Part 8

All of these questions and ejaculations were made while the naval man still held Jack’s hand and was towing him along like a huge, puffing tug toward the table from which the officer sprang up to welcome his companion.

“By Jove, Tom, give me time to breathe; you’ve hurled a regular broadside of questions into my hull. Haul off and hold a minute; cease firing! as you fighters say,” expostulated our old acquaintance, Captain Jack, as he was fairly shoved into a chair at the table and opposite the laughing and red-faced lieutenant.

“Come here, waiter,” called Maxon to a passing attendant, in high glee over Jack’s cry for quarter and his own good luck in meeting an old chum when he was especially lonely and eager to have a talk about home and friends.

“Bring us a bottle of champagne and let it be as cold as the Admiral’s heart when a poor devil of a lieutenant asks for a few day’s shore leave.”

“Now, my water-logged consort, we will first and foremost drink in a brimming bumper of ‘Fizz’ the golden dome in Boston and the bonny-bright eyes of the beauties that beam on it,” exclaimed jolly Tom Maxon, bubbling over with happiness at having just the man he wished to talk about Boston with.

“I say! Tom, have you been studying up on alliteration? You rang in all the B’s of the hive in that toast,” said the merchant skipper, emptying his glass in honor of Boston and her fair daughters.

“I don’t require thought or study to become eloquent when the ‘Hub’ and her beauties be the theme, but you just up anchor and sail ahead giving an account of yourself, my hearty,” Tom replied with great gusto.

“To begin, then, as the typical story writer does, one November day some thirteen months ago, I sailed away (I’ve caught the complaint. I came near making a rhyme) from Boston in the good ship ‘Adams.’ When a week out of harbor as per instructions from the house of Dunlap, I unsealed my papers to find that the ship had been presented to me by my kinsmen, the Dunlap brothers.”

“Stop! Hold, my hearty, until we drink the health of the jolly old twins. May their shadows never grow less and may the good Lord send along such kinsmen to poor Tom Maxon,” interrupted the irreverent Tom, filling the glasses and proceeding to honor the toast by promptly draining his.

Jack and Tom had been pupils in the same school in Boston when they were boys. Their tastes and dispositions being much alike they became chums and warm friends. Like young ducks, both of the lads naturally took to the water. When they had gotten through with the grammar-school an appointment to the Annapolis Naval Academy was offered to young Maxon by the representative of his Congressional district, which he joyfully accepted, and hence was now a United States officer. Jack had entered the High School and later the merchant marine service.

Though seeing but little of each other after their first separation, the same feeling of friendship and comradeship was maintained between Jack and Tom that had existed when as Boston schoolboys they chummed together, and whenever, at rare intervals, they were fortunate enough to meet they mutually threw off all the reserve that had come to them with age and became Boston boys once again.

“Now, heave ahead, my bully-boy!” cried Tom, putting down his empty wine glass.

“In addition to the gift of the ship from the firm, I found that my old cousin John had personally presented me with a large part of the ship’s cargo.”

“Again hold! you lucky sea-dog! Here’s to dear old Cousin John, and God bless him!” called Tom gleefully, his generous sailor-soul as happy over the good fortune of his friend as if he himself had been the beneficiary of Mr. John Dunlap’s munificence, again pledging Jack’s kind kinsman in a glass of iced wine.

“With all my heart I say, amen! Tom, God never made better men and more liberal kinsmen than the ‘J. Dunlaps,’” said Jack earnestly as he began again his recital.

“When I arrived in Melbourne I disposed of my cargo through our agents, loaded and sailed for Liverpool, returned to Melbourne, took on a cargo for Manila, and here I am drinking to long life and good health to my two old kinsmen with my school fellow Tom Maxon.”

“And the future programme is what?” said the lieutenant.

“You have left out lots about yourself, that I know of, concerning your past movements, so try to be truthful about your future plans,” continued Maxon, assuming an inquisitorial air.

“All right, my knowing father confessor,” answered Dunlap, laughing.

