University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

Henry Beckworth came from the hand of Nature
abundantly furnished with that excellent qualification
known and revered throughout New England, under
the expressive name of “spunk”. This quality at first
prompted him, spite of the croakings of the ill-omened
Job, to present himself before the one only object of his
constant soul, to tell her all, and to ask her to share
with him the weal or wo which might yet be in store
for him. But he had now seen a good deal of this excellent
world, and the very indifferent people who
transact its affairs. He had tasted the tender mercies
of a British man of war, and the various agré,mens of a
French prison; and the practical conclusion which had
gradually possessed itself of his mind, was, that money
is, beyond all dispute, one of the necessaries of life.

No way of making money off-hand occurred to him
as he tossed and groaned through the endless hours of
that weary night. He had neither house nor land, nor

yet a lottery ticket—nor a place under government—
and the chest which stood at his bed-side, though it
contained enough of this world's goods to keep his fair
proportions from the weather; and a sea-journal—a
love-log—which he hoped might one day, by some romantic
chance, come into the fair hands of his beloved,
and give her to guess how his sad life had passed—held
as he well knew, nothing which she could in anywise
eat, or that she would be probably willing, under any
contingency to put on.

I feel proud of my hero. He was “a man of deeds,
not words.” He loved Agnes so well, that before morning
shone on his haggard cheek, he had determined
to turn his back forever on the home of his youth, the
scene of his first love-dream; and to seek his dark fortune
far away from the place which held all that his
heart prized on earth.

This resolution once taken, he arose and addressed
himself to his sad journey, waiting only the earliest
beam of light before he awakened Mr. Jephson. This
worthy commended much his prudent course, and recommended
a long voyage; an attempt to discover the
North-West Passage, or to ascertain the truth of Capt.
Symmes' theory; to take the nonsense out of him and
make a little money.

For five long years did Henry Beckworth box the
compass; five years of whaling voyages and all their
attendant hardships—and when at the end of that time
he retouched his native shore, richer than he had ever
been before in his life, he heard, as the reader will no
doubt anticipate, that Agnes Boon was again unmated;

her worthy Colonel having been killed by a fall from
his horse in less than two years from his marriage.

Yet did our phœnix of lovers approach the village
which he had vowed never to see again, with many
more misgivings than he had experienced on former
occasions. Years and a rough life he was well aware
had changed him much. He thought of his Agnes,
fair and graceful as a snow-drop, and feared lest his
weather-beaten visage might find no favour in her eyes.
Yet he determined that this time nothing, not even
that screech-owl Job Jephson, should prevent him from
seeing her, face to face, and learning his fate from her
own lips.

He approached Langton by a road that passed not
near the detested house of man and horse entertainment,
and was just emerging from a thick grove which skirted
the village on that side, when he came near riding
over a man who seemed crouched on the ground as if
in search of something, and muttering to himself the
while. The face that turned hastily round was Job
Jephson's.

“Why, it a'n't! Yes, I'll be switched if it is n't
Harry Beckworth rose from the dead!” said this fated
tormentor; and he fastened himself on the bridle-rein
in such sort, that Henry could not rid himself of his
company without switching him in good earnest.

“Here was I, lookin' up some little things for my
steam doctorin' business,” said Mr. Jephson, “and
little thinkin' of any body in the world; and you
must come along jist like a sperrit. But I've a notion
you've hit it about right this time. I s'pose you know
Aggy's a rich widow by this time, do n't ye?”

Henry vouchsafed no reply, though he found it very
difficult to maintain a dignified reserve, when so many
questions were clustering on his lips. But it was all
one to Job—question or no question, answer or no answer,
he would talk on, and on, and on.

“I'll tell ye what,” he continued, “I should n't wonder
if Aggy looked higher now, for she's a good spec for
any man. I see you've smarted up a good deal, but
don't be cock-sure—for there's others that would be
glad to take her and her two children. I've been a
thinkin' myself—”

And now Henry gave Job such a switch across the
knuckles as effectually cleared the bridle, and changed
the current of the steam-doctor's thoughts. In half an
hour he rang at Mrs. Boon's door, and was ushered at
once into her presence.

“Mr. Beckworth, ma'am,” said the little waiting-maid
as she threw open the parlour door.

Agnes, the beloved, rose from her seat—sat down
again—tried to speak, and burst into tears; while Henry
looked on her countenance—changed indeed, but
still lovely in matronly dignity—more fondly than in
the days of his lighter youthful love; and seating himself
beside her, began at the wrong end of the story, as
most people do in such cases, talking as if it were a
thing of course that his twice-widowed love should become
his wife.

“Marry again! oh, never!”—that was entirely out
of the question; and she wiped her eyes and asked her
cousin to stay to dinner. But Henry deferred his ultimatum
on this important point, till he should have ravelled
out the whole web of his past life before the

dewy eyes of his still fair mistress, till he should tell
her all his love—no, that he could never fully tell, but
some of the proofs of it at least, and that first horrible
forget of Job Jephson's. And when this was told in
many words, Agnes, all sighs and tears, still said no, but
so much more faintly that Mr. Beckworth thought he
would stay to dinner. And then—but why should I
tell the rest, when the reader of my true-love story
has already seen Mrs. Beckworth like a fair though
full-blown China-rose—Mr. Beckworth with bien content
written on every line of his handsome middle-aged
face—Mary Jane Harrington a comely marriageable
lass, and George Boon a strapping youth of eighteen—
all flourishing on an oak opening in the depths of
Michigan?

Let none imagine that this tale of man's constancy
must be the mere dream of my fancy. I acknowledge
nothing but the prettinesses. To Henry Beckworth
himself I refer the incredulous, and if they do
not recognize my story in his, I cannot help it. Even
a woman can do no more than her best.