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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:54:13 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:54:13 -0700 |
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Bunner. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + +h1, h2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + clear: both; +} + +p { margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 0; + line-height: 1.4em; + text-align: justify; +} + +p.titles_large, p.titles, p.titles_small, p.titles_x-small { + text-align:center; + margin-top: 0.5em; + clear: both; +} + +p.titles_large {font-size: large;} +p.titles_small {font-size: small;} +p.titles_x-small {font-size: x-small;} + +hr { + width:45%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +hr.major { width:65%; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +table { margin-top: 1em; empty-cells: show; width: 90%; } + +table.TOI { margin-top: 0; empty-cells: show; width: 100%; } + +.center table { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left; } + +td, td > p { + margin-top: 0.25em; + line-height: 1.1em; + font-size: 90%; + padding-top:0em; + padding-bottom:0em; + padding-right:0.5em; + padding-left:0.5em; +} + +td.TOI { + margin-top: 0; + line-height: 1.5em; + padding-top: 1em; + padding-bottom: 0; + padding-right: 0; + padding-left: 0; +} + +td.TOI_page { + margin-top: 0; + line-height: 1.5em; + padding-top: 1em; + padding-bottom: 0; + padding-right: 0; + padding-left: 0; + font-size: 70%; +} +td.TOI_credit { + margin-top: 0; + line-height: 1em; + padding-top: 0; + padding-bottom: 0; + padding-right: 0; + padding-left: 5em; +} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + width: 3em; + right: 0.5em; + font-size:60%; + color: #444; + text-align: right; + padding: 0 0 0 0 ; + margin: auto 0 auto 0; +} + +.pagenum a { text-decoration: none; color: #444; } + +.pagenum a:hover { color: #F00; } + +.toc_link { + position: absolute; + width: 5em; + left: 0.5em; + font-size:60%; + color: #444; + text-align: left; + padding: 0 0 0 0 ; + margin: auto 0 auto 0; +} + +.toc_link a { text-decoration: none; color: #444; } + +.toc_link a:hover { color: #F00; } + +ul.TOC { + list-style-type:none; + margin-left: 0; + padding-left: 0; + text-align: center; + white-space: nowrap; +} + +li.TOC { display: inline; border: solid 1px; } + +.TOC a { padding: 0.4em 1.4em; } + +.TOC a:link, .TOC a:visited { color: #000; text-decoration:none; } + +.TOC a:hover { color:#F00; } + +.blockquot { margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; font-size: 90%; } + +ins.correction { + text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray; } + +.center { text-align: center; text-indent:0; } + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +/* Images */ + +img.plain { + border: none; padding: 0; margin: 0; display: block; +} + +p.caption { margin-top: 0; font-size: x-small; text-align: center; } + +.center img { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } + +.figcenter { margin: auto; text-align: center; } + +.floatr, .figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + text-align: center; + border: 1px solid black; + padding: 0px; + margin: 0 0 0 4px; +} + +.floatl, .figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + text-align: center; + padding: 0px; + margin: 0 4px 0 0; +} + +/* Poetry */ +div.poem { + text-align:left; + margin-left:5%; + width:90%; + position: relative; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: 90%; +} + +.stanza span, +.stanza div, +.stanza p { + display:block; + line-height: 1.2em; + margin-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; + margin-top: 0; +} + +.stanza br { + display: none; +} + +.poem .i0 {display:block; margin-left: 2em;} +.poem .i1 {display:block; margin-left: 3em;} +.poem .i2 {display:block; margin-left: 4em;} + +.tnote { + background-color: #DDE; + color: #000; + padding: .5em; + font-size: 90%; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Story of a New York House, by Henry Cuyler Bunner + +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: The Story of a New York House + +Author: Henry Cuyler Bunner + +Illustrator: A. B. Frost + +Release Date: December 13, 2009 [EBook #30662] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A NEW YORK HOUSE *** + + + + +Produced by Geetu Melwani, Rob Reid, David Garcia and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This book was produced from scanned images of public +domain material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class = "tnote"> +<p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p>A <a href="#CONTENTS">table of chapters</a>, not in the original text, has been inserted +immediately preceding Chapter I. </p> +<p>A small number of printing errors have been corrected. They are +shown within the text with <ins class = "correction" title ="Transcriber's Note: example">mouse-hover popups</ins> +and are also listed in full at the <a href="#Endnote">end</a> of the text.</p> +</div> +<p><br /></p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/cover-thumb.jpg" width="275" height="400" alt="Front Cover" title="" /> +</a> +</div> +<hr class="major" /> + +<div class="center"> +<a id="Frontis" href="images/frontis.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/frontis-thumb.jpg" width="278" height="400" alt="Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph." title="" /> +</a><p class="caption">Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<h1>THE STORY<br /> + +OF<br /> + +A NEW YORK HOUSE<br /></h1> + +<p class="titles">BY</p> +<p class="titles_large">H. C. BUNNER</p> +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="titles"><i>ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST</i></p> +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="titles_small">NEW YORK<br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br /> +1887</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<p class="titles_x-small"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1887, by</span><br /> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.</p> +<p><br /></p> + +<p class="titles_x-small">Press of J. J. Little & Co.<br /> +Astor Place, New York.<br /></p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<p class="titles_small">TO</p> + +<p class="titles_large">A. L. B.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<p class="titles">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="TOI" summary="List of Illustrations"> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><span class="smcap"><a href="#Frontis">Frontispiece</a></span></td></tr> +</table><table class="TOI" summary="List of Illustrations"><!-- Split table to width of Frontispiece does not affect wrapping of rest of table --> +<tr><td class="TOI"></td><td class="TOI_page" align="right">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"I thumped him"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_14">14</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"It's a monstrous great place for a country-house, Mr. Dolph"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>There was only one idea, and that was flight</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>The light flickered on the top of the church spire</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI_credit">(<i>By F. Hopkinson Smith.</i>)</td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>They hesitated a second, looking at the great arm chair</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"Stay there, sir—you, sir, you, Jacob Dolph!"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>After awhile he began to take timorous strolls</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>Jacob Dolph the elder ... stood on his hearth rug</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one to go with him</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>In quiet morning hours ... when his daughter sat at his feet</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"Mons'us gran dinneh, seh!"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"All of a sudden, chock forward he went, right on his face"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_84">84</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>He heard the weak, spasmodic wail of another Dolph</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"Central American," said the clerk</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>O'Reagan of Castle Reagan</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd have had"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"I know'd you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>"Have you got a nigger here?"</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>Abram Van Riper makes a business communication.</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>And so she set his necktie right, and he went</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_144">144</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>Looking on his face, she saw death quietly coming upon him</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td class="TOI"><i>Finial</i></td><td class="TOI" align="right"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr class="major" /> +<p class="titles_small"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CHAPTERS</p> + +<ul class="TOC"> +<li class="TOC"><a href="#Chapter_I">I.</a></li> +<li class="TOC"><a href="#Chapter_II">II.</a></li> +<li class="TOC"><a href="#Chapter_III">III.</a></li> +<li class="TOC"><a href="#Chapter_IV">IV.</a></li> +<li class="TOC"><a href="#Chapter_V">V.</a></li> +</ul> +<hr class="major" /> + +<p><span class="toc_link"><a href="#CONTENTS">[TOC]</a></span> +<a name="Chapter_I" id="Chapter_I"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1" href="#Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="titles_large">THE STORY<br /> +OF A NEW YORK HOUSE. +</p> + + +<h2>I.</h2> + + +<p>"I hear," said Mrs. Abram Van Riper, +seated at her breakfast-table, and watching +the morning sunlight dance on the front +of the great Burrell house on the opposite side +of Pine Street, "that the Dolphs are going to +build a prodigious fine house out of town—somewhere +up near the Rynders's place."</p> + +<p>"And I hear," said Abram Van Riper, laying +down last night's <i>Evening Post</i>, "that +Jacob Dolph is going to give up business. +And if he does, it's a disgrace to the town."</p> + +<p>It was in the summer of 1807, and Abram +Van Riper was getting well over what he considered +the meridian line of sixty years. He +was hale and hearty; his business was flourishing; +his boy was turning out all that should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2" href="#Page_2">[2]</a></span> +have been expected of one of the Van Riper +stock; the refracted sunlight from the walls of +the stately house occupied by the Cashier of +the Bank of the United States lit with a subdued +secondary glimmer the Van Riper silver +on the breakfast-table—the squat teapot and +slop-bowl, the milk-pitcher, that held a quart, +and the apostle-spoon in the broken loaf-sugar +on the Delft plate. Abram Van Riper was +decorously happy, as a New York merchant +should be. In all other respects, he was +pleased to think, he was what a New York +merchant should be, and the word of the law +and the prophets was fulfilled with him and in +his house.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure," Mrs. Van Riper began again, +somewhat querulously, "I can't see why Jacob +Dolph shouldn't give up business, if he's so +minded. He's a monstrous fortune, from all I +hear—a good hundred thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>"A hundred thousand dollars!" repeated +her husband, scornfully. "Ay, and twice twenty +thousand pounds on the top of that. He's +done well, has Dolph. All the more reason he +should stick to his trade; and not go to lolling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3" href="#Page_3">[3]</a></span> +in the sun, like a runner at the Custom-House +door. He's not within ten years of me, and +here he must build his country house, and set +up for the fine gentleman. Jacob Dolph! Did +I go on his note, when he came back from +France, brave as my master, in '94, or did I +not? And where 'ud he have raised twenty +thousand in this town, if I hadn't? What's +got into folks nowadays? Damn me if I can +see!"</p> + +<p>His wife protested, in wifely fashion. "I'm +sure, Van Riper," she began, "you've no need +to fly in such a huff if I so much as speak of +folks who have some conceit of being genteel. +It's only proper pride of Mr. Dolph to have a +country house, and—"(her voice faltering a +little, timorously) "ride in and—and out——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ride!</i>" snorted Mr. Van Riper. "In a +carriage, maybe?"</p> + +<p>"In a carriage, Van Riper. You may think +to ride in a carriage is like being the Pope of +Rome; but there's some that knows better. +And if you'd set up your carriage," went on +the undaunted Mrs. Van Riper, "and gone +over to Greenwich Street two years ago, as I'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4" href="#Page_4">[4]</a></span> +have had you, and made yourself friendly with +those people there, I'd have been on the +Orphan Asylum Board at this very minute; +and <i>you</i> would——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper knew all that speech by +heart, in all its variations. He knew perfectly +well what it would end in, this time, although +he was not a man of quick perception: "He +would have been a member of the new Historical +Society."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he thought to himself, as he found +his hat and shuffled out into Pine Street; "and +John Pintard would have had my good check +in his pocket for his tuppenny society. Pine +Street is fine enough for me."</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper had more cause for his petulancy +than he would have acknowledged even +to himself. He was a man who had kept his +shop open all through Clinton's occupancy, +and who had had no trouble with the British. +And when they were gone he had had to do +enough to clear his skirts of any smirch of +Toryism, and to implant in his own breast a +settled feeling of militant Americanism. He +did not like it that the order of things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5" href="#Page_5">[5]</a></span> +should change—and the order of things was +changing. The town was growing out of all +knowledge of itself. Here they had their +Orphan Asylum, and their Botanical Garden, +and their Historical Society; and the Jews +were having it all their own way; and now +people were talking of free schools, and of laying +out a map for the upper end of the town +to grow on, in the "system" of straight streets +and avenues. To the devil with systems and +avenues! said he. That was all the doing of +those cursed Frenchmen. He knew how it +would be when they brought their plaguy +frigate here in the first fever year—'93—and +the fools marched up from Peck's Slip after a +red nightcap, and howled their cut-throat song +all night long.</p> + +<p>It began to hum itself in his head as he +walked toward Water Street—<i>Ça ira—ça ira—les +aristocrats à la lanterne</i>. A whiff of the +wind that blew through Paris streets in the +terrible times had come across the Atlantic +and tickled his dull old Dutch nostrils.</p> + +<p>But something worse than this vexed the +conservative spirit of Abram Van Riper. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6" href="#Page_6">[6]</a></span> +could forgive John Pintard—whose inspiration, +I think, foreran the twentieth century—his +fancy for free schools and historical societies, +as he had forgiven him his sidewalk-building +fifteen years before; he could proudly overlook +the fact that the women were busying themselves +with all manner of wild charities; he +could be contented though he knew that the +Hebrew Hart was president of that merchants' +club at Baker's, of which he himself would fain +have been a member. But there was some +thing in the air that he could neither forgive +nor overlook, nor be contented with.</p> + +<p>There was a change coming over the town—a +change which he could not clearly define, +even in his own mind. There was a great +keeping of carriages, he knew. A dozen men +had bought carriages, or were likely to buy +them at any time. The women were forming +societies for the improvement of this and that. +And he, who had moved up-town from Dock +Street, was now in an old-fashioned quarter. +All this he knew, but the something which +made him uneasy was more subtile.</p> + +<p>Within the last few years he had observed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7" href="#Page_7">[7]</a></span> +an introduction of certain strange distinctions +in the social code of the town. It had been +vaguely intimated to him—perhaps by his +wife, he could not remember—that there was +a difference between his trade and Jacob +Dolph's trade. He was a ship-chandler. Jacob +Dolph sold timber. Their shops were +side by side; Jacob Dolph's rafts lay in the +river in front of Abram Van Riper's shop, +and Abram Van Riper had gone on Jacob +Dolph's note, only a few years ago. Yet, it +seemed that it was <i>genteel</i> of Jacob Dolph to +sell timber, and it was not genteel of Abram +Van Riper to be a ship-chandler. There was, +then, a difference between Jacob Dolph and +Abram Van Riper—a difference which, in forty +years, Abram Van Riper had never conceived +of. There were folks who held thus. For +himself, he did not understand it. What difference +there was between selling the wood to +make a ship, and selling the stores to go inside +of her, he could not understand.</p> + +<p>The town was changing for the worse; he +saw that. He did not wish—God forbid!—that +his son John should go running about to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8" href="#Page_8">[8]</a></span> +pleasure-gardens. But it would be no more +than neighborly if these young bucks who +went out every night should ask him to go +with them. Were William Irving's boys and +Harry Brevoort and those young Kembles too +fine to be friends with his boy? Not that he'd +go with them a-rollicking—no, not that—but +'twould be neighborly. It was all wrong, he +thought; they were going whither they knew +not, and wherefore they knew not; and with +that he cursed their airs and their graces, and +pounded down to the Tontine, to put his name +at the head of the list of those who subscribed +for a testimonial service of plate, to be presented +to our esteemed fellow-citizen and +valued associate, Jacob Dolph, on his retirement +from active business.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Jacob Dolph at this moment was setting +forth from his house in State Street, whose pillared +balcony, rising from the second floor to +the roof, caught a side glance of the morning +sun, that loved the Battery far better than Pine +Street. He had his little boy by the hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9" href="#Page_9">[9]</a></span>—young +Jacob, his miniature, his heir, and the +last and only living one of his eight children. +Mr. Dolph walked with his stock thrust out +and the lower end of his waistcoat drawn in—he +was Colonel Dolph, if he had cared to keep +the title; and had come back from Monmouth +with a hole in his hip that gave him a bit of a +limp, even now in eighteen-hundred-and-seven. +He and the boy marched forth like an army +with a small but enthusiastic left wing, into the +poplar-studded Battery. The wind blew fresh +off the bay; the waves beat up against the seawall, +and swirled with a chuckle under Castle +Garden bridge. A large brig was coming up +before the wind, all her sails set, as though she +were afraid—and she was—of British frigates +outside the Hook. Two or three fat little +boats, cat-rigged, after the good old New York +fashion, were beating down toward Staten +Island, to hunt for the earliest blue-fish.</p> + +<p>The two Dolphs crossed the Battery, where +the elder bowed to his friends among the merchants +who lounged about the city's pleasure-ground, +lazily chatting over their business affairs. +Then they turned up past Bowling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" href="#Page_10">[10]</a></span> +Green into Broadway, where Mr. Dolph kept +on bowing, for half the town was out, taking +the fresh morning for marketing and all manner +of shopping. Everybody knew Jacob +Dolph afar off by his blue coat with the silver +buttons, his nankeen waistcoat, and his red-checked +Indian silk neckcloth. He made it a +sort of uniform. Captain Beare had brought +him a bolt of nankeen and a silk kerchief every +year since 1793, when Mr. Dolph gave him +credit for the timber of which the <i>Ursa Minor</i> +was built.</p> + +<p>And everybody seemed willing to make acquaintance +with young Jacob's London-made +kerseymere breeches, of a bright canary color, +and with his lavender silk coat, and with his +little <i>chapeau de Paris</i>. Indeed, young Jacob +was quite the most prominent moving spectacle +on Broadway, until they came to John +Street, and saw something rolling down the +street that quite cut the yellow kerseymeres +out of all popular attention.</p> + +<p>This was a carriage, the body of which was +shaped like a huge section of a cheese, set up +on its small end upon broad, swinging straps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11" href="#Page_11">[11]</a></span> +between two pairs of wheels. It was not unlike +a piece of cheese in color, for it was of a +dull and faded grayish-green, like mould, relieved +by pale-yellow panels and gilt ornaments. +It was truly an interesting structure, +and it attracted nearly as much notice on +Broadway in 1807 as it might to-day. But it +was received with far more reverence, for it +was a court coach, and it belonged to the Des +Anges family, the rich Huguenots of New +Rochelle. It had been built in France, thirty +years before, and had been sent over as a present +to his brother from the Count des Anges, +who had himself neglected to make use of his +opportunities to embrace the Protestant religion.</p> + +<p>When the white-haired old lady who sat in +this coach, with a very little girl by her side, +saw Mr. Dolph and his son, she leaned out of +the window and signalled to the old periwigged +driver to stop, and he drew up close to +the sidewalk. And then Mr. Dolph and his +son came up to the window and took off their +hats, and made a great low bow and a small +low bow to the old lady and the little girl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12" href="#Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Madam Des Anges," said Mr. Dolph, with +an idiom which he had learned when he was +presented at the court of Louis the Sixteenth, +"has surely not driven down from New Rochelle +this morning? That would tax even her +powers."</p> + +<p>Madam Des Anges did not smile—she had +no taste for smiling—but she bridled amiably.