The summer had run along into August. Captain Woodbury’s illness had
been so severe that his sister had allowed him to believe that his son
was still at Cambridge. But now Commencement Day had come, and his son
was due at home for his brief summer vacation, and Miss Elizabeth could
not longer put off telling her brother the story.
The Boston coach was due at noon, and before that hour she must
break the news which would crush his heart; for he had in his slow
convalescence been counting the hours which would bring his boy back to
him.
The Captain was sitting in his bedroom in his big chair, while
down-stairs his sister was mustering up her courage to tell her story.
As there was nobody watching him, what was to prevent him from slipping
down to State Street? It was a fine warm day; and Captain Woodbury,
looking out at the blue sky and the great leafy elms, felt a longing to
walk down to meet at the post-office the Boston coach upon which his
son was expected. Certainly it was absurd that he should be kept in the
house any longer. He had not spoken to any one save the doctor and his
sister for weeks, and all the war news had been kept from him. There
must have been more glorious victories over the proud ruler of the
ocean. And James,--he had really heard nothing from the boy, and he was
coming home to-day.
“Once you have fallen ill,” he said to himself, “these women will
never admit that you are strong enough to escape from their clutches.
She will never let me go if I tell her. I must steal away without her
knowing it.”
And while Miss Woodbury sat trying to shape into words the story to her
brother, he was tottering with the weak knees of a convalescent down
the path to the street. His wits were for the nonce almost as weak as
his knees, yet he was filled with delight at escaping from the stifled
atmosphere of his sick chamber into the fresh open air.
“And James is coming in the coach,” he said to himself, “and maybe
there has been a victory. I shall see all the neighbors. I must keep
out of Dr. Parsons’ sight,” he thought; “a terrible martinet is
Parsons. He wished me not to go out for a week, but these doctors do
not know everything. Bless my heart, no!”
It took the feeble man a long while to get to the post-office, where
the accustomed group of merchants, clerks, and other busy men were
awaiting the arrival of the mail, and exchanging news and making trades
while they waited.
Captain Woodbury slowly approached them, the unwonted exertion making
him lean heavily on his cane. He was soon recognized by a group of the
older merchants, his old associates. Among them were Deacon Fairbanks
and Mr. Devereux, the shipbuilder. As the erring young Woodbury had
been the subject of their conversation, the approach of his father
caused a painful silence, and to relieve it, Mr. Devereux politely said:
“Ah, Neighbor Woodbury, I am glad to see you out again; though, to tell
you the truth, you look very pale and weak, and little fit for such
exertion.”
“She doesn’t know of it,--Elizabeth, I mean--” slyly replied Captain
Woodbury; “I have slipped off all unbeknown to her. I expect James on
the coach, you see, and couldn’t wait. I have been confined in the
house so long that I grew impatient.”
Deacon Fairbanks had been the most silent of the group; for he had just
been narrating, for the hundredth time, the story of the burglarious
entry of his house, and had been declaring that he had no doubt
whatever but that the thief had been James; but when the Captain had
finished, he inquired:
“From where do you expect your son, Captain Woodbury?”
“From Cambridge, sir; ’tis the end of the year. You are waiting for
your son, Mr. Devereux, are you not?”
“Yes, Captain Woodbury, but--why, sir, have you not heard?”
“Heard what, Mr. Devereux? I have heard nothing from James for some
weeks, excepting the messages which he has sent to me in his letters to
my sister.”
He grasped heavily at Mr. Devereux’s shoulder. He would have fallen to
the ground had he not done so. “My boy is ill; my boy is dead, and they
have not told me. My son, my son!”
Mr. Devereux passed his arm about his friend.
“Your son is not dead, Captain Woodbury; bear up.”
“Where is he, then? Has any ill befallen him?”
“Captain Woodbury,” replied Mr. Devereux, “you are too weak now; later.”
“Heaven! man, speak out;” said the Captain; “tell me your worst. I
am weak, but I am over my illness. I can bear anything better than
suspense.”
“Well, Captain Woodbury,” interrupted the Deacon, feeling that the
moment had come to deal the shrewd blow to the man whom he had so long
secretly hated. “If you must know the truth, your son James disappeared
some weeks ago. He has not been at Cambridge and he has not been seen
in Oldbury since the night my house was robbed.”
Captain Woodbury drew himself up.
“Fairbanks, what do you, mean? My boy not been seen since the night
your house was robbed? Your house has not been robbed for years.”
“Oh,” interrupted the Deacon, “that was the first robbery by the
uncle,--the nephew--”
“You lie, you miserable scoundrel!” cried Captain Woodbury, lifting his
cane as if to strike the accuser of his son.
