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diff --git a/20025.txt b/20025.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fecdde --- /dev/null +++ b/20025.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5886 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pirate Gold, by Frederic Jesup Stimson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Pirate Gold + + +Author: Frederic Jesup Stimson + + + +Release Date: December 5, 2006 [eBook #20025] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIRATE GOLD*** + + +E-text prepared by Sam W. and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/priategold00stimrich + + + The author consistently used a convention in which a long dash, + used to indicate trailed off speech, follows the closing speech + mark, rather than being enclosed within the speech mark. This + convention has been retained throughout. + + + + + +PIRATE GOLD + +by + +F. J. STIMSON +(J. S. of Dale) + + + + + + + +Boston and New York +Houghton, Mifflin and Company +The Riverside Press, Cambridge +1896 + +Copyright, 1895 and 1896, +by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +Copyright, 1896, +by F. J. Stimson. +All rights reserved. + +The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. +Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. + + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + +PART ONE: DISCOVERY 1 + +PART TWO: ROBBERY 75 + +PART THREE: RECOVERY 137 + + + + +PIRATE GOLD + + + + +PART ONE: DISCOVERY. + + + + +I. + + +It consisted of a few hundred new American eagles and a few times as +many Spanish doubloons; for pirates like good broad pieces, fit to +skim flat-spun across the waves, or play pitch-and-toss with for men's +lives or women's loves; they give five-dollar pieces or thin British +guineas to the boy who brings them drink, and silver to their +bootblacks, priests, or beggars. + +It was contained--the gold--in an old canvas bag, a little rotten and +very brown and mouldy, but tied at the neck by a piece of stout and +tarnished braid of gold. It had no name or card upon it nor letters on +its side, and it lay for nearly thirty years high on a shelf, in an +old chest, behind three tiers of tins of papers, in the deepest corner +of the vault of the old building of the Old Colony Bank. + +Yet this money was passed to no one's credit on the bank's books, nor +was it carried as part of the bank's reserve. When the old concern +took out its national charter, in 1863, it did not venture or did not +remember to claim this specie as part of the reality behind its +greenback circulation. It was never merged in other funds, nor +converted, nor put at interest. The bag lay there intact, with one +brown stain of blood upon it, where Romolo de Soto had grasped it +while a cutlass gash was fresh across his hand. And so it was carried, +in specie, in its original package: "Four hundred and twenty-three +American eagles, and fifteen hundred and fifty-six Spanish doubloons; +deposited by ---- De Soto, June twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and +twenty-nine; _for the benefit of whom it may concern_." + +And it concerned very much two people with whom our narration has to +do,--one, James McMurtagh, our hero; the other, Mr. James Bowdoin, +then called Mr. James, member of the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons. For +De Soto, having escaped with his neck, took good pains never to call +for his money. + + + + +II. + + +A very real pirate was De Soto. None of your Captain Kidds, who make +one voyage or so before they are hanged, and even then find time to +bury kegs of gold in every marshy and uncomfortable spot from Maine to +Florida. No, no. De Soto had better uses for his gold than that. +Commonly he traveled with it; and thus he even brought it to Boston +with him on that unlucky voyage in 1829, when Mr. James Bowdoin was +kind enough to take charge of it for him. One wonders what he meant to +do with a bag of gold in Boston in 1829. + +This happened on Thursday, the 24th of June. It was the day after Mr. +James Bowdoin's (or Mr. James's, as Jamie McMurtagh and others in the +bank always called him; it was his father who was properly Mr. James +Bowdoin, and his grandfather who was Mr. Bowdoin)--after Mr. James's +Commencement Day; and it was the day after Mr. James's engagement as +junior clerk in the counting-room; and it was the day after Mr. +James's engagement to be married; and it was the day but one after Mr. +James's class's supper at Mr. Porter's tavern in North Cambridge. Ah, +they did things quickly in those days; _ils savoient vivre_. + +They had made him a Bachelor of Arts, and a Master of Arts he had made +himself by paying for that dignity, and all this while the class punch +was fresher in his memory than Latin quantities; for these parchment +honors were a bit overwhelming to one who had gone through his college +course _non clam, sed vi et precario_, as his tutor courteously +phrased it. And then he had gotten out of his college gown into a +beautiful blue frock coat and white duck trousers, and driven into +town and sought for other favors, more of flesh and blood, carried his +other degree with a rush--and Miss Abigail Dowse off to drive with +him. And that evening Mr. James Bowdoin had said to him, "James!" + +"Yes, sir," said Mr. James. + +"Now you've had your four years at college, and I think it's time you +should be learning something." + +"Yes, sir," said Mr. James. + +"So I wish you to come down to the counting-room at nine o'clock and +sort the letters." + +"Yes, sir," said Mr. James. + +Mr. James Bowdoin looked at him suspiciously over his spectacles. "At +eight o'clock; do you hear?" + +"I hear, sir," said Mr. James. + +Mr. James Bowdoin lost his temper at once. "Oh, you do, do you?" said +he. "You don't want to go to Paris, to Rome,--to make the grand tour +like a gentleman, in short, as I did long before I was your age?" + +"No, sir," said Mr. James. + +"Then, sir, by gad," said Mr. James Bowdoin, "you may come down at +half past seven--and--and--sweep out the office!" + + + + +III. + + +So it happened that Mr. James was in the counting-room that day; but +that he happened also to be alone requires further explanation. Two +glasses of the old Governor Bowdoin white port had been left untasted +on the dinner-table the night before,--the one, that meant for Mr. +James Bowdoin, who had himself swept out of the room as he made that +last remark about sweeping out the office; the other, that of his son, +Mr. James, who had instantly gone out by the other door, and betaken +himself for sympathy to the home of Miss Abigail Dowse, which stood on +Fort Hill, close by, where the sea breezes blew fresh through the +white June roses, and Mr. James found her walking in the garden path. + +"You must tell him," said Miss Dowse, when Mr. James had recounted his +late conversation to her, after such preliminary ceremonies as were +proper--under the circumstances. + +So Mr. James walked down to the head of India Wharf the next morning, +determined to make a clean breast of his engagement. The ocean air +came straight in from the clear, blue bay, spice-laden as it swept +along the great rows of warehouses, and a big white ship, topgallant +sails still set, came bulging up the harbor, not sixty minutes from +deep water. Mr. James found McMurtagh already in the office and the +mail well sorted, but he insisted on McMurtagh finding him a broom, +and, wielding that implement on the second pair of stairs (for the +counting-room of James Bowdoin's Sons was really a loft, two flights +up in the old granite building), was discovered there shortly after +by Mr. James Bowdoin. The staircase had not been swept in some years, +and the young man's father made his way up through a cloud of aromatic +dust that Mr. James had raised. He could with difficulty see the door +of his counting-room. This slammed behind him as he entered; and a few +seconds after, Mr. James received a summons through McMurtagh that Mr. +James Bowdoin wished to see him. + +"An' don't ye mind if Mr. James Bowdoin is a bit sharp-set the morn," +said Jamie McMurtagh. + +Mr. James nodded; then he went in to his father. + +"So, sir, it was you kicking up that devil of a dust outside there, +was it?" + +"Yes, sir," says Mr. James. (I have this story from McMurtagh.) "You +told me to sweep out the counting-room." + +"Precisely so, sir. I am glad your memory is better than your +intelligence. I told you to sweep _it out_, and not all outdoors in." + +Mr. James bowed, and wondered how he was to speak of Miss Dowse at +this moment. The old gentleman chuckled for some minutes; then he +said, "And now, James, it's time you got married." + +Mr. James started. "I--I only graduated yesterday, sir," says he. + +"Well, sir," answers the old gentleman testily, "you may consider +yourself devilish lucky that you weren't married before! I have got a +house for you"-- + +"Perhaps, sir, you have even got me a wife?" + +"Of course I have; and a devilish fine girl she is, too, I can tell +you!" + +"But, sir," says Mr. James, "I--I have made other arrangements." + +"The devil you have! Then damme, sir, not a house shall you have from +me,--not a house, sir, not a shingle,--nor the girl, either, by gad! +I'll--I'll"-- + +"Perhaps, sir," says Mr. James, "you'll wait and marry her yourself?" + +"Perhaps I will, sir; and if I do, what of it? Older men than I have +married, I take it! Insolent young dog!" + +"May I tell my mother, sir?" + +Now, Mrs. James Bowdoin was an august person; and here McMurtagh's +anxiety led him to interfere at any cost. An ill-favored, slight man +was he, stooping of habit; and he came in rubbing his hands and +looking anxiously, one eye on the father, the other on the son, as his +oddly protuberant eyes almost enabled him to do. + +"There is a ship coming up the harbor, sir, full-laden, and I think +she flies the signal of James Bowdoin's Sons." + +"Damn James Bowdoin's Sons, sir!" says Mr. James Bowdoin. "And as for +you, sir, not a stick or shingle shall you have"-- + +"If you'll only take the girl, you're welcome to the house, sir," says +Mr. James. + +"Oh, I am, am I? Then, by gad, sir, I'll take both houses, and Sam +Dowse's daughter'll live in one, and your mother and I in the other!" + +"Sam Dowse's daughter?" + +"Yes, sir, Miss Abby Dowse. Have you any objections?" + +"Why, she--she's the other arrangement," says Mr. James. + +"Oh, she is, is she?" + +Mr. James Bowdoin hesitated a moment, as if in search of some +withering reply, but failed to find it. + +"Humph! I thought it was time you came to your senses. Now, here's +the keys, d'ye see? And the house was old Judge Allerton's; it's too +large for his daughter, and, now that you'll marry the girl I've got +for you, I'll let you have it." + +"I shall marry what girl I like," says Mr. James; "and as for the +house, damme if I'll take it,--not a stick, sir, not a shingle!" + +Mr. James Bowdoin looked at his son for one moment, speechless; then +he slammed out of the room. Mr. James put his foot on the desk and +whistled. McMurtagh rubbed his hands. + + + + +IV. + + +The office in which Mr. James found himself was a small, square, sunny +corner room with four windows, in the third story of the upper angle +of the long block of granite warehouses that lined the wharf. Below +him was the then principal commercial street of the city, full of +bustle, noisy with drays; at the side was the slip of the dock itself, +with its warm, green, swaying water, upon which a jostled crowd of +various craft was rocking sleepily in the summer morning. The floor +of the room was bare. Between the windows, on one side, was an open, +empty stove; on the other were two high desks, with stools. An +eight-day clock ticked comfortably upon the wall, and on either side +of it were two pictures, wood-cuts, eked out with rude splashes of red +and blue by some primitive process of lithography: the one represented +the "Take of a Right Whale in Behring's Sea by the Good Adventure +Barque out of New Bedford;" the other, the "Landing of H. M. Troops in +Boston, His Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England, +1766." In the latter picture, the vanes on the town steeples and the +ships in the bay were represented very big, and the town itself very +small; and the dull black and white of the wood-cut was relieved by +one long stream of red, which was H. M. troops landing and marching up +the Long Wharf, and by several splotches of the same, where the troops +were standing, drawn up in line, upon each frigate, and waiting to be +ferried. + +A quiet little place the office would have seemed to us; and yet there +was not a sea on earth, probably, that did not bear its bounding ship +sent out from that small office. And if it was still, in there, it had +a cosmopolitan, aromatic smell; for every strange letter or foreign +sample with which the place was littered bespoke the business of the +bright, blue world outside. From the street below came noise enough, +and loud voices of sailors and shipmen in many a foreign tongue. For +in those days we had freedom of the sea and dealings with the world, +and had not yet been taught to cabin all our energies within the +spindle-rooms of cotton-mills. As Mr. James looked out of the window +he saw a full-rigged ship, whose generous lines and clipper rig +bespoke the long-voyage liner, warping slowly up toward the dock, her +fair white lower sails, still wet from the sea, hanging at the yards, +the stiff salt sparkling in the sunlight. + +Mr. James Bowdoin was already standing at the pier-head (for it was +indeed their ship of which McMurtagh had been speaking), and Mr. James +made bold to turn the key upon the counting-room and go to join his +father. Here he was standing, side by side with him, swaying his body, +with his thumbs in his waistcoat pocket, in some unconscious +imitation of ownership, when his father caught sight of him and +ordered him sharply back. "Yes, sir," said Mr. James, and moved to the +other angle of the wharf, for he had caught the word "pirates;" and +now, for some reason, the ship had cast her anchor, a hundred yards +outside the dock, while to it from her side a double-manned yawl was +rowing. And amid the blue jackets, above a dark mass of men that +seemed to be bound together by an iron chain, was some strange +rippling of long yellow hair, that the young man had been first to +see. Yet not quite the first, for Jamie McMurtagh was beside him. + +Then word was passed rapidly down the pier how this ship of pirates +had been captured, red-handed, her own captain still on board,--the +good ship Alarm having seen a redness in the sky, and heard some +firing in the night before; and how Captain How had put it to his +crew, Would they fight or not? And they had fought, rushing in before +the pirate's long-range guns could get to work, in the early dawn, and +boarding; so now there was talk of prize money. + +Young James Bowdoin and McMurtagh were all eyes. The boat rowed up to +the slippery wharf steps; in the bow were the two ringleaders and the +ship's captain, in the waist of the boat the rowers, and in the stern +the rank and file of the pirates, some eight or ten ill-looking +fellows chained together. (The rest of them, the captain remarked +casually, had been shot or lost in the battle; and not much was said +about it.) + +The boat was made fast, and the two leaders got up, with Captain How. +The pirate captain, as Mr. James remarked, was a splendid-looking +fellow. Captain How said something to him as the boat stopped, and he +looked up and caught Mr. James's eye; and Bowdoin had time to remark +that it was blue and very keen to look upon. Young Bowdoin and +McMurtagh were standing on the very verge of the wharf, and the crowd +around had made a little space for them, as the owners of the ship; +Mr. James Bowdoin was standing farther back with the captain of a file +of soldiers. But the second of the pirates was a swarthy Spaniard, +with as evil-flashing eyes as you would care to see. And it was he +who held in his arms a little girl, almost a baby, whose long yellow +hair had made that note of color in the boat. + +They were marched up the steps matted with seaweed; for it was low +tide, and only the barnacles made footing for them. And as the pirate +captain passed young Bowdoin he said, in very good English, "You look +like a gentleman," and rapidly drew from his breast, and placed in +Bowdoin's hands, the bag of gold. So quickly was this done that the +captain had passed and was closely surrounded by the file of soldiers +before Bowdoin could reply; nor had he sought to do so, for, on +looking to McMurtagh for advice, he saw him holding, and in awkward +yet tender manner trying to caress and soothe, the little lady with +the yellow hair. The second pirate had sought to hand her, too, to +Bowdoin, but some caprice had made the little maiden shy, and she had +run and buried her face in the arms of the young-old clerk. + + + + +V. + + +While young Bowdoin's father, with the file of soldiers, marched up +State Street to a magistrate's office, Mr. James and clerk McMurtagh +retired with their spoils to the counting-room. Here these novel +consignments to the old house of James Bowdoin's Sons were safely +deposited on the floor; and the clerk and the young master, eased of +their burdens, but not disembarrassed, looked at one another. The old +clock ticked with unruffled composure; the bag of gold lay gaping on +the wooden floor, where young Bowdoin had untied its mouth to see; and +the little maid had climbed upon McMurtagh's stool, and was playing +with the leaves of the big ledger familiarly, as if pirates' maids and +pirates' treasure were entered on the debit side of every page. + +"What shall I do with the money?" asked Bowdoin. + +"Count it," said McMurtagh, with a gasp, as if the words were wrung +from him by force of habit. + +"And when counted?" + +"Enter it in the ledger, Mr. James," said McMurtagh, with another +gasp. + +"To whose account?" + +"For account--of whom it may concern." + +Bowdoin began to count it, and the clock went on ticking; one piece +for each tick of the clock. He did not know many of the pieces; and +McMurtagh, as they were held up to him, broke the silence only to +answer arithmetically, "Doubloon,--value eight dollars two shillings, +New England;" or, "Pistole,--value the half, free of agio." When they +were all counted, McMurtagh opened a new page in the ledger, and a new +account for the house: "June 24, 1829. To credit of Pirates, or Whom +it may concern, sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven +dollars." + +"Pirates!" he muttered; "it's a new account for us to carry. I'll not +be sorry the day we write it off." + +Bowdoin, in the frivolity of youth, laughed. + +"And now," said McMurtagh, "you must tie up the bag again and seal it, +and I must take it up and put it in the vault of the bank." + +"And the little girl?" asked Bowdoin. "We can hardly carry her upon +the books." + +"For the benefit of whom it may concern," said the clerk absently. + +Bowdoin laughed again. + +McMurtagh looked at her and gasped, but this time silently. She had +clambered down from the stool, and was gazing with delight at the old +pictures of the ships; but, as if she understood that she was being +talked about, she turned around and looked at them with large round +eyes. + +"What is your name?" said he; and then, "Como se llama V.?" (for we +all knew a little Spanish in those days.) + +"Mercedes," said the child. + +"I suppose," ventured Bowdoin, "there is some asylum"-- + +McMurtagh looked dubious; and the little maid, divining that the +discussion of her was unfavorable, fell to tears, and then ran up and +dried them on McMurtagh's business waistcoat. + +"You take the gold," said he dryly; "I'll carry the child myself." + +"Where?" inquired young Bowdoin, astonished. + +"Home," said McMurtagh sharply. + +McMurtagh was known to have an old mother and a bedridden father (a +retired drayman, run over in the service of the firm), whom he lived +with, and with some difficulty supported. Yet little could be said +against the plan, as a temporary arrangement, if they were willing to +assume the burden. At all events, before Mr. James could find speech +for objection, McMurtagh was off with the child in his arms, seeking +to soothe her with uncouth words of endearment as he bore her +carefully down the narrow stairs. + +James Bowdoin laughed a little, and then grew silent. Finally, his +glance falling on the yellow piles still lying on the floor, he +shoveled them into the bag again and shouldered it up to the bank. +There the deposit of specie was duly made, the money put in the old +chest and sealed, and he learned that the pirates had been committed +to stand their trial. And he and his father talked it over, and +decided that the child might as well stay with McMurtagh, for the +present at any rate. + +But that "present" was long in passing; for the pirates were duly +tried, and all but one of them found guilty, sentenced to be hanged, +and duly executed on an island in the harbor. There were no +sentimentalists about in those days; and their gibbets were erected in +the sand of that harbor island, and their bodies swung for many days +(as these same sentimentalists might now put it) near the sea they had +loved so well; being a due encouragement to other pirates to leave +Boston ships alone. Pity the town has not kept up those tactics with +its railways! + +All the common seamen were executed, that is, and Manuel Silva, the +second in command, who had left the little girl with McMurtagh. The +captain, it was proved, had been polite to his two lady captives: the +men safely disposed of, he had placed the best cabin at their command, +and had even gone so far out of his way as to head the ship toward +Boston, on their behalf; promising to place them on board some +fishing-smack, not too far out. Silva had not agreed to this, and it +had led to something like a mutiny on the part of the crew. It was +owing to this, doubtless, that they were captured. De Soto, it was +known, was a married man; moreover, he was new in command, and not +used to pirate ways. + +However, this conduct was deemed courteous by the administration at +Washington, and, feminine influence being always potent with Andrew +Jackson, De Soto's sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life; +and shortly after, being taken to a quiet little country prison, he +made interest with the jailer and escaped. It was reported that he +shipped upon an African trader; and, going down the harbor past the +figure of Manuel Silva elegantly outlined against the sky, he bowed +sardonically to the swaying _schema_ of his ancient messmate. It +excited some little comment on the African trader at the time; but the +usual professional _esprit de corps_ keeps sailors from asking too +many questions about the intimate professional conduct of their +messmates in earlier voyages. + +But that is why De Soto made no draft upon the credit side of his +account at the Old Colony Bank; and James Bowdoin's Sons continued to +carry the deposit on their books "for the benefit of whom it may +concern." And so McMurtagh, who had taken little Mercedes Silva home +that day, continued to make a home for her there, his old mother and +his father aiding and abetting him in the task; and he carried her +young life, in addition to his other burdens, "for the benefit of whom +it may concern." + +"Whom it may concern" is too old a story, in such cases, ever to be +thought of by the actors in them. + + + + +VI. + + +James McMurtagh was one of that vast majority of men who live, +function, work, in their appointed way, and are never heard from, like +a good digestion. This is the grand division which separates them from +those who, be it for good or evil, or weakness even, will be +protagonists. Countless multitudes of such men as Jamie must there be, +to hold the fabric together and make possible the daring spins of you, +my lords Lovelace, and you, Launcelots and Tristrams, and Miss Vivien +here; who weave your paradoxical cross-purposes of tinsel evil in the +sober woof of good. + +No one knew, or if he knew remembered, what was Jamie's age. When he +was first taken in by the house, he described himself as a "lad;" but +others had not so described him, or else had taken the word as the +Scotch, not for English youth, but for male humanity,--wide enough to +include a sober under-clerk of doubtful age. Jamie's father had been +a drayman, in the employ of the house, as we have said, until his +middle was bisected by that three-inch tire weighted with six +puncheons of Jamaica rum. + +Jamie had been brought over from Scotland when veritably young,--some +months or so; had then been finished in the new-fangled American free +schools, and had come up in the counting-room, the day of the +accident, equipped to feed his broken-backed father, with knowledge +enough to be a bookkeeper, and little enough pride to be a messenger. +Only, he had no spirit of adventure to fit him for a supercargo,--even +that brushed too close upon the protagonist for him; and so he stayed +upon his office stool. While other clerks went away promoted, he +ticked off his life in alternation from the counting-room to the bank; +trustworthy on that well-taught street with any forms of other +people's fortunes, only not to make