</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Dolph," she replied; "I have been +staying with my daughter-in-law, at her house +at King's Bridge, and I have come to town to +put my little granddaughter to school. She is +to have the privilege of being a pupil of Mme. +Dumesnil."</p> + +<p>Madam Des Anges indicated the little girl +with a slight movement, as though she did not +wish to allow the child more consideration than +a child deserved. The little girl turned a great +pair of awed eyes, first on her grandmother, +and then on the gentlemen, and spoke no +word. Young Jacob Dolph stared hard at +her, and then contemplated his kerseymeres +with lazy satisfaction. He had no time for +girls. And a boy who had his breeches made +in London was a boy of consequence, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13" href="#Page_13">[13]</a></span> +need not concern himself about every one he +saw.</p> + +<p>"And this is your son, I make no doubt," +went on Madam Des Anges; "you must bring +him to see us at King's Bridge, while we are +so near you. These young people should +know each other."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dolph said he would, and showed a becoming +sense of the honor of the invitation; +and he made young Jacob say a little speech +of thanks, which he did with a doubtful grace; +and then Mr. Dolph sent his compliments to +Madam Des Anges' daughter-in-law, and Madam +Des Anges sent her compliments to Mrs. +Dolph, and there was more stately bowing, and +the carriage lumbered on, with the little girl +looking timorously out of the window, her +great eyes fixed on the yellow kerseymeres, as +they twinkled up the street.</p> + +<p>"Papa," said young Jacob, as they turned +the corner of Ann Street, "when may I go to a +boys' school? I'm monstrous big to be at Mrs. +Kilmaster's. And I don't like to be a girl-boy."</p> + +<p>"Are you a girl-boy?" inquired his father, +smiling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" href="#Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aleck Cameron called me one yesterday. +He said I was a girl-boy because I went to +dame-school. He called me Missy, too!" the +boy went on, with his breast swelling.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p014.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p014-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="393" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>"We'll see about it," said Mr. Dolph, smiling +again; and they walked on in silence to +Mrs. Kilmaster's door, where he struck the +knocker, and a neat mulatto girl opened the +narrow door. Then he patted his boy on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15" href="#Page_15">[15]</a></span> +head and bade him good-by for the morning, +and told him to be a good boy at school. He +took a step or two and looked back. Young +Jacob lingered on the step, as if he had a further +communication to make. He paused.</p> + +<p>"I thumped him," said young Jacob, and +the narrow door swallowed him up.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dolph continued on his walk up Broadway. +As he passed the upper end of the Common +he looked with interest at the piles of red +sandstone among the piles of white marble, +where they were building the new City Hall. +The Council had ordered that the rear or +northward end of the edifice should be constructed +of red stone; because red stone was +cheap, and none but a few suburbans would +ever look down on it from above Chambers +Street. Mr. Dolph shook his head. He +thought he knew better. He had watched the +growth of trade; he knew the room for further +growth; he had noticed the long converging +lines of river-front, with their unbounded +accommodation for wharves and +slips. He believed that the day would come—and +his own boy might see it—when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16" href="#Page_16">[16]</a></span> +business of the city would crowd the dwelling-houses +from the river side, east and west, as +far, maybe, as Chambers Street. He had no +doubt that the boy might find himself, forty +years from then, in a populous and genteel +neighborhood. Perhaps he foresaw too much; +but he had a jealous yearning for a house that +should be a home for him, and for his child, +and for his grandchildren. He wanted a place +where his wife might have a garden; a place +which the boy would grow up to love and +cherish, where the boy might bring a wife +some day. And even if it were a little out of +town—why, his wife did not want a rout every +night; and it was likely his old friends would +come out and see him once in a while, and +smoke a pipe in his garden and eat a dish of +strawberries, perhaps.</p> + +<p>As he thought it all over for the hundredth +time, weighing for and against in his gentle +and deliberative mind, he strolled far out of +town. There was a house here and there on +the road—a house with a trim, stiff little garden, +full of pink and white and blue flowers in +orderly, clam-shell-bordered beds. But it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17" href="#Page_17">[17]</a></span> +certainly, he had to admit, as he looked about +him, very <i>countrified</i> indeed. It seemed that +the city must lose itself if it wandered up here +among these rolling meadows and wooded +hills. Yet even up here, half way to Greenwich +Village, there were little outposts of the +town—clumps of neighborly houses, mostly +of the poorer class, huddling together to form +small nuclei for sporadic growth. There was +one on his right, near the head of Collect +Street. Perhaps that quizzical little old German +was right, who had told him that King's +Bridge property was a rational investment.</p> + +<p>He went across the hill where Grand Street +crosses Broadway, and up past what was then +North and is to-day Houston Street, and then +turned down a straggling road that ran east +and west. He walked toward the Hudson, and +passed a farmhouse or two, and came to a bare +place where there were no trees, and only a +few tangled bushes and ground-vines.</p> + +<p>Here a man was sitting on a stone, awaiting +him. As he came near, the man arose.</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's you, Weeks? And have you the +plan?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18" href="#Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, Colonel—Mr. Dolph. I've put the +window where you want it—that is, my brother +Levi did—though I don't see as you're going to +have much trouble in looking over anything +that's likely to come between you and the +river."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p018.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p018-thumb.jpg" width="343" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Dolph took the crisp roll of parchment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19" href="#Page_19">[19]</a></span> +and studied it with loving interest. It had +gone back to Ezra Weeks, the builder, and his +brother Levi, the architect, for the twentieth +time, perhaps. Was there ever an architect's +plan put in the hands of a happy nest-builder +where the windows did not go up and down +from day to day, and the doors did not crawl +all around the house, and the veranda did not +contract and expand like a sensitive plant; or +where the rooms and closets and corridors did +not march backward and forward and in and +out at the bidding of every fond, untutored +whim?</p> + +<p>"It's a monstrous great big place for a country-house, +Mr. Dolph," said Ezra Weeks, as he +looked over Jacob Dolph's shoulder at the +drawings of the house, and shook his head with +a sort of pitying admiration for the projector's +audacity.</p> + +<p>They talked for a while, and looked at the +site as if they might see more in it than they +saw yesterday, and then Weeks set off for the +city, pledged to hire laborers and to begin the +work on the morrow.</p> + +<p>"I think I can get you some of that stone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20" href="#Page_20">[20]</a></span> +that's going into the back of the City Hall, +if you say so, Mr. Dolph. That stone was +bought cheap, you know—bought for the +city."</p> + +<p>"See what you can do, Weeks," said Mr. +Dolph; and Mr. Weeks went whistling down +the road.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph walked around his prospective +domain. He kicked a wild blackberry bush +aside, to look at the head of a stake, and tried +to realize that that would be the corner of his +house. He went to where the parlor fireplace +would be, and stared at the grass and stones, +wondering what it would be like to watch the +fire flickering on the new hearth. Then he +looked over toward the Hudson, and saw the +green woods on Union Hill and the top of a +white sail over the high river-bank. He +hoped that no one would build a large house +between him and the river.</p> + +<p>He lingered so long that the smoke of midday +dinners was arising from Greenwich Village +when he turned back toward town. When he +reached the Commons on his homeward way +he came across a knot of idlers who were wasting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21" href="#Page_21">[21]</a></span> +the hour of the noontide meal in gaping at +the unfinished municipal building.</p> + +<p>They were admiringly critical. One man +was vociferously enthusiastic.</p> + +<p>"It's a marvellous fine building, say I, sir! +Worthy of the classic shades of antiquity. If +Europe can show a finer than that will be +when she's done, then, in <i>my</i> opinion, sir, +Europe is doing well."</p> + +<p>"You admire the architecture, Mr. Huggins?" +asked Mr. Dolph, coming up behind him. +Mr. Huggins turned around, slightly disconcerted, +and assumed an amiability of manner +such as can only be a professional acquirement +among us poor creatures of human nature.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mr. Dolph—Colonel, I should say! I +have purposed to do myself the honor of presenting +myself at your house this afternoon, +Colonel Dolph, to inquire if you did not desire +to have your peruke <i>frisée</i>. For I had taken +the liberty of observing you in conversation +with Madam Des Anges this morning, in her +equipage, and it had occurred to me that possibly +the madam might be a-staying with you."</p> + +<p>"Madam Des Anges does not honor my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22" href="#Page_22">[22]</a></span> +house this time, Huggins," returned Mr. Dolph, +with an indulgent little laugh; "and my poor +old peruke will do very well for to-day."</p> + +<p>There was a perceptible diminution in Mr. +Huggins's ardor; but he was still suave.</p> + +<p>"I hope the madam is in good health," he +remarked.</p> + +<p>"She is, I believe," said Mr. Dolph.</p> + +<p>"And your good lady, sir? I have not had +the pleasure of treating Mrs. Dolph professionally +for some time, sir, I——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Dolph was wary. "I don't think Mrs. +Dolph is fond of the latest modes, Huggins. +But here comes Mr. Van Riper. Perhaps he +will have his peruke <i>frisée</i>."</p> + +<p>Mr. Huggins got out of a dancing-master's +pose with intelligent alacrity, bade Mr. Dolph +a hasty "Good-afternoon!" and hurried off +toward his shop, one door above Wall Street. +Mr. Van Riper did not like "John Richard +Desbrosses Huggins, Knight of the Comb."</p> + +<p>There was something else that Mr. Van +Riper did not like.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Dolph!" he hailed his friend. +"What's this I heard about you building a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23" href="#Page_23">[23]</a></span> +preposterous tom-fool of a town-house out by +Greenwich? Why don't you hire that house +that Burr had, up near Lispenard's cow-pasture, +and be done with it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Dolph seized his chance.</p> + +<p>"It's not so preposterous as all that. By +the way, talking of Burr, I hear from Richmond +that he'll positively be tried next week. +Did you know that young Irving—William's +son, the youngest, the lad that writes squibs—has +gone to Richmond for the defence?"</p> + +<p>"William Irving's son might be in better +business," grunted Mr. Van Riper, for a moment +diverted. "If we'd got at that devil +when he murdered poor Hamilton—'fore gad, +we'd have saved the trouble of trying him. +Do you remember when we was for going to +Philadelphia after him, and there the sly +scamp was at home all the time up in his fine +house, a-sitting in a tub of water, reading +French stuff, as cool as a cowcumber, with the +whole town hunting for him?" Then he came +back. "But that house of yours. You +haven't got this crazy notion that New York's +going to turn into London while you smoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24" href="#Page_24">[24]</a></span> +your pipe, have you? You're keeping some of +your seven business senses, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Mr. Dolph mildly defended +his hobby; "there is a great potentiality of +growth in this city. Here's an estimate that +John Pintard made the other day——"</p> + +<p>"John Pintard! He's another like <i>you</i>!" +said Mr. Van Riper.</p> + +<p>"Well, look at it for yourself," pleaded the +believer in New York's future.</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper took the neatly written +paper, and simply snorted and gasped as he +read this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Statistical</i>.</p> + +<p>By the numeration of the inhabitants of this city, recently +published, the progress of population for the last 5 years appears +to be at the rate of 25 per cent. Should our city continue +to increase in the same proportion during the present +century, the aggregate number at its close will far exceed that +of any other city in the Old World, Pekin not excepted, as +will appear from the following table. Progress of population +in the city of New York, computed at the rate of 25 per cent, +every 5 years:</p></div> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table summary="Population Estimates"> +<tr><td>1805</td><td align="right">75,770</td> + <td></td> + <td>1855</td><td align="right">705,650</td></tr> +<tr><td>1810</td><td align="right">95,715</td> + <td></td> + <td>1860</td><td align="right">882,062</td></tr> +<tr><td>1815</td><td align="right">110,390</td> + <td></td> + <td>1865</td><td align="right">1,102,577</td></tr> +<tr><td>1820</td><td align="right">147,987</td> + <td></td> + <td>1870</td><td align="right">1,378,221</td></tr> +<tr><td>1825</td><td align="right">184,923</td> + <td></td> + <td>1875</td><td align="right">1,722,776</td></tr> +<tr><td>1830</td><td align="right">231,228</td> + <td></td> + <td>1880</td><td align="right">2,153,470</td></tr> +<tr><td>1835</td><td align="right">289,035</td> + <td></td> + <td>1885</td><td align="right">2,691,837</td></tr> +<tr><td>1840</td><td align="right">361,293</td> + <td></td> + <td>1890</td><td align="right">3,364,796</td></tr> +<tr><td>1845</td><td align="right">451,616</td> + <td></td> + <td>1895</td><td align="right">4,205,995</td></tr> +<tr><td>1850</td><td align="right">564,520</td> + <td></td> + <td>1900</td><td align="right">5,257,493</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25" href="#Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> + +<p>When he had read it through he was a-quivering, +crimson with that rage of Conservative +indignation which is even more fervent than +the flames of Radical enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said; "there's seventy-five thousand +people in this town, and there'll be seventy-five +thousand bankrupts if this lunacy goes +on. And there's seventy-five thousand maggots +in your brain, and seventy-five thousand +in John Pintard's; and if you two live to see +nineteen hundred, you'll have twice five million +two hundred and fifty-seven thousand four +hundred and ninety-three—whatever that may +be!" And he thrust the paper back at Jacob +Dolph, and made for the Tontine and the society +of sensible men.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The house was built, in spite of Abram Van +Riper's remonstrance. It had a stone front, +almost flush with the road, and brick gable-ends, +in each one of which, high up near the +roof, stood an arched window, to lift an eyebrow +to the sun, morning and evening. But it +was only a country-house, after all; and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26" href="#Page_26">[26]</a></span> +Dolphs set up their carriage and drove out and +in, from June to September.</p> + +<p>There was a garden at the side, where Mrs. +Dolph could have the flowers her heart had +yearned after ever since Jacob Dolph brought +her from her home at Rondout, when she was +seventeen.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Strengthened by the country air—so they +said—young Jacob grew clean out of his dame-school +days and into and out of Columbia College, +and was sent abroad, a sturdy youth, to +have a year's holiday. It was to the new +house that he came back the next summer, +with a wonderful stock of fine clothes and of +finer manners, and with a pair of mustaches +that scandalized everybody but Madam Des +Anges, who had seen the like in France when she +visited her brother. And a very fine young buck +was young Jacob, altogether, with his knowledge +of French and his ignorance of Dutch, +and a way he had with the women, and another +way he had with the men, and his heirship +to old Jacob Dolph's money and his two houses.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27" href="#Page_27">[27]</a></span></p> + +<p>For they stayed in the old house until 1822.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>It was a close, hot night in the early summer; +there was a thick, warm mist that turned +now and then into a soft rain; yet every window +in the Dolphs' house on State Street was +closed.</p> + +<p>It had been a hideous day for New York. +From early morning until long after dark had +set in, the streets had been filled with frightened, +disordered crowds. The city was again +stricken with the old, inevitable, ever-recurring +scourge of yellow fever, and the people had +lost their heads. In every house, in every +office and shop, there was hasty packing, mad +confusion, and wild flight. It was only a question +of getting out of town as best one might. +Wagons and carts creaked and rumbled and +rattled through every street, piled high with +household chattels, up-heaped in blind haste. +Women rode on the swaying loads, or walked +beside with the smaller children in their arms. +Men bore heavy burdens, and children helped +according to their strength. There was only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28" href="#Page_28">[28]</a></span> +one idea, and that was flight—from a pestilence +whose coming might have been prevented, and +whose course could have been stayed. To +most of these poor creatures the only haven +seemed to be Greenwich Village; but some +sought the scattered settlements above; some +crossed to Hoboken; some to Bushwick; while +others made a long journey to Staten Island, +across the bay. And when they reached their +goals, it was to beg or buy lodgings anywhere +and anyhow; to sleep in cellars and garrets, in +barns and stables.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p028.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p028-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="230" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>The panic was not only among the poor and +ignorant. Merchants were moving their offices, +and even the Post Office and the Custom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29" href="#Page_29">[29]</a></span> +House were to be transferred to Greenwich. +There were some who remained faithful +throughout all, and who labored for the +stricken, and whose names are not even written +in the memory of their fellow-men. But the +city had been so often ravaged before, that at +the first sight there was one mere animal impulse +of flight that seized upon all alike.</p> + +<p>At one o'clock, when some of the better +streets had once more taken on their natural +quiet, an ox-cart stood before the door of the +Dolphs' old house. A little behind it stood +the family carriage, its lamps unlit. The +horses stirred uneasily, but the oxen waited +in dull, indifferent patience. Presently the +door opened, and two men came out and awkwardly +bore a plain coffin to the cart. Then +they mounted to the front of the cart, hiding +between them a muffled lantern. They wore +cloths over the lower part of their faces, and +felt hats drawn low over their eyes. Something +in their gait showed them to be seafaring men, +or the like.</p> + +<p>Then out of the open door came Jacob +Dolph, moving with a feeble shuffle between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30" href="#Page_30">[30]</a></span> +his son and his old negro coachman—this man +and his wife the only faithful of all the servants. +The young man put his father in the carriage, +and the negro went back and locked the +doors and brought the keys to his young master. +He mounted to the box, and through the darkness +could be seen a white towel tied around +his arm—the old badge of servitude's mourning.</p> + +<p>The oxen were started up, and the two vehicles +moved up into Broadway. They travelled +with painful slowness; the horses had to +be held in to keep them behind the cart, for +the oxen could be only guided by the whip, +and not by word of mouth. The old man +moaned a little at the pace, and quivered when +he heard the distant sound of hammers.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked, nervously.</p> + +<p>"They are boarding up some of the streets," +said his son; "do not fear, father. Everything +is prepared; and if we make no noise, we shall +not be troubled."</p> + +<p>"If we can only keep her out of the Potter's +Field—the Potter's Field!" cried the father; +"I'll thank God—I'll ask no more—I'll ask no +more!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31" href="#Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> + +<p>And then he broke down and cried a little, +feebly, and got his son's hand in the darkness +and put on his own shoulder.</p> + +<p>It was nearly two when they came to St. +Paul's and turned the corner to the gate. It +was dark below, but some frenzied fools were +burning tar-barrels far down Ann Street, and +the light flickered on the top of the church +spire. They crossed the churchyard to where +a shallow grave had been dug, half way down +the hill. The men lowered the body into it; +the old negro gave them a little <i>rouleau</i> of +coin, and they went hurriedly away into the +night.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p031.