Part 2

The two sons of old Rufus had been bred to the trade; they had sailed in his ships and seen to his branch houses in foreign places; and their genius and industry turned an ever-increasing tide of business in the firm's direction. The horizon of the house widened; but it did not change until--and this was before the war began--the younger son sent word from New Orleans, where he had gone to encourage the trade in furs, that he had taken to himself a wife. When old Rufus learned she was of Creole stock his lips set, and there was distrust in his flinty old eyes.

Anthony called up a picture of his beautiful young mother, with her shining hair and Spanish eyes. She had not fitted very well into the life of the sober, mercantile town when she came there; her heart was lonely; she longed for a warmer sky and a less contained people. But, and she told Anthony this more than once when he was a growing boy, she had read what was in the old man's mind. She would, so he thought, take his son away; she would take a prop from under the bulky business before it got the strength of full maturity; and by so doing she would destroy much that he had labored to build.

"I was proud," she told her son, and Anthony recalled how her eyes shone as she said it. "He despised my people. He thought them weak; he believed they could not bear up under suffering."

If this were so, she proved him wrong, for she stayed on uncomplainingly until the old man's death; then her resolution would carry her no further; her health began to break, and Anthony's father, who was devoted to her, took her back to the low, soft country she loved.

A dray, rattling over the stones and under one of the arches, roused Anthony from his thoughts. He looked about. The counting-house would, of course, face upon Water Street, and so he made his way around and presented himself therein. It was a fine, airy place with wide spaces and an air of opulent leisure. A man with an affable manner, and his graying hair done in an old-fashioned queue, glanced at him inquiringly.

"I should like," said Anthony, "to speak with Mr. Charles Stevens."

"I'm sorry," said the affable man, "but he is not in the city at present. Could you step in at another time; or would you care to entrust me with a message?"

"I will return," said Anthony, and went out.

Here were the Newcastle sloops, with their passengers going aboard for the trip down the river. A trim schooner with a fleet-looking hull, flying the flag of the New York Packet Line, was warping into a dock near the Crooked Billet Tavern; and Anthony paused, among a group of idlers, to watch the operation. A score or more of passengers with their baggage stood upon the deck ready to come ashore.

"More of them," grumbled a stocky man at Anthony's elbow. He carried a basket of ship carpenter's tools on his shoulder, and his face wore a look of indignation. "You see them everywhere you go. The people they plundered for so many centuries won't let them stay in their own country, and they come down on us like locusts."

A man in a butcher's apron nodded.

"Not like locusts--more like hawks," said he. "Look at that old one there; if he's not like a grandfather kite with his eyes going around for something to fasten his talons in, I never saw one."

Anthony's eyes had already picked out the person referred to: an infirm old man who leaned his weight upon a stick, but whose head with its high-featured face was held up with the boldness of youth. There was a girl at his side; she was turned from Anthony and he could not see her face, but her figure and carriage were superb; the hand that held the old man's arm was slim and white and wonderful. There was something in her poise, in her movements, that said "Youth," "Beauty," as plainly as tongue could have said it; so, with his fancy instantly taken, Anthony worked his way down upon the wharf, and there, hands behind his back and with a carefully careless air, he waited.

The skilful hands of the sailors made the schooner fast, the planks were run aboard, and the passengers and travelers were set ashore. There was a small din of carters as they fought for the chests, parcels, and bags--scuffle, flurry and dust for a moment; then all settled again, and they were gone. Craftily, Anthony bided his time; then, right to a hair's-breadth, he put out a hand and helped the old Frenchman ashore, for which he received a "Je vous remercie, monsieur," from the old man, and a glance, though a brief one, from what he thought the most splendid eyes he had ever seen. He stood near by while they talked with the only remaining carter. They were strangers in the city; they were going to the Half Moon; they had expected some one to meet them and were somewhat dismayed to find that no one had. During this, Anthony diligently scanned the river at the bend in the very closest manner, as though expecting a vessel in whose appearance he was gravely concerned to round it at any moment.

A young man here flung himself up through the companionway of the schooner with the agility and sureness of an acrobat. He was a big young man and seemed very much excited; a glance showed him that all the porters and carters were gone, and he ripped out a string of curses, threw a heavy pair of saddle-bags ashore, and leaped after them. Paying no attention whatever to the old man and the girl, he said sharply to the man who was engaged with their effects:

"Get those bags and drive me to the nearest tavern where there is fit food and drink."

The carter was a settled, family sort of man, with a subdued look.

