Never had there been a more perfect
night than that whereon Dick Hardcastle’s coming
of age was celebrated. Only enough wind stirred
to toy softly with the gay little pennons streaming
from the many boats winding their way to the rendezvous,
and to throw dancing shadows of light upon the water
from the torches at their prow. All along the
banks of the lake, where high hills shut out the moonlight
and bound the shore in an almost Egyptian darkness,
rafts were stationed at intervals, blazing with colored
lights. The sound of distant music floated far
down upon the air, mingled with the swish of steady
oars and laughter and happy voices as the occupants
of the various boats called out merrily to each other
across the water, or here and there broke into light-hearted
song. Denham’s boat glided stilly along
through all this carnival-like revelry. Gerald
was not in a mood for talking, and he felt little
inclined to disturb her. It was companionship
enough merely to glance at her ever and anon as she
sat silently in the stern, the red ropes of the tiller
drawn loosely around her slender waist like a silken
girdle. He wondered idly what she was thinking
of. Her broad hat threw too deep a shadow for
him to see her face save when they neared one of the
beacon rafts; then it was suddenly in brilliant illumination,
and it was impossible not to watch for these moments
of revelation, which lit her up to such rare beauty.
He fancied he could almost see her thoughts as there
flashed across her face some new, swift expression
more speaking than words, now a noble thought,
he was sure; now an odd fancy, now a serious meditative
mood, that held her every sense and faculty in thrall
at once. Through all her revery she never forgot
her duty with the rudder, though she quite forgot
her oarsman. She made no effort whatever toward
his entertainment, and he felt sure that he could
do no more toward hers than simply not to obtrude
himself upon her. Were there many, he wondered,
even among her chosen friends (in whose ranks he could
not count himself), who would have enjoyed this silent
sail with her so much as he? They neared the
destined spot all too soon for him, and Gerald at last
roused herself.
“Are we there now? I had no idea it was
so far.”
“It is not far enough,”
answered Denham, resting a moment on his oars as he
looked around. “Nothing surely can be devised,
even in this pleasure-ingenious society, so enjoyable
as I have found our evening sail.”
“Why do you go to the party
at all then?” asked Gerald, abruptly. “It
isn’t compulsory, is it? After you land
me, are you not at liberty to row off if you prefer?”
“Ah, but I don’t prefer,”
Halloway said gayly, resuming his oars. “I
expect to be very greatly entertained there too.
There is almost always something to be got out of
every thing, and anyway I particularly like parties.”
“I hate them.”
“Yes, because you do not care
for people. I like them just because I do care
for people, and parties are but people collectively
instead of individually, you know.”
By this time Denham had shot the boat
up to the landing, where the hosts of the evening
stood ready to receive them. Dick was in a wild
state of boyish hilarity, profiting by the novelty
of his exalted position as hero of the evening, boldly
to take a kiss from every pretty girl in succession
as he swung her to the shore. “It’s
my right, to-night, you know, or if it isn’t,
I’m major now and can make laws for myself,”
he explained complacently to any expostulatory subject;
and Mr. Hardcastle rubbed his soft, plump hands, and
added: “Never you mind, never you mind,
my dear; every dog must have his day, and this is Dick’s
day. And after all it’s my son Dick, you
know, and that makes it all right. He doesn’t
need any other guaranty than that he’s my son,
I’m sure, and seeing I’m Dick’s
papa, my dear, why I’ll just make bold to follow
suit.”
But Dick would as soon have thought
of offering to kiss the polar star as Gerald, and
she was suffered to pass on unmolested to Mrs. Hardcastle,
who stood just beyond, looking fagged and jaded, and
as if she were heartily thankful that in all his life
Dick could never come of age again. One of the
next arrivals was Bell Masters, very fine in her new
dress, but flushed and overheated to an unbecoming
degree. She rowed up smartly, shipped her oars
in true nautical fashion, sprang from the boat, and
held out her hand to her companion with a hardly repressed
sneer: “Pray allow me to assist you, Mr.
De Forest.”
That gentleman got up leisurely from
his cushioned seat in the stern, and came forward
cool and comfortable to an enviable degree. “Thanks,”
he said, with even a little more drawl than usual
as he took her proffered hand. “This boat
is a little teetery. You are uncommonly
kind, and quite a champion oarswoman.”
“You ought to be a judge of
my powers by this time certainly,” said Bell,
snappishly. She had rowed the entire distance
from Joppa unaided.