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p031-thumb.jpg" width="274" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>The clergyman came out by and by, with the +sexton behind him. He stood high up above +the grave, and drew his long cloak about him +and lifted an old pomander-box to his face. +He was not more foolish than his fellows; in +that evil hour men took to charms and to saying +of spells. Below the grave and apart, for +the curse rested upon them, too, stood Jacob +Dolph and his son, the old man leaning on the +arm of the younger. Then the clergyman began +to read the service for the burial of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" href="#Page_32">[32]</a></span> +dead, over the departed sister—and wife and +mother. He spoke low; but his voice seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33" href="#Page_33">[33]</a></span> +to echo in the stillness. He came forward with +a certain shrinking, and cast the handful of +dust and ashes into the grave. When it was +done, the sexton stepped forward and rapidly +threw in the earth until he had filled the little +hollow even with the ground. Then, with fearful +precaution, he laid down the carefully cut +sods, and smoothed them until there was no +sign of what had been done. The clergyman +turned to the two mourners, without moving +nearer to them, and lifted up his hands. The +old man tried to kneel; but his son held him +up, for he was too feeble, and they bent their +heads for a moment of silence. The clergyman +went away as he had come; and Jacob +Dolph and his son went back to the carriage. +When his father was seated, young Jacob +Dolph said to the coachman: "To the new +house."</p> + +<p>The heavy coach swung into Broadway, and +climbed up the hill out into the open country. +There were lights still burning in the farmhouses, +bright gleams to east and west, but +the silence of the damp summer night hung +over the sparse suburbs, and the darkness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34" href="#Page_34">[34]</a></span> +seemed to grow more intense as they drove +away from the city. The trees by the roadside +were almost black in the gray mist; the +raw, moist smell of the night, the damp air, +chilly upon the high land, came in through the +carriage windows. Young Jacob looked out +and noted their progress by familiar landmarks +on the road; but the old man sat with his head +bent on his new black stock.</p> + +<p>It was almost three, and the east was beginning +to look dark, as though a storm were settling +there in the grayness, when they turned +down the straggling street and drew up before +the great dark mass that was the new house. +The carriage-wheels gritted against the loose +stones at the edge of the roadway, and the +great door of the house swung open. The +light of one wavering candle-flame, held high +above her head, fell on the black face of old +Chloe, the coachman's wife. There were no +candles burning on the high-pitched stairway; +all was dark behind her in the empty house.</p> + +<p>Young Jacob Dolph helped his father to the +ground, and between the young man and the +negro old Jacob Dolph wearily climbed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35" href="#Page_35">[35]</a></span> +steps. Chloe lifted her apron to her face, and +turned to lead them up the stair. Her husband +went out to his horses, shutting the door +softly after him, between Jacob Dolph's old +life and the new life that was to begin in the +new house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="toc_link"><a href="#CONTENTS">[TOC]</a></span> +<a name="Chapter_II" id="Chapter_II"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" href="#Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> +<h2>II.</h2> + + +<p>When young Jacob Dolph came down +to breakfast the next morning he +found his father waiting for him in the breakfast-room. +The meal was upon the table. +Old Chloe stood with her black hands folded +upon her white apron, and her pathetic negro +eyes following the old gentleman as he moved +wistfully about the room.</p> + +<p>Father and son shook hands in silence, and +turned to the table. There were three chairs +in their accustomed places. They hesitated a +half-second, looking at the third great arm-chair, +as though they waited for the mistress +of the house to take her place. Then they +sat down. It was six years before any one +took that third chair, but every morning +Jacob Dolph the elder made that little pause +before he put himself at the foot of the table.</p> + +<p>On this first morning there was very little +said and very little eaten. But when they +had made an end of sitting at the table old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37" href="#Page_37">[37]</a></span> +Jacob Dolph said, with something almost like +testiness in his husky voice:</p> + +<p>"Jacob, I want to sell the house."</p> + +<p>"Father!"</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p037.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p037-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="376" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>"The old house, I mean; I shall never go +back there."</p> + +<p>His son looked at him with a further inquiry. +He felt a sudden new apprehension. +The father sat back in his easy-chair, drumming +on the arms with nervous fingers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38" href="#Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I shall never go back there," he said again.</p> + +<p>"Of course you know best, sir," said young +Jacob, gently; "but would it be well to be +precipitate? It is possible that you may feel +differently some time——"</p> + +<p>"There is no 'some time' for me!" broke +in the old man, gripping the chair-arms, +fiercely; "my time's done—done, sir!"</p> + +<p>Then his voice broke and became plaintively +kind.</p> + +<p>"There, there! Forgive me, Jacob, boy. +But it's true, my boy, true. The world's done, +for me; but there's a world ahead for you, my +son, thank God! I'll be patient—I'll be +patient. God has been good to me, and I +haven't many years to wait, in the course of +nature."</p> + +<p>He looked vacantly out of the window, trying +to see the unforeseen with his mental +sight.</p> + +<p>"While I'm here, Jacob, let the old man +have his way. It's a whimsey; I doubt 'tis +hardly rational. But I have no heart to go +home. Let me learn to live my life here. +'Twill be easier."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39" href="#Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But do you think it necessary to sell, sir? +Could you not hold the house? Are you certain +that you would like to have a stranger +living there?"</p> + +<p>"I care not a pin who lives within those +four walls now, sir!" cried the elder, with a +momentary return of his vehemence. "It's +no house to me now. Sell it, sir, sell it!—if +there's any one will give money for it at a time +like this. Bring every stick of furniture and +every stitch of carpet up here; and let me +have my way, Jacob—it won't be for long."</p> + +<p>He got up and went blindly out of the +room, and his son heard him muttering, "Not +for long—not for long, now," as he wandered +about the house and went aimlessly into room +after room.</p> + +<p>Old Jacob Dolph had always been an indulgent +parent, and none kinder ever lived. But +we should hardly call him indulgent to-day. +Good as he was to his boy, it had always been +with the goodness of a superior. It was the +way of his time. A half-century ago the +child's position was equivocal. He lived by +the grace of God and his parents, and their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40" href="#Page_40">[40]</a></span> +duty to him was rather a duty to society, born +of an abstract morality. Love was given him, +not as a right, but as an indulgence. And +young Jacob Dolph, in all his grief and anxiety, +was guiltily conscious of a secret thrill of +pleasure—natural enough, poor boy!—in his +sudden elevation to the full dignity of manhood, +and his father's abdication of the headship +of the house.</p> + +<p>A little later in the day, urged again by the +old gentleman, he put on his hat and went to +see Abram Van Riper. Mr. Van Riper was +now, despite his objections to the pernicious +institution of country-houses, a near neighbor +of the Dolphs. He had yielded, not to fashion, +but to yellow fever, and at the very first of +the outbreak had bought a house on the outskirts +of Greenwich Village, and had moved +there in unseemly haste. He had also registered +an unnecessarily profane oath that he +would never again live within the city limits.</p> + +<p>When young Jacob Dolph came in front of +the low, hip-roofed house, whose lower story +of undressed stone shone with fresh whitewash, +Mr. Van Riper stood on his stoop and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41" href="#Page_41">[41]</a></span> +checked his guest at the front gate, a dozen +yards away. From this distance he jabbed his +big gold-headed cane toward the young man, +as though to keep him off.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p041.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p041-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="392" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>"Stay there, sir—you, sir, you Jacob +Dolph!" he roared, brandishing the big stick. +"Stand back, I tell you! Don't come in, sir! +Good-day, sir—good-day, good-day, good-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42" href="#Page_42">[42]</a></span>day!" +(This hurried excursus was in deference +to a sense of social duty.) "Keep away, +confound you, keep away—consume your +body, sir, stay where you are!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not coming any nearer, Mr. Van +Riper," said Jacob Dolph, with a smile which +he could not help.</p> + +<p>"I can't have you in here, sir," went on Mr. +Van Riper, with no abatement of his agitation. +"I don't want to be inhospitable; but I've got +a wife and a son, sir, and you're infectious—damn +it, sir, you're infectious!"</p> + +<p>"I'll stay where I am, Mr. Van Riper," said +young Jacob, smiling again. "I only came +with a message from my father."</p> + +<p>"With a what?" screamed Mr. Van Riper. +"I can't have—oh, ay, a message! Well, say +it then and be off, like a sensible youngster. +Consume it, man, can't you talk farther out in +the street?"</p> + +<p>When Mr. Van Riper learned his visitor's +message, he flung his stick on the white pebbles +of the clam-shell-bordered path, and swore +that he, Van Riper, was the only sane man in +a city of lunatics, and that if Jacob Dolph tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43" href="#Page_43">[43]</a></span> +to carry out his plan he should be shipped +straightway to Bloomingdale.</p> + +<p>But young Jacob had something of his +father's patience, and, despite the publicity of +the interview, he contrived to make Mr. Van +Riper understand how matters stood. To tell +the truth, Van Riper grew quite sober and +manageable when he realized that his extravagant +imputation of insanity was not so wide +of the mark as it might have seemed, and that +there was a possibility that his old friend's +mind might be growing weak. He even ventured +a little way down the path and permitted +Jacob to come to the gate while they discussed +the situation.</p> + +<p>"Poor old Dolph—poor old Jacob!" he +groaned. "We must keep him out of the +hands of the sharks, that we must!" He did +not see young Jacob's irrepressible smile at +this singular extension of metaphor. "He +mustn't be allowed to sell that house in open +market—never, sir! Confound it, I'll buy it +myself before I'll see him fleeced!"</p> + +<p>In the end he agreed, on certain strict conditions +of precaution, to see young Jacob the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44" href="#Page_44">[44]</a></span> +next day and discuss ways and means to save +the property.</p> + +<p>"Come here, sir, at ten, and I'll see you in +the sitting-room, and we'll find out what we +can do for your father—curse it, it makes me +feel bad; by gad, it does! Ten to-morrow, +then—and come fumigated, young man, don't +you forget that—come fumigated, sir!"</p> + +<p>It was Van Riper who bought the property +at last. He paid eighteen thousand dollars for +it. This was much less than its value; but it +was more than any one else would have given +just at that time, and it was all that Van Riper +could afford. The transaction weighed on the +purchaser's mind, however. He had bought +the house solely out of kindness, at some momentary +inconvenience to himself; and yet it +looked as though he were taking advantage of +his friend's weakness. Abram Van Riper was +a man who cultivated a clear conscience, of a +plain, old-fashioned sort, and the necessity for +self-examination was novel and disagreeable to +him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Life lived itself out at Jacob Dolph's new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45" href="#Page_45">[45]</a></span> +house whether he liked it or not. The furniture +came up-town, and was somewhat awkwardly +disposed about its new quarters; and +in this unhomelike combination of two homes +old Mr. Dolph sat himself down to finish his +stint of life. He awoke each morning and +found that twenty-four hours of sleep and +waking lay before him, to be got through in +their regular order, just as they were lived +through by men who had an interest in living. +He went to bed every night, and crossed off +one from a tale of days of which he could not +know the length.</p> + +<p>Of course his son, in some measure, saved +his existence from emptiness. He was proud +of young Jacob—fond and proud. He looked +upon him as a prince of men, which he was, +indeed. He trusted absolutely in the young +man, and his trust was well placed. And he +knew that his boy loved him. But he had an +old man's sad consciousness that he was not +necessary to Jacob—that he was an adjunct, at +the best, not an integral part of this younger +existence. He saw Jacob the younger gradually +recovering from his grief for the mother who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46" href="#Page_46">[46]</a></span> +had left them; and he knew that even so would +Jacob some day recover from grief when his +father should have gone.</p> + +<p>He saw this; but it is doubtful if he felt it +acutely. Nature was gradually dulling his sensibilities +with that wonderful anæsthetic of +hers, which is so much kinder to the patient +than it is to his watching friends. After the +first wild freak of selling the house, he showed, +for a long time, no marked signs of mental impairment, +beyond his lack of interest in the +things which he had once cared about—even in +the growth of the city he loved. And in a +lonely and unoccupied man, sixty-five years of +age, this was not unnatural. It was not unnatural, +even, if now and then he was whimsical, +and took odd fancies and prejudices. But +nevertheless the work was going on within his +brain, little by little, day by day.</p> + +<p>He settled his life into an almost mechanical +routine, of which the most active part was his +daily walk down into the city. At first he +would not go beyond St. Paul's churchyard; +but after awhile he began to take timorous +strolls among the old business streets where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47" href="#Page_47">[47]</a></span> +his life had been passed. He would drop into +the offices of his old friends, and would read +the market reports with a pretence of great interest, +and then he would fold up his spectacles +and put them in their worn leather case, +and walk slowly out. He was always pleased +when one of the younger clerks bowed to him +and said, "Good-day, Mr. Dolph!"</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p047.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p047-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="325" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>It was in the fourth year of his widowhood +that he bethought himself of young Jacob's +need of a more liberal social life than he had +been leading. The boy went about enough;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48" href="#Page_48">[48]</a></span> +he was a good deal of a beau, so his father +heard; and there was no desirable house in the +town that did not welcome handsome, amiable +young Dolph. But he showed no signs of taking +a wife unto himself, and in those days the +bachelor had only a provisional status in +society. He was expected to wed, and the +whole circle of his friends chorused yearly a +deeper regret for the lost sheep, as time made +that detestable thing, an "old bachelor," of +him.</p> + +<p>Young Jacob was receiving many courtesies +and was making no adequate return. He felt +it himself, but he was too tender of his father's +changeless grief to urge him to open the great +empty house to their friends. The father, +however, felt that it was his duty to sacrifice +his own desire for solitude, and, when the winter +of 1825 brought home the city's wandering +children—there were not so many of the wandering +sort in 1825—he insisted that young +Jacob should give a dinner to his friends +among the gay young bachelors. That would +be a beginning; and if all went well they would +have an old maiden aunt from Philadelphia to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49" href="#Page_49">[49]</a></span> +spend the winter with them, and help them to +give the dinner parties which do not encourage +bachelorhood, but rather convert and reform +the coy celibate.</p> + +<p>The news went rapidly through the town. +The Dolph hospitality had been famous, and +this was taken for a signal that the Dolph +doors were to open again. There was great +excitement in Hudson Street and St. John's +Park. Maidens, bending over their tambour-frames, +working secret hopes and aspirations +in with their blossoming silks and worsted, +blushed, with faint speculative smiles, as +they thought of the vast social possibilities +of the mistress of the grand Dolph house. +Young bachelors, and old bachelors, too, rolled +memories of the Dolph Madeira over longing +tongues.</p> + +<p>The Dolph cellar, too, had been famous, and +just at that period New Yorkers had a fine and +fanciful taste in wine, if they had any self-respect +whatever.</p> + +<p>I think it must have been about then that +Mr. Dominick Lynch began his missionary +labors among the smokers and drinkers of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" href="#Page_50">[50]</a></span> +city; he who bought a vineyard in France and +the Vuelta Abajo plantations in Cuba, solely +to teach the people of his beloved New York +what was the positively proper thing in wines +and cigars. If it was not then, it could not +have been much later that Mr. Dolph had got +accustomed to receiving, every now and then, +an unordered and unexpected consignment of +wines or Havana cigars, sent up from Little +Dock Street—or what we call Water Street +now, the lower end of it. And I am sure that +he paid Mr. Lynch's bill with glowing pride; +for Mr. Lynch extended the evangelizing hand +of culture to none but those of pre-eminent +social position.</p> + +<p>It was to be quite a large dinner; but it was +noticeable that none of the young men who +were invited had engagements of regrettable +priority.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph the elder looked more interested +in life than he had looked in four years +when he stood on the hearthrug in the drawing-room +and received his son's guests. He +was a bold figure among all the young men, +not only because he was tall and white-haired,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51" href="#Page_51">[51]</a></span> +and for the moment erect, and of a noble and +gracious cast of countenance, but because he +clung to his old style of dress—his knee-breeches +and silk stockings, and his long coat, +black, for this great occasion, but of the "shadbelly" +pattern. He wore his high black stock, +too, and his snow-white hair was gathered behind +into a loose peruke.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p051.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p051-thumb.jpg" width="315" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</a> +</div> + +<p>The young men wore trousers, or pantaloons, +as they mostly called them, strapped under +their varnished boots. Their coats were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52" href="#Page_52">[52]</a></span> +cut like our dress-coats, if you can fancy them +with a wild amplitude of collar and lapel. +They wore large cravats and gaudy waistcoats, +and two or three of them who had been too +much in England came with shawls or rugs +around their shoulders.</p> + +<p>They were a fashionable lot of people, and +this was a late dinner, so they sat down at +six o'clock in the great dining-room—not the +little breakfast-room—with old Jacob Dolph at +one end of the table and young Jacob Dolph +at the other.</p> + +<p>It was a pleasant dinner, and the wine was +good, and the company duly appreciative, +although individually critical.</p> + +<p>Old Jacob Dolph had on his right an agreeable +French count, just arrived in New York, +who was creating a <i>furor</i>; and on his left was +Mr. Philip Waters, the oldest of the young +men, who, being thirty-five, had a certain consideration +for old age. But old Jacob Dolph +was not quite at his ease. He did not understand +the remarkable decorum of the young +men. He himself belonged to the age of +"bumpers and no heel taps," and nobody at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53" href="#Page_53">[53]</a></span> +his board to-night seemed to care about drinking +bumpers, even out of the poor, little, newfangled +claret-glasses, that held only a thimbleful +apiece. He had never known a lot of gentlemen, +all by themselves, to be so discreet. +Before the evening was over he became aware +of the fact that he was the only man who was +proposing toasts, and then he proposed them +no more.</p> + +<p>Things had changed since he was a young +buck, and gave bachelor parties. Why, he +could remember seeing his own good father—an +irreproachable gentleman, surely—lock the +door of his dining-room on the inside—ay, at +just such a dinner as this—and swear that no +guest of his should go out of that room sober. +And his word had been kept. Times were +changing. He thought, somehow, that these +young men needed more good port in their +veins.</p> + +<p>Toward the end of the festivities he grew silent. +He gave no more toasts, and drank no +more bumpers, although he might safely have +put another bottle or two under his broad +waistcoat. But he leaned back in his chair,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" href="#Page_54">[54]</a></span> +and rested one hand on the table, playing +with his wineglass in an absent-minded way. +There was a vague smile on his face; but +every now and then he knit his heavy gray +brows as if he were trying to work out some +problem of memory. Mr. Philip Waters and +the French count were talking across him; +he had been in the conversation, but he had +dropped out some time before. At last he +rose, with his brows knit, and pulled out his +huge watch, and looked at its face. Everybody +turned toward him, and, at the other end +of the table, his son half rose to his feet. He +put the watch back in his pocket, and said, in +his clear, deep voice: "Gentlemen, I think we +will rejoin the ladies."