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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30662-8.txt b/30662-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50c30f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/30662-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3335 @@ +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.) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph.] + + + + + THE STORY + + OF + + A NEW YORK HOUSE + + BY + + H. C. BUNNER + + + _ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST_ + + + NEW YORK + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + 1887 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. + + + Press of J. J. Little & Co. + Astor Place, New York. + + + + + TO + + A. L. B. + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + _Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph_ FRONTISPIECE + + PAGE + + _"I thumped him"_ 14 + + _"It's a monstrous great place for a country-house, Mr. Dolph"_ 18 + + _There was only one idea, and that was flight_ 28 + + _The light flickered on the top of the church spire_ 32 + (_By F. Hopkinson Smith._) + + _They hesitated a second, looking at the great arm chair_ 37 + + _"Stay there, sir--you, sir, you, Jacob Dolph!"_ 41 + + _After awhile he began to take timorous strolls_ 46 + + _Jacob Dolph the elder ... stood on his hearth rug_ 51 + + _And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one to + go with him_ 55 + + _In quiet morning hours ... when his daughter sat at his feet_ 77 + + _"Mons'us gran dinneh, seh!"_ 79 + + _"All of a sudden, chock forward he went, right on his face"_ 83 + + _He heard the weak, spasmodic wail of another Dolph_ 88 + + _"Central American," said the clerk_ 107 + + _"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment_ 109 + + _O'Reagan of Castle Reagan_ 118 + + _"If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd + have had"_ 120 + + _"I know'd you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted_ 132 + + _"Have you got a nigger here?"_ 133 + + _Abram Van Riper makes a business communication._ 141 + + _And so she set his necktie right, and he went_ 144 + + _Looking on his face, she saw death quietly coming upon him_ 149 + + _Finial_ 151 + + + + + THE STORY + + OF A NEW YORK HOUSE. + + + + +I. + + +"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." + +"And I hear," said Abram Van Riper, laying down last night's _Evening +Post_, "that Jacob Dolph is going to give up business. And if he does, +it's a disgrace to the town." + +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 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. + +"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." + +"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 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!" + +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----" + +"_Ride!_" snorted Mr. Van Riper. "In a carriage, maybe?" + +"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 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 _you_ would----" + +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." + +"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." + +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 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. + +It began to hum itself in his head as he walked toward Water Street--_Ça +ira--ça ira--les aristocrats à la lanterne_. 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. + +But something worse than this vexed the conservative spirit of Abram Van +Riper. He 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. + +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. + +Within the last few years he had observed 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 _genteel_ 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. + +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 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. + + * * * * * + +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--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. + +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 +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 _Ursa Minor_ was +built. + +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 _chapeau de Paris_. 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"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." + +Madam Des Anges did not smile--she had no taste for smiling--but she +bridled amiably. + +"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." + +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 need not concern +himself about every one he saw. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Are you a girl-boy?" inquired his father, smiling. + +"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. + +[Illustration] + +"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 +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. + +"I thumped him," said young Jacob, and the narrow door swallowed him up. + +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 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. + +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 certainly, he had to admit, as he +looked about him, very _countrified_ 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. + +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. + +Here a man was sitting on a stone, awaiting him. As he came near, the +man arose. + +"Ah, it's you, Weeks? And have you the plan?" + +"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." + +[Illustration] + +Mr. Dolph took the crisp roll of parchment 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? + +"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. + +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. + +"I think I can get you some of that stone 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." + +"See what you can do, Weeks," said Mr. Dolph; and Mr. Weeks went +whistling down the road. + +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. + +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 the hour of the noontide meal in gaping at the unfinished +municipal building. + +They were admiringly critical. One man was vociferously enthusiastic. + +"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 _my_ opinion, sir, Europe is doing well." + +"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. + +"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 _frisée_. 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." + +"Madam Des Anges does not honor my house this time, Huggins," returned +Mr. Dolph, with an indulgent little laugh; "and my poor old peruke will +do very well for to-day." + +There was a perceptible diminution in Mr. Huggins's ardor; but he was +still suave. + +"I hope the madam is in good health," he remarked. + +"She is, I believe," said Mr. Dolph. + +"And your good lady, sir? I have not had the pleasure of treating Mrs. +Dolph professionally for some time, sir, I----" + +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 _frisée_." + +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." + +There was something else that Mr. Van Riper did not like. + +"Hullo, Dolph!" he hailed his friend. "What's this I heard about you +building a 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?" + +Mr. Dolph seized his chance. + +"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?" + +"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 your pipe, have you? You're +keeping some of your seven business senses, ain't you?" + +"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----" + +"John Pintard! He's another like _you_!" said Mr. Van Riper. + +"Well, look at it for yourself," pleaded the believer in New York's +future. + +Mr. Van Riper took the neatly written paper, and simply snorted and +gasped as he read this: + + _Statistical_. + + 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: + + 1805 75,770 1855 705,650 + 1810 95,715 1860 882,062 + 1815 110,390 1865 1,102,577 + 1820 147,987 1870 1,378,221 + 1825 184,923 1875 1,722,776 + 1830 231,228 1880 2,153,470 + 1835 289,035 1885 2,691,837 + 1840 361,293 1890 3,364,796 + 1845 451,616 1895 4,205,995 + 1850 564,520 1900 5,257,493 + +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. + +"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. + + * * * * * + +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 Dolphs set up their carriage and +drove out and in, from June to September. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +For they stayed in the old house until 1822. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 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. + +[Illustration] + +The panic was not only among the poor and ignorant. Merchants were +moving their offices, and even the Post Office and the Custom 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. + +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. + +Then out of the open door came Jacob Dolph, moving with a feeble shuffle +between 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. + +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. + +"What is it?" he asked, nervously. