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The Lady and the Pirate, a novel by Emerson Hough |
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Chapter 37. In Which Is Philosophy; Which, However, Should Not Be Skipped |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVII. IN WHICH IS PHILOSOPHY; WHICH, HOWEVER, SHOULD NOT BE SKIPPED We passed on steadily to the northward until mid-afternoon, making no great headway with one propellor missing, but leaving the main gulf steadily, and at length, raising, a faint blue loom on the sky, the long oak-crowned heights of those singular geological formations, the heights known as "islands", that bound the head of this great bay. Here the land, springing out of the level marshes and alluvial wet prairies, thrusts up in long reefs, hundreds of feet above the sea level. On the eminences grow ancient and mossy forest trees, as well as much half-tropic brake in the lower levels. Here are wide and rich acres also, owned as hereditary fees by old proud families, part of whose wealth comes from their plantations, part from their bay fisheries, and much from the ancient salt mines which lie under these singular uplifts above the great alluvial plain. As of right, here grow mansion homes, and here is lived life as nearly feudal and as wholly dignified and cultured as any in any land. Ignorant of the banal word "aristocracy," here, uncounting wealth, unsearching of self and uncritical of others, simple and fine, folk live as the best ambition of America might make one long to live, so far above the vulgar northern scramble for money and display as might make angels weep for the latter in the comparison. Perhaps it was Edouard Manning, planter, miner, sportsman, gentleman, traveler, scholar and host, who first taught me what wealth might mean, may mean, ought to mean. Always, before now, I had approached his home with joy, as that of an old friend. There, I knew, I would find horses, guns, dogs, good sport and a simple welcome; and I could read or ride as I preferred. A king among all the cousins of Jean Lafitte, Monsieur Edouard. Hereabouts ran the old causeway by which the wagon reached the "importations" of Jean's barges, brought inland from his schooners hid in the marshes far below. Here, too, as is well known in all the state, was the burying-ground of Jean Lafitte's treasure-chests: for, though the old adventurer sold silks and tobaccos and sugars very cheap to the planters and traders, he secreted, as is well known, great store of plate, bullion and minted coins, at divers points about the several miles of forest covered heights; so that the very atmosphere thereabout--till custom stales it for the visitor who comes often there--reeks with the flavor of pieces of eight, Spanish doubloons, and rare gems of the Orient. Laughingly, many a time Monsieur Edouard had agreed to go a-treasure hunting with me, even had showed me several of the curious old treasure-keys, maps and cabalistic characters which tell the place where Lafitte and his men buried their gold--such maps as are kept as secret heirlooms in many a Cajun family. But now, as I saw myself once more approaching this pleasant spot so well known to me, I felt little of the old thrill of eagerness come over me. True, Edouard would be there, and the dogs, and the birds, and the horses, and the quiet welcome. True, also, I could, either in truth or by evasion, establish a pleasant and conventional footing for all my party--it would be easy to explain so natural and pleasant an incident as a visit during a yacht cruise, and to laugh at all that silly newspaper sensation which by now must fully have blown over. True, Monsieur Edouard would be charmed to meet the woman whose influence on my life he knew so well. Yes, I could tell him everything easily, nicely, except the truth; which was, that I was bringing to another man's arms the woman whom he knew I loved. No, the blue loom of Manning's Island gave me no joy now. I wished it three thousand miles away instead of thirty. I wished that almost anything might prevent my arrival--accident, delay. And then, in the most natural way in the world, there were both! Without much warning, the pulse of our engine slackened, the throb of our single screw slowed down and ceased. Williams stuck his head up out of his engine-room and shouted something to Peterson, who methodically drew out his pipe and made ready for a smoke. "It's no use going any farther," explained Williams when I came up. "That intake's gone wrong again, and she's got sand all through her. It's a crime to see her cut herself all to pieces this way. We've just got to stop and clean her up, that's all, and fix the job right--ought to have done it back there before we started in." "How long will it take, Williams?" I asked. "Oh, I don't know, sir. More than this afternoon, sure." "That's too bad," said I, with a fair imitation of regret. "We had expected to make Manning Island by night." "Yes, it is too bad, but it's better to stop than ruin her, isn't it, sir?" "Certainly it is, and I quite approve your judgment. But I presume we can go a little way yet, until we find a good berth somewhere? There's a deep channel comes in from the left, just ahead, and I think if we move on half a mile or so, we can get water enough to float even at low tide, and at the same time be out of sight of any boats passing in the lower part of the bay." "Oh, yes, sir, we can get that far," said the engineer. Peterson was full of gloom, and though he thought nothing less than that we were going to be kept here a month, as one more event in a trip already unlucky enough, he gave the wheel to our Cajun pilot, and we crawled on around the head of a long point that came out into the bay. Here we could not see Manning Island, and were out of sight from most of the bay, so that, once more, the feeling of remoteness, aloofness, came upon me. Not that it did me any present good. I despatched L'Olonnois as messenger to the ladies, telling them the cause of our delay, and explaining how difficult it was to say just when we would get in to the island; and then I betook myself to gloomy pacing up and down what restricted part of the deck I felt free for my own use. I wearied of it soon, and went to my cabin, trying to read. At first I undertook one of the