CHAPTER XX C. B.’s Task Concludes
As they sped away through the pleasant New England scenery towards New Bedford, Mary Stewart was entirely happy. She sat by her lover’s side on one of the seats in the crowded car, entirely oblivious of the admiring glances directed at her by the men and at him by the women. She had all the literature of that stern historic coast at her tongue’s end, although this was her first actual visit, and vividly remembered now, as she had never done before, how deeply the story of the Pilgrim Fathers would touch her beloved one. And so she chatted away, interesting him beyond measure, but with all a woman’s tact, keeping back the painful side, the cruel intolerance, the witch burnings, whippings and other cruelties practised in the name of the gentle Saviour by a community which had only just escaped from the same sort of treatment.
So the time flew by until the train drew up at the funny little old station at New Bedford, much the same then as it is now, for the American railways do not believe in spending much money either on permanent way or stations. And as the train stopped, a bonny but sad-eyed woman pressed her face to the window of the car, and Captain Taber, forgetting his pain, rose up and tried to open the sash, for it was his wife. The effort was too much for him and he sank back into C. B.’s arms, ready to receive him, while she, having also recognized her beloved one, though so sadly changed, came gliding round with the swiftness of love up the aisle, and dodging under C. B.’s supporting arms laid the dear head on her breast. “My boy, my love, what have they done to you? My pet, my own!” At this sacred scene all eyes turned away, and most of them were wet.
But C. B., who had only yielded a little from innate delicacy, now said (he had never taken his eyes off his friend’s face)—
“Dear lady, your husband is well but weak. Please let us get him home where you can be in comfort together, and then you shall have him all to yourself.”
She turned a grateful eye upon C. B. and said—
“He evidently isn’t very well, will you help me to get him to a hack?”
C. B. looked round and caught Mr. Stewart’s eye, who standing outside the car, made signs that he had engaged a conveyance to take their friend up. So they carried the half-fainting man to the hack, which was roomy and comfortable, and were joined on the way by his eldest son and daughter, a stalwart pair of twelve and fourteen years old respectively. And then C. B., having seen his friend comfortably bestowed, and ascertained that his wife and children would have no difficulty in getting him into their house at their journey’s end, stepped aside and allowed them to drive off, his native modesty refusing to allow him to suggest that he might accompany them for fear of seeming to intrude.
And as he watched them drive away a sense of great loss and loneliness fell upon him. For the moment he forgot his good friends the Stewarts, forgot everything but the salient fact that he had faithfully fulfilled his task, and now at the end of it stood penniless and deserted in a strange town thousands of miles from his home. A man came up to him and asked him if he wanted a hotel, and he shrank back bewildered as he realized that he was in very truth homeless. Then with a joyful tide of recollection he thought of the Stewarts, and turned and rushed back into the dépôt meeting them just coming out.