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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. + +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 _rouleau_ of coin, and they went +hurriedly away into the night. + +[Illustration] + +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 dead, over +the departed sister--and wife and mother. He spoke low; but his voice +seemed 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." + +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 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. + +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. + +Young Jacob Dolph helped his father to the ground, and between the young +man and the negro old Jacob Dolph wearily climbed the 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. + + + + +II. + + +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. + +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. + +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 Jacob Dolph +said, with something almost like testiness in his husky voice: + +"Jacob, I want to sell the house." + +"Father!" + +[Illustration] + +"The old house, I mean; I shall never go back there." + +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. + +"I shall never go back there," he said again. + +"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----" + +"There is no 'some time' for me!" broke in the old man, gripping the +chair-arms, fiercely; "my time's done--done, sir!" + +Then his voice broke and became plaintively kind. + +"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." + +He looked vacantly out of the window, trying to see the unforeseen with +his mental sight. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +[Illustration] + +"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-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!" + +"I'm not coming any nearer, Mr. Van Riper," said Jacob Dolph, with a +smile which he could not help. + +"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!" + +"I'll stay where I am, Mr. Van Riper," said young Jacob, smiling again. +"I only came with a message from my father." + +"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?" + +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 to carry out his plan he should be shipped +straightway to Bloomingdale. + +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. + +"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!" + +In the end he agreed, on certain strict conditions of precaution, to see +young Jacob the next day and discuss ways and means to save the +property. + +"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!" + +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. + + * * * * * + +Life lived itself out at Jacob Dolph's new 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. + +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 had left them; and he knew that even so +would Jacob some day recover from grief when his father should have +gone. + +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. + +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 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!" + +[Illustration] + +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; 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. + +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 +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. + +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. + +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. + +I think it must have been about then that Mr. Dominick Lynch began his +missionary labors among the smokers and drinkers of this 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. + +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. + +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, 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. + +[Illustration] + +The young men wore trousers, or pantaloons, as they mostly called them, +strapped under their varnished boots. Their coats were 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. + +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. + +It was a pleasant dinner, and the wine was good, and the company duly +appreciative, although individually critical. + +Old Jacob Dolph had on his right an agreeable French count, just arrived +in New York, who was creating a _furor_; 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 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. + +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. + +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, 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." + +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 his "infelicitous +absence of mind," and then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering +no one to go with him. + +[Illustration: And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no +one to go with him.] + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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 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. + +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. + +In the morning, before he went out for his daily tramp into town, old +Jacob would say to young Jacob: + +"I suppose I shall see you at dinner, my boy?" + +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." + +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. + +Master Jacob had taken to riding to King's Bridge of late. Sometimes he +would start out 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. + +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 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. + +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, whose drumming throbbed through the young man's deep and +tender musing. + +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. + + * * * * * + +One afternoon, in May of 1827, young Jacob found his father in the +breakfast-room, and said to him: + +"Father, I am going to marry Aline Des Anges." + +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: + +"Des Anges. That's a good family, Jacob, and a wonderful woman, Madam +Des Anges. Is she alive yet?" + + * * * * * + +When Madam Des Anges, eighty years old, and strong and well, heard of +this, she said: + +"It is the etiquette of France that one family should make the +proposition to the other family. Under the circumstances _I_ will be the +family that proposes. I will make a precedent. The Des Anges make +precedents." + +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. + +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. + +The ceremony was fashionably late--seven 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. + +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. + +There was to be a grand supper, later; and the time of waiting was +filled up with fashionable conversation. + +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. + +"It was heroic," said Dr. F. + +Madam Des Anges bowed her gray head approvingly. + +"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 the most +annoying solicitude; and I am informed that she is a person of feeble +character." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +Madam Des Anges dandled her quizzing-glass as though she meant to put it +up to her eye, and said, in a weary way: + +"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." + +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. + +"If your ladyship has to buy spectacles," he sputtered, "it needn't be +on my account." + +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, the end of +that brief conversation. Her face, too, was flushed--a more fiery red +than her flame-colored satin dress. + +She attacked him in a vehement whisper. + +"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." + +But all she could get out of Van Riper was: + +"The old harridan! She'll remember my name this year or two to come, +I'll warrant ye!" + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 by his side, and wished them _bon voyage_ as heartily as she +possibly could. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. + + +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. + +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. + + "Oh, come, maidens, come, o'er the blue, rolling wave, + The lovely should still be the care of the brave-- + Trancadillo, trancadillo, trancadillo, dillo, dillo, dillo!" + +sang the misguided slaves of fashion, as they sped out of hearing. + +"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. + +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. + +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, when they were softened and sweetened by so much +grace and beauty. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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 _my_ old man would cut the shop and try to get an education +in wine." + +Their devotion to the frivolities of fashion 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 _régime_ 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 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. + +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: + +"Oh, Jacob, don't, _please_ don't. She didn't mean it!" + +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! + + * * * * * + +Jacob Dolph the elder took but a doubtful part in all the festivities. +The cloud that had 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 is no more for the sufferer, +though his heart beat and the breath be warm between his lips. + +[Illustration] + +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. + +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. + +In truth, the younger Dolphs often had small heart in their festal +doings. But the 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. + +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: + +"I have a headache to-night, my dear, and I think I shall take my dinner +in my room." + +[Illustration: "Mons'us gran' dinneh, Seh!"] + +And he would go feebly up stairs, and when old Julius, who always waited +upon him, brought up his tray, he would ask: + +"Is it a fine dinner, Julius? Did everybody come?" + +And Julius would invariably reply, with profound African dignity: + +"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!" + +"Except the dinner we gave Mr. Hamilton; in State Street, Julius," the +old man would put in. + +"_Ex_cep' that, seh," Julius would gravely reply: "_that_ was a +pol-litical dinneh, seh; an', _of_ co'se, a pol'litical dinneh--" an +expressive pause--"but this he' is sho'ly a mons'us fine dinneh, seh." + + * * * * * + +His bodily vigor was unimpaired, however, and except that his times of +entire mental clearness grew fewer and briefer as the months 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. + +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. + +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. + +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, warm and fair--if they had seen old Mr. Dolph +that day. + +Many had seen him as he went down; but no one could remember that the +old gentleman had come back over his accustomed path. 