The Life of Nancy Part 19

"I don't know but what I will, after all, step in an' set down for just a minute," said the hearty voice of little Captain Witherspoon.

"I'll just wash my hands here at the sink, if you'll let me, same 's I did the other day. I shouldn't have bothered you so late about a mere fish, but they was such prime mackerel, an' I thought like's not one of 'em would make you a breakfast."

"You're always very considerate," answered Mrs. Lunn, in spite of what she felt to be a real emergency. She was very fond of mackerel, and these were the first of the season. "Walk right in, Cap'n Witherspoon, when you get ready. You'll find some o' your friends. 'Tis 'The Cap'n,' gentlemen," she added, in a pleased tone, as she rejoined her earlier guests.

If Captain Witherspoon had also indulged a hope of finding his love alone, he made no sign; it would be beneath so valiant and gallant a man to show defeat. He shook hands with both his friends as if he had not seen them for a fortnight, and then drew one of the Windsor chairs forward, forcing the two companions into something like a social circle.

"What's the news?" he demanded. "Anything heard from the new minister yet, Crowe? I suppose, though, the ladies are likely to hear of those matters first."

Mrs. Lunn was grateful to this promoter of friendly intercourse. "Yes, sir," she answered quickly; "I was told, just before tea, that he had written to Deacon Torby that he felt moved to accept the call."

Her eyes shone with pleasure at having this piece of news. She had been thinking a great deal about it just before the two captains came in, but their mutual dismay had been such an infliction that for once she had been in danger of forgetting her best resources. Now, with the interest of these paris.h.i.+oners in their new minister, the propriety, not to say the enjoyment, of the rest of the evening was secure.

Captain Witherspoon went away earliest, as cheerfully as he had come; and Captain Shaw rose and followed him for the sake of having company along the street. Captain Crowe lingered a few moments, so obtrusively that he seemed to fill the whole sitting-room, while he talked about unimportant matters; and at last Mrs. Lunn knocked a large flat book off the end of the sofa for no other reason than to tell him that it was one of Captain Witherspoon's old log-books which she had taken great pleasure in reading. She did not explain that it was asked for because of other records; her late husband had also been in command--one voyage--of the s.h.i.+p Mary Susan.

Captain Crowe went grumbling away down the street. "I've seen his plaguy logs; and what she can find, I don't see. There ain't nothin'

to a page but his figures, and what men were sick, and how the seas run, an' 'So ends the day.'" It was a terrible indication of rivalry that the captain felt at liberty to bring his confounded fish to any door he chose; and his very willingness to depart early and leave the field might prove him to possess a happy certainty, Captain Crowe was so jealous that he almost forgot to play his role of lover.

As for Mrs. Lunn herself, she blew out the best lamp at once, so that it would burn another night, and sat and pondered over her future. "'T was real awkward to have 'em all call together; but I guess I pa.s.sed it off pretty well," she consoled herself, casting an absent-minded glance at her little blurred mirror with the gilded wheat-sheaf at the top.

"Everybody's after her; I've got to look sharp," said Captain Asa Shaw to himself that night. "I guess I'd better give her to understand what I'm worth."

"Both o' them old sea-dogs is steerin' for the same port as I be. I'll cut 'em out, if only for the name of it--see if I don't!" Captain Crowe muttered, as he smoked his evening pipe, puffing away with a great draught that made the tobacco glow and almost flare.

"I care a world more about poor Maria than anybody else does," said warm-hearted little Captain Witherspoon, making himself as tall as he could as he walked his bedroom deck to and fro.

III.

