Sea and Shore Part 28

Rising up, I mutely blessed the friendly portal that made me an outcast in the storm-swept streets from which the very dogs shrank terrified.

One moment, one only, I paused as I pa.s.sed by my father's gate-way, crowned with stone lions that glimmered in the gloom. The force of a.s.sociation and of contrast shook me with emotion--I could not enter there. My own roof afforded me no shelter from the biting blast; but squares away, with a comparative stranger, I must seek (if I ever gained it on that dreadful night) a refuge from the storms and sure protection from my foes.

I moved rapidly along toward the tall street-lamp that diffused a dim and murky light from its frost crusted lantern at the corner of the square, and before I reached it I encountered the first danger of my undertaking.

Protected, fortunately, by the shadow of the high stone-wall near which I walked rapidly, I met Dinah, so nearly face to face that the whiff of the pipe she was smoking was warm upon my cheek. Wrapped in her old cloth shawl and quilted hood, she muttered as she went, and staggered too, I thought, though here the northeast wind, that swept her along before it, might have been at fault, while, blowing in my face, it r.e.t.a.r.ded my progress.

I pa.s.sed her unchallenged, but, glancing back just as I turned the corner, I became aware that she was retracing her steps. I fled rapidly on until I reached the shelter of a friendly nook between two houses (well remembered of old), when, turning again to gaze, I saw her standing immovable as a statue beneath the lamp-post, evidently looking in the direction I had taken. There seemed no way of escape now save in persistent flight. My place of concealment might be too readily detected by a cautious observer, a savage on the war-trail. Should Dinah herself pursue me, I knew my speed would distance her; but, that prompt pursuit of some kind was imminent, I knew from that moment.

My aim was to reach the house of Dr. Pemberton, no intermediate one presenting itself as that of an acquaintance of whom I could ask shelter, and belief in the truth of my a.s.sertions. Of this house I remembered the position with tolerable accuracy. It formed one, I knew, of a long block of buildings extending from one street to another, and was near the centre.

I had been there only on rare occasions, when his niece abode with him, for he dwelt ordinarily in widowed solitude, although our intimacy was that of relatives rather than of patient and physician.

For this desired goal I strained every nerve, every muscle, every faculty, on that never-to-be-forgotten night of bitter, freezing cold, and driving sleet and blast, which seemed to proclaim itself, in every howling gust, "The wind Euroclydon!"

CHAPTER XIII.

At first, excitement and terror winged my feet; but even these refused, after I had gone a few squares, to do their friendly office.

Bareheaded, but for a filmy veil, soon thoroughly drenched through; barehanded and almost barefooted, for my thin silk slippers and stockings formed not, after my first few steps, the slightest impediment to wet or cold, I felt that I must perish by the wayside. The sleety storm drove sharply in my face, rendered doubly sensitive to its rigor by long absence from outward air. My insufficient clothing clung closely about me, freezing in every fold, and I glided rather than walked along the icy pavement, scarcely lifting my stiffened feet, or having power to do so.

One stern hope--it almost seemed a forlorn one--now possessed me to the exclusion of all else; one prayer trembled on my quivering lips--that I might reach my destination, if only to tell my story and drop dead a moment after.

Yet I think, in spite of this resolve--this prayer--that, had a friendly door been opened on the way, an area even emitting light and warmth, I should have instinctively turned aside and, at any risk, pleaded for shelter, both from storm and foeman.

In those days that seem far back in the march of luxury, because of the vast impetus of human momentum, stores were closed early, and the primitive family tea-table still existed which marked the a.s.semblage of the household around the evening lamp and hearth.

I remember the closed, inhospitable look of the houses past which I sped--the solid wooden shutters, then universal, which closed from the wayfarer every evidence of internal life, and the cold sheen of the icy-white marble steps, made visible by dim lamp-light.

I gained a street-corner not very far, as it seemed to me, from my place of destination. Yet, until I glanced across the way, I was uncertain, and, but for the friendly refuge this opportunity presented, I think I must have faltered and perhaps fallen and frozen to death on the road-side.