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 +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?" + +[Illustration] + +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. + +The doctor's face was dark. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + + * * * * * + +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: + +"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----" + +"How is she, doctor? For God's sake, tell me--is she--is she----" + +"The hospitality of this house is prover--" the precise doctor +recommenced. + +"Damn the hospitality!" cried Jacob Dolph: "I mean--oh, doctor--tell +me--is anything wrong?" + +"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----" + +"It's all over?" + +"And bravely over!" And the doctor nodded his head with a dignified +cheerfulness. + +"And may I go to her?" + +"You may, sir, after you have given me my glass of port. But remember, +sir----" + +Dolph turned to the sideboard, grasped a bottle and a glass, and thrust +them into the doctor's hand, and started for the door. + +"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." + +Dolph listened in mad impatience, and was over the threshold before the +doctor's peremptory call brought him back. + +"What is it now?" he demanded, impatiently. + +The doctor looked at him with a gaze of wonder and reproach. + +"It is a male child, sir," he said. + +[Illustration] + +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. + + * * * * * + +"There's no help for it--I've got to do it," said Jacob Dolph. + +It was another wintry morning, just after breakfast. The snow was on the +ground, and 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. + +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 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. + +"I should not advise it, Dolph, if it can be helped," Mr. Van Riper +observed, thoughtfully. + +"It can't be helped." + +"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." + +Dolph kicked at the hearthrug, as he answered, somewhat testily: + +"I'm not making a speculation of it." + +Mr. Van Riper was unmoved. + +"And I'm not making a speculation of you, either," he said, calmly: "I +am speaking only for your own benefit, Dolph." + +Mr. Dolph put his hands in his pockets, strode to the window and back +again, and then said, with an uneasy little laugh: + +"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." + +Mr. Van Riper stroked his sharp chin. + +"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?" + +Ten years had given Jacob Dolph a certain floridity; but at this he +blushed a hot red. + +"Mortgage on the house? No, sir," he said, with emphasis. + +"Well, any other security, then," was Van Riper's indifferent amendment. + +Again Jacob Dolph strode to the window and back again, staring hard at +the carpet, and knitting his brows. + +Mr. Van Riper waited in undisturbed calm until his friend spoke once +more. + +"I might as well tell you the truth, Van 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 _won't_ +mortgage the house. This sale simply represents the hole in my capital." + +Something like a look of surprise came into Mr. Van Riper's wintry eyes. + +"It's none of my business, of course," he observed; "but if you haven't +any objection to telling me----" + +"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." + +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. + +"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 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." + +"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. _My_ boy shall go to Columbia, that's +certain." + +"_Your_ boy?" queried Dolph, raising his eyebrows. + +Van Riper smiled. + +"Yes," he said, "my boy. You didn't know I had a boy, did you? He's +nearly a year old." + +This made Mr. Jacob Dolph kick at the rug once more, and scowl a little. + +"I'm afraid I haven't been very neighborly, Van Riper--" he began; but +the other interrupted him, smiling good-naturedly. + +"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." + +Jacob Dolph smiled--not very mirthfully. Van Riper's gaze travelled +around the room, quietly curious. + +"It costs money to be a man of fashion, doesn't it?" + +"Yes," said Dolph, "it does." + +There was silence for a minute, which Van Riper broke. + +"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." + +Dolph shook his head. + +"I've been quite enough of a fool," he replied. + +"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." + + * * * * * + +After Mr. Dolph had bowed his guest to the door, Mrs. Dolph slipped down +the stairs and into the drawing-room. + +"Did he take it?" she asked. + +"Of course he took it," Dolph answered, bitterly, "at that price." + +"Did he say anything," she inquired again, "about its being hard for us +to--to sell it?" + +"He said we had better not sell it now--that it would bring more a few +years hence." + +"He doesn't understand," said Mrs. Dolph. + +"He _couldn't_ understand," said Mr. Dolph. + +Then she went over to him and kissed him. + +"It's only selling the garden, after all," she said; "it isn't like +selling our home." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"It isn't like selling our house," she said. + + + + +IV. + + +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 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. + +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 why young Eustace wore his raiment that made it dandified, and +not the inherent gorgeousness of the raiment itself. + +The exchange of attire might readily have been made, so far as the size +of the two men 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. + +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 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 _dilettante_ +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 _flâner_, for instance. But to have to +_flâner_ 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 _flâneur_, 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. + +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. + +Wandering in this way, to the running accompaniment 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. + +"The city grows, you see, my boy, and we've got to grow with it. I've +stood still; but you sha'n't." + +"Well, governor," said the younger man, "I'll be frank with you. I don't +like the prospect." + +"You will--you will, my boy. You'll live to thank me." + +"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 _like_ 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 +_pleasant_. Of course, if _your_ 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." + +"My poor father made a great mistake, Eustace. He would admit it now, +I'm sure, if he were alive." + +"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." + +Jacob Dolph grew red in the face and shook his head vigorously. + +"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." + +They entered one of a row of broad-fronted buildings of notable severity +and simplicity of 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: + + ABRAM VAN RIPER'S SON. + +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. + +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. + +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 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 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. + +[Illustration] + +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 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. + +"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. + +"Central American," responded the clerk, with brevity, and resumed his +whistling of + + "My name is Jake Keyser, I was born in Spring Garden; + To make me a preacher my father did try." + +"Central American _what_?" pursued the inquirer. + +"_Rubber!_" 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 + + "It's no use a-blowing, for I am a hard 'un-- + I'm bound to be a butcher, by heavens, or die!" + +Eustace recovered sufficiently to demand of his father: + +"I say, sir, shall I have to handle that damned stuff?" + +"Hush!" said his senior; "here's Mr. Van Riper." + +Mr. Van Riper came to the office door to welcome them, with his thin +face set in the form of a smile. + +"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." + +"I am going to try to, sir," replied the young man. + +"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." + +"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. Daw?