Chapter III (2)

For year by year, as they set sail with their hardy crews, every succeeding voyage took them nearer to the court of the Ice King, the chill of his breath grew deadlier, and the invasion of his dominions more desperate. But, lo! when Jack Tar was almost at his wit's end, a cry arose upon the prairie, and the disciples of commerce dropped their harpoons and left their nets to follow the guidance of the new revelation. Jets of oleaginous wealth sprang and spirted, and blessed was he whose dish was right-side-up in this new rain of pecuniary porridge. Instead of the old launchings and weighings of anchors, came the embarkation of all sorts and sizes of solid and fancy craft on the inviting sea of speculation, and men ran hither and thither, outrivalling the tales of the bygone voyagers, by stories of vast fortunes made in a day, and of shipwrecks as sad as any on the ocean. And so, in place of dingy casks and creaking cordage and watery perils, there sprang up the reign of pipes and drills, and for the laden ships, black and oozy with their slippery cargo, we began to have long trains of bright blue tanks speeding over all our western railways; and the whaling vessels, with their smooth, tapering sides, and blowsy crews, and complicated mysteries of rigging, seem already like forsaken hulks, hopelessly stranded upon the shores of antiquity.

But all this belongs to the Present, and any such prophecy uttered in the days with which our story has to do would have been regarded as the wildest of ravings. For then the whale-ship was a reality and a power, the terror of all mothers of wayward boys, and the general resort of reckless runaways and prodigals. The thought that it could ever be superseded by any undiscovered agency had not yet made its way into the heads of even the sage prognosticators who studied the prophets and the apocalypse, and were able to dispose of all the beasts and dragons, and to assign them appropriate places in the future, with the utmost certainty and satisfaction.

It is certain that no such forebodings startled the complacency of two young men who sat, in the gathering twilight of a mild spring evening, on a fragment of drift-wood in a little cove of New London harbor, with the waves sweeping up almost to their feet, and the western sky still flushed with the departing glory of sunset.

They were a stout, bronzed, muscular couple, loosely clad in the common sailor-suits of the period, and both with the shrewd, resolute cast of countenance that distinguished the irrepressible Yankee then no less than now. The darker of the two was the more attractive, for he had the jolly twinkling eye, and gayly infectious air that goes with the high animal temperament, and always carries a bracing tonic with it like the sea-breeze. Wherever John Avery came, all the evil spirits of dulness and mopes and blues, that conspire so fearfully for the misery of mankind, had to give way, and one burst of his spontaneous merriment would exorcise the whole uncanny troop. John was a born sailor, with all the dashing frankness, and generous, hearty temper characteristic of the class, and not deficient in the faculty for getting into scrapes that is also an invariable endowment of his prototypes.

The other was a less open face, sharper in its outlines, and with more angles than curves. Had it been less kindly, it might have been the face of a rascal, and yet an artist could easily have idealized it into that of a hero. For all these variations and contrasts of characteristic expression, that have such influence among us, are, after all, wonderfully slight affairs, and a few touches either way, upon the vast majority of faces, would give a seraph or a demon at the shortest notice. The bright, plump countenance of Jack was an open book, known and read of all men, while that of his cousin Philo was a study far more perplexing, and in the end less satisfactory. But the conversation of the two was sufficiently plain.

"Sails on Thursday, does she, Phil?" said the cheerful voice of John as his practised eye sought out a certain ship from among the crowd of vessels in the harbor.

"All hands aboard at nine o'clock's the order," replied Philo, taking off his cap, and turning his face to the wind.

"And the Sally Ann don't sail till Saturday. I say Phil, old fellow, I wish we were going together," cried John with one of his bursts.

"It's better as 'tis," said Philo, thoughtfully. "There's a better chance for one of us to come back, you know, than if we were in the same ship."

"'_Come back._' Why, of course we shall come back,--that is, I hope so, both of us. That wasn't what I meant. I'd like you for a shipmate,--that's all," was the eager response.

"Yes,--I understand," answered Philo. "We shan't both come home, _of course_; but there's hopes for both of us, and a pretty strong chance for one of us at least."

And then a seriousness fell upon the cousins, and for many minutes they sat and watched the tide creeping up to them like the lapping, hungry tongue of some slow monster, thinking such thoughts as will sometimes come unbidden to the heart of youth, and become more and more intrusive and importunate as we grow older.

These boys were offshoots of a sturdy Puritan stock, and the pluck and backbone of their ancestry suffered no degeneracy in them. John had been an orphan from infancy, and had grown up in an atmosphere of loving kindness and tender mercy under the auspices of his Aunt Betsy,--Philo's mother. She it was, who, in view of his orphanage, had winked at his boyish misdemeanors, indulged his naturally gay disposition in every way that her strict and somewhat barren orthodoxy allowed, and when his sea-going propensities could no longer be controlled by the mild influences of her molasses gingerbread and sweet cider, she had made him a liberal outfit of flannel shirts and blue mixed hose, and, tucking a Bible into the corner of his chest, bade him God-speed on his first voyage.

