The Man Without a Country and Other Tales Part 7

"TOPSHAM, R.I. January 22, 1836.

"To say the truth, my dear George, your letter startled me a little. To think that I, scarcely six months settled in the profession, should be admitted so far into the romance of it as to unite forever two young runaways like yourself and Miss Julia What's-her-name is at least curious. But, to give you your due, you have made a strong case of it, and as Miss ---- (what is her name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any real guardians.h.i.+p, I do not see but I am perfectly justified in complying with your rather odd request. You see I make a conscientious matter of it.

"Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure to be ready.

Jane is of course in my counsels, and she will make your little wife feel as much at home as in her father's parlor. Trust us for secrecy.

"I met her last week--"

But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with the story.

The elopement alluded to in it (if the little transaction deserves so high-sounding a name) was, in every sense of the words, strictly necessary. Julia Wentworth had resided for years with her grandfather, a pragmatic old gentleman, to whom from pure affection she had long yielded an obedience which he would have had no right to extort, and which he was sometimes disposed to abuse. He had declared in the most ingenuous manner that she should never marry with his consent any man of less fortune than her own would be; and on his consent rested the prospect of her inheriting his property.

Julia and I, however, care little for money now, we cared still less then; and her own little property and my own little salary made us esteem ourselves entirely independent of the old gentleman and his will.

His intention respecting the poor girl's marriage was thundered in her ears at least once a week, so that we both knew that I had no need to make court to him, indeed, I had never seen him, always having met her in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, concert, or lecture.

He had lately been more domineering than usual, and I had but little difficulty in persuading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry, to make the arrangement to which he a.s.sented in the letter which I have copied above. The reasoning which I pressed upon her is obvious. We loved each other,--the old gentleman could not help that; and as he managed to make us very uncomfortable in Boston, in the existing state of affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compa.s.sion on Julia's part, we outvoted him.

I have said that I had no fortune to enable me to come near the old gentleman's _beau ideal_ of a grandson-in-law. I was then living on my salary as a South American editor. Does the reader know what that is?

The South American editor of a newspaper has the uncontrolled charge of its South American news. Read any important commercial paper for a month, and at the end of it tell me if you have any clear conception of the condition of the various republics (!) of South America. If you have, it is because that journal employs an individual for the sole purpose of setting them in the clearest order before you, and that individual is its South American editor. The general-news editor of the paper will keep the run of all the details of all the histories of all the rest of the world, but he hardly attempts this in addition. If he does, he fails. It is therefore necessary, from the most cogent reasons, that any American news office which has a strong regard for the consistency or truth of its South American intelligence shall employ some person competent to take the charge which I held in the establishment of the Boston Daily Argus at the time of which I am speaking. Before that enterprising paper was sold, I was its "South American man"; this being my only employment, excepting that by a special agreement, in consideration of an addition to my salary, I was engaged to attend to the news from St. Domingo, Guatemala, and Mexico.[F]

Monday afternoon, just a fortnight after I received Harry Barry's letter, in taking my afternoon walk round the Common, I happened to meet Julia. I always walked in the same direction when I was alone. Julia always preferred to go the other way; it was the only thing in which we differed. When we were together I always went her way of course, and liked it best.

I had told her, long before, all about Harry's letter, and the dear girl in this walk, after a little blus.h.i.+ng and sighing, and half faltering and half hesitating and feeling uncertain, yielded to my last and warmest persuasions, and agreed to go to Mrs. Pollexfen's ball that evening, ready to leave it with me in my buggy sleigh, for a three hours' ride to Topsham, where we both knew Harry would be waiting for us. I do not know how she managed to get through tea that evening with her lion of a grandfather, for she could not then cover her tearful eyes with a veil as she did through the last half of our walk together. I know that I got through my tea and such like ordinary affairs by skipping them. I made all my arrangements, bade Gage and Streeter be ready with the sleigh at my lodgings (fortunately only two doors from Mrs. Pollexfen's) at half-past nine o'clock, and was the highest spirited of men when, on returning to those lodgings myself at eight o'clock, I found the following missives from the Argus office, which had been acc.u.mulating through the afternoon.

No. 1.

"4 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--The southern mail, just in, brings Buenos Ayres papers six days later, by the Medora, at Baltimore.

"In haste, J.C."

(Mr. C. was the gentleman who opened the newspapers, and arranged the deaths and marriages; he always kindly sent for me when I was out of the way.)

No. 2.

"5 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--The U.S. s.h.i.+p Preble is in at Portsmouth; latest from Valparaiso. The mail is not sorted.

"Yours, J.D."