--see what he +_doesn't_ 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?" + +[Illustration: "Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment.] + +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. + +"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 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?" + +"Eustace Dolph." + +"Hm! Jacob's better." + +And he led the neophyte away. + +"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 _he_ +wasn't made of cotton-batting." + +Thus began Eustace Dolph's apprenticeship to business, and mightily ill +he liked it. + + * * * * * + +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 +Village, and seen Alonzo Cushman II., or Alonzo Cushman III., perhaps, +going around and collecting his rents. + +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 +_bourgeois_ 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. + +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, _upon_ my word!" and "Well, I _should_ think----!" and "Who +would _ever_ have thought of such a 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? + +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. + +The expected event was of special and personal interest to only three +people--for, after all, when you think of it, it was not exactly +society's business--and it affected them in widely different ways. + +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." + +But when he _did_ 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, extremely well!" with a pride which the moralists +will tell you is baseless, unworthy, and unreasonable. + +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 at the old 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. + +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. 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 well-bred youth. +With port and sherry and good Bordeaux he had been familiar all his +life; a dash of _liqueur_ 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. + +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 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 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. + +[Illustration] + +There had been innuendos and hints and glancing allusions, but no one +had dared to make any direct assault of wit, until one evening 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. + +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: + +"Here, Dolph, I've done with this. You'd better take it back--it may be +wanted down your way." + +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 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. + +He looked at the date on the rattle, and then he rose up and went +between the two young men, and spoke to Haskins. + +"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." + +[Illustration: "If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd +have had."] + +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. + +The baby was born in the spring, and everybody said she was the image of +her mother. + + * * * * * + +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 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 _he_ 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. + +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. + +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, 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 _Schneider_-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 _tempo rubato_. It was +fashionable then. But we--we amuse ourselves less boisterously. + +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." + +He read it, and all the color of the winter's day faded out of his face. + +"I've got to go down to Van Riper's," he said, "at once; he wants me." + +"Has anything happened to--to Eustace?" his wife cried out. + +"He doesn't say so--I suppose--I suppose 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." + +He kissed her, and was gone. Half an hour later he sat in the office of +Abram Van Riper's Son. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +When Jacob Dolph, looking like a man of eighty, left the private office +of Mr. Van 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. + +[Illustration] + + + + +V. + + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +Yet he stayed there, and grew old with an 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. + +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. + +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 lives relieved +from absolute poverty, those three dwelt in the old house, and let the +world slip by them. + + * * * * * + +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. +Then there came a silence that seemed unnaturally deep, yet it was only +the silence of a summer night in the deserted city streets. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I knowed you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted; "I'm feared they +seen me, though--they was mighty clost behind." + +[Illustration] + +They were close behind him, indeed. In 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 great doors, crying for the blood of the helpless and the +innocent. + +[Illustration: "Have you got a nigger here?"] + +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. + +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. + +"Have you got a nigger here?" he began, and then stopped short, for +Jacob Dolph was looking upon the face of his son. + +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. + +"He ain't here!" he roared. "I told you so--I saw him turn the corner." + +"Shtap an' burrn the bondholder's house!" yelled a man behind. Eustace +Dolph turned round with a furious, threatening gesture. + +"You damned fool!" he thundered; "he's no bondholder--he's one of _us_. +Go on, I tell you! Will you let that nigger get away?" + +He half drove them down the steps. The old man stepped out, his face +aflame under his white hair, his whole frame quivering. + +"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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +Age takes small account of the immediate flight of time. To the young, a +year is a 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! + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Edith was growing old, perhaps; getting to be a great girl, taller than +her mother and fairer of complexion, yet not unlike 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. + +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. + +There was a confused, ant-like movement in 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. + +After Jacob Dolph had stood for some time, 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +[Illustration] + +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 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 +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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." + + * * * * * + +A few years ago--shall we say as many as 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 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. + +[Illustration] + +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 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. + +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. + +When he got out of the car at Abingdon 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. + +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. + +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-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. + +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 _café_ a block to the eastward, and +there to take a glass of _vermouth gommé_--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 _café_, 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 _café_. But then we have never +owned such a house, and lost it--and everything else. + + * * * * * + +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. + +"Oh, John," she cried, "father hasn't come home yet, and it's five +o'clock, and he left home at nine." + +John Rand threw off his flannel jacket, and got into his coat. + +"We'll find him; don't worry, dear," he said. + +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 +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. + +As they went up the steps they met the young hospital surgeon, going +back to his ambulance. + +"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. + +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. + +Meanwhile a tall Southerner, with hair halfway down his neck, and +kindly eyes that moved in unison with his broad gestures, was talking to +Rand. + +[Illustration] + +"I met the ol' gentleman in the French _café_, 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 +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----" + +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. + +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. + +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 father's house, brick by brick--and yet the sound +could no longer jar upon his ear or grieve his gentle spirit. + +[Illustration] + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------+ + |Transcriber's Note: | + |The following printing errors were corrected in this text.| + | Page 82, period added after 'path'. | + | (back over his accustomed path. At) | + | Page 97, period added after 'said'. | + | (selling our house," she said.) | + | Page 99, 'w' in 'why' changed to lower case. | + | (it was why young Eustace) | + | Page 115, repeated 'the' removed. | + | (girded at the old woman) | + +----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +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 30662-8.txt or 30662-8.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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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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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: ASCII + +*** 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.) