"I"m in a great hurry just now," said Richling; "but I"ll talk about this thing with you again to-morrow or next day," and so left.
The restaurateur turned to his head-waiter, stuck his tongue in his cheek, and pulled down the lower lid of an eye with his forefinger. He meant to say he had been lying for the pure fun of it.
When Dr. Sevier came that afternoon to see Reisen--of whom there was now but little left, and that little unable to leave the bed--Richling took occasion to raise the subject that had entangled his fancy. He was careful to say nothing of himself or the restaurateur, or anything, indeed, but a timid generality or two. But the Doctor responded with a clear, sudden energy that, when he was gone, left Richling feeling painfully blank, and yet unable to find anything to resent except the Doctor"s superfluous--as he thought, quite superfluous--mention of the island of Cozumel.
However, and after all, that which for the most part kept the public mind heated was, as we have said, the political campaign. Popular feeling grew tremulous with it as the landscape did under the burning sun. It was a very hot summer. Not a good one for feeble folk; and one early dawn poor Reisen suddenly felt all his reason come back to him, opened his eyes, and lo! he had crossed the river in the night, and was on the other side.
Dr. Sevier"s experienced horse halted of his own will to let a procession pa.s.s. In the carriage at its head the physician saw the little rector, sitting beside a man of German ecclesiastical appearance.
Behind it followed a majestic hea.r.s.e, drawn by black-plumed and caparisoned horses,--four of them. Then came a long line of red-shirted firemen; for he in the hea.r.s.e had been an "exempt." Then a further line of big-handed, white-gloved men in beavers and regalias; for he had been also a Freemason and an Odd-fellow. Then another column, of emotionless-visaged German women, all in bunchy black gowns, walking out of time to the solemn roll and pulse of the m.u.f.fled drums, and the brazen peals of the funeral march. A few carriages closed the long line. In the first of them the waiting Doctor marked, with a sudden understanding of all, the pale face of John Richling, and by his side the widow who had been forty years a wife,--weary and red with weeping.
The Doctor took off his hat.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
RISE UP, MY LOVE, MY FAIR ONE.
The summer at length was past, and the burning heat was over and gone.
The days were refreshed with the balm of a waning October. There had been no fever. True, the nights were still aglare with torches, and the street echoes kept awake by trumpet notes and huzzas, by the tramp of feet and the delicate hint of the bell-ringing; and men on the stump and off it; in the "wigwams;" along the sidewalks, as they came forth, wiping their mouths, from the free-lunch counters, and on the curb-stones and "flags" of Carondelet street, were saying things to make a patriot"s heart ache. But contrariwise, in that same Carondelet street, and hence in all the streets of the big, scattered town, the most prosperous commercial year--they measure from September to September--that had ever risen upon New Orleans had closed its distended record, and no one knew or dreamed that, for nearly a quarter of a century to come, the proud city would never see the equal of that golden year just gone. And so, away yonder among the great lakes on the northern border of the anxious but hopeful country, Mary was calling, calling, like an unseen bird piping across the fields for its mate, to know if she and the one little nestling might not come to hers.
And at length, after two or three unexpected contingencies had caused delays of one week after another, all in a silent tremor of joy, John wrote the word--"Come!"
He was on his way to put it into the post-office, in Royal street. At the newspaper offices, in Camp street, he had to go out into the middle of the way to get around the crowd that surrounded the bulletin-boards, and that scuffled for copies of the latest issue. The day of days was pa.s.sing; the returns of election were coming in. In front of the "Picayune" office he ran square against a small man, who had just pulled himself and the most of his clothing out of the press with the last news crumpled in the hand that he still held above his head.
"h.e.l.lo, Richling, this is pretty exciting, isn"t it?" It was the little clergyman. "Come on, I"ll go your way; let"s get out of this."
He took Richling"s arm, and they went on down the street, the rector reading aloud as they walked, and shopkeepers and salesmen at their doors catching what they could of his words as the two pa.s.sed.
"It"s dreadful! dreadful!" said the little man, thrusting the paper into his pocket in a wad.
"Hi! Mistoo Itchlin," quoth Narcisse, pa.s.sing them like an arrow, on his way to the paper offices.
"He"s happy," said Richling.
"Well, then, he"s the only happy man I know of in New Orleans to-day,"
said the little rector, jerking his head and drawing a sigh through his teeth.
