Cyrus Townsend Brady

“ Did you make any foolish promises to this young man, Dorothy?"
"I—ye—es, sir; I said I—I'd—I'd wait," answered Dorothy, reluctantly.
"Yes? Well, you will; you'll wait until he gets to be a captain. A man isn't fit to be married until he has had command of a ship and three or four hundred men; he doesn't know how to manage a wife. Look at me! I married when I was a midshipman and—and—I know."
"But, sir, it will be fifteen years before I am a captain! Why, you weren't a captain yourself until you were forty, and I can never hope to equal your record." ”

“ We have a deeper sense of proprietorship in a thing we have earned by hard labor or gained by the exercise of our abilities than in that which has been given to us, has cost us nothing.
As Emily, walking close by Barry's side, giving him such assistance as was possible, looked with mingled pity and anxiety upon the white face of the man hanging limply back over the arms of the sailor, she was conscious that in her soul had arisen a new and curious sense of ownership in humanity,—the most satisfactory, yet disappointing, of our possessions. ”

“ There was such a glare of demoniac rage in his eyes, such an expression of mortal bitterness and malevolent antipathy in his grim and forbidding countenance, that the heart of the young man, though he was as brave a sailor as ever trod a deck, sank within him. He was fairly appalled by this display of sinister and unsuspected passion.
"My God, man!" cried Revere. "What's the matter? Stand aside!"
"No, sir, you can't pass me. I'll never stand aside. Say a prayer, for, as there's a ship above you an' a God that favors no traitors, your hour is come." ”

“ A feeling that expected nothing, that asked nothing, that hoped for nothing but the steady happiness of being near her. To be in sight, in sound, in touch, that was all, that was enough. The sea in calmer mood gives no suggestion of potential storms. Barry's love was the acme of self-abnegation. If he had ever reached the covetous point he would have realized that she was not for him. He never did.
He loved her with a love beside which even his devotion to the old admiral, the passionate affection he bore for the old ship, were trifles. The girl had grown into his heart. ”

“ Emily had been trained like the rest, and, following the admiral's example, she laid aside her book and stood gracefully erect, buoyant, and strong by her grandfather's side.
Old age and bright youth, the past with its history, memories, and associations, the future with all its possibilities and dreams, alike saluted the flag.
They made a pretty picture, thought Captain Barry, as he unbent the flag, belayed the halliards, and gathered up the folds of bunting upon the deck, rolling the colors into a small bundle which he placed in a chest standing against the rail at the foot of the staff. ”

“ I never knew Captain Barry so agitated."
"It's the end, daughter, the end. I feel it here," murmured the old man, staring before him.
"Grandfather, if you don't mind, I think I will go down to the ship," said Emily; "I'm so anxious."
"Don't go too near it, child," said the old man; "one life is enough for the ship."
"Shall I go with you?" asked Josephine, noticing how pale and worried Emily looked, and feeling somewhat alarmed herself.
"Go, both of you, and I will stay with the admiral. Look to Richard," said Mrs. Revere, apprehensively, sure now that something was seriously wrong. ”

“ Rust consumed the bolt-heads and slowly ate up the metal that held her together. Yet in spite of all she still stood, outwardly indifferent alike to the attack of the storm or the kiss of the sun,—a mighty monster towering high in the air, unfinished, incomplete, inchoate, disintegrating, weaponless, but still typifying strength and power and war. In spite of her decay, in spite of her age, she looked the masterful vessel she was designed to be.
The waves broke in winter in icy assault upon the rocky shore on the seaward side, as if defying the ship to meet them. ”

“ How the wind will rack the old timbers! I lie awake o' nights and hear it howling around the corners of the house and wait for the sound of the crashing of the old ship. I've heard the singing of the breeze through the top-hamper many a time, and have gone to sleep under it when a boy; but the wind here, blowing through the trees and about the ship, gets into my very vitals. Some of it will go to-night, and I shall be nearer the snug harbor aloft in the morning. ”

“ And Barry sees it all, divines, knows, feels, and in the light of another love recognizes at last his own futile passion. The revelation of hopelessness in the light of hope, of despair in the glow of success.
Never had the Bostonian been brought in contact with a personality quite like that of Emily. More beautiful girls, measured by the canons, he had seen, possibly; wiser in the world's ways, better trained, more accustomed to the usages of society, undoubtedly; but never one so sweet, so innocent, so fresh, so unspoiled, so lovely, and so lovable. ”

