The Woman Who Dared Part 11

Lowered his head, so that the burnished scalp Might strike her eye direct. Impenetrable To that appeal, Linda said: "I can get A hundred for it, I believe. Good day!"

"Stop, stop! For some time our intent has been To make you a small present as a proof Of our regard; now will I merge it in A hundred dollars for the picture. Well?"

"Nay, I would rather not accept a favor.

I must go now,--will call again some day."

Desperate the "old man" moved his head about In the most striking lights, and patted it Wildly at last, as if by that mute act To stay the unrelenting fugitive.

In vain! She glided off, and Rachel with her.

"Where now, Miss Percival?"--"To make a call Upon a lawyer for advice, my dear."

Thoughtfully Diggin listened to the case, So clearly stated that no part of it Was left to disentangle. "Let me look,"

He said, "at your new picture; our first step Shall be to fix the right of publication In you alone. Expect from me no praise,-- For I'm no judge of art. Fine points of law, Not fine points in a picture, have engaged My thoughts these twenty years. While you wait here, I'll send my clerk to copyright this painting.

What shall we call it?"--"Call it, if you please, 'The Prospect of the Flowers.'"--"That will do.

Entered according to--et cetera.

Your name is--" "Linda Percival."--"I thought so.

Here, Edward, go and take a copyright Out for this work, 'The Prospect of the Flowers.'

First have it photographed, and then deposit The photographic copy with the Court."

Then Diggin paced the room awhile, and ran Through his lank hair his fingers nervously.

At length his plan took shape; he stopped and said "You shall take back your picture to this dealer; Tell him 'tis not for sale, but get his promise To have it, for a fortnight, well displayed At his shop window. This he'll not refuse.

Don't sell at any price. What's your address?

Edward shall go with you: 'tis well to have A witness at this juncture. Write me down The printer's name Brown gave you. Ay, that's right.

Now go; and if the picture is removed-- For purposes we'll not antic.i.p.ate-- As it will be--we'll corner the 'old man,'

And his bald head sha'n't save him. By the way, If you want money let me be your banker; I'm well content to risk a thousand dollars On the result of my experiment."

The picture was removed, as he foretold.

Ten weeks went by; then Linda got it back.

"It is the pleasant season," said the lawyer; "Here are three hundred dollars. You start back!

Miss Linda, I shall charge you ten per cent On all you borrow. Oh! You do not like To be in debt. This is my risk, not yours.

If I recover nothing, then no debt Shall be by you incurred,--so runs the bond!

Truly, now, 'tis no sentimental loan: I trust another's solvency, not yours.

At length you understand me,--you consent!

Now do not go to work; but you and Rachel Go spend a long vacation at the seaside.

You want repose and sunshine and pure air.

Be in no hurry to return. The longer You're gone, the better. For a year at least We must keep dark. That puzzles you. No matter.

Here, take my card, and should you any time Need money, do not hesitate to draw On me for funds. There! Not a word! Good by!"

In the cars, eastward bound! A clear, bright day After a rain-storm; and, on both sides, verdure; Trees waving salutations, waters gleaming.

The brightness had its type in Linda's looks, As, with her little protegee, she sat And savored all the beauty, all the bloom.

On the seat back of them, two gentlemen Chatted at intervals in tones which Linda Could hardly fail to hear, though little heeding.

But now and then, almost unconsciously, She found herself attending to their prattle.

Said Gossip Number One: "You see that veteran In the straw hat, and the young man beside him: Father and son are they. Old Lothian, Five months ago, was high among the trusted Of our chief bankers; Charles, his only son, By a maternal uncle's death enriched, Kept out of Wall Street; turned a stolid ear To all high-mounting schemes for doubling wealth, His taste inclining him to art and letters.

But Lothian had a partner, Judd,--a scamp, As the result made evident; and Judd One day was missing; bonds, securities, And bills, deposits of confiding folk, Guardians, and widows, and old men retired, All had been gobbled up by Judd--converted Into hard cash--and Judd had disappeared.

Despair for Lothian! a man whose word No legal form could make more absolute.

Crushed, mortified, and rendered powerless, He could not breast the storm. The mental strain Threw him upon his bed, and there he lay Till Charles, from Italy in haste returning, Found his old sire emaciate and half dead From wounded honor. 'Come! no more of this!'

Cried Charles; 'how happened it that you forgot You had a son? All shall be well, my father.'

He paid off all the liabilities, And found himself without three thousand dollars Out of a fortune of at least a million.

What shall we call him, imbecile or saint?

His plan is now to set up as a teacher.

Of such a teacher let each thrifty father Beware, or he may see his only son Turn out a poor enthusiast,--perhaps-- Who knows?--an advocate of woman's rights!"

Attracted by the story, Linda tried To get a sight of him, the simpleton; And, when she saw his face, it seemed to her Strangely familiar. Was it in a dream That she had once beheld it? Vain the attempt Of peering memory to fix the where And when of the encounter! Yet she knew That with it was allied a grateful thought.

