Then Diggin paced the room awhile, and ran
Through his lank hair his fingers nervously.
At length his plan took shape; he stopped and said
"You shall take back your picture to this dealer;
Tell him 'tis not for sale, but get his promise
To have it, for a fortnight, well displayed
At his shop window. This he'll not refuse.
Don't sell at any price. What's your address?
Edward shall go with you: 'tis well to have
A witness at this juncture. Write me down
The printer's name Brown gave you. Ay, that's right.
Now go; and if the picture is removed—
For purposes we'll not anticipate—
As it will be—we'll corner the 'old man,'
And his bald head sha'n't save him. By the way,
If you want money let me be your banker;
I'm well content to risk a thousand dollars
On the result of my experiment."
The picture was removed, as he foretold.
Ten weeks went by; then Linda got it back.
"It is the pleasant season," said the lawyer;
"Here are three hundred dollars. You start back!
Miss Linda, I shall charge you ten per cent
On all you borrow. Oh! You do not like
To be in debt. This is my risk, not yours.
If I recover nothing, then no debt
Shall be by you incurred,—so runs the bond!
Truly, now, 'tis no sentimental loan:
I trust another's solvency, not yours.
At length you understand me,—you consent!
Now do not go to work; but you and Rachel
Go spend a long vacation at the seaside.
You want repose and sunshine and pure air.
Be in no hurry to return. The longer
You're gone, the better. For a year at least
We must keep dark. That puzzles you. No matter.
Here, take my card, and should you any time
Need money, do not hesitate to draw
On me for funds. There! Not a word! Good by!"
In the cars, eastward bound! A clear, bright day
After a rain-storm; and, on both sides, verdure;
Trees waving salutations, waters gleaming.
The brightness had its type in Linda's looks,
As, with her little protégée, she sat
And savored all the beauty, all the bloom.
On the seat back of them, two gentlemen
Chatted at intervals in tones which Linda
Could hardly fail to hear, though little heeding.
But now and then, almost unconsciously,
She found herself attending to their prattle.
Said Gossip Number One: "You see that veteran
In the straw hat, and the young man beside him:
Father and son are they. Old Lothian,
Five months ago, was high among the trusted
Of our chief bankers; Charles, his only son,
By a maternal uncle's death enriched,
Kept out of Wall Street; turned a stolid ear
To all high-mounting schemes for doubling wealth,
His taste inclining him to art and letters.
But Lothian had a partner, Judd,—a scamp,
As the result made evident; and Judd
One day was missing; bonds, securities,
And bills, deposits of confiding folk,
Guardians, and widows, and old men retired,
All had been gobbled up by Judd—converted
Into hard cash—and Judd had disappeared.
Despair for Lothian! a man whose word
No legal form could make more absolute.
Crushed, mortified, and rendered powerless,
He could not breast the storm. The mental strain
Threw him upon his bed, and there he lay
Till Charles, from Italy in haste returning,
Found his old sire emaciate and half dead
From wounded honor. 'Come! no more of this!'
Cried Charles; 'how happened it that you forgot
You had a son? All shall be well, my father.'
He paid off all the liabilities,
And found himself without three thousand dollars
Out of a fortune of at least a million.
What shall we call him, imbecile or saint?
His plan is now to set up as a teacher.
Of such a teacher let each thrifty father
Beware, or he may see his only son
Turn out a poor enthusiast,—perhaps—
Who knows?—an advocate of woman's rights!"
Attracted by the story, Linda tried
To get a sight of him, the simpleton;
And, when she saw his face, it seemed to her
Strangely familiar. Was it in a dream
That she had once beheld it? Vain the attempt
Of peering memory to fix the where
And when of the encounter! Yet she knew
That with it was allied a grateful thought.
Then Rachel spoke and made the puzzle clear:
"The man who sent us in his carriage home,
That day you fainted,—don't you recollect?"
"Ay, surely! 'tis the same. No dream-face that!
Charles Lothian, is he? If his acts are folly,
Then may I be a fool! Such fools are rare.
How tender of his father he appears!
I wonder where they're going."
When, at Springfield,
Father and son got out, a sigh, or rather
The ghost of one, and hardly audible,
Escaped from Linda. Then Charles Lothian,
While the cars waited, caught her eye, and bowed.
So he remembered her! "Now that was odd.
But the bell sounds; the locomotive puffs;
The train moves on. Charles Lothian, good by!
Eastward we go; away from you—away—
Never to meet again in this wide world;—
Like ships that in mid-ocean meet and part,
To meet no more—O, nevermore—perchance!"
[VI.]
BY THE SEASIDE.
Borne swiftly to the North Cape of the Bay,
Still on the wings of steam the travellers went;
And tenderly the purple sunset smiled
Upon their journey's end; a little cottage
With oaks and pines behind it, and, before,
High ocean crags, and under them the ocean,
Unintercepted far as sight could reach!
Foliage and waves! A combination rare
Of lofty sylvan table-land, and then—
No barren strip to mar the interval—
The watery waste, the ever-changing main!
Old Ocean, with a diadem of verdure
Crowning the summit where his reach was stayed!
The shore, a line of rocks precipitous,
Piled on each other, leaving chasms profound,
Into whose rifts the foamy waters rushed
With gurgling roar, then flowed in runlets back
Till the surge drove them furiously in,
Shaking with thunderous bass the cloven granite!
Yet to the earth-line of the tumbled cliffs
The wild grass crept; the sweet-leafed bayberry
Scented the briny air; the fern, the sumach,
The prostrate juniper, the flowering thorn,
The blueberry, the clinging blackberry,
Tangled the fragrant sod; and in their midst
The red rose bloomed, wet with the drifted spray.
From the main shore cut off, and isolated
By the invading, the circumfluent waves,
A rock which time had made an island, spread
With a small patch of brine-defying herbage,
Is known as Norman's Woe; for, on this rock,
Two hundred years ago, was Captain Norman,
In his good ship from England, driven and wrecked
In a wild storm, and every life was lost.
Stand on the cliff near by,—southeasterly
Are only waves on waves to the horizon;
But easterly, less than two miles across,
And forming with the coast-line, whence you look,
The harbor's entrance, stretches Eastern Point,
A lighthouse at its end; a mile of land
Arm-like thrust out to keep the ocean off;
So narrow that beyond its width, due east,
You see the Atlantic glittering, hardly made
Less inconspicuous by the intervention.
The cottage fare, the renovating breeze,
The grove, the piny odors, and the flowers,
Rambles at morning and the twilight time,
Sea-bathing, joyous and exhilarant,
Siestas on the rocks, with inhalations
Of the pure breathings of the ocean-tide,—
Soon wrought in both the maidens visible change.
Each day their walks grew longer, till at last
A ten-mile tramp was no infrequent one.