“Yes, I flatter myself that
I am. People can always judge best of what they
don’t do themselves. And I will say that
you do row well uncommonly well for
a woman. I don’t know a girl, except Miss
Vernor, fit to pull stroke oar to you. Ah, Mr.
Hardcastle, what an adorable evening you have provided
for us! Mr. Dick Hardcastle, permit me to congratulate
you upon attaining your majority, than which, believe
me, there is but one greater blessing in the world that
of minority. I see you have not yet abandoned
all the privileges of the latter, however,” he
added, as Dick caught Bell round the waist and gave
her a sounding salute on the cheek. “That
is an alleviation it seems unfair to monopolize.”
Bell laughed and boxed Dick’s
ears, whereupon he speedily kissed her again, and
Mr. Hardcastle chuckled and pulled one of the long,
light braids hanging over her back. Bell’s
blonde hair, with her black eyes, was her strong point,
and she invariably dressed it a la Kenwigs when she
wore a hat. None of Miss Bell’s lights ran
any danger of ever being hidden under a bushel.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Mr.
Hardcastle. “It’s all right.
It’s only Dick, you know, my son Dick; and bless
my heart, the boy’s good taste too. He
inherited it.”
“Take my arm or let me take
yours,” muttered De Forest to Bell as Mr. Hardcastle
turned away, “and do let’s get through
it with his good lady. Do you suppose she’ll
kiss me? Get her to make it easy for me, won’t
you?”
“Where now?” asked Bell,
undecidedly, after the due politenesses with the hostess
had been exchanged. The woods were fairly ablaze
with bonfires and hanging lanterns, making a strangely
brilliant and fantastic scene. Here and there
rugs were spread out on the grass for the older people
to congregate upon in gossiping groups, while the
young ones had speedily converted a large, smooth
spot of lawn into an impromptu dancing-ground, and
were whirling merrily away to the music of the band,
in the very face of the scandalized Mrs. Upjohn.
This last field of action was the first to attract
Bell’s quick eye. “Oh, come,”
she said. “Of course you dance?”
De Forest gave a shudder. “My
dear young lady! no sane man ever dances. But
pray do not let me detain you. Where your heart
is, there would your feet be also.” He
dropped her arm as he spoke. Bell shrugged her
shoulders and put her arm back in his.
“’Tisn’t fair to
abandon you so soon after bringing you here. There’s
Janet Mudge” (hastily selected as the plainest
girl present and the farthest from Gerald, toward
whom De Forest’s steps were manifestly directing
themselves); “let’s go and speak to her.”
“On the contrary, let us avoid
her by every means in our power,” said De Forest,
imperturbably, walking Bell off in the opposite direction.
“I never choose pearls when I may have diamonds.
There’s Miss Vernor. We’ll go and
speak with her.”
“But I don’t want to,”
objected Bell, crossly. “I am not at all
as fond of Miss Vernor as you are.”
“Naturally not,” answered
De Forest, pursuing his way undisturbed. “Men
always like girls better than girls do. I appreciate
your feelings. But she’s got that good-looking
young minister with her. You like him. All
feminine souls incline to clergymen next to officers.
Buttons first; then surplices.”
“Thirdly, For(r)esters, I suppose,”
suggested Bell, saucily.
“Undoubtedly,” assented
her companion. “Miss Vernor, your humble
servant.” His glance, as it invaribly did
when they met, seemed to make swift, approbative
note of every smallest particular of her appearance.
“Mr. Halloway, here is a young lady who has just
openly informed me that she prefers you to me, so
I suppose I must resign her to you with what grace
I can. Don’t you think, Miss Vernor, you
might try to divert my mind from dwelling too cruelly
on Miss Masters’ defalcation by showing me what
Mr. Hardcastle’s grand intellect has devised
for my entertainment? That bonfire yonder has
a sort of cannibalistic look about it suggestive of
dancing negroes and unmentionable feasts behind the
flames. Shall we inspect it nearer?” And
he marched Gerald deliberately away, scarcely remembering
to bow to Bell. Still, to be left with Mr. Halloway
was by no means an unenviable fate, and Bell, like
the wise girl she was, proceeded to make the most
of it without delay, and paraded her prey wherever
she chose, finding him much more tractable than her
last companion, and not in the least dictatorial as
to the direction he went in.
That out-door evening party was long
remembered as one of the most novel and successful
entertainments ever given in Joppa. Even Mrs.