“I have done well as far as making money is concerned, which statement I wish added to my former deposition. Oh! most wise judge; I propose sailing within the week for Hong-kong, thence to San Francisco, from the latter port I desire to clear for Boston, in God’s country, stopping, however, at Port au Prince, Haiti, both as a matter of business and also with the design of personally thanking my kind godfather for his gifts. Finally I hope to reach New England and be with my dear mother while yet the Yankee hills are blooming with summer flowers. One word further and my story is finished. My object in returning to Boston is to induce my mother to return with me to Australia, where I have purchased some property and where I desire to make my home in future—finis—”

“Fairly well told, my bold buccaneer; however, I disapprove of your making Australia your home. Now, sir, what about saving a few smallpox patients, emigrants, and such like, and receiving a letter from H.M. King of England, and such trifles as we read of in the newspaper?” demanded Tom, sententiously.

“Oh! That just happened, and there has been too much said about it to find a place on my logbook,” replied Jack, shortly, coloring just a shade.

“I’m!—well, no matter—I don’t agree with you, but I will shake your hand once again and say that I find my old chum as modest as I always knew him to be brave,” rejoined Tom Maxon, rising, reaching over and grasping Jack’s hand, and bowing gravely and respectfully as he held it.

Jack’s face was now all fire-red, as he said in great embarrassment:

“Oh, Pshaw, slack up, Tom, haul off.”

“You know what the Admiral said when he read the account of what you had done?” cried out Tom when he settled back in his chair.

“Of course, you don’t, but it’s a fine ram at the merchant marine. The Admiral thinks that an officer for sea service can’t be made except at Annapolis. When he read of what you had done, he exclaimed: ‘That fellow is almost good enough to be an officer in the United States Navy.’ The Executive officer who heard the Admiral repeated it, and ever since the fellows of our mess, who hate some of the ‘snobs’ that Annapolis sends to us, have been quietly poking fun at the old man about it.”

“Now, will Lieutenant Thomas Maxon, U.S.N., in all the glory of his Annapolis seamanship, give an account of himself?” broke in Jack, anxious to escape further mention of his own affairs.

“The last time I saw you, Tom, you were dancing at the end of Bessie Winthrop’s hawser. Though I had never, at the time, met your charmer, I thought her a pretty craft.”

“That’s it! Now you touch the raw spot!” cried Tom.

“I was stationed at Boston, and went about some little. I met Bert Winthrop’s sister and, like an ass of a sailor that I am, fell in love with her at the first turn of the wheel. Well, I rolled around after the beauty like a porpoise in the wake of a dolphin for the whole season. Finally I mustered up courage to bring the chase to a climax and got a most graceful conge for my temerity, whereupon I retired in bad order, and was rejoiced when assigned to the battleship Delaware and sent to sea.”

As the rollicking sailor ended his story, he threw back his head and began softly singing in a sentimental tone, “Oh! Bessie, you have broken my heart.”

“Well, I’ll go bail that the fracture won’t kill you, you incorrigible joker,” said Jack, interrupting the flow of Maxon’s sentimentality.

“See, now, our best friends never take us seriously, and sympathize with us when we suffer,” said the lieutenant dolefully.

“But to continue my sad story. I was ordered to the U.S.S. Delaware, flag-ship of the Asiatic fleet. Admiral Snave can out-swear Beelzebub, has the sympathy of a pirate, and would work up all the old iron of a fleet if there was as much in it as in the mountains of Pennsylvania. So your poor, delicate friend is tempted to ask to be retired on account of physical disability.” So saying, Tom began roaring with laughter so healthful that it shook his stalwart frame.

“Hold though!” exclaimed the U.S. officer, stopping in the midst of his outburst of merriment, suddenly thinking of something omitted.

“You must understand that we all admire the Admiral hugely. He is a magnificent officer, and a fighter to the end of his plume; carries a chip on his shoulder when he imagines anyone is spoiling for a fight, or even looks crossways at grand Old Glory.”

Thus the two friends talked on, relating their experiences, joking each other, and laughing in that careless happy way, common alike to schoolboys and those who sail the sea.