</p> + +<p>There was a little impulsive stir around the +table, and then he seemed to understand that +he had wandered, and a frightened look came +over his face. He tottered backward, and +swayed from side to side. Mr. Philip Waters +and the Frenchman had their arms behind +him before he could fall, and in a second or two +he had straightened himself up. He made a +stately, tremulous apology for what he called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55" href="#Page_55">[55]</a></span> +his "infelicitous absence of mind," and then he +marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one +to go with him.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p055.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p055-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="261" alt="And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one to go with him." title="" /> +</a><p class="caption">And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one to go with him.</p> +</div> + +<p>A little while later in the evening, Mr. +Philip Waters, walking down Broadway (which +thoroughfare was getting to have a fairly suburban +look), informed the French count that +in his, Mr. Waters's, opinion, young Jacob +Dolph would own that house before long.</p> + +<p>Young Jacob Dolph's father insisted on repetitions +of the bachelor dinner, but he never +again appeared in the great dining-room. +When there was a stag party he took his own +simple dinner at five o'clock and went to bed +early, and lay awake until his son had dismissed +the last mild reveller, and he could hear +the light, firm, young footstep mounting the +stairs to the bedroom door opposite his own.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>That was practically the end of it for old +Jacob Dolph. The maiden aunt, who had +been invited, was notified that she could not +come, for Mr. Dolph was not well enough to +open his house that winter. But it was delicately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56" href="#Page_56">[56]</a></span> +intimated to her that if he grew worse +she might still be sent for, and that alleviated +her natural disappointment. She liked to give +parties; but there is also a chastened joy for +some people in being at the head of a house of +mourning.</p> + +<p>Old Mr. Dolph grew no worse physically, except +that he was inclined to make his daily walks +shorter, and that he grew fonder of sitting at +home in the little breakfast-room, where the sun +shone almost all day long, and where Mrs. Dolph +had once been fond of coming to sew. Her little +square work-table of mahogany stood there +still. There the old gentleman liked to dine, +and often he dined alone. Young Jacob was in +great demand all over town, and his father +knew that he ought to go out and amuse himself. +And the young man, although he was +kind and loving, and never negligent in any +office of respect or affection, had that strong +youth in him which makes it impossible to sit +every day of the week opposite an old man +whose world had slipped by him, who knew +nothing of youth except to love it and wonder +at it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57" href="#Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the morning, before he went out for his +daily tramp into town, old Jacob would say to +young Jacob:</p> + +<p>"I suppose I shall see you at dinner, my +boy?"</p> + +<p>And young Jacob would say, "Yes, sir," or +"No, sir, I think not. Mrs. Des Anges was in +town yesterday, and she asked me to ride up +there to-day and dine. And Diana" (Diana +was his big black mare) "needs a little work; +she's getting badly out of condition. So, +if it doesn't matter to you, sir, I'll just +run up there and get back before the moon +sets."</p> + +<p>And the father would answer that it didn't +matter, and would send his best respects, +through Mrs. Des Anges at King's Bridge, to +Madam Des Anges at New Rochelle; and at +night he would sit down alone to his dinner in +the breakfast-room, served by old Chloe, who +did her humble best to tempt his appetite, +which was likely to be feeble when Master +Jacob was away.</p> + +<p>Master Jacob had taken to riding to King's +Bridge of late. Sometimes he would start out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58" href="#Page_58">[58]</a></span> +early in the morning, just about the time +when young Van Riper was plodding by on +his way to the shop. Young Van Riper liked +to be at the shop an hour earlier than his +father. Old Mr. Dolph was always up, on +these occasions, to see his son start off. He +loved to look at the boy, in his English riding-boots +and breeches, astride of black Diana, +who pranced and curvetted up the unpaved +road. Young Jacob had her well in hand, but +he gave her her head and let her play until +they reached Broadway, where he made her +strike a rattling regular pace until they got +well up the road; and then she might walk +up Bloomingdale way or across to Hickory +Lane.</p> + +<p>If he went up by the east he was likely to +dismount at a place which you can see now, +a little west and south of McComb's Dam +Bridge, where there is a bit of a rocky hollow, +and a sort of horizontal cleft in the rocks that +has been called a cave, and a water-washed +stone above, whose oddly shaped depression is +called an Indian's footprint. He would stop +there, because right in that hollow, as I can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59" href="#Page_59">[59]</a></span> +tell you myself, grew, in his time as in mine, +the first of the spring flowers. It was full of +violets once, carpeted fairly with the pale, delicate +petals.</p> + +<p>And up toward the west, on a bridle-path +between the hills and the river, as you came +toward Fort Washington, going to Tubby +Hook—we are refined nowadays, and Tubby +Hook is "Inwood"—Heaven help it!—there +were wonderful flowers in the woods. The +wind-flowers came there early, nestling under +the gray rocks that sparkled with garnets; and +there bloomed great bunches of Dutchman's-breeches—not +the thin sprays that come in +the late New England spring, but huge clumps +that two men could not enclose with linked +hands; great masses of scarlet and purple, and—mostly—of +a waxy white, with something +deathlike in their translucent beauty. There, +also, he would wade into the swamps around a +certain little creek, lured by a hope of the +jack-in-the-pulpit, to find only the odorous and +disappointing skunk-cabbage. And there the +woods were full of the aroma of sassafras, and +of birch tapped by the earliest woodpecker,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60" href="#Page_60">[60]</a></span> +whose drumming throbbed through the young +man's deep and tender musing.</p> + +<p>And—strange enough for a young man who +rides only to exercise his black mare—he never +came out of those woods without an armful of +columbine or the like. And—strange enough +for any young man in this world of strange +things—when he sat down at the table of Mrs. +Des Anges, in her pleasant house near Harlem +Creek, Miss Aline Des Anges wore a bunch of +those columbines at her throat. Miss Aline +Des Anges was a slim girl, not very tall, with +great dark eyes that followed some people with +a patient wistfulness.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>One afternoon, in May of 1827, young Jacob +found his father in the breakfast-room, and said +to him:</p> + +<p>"Father, I am going to marry Aline Des +Anges."</p> + +<p>His father, who had been dozing in the sun +by the south window, raised his eyes to his +son's face with a kindly, blank look, and said, +thoughtfully:</p> + +<p>"Des Anges. That's a good family, Jacob,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61" href="#Page_61">[61]</a></span> +and a wonderful woman, Madam Des Anges. +Is she alive yet?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>When Madam Des Anges, eighty years old, +and strong and well, heard of this, she said:</p> + +<p>"It is the etiquette of France that one family +should make the proposition to the other +family. Under the circumstances <i>I</i> will be the +family that proposes. I will make a precedent. +The Des Anges make precedents."</p> + +<p>And she rode down to the Dolph house in +the family carriage—the last time it ever went +out—and made her "proposition" to Jacob +Dolph the elder, and he brightened up most +wonderfully, until you would have thought +him quite his old self, and he told her what an +honor he esteemed the alliance, and paid her +compliments a hundred words long.</p> + +<p>And in May of the next year, King's Bridge +being out of the question, and etiquette being +waived at the universal demand of society, the +young couple stood up in the drawing-room of +the Dolph house to be wed.</p> + +<p>The ceremony was fashionably late—seven<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62" href="#Page_62">[62]</a></span> +o'clock in the evening. And after it was over, +and the young couple had digested what St. +Paul had to say about the ordinance of wedlock, +and had inaudibly promised to do and be +whatever the domine required of them, they +were led by the half-dozen groomsmen to the +long glass between the front windows, and +made to stand up there, with their faces toward +the company, and to receive the congratulations +of a mighty procession of friends, who +all used the same formulas, except the very +old ones, who were delicately indelicate.</p> + +<p>The bridegroom wore a blue coat and trousers, +and a white satin waistcoat embroidered +with silver-thread roses and lilies-of-the-valley. +The coat was lined with cream-colored satin, +quilted in a most elaborate pattern; and his +necktie was of satin, too, with embroidered +ends. His shirt was a miracle of fine linen. +As to the bride, she was in white satin and +lace, and at her throat she wore a little bunch +of late white columbines, for which Mr. Jacob +Dolph the younger had scoured the woods +near Fort Washington.</p> + +<p>There was to be a grand supper, later; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63" href="#Page_63">[63]</a></span> +the time of waiting was filled up with fashionable +conversation.</p> + +<p>That dear old doctor, who was then a dear +young doctor, and whose fine snow-crowned +face stood in later years as an outward and +visible sign of all that was brave, kindly, self-sacrificing, +and benevolent in the art of healing, +was seated by Madam Des Anges, and was +telling her, in stately phrase, suited to his +auditor, of a certain case of heroism with which +he had met in the course of his practice. Mr. +Blank, it appeared, had been bitten by a dog +that was supposed to be possessed by the rabies. +For months he had suffered the agonies +of mental suspense and of repeated cauterizing +of the flesh, and during those months had concealed +his case from his wife, that he might +spare her pain—suffering in silence enough to +unnerve most men.</p> + +<p>"It was heroic," said Dr. F.</p> + +<p>Madam Des Anges bowed her gray head approvingly.</p> + +<p>"I think," she said, "his conduct shows him +to be a man of taste. Had he informed his +wife of his condition, she might have experienced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64" href="#Page_64">[64]</a></span> +the most annoying solicitude; and I am +informed that she is a person of feeble character."</p> + +<p>The doctor looked at her, and then down at +the floor; and then he asked her if she did not +hope that Almaviva Lynch would bring Garcia +back again, with that marvellous Italian opera, +which, as he justly observed, captivated the +eye, charmed the ear, and awakened the profoundest +emotions of the heart.</p> + +<p>And at that Madam Des Anges showed +some animation, and responded that she had +listened to some pleasing operas in Paris; but +she did not know that they were of Italian origin.</p> + +<p>But if Madam Des Anges was surprised to +learn that any good thing could come out of +any other country than France, there was another +surprise in store for her, and it did not +long impend.</p> + +<p>It was only a little while after this that her +grandson-in-law, finding her on his right and +Abram Van Riper on his left—he had served +out his time as a statue in front of the mirror—thought +it proper to introduce to Madam<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65" href="#Page_65">[65]</a></span> +Des Anges his father's old friend, Mr. Van +Riper. Mr. Van Riper bowed as low as his +waistcoat would allow, and courteously observed +that the honor then accorded him he +had enjoyed earlier in the evening through the +kind offices of Mr. Jacob Dolph, senior.</p> + +<p>Madam Des Anges dandled her quizzing-glass +as though she meant to put it up to her +eye, and said, in a weary way:</p> + +<p>"Mr.—ah—Van Riper must pardon me. I +have not the power of remembering faces that +some people appear to have; and my eyes—my +eyes are not strong."</p> + +<p>Old Van Riper stared at her, and he turned +a turkey-cock purple all over his face, down to +the double chin that hung over his white neckerchief.</p> + +<p>"If your ladyship has to buy spectacles," he +sputtered, "it needn't be on my account."</p> + +<p>And he stamped off to the sideboard and +tried to cool his red-hot rage with potations +of Jamaica rum. There his wife found him. +She had drawn near when she saw him talking +with the great Madam Des Anges, and she +had heard, as she stood hard by and smiled unobtrusively,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66" href="#Page_66">[66]</a></span> +the end of that brief conversation. +Her face, too, was flushed—a more fiery red +than her flame-colored satin dress.</p> + +<p>She attacked him in a vehement whisper.</p> + +<p>"Van Riper, what are you doing? I'd almost +believe you'd had too much liquor, if I +didn't know you hadn't had a drop. Will you +ever learn what gentility is? D'ye want us to +live and die like toads in a hole? Here you +are with your ill manners, offending Madam +Des Anges, that everybody knows is the best +of the best, and there's an end of all likelihood +of ever seeing her and her folks, and two nieces +unmarried and as good girls as ever was, and +such a connection for your son, who hasn't +been out of the house it's now twelve months—except +to this very wedding here, and you've +no thought of your family when once you lose +that mighty fine temper of yours, that you're +so prodigious proud of; and where you'll end +us, Van Riper, is more than I know, I vow."</p> + +<p>But all she could get out of Van Riper was:</p> + +<p>"The old harridan! She'll remember my +name this year or two to come, I'll warrant ye!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" href="#Page_67">[67]</a></span></p><hr /> + +<p>It was all over at last, and old black Julius, +who had been acting as a combination of link-boy +and major-domo at the foot of the front +steps, extinguished his lantern, and went to +bed, some time before a little white figure +stole up the stairs and slipped into a door +that Chloe—black Chloe—held open.</p> + +<p>And the next day Jacob Dolph the elder +handed the young bride into the new travelling-carriage +with his stateliest grace, and Mr. +and Mrs. Jacob Dolph, junior, rolled proudly +up the road, through Bloomingdale, and across +King's Bridge—stopping for luncheon at the +Des Anges house—over to New Rochelle, +where the feminine head of the house of Des +Anges received them at her broad front door, +and where they had the largest room in her +large, old-fashioned house, for one night. +Madam Des Anges wished to keep them +longer, and was authoritative about it. But +young Jacob settled the question of supremacy +then and there, with the utmost courtesy, +and Madam Des Anges, being great enough to +know that she was beaten, sent off the victor +on the morrow, with his trembling accomplice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68" href="#Page_68">[68]</a></span> +by his side, and wished them <i>bon voyage</i> as +heartily as she possibly could.</p> + +<p>So they started afresh on their bridal tour, +and very soon the travelling carriage struck the +old Queen Anne's Road, and reached Yonkers. +And there, and from there up to Fishkill, they +passed from one country-house to another, +bright particular stars at this dinner and at +that supper, staying a day here and a night +there, and having just the sort of sociable, +public, restless, rattling good time that neither +of them wanted.</p> + +<p>At every country-house where they stayed a +day they were pressed to stay a week, and always +the whole neighborhood was routed out +to pay them social tribute. The neighbors +came in by all manner of conveyances. One +family of aristocrats started at six o'clock in +the morning, and travelled fourteen miles +down the river in an ox-cart, the ladies sitting +bolt upright, with their hair elaborately +dressed for the evening's entertainment. And +once a regular assembly ball was given in their +honor, at a town-hall, the use of which was +granted for the purpose specified by unanimous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69" href="#Page_69">[69]</a></span> +vote of the town council. Of course, +they had a very good time; but then there +are various sorts of good times. Perhaps they +might have selected another sort for themselves.</p> + +<p>There is a story that, on their way back, +they put up for several days at a poor little +hostelry under the hills below Peekskill, and +spent their time in wandering through the +woods and picking wild-flowers; but it lacks +confirmation, and I should be sorry to believe +that two well-brought-up young people would +prefer their own society to the unlimited hospitality +of their friends in the country.</p> + +<p>Old Jacob Dolph, at home, had the great +house all to himself; and, although black +Chloe took excellent care of his material comforts, +he was restless and troubled. He took +most pleasure in a London almanac, on whose +smudgy pages he checked off the days. Letters +came as often as the steamboat arrived +from Albany, and he read them, after his fashion. +It took him half the week to get through +one missive, and by that time another had arrived. +But I fear he did not make much out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70" href="#Page_70">[70]</a></span> +of them. Still, they gave him one pleasure. +He endorsed them carefully with the name of +the writer, and the date of receipt, and then he +laid them away in his desk, as neatly as he had +filed his business letters in his old days of active +life.</p> + +<p>Every night he had a candle alight in the +hallway; and if there were a far-off rumble of +carriage-wheels late at night, he would rise +from his bed—he was a light sleeper, in his age—and +steal out into the corridor, hugging his +dressing-robe about him, to peer anxiously +down over the balusters till the last sound and +the last faint hope of his son's return had died +away.</p> + +<p>And, indeed, it was late in July when the +travelling-carriage once more drew up in front +of the Dolph house, and old Julius opened the +door, and old Mr. Dolph welcomed them, and +told them that he had been very lonely in their +absence, and that their mother—and then he +remembered that their mother was dead, and +went into the house with his head bowed low.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="toc_link"><a href="#CONTENTS">[TOC]</a></span> +<a name="Chapter_III" id="Chapter_III"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71" href="#Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> +<h2>III.</h2> + + +<p>St. John's Park and Hudson Street and +all well-bred New York, for that matter, +had its fill of the Dolph hospitality the next +winter. It was dinner and ball and rout and +merry-making of one sort or another, the season +through. The great family sleighs and the +little bachelor sleighs whirred and jingled up +to the Dolph door surely two, and sometimes +four, evenings in every week, and whirred and +jingled away again at intensely fashionable +hours, such as plain folk used for sleeping.</p> + +<p>They woke up Abram Van Riper, did the revellers +northward bound to country houses on +the river-side, and, lying deep in his feather-bed, +he directed his rumbling imprecations at +the panes of glass, that sparkled with frost in +the mild moonlight.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, come, maidens, come, o'er the blue, rolling wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lovely should still be the care of the brave—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trancadillo, trancadillo, trancadillo, dillo, dillo, dillo!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72" href="#Page_72">[72]</a></span>sang the misguided slaves of fashion, as they +sped out of hearing.</p> + +<p>"Trancadillo!" rumbled Mr. Van Riper. +"I'd like to trancadillo them, consume 'em!" +and then he cursed his old friend's social circle +for a parcel of trumpery fools; and Mrs. Van +Riper, lying by his side, sighed softly with +chastened regret and hopeless aspiration.</p> + +<p>But everybody else—everybody who was +anybody—blessed the Dolphs and the Dolphs' +cellar, and their man-servant and their maid-servant, +and their roasted ox and their saddle +of venison, and the distinguished stranger who +was within their gates; and young Mrs. Dolph +was made as welcome as she made others.</p> + +<p>For the little girl with the great dark eyes +took to all this giddiness as naturally as possible—after +her quiet fashion. The dark eyes +sparkled with subdued pleasure that had no +mean pride in it when she sat at the head of +her great mahogany table, and smiled at the +double row of bright faces that hemmed in the +gorgeous display of the Dolph silver and china +and fine linen. And it was wonderful how +charming were the famous Des Anges manners,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73" href="#Page_73">[73]</a></span> +when they were softened and sweetened +by so much grace and beauty.</p> + +<p>"Who would have thought she had it in +her?" said the young ladies down in St. John's +Park. "You remember her, don't you, what a +shy little slip of a thing she was when we were +at old Dumesnil's together? Who was it used +to say that she had had the life grandmothered +out of her?"</p> + +<p>"Fine little creature, that wife of Dolph's," +said the young men as they strolled about in +Niblo's Garden. "Dolph wouldn't have had +the road all to himself if that old dragon of a +grandmother had given the girl half a chance. +'Gad, she's an old grenadier! They say that +Dolph had to put her through her facings the +day after he was married, and that he did it +in uncommon fine style, too."</p> + +<p>"He's a lucky devil, that Dolph," the +younger ones would sigh. "Nothing to do, +all the money he wants, pretty wife, and the +best wine in New York! I wish <i>my</i> old man +would cut the shop and try to get an education +in wine."