"I'm sorry, sir," said he, "but I've already engaged to carry this lady and gentleman to the Half Moon."

The young man was very big of chest and square of face; he had a curt manner, and an eye that was good-humored rather than otherwise; but it was plain that he was not the sort of person to permit himself to be inconvenienced by any foolish notion of precedence. He looked at the old man and then at the girl; and his laugh showed his fine teeth.

"Pick up those bags and let us have no more words about it," said he to the carter. "This gentleman is much too old to be in the haste I am, and the lady," with a nod of his handsome head, and a smile, "much too beautiful to worry about a moment more or less."

"It may be," said the pacific carrier, "that I can carry you all. The cart is large, as you see, and--"

The hectoring young man smiled good-humoredly, and threw his saddle-bags into the conveyance.

"Now," commanded he, "in with you, before I take you by the neck."

Overpowered by the assurance of the other, the man was about to do as bidden; but the girl came forward, spiritedly.

"Monsieur," she said, "the conveyance is ours. I am very sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere--or await the man's return."

"Await!" The big man smiled at her good-humoredly. "Dear lady, you don't know what you are saying. I never wait for anything. And just now I'm so sick of that accursed packet's food that I'm in all haste to get something fit for the human palate. So bear with me, I beg of you." With a push of the hand he threw the carter against the wheel of his cart. "Up with you!" laughed he. "Are you going to keep me here all day?"

The carter climbed to his seat and took the reins; the big young man was about to follow him when the girl spoke once more, her fine eyes full of indignation.

"It seems to be your way to carry a high-handed act off with a pleasant manner. This does not make your purpose any easier to bear, though you seem to think it should; but, being a woman, there is no way but words in which I can show my resentment."

The young man, with one foot on the hub of the wheel, nodded pleasantly.

"At any rate," said he, "you have the spirit. I admire that, and wish you good luck. Also, I hope you'll not be delayed longer than is necessary." He climbed up to the seat, and said to the driver, "Get on!"

The girl clenched her hands; and then her eyes met those of Anthony. Again it was only for an instant; he didn't stop to consider all he saw there, but thrust one long arm into the conveyance and flung the saddle-bags to the ground. Then to the old Frenchman he said quietly:

"Are these your things, sir? Allow me to see them placed."

With that he tossed the pieces of baggage into the cart; and while he was so doing the big young man stepped down and watched him. When Anthony had done and was dusting off his hands with a blue silk pocket-handkerchief, the other said:

"That was neatly done, and promptly, too. Mademoiselle," and he smiled at the girl, "I can see you've found favor with this young man. He wears the manner always worn by gallants performing under the eyes of beauty."

He looked amusedly at Anthony, and placed himself so in the way that that young gentleman was prevented from handing the girl into the cart. Frowning blackly, Anthony lurched against and drove him to one side; then the girl was in the cart, and the old man with her ready help was following, when Anthony felt a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Though he expected a blow, he did not turn; with jaw set he saw the aged Frenchman safe, and called to the driver, "Be off!" The man shook the reins, and the cart started; Anthony swept off his tall hat; he saw the anxious look in the girl's eyes, and the gesture of protest from the old man at so deserting him; then he whirled about with a scowl, and found himself looking into the square, good-humored face of the man with the saddle-bags.

"Well," said this person, and he looked Anthony from head to foot, "you have a way of your own, haven't you?"

Anthony threw the hand from his shoulder.

"I can return the saying," replied he. "And let me tell you further, sir, I consider it a damned, detestable way!"

"Hoity-toity!" exclaimed the other. He roared with laughter, and followed it up with a string of delighted oaths. "You are vexed! You are displeased; and right on the heels of such prompt and engaging conduct." He looked at Anthony and roared again. Then, gasping, he stooped, took up his saddle-bags, and threw them over his shoulders. "By God!" said he, "I haven't laughed so much in a twelve-month. It's a pity I can't have more of your society. But that," regretfully, "has always been my fate; exigency has always forced me to turn my back upon good entertainment. Upon my soul," he said, "I never saw the like of it outside a comedy! 'A damsel in distress!' says you; 'to the rescue!' Then out goes my luggage, aside go I, and into my place go they, as nice as you please." He filled his big chest with air, and made the place ring; then wagging his head, and stamping for very joy he made his way up the wharf, leaving Anthony scowling after him and biting his lip.

III

Anthony spent an hour walking about the waterfront, but somehow its interest did not hold. He felt that he'd like to rest, to be quiet; a chair at an inn took an unaccountable place in his thoughts, a chair at a window in which he saw himself sitting, quiet in the knowledge that some bits of savory cooking were going forward for his especial benefit.