his own, and even trustworthy, as +we have seen it go unquestioned, with this little Spanish girl. + +Jamie took her home to his parents, and for his sake they fell down +and worshiped; with them she lived. The father had had too much rum +upon him to care much for the things remaining in this life; after +such excessive external application, who could blame him for using it +internally more than most? The mother's marital affection, naturally, +was moderated by long practice of mixing him hot tumblers with two +lumps of sugar, and of seeing the thing administered more dear to her +spouse than the ministering angel. But the mother worshiped Jamie, and +Jamie worshiped the little girl; and the years went by. + +It was pretty to see Jamie and his mother and the little girl walking +to church of a Sunday, and funny to hear Jamie's excuses for it +afterward. + +"'Tis the women bodies need it," said he to Mr. James Bowdoin, who +rallied him thereupon. + +"But surely, Jamie," said Mr. James, "you, who have read Hume until +you've half convinced us all to be free-thinkers,--you'd have your +daughter as well educated as yourself?" + +"Hersel'," said Jamie, meaning _himself_,--"hersel' may go to ta +deevil if he wull; ta little lassie sall be a lady." (Jamie's Scotch +always grew more Gaelic as he got excited.) It was evident that he +regarded religion as a sort of ornament of superior breeding, that +Mercedes must have, though he could do without it. And Mr. James +Bowdoin looked in Jamie's eye, and held his peace. In those days +deference was rigidly exacted in the divers relations of life: a +disrespectful word would have caused McMurtagh's quick dismissal, and +the Bowdoins, father and son, would have been made miserable thereby. + +"The lad must have his way with the little girl," said Mr. Bowdoin +(now promoted to that title by his father's recent death). + +"It seems so," said Mr. James Bowdoin (our Mr. James), who by this +time had his own little girls to look after. + +"Bring the poor child down to Nahant next time you come to spend the +day, and give her a chance to play with the children." + + + + +VII. + + +James McMurtagh, with "the old man" and "the mother," lived in a +curious little house on Salem Street, at the North End. Probably they +liked it because it might have been a little house in some provincial +town at home. To its growing defects of neighborhood they were +oblivious. It was a square two-story brick box: on the right of the +entry, the parlor, never used before, but now set apart for Mercedes; +behind, a larger square room, which was dining-room and kitchen +combined, and where the McMurtaghs, father and son, were wont to sit +in their shirt-sleeves after supper and smoke their pipes; above were +four tiny bedrooms. + +Within the parlor the little lady, as Jamie already called her, was +given undisputed sway; and a strange transmogrification there she +made. The pink shells were collected from the mantel, and piled, with +others she had got, to represent a grotto, in one corner of the room; +the worked samplers were thought ugly, and banished upstairs. In +another corner was a sort of bower, made of bright-colored pieces of +stuff the child had begged from the neighbors, and called by her the +"Witch's Cave;" here little Mercedes loved to sit and tell the +fortunes of her friends. These were mostly Jamie's horny-handed +friends; the women neighbors took no part in all these doings, and +gave it out loudly that the child was being spoiled. She went, with +other boys and girls, to a small dame-school on the other side of +Bowdoin Square; for Jamie would not hear of a public school. Here she +learned quickly to read, write, and do a little embroidering, and +gained much knowledge of human nature. + +One thing that they would not allow the child was her outlandish name: +Mercy she was called,--Mercy McMurtagh. Perhaps we may venture still +to call her Mercedes. The child's hair and eyes were getting darker, +but it was easy to see she would be a _blonde d'Espagne_. Jamie +secretly believed she had a strain of noble blood, though openly he +would not have granted such a thing's existence. We, with our wider +racial knowledge, might have recognized points that came from Gothic +Spain,--the deep eyes of starlight blue, so near to black, and hair +that was a brown with dust of gold. But her feet and hands were all of +Andalusia. Jamie had hardly spoken to a woman in his life,--he used to +think of himself as deformed. And now this little girl was all his +own! + +So for a year or two the child was happy. Then came that day, never +to be forgotten by her, of the visit to old Mr. Bowdoin at Nahant. +They went down in a steamboat together,--two little Bowdoin girls, +younger than Mercedes, a boy, Harley, and a cousin, who was Dorothea +Dowse. At first Mercedes did not think much of the Bowdoin children; +they wore plain dresses, alike in color, while our heroine had on +every ribbon that was hers. They went down under care of Jamie +McMurtagh, dismissed at the wharf by Mr. James Bowdoin, who had a +stick of candy for each. Business was doing even then; but old Mr. +Bowdoin was not too busy to spend a summer's day at home with the +children. His favorite son, James, had married to his mind; and money +came so easy in those times! + +Miss Dowse was fifteen, and she called her uncle's clerk Jamie; so +she elevated her look when she came to our Mercedes. She wore gloves, +and satin slippers with ribbons crossed at the ankle, and silk +stockings. Mercedes had no silk stockings and no gloves. Miss Dowse +had rejected the proffered stick of candy, and Mercedes sought a chance +to give hers away, one end unsucked. There was this boy in the +party,--Harleston Bowdoin,--so she made a favor of it and gave it to +him. + +They were playing on the rail of the steamboat, and Jamie was sitting +respectfully apart inside. The little Bowdoin girls were sucking at +their candy contentedly; Mercedes was climbing with the Bowdoin boy +upon the rail, and he called his cousin Dolly to join them. + +"I can't; the sun would make my hands so brown if I took off my +gloves," said that young lady. "Besides, it's so common, playing with +the passengers." + +There was a double sting in this; for Mercedes was not just "a +passenger," but of their party. She walked into the cabin with what +dignity she could maintain, and then burst out weeping angrily in +Jamie's arms. That is, he sought to comfort her; but she pressed him +aside rudely. "Oh, Jamie," she sobbed (she was suffered to call him +Jamie), "why didn't you give me gloves?" + +Poor Jamie scratched his head. He had not thought of them; and that +was all. He tried to caress the child, with a clumsy tenderness, but +she stamped her little foot. Outside, they heard the voices of the +other children. Miss Dowse was talking to Master Bowdoin of sights in +the harbor; but--how early is a boy sensible to a child's +prettiness!--he was asking after Mercedes. It was now Miss Dolly's +turn to bite her lip. "She's in the cabin, crying because she has no +gloves." + +Jamie felt Mercedes quiver; her sobs stopped, panting; in a moment she +put her hand to her hair and went to the deck unconcernedly. + +But no one ever made Mercedes cry again. + +Poor Jamie went to a window where he could hear them talking. He took +off his white straw hat, and rubbed his eyes with a red silk +handkerchief; the tears were almost in them, too. He had wild thoughts +of trying to buy gloves at Nahant. He listened to hear if his child +was merry again. She was laughing loudly, and pointing out the white +column of Boston Light. "That is the way to sea!" she cried. "I came +in that way from sea." + +The other children had crept about her, interested. Even Miss Dowse +had come over, and was standing with them. + +"Did your father take you to sea?" + +"I was at sea in my father's ship," said Mercedes proudly. + +"Ah, I didn't know Jamie McMurtagh owned a ship," said Miss Dolly. +Jamie leaned closer to the window. + +"Jamie McMurtagh is not my father," said Mercedes. She said it almost +scornfully, and McMurtagh slunk back into the cabin. + +Perhaps it was the first time he had ever cried himself.... He felt so +sorry that he had not thought of gloves! + + + + +VIII. + + +When they came to the wharf, several carriages were waiting. Some were +handsome equipages with silver-mounted harnesses (for nabobs then were +in Nahant); others were the familiar New England carryalls. Mercedes +looked for Mr. Bowdoin, hoping he had come to meet her in one of the +former, but was disappointed, for that gentleman was seen running down +the hill as if too late, his blue dress-coat tails streaming in the +wind, his Panama hat in one hand, and a large brown-paper bag, +bursting with oranges, in the other. By accident or design, as he +neared the wharf, the bag did burst, and all the oranges went rolling +down the road. + +"Pick 'em up, children, pick 'em up!" gasped Mr. Bowdoin. "Findings +keepings, you know." And he broke into a chuckle as the two smaller +girls precipitated themselves upon the rolling orange-spheres as if +they were footballs, and Master Harley, in his anxiety to stop one +that was rolling over the wharf, tripped upon the hawser, and was +grabbed by a friendly sailor just as he himself was rolling after it +into the sea. + +"You don't seem to care for oranges, Miss Dolly," said Mr. Bowdoin, as +Miss Dowse stood haughtily aloof; and he looked then at Mercedes, who +was left quite alone, yet followed Miss Dowse's example of dignity; +Jamie standing behind, not beside her, hat in hand. + +"Ah, Ja-- Mr. McMurtagh," said Mr. Bowdoin, doffing his own. "And so +this is our Miss Mercy again? Why don't you chase the oranges, my +dear?" + +Mercedes looked at the old gentleman a moment, then ran after the +oranges. + +Dolly still made excuses. "It is so hot, and I have clean gloves on." + +Mr. Bowdoin cast a quick glance at the envied gloves, and then at +Mercedes' brown hands. "Here, Dolly, chuck those gloves in the +carriage there: they're not allowed down here. McMurtagh, I'm glad to +see your Mercy has more sense. Can't stay to luncheon? Well, remember +me to Mr. James!" + +Ah, the marvelous power of kindliness that will give even an old +merchant the perception of a woman, the tact of a diplomat! McMurtagh +went back with a light heart, and Mercedes jumped with delight into +the very finest of the carriages, and was given a seat ("as the +greatest stranger") behind with Mr. Bowdoin, while the other three +girls filled the seat in front, and Harley held the reins upon the +box, a process Mr. Bowdoin affected not to see. + +They drove through the little village in the train of other carriages; +and Mercedes sat erect and answered artlessly to Mr. Bowdoin's +questions. He asked her whether she was happy in her home, and she +said she was. (In his kindness the simple-hearted old gentleman still +knew no other way to make a woman tell the truth than by asking her +questions!) Jamie was very good to her, she said, and grandpa most of +all; grandma was cross sometimes. ("Jamie"! "grandpa"! Old Mr. Bowdoin +made a mental note.) But she was very lonely: she had no children to +play with. + +Mr. Bowdoin's heart warmed at once. "You must come down here often, my +dear!" he cried; thus again laying up a wigging from his auguster +spouse. But "Jamie"! "Why don't you call your kind friend father, +since you call old McMurtagh grandpa?" + +The child shook her head. "He has never asked me to," she said. +"Besides, he is not my father. My father wore gold trimmings and a +sword." + +This sounded more like De Soto than Silva. + +"Do you remember him?" + +"Not much, sir." + +"What was his name?" + +The child shook her head again. "I do not know, sir. He only called me +Mercedes." + +Mr. Bowdoin was fain to rummage in his pocket, either for a +handkerchief or for a lump of Salem "Gibraltars:" both came out +together in a state of happy union. Mercedes took hers simply. Only +Miss Dolly was too proud to eat candy in the carriage. The Salem +Gibraltar is a hard and mouth-filling dainty; and by its +administration little Ann and Jane, who had been chattering in front, +were suddenly reduced to silence. + +By this time they had come through to the outer cliff, and were +driving on a turf road high above the sea. The old gentleman was +watching the breakers far below, and Mercedes had a chance to look +about her at the houses. They passed by a great hotel, and she saw +many gayly dressed people on the piazza; she hoped they were going to +stop there, but they drove on to a smallish house upon the very +farthest point. It was not a pretentious place; but Mercedes was +pleased with a fine stone terrace that was built into the very last +reef of the sea, and with the pretty little lawn and the flowers. + +As the children rushed into the hall, Ann and Jane struggling to keep +on Mr. Bowdoin's shoulders, they were stopped by a maid, who told them +Mrs. Bowdoin was taking a nap and must not be disturbed. So they were +carried through to the back veranda, where Mr. Bowdoin dumped the +little girls over the railing upon a steep grass slope, down which +they rolled with shrieks of laughter that must have been most damaging +to Mrs. Bowdoin's nerves. Dolly and Mercedes followed after; and the +old gentleman settled himself on a roomy cane chair, his feet on the +rail of the back piazza, a huge spy-glass at his side, and the "Boston +Daily Advertiser" in his hand. + +At the foot of the lawn was the cliff; and below, a lovely little +pebble beach covered with the most wonderful shells. Never were such +shells as abounded upon that beach!--tropical, exotic varieties, such +as were found nowhere else. And then--most ideal place of all for a +child--there was a fascinating rocky island in the sea, connected by a +neck of twenty yards of pebble covered hardly at high water; and on +one side of this pebble isthmus was the full surf of the sea, and on +the other the quiet ripple of the waters of the bay. But such an +island! All their own to colonize and govern, and separated from home +by just a breadth of danger. + +All good children have some pirate blood; and I doubt if Mercedes +enjoyed it more than Ann and Jane and even haughty Dolly did. And to +the right was the wide Massachusetts Bay, and beyond it far blue +mountains, hazy in the southern sun. Then there were bath-houses, and +little swimming-suits ready for each, into which the other children +quickly got, Mercedes following their example; and they waded on the +quiet side; Mercedes rather timidly, the other children, who could +swim a little, boldly. Old Mr. Bowdoin (who was looking on from above) +shouted to them to know "if they had captured the island." + +"Grapes grow on the island," said Ann and Jane. + +Dolly was silent; Mercedes would have believed any fairy tale by now. +And they started for it, Harley leading; but the tide was too high, +and at the farther end of the little pebble isthmus the higher +breakers actually came across and poured their foam into the clear +stillness. Ann and Jane were afraid; even Dolly hesitated; as for +Harley, he was stopped by discovering a beautiful new peg-top which +had been cast up by the sea and was rolling around upon the outer +beach. + +"Discoverers must be brave!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin from above. And +Mercedes shut her eyes and made a dash through the yard of deeper +water as the breaker on the other side receded. She grasped the rock +by the seaweed and pulled herself up to where it was hot in the sun, +and sat to look about her. There were numerous lovely little pink +shells; and in the crevices above, some beautiful rock crystals, pink +or white. Mercedes touched one, and found it came off easily. She put +it to her lips. + +"Why, it's rock candy!" she exclaimed. + +There was an explosive chuckle from the old gentleman across the +chasm, and the others swarmed across like Cabot and Pizarro after +Columbus. + +"Remember, children, she's queen of the island to-day,--she got there +first!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin, and went back to his spy-glass and his +armchair. + +So that day Mercedes was queen; and her realm a real island, bounded +by the real Atlantic, and Harley, at least, was her faithful subject. +At the water's edge was great kelp, and barnacles, and jellyfish, all +pink and purple; and on the summit was a little grove of juniper and +savin bushes, with some wild flowers; and on the cedar branches grew +most beautiful bunches of hothouse grapes. To be sure, they were tied +on by a string. + +"'Tis grandpa's put them there," said Dolly, of superior knowledge +already in the world's ways. + +"Sh! how mean to tell!" cried Harley. + +"And he puts rare shells upon the beach, and tops!" + +But Mercedes only thought how nice it was to have such a gentleman for +grandfather; and when she got back to the little house on Salem Street +she acted out all the play to an admiring audience. Jamie met her at +the wharf and walked home with her. It was hot and stuffy in the city +streets, but the flush of pleasure lasted well after she got home. And +she told what soft linen they had had at dinner, and pink bowls to +rinse their hands, and a man in a red waistcoat to wait upon them. + +"Isn't she wonderful! Just like a lady born," said Jamie. + +John Hughson, a neighbor, took his pipe from his mouth and nodded +open-mouth assent. + +"And she talks a little Spanish, and can dance!" + +"It's time such little tots were in bed," said Mrs. Hughson, a large +Yankee person, mother to John. + +"Just one dance first, Mercy; show the lady," said old Mrs. McMurtagh. + +But Mercedes was offended at being called a little tot, and pouted her +lip. + +"Come here, dearie," said Jamie. + +She went to him; and while he held her with his left hand awkwardly, +he pulled a tiny pair of gloves from his pocket. Mercedes seized them +quickly, and kissed him for it. + +"Well, I never! Jamie, ye'll spoil the lassie," said his mother. + +But Jamie heeded not. "Now, dearie, dance that little Spanish dance +for me, and you can wear the gloves next Sunday." + +But Mercedes looked up at Mrs. Hughson sullenly; then broke away from +Jamie's arms and ran upstairs. And the laugh was at poor Jamie's +expense. + + + + +IX. + + +Perhaps of all divisions of humanity the most fundamental would be +that into the class which demands and the class which serves. The +English-speaking race, despite all its desire to "better its +condition," seems able to bear enlightenment as to all this world may +give its fortunate ones, and yet continue contentedly to serve. Upon +the Latin races such training acts like heady wine: loath to acquire +new ideas, supine in intellectual inquiry, yet give them once the +virus of knowledge and no distance blocks their immediate demand. +Mercedes, who was thus given a high-school education and some few of +the lonely luxuries of life, passed quickly beyond the circulating +libraries in her demands for more. Given through her intellect the +knowledge, her nature was quick to grasp. For kingdoms may be +overthrown, declarations of independence be declared, legislatures +legislate equality, and still--up to this time, at least--the children +of democracy be educated, in free common schools, upon much the same +plan that had been adopted by some Hannah More in bygone centuries +for the only class that then was educated, daughters of the gentry, +young ladies who aspired to be countesses, and to do it gracefully. +Mercedes learned with her writing and reading, which are but edged +tools, little of the art of using them. She was taught some figuring, +which she never used in life; some English history, of which she +assimilated but the meaning of titles and coronets; some mental +philosophy, which her common sense rejected as inanely inapposite to +the life at hand; some moral philosophy, which her very soul spewed +forth; a little embroidery, music, and dancing; and a competent +knowledge of reading French. + +When we consider what education and training her life required, the +White Knight in Wonderland's collection of curiosities at his +saddle-bow becomes by comparison a practical equipment. + +For guides in the practical conduct of life, she had been told to read +two novels, "Mansfield Park" and "Clarissa." Then there were Mrs. +Susannah Rawson's tales, Miss Catherine Sedgwick's, and "The +Coquette." She had further privately endeavored to read the "Nouvelle +Heloise" in French; but this bored her, and--one regrets to say--the +unambitious though immoral heroine impressed her as an idiot. As a +more up-to-date romance, she had acquired from a corner bookstore a +lavishly pictured novel in octavo, entitled "The Ballet Girl's +Revenge." She could not sew, nor wash, nor cook, nor keep house or +even accounts. Not one faint notion had she of supporting herself. +Domestic service she thought degrading, and she looked with a lofty +scorn upon shop-girls. There were some dreadful women in a house close +by; if Mercedes was conscious of their existence, it was as of women +who were failures in that they played the right cards badly. She held +her own pretty head the higher. For she soon discarded the ballet +girl's biography. By the time she was fourteen, had made another visit +to Nahant, and had once been asked to a Christmas party at the Boston +house, she saw that aristocratic life could offer better things. She +had an intense appreciation of the advantages so imperfectly exploited +by these rich Bowdoins, her high acquaintance. And was it perhaps a +justification of her way of education, after all, that little +Harleston Bowdoin, like every male creature that she met, was +fascinated, first by her face, then more by her manners, and most of +all by what she said? + +Miss Mercy was sent to the girls' high school, and brought up in all +ways after the manner of New England. Her looks were not of New +England, however; and her dresses would show an edge of trimming or a +ribbon that had a Spanish color, despite all Jamie's mother's +Presbyterian repression. Then, a few years after, the old drayman +died; and a beautiful piano appeared in the McMurtaghs' modest +lodging. Mr. James discovered that the expensive Signor Rotoli, who +was instructor to his own daughters, went afterwards to give lessons +to Miss Mercy. Father and son wagged their heads together at the +wisdom of this step; and Mr. James was deputed a committee of one to +suggest the subject to Jamie McMurtagh. Old Mr. Bowdoin had ideas of +his own about educating young women above their station, but he was +considerably more afraid of Jamie than was Mr. James. + +The latter deemed it most politic to put the question on a basis of +expense; but this was met by Jamie's allegation of a considerable +saving in the family budget caused by old McMurtagh's decease and +consequent total abstinence. Mr. James was mildly incredulous that the +old drayman could have drunk enough to pay for a grand piano, and +Jamie grew rusty. + +"Your father's stipeend is leeberal, young man, and I trust ye've +deescovered nothing wrong in my accounts." + +Mr. James fled: had the familiar address been overheard by the old +gentleman, Jamie's discharge had followed instantly. + +McMurtagh mopped his reddened face, and tried to enjoy his victory; +but the ill-natured thrust about the accuracy of the accounts +embittered many a sleepless night of his in after-years. + + + + +X. + + +Jamie McMurtagh still continued his rather sidelong gait as he walked +twice daily up State Street to the Old Colony Bank, bearing in a rusty +leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, +the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin +and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window. There +were certain pensioners, mostly undeserving, who knew old Mr. +Bowdoin's hours better than he did himself. It was funny to see old +McMurtagh elbow these aside as he sidelonged up the street. There was +an old drunken longshoreman; and a wood-chopper who never chopped +wood; and a retired choreman discharged for cause by Mr. Bowdoin's +wife; and another shady party, suspected by Mr. James, not without +cause, of keeping in his more prosperous moments a modest +farobank,--all of whom were sure enough of their shilling could they +catch old Mr. Bowdoin in the office alone. If they waylaid him in the +street, it annoyed him a little, and he would give them only +ninepence. It was currently believed by Mr. James and Jamie that there +was a combination among these gentry not to give away the source +whence they derived this modest but assured income. Once there had +been Homeric strife and outcry on the dusty wooden stairs; and Mr. +James had rushed out only in time to see the longshoreman, in a +moment of sober strength, ejecting with some violence a newcomer of +appearance more needy than himself. It was suggested to Jamie by this +that a similar but mutual exclusion might be effected, at least +against the weaker couple of the primal four; but there was an +honorable sense of property among these beggars, and they refused to +fail in respect for each other's vested rights. But Jamie was most +impatient of them, and would sometimes attempt to hold the +counting-room by fraudulent devices, even after the old gentleman +would get down town. It was after an attempt of this sort, ending in +something like a row