modern novels which had been recommended by my bookseller, but I found myself unable to get on with it, and standing before my shelves took down one volume after another of philosophers who once were wont to comfort me--men with brains, thinking men who had done something in the world beside buying yachts and country houses. My eye caught a page which earlier I had turned down, and I read again: "Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the Divine Providence has found for you--the society of friends, the connexion of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age.... And we now are men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not pinched in a corner nor cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers, and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay, under the Almighty effort let us advance on Chaos and the Dark." I read the mystic, involved, subjective words again, as most of the Concord Sage's words require, and reflected how well they jumped with the note of my heathen Epictetus, who had said, "Be natural and noble". And, so thinking, I began to wonder whether, after all, my father, whose ruthless ways I betimes had explored, whose ruthless sins I had betimes atoned, had not been, perhaps, a better man than sometimes I had credited him with being. He, in accordance with his lights, had accepted the part given him by the Poet of the Play. He had confided himself childlike to the genius of his age, roaring, fighting, scrambling, getting and sometimes giving. He had trusted himself; and in the end, a bold man, he had advanced bravely on Chaos and the Dark. After a life of war and sometimes of rapine, done under the genius of his day, he had struck boldly the last chord on an iron string. Dear old Governor! I did not regret the million of his money I had spent to restore his memory clean in my own mind: for after all, it had all been in open war--that time when he unloaded a worthless mine on his friend, Dan Emory--Helena's father, Daniel Emory, who was, at first, said to have left his family penniless; until a shrewd lawyer in some miraculous way had managed to sell at a good price a box full of worthless mining stock to some innocent victim. Helena Emory never knew of that sale, nor did her guardian aunt. I did know of it, for the very good reason that I was both the shrewd lawyer and the innocent purchaser. It was the last act of my professional career; and it was this which caused the general report that I had made a bad mining venture, had lost my father's fortune, and retired from my career a ruined man. A few friends knew otherwise: and I blessed the rumor which cost me certain friends who thought me poor and so forsook me. Perhaps, my father would have called me quixotic had he known. Now, as I read and pondered, I neither blamed him for his own course in fair business war with old Dan Emory, nor did I censure myself for my own hidden act of restitution. Let the world wag its head if it liked, and remain ignorant of other millions given to me before my father's death, unprobated, secret, after the fashion of my pirate parent who buried his treasures and told none but his kin how they might be found. Of course, in time, it all might come out. In time, Helena would know that this yacht which she supposed to be Davidson's was my own, that the farm I was supposed to have rented really was a handsome estate that I owned, that many covert deeds in finance had been my own--it was only my silence and my absence in many parts of the world which had prevented her, also much a traveler, from knowing the truth about me long ago. And the truth was, I was not a poor man, but a rich one. Yet he who had stolen my purse would indeed have stolen trash this day. Rich in one way, I was poor, indeed, in others. I cared nothing for old Dan Emory's money, but very, very much for old Dan Emory's daughter; and her I might not have, even after all my efforts.... No, the waters would leave no trail; and once more, after I had restored old Dan Emory's daughter to her home and friends, I would travel the wide world again, and the gossipers might guess what causes had ended a professional career, apparently ended a great fortune, and actually had ended a life.... For, I thought--using some philosophy of my own making--it is not wealth, but usefulness, contentment and independence which a man should hold as his most desired success. These achieved, little is left to gain. Any one of these last, and nothing remains worth gaining. I took up another book, at another marked page: "Let us learn to be content with what we have. Let us get rid of our false estimates, set up all the higher ideals--a quiet home, vines of our own planting; a few books full of the inspiration of genius; a few friends worthy of being loved; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse; a devotion to the right that will never swerve; a simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love--and to such a philosophy, this world will give up all the empty joy it has." I meditated over this also, applying these tests to my own life.... Ah! now I saw why my foot was ever restless, why I sought always new scenes.... Where was my quiet home, the vines of my own planting? Would I flee from that to every corner of the world? Not if it held the woman of my choice. Would she thus roam restless, if she held the heart of her chosen and if they had a home?... I began to see the Plan unfold. Yes, and saw myself outside the Plan.... Because of a devotion to the right that would not swerve. Because of a fanaticism, an "oddness", a nonconformity--ah! so I said bitterly to myself, because, after all, I was unattuned to my age, because I was unfit to survive before a man's own judge.... It is Portia judges this world. The case of every man comes before a woman for decision. I, who rarely had lost a case at law where I could use my own trained mind, had lost my first and only case at the bar of Love.... So--and I sighed as I shut the books and returned them to their shelves--contentment never could be mine, nor that quiet home where only life is lived that is worth living; nor usefulness; nor independence. I did not hear Jimmy when he came in, and when he spoke I jumped, startled. _ |
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