"And the Black Horse is so far away," he thought, the few blocks between himself and the old tavern taking on the magnitude of leagues. "Perhaps it would be better if I took lodgings at a place nearer to the center of things." Then the urge behind the thought showed itself, though Anthony, poor youth, was unaware of it. "The Half Moon is well located," he said. "And it should be an excellent house, for well-conditioned people seem to patronize it."

As he proceeded, facing north, the possibilities of the Half Moon grew in his mind. He saw a snug corner, with the light of many candles falling upon a bountifully spread table. It was night, and it had turned cold; a cheerful fire snapped in the grate. There was a glass of mulled ale before him, with a comforting vapor arising from it, and across the rim of the glass he saw a pair of eyes. They were the most liquid eyes he'd ever seen--brown, he thought--brown, and deep--as deep as a pool brimming with early sunlight.

In Water Street, near to Mulberry, was a low stone house with a wide door and two flag steps that led down to it. In a window, paned with small squares of glass, there hung great bunches of herbs, gray and dried, and roots that stretched crookedly about as though in search of moisture. Anthony instantly descended the two steps, bowed his head so that he might avoid scraping the nap of his beaver against the fan-light, and went in. The place was large and low-ceilinged, and heavy with medicinal smells. From hooks in the walls hung more bundles of herbs and roots; shelves were stored with little packets of bark; in bottles and jars were the seeds and flowers of many virtuous plants. A little active old man, with horn-rimmed spectacles, came forward; he rubbed the bald top of his head with one hand and surveyed his visitor with mild attention.

"What can I serve you with, sir?" said he.

Anthony bent over the oaken counter and presented his face for inspection.

"Look at me," said he.

The little man ceased from rubbing his head.

"I am not a doctor of physic," stated he, regretfully, "and, so I cannot pronounce upon a complaint with authority. But," and his face was screwed into an expression of much sagacity, "as you look like a normal youth, I would venture that the thing you suffer is the plague. It still visits hereabout, and we've had great misgivings of it all summer through. If you feel your vitals at all grasped by this ailment, I entreat you, sir, to keep from gunpowder and ardent spirits." And, as Anthony nodded and smiled, the little apothecary went on, earnestly: "The spirits, I grant you, have a place in materia medica, as a glowing, forceful agent; they contain the life principle of the subject from which they are drawn, and to be fortified in time of need with the life principle of anything whatsoever may be considered an advantage. But the gunpowder, sir, I cannot grant you. What serves it to rattle away with a fowling-piece at the bedside of a disabled person? You make a noise, and a stink, and nothing more."

"What," said Anthony, "makes you think I have the plague?"

"You do not look," said the little man, "like one with a complaint of long duration. As you are sick, I take it that it is with something that has seized you suddenly. And so it _must_ be the plague. I would, if my advice were sought, recommend camphor--a very white substance, unctuous, pellucid, bitterly aromatic, with a grateful coolness, and a fragrance not unlike rosemary. This may be inhaled upon suitable occasions; I have known many persons to carry little bags of it slung under their noses in time of great fright, or small quantities may be taken, dissolved in spirits of wine."

"I am not ill," said Anthony, as he seated himself upon the edge of the counter. "I have never been so, not even in the days when I'd tramp, barefooted, away beyond Schuylkill, into the woods and fields, to search out worm-wood, Jerusalem oak and adder's-violet. It may be," he mused, "that I'd then met with broken bones or drowning in the streams, but I was carefully looked after by one who was my good friend. Though, indeed, friends slip from one," and Anthony pulled a deep sigh. "Even those who we thought would remember the longest sometimes have memories short enough."

The little apothecary rubbed his bald head and stared; then incredulity, amazement, conviction followed each other across his face. He put a hand upon Anthony's arm.

"It is not Anthony Stevens!" denied he. "Do not tell me it is Anthony Stevens; for if you do I shall not believe you."

"Who was it told you that false valerian could be found in the swamps near the second ford?" asked the young man. "What boy was it who could find more wax-myrtle than his teacher? Who was it once slept all the way home on a bag of bear's-bed in the bottom of the wagon because he thought if bears could----"

"Anthony!" The little apothecary had him by the hand. "Anthony!" The mild old eyes took in the strapping frame, so different from that of the boy he had once known--the well-poised head, the purposeful eyes and chin. "Yes, it's you. I know you when you laugh. Nothing could change that."

