49. CHAPTER XLIX.
Affliction is enamoured of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.
— Romeo and Juliet.
He had not gone far, when he became aware of a footstep
closely following him. He was about to look back, when a
little man passed before him, glancing furtively in his face
with a ludicrous expression of doubt, amazement, and curiosity.
Morton at once recognized the features of an odd,
simple-minded classmate, named Shingles. “Charley,” he
exclaimed, “how do you do?”
“It is you,” cried Shingles, with an ejaculation of profound
astonishment; “solid flesh and blood!” — grasping Morton's
extended hand — “and not your ghost. Why, we all thought
you were dead!”
“Not quite,” said Morton.
“Dead and buried,” repeated Shingles, “off in Transylvania,
or some such place.”
“I was buried, but they buried me alive.”
Shingles, who had a taste for the horrible, took the assertion
literally, and dilated his eyes like an owl on the lookout
for a mouse.
“But how did you manage to get out?”
“I contrived to break loose, after a few years.”
Shingles stared in horror and perplexity.
“Don't be frightened, Charley. I'm all right, — neither
ghost nor vampire. But we shall be pushed off the sidewalk,
if we stand here.”
“Come down into Florence's, then, and let me hear about
it. Hang me if I ever expected to see you again. I
shouldn't like to have met you alone, at night, any where
near a graveyard. At our last class meeting, we were all
talking about you, and saying you were a deused good fellow,
and what a pity it was. And here you are alive; it was all
for nothing!”
“That's very unlucky,” said Morton, as they descended
into the restaurant.
“By Jove,” exclaimed Shingles, whose amazement was
still strong upon him, “I was never so much astonished in
my life as when I saw you just now. I was coming out of a
shop, as you passed along the sidewalk. I felt as if I had
seen a spirit. I followed behind you, and wasn't quite sure
it was you, till I saw your trick of rapping your cane against
the bricks as you walked along. Then I said to myself, it's
he, or else old Beelzebub, in his likeness. But come, tell us
how it was. How did you get off alive?”
Morton briefly recounted his imprisonment and escape,
interrupted by the wondering ejaculations of his auditor.
“Who would have thought,” exclaimed Shingles, “when
you and I used to go up to Elk Pond, on Saturdays, to catch
perch and pickerel, that you would ever have been shut up in
the dungeon of an Austrian castle? You remember those
old times — don't you?”
“That I do,” said Morton.
“Do you remember the old tavern, where we used to lunch,
and the pretty girl that waited on the table?”
“The girl that you raved about all the way home? Yes,
I remember.”
“By Jove, to think you've been shut up in a dungeon!
Well, I haven't any very brilliant account to give of myself.
I began to practise law, but I was never meant for a lawyer;
so I gave it up, and have been ever since at my father's old
place, just pottering about, you know. I was born in the
country, and brought up there, and I mean to live there, only
now and then I come down to New York, on a bend, — just
for a change.”
“I suppose you can tell me the news. How are all the
fellows? How is Meredith?”
“Very well, I believe. He is living in Boston.”
“Married, or single?”
“Single. We are not much of a marrying class. Wren
was the first. Was that before you went away, or after?
We voted to send him a cradle; but he did not know how to
take it. He thought we were fooling him, and got quite angry.
No, we are not at all a marrying class, nor a dying
class either, for that matter. There are not more than five or
six dead, and twelve or fourteen married; we reckoned them
up last class meeting.”
“Vinal — what of him?”
“O, he's alive, and married, too.”
Morton turned pale. “Married! — to whom?”
“Well, they say he's made a first-rate match. I don't
know her myself. I'm not a party-going man; I never
was, you know. I haven't been thrown in much with that
kind of people. But they tell me he couldn't have done
better.”
“What's her name?” demanded Morton.
“Miss Leslie — Colonel Leslie's daughter. But what's
the matter? Are you ill?”
“It's nothing,” gasped Morton; “I had a fever in prison,
and have never been quite well since. I grow dizzy, sometimes.”
“You will grow dizzy, with a vengeance, if you drink
wine in that way.”
“It's nothing,” repeated Morton; “it will be over in a
minute. What were you saying?”
“About the fellows that have married, — O, Vinal, — I
was saying that he had just got married.”
“Well, what about it?”
“Why, nothing particular.”
“When was it?”
“Last month.”
“Within a month! Are you sure?”
“O, yes. I was in Boston myself at the time, and heard
all about it. Her father was ill; so the marriage was private.
Vinal is a sort of fellow that somehow I never cottoned to
much. I don't think he's very disinterested. I like a fellow
that will swear when he is angry, and not keep close shut up,
like an oyster.”
The tattle of his rustic companion was become intolerable
to Morton. He had received his stab, and wished to hear no
more. In a few minutes, he rose from the table. “Charley,
I am sorry to leave you so suddenly, but I am not well. The
fresh air and a hard walk are all that will set me up. I shall
see you again.”
“But where are you staying?”
“At Blancard's. Good morning, old fellow.”
