X.
No letter came back from Jamie, and Mr. Bowdoin rather wondered at it.
But openly he pooh-poohed the idea. His wife had lost twenty years of her age in presiding over Sanitary Commissions, and getting up cla.s.ses where little girls picked lint for Union soldiers; and Mr. Bowdoin himself was full of the war news in the papers. For he was a war Democrat (that fine old name!), and had he had his way, every son and grandson would have been in the Union army. Most of them were, among them Harley, though the family blood had made him choose the naval branch. Commander Harleston Bowdoin was back on a furlough won him by a gunshot wound: and it was he who asked about old Jamie most anxiously.
"You feel sure that he was going to Havana?" said he over the family breakfast table.
Old lady Bowdoin had left them; long since she had established her claim to the donation fund by arriving always first at breakfast, and had devoted it, triumphantly, to a fund for free negroes,--"contrabands,"
as they were just then called. But Mrs. Bowdoin never had taken much interest in Mercedes.
"Sure, they were last heard of there. He was on some filibustering expedition in Cuba. Perhaps he was hanged. But no, I don"t think so.
Poor Jamie used to send them so much money!"
"He might have written before he sailed," said Harley, nursing his wounded arm.
"If he wrote, I guess he wrote to her," said Mr. Bowdoin dryly. "Why should he write to me?"
"I don"t like it," said Harley.
Mr. Bowdoin did not like it; and not being willing to admit this to himself, it made him very cross. So he rose, and, crowding his hat over his eyes, strode out into the April morning, and down the street to the wharf, and down the wharf to the office, where he silenced his trio of pensioners for the time being by telling them all to go to the devil; _he_ would not be bothered. And these, hardly surprised, and not at all offended, hobbled around to the southern side of the building, where they lent each other quarters against the morrow, when they knew the peppery old gentleman would relent.
Mr. Bowdoin stamped up the two flights of narrow stairs to the counting-room, where his first action was to take off a large piece of cannel coal just put on the fire by Mr. James Bowdoin, and d.a.m.n his son and heir for his extravagance. As the coal put back in the hod was rapidly filling the room with its smoke, James the younger fled incontinently; and the elder contemplated the situation. It was true Jamie had not written; but he had not thought much about it. Harley entered.
"I was thinking, sir, of going down to Mr. McMurtagh"s lodgings and asking if they had heard from him."
"Haven"t you been there yet? I should think any fool would have gone there first!"
"That"s why I didn"t, sir," said Harley respectfully.
Old Mr. Bowdoin chuckled grimly, and his grandson took his leave.
"Come back and tell me at the bank!" cried Mr. Bowdoin.
But hardly had Harley got down the stairs before the old gentleman had another visitor. And this time it was a sheriff with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons; and he held a large doc.u.ment in his hands.
Now Mr. Bowdoin was not over-fond of officers of the law; he detested lawsuits, and he had a horror of legal doc.u.ments. Therefore he groaned at the sight, and, throwing open a window, fingered his watch-chain nervously, as one who is about to flee.
"What do _you_ want, sir?" said he.
"Is this the office of James Bowdoin"s Sons?"
"What if it were, sir?"
The officer brandished his doc.u.ment. "Is there a clerk here,--one James McMurtagh?"
"No, sir." Mr. Bowdoin spoke decidedly.
"Has he a son-in-law, David St. Clair?"
The old gentleman breathed a sigh of relief. "He has, sir."
"Where is McMurtagh?"
"I don"t know, sir."
"Where is St. Clair?"
"Have you a citation for him?"
The officer winked. "Can you tell me where to find him?"
Mr. Bowdoin saw his chance. "Yes, sir; I can, sir. The last I heard of him, he had gone to Cuba on a filibustering expedition with one General Walker, who has since been hanged; and if you find him, you"ll find him in Havana, Cuba, and can serve the citation on him there; though I"m bound to tell you," ended the old gentleman in a louder voice, "my opinion is, he won"t care a d----n for you or your citation either!" And Mr. Bowdoin bolted down the stairs.
XI.
So Mr. Bowdoin hurried up the street to the bank, half chuckling, half angry, still. Then (having found that there was a special and very important directors" meeting called at once) he scurried out again upon the street, his papers in his hat, and did the business of the day on "change. And then he went back to the bank, and asked if Mr.
Harleston Bowdoin had got there yet.
Mr. Stanchion told him no. By that time it was after eleven. But Mr.
Bowdoin made a rapid calculation of the distance (it never would have occurred to him to take a hack; carriages, in his view, were meant for women, funerals, and disreputable merrymakers), and hastened down to Salem Street.
Old Mrs. Hughson met him at the door, grateful and tearful. Yes, young Mr. Harley (she remembered him well in the old days, and had been jealous of him as a rival of her son) was upstairs. She feared poor McMurtagh was very ill. He had been out of his head for days and days.
To Mr. Bowdoin"s peppery query why the devil she had not sent for him, Mrs. Hughson had nothing to say. It had never occurred to her, perhaps, that the well-being of such a quaint, dried-up old chap as Jamie could be a matter of moment to his wealthy employers whom she had never known.
"Can I see him?" asked Mr. Bowdoin. But as he spoke, Harley came down the stairs.
"It"s heart-breaking," he said. "He thinks he"s in the South with her.
He was going to meet her, it seems; and the poor old fellow does not know he has not gone."
"Let me see him," said the elder. "Have they no nurse?"
"I nurse him off and on, nigh about all he needs," answered Mrs.
Hughson. "And then there"s John."
But Mr. Bowdoin had hurried up the stairs. Jamie was lying with his eyes wide open, moving restlessly. It seemed a low fever; for his face was pale; only the old ruddiness showed unnaturally, like the mark of his old-country lineage, left from bygone years of youth and sunlight on his paling life. And Jamie"s eyes met Mr. Bowdoin"s; he had been murmuring rapidly, and there was a smile in them; but this now he lost, though the eyes had in them no look of recognition. He became silent as his look touched Mr. Bowdoin"s face and glanced from it quickly, as do the looks of delirious persons and young children. And then, as the old gentleman bent over him and touched his hand, "A thousand dollars yet! a thousand dollars yet!" many times repeating this in a low cry; and all his raving now was of money and rows of money, rows and rows of gold.
Mr. Bowdoin stood by him. Harley came to the door, and motioned to him to step outside. Jamie went on: "A year more! another year more!"
Then, as Mr. Bowdoin again touched his hand, he stared, and Mr.
Bowdoin started at the mention of his own name.
"See, Mr. Bowdoin! but one row more to fill! But one year more, but one year more!"
Mr. Bowdoin dropped his hand, and went hastily to the door, which he closed behind him.
"Harley, my boy, we mustn"t listen to the old man"s ravings--and I must go back to the bank."