Temple House :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Well, if you think much of this ere peat fire, I
don't.” And Mat Sutcliffe, stamped on the black
mass smouldering in the fireplace, to show his
contempt for Moll's experiment in the way of fuel,
and to conceal his surprise.

“What makes you think so?” he asked, after
ruminating a space. “Tempe wears pantalets yet;
she is too young to marry.”

“I should know that something next to heaven
and earth coming together was going to happen in
the family, for Roxalana Gates has given up doing
the washing.”

“Who said so?”

“Mrs. Bayley, who is going to take it home for
so much a month.”

“And you and she have been washing dirty linen
besides; that woman is the dry rot of the alley, and
you love her. What else did she say?”

“Dry rot wouldn't say anything to 'tract you, of
course.”

“Tell me what she said, and without fooling, too.”

“She said the Drake family was as mad as fire

about it; that they called John an idiot, Tempe a
baby, Roxalana cracked, and Argus a pauper.”

“That's reglar dictionary talk,” said Mat contemptuously.
Then he swore at the Drakes, root and
branch. Didn't all Kent know, he demanded, that
old Jack Drake, the grandfather of John, was a
pirate? And that William Drake, John's father,
had been so long under the old man's thumb, that
nobody could tell which from t'other. Pirating was
out of date, but the land-shark was in fashion—same
thing—one was wet and the other dry. But,”—and
Mat turned upon Mary,—“he should like to know
whether anybody had aught to say against the young
feller, John Drake?”

“Nobody but yourself,” Mary replied; “you are
saying that the Drakes are pretty much of a muchness.
I guess John is his father's son, and I guess,
too, that he'll find what's trumps when he is spliced
to Temple Gates.”

“You have been telling me a pack of lies. And
now, Marm, if you will allow me, I'll take a spell of
the open air.”

“Take anything you like for all me, Mr. Sutcliffe.”

He went out, and took a seat on the top of the
wall nearest the path to the Forge, carefully filled
his pipe, and put it into his mouth without lighting
it.

“I'll wait,” he thought. “Maybe I'll smell musk
before long. Virginia Brande has it about her
lately; it ought to come up on the wind that blows
from the Forge; a reglar sou-easter's breeding. She

will know whether they are going to let that child
marry. Curse Argus!—he has played maroon so
long in his rotten wreck of a place, that he has forgotten
his relation to human beings. I should like
to split open the twirls of his heart with a marlinespike.”

He watched the turns of the path which glimmered
in the dusk and disappeared in the darkness;
no one appeared; neither Virginia, whom he expected,
nor any workman on his way to town. He
lighted his pipe, and changed his watch from the
path to the sky. Dun-colored clouds rolled in
threatening masses towards the bay, whose dull roar
broke and gathered again along the dreary coast below
the dreary pastures. His thoughts crept out
seaward,—rose and fell over the waves of an adventurous
past, which knew the life that rounds the
deep.

“Dirty weather, Mat,” some one said close to him.
He looked round and saw Argus wrapped in his old
camlet cloak.

“Is it the same at home that you are out on the
wall, with the salt driving up the wind? Moll mad
to-night?”

“Beats me, to find you in the same spot, without
a Moll at home to torment you, Captain,” Mat replied,
“I was just thinking of the time”—

“When”—Argus interrupted—“we were

“Oh no; that particular time, I mean, when your
foot happened to be stung by a scorpion. Haven't
you got a scar?”

“Not a scar, anywhere, outside nor in,” Argus
answered, furling his cloak, and placing himself beside
Mat on the wall.

“I believe you.”

“What of that time? We were off Antonio,
were we?”

“We were on shore.”

“Just as we are now.”

Mat laughed, knocked the ashes from his pipe,
and put it in his pocket. That they were well
matched, each knew. Their thoughts travelled together
in silence; it was well enough for them just
at that moment to be next each other without speaking.
The roar of the wind and sea increased; the
air was pungent in the mouth, wild in its flavor, and
exciting; the darkness settled round them like a
substance. The influence of eyesight between them
being impossible, Mat was suddenly emboldened.

“You've hated the salt water long, Captain. I
see you everywhere, but in sight on't. You can't
help feeling, though, that the world is made to tremble
by the almighty ocean. There's no more shake
in your life, hey? What's the reason? Why not
go out again?”

“Let me find the reason,” said Argus, tugging at
one of his boot-tops which had slipped down.
“Could it have been the scorpion that first sowed
dissension between me and the sea? Or”—he

stopped, lost in some reflection, and Mat hastily
resumed:

“There's no kind of a track of your sea-life upon
you. Every other sailor shows the strain of the
plank between him and hell. I do for one, I know.
I'd like to walk it now and then; but you,—are you
afraid?”

“That plank between me and eternity I kicked
away some years ago, for my soul to slip in at any
moment, and lose, or find itself, in the yawning
chasm it dreams of so stupidly now. As you say, I
have no love for the sea. Have you observed love
for anything in me? Love, they say, is terrible and
beautiful, like the sea you brag on: I have cut
away from terror and beauty. Peace and laziness
are the words to describe my days,—days without
desire. As for hope, you ass, that lives where sky and
sea meet. Why should I set my eves there? Because
I am afraid?”

