The other bowed, and turned townwards. But Openshaw felt on the instant a sort of loneliness. "Rodolfo!" he exclaimed, "do me the favor to spend this." He slipped a coin into an uninviting hand, partly, as he would have said himself, from natural depravity, partly, from the sheer luxury of his own incognito, and that of giving away to a young man what no young man could inherit. "It may help you out of your trouble. Trouble is very hard to bear, sometimes."
If he were aware of expecting anything in return, from a poor Italian, it was the usual ecstatic thankful benediction of poor Italians in like luck. Once he had lived among them on their own soil; he knew the simple-hearted, engaging, vagabond breed through and through. But this specimen of it flushed and scowled, while trying to seem courteous; and his would-be benefactor was puzzled. As they stood opposite, they were of equal height; for the younger had drawn himself up a good inch.
"I am afraid you are proud. You have picked that up in New England."
Rodolfo answered resentfully: "Sir, I have the blood of New England also, and it is for me the destiny to earn my money, most of all after what I promise to the beautiful Anne."
As he said it, warming thus into his very self, the eyes of Openshaw, watching him, were dazzled, as one may be who crosses an alcove towards a door in plain sight, and finds that seeming door a mirror. A little alarum-bell rang in his brain. He shuddered, for all the forces within him were rallying together: triumph, hate, revenge, deadly delight; things he had not known were possible to him swarmed into his spirit with a clang. He recognized, at a stroke, that this vagrant youth, this common workman, looking at him with no smile now, bore a violent resemblance to himself. He searched for details, lightning-quick, and devouringly. Yes! there were the dark, fine, pendulous hair, the small, close ear, the strong nose and jaw, even the large, slender hand toil had hardly scarred, the back of it smooth and hard as veined marble; how like the Openshaw hand, plain in the old Lely portrait, plainer yet in the Stuarts, on the melancholy walls of his own home! And what followed? The voice, significant, prophetic, of the demon of self-preservation in his ear: "This may be the man who killed George Wheeling. This must be the man. Impeach him; clear yourself!" Openshaw, in his calmer mood, a few moments back, had measured the character before him. Whatever else it was, it was not astute. He foresaw no trouble in worming the secret out of him.
"Very well," he replied, as if æons on æons of thought had not passed since he spoke last. "I will take the gold-piece back, on your own condition: I will see that you earn it. Have you business on hand?"
"Oh, no. The venerable butcher, the fever kills him; we bury him, and locka the door for all day." Rodolfo was sullen yet.
"Then, will you kindly go into the square, buy me cheese, pilot bread, two quart bottles of Sauterne, and two glasses, and return by way of Daniels Street? I shall be waiting at the landing. I should like to hire a boat for an hour, and have you row me up river. Will you do so?"
The lad hesitated. Finally, touched, or put upon his mettle by a seeming confidence, he set out, with the greenback in his pocket which Mr. Openshaw had given him. The latter, at this pause in their colloquy, was made aware that he was suffering keenly. He had exceeding self-control; his successes in life had sprung from it. But every mastered nerve in his body, having already undergone so much, and having so much to undergo, was humming like a beehive. He could not stand still. He wandered about, meeting few pedestrians, across Water Street, up Manning Street to Puddle Dock with its liberty pole, and again past the graveyard, lingering wherever he could command a view of the broad glorious anchorage, tragic with the exposed ribs of rotting ships. Into the happier neighborhoods near, he would not penetrate; this one had been happy too, when he was a child. There he saw but visions of greatness gone, of comfort broken, and an hour ago, could have laid his cheek to the old flaggings, and wept. But he had now a terrible just purpose, and for that he must save his strength.
He was at the landing later than Rodolfo, who sat in a white wherry ballasted with his purchases, the oars already in hand. Openshaw rested his cane on the gunwale, and stepped quietly into the stern; they backed out of the cramped spaces, and shot away. The surface of the harbor was dimpling, little by little, with the great hidden swirls of the turning tide; deceptively glassy between its deflected banks, it gleamed like the thin ice which forms in November, and over which boys send pebble after pebble, and laugh to hear them chirruping. But Rodolfo had learned long since how to cajole the fierce Piscataqua; and tacking artfully by St. John's Point, he labored through the end arch of the great bridge, and gained the blue highway beyond. A train thundered overhead. Two women in the footpath, leaning over the rail, stared fixedly at the little boat, and from one sensitive face to the other, and again at their contrasted attire. They were Rodolfo's neighbors, and pleased that he had fallen in with a gentleman.