University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

IN the good old times before the Flood, in
the times which our retired silver-gray
politicians allude to when they say, “There
were giants in those days,” the new, commodious,
and elegant steamship Mersey set
out on her first voyage across the Atlantic.

The Mersey was one of a line of steamers
which had lately been set up between England
and the United States of America. On
the side of England this line sailed from
Liverpool, one of the mightiest of the commercial
queens, or perhaps we should say
deities, of the world, — a deity whose storm-winged
and steam-winged angels fly to all
lands, and whose temples of trade resound
with all tongues. On the side of the United
States it sailed from a city less known to the
human race at large, but which we Americans
shall recognize when we come to it.

This city thought the strongest kind of
beer of itself. It held that in intellects,
morals, and manners it stood head and
shoulders above any other American municipality.
It believed, to use a French
phrase, that it marched at the head of
civilization, at least so far as concerned the
Western continent. There was, also, a general
faith in this city that nothing had prevented
it from being the commercial metropolis
of the Republic but a lack of sufficient
commerce. A sufficient commerce it had,
therefore, decided to have; and, as the first
step towards this end, the first step towards
heading off the mercantile rivalry of New
York, the first step towards monopolizing
the export and import business of a vast
back country, it had established this line of
steamers; the next step being a sort of informal
proclamation, running from mouth to
mouth, to the effect that every citizen of the
city, and of the State attached to it, must
go in said line, and send his goods by it,
however slow and costly it might be.

Well, the Mersey, built in England, owned
mainly by Englishmen, and manned by an
English crew, but commanded by a homemade
captain, had started on her first voyage.
She started at night; came to light next
day in a foaming tempest; sailed sixty hours
on her lee bulwark or precious near it; not
a passenger able to keep his legs, and only
two able to eat; steward and stewardess
flying wildly from state-room to state-room;
in short, a howling, rolling, disgusting, miserable
sixty hours of it. It is such kind of
weather which has decided what peoples
shall rule the seas and do the great colonizings.

At last the wind folds its hands, and the
sea doffs its battle plumes; the waves are
fine enough to be admired and not too
fine for comfortable travelling; passengers
resurrect, break away from that undertaker,
the steward, and come on deck, much occupied
in mutual staring, never having seen
each other before. The two who have not
been sick are of course out, and are smoking
their cigars with an heroic air, as much as
to say, “Old sea dogs!” They seem to be
old acquaintance, and familiar ones, for they
hit each other in the ribs and address each
other with, “I say, Duffy,” and “I say, Bill
Wilkins.” Just now there is some bantering
going on between them as to a young
lady who is looking out of the companion
door wistfully.

“Wilkins, go and offer your arm,” says
Duffy. “Family trades at your shop.”

“O, get out,” returns Wilkins, with an air
of despising Duffy as being a man who does
not know when to joke. “I know where I
ought to put myself, if you don't.”

“I say, Wilkins, you don't like that,”
chuckles Duffy, his flat, expressionless face
puckering with a simper which he, mistaken
man, supposes to be sly.

“Don't like what?” demands Wilkins,
rather too scornfully for mere pleasantry.

“Calling your bran-new store a shop,”
grins Duffy, clearly one of the smallest of
wits.

“That's just like you, Duffy. I never
knew you make a joke, but what you had to
explain it.”

Duffy, considerably cut up, keeps on smiling
like a wax doll, and tries to think of
something severe.

“By Jehu, somebody ought to offer her

an arm,” resumes Wilkins, his dusky, twinkling,
good-humored eyes glancing sideways
at the young lady. She really wants to get
out here. If it was any of the Beaumonts
that I know, I 'd venture.”

“Bill Wilkins, I never saw you modest
before,” says Duffy, at last laying hands
on a bit of satire. “Must be somebody 's
threatened to give you a licking.”

And O, how Duffy enjoyed his hit, and
how eagerly he looked out of the corner of
his eye at Wilkins, as if expecting to see
him too enjoy it!

Scorning to reply, Wilkins, an intelligent-looking,
civil-mannered man, though evidently
not aristocratic, was about stepping
out in the direction of the young lady,
when he saw something which checked
him.

“Go along, Bill,” whispered Duffy, giving
his friend a dig under the ribs. “One
of us ought to help her.”

“No. She 's got some one. Jehu! what
a tall fellow! By Jehu! that man could
wade ashore. Shut up now, Duffy. They 're
coming this way. Don't make a fool of
yourself all the time. I can stand it, but
other folks can't.”

Duffy shut up, and both men drew aside
respectfully as the young lady passed
them, her gloved fingers just touching the
arm of the tall gentleman who escorted her.