It was with some surprise that she saw him come back from a three months' cruise, with no more serious damage than a scar across his forehead; but still she felt reproached at the sight of it, and on Jack's next start rectified her previous neglect, by sending Philo along with him in the capacity of mentor and protector,--an office which she, in the devotion of her heart, would most joyfully have undertaken herself if the art and practice of navigation could have been adapted so as to admit of the services of an elderly lady. But becoming convinced of the utter impracticability of this plan, she wisely settled herself down to be comfortable with tea-drinking and knitting-work, with great confidence in Philo's sobriety and force of character, as applied to preserve her darling Jack from harm; for Aunt Betsy, like many other excellent people, was not free from favoritism, and her adopted son was the child of her affections, while Philo had the secondary place, and was expected to consider it his highest happiness to fiddle for Jack's dancing, and otherwise to hold the candle in a general way for the benefit and pleasure of that superior being. Had Jack been less jolly and generous, or Philo less amiable and forbearing, this maternal arrangement would have been a fruitful source of jealousy and contention; but the two natures were so fortunately balanced that even the one-sided weight of Aunt Betsy's partiality worked no such derangement of the family peace, as might have been supposed. The boys had made three short voyages together, and were now about shipping for their first long absence in different vessels only because Philo's superior education and business aptitude qualified him for the position of supercargo, which had been offered him on board the Skylark.

Philo was already developing the great Yankee trait of penny-catching, for even then he had saved quite a pretty sum out of the very moderate pay of a foremast man in those times, and this, in addition to his patrimonial inheritance of a few hundred dollars, made a nice nest-egg for the fortune that he hoped to realize in late life. Jack, too, had his property interest, for he had just come to man's estate in the eye of the law, and his little property, carefully hoarded, and with its due interest had been, only the day previous, paid into his hands in good gold, accompanied by much sound advice and the warmest good wishes from his benignant guardian, 'Squire Tupper, who, thanks to Aunt Betsy's interposition had found him the most dutiful and least troublesome of wards.

Philo renewed the conversation by inquiring whether Jack had thought of any particular mode of investment, and stating his own intention of purchasing an interest in the Skylark, if on his return it should appear advisable. But the former topic appeared to push itself uneasily uppermost, and he soon came abruptly back to it,--

"I shall do that thing if I live to see home again; and, if anything should happen that I don't, I want my money to go to you, Jack, except half the income, and that I want to have settled on mother as long as she lives."

"You'd better say all the income, and the principal too, for that matter, Phil," cried the hearty Jack, with a little break in his voice at the last words.

"No," replied the cousin, soberly. "There's enough besides to keep the old lady comfortable as long as she lives, and more would only worry her. If she gets something to show that I didn't forget her, it'll be better than if she had it all to take care of; and she'll be just as well suited to have it go to you."

"But think of my getting what Aunt Betsy ought to have," remonstrated Jack, sturdily.

"It's best," said Philo.

"And to hear you talk as if you was bound straight for Davy Jones' locker," pursued Jack.

"I shan't go any straighter for talking about it, as I know of," answered Philo, looking steadily towards the dim horizon as if his fate lay somewhere between the water and the sky.

"Well, then," shouted the impulsive Jack, "if it must be so, I'm glad I can match you at the other end of the same rope. You're as likely to come home as I am, and, if I'm never heard from, all I've got shall go to you."

"Then we'd better make our wills in form, if that's your wish," said Philo, rising from the log.

"We'll make all fast to-morrow," remarked Jack, cheerfully; "though it makes one feel queer to be doing such business at our age."

"It can't hurt anything; and we're no more likely to meet with bad luck for having things in ship-shape," replied Philo, as they walked up towards the little town, whose twinkling lights winked like fireflies out of the darkness.

"Let's do it to-night, and have it over," exclaimed Jack, who found an unpleasant creeping sensation gaining upon him as he dwelt on the subject.

"Well," said Philo.

The cousins turned into the main street of the village, now a busy mart of business, but in those days broad and grassy, with a row of respectable gambrel-roofed houses, each with its liberal garden at the side. Pre-eminent in respectability was the abode of 'Squire Tupper, with its large, clean yard, small, patchwork-looking windows, and ponderous brass knocker, which disclosed the terrific head of some nondescript animal in most menacing attitude. Upon this brazen effigy Jack sounded a vigorous rap, since 'Squire Tupper was the prime magnate and authority of the small town, in all matters requiring legal adjustment; and any well-instructed resident would as soon have thought of having a funeral without the minister as of making a will without the advice of the 'squire.

The summons was answered by a pretty blonde girl, dressed in the nicest of blue stuff gowns, the whitest of muslin tuckers, and with her pretty feet displayed to advantage by fine clocked stockings and neat morocco shoes. All these little matters and her dainty air gave her the appearance of a petted kitten, or, rather, of some small, ornamental image, made of cream candy, and kept in a Chinese doll-house.