</p> + +<p>Their devotion to the frivolities of fashion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74" href="#Page_74">[74]</a></span> +notwithstanding, the young Dolphs were a loving, +and, in a way, a domestic couple. Of +course, everybody they knew had to give them +a dinner or a ball, or pay them some such social +tribute, and there were a myriad calls to +be received and returned; but they found time +for retired communings, even for long drives +in the sleigh which, many a time in young +Jacob Dolph's bachelor days, had borne the +young man and a female companion—not always +the same companion, either—up the +Bloomingdale Road. And in the confidences +of those early days young Jacob learned what +his gentle little wife told him—without herself +realizing the pathos of it—the story of her +crushed, unchildlike youth, loveless till he +came, her prince, her deliverer. Dolph understood +it; he had known, of course, that she +could not have been happy under the <i>régime</i> +of Madam Des Anges; but when he heard the +simple tale in all its monotonous detail, and +saw spread out before him this poor young +life, with its thousand little disappointments, +submissions, abnegations, and undeserved punishments +and needless restrictions, a generous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75" href="#Page_75">[75]</a></span> +rage glowed in his heart, and perhaps sprang +once in a while to his indiscreet lips; and out +of this grew a deeper and maturer tenderness +than his honeymoon love for the sweet little +soul that he had at first sought only for the +dark eyes through which it looked out upon +its joyless world.</p> + +<p>It is unwise to speak in profane language, it +is injudicious to speak disrespectfully of old +age, yet the Recording Angel, if he did not see +fit to let a tear fall upon the page, perchance +found it convenient to be mending his pen +when young Jacob Dolph once uttered certain +words that made his wife cry out:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jacob, don't, <i>please</i> don't. She didn't +mean it!"</p> + +<p>This is only a supposition. Perhaps Madam +Des Anges really had meant well. But oh, +how much happier this world would be if all +the people who "mean well" and do ill would +only take to meaning ill and doing well!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Jacob Dolph the elder took but a doubtful +part in all the festivities. The cloud that had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76" href="#Page_76">[76]</a></span> +hung dimly over him had begun to show little +rifts; but the dark masses between the rifts +were thicker and heavier than ever. It was +the last brief convulsive struggle of the patient +against the power of the anæsthetic, when the +nervous hand goes up to put the cloth away +from the mouth, just before the work is done +and consciousness slips utterly away, and life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77" href="#Page_77">[77]</a></span> +is no more for the sufferer, though his heart +beat and the breath be warm between his +lips.</p> + +<p>When he was bright he was almost like his +old self, and these delusive periods came oftenest +when he met some old friend, or in quiet +morning hours when his daughter—so he always +called her—sat at his feet in the sunny +breakfast-room, and sewed and listened, or perhaps +read to him from Scott's latest novel.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p077.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p077-thumb.jpg" width="362" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> + +<p>He may have had some faint sub-consciousness +of his condition, for although he took the +deepest interest in the balls and the dinners, +he would never appear before his son's guests +except when he was at his best and brightest. +But he loved to sit, withdrawn in a corner, +watching the young life that fluttered through +the great rooms, smiling to himself, and gently +pleased if some old crony sought him out and +talked of old times—the older the times were, +the better he remembered them. Indeed, he +now recalled some things that he had not +thought of since his far-off boyhood.</p> + +<p>In truth, the younger Dolphs often had +small heart in their festal doings. But the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78" href="#Page_78">[78]</a></span> +medical science of the day, positive, self-satisfied, +and blinded by all manner of tradition, +gave them, through its ministers, cruelly false +hopes of the old man's ultimate recovery. +Besides, they could not well order things otherwise. +The extravagant hospitality of the day +demanded such ceremonial, and to have abated +any part of it would only have served to grieve +and to alarm the object of their care.</p> + +<p>The whole business was a constant pride and +joy to old Mr. Jacob Dolph. When there was +a dinner to be given, he would follow Aline as +she went about the house superintending the +preparations of her servants, in her flowered +apron of black silk, with her bunch of keys—honest +keys, those, a good four inches long, +with tongues as big as a domino—jingling at +her side. He would himself overlook the making +ready of the wines, and give oft-repeated +instructions as to the proper temperature for +the port, and see that the champagne was put +on ice in the huge octagonal cellaret in the +dining-room corner. And when all was ready, +as like as not he would kiss Aline on the forehead, +and say:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79" href="#Page_79">[79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have a headache to-night, my dear, and +I think I shall take my dinner in my room."</p> + +<p>And he would go feebly up stairs, and when +old Julius, who always waited upon him, +brought up his tray, he would ask:</p> + +<p>"Is it a fine dinner, Julius? Did everybody +come?"</p> + +<p>And Julius would invariably reply, with profound +African dignity:</p> + +<p>"Mons'us gran' dinneh, seh! 'E fines' dinneh +I eveh witness', seh! I have stood behin' +you' chai', seh, this thutty y'ah, an' I neveh see +no such a gran' dinneh, Misteh Do'ph, seh!"</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p079.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p079-thumb.jpg" width="286" height="400" alt="Mons'us gran' dinneh, Seh!" title="" /> +</a><p class="caption">"Mons'us gran' dinneh, Seh!"</p> +</div> + +<p>"Except the dinner we gave Mr. Hamilton; in +State Street, Julius," the old man would put in.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ex</i>cep' that, seh," Julius would gravely +reply: "<i>that</i> was a pol-litical dinneh, seh; an', +<i>of</i> co'se, a pol'litical dinneh—" an expressive +pause—"but this he' is sho'ly a mons'us fine +dinneh, seh."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>His bodily vigor was unimpaired, however, +and except that his times of entire mental +clearness grew fewer and briefer as the months<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80" href="#Page_80">[80]</a></span> +went on, there was little change in the old gentleman +when the spring of 1829 came. He +was not insane, he was not idiotic, even at the +worst. It seemed to be simply a premature +old age that clouded his faculties. He forgot +many things, he was weakly absent-minded, +often he did not recognize a familiar face, and he +seemed ever more and more disinclined to think +and to talk. He liked best to sit in silence, +seemingly unconscious of the world about him; +and if he was aroused from his dreamy trance, +his wandering speech would show that his last +thought—and it might have entered his mind +hours before, at the suggestion of some special +event—was so far back in the past that it dealt +with matters beyond his son's knowledge.</p> + +<p>He was allowed to do as he pleased, for in +the common affairs of daily life he seemed to +be able to care for himself, and he plaintively +resented anything that looked like guardianship. +So he kept up his custom of walking +down into the city, at least as far as St. Paul's. +It was thought to be safe enough, for he was +a familiar figure in the town, and had friends +at every turn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81" href="#Page_81">[81]</a></span></p> + +<p>But one afternoon he did not return in time +for dinner. Young Jacob was out for his afternoon +ride, which that day had taken him in +the direction of the good doctor's house. And +when he had reached the house, he found the +doctor likewise mounted for a ride. The doctor +was going up to Bond Street—the Dolphs' +quarter was growing fashionable already—to +look at a house near Broadway that he had +some thoughts of buying, for he was to be +married the coming winter. So they had ridden +back together, and after a long examination +of the house, young Jacob had ridden off +for a gallop through the country lanes; and it +was five o'clock, and dinner was on the table, +when he came to his father's house and +learned from tearful Aline that his father was +missing.</p> + +<p>The horse was at the stable door when young +Jacob mounted him once more and galloped +off to Bond Street, where he found the doctor +just ready to turn down the Bowery; and they +joined forces and hurried back, and down +Broadway, inquiring of the people who sat on +their front stoops—it was a late spring evening,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82" href="#Page_82">[82]</a></span> +warm and fair—if they had seen old Mr. +Dolph that day.</p> + +<p>Many had seen him as he went down; but +no one could remember that the old gentleman +had come back over his accustomed <ins class="correction" id="Note_1" title="Transcriber's note: period inserted">path.</ins> At +St. Paul's, the sexton thought that Mr. Dolph +had prolonged his walk down the street. Further +on, some boys had seen him, still going +southward. The searchers stopped at one or +two of the houses where he might have called; +but there was no trace of him. It was long +since old Jacob Dolph had made a formal call.</p> + +<p>But at Bowling Green they were hailed by +Mr. Philip Waters, who came toward them +with more excitement in his mien than a +young man of good society often exhibited.</p> + +<p>"I was going for a carriage, Dolph," he +said: "your father is down there in the Battery +Park, and I'm afraid—I'm afraid he's had +a stroke of paralysis."</p> + +<p>They hurried down, and found him lying on +the grass, his head on the lap of a dark-skinned, +ear-ringed Spanish sailor. He had been seen +to fall from the bench near by, another maritime +man in the crowd about him explained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83" href="#Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It was only a minit or two ago," said the +honest seafarer, swelled with the importance +that belongs to the narrator of a tale of accident +and disaster. "He was a-settin' there, +had been for two hours 'most, just a-starin' at +them houses over there, and all of a sudden +chuck forward he went, right on his face. And +then a man come along that knowed him, and +said he'd go for a kerridge, or I'd 'a' took +him on my sloop—she's a-layin' here now, with +onions from Weathersfield—and treated him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84" href="#Page_84">[84]</a></span> +well; I see he wa'n't no disrespectable character. +Here, Pedro, them's the old man's folks—let +'em take him. A-settin' there nigh on +two hours, he was, just a-studyin' them +houses. B'long near here?"</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p084.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p084-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="341" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> + +<p>Young Jacob had no words for the Connecticut +captain. Waters had arrived, with somebody's +carriage, confiscated on the highway, +and they gently lifted up the old gentleman +and set off homeward. They were just in time, +for Waters had been the earliest of the evening +promenaders to reach the Battery. It was +dinner hour—or supper hour for many—and +the park was given up to the lounging sailors +from the river-side streets.</p> + +<p>The doctor's face was dark.</p> + +<p>"No, it is not paralysis," he said. "Let us +proceed at once to your own home, Mr. Dolph. +In view of what I am now inclined to consider +his condition, I think it would be the most advisable +course."</p> + +<p>He was as precise and exact in his speech, +even then, as he was later on, when years had +given an innocent, genial pomposity to his delivery +of his rounded sentences.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85" href="#Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> + +<p>They put old Jacob Dolph to bed in the +room which he had always occupied, in his +married as in his widowed days. He never +spoke again; that day, indeed, he hardly +moved. But on the next he stirred uneasily, +as though he were striving to change his position. +The doctor bled him, and they shifted +him as best they could, but he seemed no +more comfortable. So the doctor bled him +again; and even that did no good.</p> + +<p>About sunset, Aline, who had watched over +him with hardly a moment's rest, left the room +for a quarter of an hour, to listen to what the +doctors had to say—there were four of them +in the drawing-room below. When she and +her husband entered the sick-room again, the +old man had moved in his bed. He was lying +on his side, his face to the windows that +looked southward, and he had raised himself a +little on his arm. There was a troubled gaze +in his eyes, as of one who strains to see something +that is unaccountably missing from his +sight. He turned his head a little, as though +to listen. Thus gazing, with an inward and +spiritual vision only, at the bay that his eyes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86" href="#Page_86">[86]</a></span> +might never again see, and listening to the +waves whose cadence he should hear no more, +the troubled look faded into one of inscrutable +peace, and he sank back into the hollow of his +son's arm and passed away.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The next time that the doctor was in the +house it was of a snowy night a few days after +New Year's Day. It was half-past two o'clock +in the morning, and Jacob Dolph—no longer +Jacob Dolph the younger—had been pacing +furiously up and down the long dining-room—that +being the longest room in the house—when +the doctor came down stairs, and addressed +him with his usual unruffled precision:</p> + +<p>"I will request of you, Dolph, a large glass +of port. I need not suggest to you that it is +unnecessary to stint the measure, for the hospitality +of this house is——"</p> + +<p>"How is she, doctor? For God's sake, tell +me—is she—is she——"</p> + +<p>"The hospitality of this house is prover—" +the precise doctor recommenced.</p> + +<p>"Damn the hospitality!" cried Jacob Dolph:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87" href="#Page_87">[87]</a></span> +"I mean—oh, doctor—tell me—is anything +wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Should I request of you the cup of amity +and geniality, Mr. Dolph, were there cause for +anything save rejoicing in this house?" demanded +the physician, with amiable severity. +"I had thought that my words would have +conveyed——"</p> + +<p>"It's all over?"</p> + +<p>"And bravely over!" And the doctor nodded +his head with a dignified cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"And may I go to her?"</p> + +<p>"You may, sir, after you have given me my +glass of port. But remember, sir——"</p> + +<p>Dolph turned to the sideboard, grasped a +bottle and a glass, and thrust them into the +doctor's hand, and started for the door.</p> + +<p>"But remember, sir," went on the unperturbed +physician, "you must not agitate or excite +her. A gentle step, a tranquil tone, and +a cheerful and encouraging address, brief and +affectionate, will be all that is permitted."</p> + +<p>Dolph listened in mad impatience, and was +over the threshold before the doctor's peremptory +call brought him back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88" href="#Page_88">[88]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<span class="floatl"> +<a href="images/ill-p088.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p088-thumb.jpg" width="273" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</a></span> +"What is it now?" he demanded, impatiently.</p> + +<p>The doctor looked at him with a gaze of +wonder and reproach.</p> + +<p>"It is a male +child, sir," he +said.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph +crept up the +stairs on tiptoe. +As he paused +for a moment +in front of a +door at the +head, he heard +the weak, spasmodic +wail of +another Dolph.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>"There's no help for it—I've got to do it," +said Jacob Dolph.</p> + +<p>It was another wintry morning, just after +breakfast. The snow was on the ground, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89" href="#Page_89">[89]</a></span> +the sleigh-bells up in Broadway sent down a +faint jingling. Ten winters had come and +gone, and Mr. Dolph was as comfortably stout +as a man should be who is well fed and forty. +He stood with his back to the fire, pulling at +his whiskers—which formed what was earlier +known as a Newgate collar—with his right +thumb and forefinger. His left thumb was +stuck in the armhole of his flowered satin +waistcoat, black and shiny.</p> + +<p>Opposite him sat a man of his own age, +clean-shaven and sharp-featured. He had +calm, somewhat cold, gray eyes, a deliberate, +self-contained manner of speaking, and a pallid, +dry complexion that suited with his thin features. +His dress was plain, although it was +thoroughly neat. He had no flowered satin +waistcoat; but something in his bearing told +you that he was a man who had no anxiety +about the narrow things of the counting-room; +who had no need to ask himself how much +money was coming in to-morrow. And at the +same time you felt that every cent of whatever +might be to-morrow's dues would find its way +to his hands as surely as the representative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90" href="#Page_90">[90]</a></span> +figures stood on his ledger's page. It was +young Mr. Van Riper—but he, too, had lost +his right to that title, not only because of his +years, but because, in the garret of the house +in Greenwich Village, a cobweb stretched from +one of the low beams to the head of old +Abram Van Riper's great walking-stick, which +stood in the corner where it had been placed, +with other rubbish, the day after Abram Van +Riper's funeral.</p> + +<p>"I should not advise it, Dolph, if it can be +helped," Mr. Van Riper observed, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"It can't be helped."</p> + +<p>"I can give you your price, of course," Van +Riper went on, with deliberation; "but equally +of course, it won't be anything like what the +property will bring in the course of a few +years."</p> + +<p>Dolph kicked at the hearthrug, as he answered, +somewhat testily:</p> + +<p>"I'm not making a speculation of it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper was unmoved.</p> + +<p>"And I'm not making a speculation of you, +either," he said, calmly: "I am speaking only +for your own benefit, Dolph."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91" href="#Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Dolph put his hands in his pockets, +strode to the window and back again, and then +said, with an uneasy little laugh:</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Van Riper; you're quite +right, of course. The fact is, I've got to do it. +I must have the money, and I must have it +now."</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper stroked his sharp chin.</p> + +<p>"Is it necessary to raise the money in that +particular way? You are temporarily embarrassed—I +don't wish to be intrusive—but why +not borrow what you need, and give me a +mortgage on the house?"</p> + +<p>Ten years had given Jacob Dolph a certain +floridity; but at this he blushed a hot red.</p> + +<p>"Mortgage on the house? No, sir," he said, +with emphasis.</p> + +<p>"Well, any other security, then," was Van +Riper's indifferent amendment.</p> + +<p>Again Jacob Dolph strode to the window +and back again, staring hard at the carpet, and +knitting his brows.</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper waited in undisturbed calm +until his friend spoke once more.</p> + +<p>"I might as well tell you the truth, Van<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92" href="#Page_92">[92]</a></span> +Riper," he said, at last; "I've made a fool of +myself. I've lost money, and I've got to +pocket the loss. As to borrowing, I've borrowed +all I ought to borrow. I <i>won't</i> mortgage +the house. This sale simply represents +the hole in my capital."</p> + +<p>Something like a look of surprise came into +Mr. Van Riper's wintry eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's none of my business, of course," he +observed; "but if you haven't any objection +to telling me——"</p> + +<p>"What did it? What does for everybody +nowadays? Western lands and Wall Street—that's +about the whole story. Oh, yes, I know—I +ought to have kept out of it. But I +didn't. I was nothing better than a fool at +such business. I'm properly punished."</p> + +<p>He sighed as he stood on the hearthrug, +his hands under his coat-tails, and his head +hanging down. He looked as though many +other thoughts were going through his mind +than those which he expressed.</p> + +<p>"I wish," he began again, "that my poor old +father had brought me up to business ways. +I might have kept out of it all. College is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93" href="#Page_93">[93]</a></span> +good thing for a man, of course; but college +doesn't teach you how to buy lots in western +cities—especially when the western cities +aren't built."</p> + +<p>"College teaches you a good many other +things, though," said Van Riper, frowning +slightly, as he put the tips of his long fingers +together; "I wish I'd had your chance, +Dolph. <i>My</i> boy shall go to Columbia, that's +certain."</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> boy?" queried Dolph, raising his +eyebrows.</p> + +<p>Van Riper smiled.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "my boy. You didn't +know I had a boy, did you? He's nearly a +year old."</p> + +<p>This made Mr. Jacob Dolph kick at the rug +once more, and scowl a little.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I haven't been very neighborly, +Van Riper—" he began; but the other interrupted +him, smiling good-naturedly.</p> + +<p>"You and I go different ways, Dolph," he +said. "We're plain folks over in Greenwich +Village, and you—you're a man of fashion."</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph smiled—not very mirthfully.