“I know whereof I speak, John Woodbury. On the night of May 28th I
was waked up by a noise in my dining-room. I went down with a candle,
and kneeling before my sideboard, a midnight robber, was your son. I
recognized him clearly and had reason to remember him.”
He pointed as he spoke at the scar on his forehead left by the heavy
tankard.
“He threw the old Pepperell tankard at me and nearly brained me.”
“The old Pepperell tankard!” exclaimed Mr. Devereux. “Tom Cheever stole
that from you years ago. I have heard you tell the story hundreds of
times. How could the boy throw that at you? How do you explain that?”
“Ay, sir, how do you explain that?” sneered Captain Woodbury. “You
called my boy a robber just now. How could he have thrown that old
tankard at you, which hasn’t been in your possession since the last
century?”
The Deacon hesitated and looked confused, and the men about him, who
had believed thoroughly in James’ guilt, began to doubt the word of his
accuser.
At this juncture the Boston coach came rattling down over the
cobble-stones of State Street and drew up at the post-office door.
From the seat beside the driver a young man jumped to the sidewalk and
rushed to embrace Captain Woodbury. It was James, thin and pale.
“Father! father!” he cried, as the old man hugged him.
“My son James, gentlemen, just returned from college,” said the old
man. “Deacon Fairbanks, what have you to say now? Did that young man
enter your house?”
The Deacon was silent.
“Father,” said James, “I am not returned from college, but from
Halifax. I have just been exchanged as a prisoner of war. I was one of
the crew of the _Chesapeake_.”
There was a crowd around the boy by this time.
“Yes; I shipped the day before the fight. I did enter the Deacon’s
house, but to return property--not to rob.”
“Yes, and I owe this to you,” shouted the Deacon, pointing at his
forehead.
“I threw the tankard to save my life,” replied James. “You were
shooting at me. I don’t blame you for that. It’s no wonder that you
took me for a burglar, but I was returning, as you know, your lost
silver.”
“What did you mean, Fairbanks,” asked Mr. Devereux, “by telling us all
these weeks that the boy was a thief?”
“I call him a midnight marauder and assassin,” sneered the Deacon,
angry and confused. “Like uncle, like nephew,” and he turned to go.
“My uncle died on the _Chesapeake_ on the 1st of June, fighting for
his country’s honor. His injury to you has been repaired. If you have
any complaint to make against me to the authorities, I shall be found,
if wanted, at my father’s house.”
And James, passing his arm around his father’s waist, walked up the
street with him. What reception Aunt Elizabeth gave the two on their
return, you may imagine.
* * * * *
That evening at sunset James and Alice were seated side by side on the
low stone-wall of the burying-yard.
“The life of a prisoner is a wearisome thing, Alice; and one day
is so like another that I shall not tire you with a long story. We
reached Halifax five days after the fight, and a dreary voyage it was
to us youngsters crowded in that black pen, and my wound, though not
dangerous, was painful.”
“Ah, you poor lad,” said Alice, touching his bandages lightly with one
of her fingers.
“Yet the wound made my imprisonment the easier to bear; for I was
light-headed or drowsy most of the time. At Halifax I was sent to
the hospital, and sent back to Boston to be exchanged with the first
cartel of prisoners. There are nearly fifteen hundred poor fellows left
at Halifax now. I am very fortunate to get back so soon; and no one
knew where I was, for I did not write my father. I went on board the
_Chesapeake_ almost as soon as I reached Boston, and went into action
the next day. I was wretched enough through it all, and felt that I
had disgraced myself forever, and had lost father, and you, and all
happiness, my dearest girl.”
“I should have been true to you had you really come to steal,” she
replied. “Grandfather never said to me that he thought that you were
the one who came that night; but when I knew that the old silver had
been returned and that you were not in town, I guessed the whole story.
I did not know that any one else suspected you, and I kept silent. I
heard that you had come back; and I knew that you would be here this
evening. Grandfather will never let you come to our house.”
“My dearest girl, you and your mother shall leave him alone in his
glory. I can get along without the old man’s forgiveness or his
countenance. My poor uncle gave up his life to shield me when it came
to that last rally on the _Chesapeake_, and he left me his heir. We
shall not let our happiness be spoiled by any old man’s spite. I shall
not go back to college. I am no scholar; the broad world is the only
book from which I can learn. I have made up my mind to ask Mr. Devereux
to take me into his ship-yard.”
“And your clippers shall carry the Stars and Stripes to every ocean,
James,” she said.
“And the first shall be named after my own true love.”