So much she rejoiced in this midshipman's advancement, so proud of it she seemed,—she was so bold in prophecy where he was concerned, so manifestly fitted to appreciate a hero's career,—she could talk so long about him without every suspecting that the theme might please another less,—there was but one end likely, or desirable, for all this.
Then Alexander came. And his popularity waxed, instead of waning. So Silas at last gravely said to himself, after his sensible, moderate manner of dealing with that unhappy person, "If she and the young man were only married and settled, there the business would end; he should no longer be distracted, as he did not deny he had long been, on her account." That admission was fatal. It compelled him to ask himself sharply why he should be distracted. "What business was this of his? Did he not, above all things, desire that Columbia should be happy? Must she not be the best judge of what could make her happiness?" He tried to deal honestly with himself.
This endeavor led him to remark one morning to Columbia,—
"You and Alexander seem to be getting on finely."
"Oh, yes," said she,—"of course."
"I hope you always will," he continued, with a tragic vehemence of wish.
"Thank you, Silas; we shall, I think," she replied, with such an excess of gratitude, so he deemed it, that the poor fellow attempted no more.
All that day he thought and thought; and at night Silas Swift looked back from a corner of High Street at a building over whose door a flag was waving, and said to himself, "I was born as free as others,"—and he walked on silently, with himself for his dismal company.
It made no difference to him where he went, which path he took, he said; but he passed Salt Lane, and crossed Long Wharf, and walked down the beach, under the old sycamores, and wandered on. There was another seaport-town some miles down the coast; he was walking in that direction, but he did not acknowledge a purpose.
How splendid was the night! a night of magnificent constellations, of flashing auroras, of many meteors; and he saw the comet, which he and Columbia had looked for since its first announcement. But the heavens might as well have been "hung in black." Chilled by more than the wintry wind, he went his way. When the sun rose, he was still wandering on. Light, heaven-deep, shone on land and sea. He sat down to rest, and to order himself for future movements: for the town was now in sight; in an hour or two he should come to the busy streets; already he could discern the lofty spires, and the tall masts of the great vessels.