Pirate Gold Part 16

"Humph!" returned Mr. Bowdoin. "How about state rights? Do we live in the sovereign State of Ma.s.sachusetts, or do we not, I should like to know?"

"How about the Union, sir?" whispered Harley slyly.

"Hang the Union! Hang the Union, if it employ a parcel of thugs to do its work!" said Mr. Bowdoin, so loud that there was a ripple of laughter in the court-room; and the judge looked up from the bench and smiled, for had not he dined with old Mr. Bowdoin in their college club once a month for forty years? But a low-browed fellow who was sitting behind the counsel at the table was heard to mutter "Treason."

Beside him in the prisoner's dock sat the slave; not cowed nor abject, though in chains and handcuffs, but looking straight before him at the low-browed man who was his master, as a bird might look at a snake.

"Which of those two is the slave?" asked Mr. Bowdoin in an audible voice.

Again the room laughed. The clerk rapped order. The low-browed man looked up angrily, and spoke to a deputy marshal whose face had been turned away from Mr. Bowdoin before. He rose and started toward them.

"By Heaven," cried Mr. Bowdoin, "it is David St. Clair!"

IV.

But old Jamie knew naught of this, and the Bowdoins never told him.

They consulted much what they should do; but they never told him. And Jamie went on, piling up his money. Three rolls were in the old chest now, and all of Spanish gold. Doubloons and pistoles were growing rarer, and the price was getting higher. But the old clerk was not content with replacing the present value to the credit of "Pirates" on the books; the actual pieces must be returned; so that if any earringed, whiskered buccaneer turned up to demand his money from James Bowdoin's Sons, he might have it back in specie, in the very pieces themselves, that the honor of the firm might be maintained.

Until then, he felt sure, there was little chance the box would ever be looked into. Practically, he was safe; it was only his conscience, not his fears, that troubled him.

Since he had sent her that hundred dollars, he had heard nothing from Mercedes. The Bowdoins did not tell him how her husband had sunk to be a slave-catcher; for they knew how miserly old Jamie had become, and supposed that his salary all went to her. While Jamie could take care of her, it mattered little what the worthless husband did, save the pain of Jamie's knowing it. And of course they did not know that Jamie could no longer take care of her, and why.

But one day, in the spring of 185-, a New York correspondent of the bank came on to Boston, and Mr. Bowdoin gave a dinner for him at the house. The dinner was at three o'clock; but old lady Bowdoin wore her best gown of tea-colored satin, and James Bowdoin and his wife were there. After dinner, the three gentlemen sat discussing old madeira, and old and new methods of banking, and the difference between Boston and New York, which was already beginning to a.s.sume a metropolitan preeminence.

"By the way, speaking of old-fashioned ways," said the New Yorker suddenly, "that's a queer old clerk of yours,--Mr. McMurtagh, I mean."

"Looks as if he might have stepped out of one of d.i.c.kens's novels, does he not?" said Mr. Bowdoin, always delighted to have Jamie's peculiarities appreciatively mentioned.

"But how did you come to know him?" asked Mr. James.

"Why, I see him once a year or so. Don't you send him occasionally to New York?"

"He used to go, some years ago," said Mr. Bowdoin.

"He buys his Spanish gold of us," added the New Yorker. "Queer fancy you have of buying up doubloons. Gold is gold, though, in these times."

"Spanish doubloons?" said Mr. James.

"We have a use for them at the bank," remarked the old gentleman sharply. "Shall we join the ladies?"

"You have to pay a pretty premium for them," added the money-dealer, as he stopped to wipe his lips. "Wonderful madeira, this."

Old Mr. Bowdoin took no squeaking toy to bed with him that night; but at breakfast his worthy spouse vowed he must take another room if he would be so wakeful. For once the old gentleman had no repartee, but hurried down to the bank. Early as he was, he found his son James there before him. And with all his soul he seized upon the chance to lose his temper.

"Well, sir, and what are you spying about for? You're not a director in the bank!"

Mr. James looked up, astonished.

"Got a headache, I suppose, from drinking with that New York tyke they sent us yesterday!"

"Well, sir, when it comes to old madeira"--

"I earned it, I bought it, and I can drink it, too. And as for your Wall Street whippersnappers that haven't pedigree enough to get a taste for wine, and drink champagne, and don't know an honest man when they see one--it's so seldom"--

"Seriously, what do you suppose he wanted with the gold?"

"I don't know, sir, and I don't care. But since you're spying round, come in!" and Mr. Bowdoin led his son into the vault. "There, sir, there's the confounded box," tapping with his cane the old chest that lay on the top shelf.

"I see, sir," said Mr. James, taking his cue.

"And as for its contents, the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons are responsible. Perhaps you'd like to poke your nose in there?"

"Oh no, sir," said Mr. James. And that chest was never opened by James Bowdoin or James Bowdoin's Sons.

"When the pirate wants it, he can have it,--in h.e.l.l or elsewhere,"

ended Mr. Bowdoin profanely.

But coming out, and after Mr. James had gone away, the old gentleman went to Jamie McMurtagh's desk. Poor Jamie had seen them enter the vault, and his heart stood still. But all Mr. Bowdoin said was to ask him if his salary was sufficient. For once in his life the poor old man had failed to meet his benefactor's eye.

"It is quite enough, sir. I--I deserve no more."

But Mr. Bowdoin was not satisfied. "Jamie," he said, "if you should ever need more money,--a good deal of money, I mean,--you will come to me, won't you? You could secure it by a policy on your life, you know."

Jamie's voice broke. "I have no need of money, sir."

"And Mercedes? How is she?"

"It is some time since I heard, sir; the last was, she had gone with her husband to Havana."

"Havana!" shouted Mr. Bowdoin; and before Jamie could explain he had crushed his beaver on his head and rushed from the bank.

Jamie's head sank over the desk, and the tears came. If only this cup could pa.s.s from him! If Heaven would pardon this one deceit in all his darkened, upright life, and let him restore the one trust he had broken, before he died! And then he dried his eyes, and took to figuring,--figuring over again, as he had so often done before, the time needed, at the present rate, to make good his theft. Ten years more--a little less--would do it.

But old Mr. Bowdoin ran to the counting-room, where he found his son and Harley in that gloomy silence that ends an unsatisfactory communication.

"Say what you will, you'll never make me believe old Jamie is a thief," said Harley.

"Thief! you low-toned rascal!" cried Mr. Bowdoin. "Thief yourself!

He's just told me Mercedes is in Havana. Of course he wants Spanish gold!"

"Of course he does!" cried Harley.

"Of course he does!" cried James.

Their faces brightened, and each one inwardly congratulated himself that the others had not thought how much easier it would have been for Jamie to send her bills of exchange.