"No," said Richling, "I"m another. You see this letter." He showed it with the direction turned down. "I"m going now to mail it. When my wife gets it she starts."
The preacher glanced quickly into his face. Richling met his gaze with eyes that danced with suppressed joy. The two friends attracted no attention from those whom they pa.s.sed or who pa.s.sed them; the newsboys were scampering here and there, everybody buying from them, and the walls of Common street ringing with their shouted proffers of the "full account" of the election.
"Richling, don"t do it."
"Why not?" Richling showed only amus.e.m.e.nt.
"For several reasons," replied the other. "In the first place, look at your business!"
"Never so good as to-day."
"True. And it entirely absorbs you. What time would you have at your fireside, or even at your family table? None. It"s--well you know what it is--it"s a bakery, you know. You couldn"t expect to lodge _your_ wife and little girl in a bakery in Benjamin street; you know you couldn"t.
Now, _you_--you don"t mind it--or, I mean, you can stand it. Those things never need damage a gentleman. But with your wife it would be different. You smile, but--why, you know she couldn"t go there. And if you put her anywhere where a lady ought to be, in New Orleans, she would be--well, don"t you see she would be about as far away as if she were in Milwaukee? Richling, I don"t know how it looks to you for me to be so meddlesome, and I believe you think I"m making a very poor argument; but you see this is only one point and the smallest. Now"--
Richling raised his thin hand, and said pleasantly:--
"It"s no use. You can"t understand; it wouldn"t be possible to explain; for you simply don"t know Mary."
"But there are some things I do know. Just think; she"s with her mother where she is. Imagine her falling ill here,--as you"ve told me she used to do,--and you with that bakery on your hands."
Richling looked grave.
"Oh no," continued the little man. "You"ve been so brave and patient, you and your wife, both,--do be so a little bit longer! Live close; save your money; go on rising in value in your business; and after a little you"ll rise clear out of the sphere you"re now in. You"ll command your own time; you"ll build your own little home; and life and happiness and usefulness will be fairly and broadly open before you." Richling gave heed with a troubled face, and let his companion draw him into the shadow of that "St. Charles" from the foot of whose stair-way he had once been dragged away as a vagrant.
"See, Richling! Every few weeks you may read in some paper of how a man on some ferry-boat jumps for the wharf before the boat has touched it, falls into the water, and-- Make sure! Be brave a little longer--only a little longer! Wait till you"re sure!"
"I"m sure enough!"
"Oh, no, you"re not! Wait till this political broil is over. They say Lincoln is elected. If so, the South is not going to submit to it.
n.o.body can tell what the consequences are to be. Suppose we should have war? I don"t think we shall, but suppose we should? There would be a general upheaval, commercial stagnation, industrial collapse, shrinkage everywhere! Wait till it"s over. It may not be two weeks hence; it can hardly be more than ninety days at the outside. If it should the North would be ruined, and you may be sure they are not going to allow _that_.
Then, when all starts fair again, bring your wife and baby. I"ll tell you what to do, Richling!"
"Will you?" responded the listener, with an amiable laugh that the little man tried to echo.
"Yes. Ask Dr. Sevier! He"s right here in the next street. He was on your side last time; maybe he"ll be so now."
"Done!" said Richling. They went. The rector said he would do an errand in Ca.n.a.l street, while Richling should go up and see the physician.
Dr. Sevier was in.
"Why, Richling!" He rose to receive him. "How are you?" He cast his eye over his visitor with professional scrutiny. "What brings _you_ here?"
"To tell you that I"ve written for Mary," said Richling, sinking wearily into a chair.
"Have you mailed the letter?"
"I"m taking it to the post-office now."
The Doctor threw one leg energetically over the other, and picked up the same paper-knife that he had handled when, two years and a half before, he had sat thus, talking to Mary and John on the eve of their separation.
"Richling, I"ll tell you. I"ve been thinking about this thing for some time, and I"ve decided to make you a proposal. I look at you and at Mary and at the times--the condition of the country--the probable future--everything. I know you, physically and mentally, better than anybody else does. I can say the same of Mary. So, of course, I don"t make this proposal impulsively, and I don"t want it rejected.
"Richling, I"ll lend you two thousand to twenty-five hundred dollars, payable at your convenience, if you will just go to your room, pack up, go home, and take from six to twelve months" holiday with your wife and child."
The listener opened his mouth in blank astonishment.
"Why, Doctor, you"re jesting! You can"t suppose"--