Little Bobtail Part 3

"As my wife is dead now, I hope he will forgive me."

"Perhaps he would, perhaps not. What is the use of stirring up the waters and making a storm, when everything is quiet now?"

"But my father cannot help seeing that something has happened to me. I can never be as I was before."

"Wait and see," replied the more philosophic young man.

A letter came from Mr. Montague a few days later. It was in the usual quiet tone, with the gossip and news of the town. Edward dreaded the thought of disturbing the serenity of his father's life. He felt now that he ought not to have deceived the old gentleman; that it would have been better to face his wrath. He was sure that his own and Sara's happiness required that he should marry her; and he could not reproach himself for this step. But by this miserable deception--successful as it had been--he had stepped from the high plane of honor and truth. He was utterly dissatisfied with himself; and all the more so because he realized that his wife was worthy of all the sacrifice he could have made for her sake. Tom Barkesdale reasoned from a different point of view, and insisted that the matter was best as it was. Edward had done right in marrying Sara, and it was quite proper to save Mr. Montague from the pain and misery of a useless opposition.

Then came another letter from Mrs. Wayland, announcing her safe arrival in New York and the illness of Mr. Medway.

"I must go to New York at once," said Edward.

"Don't you do it. You will undo everything that has been done, if you do. Probably Mr. Medway has been seasick overmuch. He will be all right in a few days. Wait till you hear again, at least."

He did wait, and the next letter informed him of the death of his father-in-law, and that his remains had been sent to his friends in Maine. Mrs. Wayland added that she should go to Camden at once, where a letter from him would reach her.

"It is no use for you to go now, Ned," said Tom. "You can do no good."

"I ought to have gone before."

"As you didn't go before, it cannot be helped. Your father thinks you are diligently reading law in the office of Colonel Bushnell, in New Orleans. We can't help the past; but I advise you to deceive him no longer."

"What do you mean?"

"Go into the office and read law with all your might. Then you will be deceiving him no longer. You will be doing just what he thinks you are doing," replied Tom, lightly.

"And not tell him of the past?"

"Certainly not."

Edward felt the need of some occupation, and he accepted the counsel of his friend. He studied day and night, for he could not join in any of the pleasures of the city, or go into the gay society which Tom frequented. He wrote to Mrs. Wayland, enclosing a considerable sum of money; but he forbade her writing to him, lest the fact of a letter to him from Camden should connect him with the child. It was a groundless fear; but he had now fully resolved not to disturb his father's peace by acknowledging his own disobedience.

For four months he studied so diligently that his friend began to fear he would impair his health. Every day found him more cheerful than the last; and it was plain enough that youth and time were rapidly conquering his grief. He began to go into society again, and the presence of the ladies was not altogether repulsive to him. In June, with Tom as his companion, he went home to spend the summer.

His father commented upon his altered appearance, but Tom insisted that it was because he had studied so hard. He had not only read law, but had learned the Spanish language, so that he could converse fluently in it.

The vacation wonderfully recruited his health, and in the autumn the students returned to their southern home. Edward studied as diligently as ever. Youth had wholly conquered his grief, and he was as before. He sent money regularly to Mrs. Wayland; but he expressed no desire to see his child, though he declared to Tom that the little one still had a place in his heart, and that he intended at some future time to acknowledge it.

Edward boarded with his friend's father, who had a daughter. She was but sixteen when Edward first became a member of the family. She was nineteen now, and the young northerner began to be tenderly impressed towards her, though his attentions did not begin till his wife had been dead over a year. The attraction was mutual, and Edward wrote to his father about it. The old gentleman was pleased, and facetiously remarked that he had all along supposed there was something or somebody in New Orleans, besides Tom or the law, that had drawn him there for three winters. He hadn't the slightest objection. Edward could _now_ please himself in that respect, as in every other. The "now" was heavily underscored, and the son had no difficulty in understanding his meaning.

It was known that all the Medways were dead, and the Honorable Mr.

Montague could no longer object to any match his heir might choose to make.

The marriage was deferred till the next year, when Edward's father and mother made a winter tour to New Orleans. The great event was duly chronicled in the newspapers, and the young couple made a bridal tour to Europe, where they spent a year. On their return an elegant residence, next to the Honorable Mr. Montague's, in one of the finest towns on Pen.o.bscot Bay, awaited them.

Edward practised law in a mild way, but never made any great figure in his profession. He was an officer in the war, has been to the state legislature as a representative, and the honors of a senatorship are still before him. Like the other distinguished men we have introduced, he is the father of only one child by his second marriage, a pretty daughter, who is the idol of both parents, and particularly of the Honorable Mr. Montague.

Edward Montague has all of this world's goods which are required to make a man happy, he has a beautiful and loving wife, a beautiful and affectionate daughter, a kind and indulgent father still. All the world regards him as a happy man; but he is not entirely so, for he cannot be satisfied with his past life. He cannot help thinking of the deception he practised upon his father, and still fears that some unexpected event will disclose his misconduct. His wife shares his great secret, for, before he married her, a sense of honor compelled him to make her his confidante, which he did in the presence of her brother, who vouched for the truth of all he said. He can never be entirely at peace while his father lives.