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph.] + + + + + THE STORY + + OF + + A NEW YORK HOUSE + + BY + + H. C. BUNNER + + + _ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST_ + + + NEW YORK + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + 1887 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. + + + Press of J. J. Little & Co. + Astor Place, New York. + + + + + TO + + A. L. B. + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + _Then out of the door came Jacob Dolph_ FRONTISPIECE + + PAGE + + _"I thumped him"_ 14 + + _"It's a monstrous great place for a country-house, Mr. Dolph"_ 18 + + _There was only one idea, and that was flight_ 28 + + _The light flickered on the top of the church spire_ 32 + (_By F. Hopkinson Smith._) + + _They hesitated a second, looking at the great arm chair_ 37 + + _"Stay there, sir--you, sir, you, Jacob Dolph!"_ 41 + + _After awhile he began to take timorous strolls_ 46 + + _Jacob Dolph the elder ... stood on his hearth rug_ 51 + + _And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no one to + go with him_ 55 + + _In quiet morning hours ... when his daughter sat at his feet_ 77 + + _"Mons'us gran dinneh, seh!"_ 79 + + _"All of a sudden, chock forward he went, right on his face"_ 83 + + _He heard the weak, spasmodic wail of another Dolph_ 88 + + _"Central American," said the clerk_ 107 + + _"Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment_ 109 + + _O'Reagan of Castle Reagan_ 118 + + _"If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd + have had"_ 120 + + _"I know'd you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted_ 132 + + _"Have you got a nigger here?"_ 133 + + _Abram Van Riper makes a business communication._ 141 + + _And so she set his necktie right, and he went_ 144 + + _Looking on his face, she saw death quietly coming upon him_ 149 + + _Finial_ 151 + + + + + THE STORY + + OF A NEW YORK HOUSE. + + + + +I. + + +"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." + +"And I hear," said Abram Van Riper, laying down last night's _Evening +Post_, "that Jacob Dolph is going to give up business. And if he does, +it's a disgrace to the town." + +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 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. + +"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." + +"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 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!" + +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----" + +"_Ride!_" snorted Mr. Van Riper. "In a carriage, maybe?" + +"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 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 _you_ would----" + +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." + +"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." + +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 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. + +It began to hum itself in his head as he walked toward Water Street--_Ca +ira--ca ira--les aristocrats a la lanterne_. 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. + +But something worse than this vexed the conservative spirit of Abram Van +Riper. He 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. + +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. + +Within the last few years he had observed 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 _genteel_ 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. + +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 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. + + * * * * * + +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--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. + +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 +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 _Ursa Minor_ was +built. + +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 _chapeau de Paris_. 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"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." + +Madam Des Anges did not smile--she had no taste for smiling--but she +bridled amiably. + +"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." + +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 need not concern +himself about every one he saw. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"Are you a girl-boy?" inquired his father, smiling. + +"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. + +[Illustration] + +"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 +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. + +"I thumped him," said young Jacob, and the narrow door swallowed him up. + +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 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. + +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 certainly, he had to admit, as he +looked about him, very _countrified_ 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. + +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. + +Here a man was sitting on a stone, awaiting him. As he came near, the +man arose. + +"Ah, it's you, Weeks? And have you the plan?" + +"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." + +[Illustration] + +Mr. Dolph took the crisp roll of parchment 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? + +"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. + +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. + +"I think I can get you some of that stone 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." + +"See what you can do, Weeks," said Mr. Dolph; and Mr. Weeks went +whistling down the road. + +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. + +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 the hour of the noontide meal in gaping at the unfinished +municipal building. + +They were admiringly critical. One man was vociferously enthusiastic. + +"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 _my_ opinion, sir, Europe is doing well." + +"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. + +"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 _frisee_. 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." + +"Madam Des Anges does not honor my house this time, Huggins," returned +Mr. Dolph, with an indulgent little laugh; "and my poor old peruke will +do very well for to-day." + +There was a perceptible diminution in Mr. Huggins's ardor; but he was +still suave. + +"I hope the madam is in good health," he remarked. + +"She is, I believe," said Mr. Dolph. + +"And your good lady, sir? I have not had the pleasure of treating Mrs. +Dolph professionally for some time, sir, I----" + +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 _frisee_." + +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." + +There was something else that Mr. Van Riper did not like. + +"Hullo, Dolph!" he hailed his friend. "What's this I heard about you +building a 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?" + +Mr. Dolph seized his chance. + +"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?" + +"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 your pipe, have you? You're +keeping some of your seven business senses, ain't you?" + +"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----" + +"John Pintard! He's another like _you_!" said Mr. Van Riper. + +"Well, look at it for yourself," pleaded the believer in New York's +future. + +Mr. Van Riper took the neatly written paper, and simply snorted and +gasped as he read this: + + _Statistical_. + + 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: + + 1805 75,770 1855 705,650 + 1810 95,715 1860 882,062 + 1815 110,390 1865 1,102,577 + 1820 147,987 1870 1,378,221 + 1825 184,923 1875 1,722,776 + 1830 231,228 1880 2,153,470 + 1835 289,035 1885 2,691,837 + 1840 361,293 1890 3,364,796 + 1845 451,616 1895 4,205,995 + 1850 564,520 1900 5,257,493 + +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. + +"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. + + * * * * * + +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 Dolphs set up their carriage and +drove out and in, from June to September. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +For they stayed in the old house until 1822. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 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. + +[Illustration] + +The panic was not only among the poor and ignorant. Merchants were +moving their offices, and even the Post Office and the Custom 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. + +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. + +Then out of the open door came Jacob Dolph, moving with a feeble shuffle +between 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. + +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. + +"What is it?" he asked, nervously. + +"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." + +"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!" + +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. + +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 _rouleau_ of coin, and they went +hurriedly away into the night. + +[Illustration] + +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 dead, over +the departed sister--and wife and mother. He spoke low; but his voice +seemed 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." + +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 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. + +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. + +Young Jacob Dolph helped his father to the ground, and between the young +man and the negro old Jacob Dolph wearily climbed the 