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94" href="#Page_94">[94]</a></span> +Van Riper's gaze travelled around the room, +quietly curious.</p> + +<p>"It costs money to be a man of fashion, +doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Dolph, "it does."</p> + +<p>There was silence for a minute, which Van +Riper broke.</p> + +<p>"If you've got to sell, Dolph, why, it's a +pity; but I'll take it. I'll see Ogden to-day, and +we can finish the business whenever you wish. +But in my opinion, you'd do better to borrow."</p> + +<p>Dolph shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I've been quite enough of a fool," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Van Riper, rising, "I must +get to the office. You'll hear from Ogden to-morrow. +I'm sorry you've got in such a +snarl; but—" his lips stretched into something +like a smile—"I suppose you'll know better +next time. Good-day."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>After Mr. Dolph had bowed his guest to +the door, Mrs. Dolph slipped down the stairs +and into the drawing-room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95" href="#Page_95">[95]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Did he take it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Of course he took it," Dolph answered, +bitterly, "at that price."</p> + +<p>"Did he say anything," she inquired again, +"about its being hard for us to—to sell it?"</p> + +<p>"He said we had better not sell it now—that +it would bring more a few years hence."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't understand," said Mrs. Dolph.</p> + +<p>"He <i>couldn't</i> understand," said Mr. Dolph.</p> + +<p>Then she went over to him and kissed +him.</p> + +<p>"It's only selling the garden, after all," she +said; "it isn't like selling our home."</p> + +<p>He put his arm about her waist, and they +walked into the breakfast-room, and looked out +on the garden which to-morrow would be +theirs no longer, and in a few months would +not be a garden at all.</p> + +<p>High walls hemmed it in—the walls of the +houses which had grown up around them. A +few stalks stood up out of the snow, the stalks +of old-fashioned flowers—hollyhock and larkspur +and Job's-tears and the like—and the +lines of the beds were defined by the tiny +hedges of box, with the white snow-powder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96" href="#Page_96">[96]</a></span> +sifted into their dark, shiny green. The bare +rose-bushes were there, with their spikes of +thorns, and little mounds of snow showed +where the glories of the poppy-bed had +bloomed.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph, looking out, saw the clear +summer sunlight lying where the snow lay +now. He saw his mother moving about the +paths, cutting a flower here and a bud there. +He saw himself, a little boy in brave breeches, +following her about, and looking for the harmless +toads, and working each one into one of +the wonderful legends which he had heard +from the old German gardener across the way. +He saw his father, too, pacing those paths of +summer evenings, when the hollyhocks nodded +their pink heads, and glancing up, from time +to time, at his mother as she sat knitting at +that very window. And, last of all in the line, +yet first in his mind, he saw his wife tripping +out in the fresh morning, to smile on the flowers +she loved, to linger lovingly over the beds +of verbena, and to pick the little nosegay that +stood by the side of the tall coffee-urn at every +summer-morning breakfast.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97" href="#Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> + +<p>And the wife, looking out by his side, saw +that splendid boy of theirs running over path +and bed, glad of the flowers and the air and +the freedom, full of young life and boyish +sprightliness, his long hair floating behind him, +the light of hope and youth in his bright face.</p> + +<p>And to-morrow it would be Van Riper's; +and very soon there would be houses there, to +close up the friendly window which had seen +so much, which had let so much innocent joy +and gladness into the old breakfast-room; and +there would be an end of flower-bordered +paths and nodding hollyhocks. She put her +face upon her husband's shoulder, and cried a +little, though he pretended not to know it. +When she lifted it, somehow she had got her +eyes dry, though they were painfully bright +and large.</p> + +<p>"It isn't like selling our house," she <ins class="correction" id="Note_2" title="Transcriber's note: period inserted">said.</ins></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="toc_link"><a href="#CONTENTS">[TOC]</a></span> +<a name="Chapter_IV" id="Chapter_IV"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98" href="#Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> +<h2>IV.</h2> + + +<p>Jacob Dolph got out of the Broadway +stage at Bowling Green, followed by Eustace +Dolph. Eustace Dolph at twenty-two +was no more like his father than his patrician +name was like simple and scriptural Jacob. +The elder Dolph was a personable man, certainly; +a handsome man, even, who looked to +be nearer forty than fifty-two; and he was well +dressed—perhaps a trifle out of the mode—and +carried himself with a certain genial dignity, +and with the lightness of a man who has not +forgotten that he has been a buck in his time. +But Eustace was distinctly and unmistakably +a dandy. There are superficial differences, of +course, between the dandy of 1852 and the +dandy of 1887; but the structural foundation +of all types of dandy is the same through all +ages. Back of the clothes—back of the ruffles, +or the bright neckcloth, or the high pickardil—which +may vary with the time or the individual, +you will ever find clearly displayed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99" href="#Page_99">[99]</a></span> +your eyes the obvious and unmistakable spiritual +reason for and cause of the dandy—and it +is always self-assertion pushed beyond the +bounds of self-respect.</p> + +<p>Now, as a matter of fact, young Eustace's +garments were not really worse than many a +man has worn from simple, honest bad taste. +To be sure, the checked pattern of his trousers +was for size like the design of a prison grating; +he had a coat so blue that it shimmered in the +sunlight; his necktie was of purple satin, and +fearfully and wonderfully made and fringed, +and decked with gems fastened by little gold +chains to other inferior guardian gems; and +his waistcoat was confected of satin and velvet +and damask all at once; yet you might +have put all these things on his father, and, +although the effect would not have been pleasant, +you would never have called the elder gentleman +a dandy. In other words, it was <ins class="correction" id="Note_3" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'Why'">why</ins> +young Eustace wore his raiment that made it +dandified, and not the inherent gorgeousness +of the raiment itself.</p> + +<p>The exchange of attire might readily have +been made, so far as the size of the two men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100" href="#Page_100">[100]</a></span> +was concerned. But only in size were they +alike. There was nothing of the Dolph in +Eustace's face. He bore, indeed, a strong resemblance +to his maternal great-grandmother, +now many years put away where she could no +longer trouble the wicked, and where she had +to let the weary be at rest. (And how poor +little Aline had wept and wailed over that +death, and lamented that she had not been +more dutiful as a child!) But his face was not +strong, as the face of Madam Des Anges had +been. Some strain of a weaker ancestry reappeared +in it, and, so to speak, changed the +key of the expression. What had been pride in +the old lady bordered on superciliousness in the +young man. What had been sternness became +a mere haughtiness. Yet it was a handsome +face, and pleasant, too, when the young smile +came across it, and you saw the white small teeth +and the bright, intelligent light in the dark eyes.</p> + +<p>The two men strolled through the Battery, +and then up South Street, and so around +through Old Slip. They were on business; +but this was also a pleasure trip to the elder. +He walked doubly in spirit through those old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101" href="#Page_101">[101]</a></span> +streets—a boy by his father's side, a father +with his son at his elbow. He had not been +often in the region of late years. You remember, +he was a man of pleasure. He was one +of the first-fruits of metropolitan growth and +social culture. His father had made an idler +and <i>dilettante</i> of him. It was only half a life +at best, he thought, happy as he had been; +blessed as he was in wife and child. He was +going to make a business man of his own boy. +After all, it was through the workers that great +cities grew. Perhaps we were not ripe yet for +that European institution, the idler. He himself +had certain accomplishments that other +Americans had not. He could <i>flâner</i>, for +instance. But to have to <i>flâner</i> through fifty +or sixty or seventy years palled on the spirit, +he found. And one thing was certain, if any +Dolph was ever to be an accomplished <i>flâneur</i>, +and to devote his whole life to that occupation, +the Dolph fortune must be vastly increased. +Old Jacob Dolph had miscalculated. The sum +he had left in 1829 might have done very well +for the time, but it was no fortune to idle on +among the fashionables of 1852.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102" href="#Page_102">[102]</a></span></p> + +<p>Something of this Mr. Dolph told his son; +but the young man, although he listened with +respectful attention, appeared not to take a +deep interest in his father's reminiscences. +Jacob Dolph fancied even that Eustace did +not care to be reminded of the city's day of +small things. Perhaps he had something of +the feeling of the successful struggler who +tries to forget the shabbiness of the past. If +this were the case, his pride must have been +chafed, for his father was eloquent in displaying +the powers of an uncommonly fine memory; +and he had to hear all about the slips, +and the Fly Market, and the gradual extension +of the water-front, and the piles on which the +old Tontine was built, and the cucumber-wood +pipes of the old water-company, still lying +under their feet. Once, at least, he showed a +genuine enjoyment of his father's discourse, +and that was when it ran on the great retinue +of servants in which Jacob Dolph the elder +had indulged himself. I think he was actually +pleased when he heard that his grandfather +had at one time kept slaves.</p> + +<p>Wandering in this way, to the running accompaniment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103" href="#Page_103">[103]</a></span> +of Mr. Dolph's lecture, they +came to Water Street, and here, as though he +were reminded of the object of their trip, the +father summed up his reminiscences in shape +for a neat moral.</p> + +<p>"The city grows, you see, my boy, and +we've got to grow with it. I've stood still; +but you sha'n't."</p> + +<p>"Well, governor," said the younger man, +"I'll be frank with you. I don't like the prospect."</p> + +<p>"You will—you will, my boy. You'll live +to thank me."</p> + +<p>"Very likely you're right, sir; I don't deny +it; but, as I say, I don't like the prospect. I +don't see—with all due respect, sir—how any +gentleman can <i>like</i> trade. It may be necessary, +and of course I don't think it's lowering, +or any of that nonsense, you know; but it +can't be <i>pleasant</i>. Of course, if <i>your</i> governor +had to do it, it was all right; but I don't believe +he liked it any better than I should, or +he wouldn't have been so anxious to keep you +out of it."</p> + +<p>"My poor father made a great mistake,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104" href="#Page_104">[104]</a></span> +Eustace. He would admit it now, I'm sure, if +he were alive."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, I'm going to try it, of course. +I'll give it a fair trial. But when the two +years are up, sir, as we agreed, I hope you +won't say anything against my going into the +law, or—well, yes—" he colored a little—"trying +what I can do on the Street. I know what +you think about it, sir," he went on, hastily; +"but there are two sides to the question, and +it's my opinion that, for an intelligent man, +there's more money to be made up there in +Wall Street in one year than can be got out +of haggling over merchandise for a lifetime."</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph grew red in the face and shook +his head vigorously.</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of it, sir, don't speak of it!" +he said, vehemently. "It's the curse of the +country. If you have any such infernal opinions, +don't vent them in my presence, sir. I +know what I am talking about. Keep clear of +Wall Street, sir. It is the straight road to +perdition."</p> + +<p>They entered one of a row of broad-fronted +buildings of notable severity and simplicity of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105" href="#Page_105">[105]</a></span> +architecture. Four square stone columns upheld +its brick front, and on one of these faded +gilt letters, on a ground of dingy black, said +simply:</p> + +<p class="titles_large"> +<b>ABRAM VAN RIPER'S SON.</b> +</p> + +<p>There was no further announcement of +Abram Van Riper's Son's character, or of the +nature of his business. It was assumed that +all people knew who Abram Van Riper's Son +was, and that his (Abram Van Riper's) ship-chandlery +trade had long before grown into +a great "commission merchant's" business.</p> + +<p>It was full summer, and there were no doors +between the pillars to bar entrance to the +gloomy cavern behind them, which stretched +in semi-darkness the whole length and width +of the building, save for a narrow strip at the +rear, where, behind a windowed partition, clerks +were writing at high desks, and where there +was an inner and more secluded pen for Abram +Van Riper's son.</p> + +<p>In the front of the cave, to one side, was a +hoistway, where bales and boxes were drawn +up from the cellar or swung twisting and twirling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106" href="#Page_106">[106]</a></span> +to the lofts above. Amidships the place +was strewn with small tubs, matting-covered +bales and boxes, coils of bright new rope, and +odd-looking packages of a hundred sorts, all of +them with gaping wounds in their envelopes, +or otherwise having their pristine integrity +wounded. From this it was not difficult to +<span class="floatl"> +<a href="images/ill-p106.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p106-thumb.jpg" width="265" height="300" alt="" title="" /> +</a></span> +guess that these +were samples of +merchandise. +Most of them +gave forth odors +upon the air, +odors ranging +from the purely +aromatic, suggestive +of Oriental +fancies or tropic +dreams of spice, to the positively offensive—the +latter varieties predominating.</p> + + +<p>But certain objects upon a long table were +so peculiar in appearance that the visitors +could not pass them by with a mere glance of +wonder. They looked like small leather pies, +badly warped in the baking. A clerk in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107" href="#Page_107">[107]</a></span> +shirt sleeves, with his straw hat on one side of +his head, whistled as he cut into these, revealing +a livid interior, the color of half-cooked +veal, which he inspected with care. Eustace +was moved to positive curiosity.</p> + +<p>"What are they?" he inquired of the clerk, +pride mingling with disgust in his tone, as he +caught a smell like unto the smell which might +arise from raw smoked salmon that had lain +three days in the sun.</p> + +<p>"Central American," responded the clerk, +with brevity, and resumed his whistling of</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My name is Jake Keyser, I was born in Spring Garden;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To make me a preacher my father did try."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Central American <i>what</i>?" pursued the inquirer.</p> + +<p>"<i>Rubber!</i>" said the clerk, with a scorn so +deep and far beyond expression that the combined +pride of the Dolphs and the Des Anges +wilted into silence for the moment. As they +went on toward the rear office, while the clerk +gayly whistled the notes of</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"It's no use a-blowing, for I am a hard 'un—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I'm bound to be a butcher, by heavens, or die!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108" href="#Page_108">[108]</a></span> +Eustace recovered sufficiently to demand of +his father:</p> + +<p>"I say, sir, shall I have to handle that +damned stuff?"</p> + +<p>"Hush!" said his senior; "here's Mr. Van +Riper."</p> + +<p>Mr. Van Riper came to the office door to +welcome them, with his thin face set in the +form of a smile.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, "here's the young man, is +he? Fine big fellow, Dolph. Well, sir, so +you are going to embrace a mercantile career, +are you? That's what they call it in these +fine days, Dolph."</p> + +<p>"I am going to try to, sir," replied the +young man.</p> + +<p>"He will, Van Riper," put in his father, +hastily; "he'll like it as soon as he gets used +to it—I know he will."</p> + +<p>"Well," returned Mr. Van Riper, with an +attempt at facetious geniality, "we'll try to +get his nose down to the grindstone, we will. +Come into my office with me, Dolph, and I'll +hand this young gentleman over to old Mr. +Daw. Mr. Daw will feel his teeth—eh, Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109" href="#Page_109">[109]</a></span> +Daw?—see what he <i>doesn't</i> know—how's that, +Mr. Daw? You remember Mr. Daw, Dolph—used +to be with your father before he went out +of business—been with us ever since. Let's +see, how long is that, Daw? Most fifty years, +ain't it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daw, who looked as though he might +have been one hundred years at the business, +wheeled around and descended with stiff deliberation +from his high stool, holding his pen +in his mouth as he solemnly shook hands with +Jacob Dolph, and peered into his face. Then +he took the pen out of his mouth.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p109.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p109-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="256" alt="Looks like his father, was Mr. Daw's comment." title="" /> +</a><p class="caption">"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment. +"Forty-five years the twenty-ninth of +this month, sir. You was a little shaver then. +I remember you comin' into the store and +whittlin' timber with your little jack-knife. I +was only eleven years with your father, sir—eleven +years and six months—went to him +when I was fourteen years old. That's fifty-six +years and six months in the service of two +of the best houses that ever was in New York—an' +I can do my work with any two young +shavers in the town—ain't missed a day in nineteen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110" href="#Page_110">[110]</a></span> +years now. Your father hadn't never +ought to have gone out of business, Mr. Dolph. +He did a great business for those days, and he +had the makin' of a big house. Goin' to bring +your boy up like a good New York merchant, +hey? Come along here with me, young man, +and I'll see if you're half the man your grandfather +was. He hadn't never ought to have +given up business, Mr. Dolph. But he was all +for pleasuring an' the play-houses, an' havin' +fine times. Come along, young man. What's +your name?"</p> + +<p>"Eustace Dolph."</p> + +<p>"Hm! Jacob's better."</p> + +<p>And he led the neophyte away.</p> + +<p>"Curious old case," said Mr. Van Riper, +dryly. "Best accountant in New York. See +that high stool of his?—can't get him off it. +Five years ago I gave him a low desk and an +arm-chair. In one week he was back again, +roosting up there. Said he didn't feel comfortable +with his feet on the ground. He +thought that sort of thing might do for +aged people, but <i>he</i> wasn't made of cotton-batting."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111" href="#Page_111">[111]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus began Eustace Dolph's apprenticeship +to business, and mightily ill he liked it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>There came a day, a winter day in 1854, +when there was great agitation among what +were then called the real old families of New +York. I cannot use the term "fashionable +society," because that is more comprehensive, +and would include many wealthy and ambitious +families from New England, who were +decidedly not of the Dolphs' set. And then, +the Dolphs could hardly be reckoned among +the leaders of fashion. To live on or near the +boundaries of fashion's domain is to lower your +social status below the absolute pitch of perfection, +and fashion in 1854 drew the line pretty +sharply at Bleecker Street. Above Bleecker +Street the cream of the cream rose to the surface; +below, you were ranked as skim milk. +The social world was spreading up into the +wastes sacred to the circus and the market-garden, +although, if Admiral Farragut had +stood on his sea-legs where he stands now, he +might have had a fairly clear view of Chelsea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112" href="#Page_112">[112]</a></span> +Village, and seen Alonzo Cushman II., or +Alonzo Cushman III., perhaps, going around +and collecting his rents.</p> + +<p>But the old families still fought the tide of +trade, many of them neck-deep and very uncomfortable. +They would not go from St. +John's Park, nor from North Moore and Grand +Streets. They had not the <i>bourgeois</i> conservatism +of the Greenwich Villagers, which has +held them in a solid phalanx almost to this +very day; but still, in a way, they resented the +up-town movement, and resisted it. So that +when they did have to buy lots in the high-numbered +streets they had to pay a fine price +for them.</p> + +<p>It was this social party that was stirred by a +bit of scandal about the Dolphs. I do not +know why I should call it scandal; yet I am +sure society so held it. For did not society +whisper it, and nod and wink over it, and tell +it in dark corners, and chuckle, and lift its +multitudinous hands and its myriad eyebrows, +and say in innumerable keys: "Well, <i>upon</i> my +word!" and "Well, I <i>should</i> think——!" and +"Who would <i>ever</i> have thought of such a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113" href="#Page_113">[113]</a></span> +thing?" and the like? Did not society make +very funny jokes about it, and did not society's +professional gossips get many an invitation to +dinner because they professed to have authentic +details of the way Mr. and Mrs. Dolph +looked when they spoke about it, and just what +they had to say for themselves?