Mrs. Wayland married again, but Edward continued to send her at the rate of ten dollars a week for the care of his son, who still pa.s.ses as her own child. After this marriage of the nurse, the father of the boy was vexed by a new fear. He saw that it was possible for her husband to probe the secret through his letters and remittances; so he ceased to write letters, or to send money by mail as before. Once a year, when Tom Barkesdale came north to spend his summer vacation, he sent him with the money to deliver into her own hands.

Strange as it may seem, Edward has not seen his boy since he parted with him on board of the steamer at Havana. When he thinks of the little one he cannot but reproach himself for the past. He feels that he has wronged the boy, and fears that his own emotions might betray him in the presence of the child. He is vexed by a score of fears which he cannot define. The guide and standard of his life is honor rather than religious principle, which is the only safe guide and standard. His conscience reproaches him for what he has done and for what he has left undone. He feels that he has dishonored the memory of his lost wife, and that his conduct is a continued wrong to his child. Like thousands of others, he shuns that which might lead him into the path of truth and right. He pays liberally for the support of his boy, and tries to persuade himself that he is doing all that honor requires of him.

All this is but the introduction to our story; and with the next chapter we step over a period of more than a dozen years.

CHAPTER III.

LITTLE BOBTAIL.

"What have you done with it, Robert?" demanded Ezekiel Taylor, a coa.r.s.e, rough man of forty, who was partially intoxicated and very angry. "You and your mother've hid that jug of rum."

Robert looked at Mrs. Taylor, who was making bread at the table, but he did not deem it prudent to make any reply. That jug was the evil genius of the little household. It had transformed Ezekiel Taylor from an honest, industrious, and thriving man, into a mean, lazy, and thriftless drunkard. It had brought misery and contention into the little house which he had bought and paid for before his marriage. He was a cooper by trade, and had set up in business for himself; but his dissolute habit had robbed him of his shop, and reduced him first to a journeyman and then to a vagabond. He earned hardly enough to pay for the liquor he consumed; but, somehow,--and how was the mystery which perplexed everybody who knew the Taylors,--the family always had enough to eat and good clothes to wear. Years before, he had, under the pretence of buying a shop in which to set up in business again, mortgaged his house for five hundred dollars, and his wife had signed away her right of dower in the premises, without a suspicion of anything wrong. But the money was quickly squandered, and Squire Gilfilian, who had the mortgage, threatened to take the place, though the interest was paid with tolerable regularity by the wife.

Ezekiel worked a little when he was sober; but a day of industry was sure to be followed by a spree. He could procure a few drinks at the saloons; but as soon as he began to be tipsy, even the saloon keepers refused to furnish him more, for the public sentiment of the place fiercely condemned them. The cooper had worked a day and obtained a jug of rum. After breakfast he had gone into the village and drank two or three times, and when he could procure no more liquor there, he came home to continue his spree on the stock he had before laid in. The jug had been concealed in the wood-shed, where Robert had discovered it. It suggested evil to himself and his mother, abuse and even personal violence. As he afterwards explained it, he saw a storm brewing, and, like a prudent sailor, he had prepared for it, or prepared to avert it, by taking the jug down to the steamboat wharf and dropping it upon the rocks below, where the rising tide soon covered the pieces, and for a time concealed the evidences of the deed.

"What have you done with it, you villain?" repeated the angry head of the family, looking first at the boy and then at his wife.

"I haven't seen it, and didn't know you had any jug," replied Mrs.

Taylor.

"Don't lie to me about it," stormed Ezekiel. "You can't fool me. I left that jug in the wood-shed, and 'tain't there now. It couldn't have gone off without any help."

"I haven't touched it," repeated Mrs. Taylor.

"Yes, you have; you know you have," added the tippler, demonstrating with a clinched fist towards her.

"I tell you I haven't seen it."

"I say you have," said Ezekiel, shaking his fist in her face; "you know you have; and if you don't tell me what you've done with it, it'll go hard with you."

"She hasn't seen it, and don't know anything at all about it,"

interposed Robert, in order to turn the wrath of the inebriate from his mother.

"Then _you_ do, you villain," said Ezekiel, turning sharply upon the youth.

The boy did not make any reply.

"What have you done with it?" cried the angry cooper.

"Mother knows nothing at all about it; she hasn't touched it, and didn't know there was any jug there."

Mrs. Taylor suspended work and looked earnestly at the boy. She understood by his manner that he had removed the jug, and she dreaded the consequences of her husband's wrath. Ezekiel continued to repeat his question in his drunken frenzy, and to demonstrate violently with his fist at the youth. He turned again upon his wife, and accused her of being a party to the removal of the jug; but Robert's only object seemed to be to shield her from his wrath.

"I tell you again she don't know anything at all about it," said he, at last. "I did the business myself; and that jug has gone up. It won't hold any more rum."