Port Harcourt

“ Harcourt put on his ulster, his seal hat and his gloves.
Adler took up his carpetbag, and insisted on carrying it.
They walked to the Cortlandt Street ferry, which was not far off, took the boat, and in due time reached Jersey City and the depot.
“Take my advice,” said Adler, as they went toward the ticket office, “‘cuss the cost,’ and take a sleeping car. You are not yet strong enough to sit up all night.” ”

“ So Harcourt crossed the sea with a small train, landed at Southampton, and rode inland till almost in sight of Claremont Castle, revolving in his mind schemes of selfish ambition, and either not seeing or not heeding the lowering looks of his followers.
But these brave men had good cause to look gloomy, apart from their dark suspicions of the wily and hard-hearted man who was now their master; for the whole land through which they were passing seemed smitten by the curse of Heaven. ”

“ Harcourt gazed for a moment longer without speaking.
“Charles Cutts, don’t you know, who landed from a passing yacht at the Isle of Storms late one night in September last—a night memorable for the tragedy enacted there, you know,” said the stranger.
“I—remember—you—now,” Harcourt faltered, changing color from pallor to green ghastliness.
“Ah! I see that the very sight of me, calling up the memory of that night, has quite upset you, and I don’t wonder,” said Cutts, taking a seat beside the agitated young man. ”

“ Harcourt’s spirits rose to an elevation he had not experienced for years, as, on one of the most beautiful mornings of that beautiful season, his craft, with a light wind from the southward, glided out of Cowes Harbour.
“What a wonderful effect has the pure fresh air, after the smoke and heat of London!” exclaimed O’Malley. “Let me once inhale the real salt breeze, and I shall commit a thousand unthought-of vagaries, and so will you, let me tell you; you’ll be no more like yourself, the man about town, than the ‘Amethyst’ to a coal-barge, or choose any other simile you may prefer.” ”

“ She sank down on the solitary chair beside the bed, and holding the waiter of breakfast in her lap, said:
“Now sit up and take this, while I get a good look at you.”
Again, with a feeble smile, Harcourt obeyed her, took the offered cup from her hand, and while he eagerly quaffed the fragrant coffee, which he found so grateful to his parched throat and fainting frame, she regarded him with the eyes of experience.
“Yes, young man,” she said gravely and tenderly, “you have seen trouble—plenty of trouble, but that is the lot of human beings. ”

“ Harcourt had no intention of stopping in Richmond. He was too well known in the Queen City of the South. He would go to the North, and lose his identity in some large town where he had never been before.
New York City offered the largest human wilderness in which to lose himself. He had never been there in his life, and had no acquaintances there except the Bushes and that Belial, Hanson. Hanson was away, and the Bushes would not be at all likely to discover him in changed identity. ”

“ Come, what is your trouble?” demanded Harcourt, setting the stranger down upon a large box, placing himself at his side, and passing his arm around the man’s waist, the better to protect him from himself.
“Trouble!” cried the other. “Trouble enough! Illness all autumn. No work. Wife and children freezing, starving, in a cellar. No food for two days. Everything pawned but just enough clothes to cover our nakedness. Trouble, indeed!”
“Good Heaven! good Heaven! It is incredible! ‘In a whole city full!’” exclaimed Harcourt, quoting Hood. “Come with me. The stores are not all closed yet. ”

“ You remember Mr. Merritt?” inquired Harcourt as they walked on toward Louisiana Avenue, for it is needless to say Harcourt could not afford to hire a carriage, nor indeed was one needed for so short a distance.
“Well, I should smile! Haven’t I been talking to you about him? He is one of them old gentlemen Lady will have to marry if you don’t marry her.”
“My dear child, do not talk that way,” said Harcourt.
“Isn’t Lady at Goblin Hall?”
“I am not sure that she is there now. She may be at the Isle of Storms, or she may be here in this very city.”
“Oh, if I thought that!” joyfully exclaimed Owlet. ”

“ Amid the ensuing silence Harcourt flushed darkly and walked to the gangway, the men drawing back suddenly from his mild look.
Up above watched the sunfish, his grey eyes wide, for all the docks had heard the story—how the famous Brighton Blighter had encountered some toff or other in Oxford Street the previous night, and how, after some passing reference to lords and ladies, the heavy-weight champion had been knocked out cold within a minute.
So this mild-eyed, wide-shouldered yachtsman was the man, then! The sunfish quietly laid aside his pipe and stood waiting ”

“ I mean by a straightforward advertisement in the advertising columns for information respecting the whereabouts of William Everard Harcourt, late of Lone Lodge, West Virginia, who left his home on the Isle of Storms, coast of Maryland, on the fifteenth of last November, and has not been heard from since, and offering a large reward for intelligence that shall lead to the discovery of his fate. ”

“ Re-acting against the unusual sensation that had almost paralysed them, Bindon’s guests raised a shout of protest, and Harcourt sprang angrily towards the closing door. But the parson again interposed.
“I pray you,” he said, with a dignity that imposed obedience, “I pray you let Sir David depart. He has gone back to his tower, and there no one must disturb him. He leaves you to your own more congenial company.”
Colonel Harcourt broke into a boisterous laugh as he sank back into his chair, and reached for the bottle. ”

“ Wynthrop’s sitting-room.
He found the three tall, fair women employed as they had been on his first call.
They all left work and made him welcome to the fireside.
“How did you find the dear mother?” inquired the elder lady.
“Not so well as I had been led to expect,” said Harcourt with a sigh.
“But, indeed, beyond the weakness of her limbs, due to her one single malady, she has good health. She never suffers in mind or body. She has a good appetite, fine spirits, and she enjoys life oven more than we do, I fancy. Think of that, Mr. Harcourt.” ”