Then Rachel spoke and made the puzzle clear: "The man who sent us in his carriage home, That day you fainted,--don't you recollect?"

"Ay, surely! 'tis the same. No dream-face that!

Charles Lothian, is he? If his acts are folly, Then may I be a fool! Such fools are rare.

How tender of his father he appears!

I wonder where they're going."

When, at Springfield, Father and son got out, a sigh, or rather The ghost of one, and hardly audible, Escaped from Linda. Then Charles Lothian, While the cars waited, caught her eye, and bowed.

So he remembered her! "Now that was odd.

But the bell sounds; the locomotive puffs; The train moves on. Charles Lothian, good by!

Eastward we go; away from you--away-- Never to meet again in this wide world;-- Like ships that in mid-ocean meet and part, To meet no more--O, nevermore--perchance!"

VI.

BY THE SEASIDE.

Borne swiftly to the North Cape of the Bay, Still on the wings of steam the travellers went; And tenderly the purple sunset smiled Upon their journey's end; a little cottage With oaks and pines behind it, and, before, High ocean crags, and under them the ocean, Unintercepted far as sight could reach!

Foliage and waves! A combination rare Of lofty sylvan table-land, and then-- No barren strip to mar the interval-- The watery waste, the ever-changing main!

Old Ocean, with a diadem of verdure Crowning the summit where his reach was stayed!

The sh.o.r.e, a line of rocks precipitous, Piled on each other, leaving chasms profound, Into whose rifts the foamy waters rushed With gurgling roar, then flowed in runlets back Till the surge drove them furiously in, Shaking with thunderous ba.s.s the cloven granite!

Yet to the earth-line of the tumbled cliffs The wild gra.s.s crept; the sweet-leafed bayberry Scented the briny air; the fern, the sumach, The prostrate juniper, the flowering thorn, The blueberry, the clinging blackberry, Tangled the fragrant sod; and in their midst The red rose bloomed, wet with the drifted spray.

From the main sh.o.r.e cut off, and isolated By the invading, the circ.u.mfluent waves, A rock which time had made an island, spread With a small patch of brine-defying herbage, Is known as Norman's Woe; for, on this rock, Two hundred years ago, was Captain Norman, In his good ship from England, driven and wrecked In a wild storm, and every life was lost.

Stand on the cliff near by,--southeasterly Are only waves on waves to the horizon; But easterly, less than two miles across, And forming with the coast-line, whence you look, The harbor's entrance, stretches Eastern Point, A lighthouse at its end; a mile of land Arm-like thrust out to keep the ocean off; So narrow that beyond its width, due east, You see the Atlantic glittering, hardly made Less inconspicuous by the intervention.

The cottage fare, the renovating breeze, The grove, the piny odors, and the flowers, Rambles at morning and the twilight time, Sea-bathing, joyous and exhilarant, Siestas on the rocks, with inhalations Of the pure breathings of the ocean-tide,-- Soon wrought in both the maidens visible change.

Each day their walks grew longer, till at last A ten-mile tramp was no infrequent one.

"And where to-day?" asked Rachel, one fair morning.

"To Eastern Point," said Linda; "with our baskets!

For berries, there's no place like Eastern Point; Blackberries, whortleberries, pigeon-pears,-- All we shall find in prodigality!"

And so by what was once the old stage-road Contiguous to the sh.o.r.e, and through the woods,-- Though long abandoned save by scenery-hunters, And overgrown with gra.s.s and vines and bushes; Then leaving on their right the wooded hill Named from the rattlesnakes, now obsolete; Then by the Cove, and by the bend of sh.o.r.e Over Stage-rocks, by little Half-moon beach, Across the Cut, the Creek, by the Hotel, And through the village, even to Eastern Point,-- The maidens went, and had a happy day.

And, when the setting sun blazed clear and mild, And every little cloud was steeped in crimson, To a small wharf upon the harbor side, Along the beach they strolled, and looked across The stretch of wave to Norman's Woe;--and Linda Wistfully said: "Heigho! I own I'm tired; And you, too, Rachel, you look travel-worn, And hardly good for four miles more of road.

Could we but make this short cut over water!

What would I give now for a boat to take us To Webber's Cove! O, if some timely oarsman Would only come and say, 'Fair demoiselles, My skiff lies yonder, rocking on the tide, And eager to convey you to your home!'

Then would I----Rachel!"

"What, Miss Percival?"

"Look at those men descending from the ridge!"

"Well, I can see an old man and a young."

"And is that all you have to say of them?"

"How should I know about them? Ah! I see!

Those are the two we met three weeks ago,-- The day we left New York,--met in the cars."

"Ay, Rachel, and their name is Lothian; Father and son are they. Who would have thought That they would find their way to Eastern Point?"

"Why not, as well as we, Miss Percival?

Look! To the wharf they go; and there, beside it, If I'm not much mistaken, lies a boat.

The wished-for oarsman he! O, this is luck!

They're going to the boat,--he'll row us over, I'll run and ask him. See you to my basket."