To my bewildered and disordered brain, Aladdin's palace seemed suddenly to rise before me in that wilderness of sealed houses and uninhabited streets; for, as I have said before, the very dogs had crept away that night into secure corners, and not even a pariah chimney-sweep, with his dingy blanket drawn close around him, nodded and dozed by a watch-box or slept on a door-step.

I crept across the s.p.a.ce that divided me from this cynosure of warmth and luxury, as a poor, draggled moth might do, to bask in the revivifying light of an astral lamp, attracted beyond my power to resist, to pause before the resplendent window, rich in green and purple and amber rotund vases, whose transparent contents were set forth and revealed by fiery jets of gas, toward which I feebly stretched my half-frozen fingers.

There was a splendid vision, also, of goldfish, in gla.s.s globes, jars of leaden rock-work, baskets of waxen fruits and flowers, crystal bottles containing rose and amber essences; but, above all, there was light--there was heat.

With one greedy, insatiate gaze my eyes swept in the details of this mimic Eden, and, in another moment, my hand turned the k.n.o.b of the ground-gla.s.s door near the window, and I found myself in paradise!

Rest, shelter, heat--these must I have or perish, and, but for the timely refuge of this thrice-blessed apothecary's shop, I might have left this retrospect unwritten!

I staggered to a chair, and seated myself, unbidden, by the almost red-hot stove, and cowered above it for a time, oblivions of all else.

Then I looked timidly around me.

The master of this Eden was standing, at the moment when he first caught my eyes, holding up a bottle, scrutinizingly, between his face and the light, one of many of the same sort that a lad, in a long, white ap.r.o.n, was engaged in was.h.i.+ng.

The odor of the various drugs and essences over which he presided formed an aromatic atmosphere singularly suggestive of incense, as did his costume, that of a high-priest of the temple; but, very soon discarding a gray-linen cape or talma, worn for the protection of his speckless coat, and tossing a bundle of corks rather disdainfully to his a.s.sistant, the head of the establishment came politely forward, standing on the other side of the stove, with clasped hands, expectantly.

"You will tell me your errand here when you are quite ready," he said, kindly. "Do rest and warm yourself first. The stove has a narcotic tendency when one has just come out of cold like this! The thermometer has fallen twenty degrees since noonday; but that is only half the trouble. Hem! This sleet and wind are beyond any former experience of mine at this season."

I heard the words of the speaker as if bound in a dreadful dream, but they were clearly understood, and now I made an effort at utterance, but failed, until after repeated endeavors, to enunciate one word. Yet I noted distinctly, and even with a nice discrimination of scrutiny, the red-haired and bright-eyed man, portly and somewhat pompous-looking, with his plump hands folded over his vest, who stood before me, looking pityingly down on my suffering face.

After a time I gathered up my forces sufficiently to inquire, being quite thawed and comforted by the reviving heat of the apartment, how far it might be to the house of Dr. Pemberton, who resided in the block of houses known as Kendrick's Row, on Maple Street.

"It is nearly a square and a half, miss, by street measurement just now, as, on account of changes, this is impa.s.sable," was the prompt reply.

"Scarcely half a square by the alley that runs from my back-door, after a short turn, straight through to Maple Street; and, if it is only question of a message, I can send Caleb, so that you may await the coming of the doctor in comfort, in this emporium. He always uses his gig for night-visits, and will, no doubt, be happy to carry you home in his wolfskin."

"Thanks--there is no question of a medical visit. I have very important business with him. I must see him in his own house. I will go without further delay. But, perhaps"--lingering a moment--"you would be so good as to suffer Mr. Caleb to show me the short way you spoke of? I shall not mind going through the alley at all."

I rose prepared to depart, and glanced beseechingly at Caleb, who laid down his bottle uncorked, and folded his arms with an approving knightly bow, unperceived by his employer.

"We have just had a similar inquiry as to Dr. Pemberton's locality; I mean," said the master of the emporium, without replying to my request, "on the part of a very distinguished-looking personage--I might say, well got up in the fur and overcoat line--and, had you come in a few moments earlier, you might have had his escort; or perhaps you are on his track now--probably one of his party?" hesitatingly. "No! Well, it is a strange coincidence, to say the least--very strange--as the doctor is so well known hereabouts. As to going out in the storm again, I have my misgivings, miss, for you, when I look at the flimsiness of your attire and its drenched condition. I can't see, indeed, how a delicate-looking lady like yourself ever held her own against this terrific wind. Eolus seems to have lost his bags! But, perhaps you had an escort to the corner?"