She turned rosy at sight of Jack, who came instantly out of his solemn mood, and, in the frank, saucy way habitual to him, swung his arm around the neat waist, and, spite of some tiny remonstrances and vain struggles, planted a big sailor kiss right in the centre of the demure mouth. All this was natural enough; for, besides being the 'squire's ward and connected in that sort of cousinhood which extends to the forty-ninth degree of consanguinity, Jack had now regularly "kept company" with Molly for several months, and all his Sunday nights on shore were piously devoted to "settin' up" with her in the prim, sanded best parlor, where it is not to be supposed that he abstained totally from such "refreshment" as Mr. Sam Weller was accustomed to indulge when opportunity offered.

But his demonstrativeness served to discompose Molly's ladyhood on this occasion; and the presence of Philo with his business-like face added so much scandal that she disengaged herself as quickly as possible from Jack's audacious grasp, and, with such dignity as a white kitten might assume in the presence of two intrusive pups, ushered them into the family "keepin'-room," and withdrew, as if she wished it understood that she washed her hands of them and their kind from that time forth. But Jack slipped out after her, and probably made peace; for they returned together,--he very brisk and shining, and she blushing like Aurora.

Philo, however, meant business, and said as much in plain terms, that set Miss Molly into a perfect maze of conjecture as she went to call the 'squire. Her only solution of the mystery was that Jack had now come for the momentous _pop_, toward which events had been tending; and that Philo had accompanied him in the character of second. She felt a little piqued that she had not been able to bring him to the point herself; but then it was certainly very straightforward in him to come right to her father in that way; and so the little lady rushed out to the wood-pile in a perfect flutter of delicious perplexity, and imparted the fact that the two young men had called _on business_, with such decided emphasis that the 'squire immediately took the cue, and prepared himself to be especially benignant and paternal.

Relieved of Molly's inspiring presence, Jack felt all the solemnity of the affair returning upon him, and, as is usual with these strong, mercurial natures, it loomed before him more and more grim and ghastly, till, by the time that the 'squire made his appearance, he had become almost persuaded that his last hour was really approaching. This state of mind imparted to his countenance an expression of such touching melancholy as made the old gentleman take him for the most despairing of lovers, and wrought upon his sympathies amazingly.

'Squire Tupper was the embodiment of magisterial dignity, owlish wisdom, and universal benevolence. With a fine, showy person that was in itself the guaranty of unimpeachable respectability, he had gone on in life, and come to hold the position of an oracle; not on account of anything he ever said, but because of a general way that he had of looking as if he could on all occasions say a great deal if he chose, which is a sure way to attain the distinction of being considered remarkably well-informed, though it is one that is greatly neglected of late years. The world laughs at witty people, and despises them; and 'Squire Tupper was a bright example of the truth that it takes a thoroughly dull man to be profoundly respected.

He now saluted the cousins with grave urbanity, and deliberately placed his stately form in the arm-chair, taking a fresh cut of tobacco as a preliminary to business. If Molly had enough of mother Eve about her to cause her to peep and listen behind the door, we don't know as it concerns us. We don't say she did; but would be slow to take the responsibility of declaring that she didn't. Young ladies, who may chance to peruse this veracious history, are at liberty to decide this point according to their own estimate of the temptation, and the average feminine power of resistance.

Jack plunged desperately into the middle of the subject, and then tried to swim out toward the introduction.

"We thought we'd stop in, sir, this evening, as we've made up our minds to do a certain thing; and it seemed as if we--I mean I--felt as if I should like to have it done, and over with."

"I see, I see," replied the 'squire, with the utmost consideration for Jack's embarrassment, and the delicate nature of his errand. "You've spoken to Molly about it, I suppose?" he added, encouragingly.

"Why, no. Didn't think it was worth while, as you was at home," answered Jack.

"Ah, I see! Jes' so, jes' so! Very thoughtful in you, Jack,--very, indeed." The 'squire paused, and took a pinch of snuff, nodding his satisfaction, and proceeded: "It's highly gratifying to me, Jack, to see you so thoughtful as to come to me first on this business; though it isn't what all young men would do. I'm glad to see that you respect the parental relation, and respect my feelings, though you've no parents of your own; still you've had an excellent bringing up by your Aunt Betsy, and I've tried, in my humble way, to do what I could." (Graceful self-abasement was one of the 'squire's strong points.) "And now I say you've acted just right, because I am better capable of judging what is for Molly's good than she can be herself; and, of course, I'm the person to be first consulted; and it's most creditable and gratifying"--

"Why, it isn't about Molly, at all!" cried Jack in bewilderment.

O happy, doting pride of fatherhood! What a falling off was there, and what blankness, followed by confusion, overspread 'Squire Tupper's countenance, as the nature of his blunder and its extreme awkwardness became apparent to his puzzled faculties.

"No--no--certainly not--not in the least!" gasped he, catching after his dignity, as a man drowning grasps at straws.

"We came to see if you could attend to making out our wills, this evening," said Philo.

The 'squire looked from one to the other with such dazed incredulity that both the young men applied themselves to explanations which brought his senses back into the world of facts.

