The Captain's Toll-Gate

by Frank R. Stockton

"No," said the captain, "I can speak better standing. Maria Port, I have found out that you have been trying to make people believe that I am engaged to marry you."

The smile did not leave Maria's face. "Well, ain't you?" said she.

A look of blank amazement appeared on the face of the captain, but it was quickly succeeded by the blackness of rage. He was about to swear, but restrained himself.

"Engaged to you?" he shouted, forgetting entirely the people in the street; "I'd rather be engaged to a fin-back shark!"

The smile now left her face. "Oh, thank you very much," she said. "And this is what you meant by your years of devotion! I held out for a long time, knowing the difference in our ages and the habits of sailors, and now—just when I make up my mind to give in, to think of my father and not of myself, and to sacrifice my feelin's so that he might always have one of his old friends near him, now that he's got too feeble to go out by himself, and at his age you know as well as I do he ought to have somebody near him besides me, for who can tell what may happen, or how sudden—you come and tell me you'd rather marry a fish. I suppose you've got somebody else in your mind, but that don't make no difference to me. I've got no fish to offer you, but I have myself that you've wanted so long, and which now you've got."

The angry captain opened his mouth to speak; he was about to ejaculate Woman! but his sense of propriety prevented this. He would not apply such an epithet to any one in the house of a friend. Wretch rose to his lips, but he would not use even that word; and he contented himself with: "You! You know just as well as you know you are standing there that I never had the least idea of marrying you. You know, too, that you have tried to make people think I had, people here in town and people out at my house, where you came over and over again pretending to want to talk about your father's health, when it did not need any more talking about than yours does. You know you have made trouble in my family; that you so disgusted my niece that she would not stop at my house, which had been the same thing as her home; you sickened my friends; and made my very servants ashamed of me; and all this because you want to marry a man who now despises you. I would have despised you long ago if I had seen through your tricks, but I didn't."

There was a smile on Miss Port's face now, but it was not such a smile as that with which she had greeted the captain; it was a diabolical grin, brightened by malice. "You are perfectly right," she said; "everybody knows we are engaged to be married, and what they think about it doesn't matter to me the snap of my finger. The people in town all know it and talk about it, and what's more, they've talked to me about it. That niece of your'n knows it, and that's the reason she won't come near you, and I'm sure I'm not sorry for that. As for that old thing that helps you at the toll-gate, and as for the young man that's spongin' on you, I've no doubt they've got a mighty poor opinion of you. And I've no doubt they're right. But all that matters nothin' to me. You're engaged to be married to me; you know it yourself; and everybody knows it; and what you've got to do is to marry, or pay. You hear what I say, and you know what I'm goin' to stick to."

It may be well for Captain Asher's reputation that he had no opportunity to answer Miss Port's remarks. At that instant Mr. Simeon Port appeared at the door which opened from the parlor on the piazza. He stepped quickly, his actions showing nothing of that decrepitude which his dutiful daughter had feared would prevent him from seeking the society of his friends. He fixed his eyes on his daughter and spoke in a loud, strong voice.

"Maria," said he, "go to bed! I've heard what you've been saying, and I'm ashamed of you. I've been ashamed of you before, but now it's worse than ever. Go to bed, I tell you! And this time, go!"

There was nothing in the world that Maria Port was afraid of except her father, and of him personally she had not the slightest dread. But of his dying without leaving her the whole of his fortune she had an abiding terror, which often kept her awake at night, and which sent a sickening thrill through her whenever a difficulty arose between her and her parent. She was quite sure what he would do if she should offend him sufficiently; he would leave her a small annuity, enough to support her; and the rest of his money would go to several institutions which she had heard him mention in this connection. If she could have married Captain Asher she would have felt a good deal safer; it would have taken much provocation to make her father leave his money out of the family if his old friend had been one of that family.