Part 4

The woman sat for a moment gazing fixedly at the little ring, turning it over and over with her fingers; what remembrances it brought back to her of shame and tears. Had she entirely lost her old love for the reprobate? Who can say?

“He wished that I should forgive him,” she murmured to herself. “Poor Tom!”

A tear rolled down her cheek, and James watched it intently as it strayed down the deep line between nose and cheek, then turned away his head.

“It is odd that the sailor should have happened to ask _you_ to bring me this,” she said, “this relic of your uncle.”

James gave a start at the word “uncle” and was at a loss for words.

“Yes, it was queer that it should happen so,” he said; “but then you know I am often round the wharves in the afternoon.”

“When you should be minding your books, naughty boy,” exclaimed Mrs. Pickering, smiling through her tears; for perhaps all love for ne’er-do-wells had not been rooted from her breast. Indeed, it is hard to shake the shiftless and reckless from their thrones in women’s hearts; the careless, amiable qualities which go to make them unsuccessful in active life, endear them the more to the gentle spirits of women.

“Yes,” answered the boy, looking down abashed upon the floor; “when I should be minding my books, I know. Do you wish to ask me anything more?”

“No, James,” she murmured; “I have nothing more to ask or to say. This ring calls back a time in my life of which I care to say little to any one, least of all to you. Good night, my boy.”

She leaned over and kissed him tenderly, as if to call blessings down upon him, and as he left the room he saw her still turning the ring over with her slim, white fingers, and murmuring to herself.

Of which of the two dead men who had been near to her, the scamp Cheever or the good Joshua Pickering, was she thinking?

IV

At eleven o’clock in the forenoon the Oldbury post-office was always crowded. The easy-going postmaster and his assistant knew that those waiting in the antechamber were not in a hurry for their mail, and accordingly took their good time in assorting it; while on the sanded floor without, the dignitaries of the town talked business and politics, the clerks skylarked, the old women gossiped, and the young ones talked of the latest fashions, keeping a demure eye the while upon the younger men.

At such times bargains were concluded between merchants, underwriters insured vessels, and young men arranged parties of pleasure with each other. The advantages of a club, an exchange, and a reception were all had by the good people who waited for the postmaster to sort the letters.

In the days of which I write, the talk in the post-office o’ mornings was stirring enough. A town whose capital was almost exclusively centred in ship-owning and commerce could not but be excited over the constant disputes between Great Britain and the United States on the subject of the impressing of seamen.

The town was just beginning to recover from the paralyzing effects of the Embargo Act, which had sought to protect our commerce by the singular method of stopping it altogether.

It had been a hard trial for the inhabitants of the seaport towns to see their ships rotting at the wharves and their trade destroyed at one blow, although their ships were saved from the unjust seizures of the British and French.

The merchants were, as a class, notwithstanding the insolence and outrages of the British, the most Anglican of Federalists in their political sympathies; yet they found themselves enduring the loss of their ships and property through the injustice and wrong-doing of the British whose cause they had espoused.

The great national parties of that day were not divided upon American questions, but were swayed by their sympathies with one or the other of the two great nations, England and France, which had been locked in deadly conflict for so many years. The Republican party espoused the cause of France as warmly as the Federalists did that of Great Britain, and the great nations, the objects of this admiration, vied with each other to see which could do the most injury to the United States, until it was impossible for a ship to sail the seas flying the Stars and Stripes without running imminent danger of being confiscated by either England or France. And all these years the impressment of American seamen by British ships was insisted upon as a right by the aggressive monarchy, and was conducted on an enormous scale, and thousands of American citizens had been taken from our ships. Some American vessels were stripped of their seamen to such an extent that they were lost at sea for want of hands to man them. The impressment of American seamen was even a surer road to promotion in the British Navy than gallantry in a sea-fight. And this year the long dispute was coming to a head, and at the daily assemblage at the Oldbury post-office words were apt to be warm. A Federal looked upon his Republican neighbor, with French sympathies, as a red-handed incendiary, and was quite as likely to tell him so as not; while the abused supporter of Madison regarded his reviler as a sycophant to the insolent British, a craven, who cheerfully licked the boots which kicked him. Party spirit ran very high among our great grandfathers, and never higher than in the spring of 1812.

Although Captain Woodbury had been a severe loser by the long embargo, and had been a staunch Federalist, he was at this time so outraged by the insults of the British to the American flag, that he had a lively feeling of hatred towards the mother country, which led him to many hot disputes with the other merchants of the town.