"Christopher," said Anthony, and his big paw squeezed the thin one tightly, and his eyes beamed, "you have not changed at all. You are not fatter; you have no more hair upon your head; you are just the same human, interested man you were, years and years ago."

"As for being human," said Christopher Dent, "why not, since I have around me in their natural concentrated forms all the organic elements upon which humanity is founded? Age is not a hard thing to check when one breathes constantly those fragrances which regulate the action of the system. I could do with more hair upon my head," a little ruefully; "but," with immediate cheeriness, "we'll let that pass, for what signifies hair? It is but a horny growth, meant to protect the skull, which is the casket of the brain, in those times when the world had not yet reached the point of hats."

He then invited Anthony into a little room, a sort of laboratory, at the back of the shop, in which were a brick furnace, a still in operation, crucibles, mortars, jars of various colored liquids, and bladders filled with powders.

"Sit down," said old Christopher, as he took some dusty, sheep-covered books from a stool. "Sit down and tell me how it has been with you these many years."

Anthony sat down; and the little apothecary sat near him, a shaft of noonday light from a window dazzling upon the crown of his head.

"I have seen your uncle, of course, many times since," said he. "But in what talk I've had with him he never mentioned you."

"I suppose," said Anthony, "he had nothing to tell. There was a difference between my father and him--nothing serious, but still a difference--at the time of the separation of their interests. I don't think a half-dozen letters passed between them afterwards, I know they never saw each other again."

The old apothecary clicked his tongue pityingly.

"Such wretched states of mind people permit themselves to get into," said he. "There was no reason why, if your mother desired to go back to her native land, that your father should not sell out his interest and take her away."

"I think, from the little I've heard my father say,--for he seldom mentioned it,--my uncle understood and agreed to all that. But what he disliked was the sudden curtailing of the firm's operations because of the moneys that had gone out of it."

Old Christopher nodded.

"Yes, yes; Charles is like that. He thinks in a large way. I've fancied sometimes that the eyes of his mind are so fashioned that they cannot see anything under a given size. But," coming back to the subject with a sudden brightening of manner, "what of yourself? What have you been doing? Tell me everything about it. I'm sure it's of interest, for you were always full of that." The old man laughed, and the sound had a clear ring, surprisingly like that of a boy. "It once would have taken a dozen to keep track of you."

Anthony told him the story of his transplanting; of the ship that had taken them, and all their household effects, down the Delaware, and up the Mississippi; of New Orleans and the pirate Spaniards who held its customs and dwarfed the port; of the quaint old streets; of the mingling of races; the color and strangeness of life there; of the mission-school, where the good padres had taken him in hand much to his advantage; of his father's losses in business, caused by the tricky methods of the port authorities, and then of his death. His mother had lived a year longer; then she, too, had died.

"The money, then," said Christopher, "is gone."

"All of my father's--yes," replied Anthony, "They stripped him to the bones. But there is still the interest in Rufus Stevens' Sons, left me by my grandfather; that had never been disturbed. The income from it made my mother comfortable while she lived."

"And when she had gone,--fine, proud, beautiful creature,--what then?"

"I sailed as mate in a Spanish ship, trading with South America and ports on the West Coast; for a year or two I was in the counting-house of Montufars, a trader at New Orleans. Three times I crossed the mountains and desert with fur-buying trains, to California; and, on the same errand, I've navigated the Mississippi and tributaries to places, so they've told me, where white men had not been seen."

"You _would_ do that," said the apothecary, nodding his glittering head, "As a boy you always loved to venture where no one had been before you." He looked at the young man with his manner of mild attention. "And now you've come back to where you were born," he said. "To stay, I hope; to take your place in the business of your grandfather."

Anthony shook his head doubtingly.

"I don't know as to that," he replied. "It's true I have no ties in New Orleans; and I will do as well in one place as another. But my uncle is a man of sharp-cut achievements, and it may be that he'll be content enough if I keep my distance." And, though Anthony laughed at this, his chin went out in a way it had. "If he's of that frame of mind I'll be willing to do so; for I have affairs enough of my own to keep me busy, and a little effort will add to them from time to time."

Here the shop door was heard to open and shut; a brisk step sounded, and a gentleman of immaculate dress entered the rear room.

"I ask your pardon, Mr. Dent," said this personage, seeing Anthony.

"It is no matter," said the apothecary. "Come in, Dr. King. I'm chatting with an old friend; that's all."

Dr. King smiled and nodded to the young man.

"Physicians," said he, "are sometimes more urgent in their ways than most; but then their affairs are of a nature that frequently requires it."