"Yes, yes, certainly,--very creditable and prudent in you to wish to make things all snug before you go. Excellent idea; though you're both rather youngish to be doing such business. Still it's highly gratifying to see you take it up in this way,--certainly,--just let me get the materials." And the 'squire plunged with great eagerness into the subject, briskly opening an old-fashioned secretary, and setting out upon the table a heavy stone inkstand, a sand-box, some large sheets of paper, and a bunch of quills; and then, being quite restored to his accustomed equilibrium, begged them in the most impressive magisterial manner, to state their wishes, and commenced making his pen, while Philo explained the subject-matter of the conversation previously recorded.

"I see, I see!" said the 'squire, deliberately, when he had elaborated the point of the quill, and tried it repeatedly on his thumb-nail. And, without further ado, he drew his chair to the table, and headed the page in a large, round hand: "_The Last Will and Testament of Philo Avery_;" following it up with the regular formula for such cases made and provided.

"_In the name of God, Amen._

"I, Philo Avery, of the town of New London and state of Connecticut, being of sound mind and memory, and considering the uncertainty of this frail and transitory life, do, therefore, make, advise, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament," etc.

Scratch--scratch, went the 'squire's pen, interrupted only by occasional dips into the ink, while the two testators sat and looked on in unwinking silence, and the tall candles flared and sputtered as their sooty wicks dropped down into the tallow. Hardly had this happened when Molly tripped shyly into the room, bringing a pair of silver snuffers on a little tray, and with one dexterous nip relieved each smoking luminary of its incumbrance, at the same moment casting her demure eyes upon the page which her father was now covering with sand. If she was not ignorant of the old gentleman's palpable blunder (and remember the narrator takes no responsibility on that point), she was certainly very innocent and unconscious, and, as Jack looked at her, he anathematized his own stupidity in not taking the opportunity which the 'squire had so temptingly opened for him, and determined that he would rectify the omission speedily.

Meanwhile, the quill travelled over another broad page, and the documents were ready for the signatures. And then it was necessary that Molly and the hired-man should be called in as witnesses, and the former made very wide eyes of wonderment (little budget of deceit!) when she learned the nature of the papers, and wrote her name in a tiny, cramped hand, with many little quirks like the legs of spiders, and this was supplemented by the laborious autograph of Silas Plumb, the teamster, a young man of limited education and bushy hair.

And when all this was done, the cousins exchanged the wills, and tucked them into their respective side-pockets, feeling greatly relieved, and the 'squire, after receiving his fee in a benevolent, deprecating manner, as if it was quite a trial to his feelings, but must be undergone as a duty, brought out some excellent port wine, and pledged them both in liberal glasses, with wishes for their prosperous voyage and safe return. And at the mention of this sorrowful topic, poor Molly's spirits suffered such charming timid depression, and were affected to such a degree that when Philo took leave, it was necessary for Jack to lag behind, and finally allow him to go away alone, since nothing else would serve to restore the languishing damsel to comparative cheerfulness. At this interval of time, and without the advantage of being an eye-witness, it would be a vain attempt for anybody to undertake a minute account of how, standing in the low "stoop," with its little round posts like drumsticks, and huge tubs of thrifty, rough-leaved plants, Molly made herself perfectly irresistible with her shy regrets, and how, when her grief and apprehension at once welled up from her heart to her face, in the midst of bashful palpitations and broken sobs, her proud little head wilted weakly over on Jack's shoulder, and she begged him not to go sail-ail-ailing away, and be drownd-ed-ed--and have that horrid old will-ill-ill for his sole memento. Neither would it be easy to portray how Jack soothed and petted, with all the little endearments that are such delightful realities for the moment, but so silly and absurd to remember, and finally, when nothing else would answer, committed himself past all remedy, as what man could help doing, with such a dainty little figure leaning close, and the sweetest of mournful faces buried in his collar. And then, there were more tears and kisses, and at the end a long, quiet talk of all that should be realized when that one voyage was over, and he should be ready to resign his sea-faring life.

At last Jack tore himself away from all these enchantments, and rushed home for a couple of hours of delicious dreamy tumbling about in bed before daylight, which seemed to come much sooner than he had calculated, and aroused him to complete his preparations for departure.

Everybody knows what a queer, altered aspect certain actions and feelings take after one night, and the dawning of the clear, practical light of the next day. Ideas that have seemed most urgent and actual will at such times appear extremely unreal and visionary, and be quite eclipsed in interest by the trifles that come in between and demand immediate attention. Jack found it so, in the hurry and bustle of the next day, what with the preparations for sailing, and all the little matters that such a start involves. The doings of the previous night seemed quite distant and foreign to his own personality; and it needed the big-folded document, with its formal phraseology and crisp rattle, to convince him that the acts of the evening before had not been a rather memorable dream. Once, in the course of the day, he took out the will, read it hastily over, and then tucked it away in a little brass-bound box, that answered for him the same purpose that a Herring's Patent does for prudent young men of the present day.