</p> + +<p>And yet it was nothing more than this, that +Mr. Dolph being fifty-four, and his wife but a +few years younger, were about to give to the +world another Dolph. It was odd, I admit; it +was unusual; if I must go so far, it was, I suppose, +unconventional. But I don't see that it +was necessary for Mr. Philip Waters to make +an epigram about it. It was a very clever epigram; +but if you had seen dear old Mrs. +Dolph, with her rosy cheeks and the gray in +her hair, knitting baby-clothes with hands +which were still white and plump and comely, +while great dark eyes looked timorously into +the doubtful, fear-clouded future, I think you +would have been ashamed that you had even +listened to that epigram.</p> + +<p>The expected event was of special and personal +interest to only three people—for, after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114" href="#Page_114">[114]</a></span> +all, when you think of it, it was not exactly +society's business—and it affected them in +widely different ways.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph was all tenderness to his wife, +and all sympathy with her fears, with her nervous +apprehensions, even with her morbid +forebodings of impossible ills. He did not +repine at the seclusion which the situation +forced upon them, although his life for years +had been given up to society's demands, until +pleasure-seeking and pleasure-giving had grown +into a routine, which occupied his whole mind. +His wife saw him more than she had for many +years. Clubs and card-parties had few temptations +for him now; he sat at home and read +to her and talked to her, and did his best to +follow the injunctions of the doctor, and "create +and preserve in her a spirit of cheerful and +hopeful tranquillity, free of unnecessary apprehension."</p> + +<p>But when he <i>did</i> go to the club, when he was +in male society, his breast expanded, and if he +had to answer a polite inquiry as to Mrs. +Dolph's general health, I am afraid that he responded: +"Mrs. Dolph is extremely well, sir,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115" href="#Page_115">[115]</a></span> +extremely well!" with a pride which the moralists +will tell you is baseless, unworthy, and +unreasonable.</p> + +<p>As for Aline herself, no one may know what +timorous hopes stirred in her bosom and +charmed the years away, and brought back +to her a lovely youth that was almost girlish +in its innocent, half-frightened gladness. Outside, +this great, wise, eminently proper world +that she lived in girded <ins class="correction" id="Note_4" title="Transcriber's note: original reads 'at the the old'">at the old</ins> woman +who was to bear a child, and laughed behind +tasselled fans, and made wondrous merry over +Nature's work; but within the old house she +sat, and sewed upon the baby-clothes, or, wandering +from cupboard to cupboard, found the +yellowing garments, laid away more than a +score of years before—the poor little lace-decked +trifles that her first boy had worn; and +she thanked heaven, in her humble way, that +twenty-four years had not taken the love and +joy of a wife and a mother out of her heart.</p> + +<p>She could not find all her boy's dresses and +toys, for she was open-handed, and had given +many of them away to people who needed +them. This brought about an odd encounter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116" href="#Page_116">[116]</a></span> +The third person who had a special interest in +the prospect of the birth of a Dolph was young +Eustace, and he found nothing in it wherewith +to be pleased. For Eustace Dolph was of the +ultra-fashionables. He cared less for old family +than for new ideas, and he did not let himself +fall behind in the march of social progress, +even though he was, as he admitted with humility +born of pride, only a poor devil of a +down-town clerk. If his days were occupied, +he had his nights to himself, and he lengthened +them to suit himself. At first this caused his +mother to fret a little; but poor Aline had +come into her present world from the conventional +seclusion of King's Bridge, and her only +authority on questions of masculine license was +her husband. He, being appealed to, had to +admit that his own hours in youth had been +late, and that he supposed the hours of a +newer generation should properly be later still. +Mr. Dolph forgot, perhaps, that while his early +potations had been vinous, those of the later age +were distinctly spirituous; and that the early +morning cocktail and the midnight brandy-and-soda +were abominations unknown to his own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117" href="#Page_117">[117]</a></span> +well-bred youth. With port and sherry and +good Bordeaux he had been familiar all his +life; a dash of <i>liqueur</i> after dinner did not +trouble his digestion; he found a bottle of +champagne a pleasant appetizer and a gentle +stimulant; but whiskey and gin were to him +the drinks of the vulgar; and rum and brandy +stood on his sideboard only to please fiercer +tastes than his own. Perhaps, also, he was ignorant +of the temptations that assail a young +man in a great city, he who had grown up in +such a little one that he had at one time +known every one who was worth knowing in it.</p> + +<p>However this may have been, Eustace +Dolph ruled for himself his going out and his +coming in. He went further, and chose his +own associates, not always from among the +scions of the "old families." He found those +excellent young men "slow," and he selected +for his own private circle a set which was +mixed as to origin and unanimously frivolous +as to tendency. The foreign element was +strongly represented. Bright young Irishmen +of excellent families, and mysterious French +and Italian counts and marquises, borrowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118" href="#Page_118">[118]</a></span> +many of the good gold dollars of the Dolphs, +and forgot to return an equivalent in the +local currency of the O'Reagans of Castle +Reagan, or the D'Arcy de Montmorenci, or +<span class="floatl"> +<a href="images/ill-p118.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p118-thumb.jpg" width="207" height="300" alt="" title="" /> +</a></span> +the Montescudi di Bajocchi. +Among this set there was +much merry-making when the +news from the Dolph household +sifted down to them +from the gossip-sieve of the +best society. They could not +very well chaff young Dolph +openly, for he was muscular and high-tempered, +and, under the most agreeable conditions, +needed a fight of some sort every six +months or so, and liked a bit of trouble in between +fights. But a good deal of low and +malicious humor came his way, from one +source or another, and he, with the hot and +concentrated egotism of youth, thought that +he was in a ridiculous and trying position, and +chafed over it.</p> + +<p>There had been innuendos and hints and +glancing allusions, but no one had dared to +make any direct assault of wit, until one evening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119" href="#Page_119">[119]</a></span> +young Haskins came into the club "a little +flushed with wine." (The "wine" was brandy.) +It seems that young Haskins had found at +home an ivory rattle which had belonged to +Eustace twenty years before, and which Mrs. +Dolph had given to Mrs. Haskins when Eustace +enlarged his horizon in the matter of +toys.</p> + +<p>Haskins, being, as I have said, somewhat +flushed with brandy, came up to young Dolph, +who was smoking in the window, and meditating +with frowning brows, and said to him:</p> + +<p>"Here, Dolph, I've done with this. You'd +better take it back—it may be wanted down +your way."</p> + +<p>There was a scene. Fortunately, two men +were standing just behind Dolph, who were +able to throw their arms about him, and hold +him back for a few seconds. There would +have been further consequences, however, if it +had not been that Eustace was in the act of +throwing the rattle back at Haskins when the +two men caught him. Thus the toy went +wide of its mark, and fell in the lap of Philip +Waters, who, old as he was, generally chose to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120" href="#Page_120">[120]</a></span> +be in the company of the young men at the +club; and then Philip Waters did something +that almost atones, I think, for the epigram.</p> + +<p>He looked at the date on the rattle, and then +he rose up and went between the two young +men, and spoke to Haskins.</p> + +<p>"Young man," he said, "when Mrs. Jacob +Dolph gave your mother this thing, your father +had just failed for the second time in three +years. He had come to New York about five +years before from Hartford, or Providence, or—Succotash, +or whatever his confounded town +was. Mr. Jacob Dolph got Mr. Van Riper to +give your father an extension on his note, or +he would have gone to the debtors' prison +down by the City Hall. As it was, he had to +sell his house, and the coat off his back, for all +I know. If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil +the rattle you'd have had, and you wouldn't +have been living in Bond Street to-day."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p120.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p120-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="258" alt="If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd have had." title="" /> +</a><p class="caption">"If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd have had."</p> +</div> + +<p>After which Mr. Philip Waters sat down and +read the evening paper; and when young Haskins +was able to speak he asked young Dolph's +pardon, and got it—at least, a formal assurance +that he had it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121" href="#Page_121">[121]</a></span></p> + +<p>The baby was born in the spring, and everybody +said she was the image of her mother.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>There will come a day, it may be, when advancing +civilization will civilize sleighing out +of existence, as far as New York is concerned. +Year after year the days grow fewer that will +let a cutter slip up beyond the farthest of the +"road-houses" and cross the line into Westchester. +People say that the climate is changing; +but close observers recognize a sympathy +between the decrease of snow-storms and the +increase of refinement—that is, a sympathy in +inverse ratio; a balanced progress in opposite +directions. As we grow further and further +beyond even old-world standards of polite +convention, as we formalize and super-formalize +our codes, and steadily eliminate every +element of amusement from our amusements, +Nature in strict conformity represses her joyous +exuberance. The snow-storm of the past +is gone, because the great public sleigh that +held twenty-odd merry-makers in a shell like a +circus band-wagon has gone out of fashion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122" href="#Page_122">[122]</a></span> +among all classes. Now we have, during severe +winters, just enough snow from time to time to +bear the light sleigh of the young man who, +being in good society, is also horsy. When +<i>he</i> finds the road vulgar, the poor plebeian +souls who go sleighing for the sport of it may +sell their red and blue vehicles, for Nature, the +sycophant of fashion, will snow no more.</p> + +<p>But they had "good old-fashioned" snow-storms +eighty years after the Declaration of +Independence, and one had fallen upon New +York that tempted Mrs. Jacob Dolph to leave +her baby, ten months old, in the nurse's +charge, and go out with her husband in the +great family sleigh for what might be the last +ride of the season.</p> + +<p>They had been far up the road—to Arcularius's, +maybe, there swinging around and +whirling back. They had flown down the long +country road, and back into the city, to meet—it +was early in the day—the great procession +of sleighing folk streaming northward up +Broadway. It was one of New York's great, +irregular, chance-set carnivals, and every sleigh +was out, from the "exquisite's" gilded chariot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123" href="#Page_123">[123]</a></span> +a shell hardly larger than a fair-sized easy-chair, +to the square, low-hung red sledge of +the butcher-boy, who braved it with the fashionables, +his <i>Schneider</i>-made clothes on his +burly form, and his girl by his side, in her best +Bowery bonnet. Everybody was a-sleighing. +The jingle of countless bells fell on the crisp +air in a sort of broken rhythm—a rude <i>tempo +rubato</i>. It was fashionable then. But we—we +amuse ourselves less boisterously.</p> + +<p>They drew up at the door of the Dolph +house, and Jacob Dolph lifted his wife out of +the sleigh, and carried her up the steps into +the breakfast-room, and set her down in her +easy-chair. He was bending over her to ask +her if her ride had done her good, when a servant +entered and handed him a letter marked +"Immediate."</p> + +<p>He read it, and all the color of the winter's +day faded out of his face.</p> + +<p>"I've got to go down to Van Riper's," he +said, "at once; he wants me."</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened to—to Eustace?" +his wife cried out.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't say so—I suppose—I suppose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124" href="#Page_124">[124]</a></span> +it's only business of some sort," her husband +said. His face was white. "Don't detain me, +dear. I'll come back as soon as—as soon as I +get through."</p> + +<p>He kissed her, and was gone. Half an hour +later he sat in the office of Abram Van Riper's +Son.</p> + +<p>There was no doubting it, no denying it, no +palliating it even. The curse had come upon +the house of Jacob Dolph, and his son was a +thief and a fugitive.</p> + +<p>It was an old story and a simple story. It +was the story of the Haskins's million and the +Dolphs' hundred thousand; it was the story of +the boy with a hundred thousand in prospect +trying to spend money against the boy with +a million in sight. It was the story of cards, +speculation—another name for that sort of +gambling which is worse than any on the +green cloth—and what is euphemistically +known as wine.</p> + +<p>There was enough oral and documentary +evidence to make the whole story hideously +clear to Jacob Dolph, as he sat in that dark +little pen of Van Riper's and had the history<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125" href="#Page_125">[125]</a></span> +of his son's fall spelled out to him, word by +word. The boy had proved himself apt and +clever in his office work. His education had +given him an advantage over all the other +clerks, and he had learned his duties with wonderful +ease. And when, six months before, +old Mr. Daw had let himself down from his +stool for the last time, and had muffled up his +thin old throat in his great green worsted +scarf, and had gone home to die, young Dolph +had been put temporarily in his place. In +those six months he had done his bad work. +Even Van Riper admitted that it must have +been a sudden temptation. But—he had +yielded. In those six months fifty thousand +dollars of Abram Van Riper's money had +gone into the gulf that yawned in Wall Street; +fifty thousand dollars, not acquired by falsifying +the books, but filched outright from the +private safe to which he had access; fifty +thousand dollars, in securities which he had +turned into money, acting as the confidential +man of the house.</p> + +<p>When Jacob Dolph, looking like a man of +eighty, left the private office of Mr. Van<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126" href="#Page_126">[126]</a></span> +Riper he had two things to do. One was to +tell his wife, the other was to assign enough +property to Van Riper to cover the amount of +the defalcation. Both had been done before +night.</p> + +<p><br /></p> +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p126.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p126-thumb.jpg" width="300" height="267" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> +<p><br /></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="toc_link"><a href="#CONTENTS">[TOC]</a></span><a name="Chapter_V" id="Chapter_V"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127" href="#Page_127">[127]</a></span></p> +<h2>V.</h2> + + +<p>It is to be said for society that there was +very little chuckling and smiling when this +fresh piece of news about the Dolphs came out. +Nor did the news pass from house to house like +wildfire. It rather leaked out here and there, +percolating through barriers of friendly silence, +slipping from discreet lips and repeated in +anxious confidence, with all manner of qualifications +and hopeful suppositions and suggestions. +As a matter of fact, people never really +knew just what Eustace Dolph had done, or +how far his wrong-doing had carried him. All +that was ever positively known was that the +boy had got into trouble down-town, and had +gone to Europe. The exact nature of the +trouble could only be conjectured. The very +brokers who had been the instruments of +young Dolph's ruin were not able to separate +his authorized speculations from those which +were illegitimate. They could do no more than +guess, from what they knew of Van Riper's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128" href="#Page_128">[128]</a></span> +conservative method of investment, that the +young man's unfortunate purchases were made +for himself, and they figured these at fifty-five +thousand odd hundred dollars.</p> + +<p>Somebody, who looked up the deed which +Jacob Dolph executed that winter day, found +that he had transferred to Van Riper real +estate of more than that value.</p> + +<p>No word ever came from the cold lips of +Abram Van Riper's son; and his office was a +piece of all but perfect machinery, which dared +not creak when he commanded silence. And +no one save Van Riper and Dolph, and their +two lawyers, knew the whole truth. Dolph +never even spoke about it to his wife, after +that first night. It was these five people only +who knew that Mr. Jacob Dolph had parted +with the last bit of real estate that he owned, +outside of his own home, and they knew that +his other property was of a doubtful sort, that +could yield at the best only a very limited income—hardly +enough for a man who lived in +so great a house, and whose doors were open +to all his friends nine months in the year.</p> + +<p>Yet he stayed there, and grew old with an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129" href="#Page_129">[129]</a></span> +age which the years have not among their gifts. +When his little girl was large enough to sit +upon his knee, her small hands clutched at a +snowy-white mustache, and she complained +that his great, dark, hollow eyes never would +look "right into hers, away down deep." Yet +he loved her, and talked more to her perhaps +than to any one else, not even excepting Aline.</p> + +<p>But he never spoke to her of the elder +brother whom she could not remember. It +was her mother who whispered something of +the story to her, and told her not to let papa +know that she knew of it, for it would grieve +him. Aline herself knew nothing about the +boy save that he lived, and lived a criminal. +Jacob himself could only have told her that +their son was a wandering adventurer, known +as a blackleg and sharper in every town in +Europe.</p> + +<p>The doors of the great house were closed to +all the world, or opened only for some old +friend, who went away very soon out of the +presence of a sadness beyond all solace of +words, or kindly look, or hand-clasp. And so, +in something that only the grace of their gentle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130" href="#Page_130">[130]</a></span> +lives relieved from absolute poverty, those +three dwelt in the old house, and let the world +slip by them.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>There was no sleep for any one of the little +household in the great house on the night of +the 14th of July, 1863. Doors and blinds were +closed; only a light shone through the half-open +slats at a second-story window, and in that room +Aline lay sick, almost unto death, her white +hair loosed from its usual dainty neatness, her +dark eyes turning with an unmeaning gaze +from the face of the little girl at her side to the +face of her husband at the foot of her bed. +Her hands, wrinkled and small, groped over +the coverlet, with nervous twitchings, as every +now and then the howls or the pistol-shots of +the mob in the streets below them fell on her +ear. And at every such movement the lips of +the girl by her pillow twitched in piteous sympathy. +About half-past twelve there was +sharp firing in volleys to the southward of +them, that threw the half-conscious sufferer +into an agony of supersensitive disturbance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131" href="#Page_131">[131]</a></span> +Then there came a silence that seemed unnaturally +deep, yet it was only the silence of a +summer night in the deserted city streets.</p> + +<p>Through it they heard, sharp and sudden, +with something inexplicably fearful about it, +the patter of running feet. They had heard +that sound often enough that night and the +night before; but these feet stopped at their +own door, and came up the steps, and the runner +beat and pounded on the heavy panels.</p> + +<p>Father and child looked in each other's eyes, +and then Jacob Dolph left his post at the foot +of the bed, and, passing out of the room, went +down the stairs with deliberate tread, and +opened the door.</p> + +<p>A negro's face, almost gray in its mad fear, +stared into his with a desperate appeal which +the lips could not utter. Dolph drew the man +in, and shut the door behind him. The negro +leaned, trembling and exhausted, against the +wall.</p> + +<p>"I knowed you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," +he panted; "I'm feared they seen me, though—they +was mighty clost behind."</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p131.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p131-thumb.jpg" width="313" height="400" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> + +<p>They were close behind him, indeed. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132" href="#Page_132">[132]</a></span> +half a minute the roar of the mob filled the +street with one terrible howl and shriek of +animal rage, heard high +above the tramp of half a thousand +feet; and the beasts of disorder, gathered +from all the city's holes and dens of crime, +wild for rapine and outrage, burst upon them, +sweeping up the steps, hammering at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133" href="#Page_133">[133]</a></span> +great doors, crying for the blood of the helpless +and the innocent.</p> + +<p>Foreign faces, almost all! Irish, mostly; but +there were heavy, ignorant German types of +feature uplifted under the gas-light; sallow, +black-mustached Magyar faces; thin, acute, +French faces—all with the stamp of old-world +ignorance and vice upon them.