Upjohn admitted it to be very well, very well indeed,
all but the dancing, for which, however, Mr. Hardcastle
apologized to her handsomely as a quite unexpected
ebullition of youthful spirits which in his soul he
was far from countenancing, and upon which she resolutely
turned her back all the evening, so at least not to
be an eye-witness of the indecorum. Of course,
therefore, she knew nothing whatever about it when
Mr. Upjohn toward the end of the evening, actually
allowed himself to be decoyed into the gay whirl by
one of the youngest and most daring of the girls,
and galloped clumsily around like a sportive and giddy
elephant set free for the first time in its native
jungle, and finding it very much to its liking.
His daughter Maria, faithfully at her mother’s
side, sat with one ear grudgingly lent to the prosy
heaviness of Mr. Webb’s light talk, and her
whole face turned longingly toward the spot where the
happy sinners were gyrating, and, seeing her father
there, her round eyes grew rounder than ever, as she
watched in breathless alarm lest the earth should open
under his feet in instant retribution. Gracious,
if ma should turn her head! But there are some
wrongs it is best to ignore altogether, where prevention
is hopeless, and Mrs. Upjohn, like many another good
woman, always knew when not to see. So she persistently
did not see now, and Mr. Upjohn spun away to his heart’s
content (prudently keeping in the remotest corner
of the sward, to be sure), winking at Maria every now
and then in the highest glee, and once absolutely
signing to her to sneak over to him and try a turn
too.
And then came supper-time, and such
a supper, setting all confectioners and doctors at
defiance at once! Mr. Upjohn, red and perspiring,
and remarking how curiously hot the bonfires made
the woods at night, waited on his wife with gallant
solicitude, lest she should leave a single dish untasted.
Mrs. Bruce had left town the day before, and in the
absence of any new admiration he always fell back
with perfect content upon his old allegiance.
Mrs. Upjohn received his devotion as calmly as his
intermittent neglects, and only raised her eyebrows
when he stooped to whisper, “My love, you’re
the most handsomely dressed woman here!” which
was strictly true as regarded the materials of her
attire, and unblushingly false as regarded the blending
of them. Dick had been in his element all the
evening. He had had a serio-comic flirtation
with every girl in turn. He had cut out Jake
Dexter with Nellie Atterbury, and made it up to his
friend by offering him a lock of Bell’s hair,
which he had surreptitiously cut from her hanging
braids, and which Jake wore pinned in his button hole
as a trophy for the rest of the evening, to the immense
scandal of everybody. But with the supper-hour
Dick’s spirits ebbed. He knew, poor fellow,
what Fate held in store. His father intended
making a few remarks over him, as a sort of substitute
for his defrauded speech to the non-existing tenantry.
“Stand by me, Jake, there’s
a man!” whispered Dick, forlornly, to his crony.
“I will, Dick, like a woman!”
Jake responded, tenderly, and the two stood together
just at Mr. Hardcastle’s elbow, as that worthy
advanced to a central spot between the bonfires, cleared
his throat ominously, and pirouetted solemnly around,
holding up his hand to attract general attention.
“My friends,” began Mr.
Hardcastle, swelling with the importance of the moment
to even more than his usual rotundity, “this
has been a day of days to me. All of you who
are parents will appreciate my feelings of mingled
pride and humility, of pride and humility,”
repeated Mr. Hardcastle, pleased with the antithesis,
and swaying gently back and forth, “as I stand
here before you with my son, the boy whom I have watched
over from his cradle up with an unsleeping eye, and
whose tender feet” Dick here stooped
over to inspect those honest, able members. Jake
did the same with evident disapproval of them.
Mr. Hardcastle raised his voice “whose
tender feet I have endeavored from his youth up, so
far as lay in my limited power, to guide in the way
that I hope he may never depart from. This boy
I now present to you, friends, a man, this
boy who has grown up among you, whom you all know,
and whom I hope you all harbor some kindly feeling
for, this boy,” he put
out his hand to draw him forward, Dick gave Jake a
gentle push toward the hand and vanished, and Mr.
Hardcastle, quite unconscious of the manoeuvre, drew
the grinning Jake solemnly up to him, and casting
around a look of triumph which seemed to say:
Do better than this, friends, if you can, placed his
hand on Jake’s shoulder with his grandest air,
and continued, sonorously, “my son,
ladies and gentlemen, my son Dick.”
There was a moment’s pause of
consternation among the guests and a suppressed scream
from the defrauded Mother Dexter. Mr. Hardcastle
slowly turned his radiant face toward his supposed
son, and immediately dropped his hand and exclaimed,
in entirely altered and most natural tones of amazement:
“Well, I never! How in the world did you
get here, Jake Dexter?”