But however it might be about the wills, and the chances that the Great Reaper should overtake either of the cousins before the return-voyage, Molly was a present and delightful reality; and that very evening Jack made her another visit, justified 'Squire Tupper's presumption of the former occasion, and amid Molly's tears and kisses, and big sighs and little sobs, wished most heartily that the Sally Ann had made her cruise, and that the future programme was ready to be carried into effect. But then, he might be lucky enough to pay for waiting; and if anything should happen to Philo in the interval,--of course, he hoped there wouldn't, poor fellow; but accidents will happen, and if anything so sad should occur, why, then he would be in a position to keep Molly in the style she deserved and was accustomed to; and to buy out a share in some nice little craft, that should bring home to them treasures as rich, after their kind, as those that the ships of Tarshish brought to King Solomon. But all this was mere conjecture, and Jack renounced it with a feeling of reproach for having indulged it even for a moment.

The next day the Skylark sailed, Philo starting away from the old house with his chest on a wheelbarrow, and leaving Aunt Betsy on the doorstep, with her lips pressed very tight, and all the grim fatalism of her religious faith making stern struggle against the natural motherly instincts of her heart. For she did love Philo; and even the reflection that he wasn't going to wait upon Jack, according to his established usage, was lost in genuine grief for his departure.

Jack rowed out to the ship with him; and it would be doing both an injustice to ask whether the cordial regrets of their separation were mingled with any remembrance on the part of either, that in case they should never meet again, one of them would be a few hundred dollars richer for the death of the other.

* * * * *

On the morning of May 5th, 1805, the Sally Ann sailed out of New London harbor. On the evening of September 12th, 1808, she dropped anchor in the very spot which she had left three years and four months before.

The first object, aside from the familiar shore, that met Jack's recognition, as they sailed up the bay, was the ship Skylark, arrived just six weeks previously, and the first man he saw, as he stepped on land, was his Cousin Philo. There could hardly have been a more cordial greeting than that which the bystanders witnessed; and yet a close look into the heart of each might have disclosed a shade of something strangely inconsistent with the outward semblance of happiness that both wore.

For three years is a long time for some thoughts and impulses to mature in, and day after day out at sea, with only the monotony of the ever-undulating waves, and the easily exhausted resources of variety to be found on shipboard, give great opportunity for brooding, and such speculations as come naturally to people who are idle and isolated. Seeds of the devil's planting possess a peculiarly vital and fructifying property and are sure to come to maturity sooner or later. One can easily imagine the thoughts that might have come to these two young men in the long, solitary watches, come perhaps like suggestions from the world outside, wafted on the wings of the wind, or caught up in chance hints and scraps of sailor talk, but coming nevertheless straight from the God of mammon, and, with their slow canker working a steady and sure corruption. And yet, neither had probably ever allowed these thoughts to take any such positive form as to be capable of recognition. They were always, even in the moments of their strongest domination, veiled in some perfectly innocent mental expression, such as _if_ anything should happen, or _supposing_ such an affliction,--meditations which the most sensitive conscience could not possibly challenge, but which had a way of creeping in upon the minds of these two far oftener than they would have done, but for the existence of the wills.

Philo had an inborn love of lucre that was strong enough to give spice and fascination to these ponderings of possibilities, while Jack was constantly under the stimulus of his fondness for Molly, and desire to make a handsome provision for her. And by these means, this indefinite _if_, acknowledged at first only as a remote and dreaded contingency, gradually took to itself substance, and began to figure in the plans and projects of each as if it were almost a positive certainty. Always, however, with the proviso that it was a very sad possibility, to be devoutly deplored and hoped against, but still accepted and treated as an actuality. And such an effectual devil-trap did this _if_ prove to be, that this meeting of the two cousins was, in the hidden consciousness of each, in the nature of an unexpected shock that made a sudden scattering of many schemes and purposes, all based, to a great extent upon that wicked and fallacious _if_. And while all this was lurking under the demonstrative warmth and gladness of their greeting, probably no greater surprise nor horror could have befallen either than to have had the veil of his self-deception for one moment lifted, and to have had a single glimpse at the truth within him, or a single intimation of the lives that they two should lead through the next half century under the evil consciousness of that ever impending _if_.

But nothing of this supernatural character befell them, and after a few warm greetings among the crowd on the pier, Jack hastened toward the town. There were some changes in the familiar streets; buildings newly built or altered, signs changed, and a barber's pole freshly painted. All these he observed carefully as he walked on. When he came in sight of 'Squire Tupper's, the radiant, blushing face of Molly disclosed itself for an instant at the window, and speedily reappeared in a flutter of delicious expectancy at the half-open door, for the news of the arrival was already all over town. She gave a series of little screams as Jack, with such a big black beard, and so very brown, came up and saluted her with a strong bearish hug and a general smell of whale-oil.