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. + + + + +II. + + +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. + +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. + +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 Jacob Dolph +said, with something almost like testiness in his husky voice: + +"Jacob, I want to sell the house." + +"Father!" + +[Illustration] + +"The old house, I mean; I shall never go back there." + +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. + +"I shall never go back there," he said again. + +"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----" + +"There is no 'some time' for me!" broke in the old man, gripping the +chair-arms, fiercely; "my time's done--done, sir!" + +Then his voice broke and became plaintively kind. + +"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." + +He looked vacantly out of the window, trying to see the unforeseen with +his mental sight. + +"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." + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +[Illustration] + +"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-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!" + +"I'm not coming any nearer, Mr. Van Riper," said Jacob Dolph, with a +smile which he could not help. + +"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!" + +"I'll stay where I am, Mr. Van Riper," said young Jacob, smiling again. +"I only came with a message from my father." + +"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?" + +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 to carry out his plan he should be shipped +straightway to Bloomingdale. + +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. + +"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!" + +In the end he agreed, on certain strict conditions of precaution, to see +young Jacob the next day and discuss ways and means to save the +property. + +"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!" + +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. + + * * * * * + +Life lived itself out at Jacob Dolph's new 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. + +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 had left them; and he knew that even so +would Jacob some day recover from grief when his father should have +gone. + +He saw this; but it is doubtful if he felt it acutely. Nature was +gradually dulling his sensibilities with that wonderful anaesthetic 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. + +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 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!" + +[Illustration] + +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; 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. + +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 +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. + +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. + +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. + +I think it must have been about then that Mr. Dominick Lynch began his +missionary labors among the smokers and drinkers of this 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. + +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. + +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, 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. + +[Illustration] + +The young men wore trousers, or pantaloons, as they mostly called them, +strapped under their varnished boots. Their coats were 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. + +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. + +It was a pleasant dinner, and the wine was good, and the company duly +appreciative, although individually critical. + +Old Jacob Dolph had on his right an agreeable French count, just arrived +in New York, who was creating a _furor_; 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 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. + +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. + +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, 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." + +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 his "infelicitous +absence of mind," and then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering +no one to go with him. + +[Illustration: And then he marched off to bed by himself, suffering no +one to go with him.] + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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 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. + +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. + +In the morning, before he went out for his daily tramp into town, old +Jacob would say to young Jacob: + +"I suppose I shall see you at dinner, my boy?" + +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." + +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. + +Master Jacob had taken to riding to King's Bridge of late. Sometimes he +would start out 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. + +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 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. + +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, whose drumming throbbed through the young man's deep and +tender musing. + +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. + + * * * * * + +One afternoon, in May of 1827, young Jacob found his father in the +breakfast-room, and said to him: + +"Father, I am going to marry Aline Des Anges." + +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: + +"Des Anges. That's a good family, Jacob, and a wonderful woman, Madam +Des Anges. Is she alive yet?" + + * * * * * + +When Madam Des Anges, eighty years old, and strong and well, heard of +this, she said: + +"It is the etiquette of France that one family should make the +proposition to the other family. Under the circumstances _I_ will be the +family that proposes. I will make a precedent. The Des Anges make +precedents." + +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. + +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. + +The ceremony was fashionably late--seven 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. + +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. + +There was to be a grand supper, later; and the time of waiting was +filled up with fashionable conversation. + +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. + +"It was heroic," said Dr. F. + +Madam Des Anges bowed her gray head approvingly. + +"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 the most +annoying solicitude; and I am informed that she is a person of feeble +character." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +Madam Des Anges dandled her quizzing-glass as though she meant to put it +up to her eye, and said, in a weary way: + +"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." + +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. + +"If your ladyship has to buy spectacles," he sputtered, "it needn't be +on my account." + +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, the end of +that brief conversation. Her face, too, was flushed--a more fiery red +than her flame-colored satin dress. + +She attacked him in a vehement whisper. + +"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." + +But all she could get out of Van Riper was: + +"The old harridan! She'll remember my name this year or two to come, +I'll warrant ye!" + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 by his side, and wished them _bon voyage_ as heartily as she +possibly could. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. + + +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. + +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. + + "Oh, come, maidens, come, o'er the blue, rolling wave, + The lovely should still be the care of the brave-- + Trancadillo, trancadillo, trancadillo, dillo, dillo, dillo!" + +sang the misguided slaves of fashion, as they sped out of hearing. + +"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. + +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. + +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, when they were softened and sweetened by so much +grace and beauty. + +"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?" + +"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." + +"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 _my_ old man would cut the shop and try to get an education +in wine." + +Their devotion to the frivolities of fashion 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 _regime_ 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 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. + +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: + +"Oh, Jacob, don't, _please_ don't. She didn't mean it!" + +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! + + * * * * * + +Jacob Dolph the elder took but a doubtful part in all the festivities. +The cloud that had 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 anaesthetic, 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 is no more for the sufferer, +though his heart beat and the breath be warm between his lips. + +[Illustration] + +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. + +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. + +In truth, the younger Dolphs often had small heart in their festal +doings. But the 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. + +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: + +"I have a headache to-night, my dear, and I think I shall take my dinner +in my room." + +[Illustration: "Mons'us gran' dinneh, Seh!"] + +And he would go feebly up stairs, and when old Julius, who always waited +upon him, brought up his tray, he would ask: + +"Is it a fine dinner, Julius? Did everybody come?" + +And Julius would invariably reply, with profound African dignity: + +"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!" + +"Except the dinner we gave Mr. Hamilton; in State Street, Julius," the +old man would put in. + +"_Ex_cep' that, seh," Julius would gravely reply: "_that_ was a +pol-litical dinneh, seh; an', _of_ co'se, a pol'litical dinneh--" an +expressive pause--"but this he' is sho'ly a mons'us fine dinneh, seh." + + * * * * * + +His bodily vigor was unimpaired, however, and except that his times of +entire mental clearness grew fewer and briefer as the months 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. + +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. + +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. + +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, warm and fair--if they had seen old Mr. Dolph +that day. + +Many had seen him as he went down; but no one could remember that the +old gentleman had come back over his accustomed path. 