The boy buried his face in his hands and made no answer. At last, raising up his head, he said,—
“Let us try this life; let us see if action be not better than mere thought. The efforts of intellect seem to inspire a thirst there is no slaking. Sleep brings no rest after them. I long for the sense of some strong peril which, over, gives the proud feeling of a goal reached,—a feat accomplished.”
“I'll go wherever you like; I'll be whatever you want me,” said Billy, affectionately.
“Let us lose no time, then. I would not that my present ardor should cool ere we have begun our plan. What day is this? The seventh. Well, on the eighteenth there is a ship sails from Genoa for Porto Rico. It was the announcement set my heart a-thinking of the project. I dreamed of it two entire nights. I fancied myself walking the deck on a starlit night, and framing all my projects for the future. The first thing I saw next morning was the same placard, 'The “Colombo” will sail for Porto Rico on Friday, the eighteenth.'”
“An unlucky day,” muttered Billy, interrupting.
“I have fallen upon few that were otherwise,” said Massy, gloomily; “besides,” he added, after a pause, “I have no faith in omens, or any care for superstitions. Come, let us set about our preparations. Do you bethink you how to rid ourselves of all useless encumbrances here. Be it my care to jot down the list of all we shall need for the voyage and the life to follow it. Let us see which displays most zeal for the new enterprise.”
Billy Traynor addressed himself with a will to the duty allotted him. He rummaged through drawers and desks, destroyed papers and letters, laid aside all the articles which he judged suitable for preservation, and then hastened off to the studio to arrange for the disposal of the few “studies,” for they were scarcely more, which remained of Massy's labors.
A nearly finished Faun, the head of a Niobe, the arm and hand of a Jove launching a thunderbolt, the torso of a dead sailor after shipwreck, lay amid fragments of shattered figures, grotesque images, some caricatures of his own works, and crude models of anatomy. The walls were scrawled with charcoal drawings of groups,—one day to be fashioned in sculpture,—with verses from Dante, or lines from Tasso, inscribed beneath; proud resolves to a life of labor figured beside stanzas in praise of indolence and dreamy abandonment. There were passages of Scripture, too, glorious bursts of the poetic rapture of the Psalms, intermingled with quaint remarks on life from Jean Paul or Herder. All that a discordant, incoherent nature consisted of was there in some shape or other depicted; and as Billy ran his eye over this curious journal,—for such it was,—he grieved over the spirit which had dictated it.
The whole object of all his teaching had been to give a purpose to this uncertain and wavering nature, and yet everything showed him now that he had failed. The blight which had destroyed the boy's early fortunes still worked its evil influences, poisoning every healthful effort, and dashing with a sense of shame every successful step towards fame and honor.
“Maybe he's right after all,” muttered Billy to himself. “The New World is the only place for those who have not the roots of an ancient stock to hold them in the Old. Men can be there whatever is in them, and they can be judged without the prejudices of a class.”