For Jack was considerably altered by reason of a certain manly reticence that seemed to have grown on with his whiskers, in place of the old boyish dash and frankness. Molly had become steady and womanly, too, and now saw with vast pride the dignified way in which Jack deported himself, how he met the 'squire's gracious welcome with equal ease and affability, and talked of his voyage and its adventures in such a quiet, modest way as showed him to be every inch a hero. And when, after a short stay, he spoke of Aunt Betsy, and would not prolong her waiting, Molly was quite resigned to let him go, contenting herself with dwelling upon his improved looks, and indulging in charming little maidenly reveries that centred in the anticipated joys and splendors of a certain day which she had settled in her own mind as not far distant.--Alas, Molly! Indulge your reveries, poor girl. Dream on, and let your dreams be sweet. Play over and over in anticipation your pretty little drama of white dresses and bridesmaids and wedding-cake, and make it all as gay as possible, for little else shall you have by way of reward for your many months of constancy to Jack Avery, save his occasional attentions and the satisfaction of being for years the wonder and mystery of all the gossips in town. Yes; for years. It may as well be said now as any other time. The day when Molly's dreams should be realized withdrew itself from time to time, and at length took up its permanent position in the distant horizon of uncertainty. "Colts grew horses, beards turned gray," but Molly Tupper was not merged in Molly Avery, and there were no prospects of that consummation more than had appeared for the last--well--we wont say how many years. For tender and devoted as Jack was for a long time, there was a change in him, that brought something of constraint and reserve between them, and, with all her delicate feminine tact, she could never lead him into any direct avowal of his wishes on the subject. And since Molly was the very paragon of maidenly modesty and trusting devotion, she came to indulge the conviction that Jack knew best, and had some wise though inscrutable reason for delaying matters. And in time, even those indefatigables, the village gossips, wearied of wondering and surmising, at their perennial tea-parties, and the whole thing settled down into a discouraging calm.

And yet Jack had no design of doing an injustice. He was really fond of Molly, and fully intended to marry her. But for that ever-present _if_, and the complications it involved, the event would have taken place in due time. His reflections sometimes took a very painful turn, as he pondered the subject. Here was this beautiful, affectionate girl, to whom he had long been pledged, waiting his time with all the truth and constancy of her loving nature. And here he was, living a dreary and almost hopeless bachelor life, and standing in the way of any advantageous match which might be otherwise open for her acceptance. But, in case of his marriage, the will arrangement must be broken up, and he should have the mortification of making that suggestion to Philo; which seemed an almost impossible thing to do, for not a word with reference to it had ever passed the lips of either since the night when the agreement was made, and both had come to regard it with something like a superstitious dread, as a theme whose discussion might portend some fatal result.

And then, again, thought Jack, life was such an uncertainty, and a few months of waiting might make a vast difference. Suppose, in his foolish haste, he should throw up the will arrangement, and marry Molly, and it should turn out, after all, that a little delay would have improved their condition so much. Though life insurance was still unknown, and its cool calculations and scientific averages would have been then regarded as the extreme of impiety, and its risks as a wicked tempting of Providence, Jack had made out in his own mind a tolerably accurate table of averages, which showed quite conclusively against his cousin's chances for longevity. It is hardly to be supposed that Philo had neglected the same satisfactory proceeding, or that his results were very different.

And thus this corrupting temptation, that is the root of all evil, had crept upon these two noble young hearts distorting and defiling them with its slow taint. And even now, either of them might truthfully have questioned,--

"What shall I be at fifty,
If nature keeps me alive,
If life is so cold and bitter,
When I am but twenty-five?"

It would be too dreary a task to follow them year by year. Let us make leaps and take glimpses at them by intervals.

_Twenty-five._ What we have seen.

_Thirty._ Aunt Betsy, weak and childish for many months, has gone to her long home, with a final admonition to Philo that he must make Jack the object of his best watch and care for the entire period of his natural life.

Molly is still pretty, though a little thin and with a perceptible sharpening of the elbows. Her color is not quite so high, nor her figure so plump. She keeps house for the 'squire, with devotion and good management that are the admiration of the town; continues to love and trust in Jack with unabated fervor, though some young women, whom she remembers to have held in her arms when they were babies in long clothes, are long since married and have babies of their own. Still she receives the sometime visits of her laggard lover with the same grace and sweetness, confident that it will all come right in time; has dropped the old familiar "Jack" for "John" or "Mr. Avery," which is a hint that we ought to do so, too.

That unfathomable individual has been for some time a partner in a grocery establishment, carrying on a good business, and realizing fair profits; devotes much of his leisure to revising the imaginary insurance table, and has brought it down considerably closer; maintains a great regard for his Cousin Philo, and has much affectionate solicitude for his health; gives occasionally to various benevolent objects; is extremely regular in all his habits, and is generally regarded as a very nice young man, who has turned out much better than was expected of him.

Philo has purchased a farm in an adjoining town, and is improving it with great care; is considered rather "near" in his dealings, and is generally quite distant and reserved. Suspicions are entertained that he has been disappointed in love, though nobody pretends to know the particulars; always takes a great interest in his Cousin John, whom he suspects of a tendency to dropsy. John, on his part, thinks Philo consumptive.

_Thirty-five._ No great variation.

Both the farmer and the grocery-man are moderately prosperous; though neither ventures much into speculation, because each is mindful of possibilities in the future that will give great additional advantages. The insurance table has been reduced to one of the exact sciences.

