Miles Wallingford / Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore"

by James Fenimore Cooper

"I can assure you I know nothing about it;" answered Drewett, honestly. "Nor do I desire to know. I would marry Miss Hardinge to-morrow, though she had not a cent."

"It's just this disinterestedness, Andrew, that makes me like you," observed Rupert, magnificently. "Depend on it, you'll fare none the worse, in the long run, for this admirable trait in your character. Lucy knows it, and appreciates it as she should."

I wished to hear no more, but left the box and the house, taking care not to be seen. From that moment, I was all impatience to get to sea. I forgot even the intention of visiting my sister's grave; nor did I feel that I could sustain another interview with Lucy herself. That afternoon I told Marble the ship must be ready to sail the succeeding morning.

Chapter XI.

"Go tenderness of years; take this key. Give enlargement to the swain--bring him festinately hither. I must employ him in a letter to my love."

Love's Labour Lost.

I will not attempt to analyze the feelings which now impelled me to quit America. I had discovered, or thought I had discovered, certain qualities in Andrew Drewett which rendered him, in some measure, at least worthy of Lucy; and I experienced how painful it is to concede such an advantage to a rival. Still, I must be just enough to add, that, in my cooler moments, when I came to consider that Lucy could never be mine, I was rejoiced to find such proofs of a generous disposition in her future husband. On the other hand, I could not divest myself of the idea that perfect confidence in his own position, could alone enable him to be so liberal in his opinions of myself. The reader will understand how extravagant was this last supposition, when he remembers that I had never given Lucy herself, or the world, any sufficient reason to suppose that I was a suitor for the dear girl's hand.

I never saw Marble so industrious as he proved to be when he received my hurried orders for sailing, that afternoon. He shipped his mother and niece for Willow Cove, by an Albany sloop, the same evening, got the crew on board, and the Dawn into the stream, before sunset, and passed half the night in sending off small stores. As for the ship, she had been cleared the day the hatches were battened down. According to every rule of mercantile thrift, I ought to have been at sea twenty-four hours, when these orders were given; but a lingering reluctance to go further from the grave of Grace, the wish to have one more interview with Lucy, and a disposition to indulge my mate in his commendable zeal to amuse his new-found relatives, kept me in port beyond my day.

All these delays, however, were over, and I was now in a feverish hurry to be off. Neb came up to the City Hotel as I was breakfasting, and reported that the ship was riding at single anchor, with a short range, and that the fore-top-sail was loose. I sent him to the post-office for letters, and ordered my bill. All my trunks had gone aboard before the ship hauled off, and,--the distances in New York then being short,--Neb was soon back, and ready to shoulder my carpet-bag. The bill was paid, three or four letters were taken in my hand, and I walked towards the Battery, followed by the faithful black, who had again abandoned home, Chloe, and Clawbonny, to follow my fortunes.

I delayed opening the letters until I reached the Battery. Despatching Neb to the boat, with orders to wait, I took a turn among the trees,--still reluctant to quit the native soil--while I broke the seals. Two of the letters bore the post-marks of the office nearest Clawbonny; the third was from Albany; and the fourth was a packet of some size from Washington, franked by the Secretary of State, and bearing the seal of office. Surprised at such a circumstance, I opened the last of these communications first.

The official letter proved to be an envelope containing,--with a civil request to myself to deliver the enclosures,--dispatches addressed to the Consul at Hamburg, for which port my ship had been advertised some time. Of course, I could only determine to comply; and that communication was disposed of. One of the Clawbonny letters was in Mr. Hardinge's hand, and I found it to contain some excellent and parental advice. He spoke of my sister, but it was calmly, and with the humble hope that became his sacred office. I was not sorry to find that he advised me not to visit Clawbonny before I sailed. Lucy, he said, was well, and a gentle sadness was gradually taking the place of the livelier grief she had endured, immediately after the loss of her friend. "You were not aware, Miles, how keenly she suffered," my good old guardian continued, "for she struggled hard to seem calm in your presence; but from me my dear child had no secrets on this subject, whatever she may see fit to have on another. Hours has she passed, weeping on my bosom, and I much doubt if the image of Grace has been absent from her waking thoughts a single minute, at any one time, since we first laid your sister's head in the coffin. Of you she does not speak often, but, when she does, it is ever in the kindest and most solicitous manner; calling you 'Miles,' 'poor Miles,' or 'dear Miles,' with all that sisterly frankness and affection you have known in her from childhood." The old gentleman had underscored the "sisterly" himself.