“ The faculty of hating had years of disuse to make up for, and the feeling swept over him like a tidal wave, uncontrollable, appalling. The swiftness with which it developed had but added to his confusion. There is love at first sight, but there is antipathy as well. He was a living illustration of the latter fact.
So perverted had become the sailor's mind, under the influence of this rising feeling, that in his bewilderment he sometimes fancied that his antipathy was universal,—that he hated the admiral, the ship, Emily, himself! ”

“ Kirke's endorsement was brief and as terse as the man's character.
"I have been to blame," he had written. "I did love you. I do. God only knows how much. I hope you may be happy. We are about to attack a strong position. I feel sure that after it is over I shall trouble you no more. You can marry the man—damn him!—and be happy."
How characteristic that was, thought Jack Broadhead, as he read,—that last touch! He cursed the man yet spared the woman. For a long time Broadhead sat there in that house, thinking, thinking, thinking. He wondered if he were the only mourner for poor Kirke. ”

“ Oh, Sonny Boy, to lose you, to—your little old mother is breaking her heart! Be assured of one thing, my son, I love you and I have loved you better than any one in the whole world will ever love you"—these were the words she had whispered to me on her death-bed—"no matter how much joy you may have, how much happiness, no matter where you may go, whom you may meet, what they may say, no one in this world will ever love you as I have. No one will ever think of you as your mother." ”

“ I mean to kill you where you stand, where you kissed her last night, you traitor, you dog, you that disgraces your uniform, you that sells my ship, mine! You that robs the old admiral of life, that betrays Miss Emily, that breaks her heart! You thought to play with that child. But I know you! I found your orders. I read 'em, curse you! To sell the ship,—God! my ship, that I've lived on, that I've loved, for twenty-five years! ”

“ As Revere and Barry walked down the hill the soul of the younger man was filled with light-hearted joy. He talked gayly to the old sailor, who had speedily joined him; and although the monologue—since Barry had said nothing—could not have been called a conversation, Richard did not heed his silence.
It was but a short distance from the house to the ship, but in the brief time required for the passage Barry lived over his life, or that part of it at least which was of moment. As life is compassed in instants to the drowning, so in these seconds through his mental vision swept the past. ”

“ But where is Barry? The sun is just setting. He should—Ah, there he is. Evening colors, Mr. Revere," said the veteran, rising to his feet as the gun on the terrace boomed out in salute, and standing still until the colors slowly and gracefully floated down.
One of the most beautiful of sights is the fall of a flag, when it comes down by your own hand and betokens no surrender. The declining banner lingers in the evening air with sweet reluctance until it finally drops into waiting hands with a touch like a caress.
"You see, we keep up the customs of the service as near as we can, sir. ”

“ Geraldine says I was the most intensely unsatisfactory lover at this time that one could imagine, and that she had serious thoughts of giving me up for John Haverford.
Our love, which was a secret affair,—and none the less sweet for that, by the way,—was violently opposed by the heads of both our houses, there being some grudge between them. Although I was devoted to her and she to me, as I now know, though I did not at the time, yet I had never dared to take more of a lover's privilege than a respectful salute upon her hand. ”

“ Although the veteran seaman was too ignorant of love rightly to characterize his passion, it was nevertheless a true one. It was not the feeling of a father, nor of a companion, nor yet that of a servant, though it partook in some measure of all three. That was an evidence of the genuineness of his feeling. Nothing noble, no feeling that is high, self-sacrificing, devoted, is foreign to love that is true, and love is the most comprehensive of the passions—it is a complete obsession. Captain Barry would have given his soul for Emily Sanford's happiness, and rejoiced in the bestowal. ”

“ Two days after the departure of the Centaur the lookout on the top of the rock saw a frigate under a tremendous press of canvas endeavoring to run between the rock and the shore and make for Fort Royal. Far away, and coming along like a gigantic white cloud, was a ship which was presently made out to be the Centaur. A drummer-boy, not the least important member of the crew of the Diamond Rock, beat to quarters, the men sprang to their stations, and the huge guns were loaded and carefully trained on the unsuspicious French ship. ”