On the morning after the return of the prodigal Cheever to his native town, the worthy old Captain was walking down the High Street slowly and deliberately. He was revolving in his mind the unpleasant experience of the night before, and the necessity which had arisen for the speedy raising of three thousand dollars troubled him not a little. His ships had not brought him in an income for some time, and his new house had made a great hole in his cash. In the troubled state of public affairs, when men said that war might involve the country at any moment, purchasers for vessels and real estate in a seaboard town were rare. The Captain had a horror of debt; yet he could see no way in which he could speedily raise this sum of money, save by borrowing it at the bank or of some friend. He soon dismissed the idea of borrowing from a friend, as he felt sure that no individual whom he could ask would be able in so short a time to raise for him so large an amount. The bank was his only resource, that was clear; and unfortunately he had had high words with Deacon Fairbanks, the president, at the post-office only the day before, in which neither of the fierce old gentlemen spared his adversary. It was hard to be compelled to ask the Deacon a favor after having called him a British parasite, in full hearing of the assemblage at the post-office, and yet there seemed to be no alternative. It was necessary that Cheever should be got out of the town as soon as possible, and the Captain felt an eager desire to pay him the money and get rid of him at once.

His steps had brought him to the post-office at the same moment that his thoughts had led him to this conclusion, and the first person he laid eyes upon, as he came back into the world from his brown study, was the Deacon.

A puffy and consequential-looking man was Deacon Fairbanks. The mean lines of his face were not improved by the fat which bulged his cheeks and jaw. He was smooth shaven, as was the fashion of the day, and his mouth had the tight, short look, which indicates economy of speech and closeness in money matters. His eyes were a light green in color, deep set in his head, and his colorless eyebrows were long and bushy. The Deacon inclined his head slightly when he saw Captain Woodbury, and looked at him sharply from beneath the shaggy eyebrows.

I have my doubts whether the Deacon had really been as sound asleep as his daughter supposed when James was telling the story of the mysterious sailor who had sent the ring to her from the wicked uncle. Captain Woodbury felt uneasy under the Deacon’s keen gaze, and he thought of the unfortunate quarrel with him of the day before.

[Illustration: “A PUFFY AND CONSEQUENTIAL-LOOKING MAN WAS DEACON FAIRBANKS.”]

The Deacon, however, either from Christian charity or from policy, seemed to bear no ill-will towards his neighbor on account of the abusive language which the latter had heaped upon him, and he advanced to greet the newcomer with more than ordinary politeness.

“Good morning, Captain Woodbury,” said he in his soft, disagreeable voice. “It’s a fine June morning.”

“It is,” replied the Captain, curtly. He did not like to have a man whom he had insulted the day before speak to him so civilly. To be sure, he had intended to be polite to the Deacon, but then he had an axe to grind. It was his unpleasant necessity to borrow three thousand dollars that morning of Fairbanks’ bank, and the old fellow did not imagine for a moment that the other might have an object in being polite to him.

“Bad news from across the ocean,” observed the Deacon, pointing to his Boston Atlas, where the news from the European wars were displayed in modest type. “It looks as if they never would be at peace again.”

“I don’t care how much they fight with each other, if they only leave our ships and seamen alone,” growled the Captain, who would have plunged at once into a grand quarrel with the Federalist Deacon, if it had not been for the loan he expected to make.

“The recall of our minister looks like war with Great Britain,” observed the Deacon, shaking his head sadly.

“We must fight them, or confess ourselves a nation of slaves,” replied Woodbury, growing red in the face with his suppressed emotions.

“I fear, friend, that if we pursue the subject farther, we shall renew our heated discussion of yesterday,” remarked the Deacon, noticing the gathering wrath on his neighbor’s face. “How is your good sister, Captain? I hear from my daughter that she has been ill.”

“Elizabeth had a faint turn last night. She is subject to them, you know,” replied the other. The Captain cleared his throat, hesitated, and finally said, in a low, constrained tone:

“By the way, Deacon Fairbanks, I have a little business matter which I wish to talk over with you. Would you mind walking up to your bank with me?”

The Deacon’s green eyes flashed for a moment, and the lids, with their colorless lashes, were drawn close together, and an oily smile spread over his face.

“So, the Captain wishes to talk over some business at the bank,” he thought; “probably he wants to borrow some money. The old fool has spent a good deal on that fine house of his, but still he paid as he went. I wonder what he needs the money for?”

But the Deacon’s face gave no evidence to his companion of what he was thinking; on the contrary, his smile grew the blander, and he cheerily accepted the suggestion to go to the bank, and slipped his hand under the Captain’s arm.