Mat jumped from the wall.

“How happens it that you are on the way to the
Forge to-night?” he exclaimed.

“I am on my way to nowhere, but am trying to
oblige you in the matter of being catechized. So go
on. I was married once”—

“Don't go on,—I've had enough. I was looking
out for Virginia Brande.”

“Do you call her Virginia?” asked Argus, with a
slight surprise in his voice.

“Don't I say Tempe, also?”

“There's a difference.”

Mat concluded that Argus was ignorant of the
rumor concerning Tempe: there was no need of saying
anything to him on the subject.

“I reckon I'll put down the lane,” he said.

“Why were you looking for Virginia Brande?”

“I often see her, on her way to your house. I
rather like to keep an eye out for her, on dark
nights; she wears musk, and her silk gowns rustle;
it's easy telliing her.”

“Musk! all perfume to your tarred sense is musk,
is it?”

No more was said. Mat accompanied Argus
through the alley, saw him inside his door, and then
walked to the other side of the town, and inspected
the house where the Drakes lived. A light was visible
in an upper window, although it was past midnight.
He stared at it awhile, and then turned
away, thinking, “Well, what of it? suppose it is
so,—what is it to me?” Too thoroughly roused to
go home, however, he prowled round the town till
daylight, and then returned, to find Mary on the
hearth in her stockings, busy frying fish for his
breakfast. Before noon that day he passed Argus
in the street, and they looked at each other without
a nod.

There was a storm in the Drake family when
John announced his intention of marrying Tempe.
His father protested against it, his mother wept, and
his sisters declared it was a shame. But John
simply said, “I want her, and I am of age.” He
had the power to carry out his plan, for he was

his father's partner; the articles had just been
signed between them, and there was no danger of
John's being cut off with a shilling;—his income
was a sure one.

“I wouldn't have that little Temple Gates,” his
sister Caroline cried, “for her weight in diamonds.”

“I'd have her,” her brother replied, “for her
own weight; and I have got her. She is mine.
Ain't she pretty?”

After he had begged Tempe to marry him, and
obtained her consent, he wrote a polite letter to Argus,
which contained the customary phrases, and the
request that Tempe should be made ready for the
ceremony in two weeks from its date. Argus
gave the letter to Roxalana, who read it, and
asked what he was going to do.

“Nothing,” he replied; “let her marry him.
Keep her in the house, however, till I have seen
him.”

The letter remianing unanswered, and Tempe
shut within doors, John was compelled to pay Argus
a visit. There was little said on either side. Argus
made no comment on the manner in which the affair
had been conducted; remarked that John's impatience
was quite natural; invited him to come to the
house daily: and decided that there should be no
wedding, but that they should be married some
morning without any display. Roxalana shook
hands with her future son-in-law timidly and respectfully,
and then mutely looked at him, expecting
something, she hardly knew what, in the way

of explanation. He had seen her before, but it was
the first time they had been brought in contact, and
he was amazed at the difference between her and
Tempe.

“I hope,” she said at last, “that your family are
pleased with my daughter. I have heard her mention
her acquaintance with your sisters.”

“She will not marry my family, madam,” John
answered. “They have made some trifling objection
on the score of age; that was the only one I
noticed. I am very glad to take her as I can get
her.”

“Are you?” said Argus sharply, “and so your
family objected to the match? Where do you
intend she shall live?”

“With us, at home, for the present.”

“No; she shall remain with me, till you can provide
a house for her.”

“There's room enough for both of you here,” said
Roxalana, mildly. “It is proper that she should
stay here; she is too young to manage house-keeping.
I shall call her, and tell her so.”

Tempe was called. She pouted at John, and said
she never had the least idea of leaving home.
When they met alone he stormed about it, but
she was firm. She knew the opposition of the family,
and she never would go near them. For
an unexplained reason the Drakes veered round in
Tempe's favor when they heard of this; kissed her
in public; drove down to the door of Temple House
often, and had interviews with her on the lawn;

bowed with ceremony to Argus, and sent polite
messages to Roxalana. “The little beauty John is
going to marry,” they said, when talking about her.
Mr. Drake wished that if the marriage was to take
place quietly in the morning at Argus's house, that
there should be a gay wedding party at his house in
the evening. He gave Tempe some beautiful dresses
and a box of ornaments, called her his pretty dear,
and tried to take her on his knee.

“I hate him,” said Tempe,—“he makes me sick;
but I like his presents, and will take all he chooses
to give. Just think, mother, of his giving me a
crimson silk! How came he to know enough for
that? Caroline must have hinted at it for me.”

“I think the dress is a terrible one,” Roxalana
replied, “and the ornaments are not to be described;
don't let me see you wear them yet awhile. I suppose
Mr. Drake must have his way about the party
for you. I hope I may be excused from going.”

“Oh yes,” Tempe answered carelessly, “you need
not go.”

“You must go,” said Argus, “and bring Tempe
home with you. I shall go in my coat with brass
buttons,—made before Tempe was born, which I
wore when I dined with that Commissioner.”