Down behind the old Witherspoon warehouse, built by the captain's father when the s.h.i.+pping interests of Longport were at their height of prosperity, there was a pleasant spot where one might sometimes sit in the cool of the afternoon. There were some decaying sticks of huge oak timber, stout and short, which served well for benches; the gray, rain-gnawed wall of the old warehouse, with its overhanging second story, was at the back; and in front was the wharf, still well graveled except where tenacious, wiry weeds and thin gra.s.s had sprouted, and been sunburned into spa.r.s.e hay. There were some places, alas! where the planking had rotted away, and one could look down through and see the clear, green water underneath, and the black, sea-worn piles with their fringes of barnacles and seaweed. Captain Crowe gave a deep sigh as he sat heavily down on a stick of timber; then he heard a noise above, and looked up, to see at first only the rusty windla.s.s under the high gable, with its end of frayed rope flying loose; then one of the wooden shutters was suddenly flung open, and swung to again, and fastened. Captain Crowe was sure now that he should gain a companion. Captain Witherspoon was in the habit of airing the empty warehouse once a week--Wednesdays, if pleasant; it was nearly all the active business he had left; and this was Thursday, but Wednesday had been rainy.

Presently the Captain appeared at the bas.e.m.e.nt doorway, just behind where his friend was sitting. The door was seldom opened, but the owner of the property professed himself forgetful about letting in as much fresh air there as he did above, and announced that he should leave it open for half an hour. The two men moved a little way along the oak stick to be out of the cool draught which blew from the cellar-like place, empty save for the storage of some old fragments of vessels or warehouse gear. There was a musty odor of the innumerable drops of mola.s.ses which must have leaked into the hard earth there for half a century; there was still a fragrance of damp Liverpool salt, a reminder of even the dyestuffs and pepper and rich spices that had been stowed away. The two elderly men were carried back to the past by these familiar, ancient odors; they turned and sniffed once or twice with satisfaction, but neither spoke. Before them the great, empty harbor spread its lovely, s.h.i.+ning levels in the low afternoon light.

There were a few ephemeral pleasure-boats, but no merchantmen riding at anchor, no lines of masts along the wharves, with great wrappings of furled sails on the yards; there were no sounds of mallets on the s.h.i.+ps' sides, or of the voices of men, busy with unlading, or moving the landed cargoes. The old warehouses were all shuttered and padlocked, as far as the two men could see.

"Looks lonesomer than ever, don't it?" said Captain Crowe, pensively.

"I vow it's a shame to see such a harbor as this, an' think o' all the back country, an' how things were goin' on here in our young days."

"'Tis sad, sir, sad," growled brave little Captain Witherspoon.

"They've taken the wrong course for the country's good--some o' those folks in Was.h.i.+ngton. When the worst of 'em have stuffed their own pockets as full as they can get, p'r'aps they'll see what else can be done, and all catch hold together and sh.o.r.e up the s.h.i.+pping int'rists.

I see every night, when I go after my paper the whole sidewalk full o'

louts that ought to be pushed off to sea with a good smart master; they're going to the devil ash.o.r.e, sir. Every way you can look at it, s.h.i.+ppin' 's a loss to us."

At this moment the shrill whistle of a locomotive sounded back of the town, but the captains took no notice of it. Two idle boys suddenly came scrambling up the broken landing-steps from the water, one of them clutching a distressed puppy. Then another, who had stopped to fasten the invisible boat underneath, joined them in haste, and all three fled round the corner. The elderly seamen had watched them severely.

"It used to cost but a ninepence to get a bar'l from Boston by sea,"

said Captain Crowe, in a melancholy tone; "and now it costs twenty-five cents by the railroad, sir."

In reply Captain Witherspoon shook his head gloomily.

"You an' I never expected to see Longport harbor look like this,"

resumed Captain Crowe, giving the barren waters a long gaze, and then leaning forward and pus.h.i.+ng the pebbles about with his cane. "I don't know's I ever saw things look so poor along these wharves as they do to-day. I've seen six or seven large vessels at a time waitin' out in the stream there until they could get up to the wharves. You could stand ash.o.r.e an' hear their masters rippin' an' swearin' aboard, an'

fur's you could see from here, either way, the masts and riggin'

looked like the woods in winter-time. There used to be somethin' doin'

in this place when we was young men, Cap'n Witherspoon."

"I feel it as much as anybody," acknowledged the captain. "Looks to me very much as if there was a vessel comin' up, down there over Dimmett's P'int; she may only be runnin' in closer 'n usual on this light sou'easterly breeze; yes, I s'pose that 's all. What do you make her out to be, sir?"