The young lady's face was handsome, and,
what is more, it was interesting. It was as
different from the commonplace handsome
face as a cultivated voice is different from
the cackle or twang of the ordinary untutored
windpipe. Quite young; hot more
than eighteen apparently; maidenly purity
there, of course. But this purity was so remarkable,
it amounted to something so like a
superior intelligence, that it almost imposed
upon the beholder, at the same time that it
attracted him. In short, this was one of
those rare countenances in which girlish innocence
rises to the nobleness of matronly
dignity, without losing its own appealing
grace. As she passed our two prattlers on
the quarter-deck, even the stolidly jocose
Duffy became humble in remembrance of
the way he had jabbered about her, feeling
much as a man might feel who should discover
that he had been saying sly things
of Santa Cecilia or the Mater Amabilis. O,
potent influence of mere speechless, unobtrusive,
carefully veiled and yet splendidly
visible womanly purity! It has done, how
much we cannot fully discover or declare,
towards civilizing and sanctifying the other
sex.

This young lady lifted her face a little
shyly and yet with perfect self-possession
toward the man whose arm supported her.
It was obvious enough that she did not
know him, and that she had only accepted
his assistance because she needed it, and
not with the slightest thought towards flirting.

“Do you wish to go aft?” he had ventured
to ask as he passed her in the breezy
house on deck which enclosed the companion-way.
“I judged so by your looking out.
May I offer you my arm and give you a
seat?”

“I was waiting for my aunt,” she replied.
“But she does not seem to come.”

Then, finding it very uncomfortable there,
with the wind sucking through the door in
a gale, she passed her hand over his sleeve,
saying, “If you will take me to a seat, I will
be much obliged to you.”

“We have had a horrible time of it,” he
was remarking as they passed the respectful
Duffy and Wilkins. “The weather has
treated us like enemies and criminals.”

“I am so glad to get on deck once
more!” she said, her face lighting and coloring,
like an eastern sky under the rising
of the sun. “O, how beautiful the ocean
is!”

He looked down upon her with pleasure
because of her admiration. Who at twenty-four
does not see eighteen as childhood, and
rejoice in exhibiting marvels to it, and sympathize
with its wonder! The next moment,
remembering what had been asked of him,
he halted and placed a chair for her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Don't let me
trouble you further. I see that my aunt is
coming. You are very good.”

Thus liberated, or rather perhaps graciously
dismissed from his charge, the tall
young man quietly touched his brimless
cloth cap, turned on his heel with the dignity
natural to giants, walked to the other
side of the quarter-deck, leaned a yard or
so over the bulwark, and watched the swift
whirls of white and blue water, as they boiled
out from under the paddle-box and raced
along the ship's side.

The aunt, a stoutish lady, inviolably
veiled, — clearly not disposed to be blown
to pieces before fellow-passengers, — was in
charge of a far stouter man, the captain of
the Mersey. The captain got the aunt a
chair, slapped it down in a jolly way alongside
the niece, and then planted himself
bolt upright in front of the two, babbling
and boasting louder than the weather, as if
he were all speaking-trumpet.

“Yes, a fine ship, noble ship. Never
commanded a better. Twelve, thirteen,
fourteen knots. Make the passage before
you could dress a salad. It 's the beginning,
ladies, of a great enterprise. At last
our State will stand on its own feet, do its
own business, put its money in its own
pocket. Independent of New York? Of
course we will be. It 's high time. Don't
you think so? I agree with you.”

Captain Brien talked loud and bragged
much, partly because he was of Celtic blood
and born in Ireland (only a baby at the
time; raised in the American marine), and
partly because he had found that passengers,
and especially women, were cheered and
humbugged by that sort of thing. After a
certain amount of his hurrah-boys gabble,
he felt that he had done his duty by the
ladies, and he prepared to leave them. It
was time; he was running out of conversation;
when he had shouted and huzzaed a
little, he had done; such was Captain Brien
as a member of society. So he glared at the
helmsman; then he threw a glance aloft, as
if he were still in a sailing-vessel and carried
top-gallants; then, with a sudden lurch
and a sharp shuffle, he was away. Next he
was looking over the side, not far from the
tall young gentleman, guessing at the ship's
speed by the flight of the water. As he was
about to move off—the uneasy, restless,
hyena-like creature — the giant lassoed him
with a question.

“Well, Captain Brien,” he said, with
the air of one who may have money to
invest, “how is the new line to succeed?”

“Succeed? Prodigious!” promptly shouted
the skipper, in his loud cracking voice;
a voice full of cheerful and almost frolicsome
brag and bluster; a voice which had an
undertone of humbug. “Sure to pay. Pay
right off. Keep paying. First great step
in the right direction. Change the channels
of trade in our country.”