between Jamie and his master, that the two +Bowdoins, father and son, stood now watching the clerk's progress up +the street. A touch of sulkiness, left by his late down-putting, +affected his gait, which was more crablike than usual. + +"An invaluable fellow, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin; "a very Caleb." + +"How Dickensy he is!" answered Mr. James, more familiar with the +recent light literature just appearing. + +"A perfect bookkeeper! Not an error in twenty years!" + +"Do you notice he's rather looking younger?" + +"'Tis that little child he's adopted," said the old gentleman. "The +poor fellow's got something to love. All men need that--and even a few +women," he chuckled. Mr. Bowdoin was addicted to portentous cynicism +against the sex, which he wholly disbelieved in. + +"The little child--yes," said Mr. James, more thoughtfully. "Do you +know what he wants?" + +"He wants?" + +"She wants, I mean. Old Jamie came halting up to me yesterday, and +ventured to suggest his Mercy might be invited to the dancing-class +Mrs. Bowdoin is having for the children." + +"Whew!" said Mr. Bowdoin. "The old lady'll never stand it." + +"Never in the world," said Mr. James. + +"Upon my word, I don't know why not, though!" + +"I'm afraid she does, though!" + +"I'll ask her, anyhow. And, James, if I don't get to the office +to-morrow, I'll write you her answer." + +"And have me tell poor Jamie," laughed Mr. James. + +"Well," said Mr. Bowdoin hastily, "you can say it's my letter--I'm +late at the bank"-- + +The old gentleman hurried off; but his prediction proved well founded. +Whether Mrs. Bowdoin had noticed the effect of pretty Mercedes upon +young Harley, her grandson, or whether the claims of the pirate's +daughter to social equality with the descendants of Salem +privateersmen were to be negatived, she promptly replied that +questions of social consideration rested with her alone. Mr. Bowdoin +accepted the decision with no surprise; what pretty Miss Mercy said is +unknown; but Jamie actually treated his employers for some weeks with +an exaggerated deference in which there was almost a touch of sarcasm. + +"Poor old Jamie!" said Mr. James to his father. "How he adores the +child!" + +McMurtagh was not five years older than himself,--he may have been +forty at this period; but his little rosy face was prematurely +wrinkled, and his gait was always so odd, and he had no young friends +about town, nor seemed ever to have had any youth. + +Meantime Miss Mercy went on with her piano. She was graduated from +the high school the next year, and then had nothing else to do. The +same year, Master Harley went to college. And there occurred a thing +which gave rise to much secret consultation among the Bowdoins. + +For every morning, upon the appearance of Mr. James, or more usually +upon the later advent of Mr. Bowdoin, old Jamie would get off his high +stool, where for many minutes he had made no entries upon the books +(indeed, the entries already were growing fewer every year), and come +with visible determination into the main office. There, upon being +asked by Mr. Bowdoin what he wanted, he would portentously clear his +throat; then, on being asked a second time, he would suddenly fall to +poking the fire, and finally respond with some business question, an +obvious and laborious invention of the moment. + +"It's either Mercy or his accounts," said Mr. James to his father. + +"His accounts--are sure to be all right," said the old gentleman. "Try +him on the little lady." + +So the next day, to Jamie, Mr. James, just as his mouth was open +about the last shipment from Bordeaux:-- + +"Well, what is it, Jamie? Something about Miss Mercedes?" + +"It's na aboot the lassie, but I'm thinkin' young Master Harleston is +aye coming to tha hoose abune his needs," said Jamie, taken off his +guard, in broadest Scotch. And he mopped his face; the conflict +between love and loyalty had been exhausting. + +"Harley Bowdoin? Dear me!" cried Mr. James. "How far has it gone?" + +"It canna go too far for the gude o' the young man," said Jamie +testily. "But I was bound to tell ye, and I ha' done so." + +"Does he go to your house,--Salem Street?" + +Jamie nodded. "He's aye there tha Fridays." + +"Dancing-class nights," muttered Mr. James. Then he remembered that +Abby, his wife, had spoken of their nephew's absence. He was studying +so hard, it had been said. "Thank you, Jamie. I'll see to it. Thank +you very much, Jamie." + +Jamie turned to go. + +"Has Miss Mercy--has Miss McMurtagh encouraged him?" + +Jamie turned back angrily. "She'll forbid the lad tha hoose, an ye say +so." + +Mr. James seized his hat and fled precipitately, leaving Jamie +glowering at the grate. On his way up the street he met his father, +and took him into the old Ship tavern to have a glass of flip; and +then he told the story. + +Mr. Bowdoin took his hat off to rub his forehead with his old +bandanna, thereby setting fluttering a pair of twenty-thousand-dollar +notes he had just discounted. "Dear me! I'll tell Harley not to go +there any more. Poor old Jamie!" + +"Better ship the rascal to Bordeaux," said Mr. James, picking up the +notes. + +"And have him lose his course in college?" + +"What good did that do us? We were rusticated most of the time, as he +has just been"-- + +"Speak for yourself, young man!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. + +"Haven't I a copy of the verses you addressed to Miss Sally White when +you were rusticated under Parson White at Clapboardtrees?" + +An allusion to Miss White always tickled the old gentleman; and father +and son parted in high good humor. Only, Mr. James thought wise to +inform Mrs. Harleston Bowdoin of what had happened. And some days +after, Mr. James, coming to the office, found fair Miss Mercedes in +full possession. The old gentleman was visibly embarrassed. The lady +was quite at her ease. + +"I've been telling this young lady she must not take to breaking +hearts so soon," he explained. "Haven't I, my dear?" + +"Yes, sir," said Miss Mercedes demurely. + +"And he doesn't know his own mind--and he hasn't been to see her +for--how long was it, Mercy?" + +"A week, sir." + +"For a week. And she'll not see him again--not until"-- + +"Not at all, if it's displeasing to you, sir." + +"Displeasing to me? Dear me! you're a nice girl, I'm sure. Wasn't it +fair and square in the child to come down here? I wonder you weren't +afraid!" + +"I'm not afraid of anything, Mr. Bowdoin!" + +"Dear me! not afraid of anything!" Mr. Bowdoin chuckled. "Now I'm +afraid of Mrs. Harleston Bowdoin! Do you mean to say you'd walk +into--into a bank all alone?" + +"Yes, sir, if I had business there." + +"Business! here's business for you!" and the old gentleman, still +chuckling, scratched off a check. "Here, take this up to the Old +Colony Bank,--you know, where your father goes every day,--and if +you'll dare go in and present it for the money, it is yours! You've +got some music or fal-lals to buy, I'll be bound. Does old Jamie give +you an allowance? He ought to make a big allowance for your eyes! Now +get off, my dear, before he sees you here." And Mercedes escaped, with +one quick glance at Mr. James, who sank into a chair and looked at his +father quizzically. + +"Upon my word," said the old gentleman, rubbing his spectacles +nervously, "she's a nice, well-mannered girl. I don't know why it +wouldn't do." + +"I guess Mrs. Harleston does," laughed Mr. James. + +"We were all journeymen or countrymen a hundred years ago." + +But when Mr. Harleston's mamma heard of these revolutionary sentiments +she put her foot down. And Master Harley (who had conveniently been +dropped a year from Harvard) was sent to learn French bookkeeping in +the simpler civilization of Bordeaux. + + + + +XI. + + +There were friends about Miss Mercy none too sorry to witness the +discomfiture of this lofty aspirant. Poor Jamie, I fear, got some +cross looks for his share in the matter; and tears, which were harder +still to bear. John Hughson, who was a prosperous young teamster, +began to come in again, and take his pipe of an evening with Jamie. He +no longer sat in his shirt-sleeves, and was in other ways much +improved. Mercedes was gracious to him evenings; indeed, it was her +nature to be gracious to all men. She had a way of looking straight at +them with kind eyes, her lips slightly parted, her smile just showing +the edges of both upper and under teeth; so that you knew not whether +it was sweeter to look at her eyes or her lips, and were lost in the +effort to decide. So one day Hughson felt emboldened to ask if he +might bear her company to church on Sunday. And Miss Sadie,--as now +they called her, for she objected to the name of Mercy, and nothing +but Sadie could her friends make out of Mercedes,--Sadie, to please +McMurtagh, consented. + +But when the Sunday came, poor Hughson, who looked well enough in +week-day clothes, became, to her quick eye, impossible in black. + +"You see, Sadie, I am bright and early, to be your beau." + +There is a fine directness about courtship in Hughson's class,--it +puts the dots upon the _i_'s; but Sadie must have preferred them +dotless, for she said, "My name is not Sadie." + +"Mercy." + +"Nor Mercy." + +"Mer--Mercedes, then." + +"Nor Mercedes alone." + +"Well, Miss McMurtagh, though I've known you from a child." + +A shrug of Mercedes' pretty shoulders implied that this might be the +last passport to her acquaintance as a woman. "Mr. McMurtagh is not +my father. My name is Silva." + +"Oho! all the Italian fruit-dealers are named Silva!" + +"If you're rude, I'll not go to church with you," said Miss Silva +demurely. + +Hughson was clumsily repentant. But the young lady would not go to the +King's Chapel (where she had lately affected an interest; it was the +Bowdoins' church), but led him to still older Christ Church, at the +northern end of the town. Here, in those ante-Episcopalian days, were +scarce a dozen worshipers; and you might have a square, dock-like pew +all to yourself, turn your back upon the minister, and gaze upon the +painted angels blowing gilded trumpets in the gallery. + +It must be confessed that Hughson had little conversation; and as they +walked back, through Hanover Street, among crowds of young women, none +so neatly dressed as she, and men less respectable than honest +Hughson, Mercedes was conscious of a void within her life. In the +afternoon she shut herself in her room and had a crying spell; at +least so Jamie feared, as he tiptoed by her door, in apprehension of +her sobs. Her piano had grown silent of late. What use was a piano +among such as Hughson? So Jamie and the rising teamster sat in the +kitchen and discussed the situation over pipes. + +"The poor child ought to have some company," said Jamie. + +Hughson felt this a reflection upon him, and answered but with harder +puffs. "What she wants," said he at last, "is society. A good nice +dancing-party, now?" + +Jamie shook his head. "We've no acquaintance among gay people." + +"Gay people?" Hughson elevated his brow. The phrase, with him, was +synonymous with impropriety. "No; but there's my training-company +ball, now; it's given in Union Street hall; gentlemen a dollar, ladies +fifty cents. Each gentleman can bring two ladies. Why not let me take +her there?" + +"I'm sure it's very kind of you, John," said Jamie. He felt a pang +that he, too, could not take Mercedes to balls. + +"It's not like one o' them Tremont Street balls, you know," said +Hughson proudly. Secretly he thought it a very fine affair. The +governor was to be there, and his aides-de-camp, in gold lace. + +Mercedes went to the ball when the night came, but only stayed an +hour. She knew very few of the other girls. Her dress was a yellow +muslin, modestly open at the throat, and she could see them eying it. +None of the other women wore low-necked gowns, but they wore more +pretentious dresses, with more of ornament, and Mercedes felt they did +not even know in how much better taste was she. But John Hughson was +in a most impossible blue swallow-tail with brass buttons,--the sort +of thing, indeed, that Webster had worn a few years before, only +Hughson was not fitted for it. She suspected he had hired it for the +evening, in the hope of pleasing her, for she saw that he had to bear +some chaff about it from his friends. One of the colonels of the +staff, with plumed hat and a sword, came and was introduced to her. In +a sense she made a conquest of him, for he tried clumsily to pay his +court to her, but not seriously. Nothing that yet had happened in her +little life had enraged Miss Mercedes as did this. She inly vowed that +some day she would remember the man, to cut him. And so she had +Hughson take her home. + +Poor Hughson felt that his evening had been a failure, and rashly +ventured on some chances of rebuff from her as the two walked +home,--chances of which Miss Mercedes was cruel enough to avail +herself to the full. The honest fellow was puzzled by it, for even he +knew that Mercedes' only desire in going to the ball was to be +admired, and admiration she had had. John was too simple to make fine +discriminations in male deference, but he judged more rightly the +feminine opinion of her looks and manners than did Miss Mercedes +herself. They had thought her too fine for them--as she had wished. + +After all her democratic education, social consideration was the one +ambition that had formed in pretty Mercedes' mind. Her desire for this +was as real in the form it took with men as in the form it took with +other women; as clear the outcome of the books and reading given her +as of the training given any upper servant in a London suburb, +patterned on a lady mistress. Mercedes had no affections; she was as +careless of religion as a Yankee boy; this desire alone she had of +self-esteem above her fellow-creatures, especially those of her own +sex and age. Her education had not gone to the point of giving her +higher enjoyment,--poetry, art, happiness of thought. Even her +piano-playing was but an adornment. She never played for her own +pleasure; and what was the use of practicing now? + +This New World life has got reduced to about three motives, like the +three primary colors; one is rather surprised that so few can blend in +so many shades of people. Money-getting, love of self, love,--is not +that quite all? Yet poor Jamie and Mercedes, who was nearest to him, +did not happen in the same division. Hughson, perhaps, made even the +third. Yet a woman who holds herself too fine for her world will get +recognition, commonly, from it. To honest Hughson, lying unwontedly +awake and thinking of the evening's chances and mischances, now in a +hot fit, now in a cold fit, of something like to love, such a creature +as Mercedes, as she lightly hung upon his arm that evening, had never +yet appeared. She was an angel, a being apart, a fairy,--any crude +simile that occurs to honest plodding men of such young girls. John +took the _distrait_ look for dreamy thought; her irresponsiveness for +ethereal purity; her moodiness for superiority of soul. She imposed +herself on him now, as she had done before on Jamie, as deserving a +higher life than he could give her. This is what a man terms being in +love, and then would wish, _quand meme_, to drag his own life into +hers! + +One day, some weeks after this, Mr. James Bowdoin, on coming down to +the little office on the wharf rather later than usual, went up the +stairs, more than ever choky with that spicy dust that was the +mummy-like odor of departed trade, and divined that the cause thereof +was in the counting-room itself, whence issued sounds of much bumping +and falling, as if a dozen children were playing leap-frog on the +floor. Jamie McMurtagh was seated on the stool in the outer den that +was called the bookkeeper's, biting his pen, with even a sourer face +than usual. + +"Good-morning, Jamie," said he cheerily. + +"Good-morning, Mr. James." Jamie always greeted glumly, but there was +a touch of tragedy in him this morning that was more than manner. +James Bowdoin looked at him sharply. + +"Can I--has anything"--He was interrupted by a series of tremendous +poundings that issued from the counting-room within. The entrance door +was closed. Young Mr. Bowdoin cocked his thumb at it. "How many +children has the governor got in there to-day?" + +"One, sir," grunted Jamie. + +"One child? Great heavens! who makes all that noise?" + +"Mr. Bowdoin do the most of it, sir," said Jamie solemnly. "I have +been waiting, sir, to see him mysel' since"--Jamie looked gravely at +his watch--"since the half after twal'. But he does not suffer being +interrupted." + +James Bowdoin threw himself on a chair and laughed. "Who is it?" + +"It'll be your Miss Abby, I'm thinkin'." + +"The imp! I stopped her week's money for losing her hat this morning, +and she's got ahead of me and come down to get it of the governor." + +There was a sudden and mysterious silence in the inner room. James +Bowdoin looked at Jamie, and noted again his expression. "What's the +matter, Jamie? Have you anything to tell me?" + +"It's for Mr. Bowdoin's private ear, Mr. James," said Jamie testily. + +"Oh, ah! in that case I'll go in and see." James threw the door open. +Old Mr. Bowdoin was standing, still puffing, in front of the fire, +evidently quite breathless. In the corner by the window, too rapt to +notice her father's entrance, sat Miss Abby, intently gazing into a +round glass crystal that, with a carved ebony frame, formed one of the +Oriental ornaments of the counting-room. + +"I trust we are not disturbing important business, sir?" said Mr. +James the younger dryly. + +"Sh, sh! Abby, my dear, don't take your eyes out of it for twenty +minutes, and you'll see the soldiers." And the old gentleman winked at +James and Jamie, and became still purpler with laughter that was +struggling to be heard. + +"As for that child of mine"-- + +"Psst! h'sh!" and Mr. Bowdoin snapped his fingers in desperation at +his uncomprehending son. "Never mind them, dear!" he cried to the +child. "Only look steady; don't take your eyes out of it for twenty +minutes, and you're sure to see the armies fighting! The most +marvelous idea, and all my own," he said, as he slammed the door +behind him. "Crystal-gazing, for keeping children quiet,--nothing +beats it!" + +"I thought, sir, you were both in need of it. But Jamie here has +something to say to you." + +"What is it--Jamie? No more trouble about that ship Maine Lady? D--n +the British collier tramps! and she as fine a clipper as ever left +Bath Bay. Well, send her back in ballast; chessmen and India shawls, I +suppose, as usual"-- + +"It's about Mercedes, sir." + +"Oh, ah!" Mr. Bowdoin's brow grew grave. + +"She will not marry John Hughson, sir." + +"Now, Jamie, how the devil am I to make her?" + + + + +XII. + + +John Hughson took his rejection rather sullenly, and Mercedes was more +than ever alone in the old house. She never had had intimate +companions among the young women of the neighborhood, and now they put +the stigma of exclusion upon her. They envied her rejection of a +serious suitor such as John. It was rumored the latter was taking to +liquor, and she was blamed for it. Women often like to have others say +yes to the first man who comes, and not leave old love affairs to +cumber the ground. And girls, however loving to their friends, have +but a cold sympathy for their sex in general. + +One person profited by it, and that was old Jamie. He urged Mercedes +nearly every day to alter her decision, and she seemed to like him for +it. Always, now, one saw her walking with him; he became her ally +against a disapproving world. + +The next thing that happened was, Jamie's mother fell very ill. He had +to sit with her of nights; and she would look at him fondly (she was +too old and weak to speak much), as if he had been any handsome heir. +Mercedes would sit with them sometimes, and then go into her parlor, +where she would try to play a little, and then, as they supposed, +would read. But books, before these realities of life, failed her. +What she really did I hardly know. She wrote one letter to young +Harleston Bowdoin, and he answered it; and then a second, which was +still unanswered. + +One night "the mother" spoke to Jamie of the girl: "'Tis a comely +lass. I suppose you're proud you were adopting her?" + +Old Jamie's face was always red as a winter apple, but his eyes +blushed. "Anybody'd 'a' done that, mither,--such a lady as she is!" + +"What'll ye be doin' of her after I'm gone? The pirate father'll come +a-claimin' of her." + +Jamie looked as if the pirate captain then might meet his match. + +"Jamie, my son--have ye never thought o' marryin' her your own sel'? +I'd like to see you with a wife before I go." + +There was no doubt that Jamie was blushing now. + +"Do ye no love the lass enough?" + +"I"--Jamie stopped himself. "I am too old, mither, and--and too +queer." + +"Too old! too queer! There's not a better son than my Jamie in all the +town. I'd like to see a better, braver boy make claim! And if you seem +old, it's through tending of your old forbears. Whatever would the +lassie want, indeed!" + +"Good heavens! I've never asked her, mither," said Jamie. + +The old woman looked fondly at her boy. "Ask her, then, Jamie; ask +her, and give her the chance. She's a daft creature, but bonny; and +you love her, I see." + +Jamie pinched up his rosy features and squirmed upon his chair. "Can I +do anything for ye, mither? Then I think I'll go out and take a bit o' +pipe in the streets with John Hughson." + +"John Hughson, indeed!" snorted the old woman, and set her face to the +wall. + +But Jamie did not go near John Hughson. He rambled alone about the +city streets, and it was late at night before he came back. Late as it +was, there was a light behind Mercedes' window-shade, and he walked +across the street and watched it, until a policeman, coming by, +stopped and asked him who he was.