“God save ye kindly, sur,” he faltered, ducking his head.
“Good bye, Driscoll. Shake hands.”
He awkwardly took the frank hand Harrington outstretched as he came over to him, felt it grasp his own as never gentleman’s had grasped it before, and with a wild and woful enthusiasm heaving within him, and repressed by shame and awe, he turned away, and stole out at the door the young man opened for him.
Harrington closed the door, and, all unmindful of Bagasse, turned away with clasped hands, and a face of solemn ecstasy.
“Oh, bread cast upon the waters,” he murmured, “is it thus I find you after many days? I helped him in his trouble, and he pays me back with life!”
His head sunk upon his breast, and he stood with closed eyes, rapt and still, his heart swelling with gratitude and thanksgiving.
Suddenly, from the barrel-organ in the street, a strain of martial music arose and flowed in upon the dreaming silence. It was the thrilling tonal glory of the Marseillaise. The thought of his heart came like flame to the broad-nostrilled countenance of Harrington, and he stood with kindled features and dilated form, while the proud and mournful music swept like the march of an army around him. On and on in burning measure, rolled the sad and conquering lilt of liberty, and darkening down in fire and tears, voice of the passion of mankind, voice of the wrongs and woes that redden earth while the good cause lies bleeding, the weird strain arose and rang in the clear cry for the sword, and wailed in the mournful glory of those final tones whose melody is like a hymn for the dead who die for Man.
Harrington rushed from the room. The Frenchman, left alone, stood with a dark glow on his iron visage, and the red light of battle in his eye, thinking of the old days of military ardor, the old wars in which he had stormed on Europe, the old Paris folding in her bosom the ashes of the Emperor, the old France he himself would never see again.
The flush of memory the music brought him was paling into sadness, when Harrington returned from the street.
“I have paid him, and sent him away, Bagasse,” said the young man. “After that air, I wanted to hear no more. Now sit down, and I will tell you the meaning of all this.”