Captain Brien was very short and very
thick; what our Southern mountaineers
would call a chunk of a man; not protuberant
nor even corpulent, yet every ounce of a
two-hundred-pounder. His face was flat,
broad, nearly four square, ponderous in
jowl, with cheeks as plump and solid as a
pig's. His complexion was a dark, rich, and
curiously mottled mixture of sun-tanning
and whiskey-tanning. So long as you merely
looked at him, you thought him a bluff,
frank, honest sailor; but the moment you
heard him talk, you suspected him of being
a humbug; admitting, however, that he
might be a good-hearted as well as a jolly
one.

“It is not easy to change the channels of
trade,” observed the tall young gentleman.
“It frequently takes centuries to do that.
New York has an immense start.”

A serious-minded person he seemed to
be; one of those persons who love to speak
veracities and to hear veracities uttered;
who, perhaps, takes some offence when you
offer them a mess of undisguisable claptrap.

Captain Brien looked up quickly at hearing
his enthusiastic prophecies questioned.
He did not frankly turn his face of bronze
and mahogony; he merely slewed his gray,
piggish, yet furtive, quick-glancing eyes. In
an instant he had warned himself: “This
man is not to be fooled with, at least not at
times; and this is one of the times.”

“You are right, sir,” he said, dropping
his trumpet bluster to a confidential, honest
undertone. “New York has an immense
start.”

“Only two vessels in the line, I believe,”
continued the passenger.

“Only two,” answered the captain briefly,
not caring to continue the conversation,
since he could not splash and spout and
play the whale in it.

“And the other is not yet built?”

“Not yet built,” softly admitted the captain.
He began to look around him for
duty: leaking at this rate was not agreeable
nor wise.

The passenger saw that the subject was
no longer a welcome one, and he dropped
it. There was a silence of a few seconds,
during which the captain glanced two or
three times at the young man, as if trying
in vain to call him to mind, or as if struck
with his appearance. An imposing young
fellow, really; height something quite extraordinary;
could hardly have measured
less than six feet four. His face, too, notwithstanding
its fine pink and white complexion,
and notwithstanding the softness of
his curling blond hair and long blond whiskers,
was not such a face as one prefers to
shake a fist at. Although the features were,
in general, pleasing, the cheekbones were
somewhat broad and the jaws were strong,
showing a character full of pluck and perseverance.
In expression it was charming;
there was a wealth of both dignity and benignity
in it; it reminded one of the portraits
of Washington.

“We have had rough weather,” he said
presently. “This is my first morning on
my legs. Who are my fellow-passengers,
may I ask?”

“All the right sort, sir,” shouted the captain,
for surely this was a subject that he
might brag upon, without giving offence.
“All of the right sort, and from the right
spot,” he blustered ahead. “Such people
as I like to carry. A most elegant lady,
sitting over there just now, a perfect lady,
sir. Her niece is one of the most charming,
innocent, modest, — bless you, just the
kind that we raise and brag of — just our
own best kind, sir. Her brother Tom,
too —” The captain stopped here, and
looked at his helmsman, headstays, bobstays,
etc. It seemed as if he had not so very
much to say in favor of the brother Tom.

“What is the name?” inquired the tall
gentleman, who doubtless had his reasons
for wanting to know.

“The name is Chester; no, beg pardon,
the aunt's name is Chester, — Mrs. Chester.

The young lady's name is Beaumont. The
Beaumonts of Hartland!” repeated the
captain, proudly.

The tall young gentleman did not start;
he merely looked as if he had heard before
of the Beaumonts of Hartland; he also
looked as if he were not pleased at meeting
them.

“Ever been in Hartland?” inquired the
captain. “Lovely village, — town, I should
say.”

“I have been there,” was the brief and
dry answer.

“Perhaps you have known the Beaumonts,
then? I dare say they would be
pleased to —”

“I never knew them,” interrupted the
youngster, more dryly than before.

“In a little company like this —” continued
Captain Brien.

“I dare say I may make their acquaintance,
at a proper time.”

His intentions towards an immediate introduction
being thus bluffed, the captain
fell silent, and looked once more at his
helmsman, bobstays, jackstays, etc.

“How many days more of it?” inquired
the passenger, after some seconds of grave
meditation, his face meanwhile turned from
the Beaumont group, as if he might wish to
avoid recognition.

“How many days? Why that depends,
you know. The weather comes in there.
So does the newness of the engine. I
should n't like to prophesy, Mr. McMaster.”