"No--no--no--I came quite alone! Oh, for pity's sake, put me on my way and let me go! My business is most urgent!" I hesitated--my heart sank.

Had Bainrothe been before me to spirit the doctor away by some feigned message of need, of distress, to which no inclemency of weather could close that benevolent medical ear? And did he lie in wait for me on the way?"

"Perhaps I had, after all, better go alone," I continued; "it might be too great an inconvenience"--and I moved toward the ground-gla.s.s door.

"Not if you will accept my services, miss," said Caleb, timidly, pus.h.i.+ng away the remaining corks as he spoke, and glancing furtively at his master.

"How often must I remind you, Caleb Fink," said the owner of the emporium, "that your sphere is circ.u.mscribed to your duties? Attend to those phials, and drain them well before you bottle the citrate of magnesia. The last was spoiled by your unpardonable carelessness. I have not forgotten this!"

And again, with a deprecatory look at me, Caleb Fink subsided into a nonent.i.ty.

"Truly has the great and wise Dr. Perkins remarked that 'the women of America are suicidal from the cradle to the grave!' I will give you one of his pamphlets, miss, to take away with you, and you will be convinced that slippers are serpents in disguise in winter weather! The wooden shoes of Germany rather! Ay, or even the _sabot_ of France! You must not stir another step in those. Be seated, pray, and I will not detain you long, while I procure a subst.i.tute or protection for such shams, worth nothing in such Siberian weather.--Caleb, a word with you;" and he whispered to his apprentice, who glided away, to return in a trice with a pair of India-rubber overshoes, into which benign boats he proceeded to thrust my unresisting feet, as I stood leaning on the counter; after which a m.u.f.fler was tied about my ears, and a heavy honey-comb shawl thrown over my shoulders by the same expeditious hands.

"Could you be always as spry, Caleb! Your gloves now--I shall need my own"--and a pair of stalwart knitted mits were forthwith drawn over my pa.s.sive hands, in which my fingers nestled undivided and warm.

"Now you look something like going for the doctor! My overcoat, Caleb--gloves--fur-cape--cane! All hanging near the bed. There, we are ready now for old Borealis himself, if he chooses to blow! But I forget--G.o.d bless me, you are as pale as the ghost of Pompey, at Philippi!--Caleb, the Perkins elixir--a gla.s.s!--Now, young lady, just take it down at a gulp. It is the only alcoholic preparation that Napoleon Bonaparte Burress ever suffered to pa.s.s his temperate lips.

Father Matthew does not object to it at all, I am told, on emergencies.

It may be had at this repository very low, either by the gross or dozen."--speaking the last words mechanically, and he tendered me a small gla.s.s of some nauseous, bittersweet, and potent beverage, that coursed through my veins like liquid fire.

"Thank you; it _is_ very comforting," I gasped, and, setting the gla.s.s down on the counter, I covered my face with my hands and burst into tears.

The whole forlornness of my outcast and eleemosynary condition rushed over me simultaneously with the flood of warmth caused by the Perkins elixir, which nerved me the next moment for the encounter with the elements.

I saw the kindly master of the emporium turn away, either to conceal his own emotion or his observation of mine, and Caleb stood trembling and crying like a girl before me.

I had shrunk, it may be remembered, from the description Sabra gave me of McDermot, when I heard of his red hair and "chaney-blue eyes;" but to this red-haired, hazel-eyed man I yearned instinctively, for there are moral differences discernible in the temperament greater than any other, and, when a red-haired man is tender-hearted, he usually usurps the womanly prerogative, and gushes.

But Caleb's sympathy touched me even more.

"We will go now, if you please," I said, recovering myself by a strong effort, and Napoleon B. Burress mutely tendered me his stout, overcoated arm. "The short way you mentioned--let us go that way, if not disagreeable to you," I pleaded.