Captain Dunlap declared that this berth was good enough for him, that he would drop his anchor right there, and calling a waiter proceeded to order everything on the menu for dinner, telling the waiter to serve it where they were and serve slowly so that they might enjoy a rambling conversation while they dined.

Eating, drinking, talking and smoking, the chums of boyhood days sat for hours, until the streets became, as was the veranda, almost deserted. Suddenly in an interval of silence as they puffed their cigars, a piercing scream disturbed the quiet of the street below. Again and again was the cry repeated in an agonized female voice.

Both men sprang to their feet and peered along the dark avenue that ran toward the bay. About a block away they discerned just within the outer circle of light cast by an electric burner a struggling mass of men. At the instant that Jack and Tom discovered whence came the cries, a figure broke from the crowd and ran screaming through the illuminated spot on the avenue pursued by a half dozen men wearing the Russian naval uniform. The pursued figure was that of a half nude female.

With an angry growl, Jack Dunlap placed one hand on the low railing around the veranda and cleared it at a bound, landing on the sidewalk below, he broke into a run, and dashed toward the group of men under the electric light, who were struggling with the person whom they had pursued and recaptured.

“The flag follows trade in this case,” cried Maxon, who would joke even on his death-bed, as he, too, sprang to the pavement and raced after Jack.

The brutal Finnish sailors of the Russian man-of-war in Manila Bay swore to their mess-mates that ten gigantic Yankees had fallen upon them and taken away the Malay girl. They thus accounted for their broken noses and discolored optics.

Truth is, that it was a rush; the working of four well-trained Yankee arms like the piston rods of a high-speed engine. Outraged American manhood and old Aryan courage against the spirit of brutal lustfulness, ignorance and race inferiority.

“I say, Jack,” cried out Maxon as he raised his face from the basin in which he had been bathing a bruise, “Why don’t you go in for the P.R. championship? You must be a sweet skipper for a crew to go rusty with! Why, Matey, you had the whole gang going before I even reached you. Look here, sonny, you are just hell and a hurricane in a shindy of that kind.”

“Well, I tell you, Tom,” called Jack from the next room, where, seated on the edge of the bed, he was binding a handkerchief around the bleeding knuckles of his left hand.

“That kind of thing always sets my blood boiling, but that in a city under our flag an outrage of that kind should be attempted made me wild. I guess from the looks of my hands that maybe I did punch rather hard.” Rising, Jack walked to the open door between the two bedrooms and added:

“I don’t mind just a plain fight, or even sometimes a murder, but when it comes to a brute assaulting a woman or child, I’m damned if I don’t become like one of Victor Hugo’s characters, ‘I see red.’ Temper seems to surge in my very blood.”

Jack’s face, as he spoke, wore an angry scowl, to which the earnest gesticulations with his bandaged fists gave double meaning.

“Of course it surges in your blood, old chap, as it does on such occasions in mine and every other decent descendant of Shem and Japheth on earth,” replied Tom Maxon.

XI.

The Scottish Bard has written that to see fair Melrose Abbey a-right, one must visit it in the moon’s pale light. To see New England in its greatest glory one must visit that section of hallowed memories in the summer season.

Then it is that granite hills are wrapped in emerald mantles. Then it is that hill-sides, slopes and meadows are dimpled with countless daisies, peeping enticingly from the face of smiling nature. Then it is brooks, released from winter’s icy bondage, laugh, sing, dance and gambol like merry maidens in some care-free frolic.

August, in the second year of Lucy Burton’s married life, found Dunlap’s mansion still occupied by the entire family. True, the Dunlap estate lay in the most elevated portion of the suburbs of Boston, and the house stood in the center of extensive grounds almost park-like in extent and arrangement, still it was unusual for the house to be occupied by the family at that season of the year.

Generations of Dunlaps had sought relief from city life and bustle during the month of August, either among the Berkshire Hills, where an ornate villa had been owned by them for decades, or at Old Orchard, where their summer home was rather a palace than a cottage, though so called by the family. Burton, too, had a fine establishment at Newport; yet this eventful August found the family in their city residence.