The young man gave the captain a singular
glance, had the air of being about to
speak, and then checked himself. Could it
be that his name was not McMaster, and
that he had reasons for letting the error go
uncorrected? After another meditation, he
swung slowly away from the captain, his
back still toward Mrs. Chester and Miss
Beaumont, strode forward to the waist of
the vessel, lighted a cigar, and smoked in
deep thought.

Meanwhile Wilkins and Duffy, the latter
with his narrow gray eyes constantly fixed
on the tall passenger, were conversing about
their own affairs.

“Duffy, how much do you suppose we 've
made by going to England?” queried Wilkins,
puckering the corners of his mouth
into satirical wrinkles.

“Made? How should I know? Foot it
up at the end of the season. What do you
think we 've made, yourself?”

“Made blasted fools of ourselves.”

“O, you 'd better jump overboard, and
done with it. You 're always looking at
the black side of things. How do you figure
that out?”

“Well, figure it yourself; you can cipher,
can't you? Expenses going and coming
just four times what they would be to New
York, taking in board at the St. Nicholas,
a course through the theatres, and a blow
out generally. It cuts down all my profits
and eats into the capital. I think, by Jehu,
we 'd better let importing alone. It may do
from a seaport; but hang me if I ever try
importing into an inland village again. If
we had n't been as green as swamp meadows,
we would n't have been got out of our
little two-penny shops on any such business.
And I believe the whole line will turn out a
flam. O, it 's all very well as a spree.
That 's it, a big spree. But we can't make
fortunes on spreeing it.”

At this moment the tall passenger passed
them on his way forward to the waist.
Duffy followed him with his eyes, then hurried
to the companion-way, and took a long,
sly look, then came back, staring inquiringly
at his chum.

“I say, Bill Wilkins, how about that fellow?”
he demanded.

“Big chap,” returned Wilkins, turning
his face upward and surveying every point
of the horizon.

“Yes, but who is he?” persisted Duffy.

“How should I know?” returned Wilkins,
trying to look indifferent, but unable
to conceal annoyance.

“Don't know him, ch?” continued Duffy,
smiling and triumphant “Ever live in
Hartland?”

“Yes, of course I 've lived in Hartland,
twenty years or thereabouts. But he 's no
Hartland man.”

“He may have been a Hartland boy,
though.”

Wilkins squared his back on Duffy, and
walked aft; but Duffy would not be got rid
of in this fashion; he followed, and continued
his subject.

“Don't know him, hey? You know
those people opposite, don't you?”

“What, Mrs. Chester and Miss Beaumont?
Yes, I know who they are.”

“And where they live?”

“Yes, and where they live.”

“Well, you know the people on the other
hill?”

“What other hill?”

“O, now make believe you can't understand
anything,” said the indignant Duffy.
“Why, the other hill. Other side of the
town. Straight back of your store. Two
miles back.”

Wilkins would not answer, and persisted
in staring at every nook and corner of the
weather, as if he did n't hear his gabbling
comrade.

“That 's one of the —” began Duffy.

“Shut up!” broke in Wilkins.

“The youngest one,” went on Duffy.
“Been abroad eight years, studying and
travelling. Changed wonderfully. I ciphered

him out, though. I tell you, it 's
Frank —”

“Shut up, for God's sake,” implored Wilkins.

“Yes, and you knew it all the while, and
would n't tell me of it,” complained the aggrieved
Duffy.

“Yes, I did know it all the while,” admitted
Wilkins. “I recognized him the
evening we came aboard. And I did n't
tell you of it; and do you know why?”

Without answering or apparently noticing
this question, Duffy pursued: “Yes, by
jiminy, that 's him. Sold him peanuts and
candy many a time. I 'll go and shake
hands with him.”

He started to go forward. Wilkins caught
him by the skirt of his black swallow-tailed
coat and hauled him back.

“Don't be a blasted fool!”

“Why not?” demands the innocent
Duffy.

“Because it 's ridiculous to be a blasted
fool all the while, and because it makes mischief.
Do you want to get up a muss on
board? There are those Beaumonts, — that
young doose of a Tom Beaumont. Don't
you remember all the trouble between the
two families?”

“O, exactly,” returns the abashed Duffy.

“O, exactly!” scornfully repeats Wilkins.
“Well, you see it now, don't you?
They don't know him. He passes for Mr.
McMaster on board. I heard the captain
call him so, and he answered to it. He 's
quite right. It ain't best they should know
him.”

“If they should, there might be a dickens
of a muss,” observes the at last enlightened
Duffy.

“I should guess so, by Jehu,” mutters
Wilkins, wrathful at Duffy for not having
seen it all before.