“Shure it’s till the back pastures he do be gorn, and Penfield afther,” said Dennis. And although I had too well-regulated a Yankee mind to believe in ghosts it gave me a queer feeling to think of that gaunt, stealthy figure that I had seen making its way out of the shipyard. It had not appeared afterward upon our orchard slope, the “short cut” to the highway, for I had watched to see.
Rob would not be satisfied unless Dave drove him home. He leaned out of the carriage to beg me, again, not to tell.
“That other girl won’t—if she heard anything?” he said. “You needn’t fear for Dave,” he added, shaking his head sagely. “He could live down anything; nobody but me knows Dave!”
And off they went, Dave drawing the wrappings around his charge, and driving very carefully over the rough road.
Alice Yorke went on her homeward way alone. Her face was flushed and her eyes showed traces of tears. She was very sympathetic and she had been deeply moved. Who would not be moved at Dave’s self-sacrifice—so noble even if unwise.
Cyrus was alone in the counting-room, wading through rows of figures that showed an ever more and more hopeless result. No one even remembered him, I thought, but me. Dave was becoming a hero in Alice Yorke’s eyes and my feelings were so queerly mixed about it, and my head so full of romantic ideas that I doubted whether I really was Bathsheba Dill of Palmyra, with only a talent for sage cheese and an aspiration toward sausages.
Estelle walked silently by my side, carelessly swinging the little basket, in which she had brought Dave’s pudding, and trying to look as if this were not one of the red-letter days of her life.
When we reached the vessel upon the stocks a sudden pang seized me. It was the last vessel that would ever be built in our yard! Ever since grandfather was a young man the finest ships in the state had been built and launched here; now so far as his descendants were concerned the business had all come to an end. Cyrus’ sacrifice had been made in vain.
“O, poor Cyrus!” I murmured from the fulness of my heart.
“Bathsheba! do you mean that you pity him because of Dave and Alice Yorke?” exclaimed Estelle. There was actually a little dancing fun in her eye. “Fancy dear old Cyrus having a heart!”