Molly, poor girl, has faded a shade or two. She still keeps house, and raises an annual crop of old-maid pinks and pathetic-looking pansies, together with sage and rosemary and sweet marjoram, which she dries and puts in her closets and drawers, in order that their delicate, homelike fragrance may keep out the moths and pervade her apparel. But, as she moves so briskly and cheerfully about her little tasks, or bends over some bit of sewing or other ladycraft, grave doubts intrude themselves; and, if she were one whit less patient and self-forgetful, she would sometimes throw aside all these little occupations, and, like Jephthah's daughter, bewail her virginity. And, as she sits on Sunday mornings in church, alone in the pew except the 'squire,--now an old man who takes incredible quantities of snuff and drops the hymn-book,--as she sits thus, and watches the happy matrons, no older than she, coming in one by one, with their manly husbands and groups of rosy children, there comes up, sometimes, a great rising in her throat, which she is fain to subdue by taking bits of her own preserved flag-root, which she carries always in her pocket. Or, when she sees some pretty bride arrayed in the customary fineries, she sighs a little, as the thought that she has lost her best bloom comes uneasily to the surface; and then she sometimes looks timidly around to see if Mr. Avery has come to church. But Mr. Avery isn't often there; the insurance table takes up a good deal of his attention on Sundays.

Molly has long ceased to dream about the white dresses and orange-blossoms. She would be glad, indeed, to make sure of a plain dark silk and only two kinds of cake; and of late even her hopes of these have become empty and melancholy as a last-year's birds-nest. Yet she clings still to the shadow of her old coquette girlhood, and rejuvenates herself with a new bonnet every spring, with as much seeming cheerfulness and confidence as if she were fifteen instead of thirty-five.

_Forty._ Decided changes.

'Squire Tupper rests in a grave marked by the most upright and respectable of tombstones. And then all the chattering tongues, that had before wagged themselves weary with gossip and conjecture, took a renewed impetus, and it was settled in all quarters that Molly would now be married as speedily as the proprieties of mourning would permit. And John himself, it would seem, thought as much; for, without any undue haste, he did make some motions looking that way. He bought a new gig, and took Molly out to ride several times, besides sitting very regularly in her pew at church. And, having thus evinced the earnestness of his intentions, he made himself spruce one Sabbath evening, and proceeded to call on her, with the express design of asking her to fix the long-deferred day.

But what was his surprise on finding, as he came upon the stoop where he and Molly had so often exchanged vows of eternal fidelity (which had, indeed, been tolerably tested), the best parlor gayly alight as in the days of his early courtship, and to hear a male voice in very animated conversation with Molly.

Curiosity and pride alike forbade him to retreat; but how was his surprise intensified to dismay when Molly, looking remarkably bright and young, ushered him into the presence of Mr. Niles, a most respectable gentleman resident in town, whose wife had been now three months dead. He was as smiling and interesting as Molly. And presently that outrageous damsel spoke up in the easiest way in the world,--

"You dropped in just the right time, _Cousin_ John, for now you shall be the first one to be invited to our wedding. It is to come off a week from next Wednesday in the evening. We have just settled the time, and I shall have to stir around pretty lively to get ready."

It was all true, and there was no help for it. John Avery had presumed a trifle too much upon the elastic quality of Molly's love for him, and now, at the eleventh hour, her seraphic patience had given way, and let him most decidedly and disgracefully down. When her father was dead and she left in loneliness, and John still delayed to make direct provision for altering the state of things, Molly felt that she had passed the limit of forbearance, and with a sudden dash of spirit, in which she seemed to concentrate all the unspoken pain and suppressed sense of wrong that had struggled in her heart through all these years past, she actually set her cap for this forlorn widower with six children, caught him, rushed him through a violent courtship, evoked from his stricken heart an ardent and desperate declaration, accepted, and married him, all in the space of eight weeks.

And this was John's first intimation. Will any woman blame her if she _had_ been a little studious to conceal the preliminaries from him, till it should be time to acquaint him with the result, or if she wasn't especially tender of his nervous sensibilities in making her disclosure?

But he was bidden to the wedding, and must needs go,--which he did, looking very glum, and kissing the bride with far less gusto than he had done in former times. But it was a very festive occasion, notwithstanding, for the bridegroom appeared in a blue coat with brass buttons, and his hair was greased to preternatural glossiness, while all the six children stood in a row, their stature being graduated like a flight of steps, and the cake was all that Molly had ever pictured it in the wildest flight of her imagination. And Molly herself in a perfect cloud of gauze and blaze of blushes renewed her youth prodigiously.

It was all over, and John Avery walked slowly homeward with a glimmering consciousness that the things of this life in general were rather shaky and uncertain,--indulging even a brief doubt as to the reliability of his system of averages.

_Fifty._ Both of our old bachelors are beginning to grow gray and morose. Philo stoops considerably, but is otherwise in excellent physical preservation; reads all the medical books about abstinence and frugality as the means of promoting long life, and practises rigidly upon their principles. John is equally tough and temperate. Neither shows the least sign of giving out for fifty years to come. Both have increased in substance and have the reputation of being "forehanded." The insurance table has been reduced to the very last fraction; but, spite of its scientific accuracy, seems to be one of those rules that are proved by their exceptions.