The two men walked slowly down the sidewalk of the Main Street, the Captain seemingly absorbed in contemplation of the small red bricks which made up the pavement, while the Deacon talked glibly of the depressed condition of commerce.

The old book-keeper and the smart young teller of the Liberty Bank, who were hard at work on their great leather-bound ledgers behind the iron grating, looked up for a moment and bowed to the two magnates as they entered the bank, and walked into the directors’ room. The Deacon politely ushered his customer into that dark apartment and closed the door softly when he entered himself. The windows of the room looked out into a narrow alley, on the other side of which was a carpenter’s shop, built of rough, unpainted wood. There was a large mahogany table in the centre of the room, and a dozen heavily built leather-cushioned chairs of the same handsome wood. The room was carpeted with a dark Turkey carpet. The Deacon stood, from the force of an old habit, in front of the fireplace, though of course, at that season of the year, no fire was burning.

There was a silence for a minute or two, when Fairbanks coughed in an interrogative manner, and said:

“Well?”

The Captain was also standing up, with one hand behind his back, and the other tugging at the seal which hung from his watch fob. He was loath to broach the subject he had in hand, and he felt that if he had not already been brought into the spider’s parlor, he would have tried to have raised the money elsewhere. He had never before asked the Liberty Bank for accommodation, and he did not like the way in which the Deacon looked at him with his small green eyes.

“Well?” questioned the mild voice of the president, again.

“I wished to speak to you on a matter of business,” said Woodbury, thus aroused from his thoughts of escaping. “I desire to raise a sum of money to-day for immediate use, and I thought that the Liberty Bank might accommodate me.”

Fairbanks pursed up the corners of his mouth, and wrinkled his brow as if to personify cautious capital. After an appearance of thought and a mental calculation, he asked:

“How much do you wish to borrow, Captain Woodbury?”

“Three thousand dollars.”

“You say you wish it to-day?”

“Yes, I have immediate need of it.”

“For how long a time?”

“Six months, I should say,” replied Woodbury.

“What rate do you expect to pay?” asked the Deacon, again wrinkling his forehead and lifting his coat-tails with his left hand.

“Not over eight per cent.”

“That is far too low a rate,” objected Fairbanks; “in these troubled times, I expect to get at least ten per cent for the bank’s money. Why, we may have war with England any day, and then hard cash will be scarce enough, I warrant. You had better say ten per cent, Captain.”

“Can you let me have the money this morning?” asked Woodbury.

“H’m, let me see; that’s a different matter,” said Fairbanks. “Our available funds are low to-day. It will be a little difficult to let you have such an amount. Are you particular to have quite so much? Perhaps twenty-five hundred would do?”

“I need three thousand dollars to-day, Fairbanks,” said the Captain, taking up his hat and cane from the table, “and if you cannot let me have it, I must go elsewhere.” He started to open the door leading into the main room of the bank, when Fairbanks stopped him by saying:

“Well, Captain, I guess that after all I can manage it for you as quickly as anybody, that is, if you satisfy me on the matter of security. ’Tis only a matter of form, you know, with such a name as yours.” The Deacon’s voice was as silky as ever, and he stretched out his hand deprecatingly as he spoke.

“I think that there should be no trouble in my borrowing this sum upon my own bill,” said Woodbury.

“Oh, but it would not be business, my dear Captain, not business at all. Your note is as good as wheat, but times are bad, and the greatest caution must be exercised. You will pardon the suggestion, I feel sure.”

“There’s my half interest in the brig _Flying Scud_,” suggested Woodbury.

“The bank has decided not to loan upon shipping property,” said the Deacon, who hoped by judicious objection to get a complete inventory of his neighbor’s possessions.

“I can give you a mortgage on my new house,” said the Captain, after a few minutes’ consideration. “It cost ten times what I wish to borrow on it.”

“Oh, but you cannot expect to get back what you have put in there,” said the bank-president. “Pardon me for referring to the adage as to the class of men who build houses. But, nevertheless, your house will be a satisfactory security for the amount you wish to borrow. But it is pretty short notice you have given me if you wish to borrow the money on real estate. There’s the title to be looked into. I suppose that it will make no difference to you if you wait a few days for the money.”

“Certainly, it will make a difference!” exclaimed the Captain. “I wish the money to-day, and I have told you so. If you cannot arrange the matter for me, pray let me know at once.”

The Deacon raised his hand as if to deprecate the violence of the other’s temper. “Oh, really, Captain Woodbury, do not misunderstand me. I wish to do all in my power to assist you.”

“Assist me! I do not ask for assistance. I came here on a matter of business which will be as advantageous to your bank as it will be to me, and judging from the rate of interest which you demand, much more so.”