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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 +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?" + +[Illustration] + +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. + +The doctor's face was dark. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + + * * * * * + +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: + +"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----" + +"How is she, doctor? For God's sake, tell me--is she--is she----" + +"The hospitality of this house is prover--" the precise doctor +recommenced. + +"Damn the hospitality!" cried Jacob Dolph: "I mean--oh, doctor--tell +me--is anything wrong?" + +"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----" + +"It's all over?" + +"And bravely over!" And the doctor nodded his head with a dignified +cheerfulness. + +"And may I go to her?" + +"You may, sir, after you have given me my glass of port. But remember, +sir----" + +Dolph turned to the sideboard, grasped a bottle and a glass, and thrust +them into the doctor's hand, and started for the door. + +"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." + +Dolph listened in mad impatience, and was over the threshold before the +doctor's peremptory call brought him back. + +"What is it now?" he demanded, impatiently. + +The doctor looked at him with a gaze of wonder and reproach. + +"It is a male child, sir," he said. + +[Illustration] + +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. + + * * * * * + +"There's no help for it--I've got to do it," said Jacob Dolph. + +It was another wintry morning, just after breakfast. The snow was on the +ground, and 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. + +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 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. + +"I should not advise it, Dolph, if it can be helped," Mr. Van Riper +observed, thoughtfully. + +"It can't be helped." + +"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." + +Dolph kicked at the hearthrug, as he answered, somewhat testily: + +"I'm not making a speculation of it." + +Mr. Van Riper was unmoved. + +"And I'm not making a speculation of you, either," he said, calmly: "I +am speaking only for your own benefit, Dolph." + +Mr. Dolph put his hands in his pockets, strode to the window and back +again, and then said, with an uneasy little laugh: + +"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." + +Mr. Van Riper stroked his sharp chin. + +"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?" + +Ten years had given Jacob Dolph a certain floridity; but at this he +blushed a hot red. + +"Mortgage on the house? No, sir," he said, with emphasis. + +"Well, any other security, then," was Van Riper's indifferent amendment. + +Again Jacob Dolph strode to the window and back again, staring hard at +the carpet, and knitting his brows. + +Mr. Van Riper waited in undisturbed calm until his friend spoke once +more. + +"I might as well tell you the truth, Van 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 _won't_ +mortgage the house. This sale simply represents the hole in my capital." + +Something like a look of surprise came into Mr. Van Riper's wintry eyes. + +"It's none of my business, of course," he observed; "but if you haven't +any objection to telling me----" + +"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." + +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. + +"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 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." + +"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. _My_ boy shall go to Columbia, that's +certain." + +"_Your_ boy?" queried Dolph, raising his eyebrows. + +Van Riper smiled. + +"Yes," he said, "my boy. You didn't know I had a boy, did you? He's +nearly a year old." + +This made Mr. Jacob Dolph kick at the rug once more, and scowl a little. + +"I'm afraid I haven't been very neighborly, Van Riper--" he began; but +the other interrupted him, smiling good-naturedly. + +"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." + +Jacob Dolph smiled--not very mirthfully. Van Riper's gaze travelled +around the room, quietly curious. + +"It costs money to be a man of fashion, doesn't it?" + +"Yes," said Dolph, "it does." + +There was silence for a minute, which Van Riper broke. + +"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." + +Dolph shook his head. + +"I've been quite enough of a fool," he replied. + +"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." + + * * * * * + +After Mr. Dolph had bowed his guest to the door, Mrs. Dolph slipped down +the stairs and into the drawing-room. + +"Did he take it?" she asked. + +"Of course he took it," Dolph answered, bitterly, "at that price." + +"Did he say anything," she inquired again, "about its being hard for us +to--to sell it?" + +"He said we had better not sell it now--that it would bring more a few +years hence." + +"He doesn't understand," said Mrs. Dolph. + +"He _couldn't_ understand," said Mr. Dolph. + +Then she went over to him and kissed him. + +"It's only selling the garden, after all," she said; "it isn't like +selling our home." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"It isn't like selling our house," she said. + + + + +IV. + + +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 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. + +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 why young Eustace wore his raiment that made it dandified, and +not the inherent gorgeousness of the raiment itself. + +The exchange of attire might readily have been made, so far as the size +of the two men 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. + +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 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 _dilettante_ +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 _flaner_, for instance. But to have to +_flaner_ 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 _flaneur_, 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. + +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. + +Wandering in this way, to the running accompaniment 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. + +"The city grows, you see, my boy, and we've got to grow with it. I've +stood still; but you sha'n't." + +"Well, governor," said the younger man, "I'll be frank with you. I don't +like the prospect." + +"You will--you will, my boy. You'll live to thank me." + +"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 _like_ 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 +_pleasant_. Of course, if _your_ 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." + +"My poor father made a great mistake, Eustace. He would admit it now, +I'm sure, if he were alive." + +"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." + +Jacob Dolph grew red in the face and shook his head vigorously. + +"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." + +They entered one of a row of broad-fronted buildings of notable severity +and simplicity of 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: + + ABRAM VAN RIPER'S SON. + +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. + +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. + +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 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 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. + +[Illustration] + +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 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. + +"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. + +"Central American," responded the clerk, with brevity, and resumed his +whistling of + + "My name is Jake Keyser, I was born in Spring Garden; + To make me a preacher my father did try." + +"Central American _what_?" pursued the inquirer. + +"_Rubber!_" 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 + + "It's no use a-blowing, for I am a hard 'un-- + I'm bound to be a butcher, by heavens, or die!" + +Eustace recovered sufficiently to demand of his father: + +"I say, sir, shall I have to handle that damned stuff?" + +"Hush!" said his senior; "here's Mr. Van Riper." + +Mr. Van Riper came to the office door to welcome them, with his thin +face set in the form of a smile. + +"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." + +"I am going to try to, sir," replied the young man. + +"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." + +"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. Daw?