry;
there are not many rejected suitors that would act as magnanimously as
you have; but do you suppose when you get to New Orleans you can watch
over her, without her finding it out?"
"Yes," said the doctor. "I think so, with the aid of a little disguise,
false whiskers, etc. At any rate, it is no use for me to try to fix my
mind on any thing. I never was in love before, never saw a woman whom I
did not shudder to think of, in the light of a life-companion. Perhaps
you marvel that I can overlook, what to most men would be an
insuperable obstacle to marriage with Rose; and yet, viewing it through
the world's spectacles, why should you? Do not priests and parents every
day legalize the prostitution of youth to toothless Mammon? Beside Rose
has been deceived. She is at heart pure. In God's sight, she is
innocent. I would stand between her and the scorn of the world. She has
been more sinned against than sinning.
"True," said the captain, "and loves the rascal in spite of it."
"Because, with a woman's generous devotion, she does not believe him
false; she looks yet to have the mystery cleared up, and to find his
honor untarnished."
"God grant it, for her sake," replied the captain.
"Amen!" exclaimed Perry; for in truth his love for Rose, surpassing the
love of men, was capable even of this magnanimity.
"Shipwreck me!" exclaimed the captain, consoling himself with a bit of
tobacco, "if I can make out how it is, that the finest women invariable
throw themselves away on these good-for-nothing fellows. It is always
so, Perry."
"Not always," said the doctor. "Not in your case, at least," and he
grasped the captain's hand.
"Thank you--thank you," replied Captain Lucas, with emotion. "I believe
my Mary is a happy wife."
And this was New Orleans! its hot breath swept across Rose's cheek, as
she stood upon the deck of the Neptune, gazing upon its nearing spires,
roofs, and chimneys. The city's distant hum even now falls upon her
watchful ear. Amid its motley population should she find him whom she
had come to seek? Would he take the pain from out her young heart? claim
her, and his boy? or should she walk the crowded streets day by day,
reading faces, measuring forms, listening to voices, and return at
nightfall with eye, ear, and heart, dissatisfied.
"Rose?"
She turned her head. "A few words with you," said Captain Lucas.
Ah--that was what she had been dreading, payment for her services, and
they had been so slight, so interrupted by Charley's sickness, and so
she told the captain with her usual ingenuousness, for she had begun to
fear latterly that Captain Lucas had not needed them at all, and that
his engagement with her was a delicate cover for his charity. But it was
useless talking; the captain was as peremptory as if he were on
quarter-deck among his sailors, instead of talking there in the cabin to
a little woman four feet high; he said "he was in a hurry," he said
(presenting her with Doctor Perry's roll of bills after he had himself
paid her) that "that was a present from himself for Charley," and he
said that as she was all alone, she must let an old man like him direct
her where to find proper lodgings; so he penciled on a card the address
of an old lady, whose quiet house he thought would just suit her; and
then he said, kissing Charley, "God bless you both," and drew his hand
across his eyes.
Good Captain Lucas! when was ever a sailor's heart callous to the touch
of sorrow? May there not be something in the strong brave element on
which he rides to quicken what is grand and noble in his nature?