“ Compelling youth enters and displaces him. Emily sings not merely for the past, but with thoughts reaching out into the future. When she stops, fain to be persuaded, Revere entreats her to continue, he begs for more. She knows not how to refuse, indeed does not wish to do so, so she sings on and on.
The admiral sleeps, but what of that? Youth listens, and by and by, as she strikes something that he knows, in a fresh, hearty tenor voice he ventures to join with her. ”

“ The day had been a happy one to Emily, then; happier for her than for Revere, in fact, for that young man's conscience troubled him deeply, while there was no cloud on her sweet pleasure. If he had not been engaged to Josephine he would have revelled in his love for Emily; but he was not free. He was now bound to two women at the same time, and not in strictly honorable relationship to either. The false position was almost unbearable to a man of his fine sensitiveness, and that he had made it himself did not make it less easy to endure. ”

“ The life of the man went out in the fall, and the blood of his heart rippled along the blocks of the keel. With a concussion like the discharge of a battery, the mighty war-monster collapsed into a shapeless mass of timber, burying beneath it the man who had loved it best. The ship that had been his own was nothing but a heap of ruins above his still heart. ”

“ The young men had been guests of Colonel Fletcher before the war, and they had known Marian, whom they both loved, for several years. Their wooing, interrupted by the demands of the service, was at once renewed under the favorable circumstances of their meeting. Gardner was a gay, athletic, dashing young sailor,—blue-eyed, curly-haired, sunny in disposition; Mason, on the contrary, was tall and very slender, dignified and quiet, with a temper as dark as his complexion. One was impulsive, bold, impetuous; the other cool and determined, with an undercurrent of sleeping passion in his being ”

“ He did not realize that the man does not live who can conceal from the woman he loves the fact that he loves her. It is in the very air, and nature has a thousand ways to tell the tale, with each one of which the most untutored woman suddenly grows familiar at the right moment.
They were puzzling and annoying questions, but, with a conduct quite what would be expected from so gallant a sailor, he at last made up his mind. Of one thing he was certain,—that he loved Emily, and that she was the only woman in the world for him. And he would be free. So Revere, like Barry, hesitated and was lost! ”

“ Me leave the ship! I've slept on her for twenty-five years. You're wrong, sir! She's good for many a year yet. Some of the planks is rottin', I grant you, but most of the frames is good yet, an' she's sound at the heart. She'll weather many a storm, you'll see. Sound at the heart! Leave her! I'll leave her when she falls, and the admiral, too. He's an old man. My father sailed with him; he was a man when I was a boy; yet he's alive still, an' he'll live as long as she does, too."
"Nonsense, man!" said Revere; "you are dreaming! The ship ought to be broken up. ”

“ There was no sign of life there save the flag which rippled and fluttered gayly in the breeze. It was a bright, sunny morning. The cool touch of spring in the air made life sweet to all that possessed it. In the grim silence the men clambered up the steep slope and slowly neared the crest. Suddenly there was a puff of white smoke from the little log breastwork on the top. A moment later the crack of a rifle rolled down the hill, and the man nearest Kirke fell on the slope, rolled against a tree, and lay still. ”

“ Having carefully secured the piece with the thoroughness of a seaman to whom a loose gun is a potential engine of terrible destruction, Barry ran rapidly down the hill, clambered up on the high poop of the ship, and hauled down the colors. As the flag, looking unusually bright and brave against the dark background of the cloud-shrouded sky, came floating down, the admiral rose painfully to his feet and bared his gray hairs in reverent salute. ”

“ The men were mounted on broncos,—the horse par excellence of the West,—wild, vagrant descendants of old Spanish breeds; animals without blood, without birth, without beauty, without style, without training, mean and vicious in disposition; utterly useless for a short dash, and in an ordinary race unable to approach a thoroughbred; but with a brutal, indomitable spirit, a capacity for unlimited endurance and tireless ability to run long distances and live on nothing, and do it day after day, which made them formidable and dangerous competitors for all other horses of whatsoever quality. ”

“ Men do not often lie in the very presence of death, and truth spoke in the younger man's voice,—truth so clear that it pierced the tortured soul of the jealous, mad, broken sailor. But, like many another man convinced against his will, he refused to accept these statements. It was a device, a cunning attempt to stay his hand and gain a life. He would not heed.
"I don't believe you, damn you!" he said, kicking furiously at the stanchion. ”