“Oh, really, Neighbor Woodbury, how hasty you are!” said the Deacon, in his exasperatingly sweet voice. “You pick the words out of my mouth. I did not mean to imply by the word ‘assist’ that I felt that I was doing an act of charity; far otherwise. It would be much quicker work for you if you could get an endorser on your note. I would be delighted to endorse it were it not that it would be improper for me to do so since I am president of the bank. But it will be very easy for you to get an endorser.”

“I have never asked a man to endorse a bill for my accommodation and I never mean to do so.”

“Oh, how much better it would have been here for some men I know if they had adopted that rule,” said the Deacon; “poor Isaac Wills, for instance. Oh, that was a sad case!”

“The man was a fool,” said the Captain. “I have laid down this rule that I _never_ will endorse for another, or ask another to endorse for me. If you cannot afford to lend the money, you cannot afford to lend your name.”

The Deacon bowed his head in approbation of this proposition, and insinuatingly said, “Then we shall say a loan of three thousand dollars for two years on your house on North Main Street, interest at the rate of ten per cent per annum.”

“I will pay eight per cent,” said the Captain, obstinately.

“Oh, very well, nine it shall be.”

“I said eight, and I shall pay no more.”

“Ah, I misunderstood you then. We will call it eight per cent, though there is no one else in town to whom I would lend on such terms. I suppose that Judge Cushing looked up your title. You might instruct him to draw the mortgage deed and to send it to young Mr. Baldwin for approval. I send the bank’s business to Baldwin, as he is a clever young fellow, and I like to encourage youthful talent.”

The Deacon rubbed his hands together as he spoke, as if to excite the glow of benevolence by friction.

“And you can let me have the money to-day?” said Woodbury, smiling at the Deacon’s show of benevolence; for he knew well that the bank employed the services of young Baldwin because he did his work well and cheaply.

“I do not see how it can be arranged till to-morrow,” replied Fairbanks. “Baldwin will have to look up the title since you have been the owner, and the lawyers will have the management of the affairs now we have made our bargain, and you cannot hurry lawyers, you know.”

“No, that you cannot! Old Judge Cushing is as slow as a Dutch lugger beating to windward. But if you will send Baldwin around to his office, we will see how quickly we can arrange the matter. Good morning, Mr. Fairbanks.”

“Good morning, Neighbor Woodbury,” said Fairbanks suavely, as he opened the door for the other, “good morning. Do you desire Boston funds or cash?”

“Cash.”

“Very well; I am glad to oblige you, very glad. To-morrow at noon at Judge Cushing’s office. Very well.”

When Woodbury was well out of the bank, Fairbanks shut the door of the directors’ room again. “Ah, so you need this money as soon as you can get it, do you?” he said to himself, as he stood at one of the back windows gazing out over the alley into the carpenter’s shop, where the carpenter’s apprentice was whistling over his wood-butchery. “You want three thousand dollars, do you, Captain Woodbury? And you never borrowed a ninepence before in this town. Yes, and you come to me to borrow it, even after quarrelling with me yesterday. You evidently want it quick and for a purpose. You didn’t need the money then.”

The carpenter’s apprentice looked up just then from the board he was planing and caught sight of the Deacon’s fat face in the window, and the boy, with the frank criticism of youth, stuck his tongue out at the old gentleman; for children and animals instinctively disliked the Deacon, though his manners always appeared to be gentle and his smile was perpetual.

“Darn the old hypocrite!” exclaimed the apprentice, who wasted on the wharves too much of the time which he owed his master. “I wonder what mischief he is up to now. Going to foreclose Widow Hapgood’s mortgage, I guess. The old spider.”

The Deacon, all unconscious of the hostile presence across the alley, continued his train of reasoning.

“Let me see, last night when I was dozing after supper, that young Woodbury came in to see my daughter. I was nearly asleep, but the sound of their voices woke me up, and he told her that cock and bull story about the sailor down at the wharves who gave the lad the ring which Tom Cheever, on his death-bed, had entrusted to the sailor. The boy was not telling the truth, I could see that. It was strange that the name should have turned up again. Let me see; it was fifteen years ago last March that Cheever broke into my house, the villain. I always suspected John Woodbury of helping the rascal escape. Then they got up that story of his dying in South America. _I_ never believed it, though the old Parson did put up that headstone in the burying-ground. The chances are that the thief has come to town again, and that he sent the boy with the message to my daughter. I have got it; that’s it; and now he is bleeding the Captain for money, and, like as not, claiming his share of the Parson’s estate; and Woodbury wants the money so quickly in order to get rid of him. That’s it.”