--But the virus took possession of +him and spread. + +The Bowdoins, father and son, noted that their old clerk's dress was +sprucer. He was more than ever seen with Miss Mercedes, and she seemed +to like him better than before. Women who are to all men fascinating +must have a subtle instinct for perceiving it, a half-conscious liking +for it. Else why do not they stop it sooner? + +But Jamie had never admitted it to himself. Perhaps because he loved +her better than himself. He judged his own pretensions solely from her +interest. Marriages were fewer did all men so. + +Still a year went by, and no other man seemed near Mercedes. Then the +old mother died. To Mercedes, life seemed always going into mourning +for elderly people. They went on living, she and Jamie, as before. He +had got to be so completely accepted as her adoptive father that to no +one, not even the Bowdoins, had the situation raised a question; to +Mercedes least of all. With such natures as hers, there also goes +instinctive knowledge of how far male natures, most widely different, +may be trusted. But Jamie had thought it over many times. + +Until one morning, James Bowdoin and his father, coming to the +counting-room, found Jamie with a face of circumstance. He had on his +newest clothes; his boots were polished; and his hair, already +somewhat gray, was carefully brushed. + +"What is it, Jamie? Have you come for a vacation?" said Mr. Bowdoin. + +"Vacation!" sniffed Jamie. Once, many years before, he had been given +a week off, and had gone to Nantasket; but his principal diversion had +been to take the morning steamboat thence to the city, and gaze into +the office windows from the wharf. + +"It is something about pretty Miss Sadie, I'll be bound." + +"You are always right, sir," said Jamie quietly. His eyes were very +bright; he was almost young-looking; and his manner had a certain +dignity. "And I beg you, sir, for leave to ask your judgment." + +Mr. Bowdoin motioned Jamie to a chair. And it marked his curious +sense that he was treating as man to man that for the first and only +time within that office Jamie took it. + +"Mercedes." Jamie lingered lovingly over the name. "I have tried my +best, sir. I have made her--nay, she was one--like a lady. You would +not let her marry Master Harley." + +"I never"--the old gentleman interrupted. Jamie waved his hand. + +"They would not, I mean, sir. She will not marry John Hughson. You are +a gentleman, sir, and could tell me if I--would be taking an unfair +advantage--if I asked her--to marry--me. I am sure--I love her +enough." + +Jamie dropped his voice quickly on the last words, so that they were +inaudible to Mr. James Bowdoin, who had suddenly laughed. + +Old Mr. Bowdoin turned angrily upon his son. + +But Jamie's face had turned to white. He rose respectfully. "Don't say +anything, sir. I have had my answer." + +"Forgive me, Mr. McMurtagh," said James Bowdoin the younger. "I'm +sure she could not have a kinder husband. But"-- + +"Don't explain, Mr. James." + +"But--after all, why not ask her?" + +"Nay, nay," said Jamie, "I'll not ask the child. I would not have her +make a mistake, as I see it would be." + +"But, Jamie," said Mr. James kindly, "what will you do? She can hardly +go on living in your home." + +"Not in my home? Where else has the child a home?" + +There are certain male natures that fight crying. An enemy who looks +straight at you with tears in his eyes is not to be contended with. +And Jamie stood there, blushing fiery red, with flashing eyes, and +tears streaming down his cheeks. + +"James Bowdoin, you're a d----d fool!" sputtered his irate sire. "You +talk as your wife might talk. This is an affair of men. Jamie," he +added very gently, "you are quite right. My boy's an ass." He put his +hand on Jamie's shoulder. "You'll find some fine young fellow to marry +her yet, and she'll bring you--grandchildren." + +"I may--I need hardly ask you to forget this?" said Jamie timidly, +and making hastily for the door. + +"Of course; and she shall stay in her old home where she was bred from +a child, and, d----n 'em, my grandchildren shall go to see her +there"--But the door had closed. + +"James Bowdoin, if my son, with his d----d snicker, were one half so +good a gentleman as that old clerk, I'd trust him with--with an earl's +daughter," said the old gentleman inconsequently, and violently +rubbing a tingling nose. + +"I think you're right, governor," said James Bowdoin. "Did you notice +how spruced up and young the poor fellow was? I wish to goodness I +hadn't laughed, though. He might have married the girl. Why not? How +old is he?" + +"Why not? Ask her. He may be forty, more or less." + +"What a strange thing to have come into the old fellow's life! And we +thought it would give him something to care for! I never fancied he +loved her that way." + +"I don't believe now he loves her so much _that_ way--as--as he loves +her," said old Mr. Bowdoin, as if vaguely. "She isn't worth him." + +"She's really quite beautiful. I never saw a Spanish girl before with +hair of gold." + +"Pirate gold," said old Mr. Bowdoin. + + + + +PART TWO: ROBBERY. + + + + +I. + + +No plummet ever sank so deep as Jamie sank the thoughts of those few +months. No oblivion more vast than where he buried it. No human will +so strong as that he bent upon it, bound it down with. No sin absolved +was ever so forgotten. One wonders if Jamie, at the day of judgment +even, will remember it. Perhaps 'twill then be no more the sin he +thought it. For Jamie's nature, like that of spiny plants, was +sensitive, delicate within, as his outer side was bent and rough; and +he fancied it, first, a selfishness; then, as his lonely fancy got to +brooding on it, an actual sin. James Bowdoin's unlucky laugh had +taught him how it seemed to others; and was not inordinate affection, +to the manifest injury of the object loved, a sin? Jamie felt it so; +and he had the Prayer Book's authority therefor. "Inordinate and +sinful affections,"--that is the phrase; both are condemned. + +But he kept it all the closer from Mercedes. It did not grow less; he +had no heart to cease loving. Manlike, he was willing to face his God +with the sin, but not her. He sought to change the nature of his love; +perhaps, in time, succeeded. But all love has a mystic triple root; +you cannot unravel the web, on earth at least. Religious, sexual, +spiritual,--all are intertwined. + +Jamie and Mercedes lived on in the little brick house, as he had +promised. Only one thing the Bowdoins noticed: he now dressed and +talked and acted like a man grown very old. His coats were different +again; his manner was more eccentric than ever. His hair helped him a +little, for it really grew quite white. He asked Mercedes now to call +him father. + +"Jamie is posing as a patriarch," said Mr. Bowdoin; he smiled, and +then he sighed. + +Old Mr. Bowdoin did not forget his promise to have his granddaughters +call upon Mercedes. Now and then they sent her tickets for church +fairs. But it takes more love than most women have for each other to +give the tact, the self-abnegation, that such unequal relations, to +be permanent, require. The momentary gush of sympathy that the Bowdoin +girls felt, upon their grandfather's account of Sadie's loneliness, +was chilled at the first haughty word Mercedes gave them. It takes an +older nature, more humbled by living than is an American young lady's, +to meet the poor in money without patronizing, and the proud at heart +without seeming rude. So this attempted intimacy faded. + +Jamie gave his life to her. His manner at the office altered: he +became proud and reserved. More wonderful still, he shortened his time +of attendance; not that he was inattentive while there, but he no +longer observed unnecessary hours, as he had been wont to do, after +the bank closed; as soon as Mr. James Bowdoin left, he would lock up +the office and go himself. His life was but waiting upon Mercedes. + +When he was in the office he would sit twiddling his thumbs. The +pretense at bookkeeping, unreal bookkeeping, he abandoned. The last +old ship, the Maine Lady, had served him in good stead for many years; +he had double-entered, ledgered, and balanced her simple debits and +credits like a stage procession. But now he made no fiction about the +vanished business. + +It was characteristic of Jamie that still he did not hanker for more +money. He recognized his adopted daughter's need for sympathy, for +emotions, even for love, if you will; but yet it did not occur to him +that he might earn more money. His salary was ample, and out of it he +had made some savings. And Mercedes had that impatience of details, +that _ennui_ of money matters, that even worldly women show, who care +for results, not processes. + +It had always been the custom of the McMurtagh family to pass the +summers, like the winters, in the little house on Salem Street; but +this year Jamie rented a cottage at Nantasket. He told the Bowdoins +nothing of this move until they asked him about it, observing that he +regularly took the boat. To Jamie it was the next thing to Nahant, +which was of course out of the question. But the queer old clerk was +not fitted to shine in any society, and Mercedes found it hard to make +her way alone. They wandered about the beach, and occasionally to the +great hotel when there was a hop, of evenings, and listened to the +bands; but Mercedes' beauty was too striking and her manners were too +independent to inspire quick confidence in the Nantasket matrons; +while Jamie missed his pipe and shirt-sleeves after supper. He had +asked, and been forbidden, to invite John Hughson down to stay. Still +less would Sadie have her girl acquaintances; and all Salem Street's +kindliest feelings were soured in consequence. There was an invitation +from Nahant that summer, but it seemed, to Mercedes' quick sense, +formal, and she would not go. + +She had had her piano moved down "to the beach," at much expense; and +for a week she played in the afternoons. But even this accomplishment +brought her no notice. People would look at her in passing, and then, +more curiously, at her foster-father: that was all. Mercedes, in her +youth, could not realize how social confidence is a plant of slow +growth. The young girls of the place were content with saying she "was +not in their set;" the young men who desired her acquaintance must +seek it surreptitiously, and this Mercedes would not have. The people +of the great hotel were a more mixed set, and among them our couple +was much discussed. Something got to be known of Jamie,--that he was +confidential clerk to the well-known firm of Boston's older +ship-owners, and that she was his adopted daughter. Soon the rumor +grew that he was miserly and rich. + +Poor Jamie! He thought more of all these things than Mercedes ever +supposed. What could he do to give her friends of her own age? What +could he do to find her lovers, a husband? McMurtagh slept not nights +for thinking on these things. John Hughson he now saw to be +impossible; Harley Bowdoin was out of the question; but were there not +still genteel youths, clerks like himself, but younger, some class of +life for his petted little lady? Jamie had half-thoughts of training +some nice lad to be fit for her,--Jamie earned money amply; of +training him, too, to take his place and earn his salary. Every +discontented look in Mercedes' lovely face went to Jamie's +heartstrings. + +One day, going home by the usual boat, he saw his dear girl waiting +for him on the wharf. It always lightened Jamie's heart when she did +this, and he hurried down to the gangplank, to be among the first +ashore and save her waiting. But as he stepped upon it he saw that she +was talking to a gentleman. There was a little heightened color in her +cheeks; she was not watching the passengers in the boat. Jamie turned +aside through the crowd to walk up the road alone. He looked over his +shoulder, and saw that they were following. When nearly at their +cottage, he turned about irresolutely and met them. Mercedes, with a +word of reproach for walking home alone (at which Jamie's old eyes +opened), introduced him: "Mr. David St. Clair--my father." + +"I made Miss McMurtagh's acquaintance at the Rockland House last +night,--she plays so beautifully." Then Jamie remembered that he had +gone out to smoke his pipe upon the piazza. + +He looked at the newcomer. St. Clair was dressed expensively, in what +Jamie thought the highest fashion. He wore kid gloves and a high silk +hat; he had a white waistcoat and a very black mustache. Mercedes had +blushed again when she presented him, and suddenly there was a burst +of envy in poor Jamie's heart. + + + + +II. + + +No girl, before she came to love, ever scrutinized a suitor so closely +as old Jamie did St. Clair. The little old Scotch clerk was quicker +far to see the first blossoms of love in her heart than Mercedes +herself, than any mother could have been, for each one bore a pang for +him; and he, who had renounced, and then set his heart to share each +feeling with her, who had wanted but her confidence, wanted but to +share with her as some girl might her heart histories, now found +himself far outstripping her in conscious knowledge. He did not +realize the impossibility of the sympathy he dreamed. He had fondly +thought his man's love a justification for that intimacy from which, +in natures like Mercedes', even a mother's love is excluded. + +All Jamie's judgment was against the man, and yet his heart was in +touch with hers to feel its stirring for him. The one told him he was +not respectable; the other that he was romantic. His career was +shadowy, like his hair. In those days still a mustache bore with it +some audacity, and gave a man who frankly lived outside the reputable +callings something of the buccaneer. St. Clair called himself a +gentleman, but did not pretend to be a clerk, and frankly avowed that +he was not in trade. Jamie could not make him out at all. He hoped, +indeed, he was a gentleman. Had he been in the old country, he could +have credited it better; but gentlemen without visible means of +support were, in those days, unusual in Boston. + +Poor Jamie watched his daughter like any dowager, that summer. But the +consciousness of his own sin (for so now he always thought of it) +troubled him terribly. How could he urge his lady to repel the +advances of this man without being open to the charge of selfishness, +of jealousy? Jamie forgot that the girl had never known he loved her. + +He made feeble attempts to egg on Hughson. The honest teamster was but +a lukewarm lover. His point of view was that the girl looked down upon +him, and this chilled his passion. He had come to own his teams now. +He never drove them. He was a capitalist, an employer of labor; and, +at Jamie's request, he came down one night, in black broadcloth and +red-handed, to pass the night. But it did not work. When Mr. St. Clair +called in the evening, he adopted a tone of treating both Jamie and +Hughson as elderly pals, so that the latter lost his temper, and, as +Mercedes claimed, insulted his elegant rival. + +Then Jamie bade Hughson to come no more, for his love for Mercedes was +so true that he felt in his heart why St. Clair appealed more to hers. + +But the summer was a long and anxious one, and he was glad when it was +over and they were back in Salem Street. They had made no other +acquaintance at Nantasket. "Society" to Jamie remained a sealed book. +Clever Mercedes was not clever enough to see he knew she blamed him +for it. St. Clair only laughed. "These people are nobody," said he; +and he talked of fashionable and equipaged friends he had known in +other places. Where? Jamie suspected, race-courses; his stories of +them bore usually an equine flavor. But he was not a horse-dealer; his +hands were too white for that. + +Poor old Mr. Bowdoin had had a hangdog feeling with old Jamie ever +since that day his son had laughed. He had dared criticise nothing he +noticed at the office, and Jamie grew more crusty and eccentric every +day. James Bowdoin was less indulgent, and soon saw that something new +was in the wind. But the last thing that both expected was a demand on +Jamie's part for an increased salary. Jamie made it respectfully, with +his hat off, twirling in his hand, and the Bowdoins eyed him. + +"It isna that I'm discontented with the place or the salary in the +past," said Jamie, "but our expenses are increasing. I have rented a +house in Worcester Square." + +"In Worcester Square? And the one in Salem Street?" + +"'Tis too small for me family needs," said Jamie. "I have sold it." + +"Too small?" + +"Me daughter is about to be married," said Jamie reluctantly. + +"Dear me!" exclaimed the Bowdoins in a breath. "May we congratulate +her?" + +"Ye may do as ye like," said Jamie. "'Tis one Mr. David St. Clair,--a +gentleman, as he tells me." + +"Is he to live with you, then?" + +"Yes, sir. He wants work--that is"--Jamie hesitated. + +"He has no occupation?" + +Jamie was visibly irritated. "If I bring the gentleman down, ye may +ask him your ain sel'." + +"No, no," said Mr. James. "That is, we should, of course, be glad to +meet the gentleman at any time. What is his name?" + +"David St. Clair." + +"David Sinclair," repeated the old gentleman. + +"Mercedes Silva," said Mr. James musingly. + +"McMurtagh, if you please," said Jamie. + +"Jamie," said old Mr. Bowdoin, "our business is going away. The +steamers will ruin it. For a long time there has not been enough to +occupy a man of your talents. And the old bookkeeper at the bank--the +Old Colony Bank--has got to resign. I've already asked the place for +you. The salary is--more than we here can afford to pay you. In fact, +we may close the counting-room." + +Jamie rubbed his nose and shifted his feet. "Ta business is a goot +business, and t' firm is a fine old firm." It was evident he was in +the throes of unexpressed affection. In all his life he had never +learned to express it. "Ye'll na be closing the old counting-room?" + +"I may come down here every day or so, just to keep my trusts up. I'll +use it for a writing-room; it's near the bank"-- + +"An' I'll come down an' keep the books for you, sir," said Jamie; and +the "sir" from his lips was like a caress from another man. + + + + +III. + + +Jamie took his place on the high stool behind the great ledgers of the +Old Colony Bank, and the house on Worcester Square was even bought, +with his savings and the price of the house on Salem Street. Only one +thing Jamie flatly refused, and that was to permit Mercedes' marriage +until St. Clair had some visible means of support. She pouted at this +and was cruel; but for once the old clerk was inflexible, even to her. +Mercedes would perhaps have married against his will, but Mr. St. +Clair had his reason for submitting. + +And that gentleman was particular in his choice of occupation, and +Mercedes yet more particular for him. The class of which St. Clair +came is a peculiar one, hardly known to the respectable world, less +known then than now; and yet it has often money, kindliness, +reputability even, among its members: they marry and have children +among their own class; they are not church-going, but yet they are not +criminal. As actor families maintain themselves for many generations +(not the stars, but the ordinary histrionic families; you will find +most of the names on the playbills to-day that were there in the last +century, neither above nor below their old position), so there are +sporting families who live in a queer, not unprosperous world of their +own, marry and bring up children, and leave money and friends behind +them when they die. And Sinclair came of people such as these. "St. +Clair" was his own invention. Of course Jamie did not know it, nor did +Mercedes; and in fact he was honestly in love with her, to the point +of changing his way of life to one of routine and drudgery. + +But no place could be found (save, indeed, a retail grocer's +clerkship), and Mercedes began to grow worried, and occasionally to +cry. St. Clair spent his evenings at the house; and at such times +Jamie would wander helplessly about the streets. St. Clair's one idea +was to be employed about the bank, to become a banker. Had he been +competent to keep the books, I doubt not Jamie would have given them +up to him. + +Great is the power of persuasion backed by love, even in a bent old +Scotchman. Will it be believed, Jamie teased and schemed and promoted +until he made a vacancy of the place of messenger, and got it for his +son-in-law. Perhaps old Mr. Bowdoin had ever had a slight feeling of +remorse since he had seen nipped in the bud that affair with young +Harleston. He did not approve of the present match. Yet he fancied the +bridegroom might be a safer spouse with a regular occupation and a +coat more threadbare than he habitually wore. + +Nothing now stood in the way of the marriage; and it took place with +some _eclat_,--in King's Chapel, indeed, with all the Bowdoins, even +to Mrs. Abby. Jamie gave the bride away. Hughson (to Mercedes' +relief) took it a bit rusty and would not come. Then the pair went on +a wedding journey to Niagara and Trenton Falls; and old Jamie, the day +after the ceremony, came down looking happier than he had seemed for +years. There was a light in his lonely old face; it comes rarely to us +on earth, but, by one who sees it, it is not forgotten. Old Mr. +Bowdoin saw it; and, remembering that interview scarce two years gone +by, his nose tingled. It is rare that natures with such happy lives as +his are so "dowered with the love of love." But when old Jamie looked +at him, he but asked some business question; and Jamie marveled that +the old gentleman blew his nose so hard and damned the weather so +vigorously. + +When the St. Clairs came back, Jamie moved to an upper back room, and +gave them the rest of the new house. Mercedes was devotedly in love +with her husband. She would have liked to meet people, if but to show +him to them. But she knew no one worthy save the Bowdoins, and they +did not get on with him. His own social acquaintance, of which he had +boasted somewhat, appeared to be in other cities. And _ennui_ (which +causes more harm in the world than many a more evil passion) began +imperceptibly to take possession of him. + +However, they continued to live on together. St. Clair was fairly +regular at his work; and all went well for more than a year. + + + + +IV. + + +No year, probably, of James McMurtagh's life had he been so happy. It +delighted him to let St. Clair away early from the bank; and to sit +alone over the ledgers, imagining St. Clair's hurrying home, and the +greeting kiss, and the walk they got along the shells of the beach +before supper, with the setting sun slanting to them over the wide bay +from the Brookline hills. When they took the meal alone, it delighted +Jamie to sit at Mercy's right and have her David help him; or, when +they had "company," it pleased the old man almost as much to stay away +and think proudly of them. Such times he would sit alone on the Common +and smoke his pipe, and come home late and let himself in with his +latch-key, and steal up quickly to his own bedroom at the top of the +house. + +Now that he was so happy, and had left his old friends the Bowdoins, +a wave of unconscious affection for them spread over his soul. Under +pretext of keeping their accounts straight--which now hardly needed +balancing even once a month--old Jamie would edge down to the +counting-room upon the wharf, after hours, or even for a few minutes +at noontime (perhaps sacrificing his lunch therefor), to catch old Mr. +Bowdoin at his desk and chat with him (under plea of some omitted +entry needing explanation), and tell him how well David was doing, and +Mercedes so happy, and what company they had had to tea the night +before. So that one day Mr. Bowdoin even ventured to give him a golden +bracelet young Harleston Bowdoin had sent, soon after the wedding, +from France; and Jamie took it without a murmur. "Ah, 'tis a pity, +sir, ye din't keep the old house up, for the sake of the young +gentlemen, if nothing more," said he; and "Ah, Jamie," was Mr. +Bowdoin's reply, "it's all dirty coal-barges now; the old house would +not know its way about in steamers. We'll have to take to banking, +like yourself and Sinclair there." + +Jamie laughed with pleasure, and father and son went each to a window +to watch him as he sidled up the street. + +"Caroline never would have stood it," said the old man. + +"Neither would Abby," said the younger one. "Yet you made me marry +her;" and they both chuckled. It was the habit of the Bowdoin males to +marry them to women without a sense of humor, and then to take a +mutual delight in the consequences. + +"You only married her to get a house," said the old man. (This was the +inexhaustible joke they shared against Mrs. Abby that in nearly twenty +years had never failed to rouse her serious indignation.) "I saw her +coming out of that abolitionist meeting yesterday." + +"That's cousin Wendell Phillips got her into that," said Mr. James. +"Old Jamie was there, too." + +"Old Jamie has got so much love to spare that it spills around," said +Mr. Bowdoin, "even on comfortable niggers just decently clothed. +That's not your wife's trouble." To which the son had no other +repartee than "James!" drawled in the solemn bass of amazed +indignation that his mother's voice assumed when goaded into speech by +his father's sallies. It was his boast that "Abby" never yet had +ventured to address him thus. And so this precious pair separated; the +father going home to his grandchildren, and the son to the club for +his afternoon rubber of whist. They still took life easy in the +forties. + +Why was it that old Jamie, who should by rights have had his heart +broken, was happier than fortunate David? Both loved the same woman; +and no tenor hero ever loved so deeply as old Jamie, and he had lost +her. But he came of the humble millions that build the structure of +human happiness silently, by countless, uncounted little acts. David +was of the ephemera, the pleasure-loving insects. Now these will +settle for a time; but race will tell, and they are not the race of +quiet labor. + +One almost wonders, in these futureless times, that so many of the +former still remain. For the profession of pleasure is so easy, so +remunerative; even of money it often has no lack. St. Clair came of a +family that, from horse-racing, bar-keeping, betting, had found money +easier to get than ever had Jamie's people, and (when they had chosen +to invest it) had invested it in less reputable but more productive +ways. One fears the spelling-books mislead in their promise of +instant, adequate reward and punishment. The gods do not keep a +dame-school for us here on earth, and their ways are less obvious than +that. One hazards the suggestion, it is fortunate if our multitudes +(in these socialistic, traditionless times) do not yet discover how +comfortable, for hedonistic ends, their sons and daughters still may +be without respectability and reputability. + +St. Clair lived before them, and his mind was never analytic. The word +"bore" had not yet been imported, nor the word "ennui" naturalized in +a civilization whence two hundred years of Puritans had sought to +banish it. But although Adam set the example of falling to the primal +woman, it may be doubted whether Eve, at least, had not a foretaste of +the modern evil. And more souls go now to the devil (if they could +hope there were one!) for the being bored than any other cause. + +David did not know what ailed him. He loved his wife (not too +exclusively: that was not in his shallow nature); he had a fine house +and the handling of money. To his friends he was a banker. They were +at first envious of his reputability, and that pleased him while it +lasted. But it annoyed him that it had not dawned on their untutored +minds that handling money was not synonymous with possession. A +banker! At least he had the control of money; could lend it; might +lend it to his friends. + +There was, in those days, an outpost of Satan--overrated perhaps in +importance by the college authorities, with proportionate overawing +effect upon the students--on the riverside, over against Cambridge. +Here "trials of speed," trotting speed, were held; bar-rooms existed; +it was rumored pools were sold. Hither the four hundred, the liberal +four hundred, of Boston's then existent vice, were wont to repair and +witness contests for "purses." It was worth, in those days, a bank +clerk's position or an undergraduate's degree ever to be seen there. + +It may be imagined with what terror--a terror even transmuting itself +to pity dictating a refusal on Mercedes' part--old Jamie heard of a +proposition, one holiday, that David should take his wife there. +Mercedes would