Many other things unusual attracted attention and caused comment among the associates of members of the Dunlap household. Burton and Lucy had been noticeably absent during the past few months from those public functions to which, by their presence, they had formerly given so much eclat.

The very clerks in the office of J. Dunlap commented upon the jubilant spirit that had taken possession of, the always genial, manager. Chapman regarded his apparent joyousness with suspicion, and of all the office forces alone seemed displeased with its presence.

To intimate friends Burton spoke of selling the “Eyrie,” saying that it was of no further use or pleasure to him; that for months he had only been near it to select some choice flowers from the conservatory for the vases that adorned his wife’s apartments.

Mr. James Dunlap, ever the kindest, most considerate of beings, the gentlest of gentlemen, had become so solicitous concerning his granddaughter’s comfort and care as to appear almost old womanish. The anxiety he displayed about all that tended to Lucy’s welfare was absolutely pathetic.

Walter Burton’s demeanor toward his young wife might, for all men, serve as a model of devoted, thoughtful deportment on the part of husbands. To amuse and entertain her seemed his all-absorbing idea and object. To exercise his brilliant mental gifts in gay and enlivening conversation was his chief pleasure. To use all the great musical talent that he possessed, to drive any momentary shadow of sadness from her spirit. To stroll about the garden in the moonlight, again whispering those words of love by which he had first won her, was blissful occupation to him.

Even good old Uncle John in far-off Haiti imbibed the spirit that seemed all pervading in the realm about the young matron. Great hampers of tropical fruits, plants and flowers came by trebly-paid expressage from the West Indies, speed alone being considered. They must be fresh when offered to Lucy. Then, too, almost daily messages came over the cable from Haiti, “How are all today,” signed “John,” and it was ordered at the office that each day should go a message to Port au Prince, unless especially forbidden, saying, “All is well,” this to be signed “James.”

Mrs. Church, the most sedate, composed and stately of old gentlewomen, too, is in a flutter of suppressed excitement, frequently closeted in deep and mysterious consultations with medical men and motherly looking women; giving strange orders about the preparation of certain dishes for the table, driving the chef almost distracted by forbidding sauces that should always accompany some favorite entree of that tyrant.

A suite of rooms in the Dunlap mansion has been newly decorated; nothing like these decorations has ever been seen before in Boston. In elegance, taste and beauty they are the _ne plus ultra_ of decorative art. One, while in the sacred precincts of the recently remodeled apartments, might readily imagine that spring had been captured and fettered here to make its sweet, bright presence perpetual in this favored place. Colors of the tinted sunbeam mingled with the peach blossom’s tender shade to make the spot a bower of beauty wherein a smiling cupid might pause and fold his wings to slumber, forgetful of his couch of pink pearl shell.

The cultured, artistic, delicate taste of Boston’s _arbiter elegantiarum_ never produced anything approaching the exquisite blending of colors and unique, airy, harmonious fittings seen in this, the ideal conception of the abode of angels.

The delicacy and tenderness of Lucy’s refined and loving spirit contributed to create an indefinable feeling that this was the chosen spot where innocence, purity and love should seek repose. Her womanly instinct had added soft shadings to art’s perfect handiwork.

The great sea shell, half opened, made of shining silver, lined with the pearly product of the Eastern Isles, in which lie, soft and white as snow, downy cushions, filled from the breasts of Orkney’s far-famed fowls, and these be-trimmed with lace in tracery like frost on window pane, in texture so gossamery and light that the brief span of life seems all too short in which to weave one inch, must surely be the nest wherein some heaven-sent cherub shall nestle down in sleep.

Some sprite from fairy-land alone may make a toilet with the miniature articles of Etruscan gold, bejeweled with gems of azure-hued turquois that fill the gilded dressing case.