Mrs. Niles is the most devoted of wives, the perfection of step-mothers, and rejoices, besides, in a chubby little boy of her own. All the seven are united in neglecting no opportunity to rise up and call her blessed.

_Sixty._ Ditto--only more so.

_Seventy._ The Ghosts?

Yes, indulgent reader, your patience hath had its perfect work, if it hath brought you through all these preceding pages, in order that you may witness this _denouement_ scene, in which the ghosts appear, with such real and startling semblance in the eyes of some of our actors, that, in comparison, the fifth act of a sensation drama would have seemed mild as milk.

It is to see these supernatural visitants that we have brought you all this long road. Let them show themselves but once, and we will then be content, nay glad, to drop our curtain, retire from the footlights, and whisk our actors back to the serene shades of private life. Grant us, for a little time, the gifts of conjurers and "meejums." Let our Asmodeus take you in charge, and show you things that are beyond the range of mere mortal perception. Ubiquity shall be yours while you journey into the land of spirits, and the name of the mischievous wizard and terrible practical joker who conducts you thither shall be Jack Niles.

For we omitted to mention, in its appropriate connection, that when Molly found herself laid under the responsibility of naming her boy, she was debarred from bestowing on him that of his father, since it had been previously appropriated among the six, and her artistic sense revolted from starting the poor, helpless innocent out in the world under the honored designation of Zophar Tupper, which his grandfather had borne with such eminent respectability. And so, being influenced by the tender grace of motherhood, and desirous of showing her kind feeling towards the man whom she had once so loved and had now so freely forgiven, she felt that she could do it in no more expressive way than by calling her baby John Avery. The compliment was appreciated, and there may still be seen, among the family treasures of the Niles tribe, a silver cup, of punchy form and curious workmanship, marked with the inscription "J. A. N. from J. A."

Jack the second grew up a tolerably correct copy of the boyhood of his namesake. He was gifted with the same gayety of temperament, and facility for getting into scrapes. It had happened more than once that heedless pranks of his had been leniently looked upon, and concealed or remedied by the considerate care of John the elder, who, spite of all the miserable warping and drying up of all his kindlier sympathies under the influence of that ever-impending possibility, still seemed to find a congenial satisfaction in the society of this frank, jolly youth, whose presence brought with it such an echo of his own once careless, joyous life.

But, spite of warnings and admonitions, Jack was still a sad boy, and his favorite mode of working off his surplus activity was in devising and executing practical jokes. His invention and audacity reached their culmination in a most unprincipled scheme against the two venerable Avery cousins.

Philo was now as sour, dry, and wizened an old man as dwelt in the state of Connecticut, and those bleak hills and stony slopes do not seem to produce very ripe and mellow old age. But Philo was known as an especially hard and grasping old sinner, living a sort of dog's life, all by himself, and too stingy to open his eyes wide. And it befell once that he and his strange, barren mode of life were touched upon in the evening talk of the Niles family, and then the mother, with her old, modest sprightliness, went over the story of the two wills made so long ago, and which must, in the natural course of human events, soon come into effect. She had grown to be an old woman, this blessed mother, but none of the loving ones, to whom her presence had been a joy and consolation for so many years, ever thought of her gray hairs or caps or spectacles, except as the emblems of more abundant peace and benediction.

She tells her story now,--about the early days of the two old men, whose withered faces, and bent forms, and eager, acquisitive eyes are so familiar to them all,--and as she proceeds, Jack lapses from lively attention to a mood of profound reflection, which is always a bad sign for somebody.

In the evening twilight of the next day, a thin, yellow-haired lad, mounted on a large, bony, sorrel horse, presented himself with an appearance of great haste and urgency before the door of Philo Avery's hermetic dwelling. After a vigorous though fruitless knocking, he made his way to the rear of the small, dismal brown house, and spied an aged figure advancing from an adjacent piece of woods, bending under the weight of a large heap of brush.

"Be you Philo Avery?"

"Yes," answered the ancient, with evident suspicion.

"Then I've got a letter for you," said the thin youth, and, thrusting it forth, sprang upon his high horse and clattered away down the road.

A letter! Philo stood and watched the messenger till he disappeared from sight, filled with a vague sense that something strange was about to break upon him. A letter sent to him was in itself a strange occurrence. Who could write to him? and for what? Could it indeed be the one thing so long looked for? and, if it were, how sudden! Tremulous with excitement, he trotted into the house, and, after many minutes of agitated fumbling, succeeded in lighting a candle. Then he held the letter close and tried to examine the address, for Philo was a victim to that unaccountable oddity, to which the greater portion of human nature is prone, of making a close and critical scrutiny of any unexpected or mysterious letter, before opening it for the conclusive knowledge of its contents. But everything looks misty before his eyes, and, after much squinting and peering, it occurs to him that he has forgotten his spectacles. And at last, after more delay and fumbling, he comes to the subject matter, very brief but comprehensive:--

"John Avery died last night. Funeral at ten o'clock to-morrow morning."