not go; and St. Clair laughed at her, in private, and +went alone. She was forced to be the accomplice of his going. + +The fact is, St. Clair, from the tip of his mustache to his +patent-leather shoes, was bored with regular hours, respectability, +and the assurance of an income adequate to his ordinary spending. +Something must be done for joy of life. He gave a champagne supper to +his old cronies, at a tavern by the wayside, and bore their chaff. +Then he bet. Then he stayed away from home a day or two. + +A butterfly cares but for sunshine. His love for Mercedes was quite +animal; he cared nothing for her mind; all poor Jamie's expensive +schooling was wasted, more unappreciated by him than it would have +been by John Hughson. So, one day, St. Clair came home to find her +crying; and his love for her then ended. + + + + +V. + + +Mercedes, remember, lived in the earlier half of this strange century, +now so soon to go to judgment. In these last years, when women seek +men's rights in exchange for woman's reason, reactionary males have +criticised them as children swapping old lamps for new, fine +instruments for coarser toys. As a poet has put it, why does + + "a woman + Dowered by God with power of life or death + Now cry for coarser tools," + +and seek to exchange the ballot for Prospero's wand? Like other +savages, she would exchange fine gold for guns and hatchets. (Beads, +trinkets, the men might pardon them!) + +A woman of power once said she had rather reign than govern. But +reigns, with male St. Clairs, so soon are over! Mercedes' dynasty had +ended. She knew it before St. Clair was conscious of it, and poor +Jamie knew it when she did. + +It was his custom to stay late at the bank, after hours. It closed at +two o'clock; and in those days all merchants then went home to their +dinner. Jamie, unknown to the cashier, would assume what he could of +St. Clair's work, to get him home the sooner to Mercedes. It is to be +hoped he always went there. + +As one looks back on the days of great events, one wonders that the +morning of them was not consciously brightened or shadowed by the +happening to come. For, after many years, that morning,--of the +meeting, or the news, or whatever it was,--dull and gray as in fact it +was, seems now all glorified in memory, illumined with the radiance it +bore among its hours. Jamie never could remember what he did that +morning or that day. It was close to half past four by the clock; the +cashier, the other clerks, had gone; the charwoman was sweeping. He +was mechanically counting over the cash in the cash drawer (it had +been counted over before by the teller, so Jamie's count was but +excess of caution); he was separating the gold and silver and +Massachusetts bills from the bills that came from banks of other +States. (These never were credited until collected, and so not counted +yet as cash, but credited to the collection account; in Jamie's eyes, +bank-bills of other States were not so honest as Massachusetts issues, +any more than their merchants were like James Bowdoin's Sons). He was +thinking, with a sadness not admitted to himself, of Mercedes; trying +to believe his judgment a fancy; trying to see, in his mind's eye, +David's arrival home (he had sent him off the half an hour before), +hoping even for kisses by him for Mercedes (for he grudged him not her +love, but wished his the greater). And now, with half his mind, he was +adding up the long five columns of figures, as he could do almost +unconsciously, thinking of other things. He had carried down the third +figure, when suddenly there came that warm stirring at the roots of +the hair that presages, to the slower brain, the heart's grasp of a +coming disaster. + +The figure was a 4 he carried down. His count of the cash had made it +a 2. + +Nonsense. He passed his hand to his quickened heart and made an effort +to slow his breath. It was his mistake; he had been thinking of other +things, of Mercedes. He leaned back against the high desk and rested. +Besides, what foolish fear to jump at fault for error, at fault of +David St. Clair! He had not been near the cash drawer. + +It was the teller's mistake. And this time poor Jamie added up like a +schoolboy, totting each figure. No thought of his Mercedes now. + +Fourteen thousand _four_ hundred and twelve, sixty-four cents. The +teller's addition was right. + +Jamie looked at the cash again. There were two piles of bank-bills, +one of gold and silver. Among the former was one packet of +hundred-dollar bills in a belt, marked "$5000." This wrapper he had +not (as he now remembered) verified when he had made his count. His +heart stood still; prompting the head to remember that it was a +package collected by the bank's messenger on a discount, by David St. +Clair. + +Poor Jamie tore off the band. He sat down, and counted the bills again +with a shaking hand. + +There were only forty-eight of them. + + + + +VI. + + +The packet was two hundred dollars short. And David had brought it in. + +Two hundred dollars! Only two hundred dollars! In God's name, why did +he not borrow it, ask me for it? thought poor Jamie. He must have +known it would be at once discovered. And mixed curiously with Jamie's +dismay was a business man's contempt for the childishness of the +theft. And yet they called such men sharpers! + +For never from that moment, from that time on, did poor Jamie doubt +the sort of man Mercedes had married. Never for one moment did the +idea occur to him that the robbery might be overlooked, the man +reformed. Jamie's heart was as a little child's, but his head was hard +enough. He had seen too much of human nature, of business methods and +ways, to doubt what this thing meant or what it led to. He had been +trying to look through Mercedes' eyes. He had known him for a gambler +all along; and now it appeared that he was a man not to be trusted +even with money. And he had given him Mercedes! + +There had been Harley Bowdoin. She had liked him first; and but for +them, his employers--But no; old Jamie could not blame his benefactor, +even through his wife. It was not that. No one was at fault but he +himself. If he had even loved her less, it had been better for her: +'twas his fault, again his fault. + +Sobbing, he went through the easy form of making good the theft; this +with no thought of condoning the offense, but for his little girl's +name. It was simple enough: it was but the drawing a check of his own +to cover the loss. Oh, the fool the scoundrel had been! + +Jamie drew the check, and canceled it, and added it to the teller's +slip. Then he closed the heavy books, put the cash drawer back in the +safe, closed the heavy iron doors, gave a turn of his wrist and a pull +to the handle, said a word to the night-watchman, and went out into +the street. It was the soft, broad sunlight of a May afternoon; by the +clock at the head of the street he saw that it was not yet six +o'clock. But for once Jamie went straight home. + +Mr. St. Clair had not come in, said the servant. (They now kept one +servant.) Mrs. St. Clair was lying down. Jamie went into the parlor, +contrary to his wont, and sat down awkwardly. It was furnished quite +with elegance: Mercedes had been so proud of it! His little girl! And +now he had married her to a thief! People might come to scorn her, his +Mercedes. + +They had tea alone together; and Jamie was very tender to her, so that +she became frightened at his manner, and asked if anything was wrong +with David. + +"No," said Jamie. "Has he not been home? Do you not know where he is?" + +"No," sighed the wife. "He has always told me before this." + +Jamie touched her hand shyly. "Do you still love him, dear?" + +But she flung away from him angrily, and went upstairs. And old Jamie +waited. He dared not smoke his pipe in the parlor, nor even on the +doorstep (which was a pleasant place; there was a little park, with +trees, in front), for Mercedes thought it ungenteel. The present +incongruity of this regard for appearances never struck Jamie, and he +waited there. After eleven o'clock he fancied he might venture; the +neighbors were not likely to be up to notice it. So he lit his pipe +and listened. There was still a light in her window; but David St. +Clair did not come. Her window stood open, and Jamie listened hard to +hear if she were crying. Shortly after midnight the birds in the +square began to twitter, as if it were nearly dawn. Then they went to +sleep again, but Jamie went on smoking. + +It was daylight when St. Clair appeared, in a carriage. He had the +look of one who has been up all night, and started nervously as he saw +Jamie on the doorstep. Then he pulled himself together, buttoning his +coat, and, giving the driver a bill, he turned to face the old clerk. + +"Taking an early pipe, Mr. McMurtagh?" + +"I know what ye ha' done," said Jamie simply. "I ha' made it guid; but +ye must go." + +St. Clair's bravado collapsed before Jamie's directness. + +"Made what good?" he blustered. + +"The two hundred dollars ye took," said Jamie. + +"Two hundred dollars? I took? Old man, you're crazy." + +"I tell ye I ha' made it guid," said Jamie. + +"Made it good? I could do that myself, if--if"-- + +"Perhaps ye'll be having the money about ye now?" said Jamie. "Can ye +give it me?" + +St. Clair abandoned pretense. Perhaps curiosity overcame him, or his +morning nerves were not so good as Jamie's. "Of course I'll get the +money. I lent it to a friend. But how did you ever know the d----d +business was short?" + +Jamie looked at him sadly. This was the man he had hoped to make a man +of business. "Mon, why didn't ye ask me for it? Do ye suppose they +didna count their money the nicht?" + +"You're so d----d mean!" swore St. Clair. "Have you told my wife?" + +"Ye'll not be telling Mercy?" gasped Jamie, unmindful of the result. +"I have told no one." + +"I'll make it all right with the teller, then," said the other. + +"Ye'll na be going back to the bank!" cried Jamie. + +"Not go back? Do you suppose I can't be trusted with a matter of two +hundred dollars?" + +"Ye'll not be going back to the bank!" said Jamie firmly. "Ye'll be +taking Mr. Bowdoin's money next." + +"If it weren't for the teller--He's not a gentleman, and last week I +was fool enough to tell him so. Did the teller find it out?" + +"I found it out my own sel'." + +"Then no one else knows it?" + +"Ye canna go back." + +"Then I'll tell Sadie it's all your fault," said David. + +Poor Jamie knocked his pipe against the doorstep and sighed. The other +went upstairs. + + + + +VII. + + +It was some days after this that old Mr. Bowdoin came down town, one +morning, in a particularly good humor. To begin with, he had effected +with unusual success a practical joke on his auguster spouse. Then, he +had gone home the night before with a bad cold; but (having given a +family dinner in celebration of his wife's birthday and the return to +Boston of his grandson Harley, and confined himself religiously to dry +champagne) he had arisen quite cured. But at the counting-room he was +met by son James with a face as long as the parting glass of whiskey +and water he had sent him home with at eleven the previous evening. +"James Bowdoin, at your time of life you should not take Scotch +whiskey after madeira," said he. + +"You seem fresh as a May morning," said Mr. James. "Did the old lady +find out about the bronze Venus?" + +Son and father chuckled. The old gentleman had purchased in his wife's +name a nearly life-size Venus of Milo in bronze, and ordered it sent +to the house, with the bill unreceipted, just before the dinner; so +the entire family had used their efforts to the persuading old Mrs. +Bowdoin that she had acquired the article herself, while shopping, and +then forgotten all about it. + +"'Mrs. J. Bowdoin, Dr. To one Bronze Venus. One Thousand Dollars. +Rec'd Paym't'--blank!" roared Mr. Bowdoin. "I told her she must pay it +out of her separate estate,--I couldn't afford such luxuries." + +"'Why, James!'" mimicked the younger. + +"'I never went near the store,'" mimicked the older. + +"And when we told her it was all a sell, she was madder than ever." + +"Your mother never could see a joke," sighed Mr. Bowdoin. "She says +the statue's improper, and she's trying to get it exchanged for +chandeliers. She wouldn't speak to me when I went to bed; and I told +her I'd a bad cold on my lungs, and she'd repent it when I was gone. +But to-day she's madder yet." + +Mr. James Bowdoin looked at his father inquiringly. + +Mr. Bowdoin laughed aloud. "She hadn't a good night, she says." + +"Dear me," said the younger man, "I'm sorry." + +"Yes. I'd a bad cold, and I spoke very hoarsely when I went to bed. +And in the night she woke up and heard a croupy sound. It was this," +and Mr. Bowdoin produced a compressible rubber ball with a squeak in +it. "'James,' said she--you know how she says 'James'?" + +Mr. James Bowdoin admitted he had heard the intonation described. + +"'James,' says she, 'is that you?' I only squeaked the ball, which I +had under the bedclothes. 'James, are you ill?' 'It's my chest,' I +squeaked faintly, and squeezed the ball again. 'I think I'm going to +die,' said I, and I squeaked it every time I breathed." And Mr. +Bowdoin gave audible demonstration of the squeak of his rubber toy. +"Well, she was very remorseful, and she got up to send for the doctor; +and faith, I had to get up and go downstairs after her and speak in my +natural voice before she'd believe I wasn't in the last gasp of a +croup. But she won't speak herself this morning," added the old +gentleman rather ruefully. "What's the matter here?" + +"Jamie has been down, and he says his son-in-law has decided to leave +the bank." + +"Dear me! dear me!" The old gentleman's face grew grave again. +"Nothing wrong in his accounts, I hope?" + +"He says that he has decided to go to New York to live." + +"Go to New York! What'll become of the new house?" + +"He has friends there. They are to sell the house." + +"What'll become of Jamie?" + +"Jamie's going back to Salem Street." + +The old gentleman gave a low whistle. "I must see him," and he took +his hat again and started up the street. + +But from Jamie he learned nothing. The old man gave no reason, save +that his son-in-law "was going to New York, where he had friends." It +cost much to the old clerk to withhold from Mr. Bowdoin anything that +concerned his own affairs, particularly when the old gentleman urged +that he be permitted to use his influence to reinstate David at the +bank. Jamie grew churlish, as was the poor fellow's manner when he +could not be kind, and tried even to carry it off jauntily, as if St. +Clair were bettering himself. Old Mr. Bowdoin's penetration went +behind that, or he might have gone off in a huff. As it was, he half +suspected the truth, and forbore to question Jamie further. + +But it was harder still for the poor old clerk when he went home to +Mercedes. For it was St. Clair who had sulked and refused to stay in +Boston. He had hinted to his wife that it was due to Jamie's jealousy +that he had lost his place at the bank. Mercedes did not believe +this; but she had thought that Jamie, with his influence, might have +kept him there. More, she had herself, and secretly, gone to the +counting-room to see old Mr. Bowdoin, as she had done once before when +a child, and asked that St. Clair might be taken back. "Do you know +why he lost the place?" + +She did not. Perhaps he had been irregular in his attendance; she +knew, too, that he had been going to some horse-races. + +"Jamie has not asked me to have him taken back," said Mr. Bowdoin. + +And she had returned, angry as only a loving woman can be, to reproach +poor Jamie. But he would never tell her of her husband's theft. St. +Clair was sharp enough to see this. Jamie had settled the Worcester +Square house on Mercedes when they were married; and now St. Clair got +her to urge Jamie to sell it and let him invest the money in a +business opening he had found in New York with some friends; +stock-brokerage he said it was. This poor Jamie refused to do, and +Mercedes forgave him not. But St. Clair insisted still on going. +Perhaps he boasted to his New York friends of his banking experience; +it was true that he had got some sort of an opening, with two young +men of sporting tastes whom he had met. + +Preparations for departure were made. The furniture was being taken +out, and stored or sold; and each piece, as it was carried down the +stairs, brought a pang to Jamie's heart. The house was offered for +sale; Jamie drew up the advertisement in tears. He did not venture to +sit with them now of evenings; it was Jamie, of the three, who had the +guilty feeling. + +The evening before their going came. St. Clair was out at a farewell +dinner, "tendered him," as he proudly announced, by his friends. +Jamie, as he passed her door, heard Mercedes crying. He could not bear +it; he went in. + +"My darling, do not cry," the old man whispered. "Is it because you +are going away? All I can do for you--all I have shall be yours!" + +"What has David done? I know he has done something"-- + +"Nothing--nothing is wrong, dear; I assure you"-- + +"Then why are you so hard to him? Why will you not put the money in +the business?" + +Jamie was holding her hand. "My little Mercy," said he, "my little +lady. Forgive me--do you forgive me?" + +Mercedes looked at him, coldly perhaps. + +"For the love of God, do not look like that! In the world or out of +it, there's none I care for but just you, dear." Then Mercedes began +to cry again, and kissed him. "And as for the money, dear, he'll have +it as soon as I find the business is a decent one." + + + + +VIII. + + +Of course they had the money, and in some months the people at the +bank began to hear fine accounts of St. Clair's doings in New York. +Not so much, perhaps, from Jamie as from one or two other clerks to +whom St. Clair had taken the trouble to write a letter or two. As for +Jamie, he went back to live in the little house on Salem Street. + +All the same, he grew thin and older-looking. He did not pretend to +take the same interest in his work. Many and grave were the talks the +two Bowdoins, father and son, had about him. The first few weeks after +the departure of the St. Clairs, they feared actually for his life. +He seemed to waste away. Then, one week, he went on to New York +himself, and after that grew better. This was when he carried on to +St. Clair the money coming from the sale of the house. Up to that time +he had had no letter from Mercedes, though he wrote her every week. + +He took care to place the money in Mercedes' name as special capital. +But the other two men seemed to be active, progressive fellows. They +reposed confidence in St. Clair, and they had always known him. After +all, the old man tried to think, the qualities required to keep moneys +separate were not those that went best to make it, and stock-broking +was suited to a gambler as a business. For Jamie shared intensely the +respectable prejudices against stock-broking of the elders of that +day. + +After this, he occasionally got letters from his Mercedes. They came +addressed to the bank (as if she never liked to recognize that he was +back in Salem Street), and it grew to be quite a joke among the other +clerks to watch for them; for they had noticed their effect on Jamie, +and they soon learned to identify the handwriting which made him beam +so that half the wrinkles went, and the old healthy apple-color came +back to his cheeks. + +Sometimes when the letter came they would place it under his blotter, +and if it was a Tuesday (and she generally wrote for Tuesday's +arrival) old Jamie's face would lengthen as he turned his mail over, +or fall if he saw his desk empty. Woe to the clerk who asked a favor +in those moments! Then the clerk next him would slyly turn the +blotting-paper over, and Jamie would grasp the letter and crowd it +into his pocket, and his face would gleam again. He never knew they +suspected it, but on such occasions the whole bank would combine to +invent a pretext for getting Jamie out of the room, that he might read +his letter undisturbed. Otherwise he let it go till lunch-time, and +then, they felt sure, took no lunch; for he would never read her +letters when any one was looking on. They all knew who she was. It was +the joke of years at the Old Colony Bank. They called Mercedes "old +Jamie's foreign mail." + +She never wrote regularly, however; and if she missed, poor McMurtagh +would invent most elaborate schemes, extra presents (he always made +her an allowance), for extorting letters from her. The sight of her +handwriting at any time would make his heart beat. Harley Bowdoin had +by this time been taken into the counting-room. He was studying law as +a profession (there being little left of the business), and Jamie +appeared to be strangely fond of him. Often, by the ancient custom, he +would call Harleston "Mr. James," Mr. James Bowdoin having no sons. +Mr. James himself spoke of this intimacy once to his father. "Don't +you see it's because the boy fell in love with his Mercedes?" said the +old gentleman. Certain it is, the two were inseparable. One fancies +Harleston heard more of Mrs. St. Clair than either of Jamie's older +friends. + +For Jamie, in her absence, grew to love all whom she had ever known, +all who had ever seen her; how much more, then, this young fellow who +had shown the grace to love her, too! Jamie was fond of walking to the +places she had known, and he even took to going to church himself, to +King's Chapel, where she had been so often. When his vacation came, +the next summer, he went on to New York, and stayed at a cheap hotel +on Fourth Avenue, and would go to see her; not too often, or when +other people were there, for he was still modest, and only dared hope +she might not hate him. It was all his fault, and perhaps he had been +hard with her husband. But she suffered him now, and Jamie returned +looking ten years younger. St. Clair seemed prosperous, and Jamie even +mentioned his son-in-law to the other clerks, which was like a boast +for Jamie. + +Perhaps at no time had the two Bowdoins thought of him so much. He +lived now as if he were very poor, and they suspected him of sending +all his salary to Mercedes. "It makes no difference raising it; +'twould all go just the same," said Mr. Bowdoin. "Man alive, why +didn't you let him take the money, that day down the wharf, and take +the girl yourself? You used to be keen enough about girls before you +got so bald," added the old gentleman, with a chuckle. He was rather +proud of his own shock of soft white hair. + +"That's why you were in such a haste to marry me, I suppose," growled +Mr. James. "You had no trouble of that kind yourself." + +"Trouble? It's only your mother protects me. I was going down town in +a 'bus to-day, and there I saw your mother coming out of one of those +Abolition meetings of her cousin, Wendell Phillips,--I told her he'd +be hanged some day,--and there opposite sat an old gentleman, older +than I, sir, and he said to me, 'Married, sir? So am I, sir. Married +again only last week. Been married fifty years, but this one's a great +improvement on the first one, sir, I can assure you. _She brushes my +hair!_' That's more than you can get a wife to do for you, James!" + +The father and son chirruped in unison. + +"Did you tell my mother of your resolve to try again, sir?" + +"I did, I did, and that my next choice was no incendiary Abolitionist, +either. I told her I'd asked her already, to keep her disengaged,--old +Miss Virginia Pyncheon, you know; and, egad! if your mother didn't cut +her to-day in the street! But what do you think of old Jamie?" + +"I don't know what to think. He certainly seems very ill." + +"Ah, James," said the old man, "why did you laugh that day? If only +the fairy stories about changing old clerks to fairy princes came +true! She could not have married any one to love her like old Jamie." + + + + +IX. + + +Jamie had had no letter for many weeks. The clerks talked about it. +Day by day he would go through the pile of letters on his desk in +regular order, but with trembling fingers; day by day he would lay +them all aside, with notes for their answers. Then he would go for a +moment into the great dark vault of the bank, where the bonds and +stocks were kept, and come out rubbing his spectacles. The clerks +would have forged a letter for him had they deemed it possible. There +was talk even of sending a round-robin to Mrs. St. Clair. + +It was a shorter walk from Salem Street than it had been from his +daughter's mansion, and poor Jamie had not so much time each day to +calculate the chances of a letter being there. Alas! a glance of the +eye sufficed. Her notes were always on squarish white note-paper +sealed in the middle (they still used no envelopes in those days), and +were easy to see behind the pile of business letters and telegrams. +And the five minutes of hope between breakfast and the bank were all +old Jamie had to carry him through the day, for her letters never +arrived in the afternoon. + +But this foggy day Jamie came down conscious of a certain tremor of +anticipation. It has been said that he had no religion, but he had +ventured to pray the night before,--to pray that he might get a +letter. He was wondering if it were not wrong to invoke the Deity for +such selfish things. For the Deity (if there were one, indeed) seemed +very far off and awful to Jamie. That there was anything trivial or +foolish in the prayer did not occur to Jamie; it probably would have +occurred to Mercedes. + +But he got to the office at the usual time. The clerks were not +looking at him (had he known it, a bad sign), and he cast his eye +hastily over the pile. Then his face grew fixed once more. No letter +from her was there, and he began to go through them all in routine +order, the telegrams first. + +The next thing that happened, the nearest clerk heard a sound and +looked up, his finger on the column of figures and "carrying" 31 in +his head. Old Jamie spoke to him. "I--I--must go out for an hour or +two," he said. "I have a train to meet." His face was radiant, and all +the clerks were looking up by this time. No one spoke, and Jamie went +away. + +"Did you see, he was positively blushing," said the teller. + +There was a momentary cessation of all business at the bank. When old +Mr. Bowdoin came in, on his way down to the wharf, he was struck at +once with the atmosphere of the place. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. "You look like you'd all had your +salaries raised." + +"Old Jamie's got his foreign mail," said the cashier. + +But Jamie went out into the street to think of it undisturbed. It was +a telegram:-- + +"Am coming on to-morrow. Meet me at five, Worcester depot. MERCEDES." + +She did not say anything about St. Clair, and Jamie felt sure he was +not coming. + +The fog had cleared away by this time, and he went mechanically down +to the old counting-room on the wharf. Harleston Bowdoin was there +alone, and Jamie found himself facing the young man before he realized +where his legs had carried him. + +"What is it, Jamie?" said Harley. + +"She's coming on to make me a visit," said Jamie simply. +"Mercedes--Mrs. St. Clair, I mean." Then he wandered out, passing Mr. +Bowdoin on the stairs. He did not tell him the news, and the old +gentleman nearly choked in his desire to speak of it. As he entered +the office, "Has he told you?" cried Harleston. + +"Has he told _you_?" echoed the old gentleman. Harley told. Then Mr. +Bowdoin turned and bolted up the street after Jamie. + +"Old fellow, why don't you have a vacation,--just a few days? The bank +can spare you, and you need rest." His hand was on the old clerk's +shoulder. + +"Master Harley wull ha' told ye? But I'm na one to neglect me +affairs," said Jamie. + +"Nonsense, nonsense. When is she coming?" + +Jamie told him. + +"Why don't you take the one-forty and meet her at Worcester? She may +have to go back to-morrow." + +Jamie started. It was clear he had not thought of this. As they +entered the bank, Mr. Bowdoin cried out to Stanchion, the cashier, "I +want to borrow McMurtagh for the day, on business of my own." + +"Certainly, sir," said Mr. Stanchion. + +Jamie went. + + * * * * * + +There is no happiness so great as happiness to come, for then it has +not begun to go. If the streets of the celestial city are as bright to +Jamie as those of Boston were that day, he should have hope of heaven. +It was yet two hours before his train went, but he had no thought of +food. He passed a florist's; then turned and went in, blushing, to buy +a bunch of roses. He was not anxious for the time to come, such +pleasure lay in waiting. When at last the train started, the distance +to Worcester never seemed so short. He was to come back over it with +her! + +In the car he got some water for his roses, but dared not smell of +them lest their fragrance should be diminished. After reaching +Worcester, he had half an hour to wait; then the New York train came +trundling in. As the cars rolled by he strained his old eyes to each +window; the day was hot, and at an opened one Jamie saw the face of +his Mercedes. + + + + +X. + + +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 + +He dipped his pen in ink, and with a firm hand wrote opposite:-- + +_Cr._ + +June 22, 1848. By money stolen by James McMurtagh, to be accounted +for $16,897.00 + +Then the old clerk drew a line across the account, returned the +ledger to its place in the safe, and locked the heavy iron doors. The +canvas bag was in his hands; the chest he had put back, empty. + + + + +PART THREE: RECOVERY. + + + + +I. + + +The customer of St. Clair's firm was paid off, the partnership was +dissolved without scandal, and the St. Clairs went to live in New +Orleans. Jamie occupied one room in the attic of the old house in +Salem Street. He wrote no more letters to Mercedes: he did not feel +that he was worthy now to write to her. And a year or two after her +arrival in New Orleans her letters ceased. She had thanked Jamie +sorrowfully when he had paid over the money in New York, and kissed +him with her pale lips (though his face was still paler), and upon the +memory of this he had lived. But he had fancied her lips wore a new +line; their curves had gone; and her eyes had certainly new depth. + +When Mercedes ceased to write, Jamie did not complain. He knew well +what the trouble was, and that her husband wished her to write to him +for more money. But he could do no more for her. And after this his +hope was tired, and Jamie hardly had the wish to write. The only link +between them now was his prayer at night. The dry old Scotchman had +come to prayer at last, for her if not for himself. + +And the office lost their interest in him. Only the Bowdoins were +true. For the "foreign mail" no longer came; and Jamie was no longer +seen writing private letters on his ledger page. His dress grew so +shabby that old Mr. Bowdoin had to speak to him about it. He had no +long absences at lunch-time, but took a sandwich on the street. In +fact, Jamie had grown to be a miser. + +Great things were happening in those days, but Jamie took no heed of +them. Human liberty was in the air; love of man and love of law were +at odds, and clashed with each other in the streets; Jamie took no +heed of them. They jostled on the pavement, but Jamie walked to his +task in the morning, and back at night, between them; seeing mankind +but as trees, walking; bowed down with the love of one. And he who had +never before thought of self could think now only of his own +dishonor. As a punishment, he tried not to think of her, except only +at night, when his prayers permitted it; but he thought of her always. +His crime made him ashamed to write to her; his single-heartedness +made him avoid all other men. + +Only one man, in all those years, did Jamie seem willing to talk to, +at the office, and that man was Harleston Bowdoin. Had he not loved +her? Jamie never spoke of her; but Harleston had a happy impulse, and +would talk to the old man about Mercedes. Away from business, Jamie +would walk in all the places where her feet had trod. He would go to +King's Chapel Sundays; and he looked up John Hughson again, and would +sit with him, wondering. John had married a stout wife, and had sturdy +children. Hughson petted the old man, and gave him pipes of tobacco; +for McMurtagh was too poor to buy tobacco, those days. The children on +Salem Street feared him, as a miser; which was hard, for Jamie was +very fond of little children. + +How does a man live whose heart rules his soul, and is broken; whose +conscience rules his head, and is dishonored? For men so heavy laden, +heaven was, and has been lost. But Jamie never thought his soul +immortal until his love for Mercedes came into it; perhaps not +consciously now. Such thoughts would have seemed to him childish. How, +then, did Jamie live? For no man can live quite without hope, as we +believe,--hope of some event, some end of suffering, at least of some +worthier act. + +With Jamie it was the hope of restitution. He wished to leave behind +him, as the score of his life, that he had been true to his employer +and had loved his little ward. And if the time could ever come when he +could do more for her, it would not be until his theft was made good, +and his hands were free, as his heart, to serve her again. For the one +thing that Jamie stood for was integrity; that was all the little +story of his life. + +His salary was eighteen hundred dollars; at the end of the first year +after his theft he had spent a hundred and fifty. Then he asked for +two days' leave of absence, and went to New York, where he exchanged +sixteen hundred and forty dollars for Spanish gold pieces. A less +old-fashioned man would have invested the money at six per cent, but +Jamie could not forego the satisfaction of restoring the actual gold. +Coming back, he opened the old chest, now empty, one day, after hours, +and put the pieces in the box. The naked gold made a shining roll in +its blackness, just reaching across the lower end; and poor Jamie felt +the first thrill of--not happiness, but something that was not sorrow +nor shame. And then he pulled down the old ledger, and made the first +entry on the Dr. side: "Restored by James McMurtagh, June 9, 1849, +$1640." The other ten dollars had gone for his journey to New York. + +And that night, as he went home, he looked about him. He bowed (in his +queer way) to one or two acquaintances who passed him, unconscious +that he had been cutting them for a year. Before supper he went in to +see John Hughson, carrying his pipe, and, without waiting to be +offered it, asked to borrow a pinch of tobacco against the morrow, +when he should buy some. The good Hughson was delighted, pressed a +slab of "plug" upon him, and begged him to stay and have something +liquid with his pipe. But Jamie would not; he was anxious to be alone. + +His little bedroom gave upon the roof of the adjoining house in the +rear; and here his neighbor kept a few red geraniums in boxes, and it +was Jamie's privilege to smoke his pipe among them. So this evening, +after a hasty meal, he hurried up there. Beyond the roofs of the +higher houses was a radiant golden sky, and in it the point of a +crescent moon, and even as Jamie was lighting his pipe one star came. + +Old Jamie breathed hard and sighed, and the sigh meant rest. He took a +pleasure in the tobacco, in the look of the sky again. + +And with this throb of returning life, in one great pulsation, his +love rushed back to his heart, and he thought of Mercedes.... He sat +up nearly all the night, and with the first light of dawn he wrote to +her. + + + + +II. + + +But Jamie got no answer to his letter, and he wrote again. Again he +got no answer; and he wrote a third time, this time by registered +mail; so that he got back a card, with her name signed to the receipt. + +Jamie's manner, unconsciously to himself, had changed since that +first row of gold coins had gone into the black tin box; the tellers +and the bookkeepers had observed it, and they began to watch his mail +again. What was their glee to see among Jamie's papers, one morning, a +letter in the familiar feminine hand! "Jamie's foreign mail has come!" +the word went round. "I thought it must be on its way," said the +second bookkeeper; "haven't you noticed his looks lately?" "The letter +is postmarked New Orleans," said the messenger boy, turning it over. +But it was felt this went beyond friendly sympathy. + +"Mr. O'Neill," said Mr. Stanchion sternly, "if I see you again +interfering with McMurtagh's mail, you may go. What business is that +of ours?" + +Poor O'Neill hung his head, abashed. But all eyes were on Jamie as he +opened his desk. He put the letter in his pocket. The clerks looked at +one another. The suspense became unendurable. When old Mr. Bowdoin +came in, the cashier told him what had happened. "Jamie's foreign mail +has come again. But he will never read it here, sir, and we can't +send him out till lunch-time: the chief bookkeeper"-- + +The old gentleman's eyes twinkled. "McMurtagh!" he cried (Mr. Bowdoin +had always called Jamie so since he came into the bank), "will you +kindly step down to my counting-room? I will meet you there in a few +minutes, and there are some accounts I want you to straighten out for +me." + +As Jamie hurried down to the Long Wharf, he pressed his coat tight +against him. The letter lay in his pocket, and he felt it warm against +his breast. + +Neither Mr. James Bowdoin nor Harley was in the little room (it was +just as Jamie remembered it when he first had entered it, no pretense +of business was made there now), and he tore the letter open. Thus it +ran:-- + + NEW ORLEANS, _August 30, 1849_. + +MY DEAR, DEAR JAMIE,--If I have not written to you it was only because +I did not want to bring more trouble on you. But things have gone from +bad to worse with us. I feel that I should be almost too unhappy to +live, only that David is with me now. [Jamie sobbed a little at +this.] I wanted never to ask you for money again. But we are very, +very poor. I will not give it to him. But if you could send me a +little money, a hundred dollars would last me a long time. + + Your loving M. ST. CLAIR. + +Jamie laid his head upon the old desk, and his tears fell on the +letter. What could he do? His conscience told him, nothing. All his +earnings belonged to the employers he had robbed. + +After a minute he took a sheet of paper and tried to write the answer, +no. And Mr. Bowdoin came in, and caught him crying. The old gentleman +knocked over a coal-scuttle, and turned to pick it up. By the time he +had done so Jamie had rubbed the tears from his eyes, and stood there +like a soldier at "Attention." + +"Jamie," said Mr. Bowdoin, "I should like to make a little present to +your ward, to Mercedes. Could you send it for me? I hope she is well?" +And before Jamie could answer Mr. Bowdoin had written out a check for +a hundred dollars. "Give her my love when you write. I must go to a +directors meeting." And he scurried away hurriedly. + +Jamie sat down again and wrote his letter, and told her that the money +was from Mr. Bowdoin. "But, dear heart," it ended, "even if I cannot +help you, always write." And, going home that night, Jamie began to +fancy that some omniscient power had put it into the old gentleman's +heart just then to do this thing. + + + + +III. + + +Old Mr. Bowdoin, one morning, some time after this, stood at his +window before breakfast, drumming on the pane. The gesture has +commonly been understood to indicate discontent with one's +surroundings. Mrs. Bowdoin had not yet come down to breakfast. +Outside, her worthy spouse could see the very tree upon which cousin +Wendell Phillips had not been hanged; and his mouth relaxed as he saw +his grandson Harley coming across the Common, and heard the portentous +creaking that attended Mrs. Bowdoin's progress down the stairs,--the +butler supporting her arm, and her maid behind attending her with +shawl and smelling-salts. The old lady was in a rude state of health, +but had not walked a step alone for several years. As she entered, +Harley behind her, old Mr. Bowdoin gravely and ostentatiously pulled +out a silver dollar and put it into the hand of the surprised young +man. + +"Pass it to the account," said he. + +Harley took the coin, and, detecting a wink, checked his expression of +surprise. + +"It all goes into the fund, my dear, to be given to your favorite +charity the first time you are down in time for breakfast. It amounts +to several thousand dollars already." + +Mrs. Bowdoin snorted, but, with a too visible effort, only asked +Harley whether he would take coffee or tea. + +"With accumulations, my dear,--with accumulations. But you should not +address me from your carriage in that yellow shawl, when I am talking +to a stranger on the Common. At least, I thought it was Tom Pinckney, +of the Providence Bank, but it turned out to be a stranger. He took me +for a bunco-steerer." + +"James!" + +"He did indeed, and you for my confederate," chuckled the old +gentleman. "'Mr. Pinckney, of Providence, I believe?' said I. 'No, you +don't,' said he; and he put his finger on his nose, like that." + +"James!" said Mrs. Bowdoin. + +"_I_ didn't mind--don't know when I've been so flattered--must look +like a pretty sharp old boy, after all, though I have been married to +you for fifty years." + +"James, it's hardly forty." + +"Well, I thought it was fifty. The last time I did meet Tom Pinckney, +he asked if I'd married again. I said you'd give me no chance. 'Better +take it when you can,' said he. 'That will I, Tom,' says I. 'I've got +one in my mind.'" + +"Really, grandpa," remonstrated young Harley. + +"Don't you talk, young man. Didn't I hear of you at another Abolition +meeting yesterday? And women spoke, too,--short-haired women and +long-haired men. Why can't you leave them both where a wise Providence +placed them? Destroy the only free republic the world has ever known +for a parcel of well-fed niggers that'll relapse into Voodoo barbarism +the moment they're freed!" + +"James, the country knows that the best sentiment of Boston is with +us." + +"The country doesn't know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained +demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with +hell! I hope I'll live to see him hanged some day." + +"Wendell Phillips is a martyr indeed." + +"Martyr! Humbug! He couldn't get any clients, so he took up a cause. +Why, they say at the club that he"-- + +"They said at the meeting last night, sir," interrupted Harley, "that +they'd march up to the club and make you fellows fly the American +flag." + +"It's Phillips wants to pull it down," said the old gentleman. + +Mrs. Bowdoin rattled the tea things. + +"Don't mind your grandma, Harley, if she is out of temper. She's got a +headache this morning. She went to bed with the hot-water bottle under +her pillow and the brandy at her feet, and feels a little mixed." + +"James! I never took a brandy bottle upstairs with me in my life. And +Harleston knows"-- + +"Do you suppose he knows as well as I do, who have lived with you for +fifty years?" + +"And I'll not stay with you to hear my cousin insulted!" Majestic, she +rose. + +"It's too much of one girl," chuckled Mr. Bowdoin. "No wonder men keep +a separate establishment." + +"_James!_" Mrs. Bowdoin swept from the room. + +"Don't run upstairs alone; consider the butler's feelings!" called her +unfeeling spouse after her. + +"You're too bad, sir," said Harley. + +"I'm trying to develop her sense of humor; it's the one thing I always +said I'd have in a wife. Remember it, when you get married. Why the +devil don't you?" + +"I have too much sense of humor, sir," said Harley gravely. "What is +that?" For a noise of much shouting was heard from the Common. Both +men rushed to the windows, and saw, surrounded by a maddened crowd, a +small company of federal soldiers marching north. + +"What are they saying?" cried Mr. Bowdoin. + +Every minute the crowd increased: men and women, well dressed, +sober-looking, crying, "Shame! shame!" and topping by a head the +little squad of undersized soldiers (for the regular army was then +recruited almost entirely from foreigners) who marched hurriedly +forward, with eyes cast straight before and downward, and dressed in +that shabby blue that ten years later was to pour southward in serried +column, all American then, to free those slaves whom now they hunted +down. + +"To the Court House! To the Court House!" cried the mob. + +"It's that fellow Simms," said Mr. Bowdoin, but was interrupted by +sounds as of a portly person running downstairs; and they saw the +front door fly open and Mrs. Bowdoin run across the street, her +cap-strings streaming in the air. + +"By Jove, if Abolitionism can make your grandma run, I'll forgive it a +lot!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. + +"Do you know the facts, sir?" suggested Harley. + +"No, nor don't want to," said Mr. Bowdoin. "I know that we are +jeopardizing the grandest experiment in free government the world has +ever seen for a few African darkies that we didn't bring here, and +have already made Christians of, and a d----d sight more comfortable +than they ever were at home. But come, let's go over, or I believe +your grandma will be attacking the United States army all by herself!" + +But the rescue was made unnecessary by the return of that lady, +panting. + +"Now, sir," gasped Mrs. Bowdoin, "I hope you're satisfied, that +foreign Hessians control the laws of Massachusetts!" + +"I am always glad to see the flag of my country sustained," said Mr. +Bowdoin dryly; "though we don't fly it from our club." + +"I think you misunderstand, sir," ventured Harley. "This Simms is +arrested by the Boston sheriff for stabbing a man; and the Southerners +have got the federal commissioner to refuse to give him up to +justice." + +"If he stabbed a man, it's cheaper to let them sell him as a slave +than keep him five years in our state prison." + +"The poor man seems to prefer it though," said Harley gently. "Have +you seen him?" + +"No; what should I see the fellow for?" cried Mr. Bowdoin irritably. + +"I understand the State Court House is held like a fort by federal +soldiers, and thugs who call themselves deputy marshals." + +Mr. Bowdoin growled something that sounded like, "What if it is?" + +The two started to walk down town. Tremont Street was crowded with +running men, and School Street packed close; and as they came in sight +of the Court House they saw that it was surrounded by a line of blue +soldiers. + +"Let's go to the Court House," said Harley. + +The old gentleman's curiosity made feeble resistance. + +"I had a case to see about this morning. Why, there's Judge Wells, the +very man I want to see." + +The judge had a body-guard of policemen, and our two friends joined +him as they were slowly forcing a passage through the crowd. When they +came before the old gray stone Court House, they saw two cannon posted +at the corners, and all the windows full of armed troops; and around +the base of the building, barring every door, a heavy iron cable, and +behind this a line of soldiers. + +"What the devil is the cable for?" said Mr. Bowdoin. + +The crowd, which had opened to let the well-known judge go by, were +now crying, "Let the judge in! Let the judge in!" and then, "Give him +up! Give Simms up! Give him to the sheriff!" and then, "Kidnapped! +Kidnapped!" Just ahead of them our party saw another judge stopped +rudely before the door by a soldier dropping a bayonet across his +breast. + +"Can't get in here,--can't get in here." + +"I tell you I'm a judge of the Supreme Court of this Commonwealth," +they heard him say. + +"Go around, then, and get under the chain. But the court can't sit +to-day." Mr. Bowdoin bubbled with indignation as he saw the old man +take off his high hat, and, stooping low, bow his white hairs to get +beneath the chain. + +"If I do, I'm damned," said Mr. Bowdoin quietly. + +"And if I do, I'm--Drop it down, sir, and let me pass: Judge Wells, +of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts." + +"And I'm James Bowdoin, of James Bowdoin's Sons, and a good Democrat, +and defendant in a confounded lawsuit before his honor." + +"Courts can't sit to-day. Keep back." + +"They can't?" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Since when do the courts of +Massachusetts ask permission of a pack of slave-hunters whether they +shall sit or not?" + +Harley was chuckling with suppressed delight. "If only grandma were +here!" thought he. + +"Let them in! Let Judge Wells in!" shouted the crowd. + +The soldier called his corporal, and a hasty consultation followed; as +a result of which the chain dropped at one end, and the three men +walked over it in triumph. + +"Three cheers for Judge Wells! Three cheers for Mr. Bowdoin!" cried +the crowd, recognizing him. + +When they got into the dark, cool corridor of the old stone fort, +"That I should ever come to be cheered by a mob of Abolitionists!" +gasped Mr. Bowdoin, mopping his face. "Upon my word, I think I lost my +temper." + +"Oh no, sir," said Harley Bowdoin gravely. "But where is the +court-room?" + +"Follow the line of soldiers," replied the judge, and hurried to his +lobby. + +Up the stone stairs went our friends, three flights in all; soldiers +upon every landing, and, leaning over the banisters and carelessly +spitting tobacco juice on the crowd below, a row of "deputy" United +States marshals, with no uniform, but with drawn swords. + +Mr. Bowdoin started. "Harley," said he, stopping by one of them, "I +know that fellow. His name's Huxford, and he keeps a gambling-house; I +had him turned out of one of my houses." + +"Very likely," said Harley. + +"Move on there, move on," said the man surlily, pretending not to +recognize Mr. Bowdoin. + +"What are you doing here, sir?" said that gentleman. "Don't you know I +swore out a warrant against you?" + +"Who the h----l are you?" + +"James Bowdoin, confound you!" answered that peppery person, and +swung his fist right and left with such vigor that Huxford went down +on one side, and another deputy on the other. Then Harley hurried the +old gentleman through the breach into the upper court-room, where they +were under the protection of the county sheriff in his swallow-tailed +blue coat, cocked hat, gold lace, and sword, and a friendly judge. + +"Hang it, sir, they'll be arresting you, next," said Harley. + +"By Heaven, I should like to see them do it!" cried our old friend in +a loud whisper, if the term can be used. "Sheriff Clark, do you know +those fellows are all miserable loafers?" + +"They are federal officers, sir; I can do nothing," whispered back +that gorgeous official. + +"Humph!" returned Mr. Bowdoin. "How about state rights? Do we live in +the sovereign State of Massachusetts, or do we not, I should like to +know?" + +"How about the Union, sir?" whispered Harley slyly. + +"Hang the Union! Hang the Union, if it employ a parcel of thugs to do +its work!" said Mr. Bowdoin, so loud that there was a ripple of +laughter in the court-room; and the judge looked up from the bench and +smiled, for had not he dined with old Mr. Bowdoin in their college +club once a month for forty years? But a low-browed fellow who was +sitting behind the counsel at the table was heard to mutter "Treason." +Beside him in the prisoner's dock sat the slave; not cowed nor abject, +though in chains and handcuffs, but looking straight before him at the +low-browed man who was his master, as a bird might look at a snake. + +"Which of those two is the slave?" asked Mr. Bowdoin in an audible +voice. + +Again the room laughed. The clerk rapped order. The low-browed man +looked up angrily, and spoke to a deputy marshal whose face had been +turned away from Mr. Bowdoin before. He rose and started toward them. + +"By Heaven," cried Mr. Bowdoin, "it is David St. Clair!" + + + + +IV. + + +But old Jamie knew naught of this, and the Bowdoins never told him. +They consulted much what they should do; but they never told him. And +Jamie went on, piling up his money. Three rolls were in the old chest +now, and all of Spanish gold. Doubloons and pistoles were growing +rarer, and the price was getting higher. But the old clerk was not +content with replacing the present value to the credit of "Pirates" on +the books; the actual pieces must be returned; so that if any +earringed, whiskered buccaneer turned up to demand his money from +James Bowdoin's Sons, he might have it back in specie, in the very +pieces themselves, that the honor of the firm might be maintained. +Until then, he felt sure, there was little chance the box would ever +be looked into. Practically, he was safe; it was only his conscience, +not his fears, that troubled him. + +Since he had sent her that hundred dollars, he had heard nothing from +Mercedes. The Bowdoins did not tell him how her husband had sunk to be +a slave-catcher; for they knew how miserly old Jamie had become, and +supposed that his salary all went to her. While Jamie could take care +of her, it mattered little what the worthless husband did, save the +pain of Jamie's knowing it. And of course they did not know that Jamie +could no longer take care of her, and why. + +But one day, in the spring of 185-, a New York correspondent of the +bank came on to Boston, and Mr. Bowdoin gave a dinner for him at the +house. The dinner was at three o'clock; but old lady Bowdoin wore her +best gown of tea-colored satin, and James Bowdoin and his wife were +there. After dinner, the three gentlemen sat discussing old madeira, +and old and new methods of banking, and the difference between Boston +and New York, which was already beginning to assume a metropolitan +preeminence. + +"By the way, speaking of old-fashioned ways," said the New Yorker +suddenly, "that's a queer old clerk of yours,--Mr. McMurtagh, I mean." + +"Looks as if he might have stepped out of one of Dickens's novels, +does he not?" said Mr. Bowdoin, always delighted to have Jamie's +peculiarities appreciatively mentioned. + +"But how did you come to know him?" asked Mr. James. + +"Why, I see him once a year or so. Don't you send him occasionally to +New York?" + +"He used to go, some years ago," said Mr. Bowdoin. + +"He buys his Spanish gold of us," added the New Yorker. "Queer fancy +you have of buying up doubloons. Gold is gold, though, in these +times." + +"Spanish doubloons?" said Mr. James. + +"We have a use for them at the bank," remarked the old gentleman +sharply. "Shall we join the ladies?" + +"You have to pay a pretty premium for them," added the money-dealer, +as he stopped to wipe his lips. "Wonderful madeira, this." + +Old Mr. Bowdoin took no squeaking toy to bed with him that night; but +at breakfast his worthy spouse vowed he must take another room if he +would be so wakeful. For once the old gentleman had no repartee, but +hurried down to the bank. Early as he was, he found his son James +there before him. And with all his soul he seized upon the chance to +lose his temper. + +"Well, sir, and what are you spying about for? You're not a director +in the bank!" + +Mr. James looked up, astonished. + +"Got a headache, I suppose, from drinking with that New York tyke they +sent us yesterday!" + +"Well, sir, when it comes to old madeira"-- + +"I earned it, I bought it, and I can drink it, too. And as for your +Wall Street whippersnappers that haven't pedigree enough to get a +taste for wine, and drink champagne, and don't know an honest man when +they see one--it's so seldom"-- + +"Seriously, what do you suppose he wanted with the gold?" + +"I don't know, sir, and I don't care. But since you're spying round, +come in!" and Mr. Bowdoin led his son into the vault. "There, sir, +there's the confounded box," tapping with his cane the old chest that +lay on the top shelf. + +"I see, sir," said Mr. James, taking his cue. + +"And as for its contents, the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are +responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose in there?" + +"Oh no, sir," said Mr. James. And that chest was never opened by +James Bowdoin or James Bowdoin's Sons. + +"When the pirate wants it, he can have it,--in hell or elsewhere," +ended Mr. Bowdoin profanely. + +But coming out, and after Mr. James had gone away, the old gentleman +went to Jamie McMurtagh's desk. Poor Jamie had seen them enter the +vault, and his heart stood still. But all Mr. Bowdoin said was to ask +him if his salary was sufficient. For once in his life the poor old +man had failed to meet his benefactor's eye. + +"It is quite enough, sir. I--I deserve no more." + +But Mr. Bowdoin was not satisfied. "Jamie," he said, "if you should +ever need more money,--a good deal of money, I mean,--you will come to +me, won't you? You could secure it by a policy on your life, you +know." + +Jamie's voice broke. "I have no need of money, sir." + +"And Mercedes? How is she?" + +"It is some time since I heard, sir; the last was, she had gone with +her husband to Havana." + +"Havana!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin; and before Jamie could explain he had +crushed his beaver on his head and rushed from the bank. + +Jamie's head sank over the desk, and the tears came. If only this cup +could pass from him! If Heaven would pardon this one deceit in all his +darkened, upright life, and let him restore the one trust he had +broken, before he died! And then he dried his eyes, and took to +figuring,--figuring over again, as he had so often done before, the +time needed, at the present rate, to make good his theft. Ten years +more--a little less--would do it. + +But old Mr. Bowdoin ran to the counting-room, where he found his son +and Harley in that gloomy silence that ends an unsatisfactory +communication. + +"Say what you will, you'll never make me believe old Jamie is a +thief," said Harley. + +"Thief! you low-toned rascal!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Thief yourself! +He's just told me Mercedes is in Havana. Of course he wants Spanish +gold!" + +"Of course he does!" cried Harley. + +"Of course he does!" cried James. + +Their faces brightened, and each one inwardly congratulated himself +that the others had not thought how much easier it would have been for +Jamie to send her bills of exchange. + + + + +V. + + +Meantime, Jamie, all unconscious of his patrons' anxiety, went on, +from spring to fall and fall to spring, working without hope of her, +to make his honor good to men. If there was one day in the year that +could be said to bring him near enjoyment, it was that day when, his +yearly salary saved, he went to New York to buy doubloons. One might +almost say he enjoyed this. He enjoyed the night voyage upon the +Sound; the waking in the noisy city by busy ships that had come, +perhaps, from New Orleans or Havana; the crowded streets, with crowds +of which she had once been one, crowds so great that it seemed they +must include her still. The broker of whom he bought his gold would +always ask to see him, and offer him a glass of wine, which, taken by +Jamie with a trembling hand, would bring an unwonted glow to his +wrinkled cheeks as he hastened away grasping tight his canvas bag of +coin. The miser! + +Can you make a story of such a life? It had its interest for the +recording angel. But it was two years more to the next event we men +must notice. + +May the twenty-seventh, eighteen fifty-four. Old Jamie (old he had +been called for thirty years, and now was old indeed) had finished his +work rather early and locked up the books. All day there had been +noise and tramping of soldiers and murmurs of the people out on the +street before the door, but Jamie had not noticed it. Old Mr. Bowdoin +had rushed in and out, red in the face as a cherry, sputtering +irascibility, but Jamie had not known it. And now he had come from +counting his coin, a pleasure to him, so nearly the old chest lay as +full as it had been that day a quarter century before. He had been +gloating over it with a candle in the dark vault; but a few rows more, +and his work was done, and he might go--to die, or find Mercedes. + +As he came out into the street, blinking in the sudden sunlight, he +found it crowded close with quiet people. So thick they stood, he +could not press his way along the sidewalk. It was not a mob, for +there was no shouting or disorder; yet, intermittently, there rose a +great murmur, such as the waves make or the leaves, the muttering of a +multitude. Jamie turned his face homeward, and edged along by the +wall, where there was most room. And now the mutter rose and swelled, +and above it he heard the noise of fife and drum and the tread of +soldiers. + +He came to the first cross-street, and found it cleared and patrolled +by cavalry militia. The man on a horse in front called him by name, +and waved his sword at him to pass. Jamie looked up, and saw it was +John Hughson. He would not have known him in his scarlet coat. + +"What is it, John?" said Jamie. + +"What is it? The whole militia of the State is out, by G--! to see +them catch and take one nigger South. Look there!" + +And Jamie looked from the open side street up the main street. There, +beneath the lion and the unicorn of the old State House, through that +historic street, cleared now as for a triumph, marched a company of +federal troops. Behind them, in a hollow square, followed a body of +rough-appearing men, each with a short Roman sword and a revolver; and +in the open centre, alone and handcuffed, one trembling negro. The +fife had stopped, and they marched now in a hushed silence to the tap +of a solitary drum; and behind came the naval marines with cannon. + +The street was hung across with flags, union down or draped in black, +but the crowd was still. And all along the street, as far down as the +wharf, where the free sea shone blue in the May sunshine, stood, on +either side, a close rank of Massachusetts militia, with bayonets +fixed, four thousand strong, restraining, behind, the fifty thousand +men who muttered angrily, but stood still. Thus much it took to hold +the old Bay State to the Union in 1854, and carry one slave from it to +bondage. Down the old street it was South Carolina that walked that +day beneath the national flag, and Massachusetts that did homage, +biding her time till her sister State should turn her arms upon the +emblem. "Shame! shame!" the people were crying. But they kept the +peace of the republic. + +Old Jamie understood nothing of this. He only saw and wondered; saw +the soldiery, saw old Mr. Bowdoin leaning from a window as a young man +on the sidewalk tried to drag down a flag that hung from it, with a +black coffin stitched to the blue field.[1] + +"Young man," cried the old gentleman, "leave that flag alone; it's my +property!" + +"I am an American," cried the youth, "and I'll not suffer the flag of +my country to be so disgraced!" + +"I too am an American, and damme, sir, 'tis the flag in the street +there that's disgraced!" + +The fellow slunk away, but Jamie had ceased to listen, for the negro +was now in front of him, and there, among the rough band of +slave-catchers, his desperate appearance hid by no uniform, a rough +felt hat upon his dissolute face, a bowie-knife slung by his waist, +there, doing this work in the world, old Jamie saw and recognized the +husband of his little girl,--St. Clair. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[1] A fact, but the man who thus assaulted the flag lived to +command a company in the Union army. + + + + +VI. + + +McMurtagh ran out into the street toward him, but was stopped by an +officer. He still pressed his way, and when the end of the procession +went by they suffered him to go, and he fell in behind the trailing +cannon. There he found some others, following out of sympathy for the +slave. Some of them he knew, and they took Jamie for an Abolitionist, +but Jamie hardly knew what it was all about. + +"When Simms was taken," said one, a doctor, "I vowed that he should be +the last slave sent back from Massachusetts." + +"Did you hear," said another, a young lawyer, "how they have treated +him? His master had him whipped, when he got home, for defending his +case before our courts." + +Jamie tried to find his way through the artillery company, but failed. +It was only when they got down to the Long Wharf that the artillery +divided, sending two guns to either side of the street, and Jamie and +the others hurried to the end. Here was a United States revenue +cutter, armed with marines, to take this poor bondsman back to his +master. No crowned head ever left a country with more pomp of escort +and retinue of flag and cannon. But Jamie's business was with the +slave-catcher, not the slave. He found St. Clair standing by the +gangway, and called him by name. The fellow started like a criminal; +then recognizing the poor clerk, "Oh, it's you, is it?" + +"How is Mercedes?" stammered Jamie. + +"How the h----l should I know? And what is that to you?" + +"But you will tell me where she is?" pleaded the poor old man. "She +will not answer my letters. Does she get them? I know she does not get +them," he added, as the thought struck him suddenly. + +"She gets any that have got money in," retorted St. Clair grimly. +"However, I married her, and I suppose I've got to support her. Get +out of the way, there!" + +The men were already casting off the ropes. Poor Jamie felt in his +pocket, but of course he had no money; he never carried money now. + +The cordon of soldiers drew across the wharf and presented arms as +their commanding officer came ashore, and the stars and stripes rose +at the stern of the vessel, and she forged out toward the blue rim of +the sea that is visible, even from the wharves, in Boston harbor. + +But not a gun was fired. Silently the armed ship left, with its +freight of one negro, its company of marines and squad of marshals. +Among them St. Clair stood on the lower deck and looked at Jamie. The +poor clerk hung his head as if he were the guilty one. And in the +silence was heard the voice of a minister in prayer. The little group +of citizens gathered around him with bared heads. He prayed for the +poor slave and for the recreant republic, for peace, and that no +slave-hunter should again tread quietly the soil of Massachusetts. But +Jamie heard him not. He was thinking over again the old trouble: how +he could not take his salary--that was needed for restitution; how he +could not ask the Bowdoins, or they would wonder where his salary had +gone. + +As he turned his steps backward to the city, he wondered if St. Clair +was still living with her. But yes, he must be, or she would surely +have come back to him. A hand was laid upon his shoulder; he looked +up; it was the minister who had been upon the wharf. + +"Be not cast down, old man. 'In his service is perfect freedom,'" +quoted the minister. He fancied he was one of the Abolitionist group +that had followed Anthony Burns to the last. But Jamie only looked up +blankly. He was thinking that in four years more he might go to bring +back Mercedes. + + + + +VII. + + +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." + + + + +VIII. + + +Jamie could not go to bed that night, but sat on deck watching the +stars. The next day he went through his avocations in the bank like +one in a dream. And in the night ensuing that dream became a vision; +and he saw Mercedes alone in a distant city, without money or friends, +her soft eyes looking wistfully at him in wonder that he did not come. + +The next morning Jamie went to old Mr. Bowdoin's office, at an hour +when he knew he should find him alone. For the old gentleman called +early at the little counting-room, as in the days when he might hope +to find some ship of his own, fresh from the Orient, warping into the +dock. Jamie's lips were dry, and his voice came huskily. He gave up +the effort to speak of St. Clair's death, but asked briefly that Mr. +Bowdoin would get him three months' leave. + +"Three months!" cried the old man. "Why, Jamie, you've not taken a +vacation for fifteen years!" + +"That's why I make bold to ask it, sir," said Jamie humbly. + +"Take six months, man, six months,--not a week less! And your salary +shall be paid in advance"--Mr. Bowdoin noted a sudden kindling in +Jamie's eye that gave him his cue. "Two quarters! you have well +deserved it. And now that the bank is to change its charter, there'll +be a lot of fuss and worry; it'll be a good time to go away." + +"Change its charter?" + +"Ay, Jamie; we've got to give up being a state bank, and go in under +the new national law to issue shinplasters to pay for beating the +rebels! But come with me to the bank,--the board are meeting now for +discounts," and the old gentleman grabbed his hat, and dragged Jamie +out of the counting-room. + +I doubt if ever the old clerk was rushed so rapidly up the street. +And coming into the bank, Mr. Bowdoin shoved him into an anteroom. +"Wait you there!" said he, and plunged into the board-room. + +There had been a light spring snow that night, and Jamie had not had +time to wipe his boots. He cleaned them now, and then went back and +sat upon a sofa near the sacred precincts of the directors' room. +Suddenly he felt a closing of the heart; he wondered if he were going +to be taken into custody--after so many years--and now, just now, when +he must go to rescue Mercedes. Then he remembered that he had been +brought there by Mr. Bowdoin, and Jamie knew better than to think +this. + +In a minute more the door opened, and that gentleman came out. Behind +him peered the faces of the directors; in his hand was a crisp new +bank-note. + +"McMurtagh," said Mr. Bowdoin, "the directors have voted to give you a +six months' vacation; and as some further slight recognition of your +twenty years of service, this," and he thrust a thousand-dollar note +into his hand. + +Jamie's labors were light that day. To begin with, every clerk and +teller and errand-boy had to shake him by the hand and hear all about +it. And it was not for the money's sake. Old Mr. Bowdoin had been +shrewd enough to guess what only thing could make the clerk want so +much liberty; and the news had leaked down to the others,--"that Jamie +was going for his foreign mail." + +"I hear you are going away," said one. "To Europe?" said another. +"Blockade-running!" suggested a third. "For cotton." + +"I--I am going to the tropics," stammered Jamie. He had but a clouded +notion how far south New Orleans might be. + +"I told you so," laughed the teller. + +"Bring us all a bale or two." + +Jamie laughed; to the amazement of the bank, Jamie laughed. + +When the cashier went to lunch, Jamie stole a chance to get into the +vault alone. And there, out of every pocket, with trembling fingers, +he pulled a little roll of Spanish gold. Then the delight of sorting +and arranging them in the old chest! He had one side for pistoles, and +this now was full; and even the doubloon side showed less than the +empty space of one roll, across the little chest, needed to fill the +count, after he had put the new coins in. The old clerk sat in a sort +of ecstasy; reminding himself still that what he gazed at was not the +greatest joy he had that day; when all these sordid things were over, +he was to start, on the morrow, for Mercedes. + +He heard the voice of the cashier returning, and went out. + +"Well, McMurtagh," said he, "you're lucky to escape this miserable +reorganization. July 1st we start as a national bank, you know." + +"Yes," said Jamie absently. + +"Every stick and stone in this old place has got to be counted over +again, the first of the month, by the examiners of Uncle Sam, and +every book verified. By the way," the cashier ended carelessly, as +witless messengers of fate alone can say such things, "you'd better +leave me the key of that old chest we carry in special account for the +Bowdoins. They'll want to look at everything, you know. The +examination may come next year, or it may come any time." + + + + +IX. + + +A few minutes more of Jamie's life were added to the forty years he +had spent over his desk. He even went through a few columns of +figures. Then he closed the desk, leaving his papers in it as usual, +and went out into the street. + +So it was all gone for naught,--all his labors, all his self-denial, +all his denial of help to Mercedes. If he left to seek her, his theft +would be discovered in his absence. He would be thought to have run +away, to have absconded, knowing his detection was at hand. If he +stayed, he could not make it good in time. + +What did it matter? She was first. Jamie took his way up the familiar +street, through the muddy snow; it had been a day of foul weather, and +now through the murky low-lying clouds a lurid saffron glow foretold a +clearing in the west. It was spring, after all; and the light reminded +Jamie of the South. She was there, and alone. + +He had tried to save his own good name, and it was all in vain. He +might at least do what he could for her. + +He did not go home, but wandered on, walking. Unconsciously his steps +followed the southwest, toward the light (we always walk to the west +in the afternoon), and he found himself by the long beach of the Back +Bay, the railroad behind him. The tide was high, and the west wind +blew the waves in froth at his feet. The clearing morrow sent its +courier of cold wind; and the old clerk shivered, but did not know he +shivered of cold. + +He sat upon an old spar to think. The train bound southward rattled +behind him; he was sitting on the very bank of the track, so close +that the engineer blew his whistle; but Jamie did not hear. So this +was the end. He might as well have saved her long before. He might +have stolen more. To-morrow he would surely go. + +The night came on. Then Jamie thought of getting his ticket. He +remembered vaguely that the railroad behind him ran southward; and he +rose, and walked along the track to the depot. There he asked if they +sold tickets to New Orleans. + +The clerk laughed. New Orleans was within the rebel lines. Besides, +they sold no tickets beyond New York or Washington. The clerk did not +seem sure the way to New Orleans was through Washington. A ticket to +the latter city was twenty dollars. + +Jamie pulled out his wallet. He had only a few dollars in it; but +loose in his pocket he found that thousand-dollar bill. "I--I think I +will put off buying the ticket until to-morrow," he said. + +For a new notion flashed upon him. He had not thought of this money +before. With what he could earn,--the bookkeeper had said the +investigation might be put off a year,--this bill might be enough to +cover the remaining deficit. + +He hugged it in his hands. How could he have forgotten it? He turned +out into the night again to walk home; he felt very faint and cold, +and remembered he had had no supper. Well, old Mrs. Hughson would get +him something. She had taken the little house on Salem Street, which +had been Jamie's home for so many years. John and his growing family +still lived in their house, near by. + +But Mrs. Hughson was out. He stumbled up the high stairs in the dark, +and lit a lamp with numbed fingers. He had not been often so late +away; probably she had gone to search for him. He must go out after +her. She was doubtless at John's. + +But first McMurtagh went to his writing-desk and unlocked the drawer +that he had not visited for years; and from its dust, beneath a pile +of letters, he drew out his only picture of Mercedes. He had vowed +never to look at it again until he could go to help her; and now-- + +And now he was not going to help her. He had left her alone all those +years; and now he was still to leave her, widowed, in a hostile city, +perhaps to starve. Old Jamie strained his eyes to the picture with +hard tearless sorrow. It was a daguerreotype of the beautiful young +girl that Mercedes had been in 1845. + +Was there no way? The thousand dollars he would need if he went after +her. Should he borrow of Mr. Bowdoin? But how could he do so, now that +he had this present from him? Jamie sat down and pressed his fingers +to his temples. Then he forgot himself a moment. + +He was