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and the white-haired old +gentleman, erect, haughty, with brightening +eyes, faced the leader of the mob—a great +fellow, black-bearded, who had a space to himself +on the stoop, and swung his broad shoulders +from side to side.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p133.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p133-thumb.jpg" width="288" height="400" alt="Have you got a nigger here?" title="" /> +</a><p class="caption">"Have you got a nigger here?"</p> +</div> + +<p>"Have you got a nigger here?" he began, +and then stopped short, for Jacob Dolph was +looking upon the face of his son.</p> + +<p>Vagabond and outcast, he had the vagabond's +quick wit, this leader of infuriate crime, +and some one good impulse stirred in him of +his forfeited gentlehood. He turned savagely +upon his followers.</p> + +<p>"He ain't here!" he roared. "I told you +so—I saw him turn the corner."</p> + +<p>"Shtap an' burrn the bondholder's house!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134" href="#Page_134">[134]</a></span> +yelled a man behind. Eustace Dolph turned +round with a furious, threatening gesture.</p> + +<p>"You damned fool!" he thundered; "he's +no bondholder—he's one of <i>us</i>. Go on, I +tell you! Will you let that nigger get +away?"</p> + +<p>He half drove them down the steps. The +old man stepped out, his face aflame under his +white hair, his whole frame quivering.</p> + +<p>"You lie, sir!" he cried; but his voice was +drowned in the howl of the mob as it swept +around the corner, forgetting all things else in +the madness of its hideous chase.</p> + +<p>When Jacob Dolph returned to his wife's +chamber, her feeble gaze was lifted to the ceiling. +At the sound of his footsteps she let it +fall dimly upon his face. He was thankful +that, in that last moment of doubtful quickening, +she could not read his eyes; and she +passed away, smiling sweetly, one of her white +old hands in his, and one in her child's.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Age takes small account of the immediate +flight of time. To the young, a year is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135" href="#Page_135">[135]</a></span> +mighty span. Be it a happy or an unhappy +year that youth looks forward to, it is a +vista that stretches far into the future. And +when it is done, this interminable year, and +youth, just twelve months older, looks back to +the first of it, what a long way off it is! What +tremendous progress we have made! How +much more we know! How insufficient are +the standards by which we measured the world +a poor three hundred and sixty-five days +back!</p> + +<p>But age has grown habituated to the flight +of time. Years? we have seen so many of +them that they make no great impression upon +us. What! is it ten years since young Midas +first came to the counting-room, asking humbly +for an entry-clerk's place—he who is now the +head of the firm? Bless us! it seems like yesterday. +Is it ten years since we first put on +that coat? Why, it must be clean out of the +fashion by this time.</p> + +<p>But age does not carry out the thought, and +ask if itself be out of the fashion. Age knows +better. A few wrinkles, a stoop in the back, a +certain slowness of pace, do not make a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136" href="#Page_136">[136]</a></span> +old at sixty—nor at seventy, neither; for now +you come to think of it, the ten years we were +speaking of is gone, and it is seventy now, and +not sixty. Seventy! Why, 'tis not to be +thought of as old age—save when it may be +necessary to rebuke the easy arrogance of +youth.</p> + +<p>The time had come to Jacob Dolph when he +could not feel that he was growing old. He +was old, of course, in one sense. He was sixty-one +when the war broke out; and they had not +allowed him to form a regiment and go to the +front at its head. But what was old for a +soldier in active service was not old for a well-preserved +civilian. True, he could never be +the same man again, now that poor Aline was +gone. True, he was growing more and more +disinclined for active exercise, and he regretted +he had led so sedentary a life. But though '64 +piled itself up on '63, and '65 on top of that, +these arbitrary divisions of time seemed to him +but trivial.</p> + +<p>Edith was growing old, perhaps; getting +to be a great girl, taller than her mother +and fairer of complexion, yet not unlike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137" href="#Page_137">[137]</a></span> +her, he sometimes thought, as she began to +manage the affairs of the house, and to go +about the great shabby mansion with her +mother's keys jingling at her girdle. For the +years went on crawling one over the other, +and soon it was 1873, and Edith was eighteen +years old.</p> + +<p>One rainy day in this year found Jacob +Dolph in Wall Street. Although he himself +did not think so, he was an old man to others, +and kindly hands, such as were to be found +even in that infuriate crowd, had helped him +up the marble steps of the Sub-Treasury and +had given him lodgment on one of the great +blocks of marble that dominate the street. +From where he stood he could see Wall Street, +east and west, and the broad plaza of Broad +Street to the south, filled with a compact mass +of men, half hidden by a myriad of umbrellas, +rain-soaked, black, glinting in the dim light. +So might a Roman legion have looked, when +each man raised his targum above his head and +came shoulder to shoulder with his neighbor +for the assault.</p> + +<p>There was a confused, ant-like movement in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138" href="#Page_138">[138]</a></span> +the vast crowd, and a dull murmur came from +it, rising, in places, into excited shouts. Here +and there the fringe of the mass swelled up +and swept against the steps of some building, +forcing, or trying to force, an entry. Sometimes +a narrow stream of men trickled into the +half-open doorway; sometimes the great portals +closed, and then there was a mad outcry +and a low groan, and the foremost on the steps +suddenly turned back, and in some strange +way slipped through the throng and sped in +all directions to bear to hushed or clamorous +offices the news that this house or that bank +had "suspended payment." "Busted," the +panting messengers said to white-faced merchants; +and in the slang of the street was conveyed +the message of doom. The great panic +of 1873 was upon the town—the outcome of +long years of unwarranted self-confidence, of +selfish extravagance, of conscienceless speculation—and, +as hour after hour passed by, fortunes +were lost in the twinkling of an eye, and +the bread was taken out of the mouths of the +helpless.</p> + +<p>After Jacob Dolph had stood for some time,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139" href="#Page_139">[139]</a></span> +looking down upon the tossing sea of black +umbrellas, he saw a narrow lane made through +the crowd in the wake of a little party +of clerks and porters, bearing aid perhaps to +some stricken bank. Slipping down, he followed +close behind them. Perhaps the jostling +hundreds on the sidewalk were gentle with +him, seeing that he was an old man; perhaps +the strength of excitement nerved him, for he +made his way down the street to the flight of +steps leading to the door of a tall white building, +and he crowded himself up among the +pack that was striving to enter. He had even +got so far that he could see the line pouring in +above his head, when there was a sudden cessation +of motion in the press, and one leaf of +the outer iron doors swung forward, meeting +the other, already closed to bar the crush, +and two green-painted panels stood, impassable, +between him and the last of the Dolph +fortune.</p> + +<p>One howl and roar, and the crowd turned +back on itself, and swept him with it. In five +minutes a thousand offices knew of the greatest +failure of the day; and Jacob Dolph was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140" href="#Page_140">[140]</a></span> +leaning—weak, gasping, dazed—against the +side wall of a hallway in William Street, with +two stray office-boys staring at him out of +their small, round, unsympathetic eyes.</p> + +<p>Let us not ask what wild temptation led +the old man back again to risk all he owned +in that hellish game that is played in the narrow +street. We may remember this: that he +saw his daughter growing to womanhood in +that silent and almost deserted house, shouldered +now by low tenements and wretched +shops and vile drinking-places; that he may +have pictured for her a brighter life in that +world that had long ago left him behind it in +his bereaved and disgraced loneliness; that he +had had some vision of her young beauty fulfilling +its destiny amid sweeter and fairer surroundings. +And let us not forget that he +knew no other means than these to win the +money for which he cared little; which he +found absolutely needful.</p> + +<p>After Jacob Dolph had yielded for the last +time to the temptation that had conquered +him once before, and had ruined his son's +soul; after that final disastrous battle with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141" href="#Page_141">[141]</a></span> +gamblers of Wall Street, wherein he lost the +last poor remnant of the great Dolph fortune, +giving up with it his father's home forever, +certain old bread of his father's casting +came back to him upon +strange waters.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p141.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p141-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="372" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> + +<p>Abram Van +Riper came to the +daughter of +the house of Dolph, a little before it became +certain that the house must be sold, and told +her, in his dry way, that he had to make a +business communication to her, for he feared +that her father was hardly capable of understanding +such matters any longer. She winced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142" href="#Page_142">[142]</a></span> +a little; but he took a load off her heart when +he made his slow, precise explanation. The +fact was, he said, that the business transactions +between her father and himself, consequent +upon the defalcation of her brother +Eustace, had never been closed, in all these +seventeen years. (Edith Dolph trembled.) It +was known at the time that the property +transferred by her father rather more than +covered the amount of her brother's—peculation. +But her father's extreme sensitiveness +had led him to avoid a precise adjustment, +and as the property transferred was subject to +certain long leases, he, Mr. Van Riper, had +thought it best to wait until the property was +sold and the account closed, to settle the matter +with Mr. Dolph. This had lately been +done, and Mr. Van Riper found that, deducting +charges, and interest on his money at +seven per cent., he had made by the transaction +six thousand three hundred and seventy +dollars. This sum, he thought, properly belonged +to Mr. Dolph. And if Miss Dolph +would take the counsel of an old friend of her +father's, she would leave the sum in charge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143" href="#Page_143">[143]</a></span> +the house of Abram Van Riper's Son. The +house would invest it at ten per cent.—he +stopped and looked at Edith, but she only +answered him with innocent eyes of attention—and +would pay her six hundred and thirty-seven +dollars annually in quarterly payments. +It might be of assistance to Mr. Dolph in his +present situation.</p> + +<p>It was of assistance. They lived on it, +father and daughter, with such aid as Decorative +Art—just introduced to this country—gave +in semi-remunerative employment for her +deft fingers.</p> + +<p>Abram Van Riper, when he left the weeping, +grateful girl, marched out into the street, turned +his face toward what was once Greenwich Village, +and said to his soul:</p> + +<p>"I think that will balance any obligation my +father may have put himself under in buying +that State Street house too cheap. Now then, +old gentleman, you can lie easy in your grave. +The Van Ripers ain't beholden to the Dolphs, +that's sure."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>A few years ago—shall we say as many as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144" href="#Page_144">[144]</a></span> +ten?—there were two small rooms up in a +quiet street in Harlem, tenanted by an old +gentleman and a young gentlewoman; and in +the front room, which was the young woman's +room by night, but a sort of parlor or sitting-room + +<span class="figleft"> +<a href="images/ill-p144.jpg"> +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p144-thumb-a.jpg" width="179" height="77" alt="" title="" /> +</a></span> +<span class="figleft"> +<a href="images/ill-p144.jpg"> +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p144-thumb-b.jpg" width="278" height="223" alt="" title="" /> +</a></span> + +in the daytime, the +old gentleman stood up, +four times a year, to have +his collar pulled +up, and his +necktie set +right, and his +coat dusted off +by a pair of +small white +hands, so that +he might be presentable when he went down +town to collect certain moneys due him.</p> + +<p>They were small rooms, but they were +bright and cheerful, being decorated with +sketches and studies of an artistic sort, which +may have been somewhat crude and uncertain +as to treatment, but were certainly pleasant +and feminine. Yet few saw them save the +young woman and the old man. The most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145" href="#Page_145">[145]</a></span> +frequent visitor was a young artist from the +West, who often escorted Miss Dolph to and +from the Art League rooms. His name was +Rand; he had studied in Munich; he had a +future before him, and was making money +on his prospects. He might just as well have +lived in luxurious bachelor quarters in the +lower part of the city; but, for reasons of his +own, he preferred to live in Harlem.</p> + +<p>Old Mr. Dolph insisted on going regularly +every quarter-day to the office of the Van +Riper Estate, "to collect," as he said, "the interest +due him." Four times a year he went +down town on the Eighth Avenue cars, where +the conductors soon learned to know him by +his shiny black broadcloth coat and his snow-white +hair. His daughter was always uneasy +about these trips; but her father could not be +dissuaded from them. To him they were his +one hold on active life—the all-important +events of the year. It would have broken his +tender old heart to tell him that he could not +go to collect his "interest." And so she set +his necktie right, and he went.</p> + +<p>When he got out of the car at Abingdon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146" href="#Page_146">[146]</a></span> +Square he tottered, in his slow, old way, to a +neat structure which combined modern jauntiness +with old-time solidity, and which was +labelled simply: "Office of the Van Riper +Estate," and there he told the smilingly indulgent +clerk that he thought he would "take it +in cash, this time," and, taking it in cash, went +forth.</p> + +<p>And then he walked down through Greenwich +Village into New York city, and into the +street where stood the house that his father +had built. Thus he had gone to view it four +times a year, during every year save the first, +since he had given it up.</p> + +<p>He had seen it go through one stage of decadence +after another. First it was rented, by +its new owner, to the Jewish pawnbroker, with +his numerous family. Good, honest folk they +were, who tried to make the house look fine, +and the five daughters made the front stoop +resplendent of summer evenings. But they +had long ago moved up-town. Then it was +a cheap boarding-house, and vulgar and flashy +men and women swarmed out in the morning +and in at eventide. Then it was a lodging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147" href="#Page_147">[147]</a></span>-house, +and shabby people let themselves out +and in at all hours of the day and night. And +last of all it had become a tenement-house, and +had fallen into line with its neighbors to left +and right, and the window-panes were broken, +and the curse of misery and poverty and utter +degradation had fallen upon it.</p> + +<p>But still it lifted its grand stone front, still it +stood, broad and great, among all the houses +in the street. And it was the old man's custom, +after he had stood on the opposite sidewalk +and gazed at it for a while, to go to +a little French <i>café</i> a block to the eastward, +and there to take a glass of <i>vermouth +gommé</i>—it was a mild drink, and pleasing to +an old man. Sometimes he chanced to find +some one in this place who would listen to +his talk about the old house—he was very +grand; but they were decent people who +went to that <i>café</i>, and perhaps would go back +with him a block and look at it. We would +not have talked to chance people in an east-side +French <i>café</i>. But then we have never +owned such a house, and lost it—and everything +else.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148" href="#Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Late one hot summer afternoon young Rand +sat in his studio, working enthusiastically on a +"composition." A new school of art had invaded +New York, and compositions were everything, +for the moment, whether they composed +anything or nothing. He heard a nervous rattling +at his door-knob, and he opened the +door. A young woman lifted a sweet, flushed, +frightened face to his.</p> + +<p>"Oh, John," she cried, "father hasn't come +home yet, and it's five o'clock, and he left +home at nine."</p> + +<p>John Rand threw off his flannel jacket, and +got into his coat.</p> + +<p>"We'll find him; don't worry, dear," he +said.</p> + +<p>They found him within an hour. The great +city, having no further use for the old Dolph +house, was crowding it out of existence. With +the crashing of falling bricks, and the creaking +of the tackle that swung the great beams downward, +the old house was crumbling into a gap +between two high walls. Already you could +see through to where the bright new bricks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149" href="#Page_149">[149]</a></span> +were piled at the back to build the huge eight-story +factory that was to take its place. But +it was not to see this demolition that the crowd +was gathered, filling the narrow street. It +stood, dense, ugly, vulgar, stolidly intent, gazing +at the windows of the house opposite—a +poor tenement house.</p> + +<p>As they went up the steps they met the +young hospital surgeon, going back to his ambulance.</p> + +<p>"You his folks?" he inquired. "Sorry to tell +you so, but I can't do any good. Sunstroke, +I suppose—may have been something else—but +it's collapse now, and no mistake. You +take charge, sir?" he finished, addressing +Rand.</p> + +<p>Jacob Dolph was lying on his back in the +bare front room on the first floor. His daughter +fell on her knees by his side, and made as +though she would throw her arms around +him; but, looking in his face, she saw death +quietly coming upon him, and she only bent +down and kissed him, while her tears wet his +brow.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p149.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p149-thumb.jpg" width="400" height="344" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> + +<p>Meanwhile a tall Southerner, with hair halfway<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150" href="#Page_150">[150]</a></span> +down his neck, and kindly eyes that +moved in unison with his broad gestures, was +talking to Rand.</p> + +<p>"I met the ol' gentleman in the French +<i>café</i>, neah heah," he said, "and he was jus' +honing to have me come +up and see his +house, seh—house +he used to have. +Well, I came right +along, an' when we got here, sure 'nough, +they's taihin' down that house. Neveh felt so +bad in all my life, seh. He wasn't expectin' +of it, and I 'lowed 'twuz his old home like, +and he was right hahd hit, fo' a fact. He said +to me, 'Good-day, seh,' sezee; 'good-day, +seh,' he says to me, an' then he starts across<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151" href="#Page_151">[151]</a></span> +the street, an' first thing I know, he falls down +flat on his face, seh. Saw that theah brick +an' mortar comin' down, an' fell flat on his face. +This hyeh pill-man 'lowed 'twuz sunstroke; +but a Southern man like I am don't need to +be told what a gentleman's feelings are when +he sees his house a-torn down—no, seh. If +you ever down oweh way, seh, I'd be right +glad——"</p> + +<p>But Rand had lifted Edith from the floor, +for her father would know her no more, and +had passed out of this world, unconscious of +all the squalor and ruin about him; and the +poor girl was sobbing on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>He was very tender with her, very sorry for +her—but he had never known the walls that +fell across the way; he was a young man, an +artist, with a great future before him, and the +world was young to him, and she was to be +his wife.</p> + +<p>Still, looking down, he saw that sweetly +calm, listening look, that makes beautiful the +faces of the dead, come over the face of Jacob +Dolph, as though he, lying there, heard the +hammers of the workmen breaking down his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152" href="#Page_152">[152]</a></span> +father's house, brick by brick—and yet the +sound could no longer jar upon his ear or +grieve his gentle spirit.</p> + +<p><br /></p> + +<div class="center"> +<a href="images/ill-p152.jpg" > +<img class="plain" src="images/ill-p152-thumb.jpg" width="265" height="300" alt="" title="" /> +</a></div> +<p><br /></p> + +<div class="tnote" id="Endnote"> +<p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p>The following printing errors have been corrected in this text and are shown within the text with <ins class = "correction" title ="Transcriber's Note: example">mouse-hover popups</ins>.</p> +<p><a href="#Note_1">Page 82</a>, period added after 'path'.</p> +<p><a href="#Note_2">Page 97</a>, period added after 'said'.</p> +<p><a href="#Note_3">Page 99</a>, 'w' in 'why' changed to lower case.</p> +<p><a href="#Note_4">Page 115</a>, repeated 'the' removed.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a New York House, by +Henry Cuyler Bunner + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A NEW YORK HOUSE *** + +***** This file should be named 30662-h.htm or 30662-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/6/30662/ + +Produced by Geetu Melwani, Rob Reid, David Garcia and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This book was produced from scanned images of public +domain material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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