The old s.h.i.+pmasters bent their keen, far-sighted gaze seaward for a moment. "She ain't comin' in; she's only one o' them great schooners runnin' west'ard. I'd as soon put to sea under a Monday's clothes-line, for my part," said Captain Crowe.

"Yes; give me a brig, sir, a good able brig," said Witherspoon eagerly. "I don't care if she's a little chunky, neither. I'd make more money out of her than out o' any o' these gre't new-fangled things. I'd as soon try to sail a whole lumber-yard to good advantage.

Gi' me an old-fas.h.i.+oned house an' an old-style vessel; there was some plan an' reason to 'em. Now that new house of Asa Shaw's he's put so much money in--looks as if a nor'west wind took an' hove it together.

Shaw's just the man to call for one o' them schooners we just spoke of."

The mention of this rival's name caused deep feelings in their manly b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The captains felt an instant resentment of Asa Shaw's wealth and pretensions. Neither noticed that the subject was abruptly changed without apparent reason, when Captain Crowe asked if there was any truth in the story that the new minister was going to take board with the Widow Lunn.

"No, sir," exclaimed Captain Witherspoon, growing red in the face, and speaking angrily; "I don't put any confidence in the story at all."

"It might be of mutual advantage," his companion urged a little maliciously. Captain Crowe had fancied that Mrs. Lunn had shown him special favor that afternoon, and ventured to think himself secure.

"The new minister's a dozen years younger than she; must be all o'

that," said the Captain, collecting himself. "I called him quite a young-lookin' man when he preached for us as a candidate. Sing'lar he shouldn't be a married man. Generally they be."

"You ain't the right one to make reflections," joked Captain Crowe, mindful that Maria Lunn had gone so far that very day as to compliment him upon owning the handsomest old place in town. "I used to think you was a great beau among the ladies, Witherspoon."

"I never expected to die a single man," said his companion, with dignity.

"You're gettin' along in years," urged Captain Crowe. "You're gettin'

to where it's dangerous; a good-hearted elderly man's liable to be snapped up by somebody he don't want. They say an old man ought to be married, but he shouldn't get married. I don't know but it's so."

"I've put away my thoughts o' youth long since," said the little captain n.o.bly. "Though I ain't so old, sir, but what I've got some years before me yet, unless I meet with accident; an' I'm so situated that I never yet had to take anybody that I didn't want. But I do often feel that there's somethin' to be said for the affections, an' I get to feelin' lonesome winter nights, thinkin' that age is before me, an' if I should get hove on to a sick an' dyin' bed"--

The captain's hearty voice failed for once; then the pleasant face and sprightly figure of the lady of his choice seemed to interpose, and to comfort him. "Come, come!" he said, "ain't we gettin' into the doldrums, Crowe? I'll just step in an' close up the warehouse; it must be time to make for supper."

Captain Crowe walked slowly round by the warehouse lane into the street, waiting at the door while his friend went through the old building, carefully putting up the bars and locking the street door upon its emptiness with a ponderous key; then the two captains walked away together, the tall one and the short one, clicking their canes on the flagstones. They turned up Barbadoes Street, where Mrs. Lunn lived, and bowed to her finely as they pa.s.sed.

IV.

One Sunday morning in September the second bell was just beginning to toll, and Mrs. Lunn locked her front door, tried the great bra.s.s latch, put the heavy key into her best silk dress pocket, and stepped forth discreetly on her way to church. She had been away from Longport for several weeks, having been sent for to companion the last days of a cousin much older than herself; and her reappearance was now greeted with much friendliness. The siege of her heart had necessarily been in abeyance. She walked to her seat in the broad aisle with great dignity. It was a season of considerable interest in Longport, for the new minister had that week been installed, and that day he was to preach his first sermon. All the red East Indian scarfs and best raiment of every sort suitable for early autumn wear had been brought out of the camphor-chests, and there was an air of solemn festival.