out in the street again in the cold. He had the idea that he +would go to John Hughson's; and sure enough, he found the old lady +there. She and John cried out as he came in, and would know where he +had been. He could not tell. "Why, you are cold," said the old lady, +feeling his hand. And they would have him eat something. + +In the street again, returning: it was pleasanter in the dark; one +could think. One could think of her; he dared not when people were +looking, lest they should know. He would go to her. + +Suppose he told old Mr. Bowdoin, frankly, the debt was nearly made up: +he would gladly lend him. Nay, but it was a theft, not a debt. How +could he tell--now--when so nearly saved? + +In the room, Mrs. Hughson was bustling about getting a hot drink. So +nearly! Why, even if David might have lived a year more! And he had +been a slave-catcher. Perhaps he had left her money? Perhaps she might +get on for a year--if he wrote? Ah, here was the hot drink. He would +take it; yes, if only to get rid of Mrs. Hughson. She looked old and +queer, and smiled at him. But he did not know Mercedes' address; he +could not write. Yes, he felt warmer now; he was well enough, thank +you. Ah, by Heaven, he would go! He must sleep first. Would not Mrs. +Hughson put out the light? He liked it better so. Good-night. Just +this rest, and then the palm-trees, and such a sunny, idle sky, where +Mercedes was walking with him. The account had been nearly made up; +the balance might rest. + + + + +X. + + +No letter came back from Jamie, and Mr. Bowdoin rather wondered at it. +But openly he pooh-poohed the idea. His wife had lost twenty years of +her age in presiding over Sanitary Commissions, and getting up classes +where little girls picked lint for Union soldiers; and Mr. Bowdoin +himself was full of the war news in the papers. For he was a war +Democrat (that fine old name!), and had he had his way, every son and +grandson would have been in the Union army. Most of them were, among +them Harley, though the family blood had made him choose the naval +branch. Commander Harleston Bowdoin was back on a furlough won him by +a gunshot wound: and it was he who asked about old Jamie most +anxiously. + +"You feel sure that he was going to Havana?" said he over the family +breakfast table. + +Old lady Bowdoin had left them; long since she had established her +claim to the donation fund by arriving always first at breakfast, and +had devoted it, triumphantly, to a fund for free negroes,--"contrabands," +as they were just then called. But Mrs. Bowdoin never had taken much +interest in Mercedes. + +"Sure, they were last heard of there. He was on some filibustering +expedition in Cuba. Perhaps he was hanged. But no, I don't think so. +Poor Jamie used to send them so much money!" + +"He might have written before he sailed," said Harley, nursing his +wounded arm. + +"If he wrote, I guess he wrote to her," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly. "Why +should he write to me?" + +"I don't like it," said Harley. + +Mr. Bowdoin did not like it; and not being willing to admit this to +himself, it made him very cross. So he rose, and, crowding his hat +over his eyes, strode out into the April morning, and down the street +to the wharf, and down the wharf to the office, where he silenced his +trio of pensioners for the time being by telling them all to go to the +devil; _he_ would not be bothered. And these, hardly surprised, and +not at all offended, hobbled around to the southern side of the +building, where they lent each other quarters against the morrow, when +they knew the peppery old gentleman would relent. + +Mr. Bowdoin stamped up the two flights of narrow stairs to the +counting-room, where his first action was to take off a large piece of +cannel coal just put on the fire by Mr. James Bowdoin, and damn his +son and heir for his extravagance. As the coal put back in the hod was +rapidly filling the room with its smoke, James the younger fled +incontinently; and the elder contemplated the situation. It was true +Jamie had not written; but he had not thought much about it. Harley +entered. + +"I was thinking, sir, of going down to Mr. McMurtagh's lodgings and +asking if they had heard from him." + +"Haven't you been there yet? I should think any fool would have gone +there first!" + +"That's why I didn't, sir," said Harley respectfully. + +Old Mr. Bowdoin chuckled grimly, and his grandson took his leave. + +"Come back and tell me at the bank!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. + +But hardly had Harley got down the stairs before the old gentleman had +another visitor. And this time it was a sheriff with brass buttons; +and he held a large document in his hands. + +Now Mr. Bowdoin was not over-fond of officers of the law; he detested +lawsuits, and he had a horror of legal documents. Therefore he groaned +at the sight, and, throwing open a window, fingered his watch-chain +nervously, as one who is about to flee. + +"What do _you_ want, sir?" said he. + +"Is this the office of James Bowdoin's Sons?" + +"What if it were, sir?" + +The officer brandished his document. "Is there a clerk here,--one +James McMurtagh?" + +"No, sir." Mr. Bowdoin spoke decidedly. + +"Has he a son-in-law, David St. Clair?" + +The old gentleman breathed a sigh of relief. "He has, sir." + +"Where is McMurtagh?" + +"I don't know, sir." + +"Where is St. Clair?" + +"Have you a citation for him?" + +The officer winked. "Can you tell me where to find him?" + +Mr. Bowdoin saw his chance. "Yes, sir; I can, sir. The last I heard of +him, he had gone to Cuba on a filibustering expedition with one +General Walker, who has since been hanged; and if you find him, you'll +find him in Havana, Cuba, and can serve the citation on him there; +though I'm bound to tell you," ended the old gentleman in a louder +voice, "my opinion is, he won't care a d----n for you or your citation +either!" And Mr. Bowdoin bolted down the stairs. + + + + +XI. + + +So Mr. Bowdoin hurried up the street to the bank, half chuckling, half +angry, still. Then (having found that there was a special and very +important directors' meeting called at once) he scurried out again +upon the street, his papers in his hat, and did the business of the +day on 'change. And then he went back to the bank, and asked if Mr. +Harleston Bowdoin had got there yet. + +Mr. Stanchion told him no. By that time it was after eleven. But Mr. +Bowdoin made a rapid calculation of the distance (it never would have +occurred to him to take a hack; carriages, in his view, were meant for +women, funerals, and disreputable merrymakers), and hastened down to +Salem Street. + +Old Mrs. Hughson met him at the door, grateful and tearful. Yes, young +Mr. Harley (she remembered him well in the old days, and had been +jealous of him as a rival of her son) was upstairs. She feared poor +McMurtagh was very ill. He had been out of his head for days and days. +To Mr. Bowdoin's peppery query why the devil she had not sent for him, +Mrs. Hughson had nothing to say. It had never occurred to her, +perhaps, that the well-being of such a quaint, dried-up old chap as +Jamie could be a matter of moment to his wealthy employers whom she +had never known. + +"Can I see him?" asked Mr. Bowdoin. But as he spoke, Harley came down +the stairs. + +"It's heart-breaking," he said. "He thinks he's in the South with her. +He was going to meet her, it seems; and the poor old fellow does not +know he has not gone." + +"Let me see him," said the elder. "Have they no nurse?" + +"I nurse him off and on, nigh about all he needs," answered Mrs. +Hughson. "And then there's John." + +But Mr. Bowdoin had hurried up the stairs. Jamie was lying with his +eyes wide open, moving restlessly. It seemed a low fever; for his face +was pale; only the old ruddiness showed unnaturally, like the mark of +his old-country lineage, left from bygone years of youth and sunlight +on his paling life. And Jamie's eyes met Mr. Bowdoin's; he had been +murmuring rapidly, and there was a smile in them; but this now he +lost, though the eyes had in them no look of recognition. He became +silent as his look touched Mr. Bowdoin's face and glanced from it +quickly, as do the looks of delirious persons and young children. And +then, as the old gentleman bent over him and touched his hand, "A +thousand dollars yet! a thousand dollars yet!" many times repeating +this in a low cry; and all his raving now was of money and rows of +money, rows and rows of gold. + +Mr. Bowdoin stood by him. Harley came to the door, and motioned to him +to step outside. Jamie went on: "A year more! another year more!" +Then, as Mr. Bowdoin again touched his hand, he stared, and Mr. +Bowdoin started at the mention of his own name. + +"See, Mr. Bowdoin! but one row more to fill! But one year more, but +one year more!" + +Mr. Bowdoin dropped his hand, and went hastily to the door, which he +closed behind him. + +"Harley, my boy, we mustn't listen to the old man's ravings--and I +must go back to the bank." + +"He has never talked that way to me, sir: it's all about Mercedes, and +his going to her," and Harley opened the door, and both went in. + +And sure enough, the old man's raving changed. "I must go to her. I +must go to her. I must go to her. I cannot help it, I must go to +her." + +"Sometimes he thinks he has gone," whispered Harley. "Then he is +quieter." + +"What are these?" said Mr. Bowdoin, kicking over a pile of newspapers +on the floor. "Why does he have New Orleans newspapers?" + +The two men looked, and found one paper folded more carefully, on the +table; in this they read the item telling of St. Clair's death. They +looked at one another. + +"That is it, then," said Harley. "I wonder if he left her poor?" + +"So she is not in Havana, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin. + +And old Jamie, who had been speaking meaningless sentences, suddenly +broke into his old refrain: "_A thousand dollars more!_" + +"I must get to the bank," said the old gentleman, "and stop that +meeting." + +"And _I_ must go to _her_!" cried Harleston Bowdoin. + +The other grasped his hand. But Jamie's spirit was far away, and +thought that all these things were done. + + + + +XII. + + +Old Mr. Bowdoin went back to his bank meeting, which he peremptorily +postponed, bidding James his son to vote that way, and he would give +him reasons afterward. Going home he linked his arm in his, and told +him why he would not have that meeting, and the new bank formed, and +all its assets and trusts counted, until James McMurtagh was well +again, or not in this world to know. And that same night, Commander +Harleston, still on sick leave, started by rail for New Orleans, with +orders that would take him through the lines. They had doctors and a +nurse now for poor old Jamie; but Mr. Bowdoin was convinced no drug +could save his life and reason,--only Mercedes. He lay still in a +fever, out of his mind; and the doctors dreaded that his heart might +stop when his mind came to. That, at least, was the English of it; the +doctors spoke in words of Greek and Latin. + +James Bowdoin suggested to his father that they should open the chest, +thereby exciting a most unwonted burst of ire. "I pry into poor +Jamie's accounts while he's lost his mind of grief about that girl!" +(For also to him Mercedes, now nigh to forty, was still a girl.) "I +would not stoop to doubt him, sir." Yet, on the other hand, Mr. +Bowdoin would probably have never condoned a theft, once discovered; +and James Bowdoin wasted his time in hinting they might make it good. + +"Confound it, sir," said the father, "it's the making it good to +Jamie, not the making it good to us, that counts,--don't you see?" + +"You do suspect him, then?" + +"Not a bit,--not one whit, sir!" cried the father. "I know him better. +And I hate a low, suspicious habit of mind, sir, with all my heart!" + +"You once said, sir, years ago (do you remember?), that but one +thing--love--could make a man like Jamie go wrong." + +"I said a lot of d----d fool things, sir, when I was bringing you up, +and the consequences are evident." And Mr. Bowdoin slammed out of the +breakfast-room where this conversation took place. + +But no word came from Harleston, and the old gentleman's temper grew +more execrable every day. Again the bank directors met, and again at +his request--this time avowedly on account of McMurtagh's illness--the +reorganization and examination were postponed. And at last, the very +day before the next meeting, there came a telegram from Harley in New +York. It said this only:-- + +"Landed to-day. Arrive to-morrow morning. Found." + + * * * * * + +"Now why the deuce can't he say what he's found and who's with him?" +complained old Mr. Bowdoin to his wife and son for the twentieth time, +that next morning. + +Breakfast was over, and they were waiting for Harley to arrive. Mrs. +Bowdoin went on with her work in silence. + +"And why the devil is the train so late? I must be at the bank at +eleven. Do you suppose she's with him?" + +"How is Jamie?" said Mrs. Bowdoin only in reply. + +"Much the same. Do you think--do you think"-- + +"I am afraid so, James," said the old lady. "Harley would have said"-- + +"There he comes!" cried Mr. Bowdoin from the window. Father and son +ran to the door, in the early spring morning, and saw a carriage stop, +and Harley step out of it, and then--a little girl. + + + + +XIII. + + +The image of Mercedes she was; and the old gentleman caught her up and +kissed her. He had a way with all children; and James thought this +little maid was just as he remembered her mother, that day, now so +long gone, on the old Long Wharf, when the sailing-vessel came in from +the harbor,--the day he was engaged to marry his Abby. Old Mrs. +Bowdoin stood beside, rubbing her spectacles; and then the old man set +the child upon his lap, and told her soon she should see her +grandfather. And the child began to prattle to him in a good English +that had yet a color of something French or Spanish; and she wore a +black dress. + +"But perhaps you have never heard of your old grandfather?" + +The child said that "mamma" had often talked about him, and had said +that some day she should go to Boston to see him. "Grandfather +Jamie," the child called him. "That was before mamma went away." + +Mr. Bowdoin looked at the black dress, and then at Harleston; and +Harleston nodded his head sadly. + +"Well, Mercedes, we will go very soon. Isn't your name Mercedes?" said +the old gentleman, seeing the little maid look surprised. + +"My name is Sarah, but mamma called me Sadie," lisped the child. + +Mr. Bowdoin and Harleston looked each at the other, and had the same +thought. It was as if the mother, who had so darkened (or shall we, +after all, say lightened?) Jamie's life, had given up her strange +Spanish name in giving him back this child, and remembered but the +homely "Sadie" he once had called her by. But by this time old lady +Bowdoin had the little maid upon her lap, and James was dragging +Harley away to tell his story. And old Mr. Bowdoin even broke his rule +by taking an after-breakfast cigar, and puffed it furiously. + +"I got to New Orleans by rail and river, as you know. There I inquired +after St. Clair, and had no difficulty in finding out about him. He +had been a sort of captain of marines in an armed blockade-runner, and +he was well known in New Orleans as a gambler, a slave-dealer"-- + +Mr. Bowdoin grunted. + +--"almost what they call a thug. But he had not been killed instantly; +he died in a city hospital." + +"There is no doubt about his being dead?" queried Mr. Bowdoin +anxiously. + +"Not the slightest. I saw his grave. But, unhappily, Mercedes is dead, +too." + +"All is for the best," said Mr. Bowdoin philosophically. "Perhaps +you'd have married her." + +"Perhaps I should," said Commander Harley simply. "Well, I found her +at the hospital where he had died, and she died too. This little girl +was all she had left. I brought her back. As you see, she is like her +mother, only gentler, and her mother brought her up to reverence old +Jamie above all things on earth." + +"It was time," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly. + +"She told me St. Clair had got into trouble in New York; and old +Jamie had sent them some large sum,--over twenty thousand dollars." + +Mr. Bowdoin started. "The child told you this?" + +"No, the mother. I saw her before she died." + +"Oh," said his grandfather. "You did not tell me that." + +"I saw her before she died," said Harley firmly. "You must not think +hardly of her; she was very changed." The tears were in Commander +Harleston's eyes. + +"I will not," said Mr. Bowdoin. "Over twenty thousand dollars,--dear +me, dear me! And we have our directors' meeting to-day. Well, well. I +am glad, at least, poor Jamie has his little girl again," and Mr. +Bowdoin took his hat and prepared to go. "I only hope I'm too late. +James, go on ahead. Harley, my boy, I'm afraid we know it all." + +"Stop a minute," said Harley. "There was some one else at the +hospital." + +"Everybody seems to have been at the hospital," growled old Mr. +Bowdoin petulantly. But he sat down wearily, wondering what he should +do; for he felt almost sure now of what poor Jamie had done. + +"The captain of the blockade-runner was there, too. He was mortally +wounded; and it was from him that I learned most about St. Clair and +how he ended. He seemed to be a Spaniard by birth, though he wore as a +brooch a small miniature of Andrew Jackson." + +"Hang Andrew Jackson!" cried the old gentleman. "What do I care about +Andrew Jackson?" + +"That's what I asked him. And do you know what he said? 'Why, he saved +me from hanging.'" + +Mr. Bowdoin started. + +"Before he died he told me of his life. He had even been on a pirate, +in old days. Once he was captured, and tried in Boston; and, for some +kindness he had shown, old President Jackson reprieved him. Then he +ran away, and never dared come back. But he left some money at a bank +here, and a little girl, his daughter." + +"What was his name? Hang it, what was his name?" shouted old Mr. +Bowdoin, putting on his hat. + +"Soto,--Romolo Soto." + +Mr. Bowdoin sank back in his chair again. "Why, that was the captain. +Mercedes was the mate's child." + +"No. The money was Soto's, and the child too. He told me he had only +lately sent a detective here to try and trace the child." + +"The sheriff's officer, by Jove!" said Mr. Bowdoin. "But can you prove +it? can you prove it?" he cried. + +"Mercedes had yellow hair, so had Soto. And he knew your name. And +before he died he gave me papers." + +Mr. Bowdoin jumped up, took the papers, and bolted into the street. + + + + +XIV. + + +His son James was sitting in the chair, with the other directors +around him, when old Mr. Bowdoin reached the bank. There was a silence +when he entered, and a sense of past discussion in the air. James +Bowdoin rose. + +"Keep the chair, James, keep the chair. I have a little business with +the board." + +"They were discussing, sir," replied James, "the necessity of +completing our work for the new organization. Is McMurtagh yet well +enough to work?" + +"No," said the father. + +"What is your objection to proceeding without him?" asked Mr. Pinckney +rather shortly. + +"None whatever," coolly answered Mr. Bowdoin. + +"None whatever? Why, you said you would not proceed while Mr. +McMurtagh was ill." + +"McMurtagh will never come back to the bank," said old Mr. Bowdoin +gravely. + +"Dear me, I hope he is not dead?" + +"No, but he will retire; on a pension, of course. Then his +granddaughter has quite a little fortune." + +"His granddaughter--a fortune?" + +"Certainly--Miss Sarah--McMurtagh," gasped Mr. Bowdoin. He could not +say "St. Clair," and so her name was changed. "Something over twenty +thousand dollars. I have come for it now." + +The other directors looked at old Mr. Bowdoin for visual evidence of a +failing mind. + +"It's in the safe there, in a box. Mr. Stanchion, please get down the +old tin box marked 'James Bowdoin's Sons;' there are the papers. The +child's other grandfather, one Romolo Soto, gave it me himself, in +1829. I myself had it put in this bank the next day. Here is the +receipt: 'James Bowdoin's Sons, one chest said to contain Spanish +gold. Amount not specified.' I'll take it, if you please." + +"The amount must be specified somewhere." + +"The amount was duly entered on the books of James Bowdoin's Sons, Tom +Pinckney; and their books are no business of yours, unless you doubt +our credit. Would you like a written statement?" and Mr. Bowdoin +puffed himself up and glared at his old friend. + +"Here is the chest, sir," said Mr. Stanchion suavely. "Have you the +key?" + +"No, sir; Mr. McMurtagh has the key," and Mr. Bowdoin stalked from the +office. + + + + +XV. + + +Then old Mr. Bowdoin, with the box under his arm, hurried down to +Salem Street. Jamie still lay there, unconscious of earthly things. +For many weeks, his spirit, like a tired bird, had hovered between +this world and the next, uncertain where to alight. + +For many weeks he had been, as we call it, out of his head. Harley had +had time to go to New Orleans and return, Mercedes and Soto to die, +and all these meetings about less important things to happen at the +bank; and still old Jamie's body lay in the little house in Salem +Street, his mind far wandering. But in all his sixty years of gray +life, up to then, I doubt if his soul had been so happy. Dare we even +say it was less real? Old Mr. Bowdoin laid the chest beside the door, +and listened. + +For Jamie was wandering with Mercedes under sunny skies; and now, for +many days, his ravings had not been of money or of this world's duty, +but only of her. It had been so from about the time she must have +died; dare one suppose he knew it? So his mind was still with her. + +The doctors, though, were very anxious for his mind, still wandering. +If his body returned to life, they feared that his mind would not. +But the Bowdoins and little Sarah sat and watched there. + +It came that morning,--it was late in May; so calmly that for some +moments they did not notice it,--old Mr. Bowdoin and the little girl. + +Jamie opened his eyes to look out on this world again so naturally +that they did not see that he had waked; only he lay there, looking +out of the window, and puzzling at a blossom that was on a tree below; +for he remembered, when he had gone to sleep the night before, it was +March weather, and the snow lay on the ground. The snow lay thick upon +the ground as he was walking to the station. How could spring have +come in a night? Where was--What world was this? + +For his eyes traveled down the room to where, sitting at the foot of +his bed to be the first to be seen by him, Jamie saw his little girl +as he remembered her. + +Mr. Bowdoin started as the look of seeing came back to Jamie's eyes. +But the little girl, as she had been told to do, ran forward and took +the old clerk's hand. + +It was very quiet in the room. Old Mr. Bowdoin dared not speak; he +sat there rubbing his spectacles. + +But old Jamie had looked up to her, and said only, "Mercedes!" + + + + +XVI. + + +Jamie did come back to the bank--once. It was on a day some weeks +after this, when he was well. He had been well enough even for one +more journey to New York; the Bowdoins did not thwart him. And +Mercedes--Sadie--was at his home; so now he came to get possession of +his ward's little fortune, to be duly invested in his name as trustee, +in the stock of the Old Colony Bank. He came in one morning, and all +the bookkeepers greeted him; and then he went into the safe, where he +found the box as usual; for Mr. Bowdoin, knowing that he would come, +had taken it back. + +When he came out, the chest was under his arm; and he went to old Mr. +Bowdoin, alone in his private room. "Here is the chest, sir, I must +ask you to count it." And before Mr. Bowdoin could answer he had +turned the lock, so the lid sprang open. There, almost filling the +box, were rows of coin, shining rows of gold. + +Old Mr. Bowdoin's eyes glistened. "Jamie, why should I count it?" he +said gently. "It is yours now, and you alone can receipt for it, as +Sarah's legal guardian." + +"I would have ye ken, sir, that the firm o' James Bowdoin's Sons ha' +duly performed their trust." + +And old Mr. Bowdoin said no more, but counted the coins, one by one, +to the full number the ledger showed. + +He did not look at the other page. But Jamie was not one to tear a +leaf from a ledger. No one ever looked at the old book again; but the +honest entries stand there still upon the page. Only now there is +another: "Restored in full, June 26, 1862." + + * * * * * + + + + +STANDARD AND POPULAR + +BOOKS OF FICTION + +PUBLISHED BY + +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + + +Thomas Bailey Aldrich. + +The Story of a Bad Boy. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.25. + +Marjorie Daw and Other People. Short Stories. With Frontispiece. 12mo, +$1.50. + +Marjorie Daw and Other Stories. In Riverside Aldine Series. 16mo, +$1.00. + + These two volumes are not identical in contents. + +Prudence Palfrey. With frontispiece. 12mo, $1.50; paper, 50 cents. + +The Queen of Sheba. 12mo, $1.50; paper, 50 cents. + +The Stillwater Tragedy. 12mo, $1.50; paper, 50 cents. + +Two Bites at a Cherry, and Other Tales. 16mo, $1.25. + + +Jane G. 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