A shout instantly went up all round;
even Mr. Hardcastle himself was overcome with the
ludicrousness of the mistake, and further solemnity
being impossible, a signal was given, and from a barge
far out on the water a score of rockets shot hissing
into the air, announcing the beginning of fireworks.
A brilliant display of these followed, closing the
evening’s entertainment, and immediately afterward
a large raft was towed up to the landing, and the
whole merry party embarked and returned to Joppa together,
the band following on another boat and treating them
to music all the way. Halloway stood near Gerald
in the crowd, but he did not attempt to join her until
the raft reached the pier and was made fast.
Then he quietly went to her and offered his arm.
De Forest stepped up at the same moment. “Miss
Vernor, will you condescend to accept of my valuable
escort home?”
“I beg your pardon,” interrupted
Denham, “I am Miss Vernor’s escort to-night.”
De Forest stood still. “I
did not know it was a return-ticket arrangement.”
“It was,” answered Denham,
decidedly. “You can hardly expect me to
relinquish my rights.”
“I should say your rights depended
wholly on Miss Vernor’s choice. Fair lady,
two hearts and four arms are at your immediate disposal.
If you could make up your volatile mind to determine
between them
“There can be no question of
choice,” said Gerald, quietly. “I
accepted Mr. Halloway’s escort yesterday; so
good-night.”
“You leave me a blighted being,”
said De Forest. “For the peace of my soul,
let me ascribe your decision to a love of justice rather
than of individual. Au revoir.”
Halloway drew Gerald’s hand
through his arm with a very comfortable feeling of
possession, and they walked on some time in silence.
“Are you tired?” he asked at last.
“No yes. Parties
always tire me, and life in Joppa consists of parties.
Do you always go?”
“Oh, always!”
“Your mental constitution must
be robust to stand such a steady strain upon it.”
“The shepherd must keep by his
sheep, you know,” laughed Denham.
“I thought the shepherd was
to lead the sheep, not to be led by them. Don’t
you hope to inspire them with a love for better things?
I fancied the province of a clergyman was to improve
people not just to preach to them.”
A shadow crossed Denham’s face.
“There are many of them more fitted to improve
me than I them,” he said, humbly. “How
would you have me begin?”
“With making Mr. Hardcastle
less offensively pompous, and Mrs. Hardcastle less
tedious, and Mrs. Upjohn less dogmatic, and Mrs. Anthony
more sincere, and Miss Delano less namby-pamby, in
short, by taking a little of the superficiality and
narrow-mindedness and provinciality out of the place
if possible.”
Denham tossed back his head with a
light laugh. “Ah, how you relieve my mind!
Most of those whom you have so scathingly described
belong to other congregations, and are therefore beyond
my jurisdiction.”
“Do you really feel so?
Are you so like a physician?” asked Gerald,
quickly. “Do you seek to do good only to
those who pay for the care you give them? Is
not your mission with all with whom you are thrown?”
“The days of single-handed combat
against the world are over,” answered Denham.
“You cripple a man by giving him too wide a field
of action.”
“I would not take less than
the widest were I a man!” exclaimed Gerald,
proudly.
“Would you be a clergyman?”
“No. I have no talent for writing.
I could not preach.”
“Nay, I think you an admirable
preacher,” said Denham, gently, without the
faintest tinge of sarcasm in either tone or look.
Gerald glanced at him quickly and flushed slightly.
“I am too dogmatic myself,”
she said, biting her lip and turning away her head.
“I should not be so hard on Mrs. Upjohn.”
“You do not intend to be hard on any one.”
“But to be just is to seem hard,” said
Gerald.
“It is a divine prerogative
to know just how far to temper justice with mercy,”
Denham answered. “I suppose none of us can
hope to attain to perfect knowledge; but if there
must be error, I would for myself rather err in excess
of mercy than of justice.”
“In other words, between two
evils you would choose the least,” Gerald replied.
“That is the common way of getting out of the
difficulty. But it seems to me like compromising
with evil. There ought to be always some third,
wholly right, way out of every dilemma, if only one
sought earnestly enough.” She spoke more
as if to herself than to him.
“Then perhaps,” said Denham,
pleasantly, “we may hope that you will in time
light upon the very kindliest and rightest way combined
of judging not only abstract subjects, but also the
not altogether unworthy inhabitants of even this little
place of Joppa.”
“Oh, Joppa!” cried Gerald,
all the impatience instantly coming back to her face
and voice. As instantly too she frowned in self-conviction,
and turned almost contritely to Denham. “You
see, Mr. Halloway, I shall have to bring my own character
first to that future Day of Judgment, and to be very
careful that I do not err on your side, in
being too merciful.”