The chiffoniers, tables, chairs and stands are all inlaid with woods of the rarest kinds and colors, with ivory and polished pearl shells interwoven in queerly conceived mosaic; mirrors of finest plate here and there are arranged that they may catch the beauteous image of the cherubic occupant of this bijou bower, and countlessly reproduce its angelic features; urns and basins of transparent china-ware, in the production of which France and Germany have surpassed all former efforts, beautified by the brushes of world-renowned artists, furnish vessels in which the rosy, laughing face and dimpled limbs may lave.

The Western hills have cooled the eager glance of the August sun. Lucy, softly humming as she assorts and arranges a great basket of choice buds and blossoms just arrived from the “Eyrie,” is seated alone in a fantastic garden pagoda, which, trellised by climbing rose bushes, stands within the grounds of the Dunlap estate.

As she rocks back and forth in the low chair that is placed there for her comfort, little gleams of sunshine sifting through the screen of roses wander amidst her gold-brown tresses and spot the filmy gown of white she wears with silver splashes. As the lights and shadows of the gently swaying leaves and roses dance about her, she seems surrounded by hosts of cherubim in frolicsome attendance on her. Some thought of that nature came to her, for she let her hands lie still in her lap among the blossoms and watched the ever fleeting, changeful rays of sunlight and shade that like an April shower fell upon her. Then she smiled as at some unseen spirit and smiling grew pensive.

The limpid light in Lucy’s eyes, as gazing into the future she sees the coming glory of her womanhood, is that same light that shone along the road from Galilee to Bethlehem, when she, most blessed of women for all time, rode humbly on an ass to place an eternal monarch on a throne.

That light in Lucy’s pensive hazel eyes, that gentle, hopeful expectant look on her sweet face, has, from the time that men were born on earth subdued the fiery rage of angry braves in mortal strife engaged, has turned brutality into cowering shame, and caused the harshest, roughest and most savage of the human kind to smooth the brow, soften the voice and gently move aside, rendering ready homage to a being raised higher far than the throne of the mightiest king on earth.

As she, who chambered with the cattle on Judah’s hills, opened the passage from the groaning earth to realms of eternal bliss by what she gave to men, so ever those crowned with that pellucid halo of expected maternity stand holding ajar the gates that bar the path from man to that mysterious source of life and soul called God.

It is woman in her grandest glory, who draws man and his Maker near together, with arms outstretched and hands extended she grasps man and reaches up toward the Divine Author of our beings.

In simplest attire and humblest station she sanctifies the spot she stands upon. When most beset by want or danger there lives no man worthy of the name, who could refuse to heed her lightest call.

Oh! that wistful, yearning, hopeful, tender, loving look that transfigured Lucy’s sweet face until resemblance came to it, to that face that has employed the souls, hearts and hands of those most gifted by high heaven with pen and brush.

Out of this trance-like blissfulness the pensive dreamer was aroused by the coming of her ever constant guardian, her grandfather, who told her that Miss Arabella Chapman had called, bringing some offering that could be placed in no other hand than that of the young matron.

Away hastened Lucy to greet the time-worn maiden, but fresh-hearted friend, and to hurry with her up to a sealed and sacred apartment, over whose threshold no male foot must ever step, wherein was hidden heaping trays and shelves of doll-like garments of marvelous texture and make, articles the names of which no man ever yet has learned to call, all so cunningly devised as to create the need of lace, embroidery or such matter on every edge and corner.

Silky shawls and fleecy wraps, and funny little caps of spider-spun lace, and socks of soft stuff so small that Lucy’s tiny thumb could scarce find room therein, all and much more than man can tell were here stored carefully away and only shown to closest friends by the fair warder of that holy keep.

And, oh! the loving, jealous care of Lucy. No hand but her own could fold these small garments just right. What awful calamity might befall should one crease be awry or disturbed; no eye so well could note some need in that dainty, diminutive collection of fairy underwear as hers; no breast could beat so tenderly as hers as close she pressed, fondled and kissed the little gowns for elfin wear.

Who would for all the gold coined on earth rob her of one jot or tittle of her half-girlish, all-womanly joy and jealous care? Not one who ever whispered the word Mother!