Mrs. Lunn's gravity of expression was hardly borne out by her gayety of apparel, yet there was something cheerful about her look, in spite of her recent bereavement. The cousin who had just died had in times past visited Longport, so that Mrs. Lunn's friends were the more ready to express their regret. When one has pa.s.sed the borders of middle life, such losses are sadly met; they break the long trusted bonds of old a.s.sociation, and remove a part of one's own life and belongings.

Old friends grow dearer as they grow fewer; those who remember us as long as we remember ourselves become a part of ourselves at last, and leave us much the poorer when they are taken away. Everybody felt sorry for Mrs. Lunn, especially as it was known that this cousin had always been as generous as her income would allow; but she was chiefly dependent upon an annuity, and was thought to have but little to leave behind her.

Mrs. Lunn had reached home only the evening before, and, the day of her return having been uncertain, she was welcomed by no one, and had slipped in at her own door unnoticed in the dusk. There was a little stir in the congregation as she pa.s.sed to her pew, but, being in affliction, she took no notice of friendly glances, and responded with great gravity only to her neighbor in the next pew, with whom she usually exchanged confidential whispers as late as the second sentence of the opening prayer.

The new minister was better known to her than to any other member of the parish; for he had been the pastor of the church to which her lately deceased cousin belonged, and Mrs. Lunn had seen him oftener and more intimately than ever in this last sad visit. He was a fine-looking man, no longer young,--in fact, he looked quite as old as our heroine,--and though at first the three captains alone may have regarded him with suspicion, by the time church was over and the Rev.

Mr. Farley had pa.s.sed quickly by some prominent paris.h.i.+oners who stood expectant at the doors of their pews, in order to speak to Mrs. Lunn, and lingered a few moments holding her affectionately by the hand--by this time gossip was fairly kindled. Moreover, the minister had declined Deacon Torby's invitation to dinner, and it was supposed, though wrongly, that he had accepted Mrs. Lunn's, as they walked away together.

Now Mrs. Lunn was a great favorite in the social circles of Longport--none greater; but there were other single ladies in the First Parish, and it was something to be deeply considered whether she had the right, with so little delay, to appropriate the only marriageable minister who had been settled over that church and society during a hundred and eighteen years. There was a loud buzzing of talk that Sunday afternoon. It was impossible to gainsay the fact that if there was a prospective engagement, Mrs. Lunn had shown her usual discretion. The new minister had a proper income, but no house and home; while she had a good house and home, but no income. She was called hard names, which would have deeply wounded her, by many of her intimate friends; but there were others who more generously took her part, though they vigorously stated their belief that a young married pastor with a growing family had his advantages. The worst thing seemed to be that the Rev. Mr. Farley was beginning his pastorate under a cloud.

While all this tempest blew, and all eyes were turned her way, friends and foes alike behaved as if not only themselves but the world were concerned with Mrs. Maria Lunn's behavior, and as if the fate of empires hung upon her choice of a consort. She was maligned by Captain Crowe's two sisters for having extended encouragement to their brother, while the near relatives of Captain Shaw told tales of her open efforts to secure his kind attention; but in spite of all these things, and the antagonism that was in the very air, Mrs. Lunn went serenely on her way. She even, after a few days' seclusion, arrayed herself in her best, and set forth to make some calls with a pleasant, unmindful manner which puzzled her neighbors a good deal. She had, or professed to have, some excuse for visiting each house: of one friend she asked instructions about her duties as newly elected officer of the sewing society, the first meeting of which had been held in her absence; and another neighbor was kindly requested to give the latest news from an invalid son at a distance. Mrs. Lunn did not make such a breach of good manners as to go out making calls with no reason so soon after her cousin's death. She appeared rather in her most friendly and neighborly character; and furthermore gave much interesting information in regard to the new minister, telling many pleasant things about him and his relations to, and degree of success in, his late charge. There may or may not have been an air of proprietors.h.i.+p in her manner; she was frank and free of speech, at any rate; and so the flame of interest was fanned ever to a brighter blaze.