--see what he +_doesn't_ 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?" + +[Illustration: "Looks like his father," was Mr. Daw's comment.] + +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. + +"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 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?" + +"Eustace Dolph." + +"Hm! Jacob's better." + +And he led the neophyte away. + +"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 _he_ +wasn't made of cotton-batting." + +Thus began Eustace Dolph's apprenticeship to business, and mightily ill +he liked it. + + * * * * * + +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 +Village, and seen Alonzo Cushman II., or Alonzo Cushman III., perhaps, +going around and collecting his rents. + +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 +_bourgeois_ 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. + +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, _upon_ my word!" and "Well, I _should_ think----!" and "Who +would _ever_ have thought of such a 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? + +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. + +The expected event was of special and personal interest to only three +people--for, after all, when you think of it, it was not exactly +society's business--and it affected them in widely different ways. + +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." + +But when he _did_ 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, extremely well!" with a pride which the moralists +will tell you is baseless, unworthy, and unreasonable. + +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 at the old 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. + +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. 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 well-bred youth. +With port and sherry and good Bordeaux he had been familiar all his +life; a dash of _liqueur_ 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. + +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 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 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. + +[Illustration] + +There had been innuendos and hints and glancing allusions, but no one +had dared to make any direct assault of wit, until one evening 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. + +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: + +"Here, Dolph, I've done with this. You'd better take it back--it may be +wanted down your way." + +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 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. + +He looked at the date on the rattle, and then he rose up and went +between the two young men, and spoke to Haskins. + +"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." + +[Illustration: "If it hadn't been for the Dolphs, devil the rattle you'd +have had."] + +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. + +The baby was born in the spring, and everybody said she was the image of +her mother. + + * * * * * + +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 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 _he_ 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. + +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. + +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, 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 _Schneider_-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 _tempo rubato_. It was +fashionable then. But we--we amuse ourselves less boisterously. + +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." + +He read it, and all the color of the winter's day faded out of his face. + +"I've got to go down to Van Riper's," he said, "at once; he wants me." + +"Has anything happened to--to Eustace?" his wife cried out. + +"He doesn't say so--I suppose--I suppose 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." + +He kissed her, and was gone. Half an hour later he sat in the office of +Abram Van Riper's Son. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +When Jacob Dolph, looking like a man of eighty, left the private office +of Mr. Van 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. + +[Illustration] + + + + +V. + + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +Yet he stayed there, and grew old with an 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. + +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. + +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 lives relieved +from absolute poverty, those three dwelt in the old house, and let the +world slip by them. + + * * * * * + +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. +Then there came a silence that seemed unnaturally deep, yet it was only +the silence of a summer night in the deserted city streets. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I knowed you'd take me in, Mist' Dolph," he panted; "I'm feared they +seen me, though--they was mighty clost behind." + +[Illustration] + +They were close behind him, indeed. In 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 great doors, crying for the blood of the helpless and the +innocent. + +[Illustration: "Have you got a nigger here?"] + +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. + +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. + +"Have you got a nigger here?" he began, and then stopped short, for +Jacob Dolph was looking upon the face of his son. + +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. + +"He ain't here!" he roared. "I told you so--I saw him turn the corner." + +"Shtap an' burrn the bondholder's house!" yelled a man behind. Eustace +Dolph turned round with a furious, threatening gesture. + +"You damned fool!" he thundered; "he's no bondholder--he's one of _us_. +Go on, I tell you! Will you let that nigger get away?" + +He half drove them down the steps. The old man stepped out, his face +aflame under his white hair, his whole frame quivering. + +"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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +Age takes small account of the immediate flight of time. To the young, a +year is a 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! + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Edith was growing old, perhaps; getting to be a great girl, taller than +her mother and fairer of complexion, yet not unlike 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. + +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. + +There was a confused, ant-like movement in 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. + +After Jacob Dolph had stood for some time, 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +[Illustration] + +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 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 +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. + +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. + +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: + +"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." + + * * * * * + +A few years ago--shall we say as many as 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 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. + +[Illustration] + +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 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. + +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. + +When he got out of the car at Abingdon 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. + +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. + +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-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. + +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 _cafe_ a block to the eastward, and +there to take a glass of _vermouth gomme_--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 _cafe_, 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 _cafe_. But then we have never +owned such a house, and lost it--and everything else. + + * * * * * + +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. + +"Oh, John," she cried, "father hasn't come home yet, and it's five +o'clock, and he left home at nine." + +John Rand threw off his flannel jacket, and got into his coat. + +"We'll find him; don't worry, dear," he said. + +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 +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. + +As they went up the steps they met the young hospital surgeon, going +back to his ambulance. + +"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. + +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. + +Meanwhile a tall Southerner, with hair halfway down his neck, and +kindly eyes that moved in unison with his broad gestures, was talking to +Rand. + +[Illustration] + +"I met the ol' gentleman in the French _cafe_, 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 +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----" + +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. + +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. + +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 father's house, brick by brick--and yet the sound +could no longer jar upon his ear or grieve his gentle spirit. + +[Illustration] + + + + + +----------------------------------------------------------+ + |Transcriber's Note: | + |The following printing errors were corrected in this text.| + | Page 82, period added after 'path'. | + | (back over his accustomed path. At) | + | Page 97, period added after 'said'. | + | (selling our house," she said.) | + | Page 99, 'w' in 'why' changed to lower case. | + | (it was why young Eustace) | + | Page 115, repeated 'the' removed. | + | (girded at the old woman) | + +----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +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.txt or 30662.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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