(Mr. D. arranged the s.h.i.+p news for the Argus.)

No. 3.

"6 o'clock, p.m.

"DEAR SIR:--I boarded, this morning, off Cape Cod, the Blunderhead, from Carthagena, and have a week's later papers.

"Truly yours, J.E."

(Mr. E. was the enterprising commodore of our news-boats.)

No. 4.

"6-1/4 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--I have just opened accidentally the enclosed letter, from our correspondent at Panama. You will see that it bears a New Orleans post-mark. I hope it may prove exclusive.

"Yours, J.F."

(Mr. F. was general editor of the Argus.)

No. 5.

"6-1/2 o'clock, P.M.

"DEAR SIR:--A seaman, who appears to be an intelligent man, has arrived this morning at New Bedford, and says he has later news of the rebellion in Ecuador than any published. The Rosina (his vessel) brought no papers. I bade him call at your room at eight o'clock, which he promised to do.

"Truly yours, J.G."

(Mr. G. was clerk in the Argus counting-room.)

No 6.

"7-1/2 o'clock, P.M.

"Dear Sir:--The papers by the Ville de Lyon, from Havre, which I have just received, mention the reported escape of M. Bonpland from Paraguay, the presumed death of Dr. Francia, the probable overthrow of the government, the possible establishment of a republic, and a great deal more than I understand in the least.

"These papers had not come to hand when I wrote you this afternoon. I have left them on your desk at the office.

"In haste, J.F."

I was taken all aback by this ma.s.s of odd-looking little notes. I had spent the afternoon in drilling Singelton, the kindest of friends, as to what he should do in any probable contingency of news of the next forty-eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wedding tour even longer than that time; but I felt that Singleton was entirely unequal to such a storm of intelligence as this; and, as I hurried down to the office, my chief sensation was that of grat.i.tude that the cloud had broken before I was out of the way; for I knew I could do a great deal in an hour, and I had faith that I might slur over my digest as quickly as possible, and be at Mrs. Pollexfen's within the time arranged.

I rushed into the office in that state of zeal in which a man may do anything in almost no time. But first, I had to go into the conversation-room, and get the oral news from my sailor; then Mr. H.; from one of the little news-boats, came to me in high glee, with some Venezuela Gazettes, which he had just extorted from a skipper, who, with great plausibility, told him that he knew his vessel had brought no news, for she never had before. (N.B. In this instance she was the only vessel to sail, after a three months' blockade.) And then I had handed to me by Mr. J., one of the commercial gentlemen, a private letter from Rio Janeiro, which had been lent him. After these delays, with full materials, I sprang to work--read, read, read; wonder, wonder, wonder; guess, guess, guess; scratch, scratch, scratch; and scribble, scribble, scribble, make the only transcript I can give of the operations which followed. At first, several of the other gentlemen in the room sat around me; but soon Mr. C., having settled the deaths and marriages, and the police and munic.i.p.al reporters immediately after him, screwed out their lamps and went home; then the editor himself, then the legislative reporters, then the commercial editors, then the s.h.i.+p-news conductor, and left me alone.

I envied them that they got through so much earlier than usual, but scratched on, only interrupted by the compositors coming in for the pages of my copy as I finished them; and finally, having made my last translation from the last _Boletin Extraordinario_, sprang up, shouting, "Now for Mrs. P.'s," and looked at my watch. It was half past one![G] I thought of course it had stopped,--no; and my last ma.n.u.script page was numbered twenty-eight! Had I been writing there five hours? Yes!

Reader, when you are an editor, with a continent's explosions to describe, you will understand how one may be unconscious of the pa.s.sage of time.

I walked home, sad at heart. There was no light in all Mr. Wentworth's house; there was none in any of Mrs. Pollexfen's windows;[H] and the last carriage of her last relation had left her door. I stumbled up stairs in the dark, and threw myself on my bed. What should I say, what could I say, to Julia? Thus pondering, I fell asleep.

If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late hour the next day, I listlessly drew aside the azure curtains of my couch, and languidly rang a silver bell which stood on my dressing-table, and received from a page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and letters which had been left for me since morning, and the newspapers of the day.

I am not writing a novel.

The next morning, about ten o'clock, I arose and went down to breakfast. As I sat at the littered table which every one else had left, dreading to attack my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the morning papers, and received some little consolation from them. There was the Argus with its three columns and a half of "Important from South America," while none of the other papers had a square of any intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the Argus the day before. I felt a grim smile creeping over my face as I observed this signal triumph of our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there were any glaring misprints in it. Before I took the second sip, however, a loud peal at the door-bell announced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was brought in for me which I knew was in Julia's hand-writing.