“ William will be home,” said the seamstress, as she lighted her kerosene lamp, stood it on the mantelpiece, took her kettle and went to the water spigot to fill it.
When she had done this and was returning along the passage she met Harcourt at the top of the stairs, with a small paper bag in his hands.
“Oh, Mr. William,” she said, “I want you, if you please, to come and take tea with us.”
“‘Us,’ Annie? ‘Us’ has a very pleasant sound. Yes, I will, thank you. And here are some cutlets I bought to cook for the child. Will you take them to add to our tea?” ”

“ To-morrow, when you look into your affairs, I think you will find that you are not in debt at all, except to Adler, who must have advanced a month’s rent before he secured this room for you again—not that he has said anything about it, though.”
“Well, I have enough to pay him, but the hospital——”
“You were in the free ward there.”
57Harcourt’s pale face flushed crimson.
“In the pauper ward?” he murmured.
“You could not help being there. It was not your fault. Why should a man mind that, if it is not his fault?” inquired Annie.
“Why, indeed?” assented Harcourt humbly. ”

“ The wind blew strongly off the shore, so that scarcely was the foresail spread than the boat began to move rapidly through the water, dashing the sea over her bows, and plunging wildly through the waves.
“Give me a hand now with the halyard,” said the boatman; “and when the mainsail is set, you 'll see how she 'll dance over the top of the waves, and never wet us.”
“She 's too light in the water, if anything,” said Harcourt, as the boat bounded buoyantly under the increased press of canvas.
“Your honor's right; she'd do better with half a ton of iron in her. ”

“ Henry took a bite of his apple and started, thankful that a taste for reading of a thrilling description had furnished him with material. He fought ships in a way which even admirals had never thought of, and certainly not the pirates, who were invariably discomfited by the ingenious means by which he enabled virtue to triumph over sin. Miss Harcourt held her breath with pleasurable terror, and tightened or relaxed the grip of her small and not too clean fingers on his arm as the narrative proceeded.
"But you never killed a man yourself," said she, when he had finished. ”

“ You had better come in, and let me get you a cup of tea, and after you have taken it you will feel better able to tackle with a damp room and a cold hearth. Come in, now. Why not? Are we not all brethren and sisters?”
“Oh! my dear Annie, you are really too good for this world,” said Harcourt, very stupidly, it must be admitted, for he even thought so himself, yet in perfect good faith. ”

“ We read of buccaneers and filibusters; of Morgan, the last of the tribe, knighted and made Vice-Governor of Jamaica; of the doings of the redoubtable Kidd; of the bloodiness of Blackbeard; of the countless list of names, some high-sounding, which at last were painted in crimson splashes on the gallows slip at Port Royal headland. Port Royal itself deserves a niche in the temple of fame. The richest and the most vicious town the world ever knew; so it was before the clean ocean washed away its vice and corruption, and buried it deep in the pure water of the blue Caribbean. ”

“ When Alain and his brothers made their appearance, they still bore visible marks of the recent fray; but in that bone-breaking age it was quite the correct thing for a young man of rank to wear a face like a beaten prize-fighter; and Sir Simon Harcourt mentally decided that these were “exceeding gentle and good young men.”
“I give thee joy, my noble host,” said he, bowing courteously to the three tall youths as they entered; “thou hast a goodly muster of sons to carry on thy name.” ”

“ He was chosen provincial of his order on 14 Jan. 1677-8, and it was during his visitation of the Belgian colleges of the English province that Titus Oates, after having been expelled from two of the colleges of the society, applied to him to be admitted as a member of the order, and, on being refused, uttered the threat that he would be either a Jesuit or a Judas. Harcourt returned to England to attend the triennial meeting of the English province held at the Duke of York's residence, St. ”

“ I doane b’liebe she knowed as my po’ ole man was gone, ’caze she said, my ole mist’ess, she said, wiv her eyes up:
“‘Oh, de disg’ace, Marfar! Oh, de disg’ace as has fall on me in my ole age. I’s bore sorrow an’ poverty an’ bereabement wivout murmurin’, but dis is wuss dan all de res’. Oh, de disg’ace! disg’ace!’”
Harcourt turned very pale. What was this that his mother had heard from her dying servant? Was it—could it be that the old man had become acquainted with the secret of the Isle of Storms? And how could this have happened except through the treachery of Hanson? ”

“ Indeed, after holding out feebly against the siege of wealth at Tasajara and San Francisco, Mrs. Harcourt had abandoned herself hopelessly to the horrors of its invasion; had allowed herself to be dragged from her kitchen by her exultant daughters and set up in black silk in a certain conventional respectability in the drawing-room. Strange to say, her commiserating hospitality, or hospital-like ministration, not only gave her popularity, but a certain kind of distinction. An exaltation so sorrowfully deprecated by its possessor was felt to be a sign of superiority. ”

“ They gave a great entertainment, and omitted me; and rather than stay in town to publish this affront, I started for the Continent; and out of that petty incident, a discussion of the veriest trifle imaginable, there came the whole course of my destiny.”
“To be sure,” said Harcourt, with assumed calm, “every man's fortune in life is at the sport of some petty incident or other, which at the time he undervalues.”
“And then we scoff at those men who scrutinize each move, and hesitate over every step in life, as triflers and little-minded ”

“ I should think it is,” muttered Harcourt.
“This pathway, though, does not bespeak much care. I wish our friend yonder would hold his lantern a little lower. How I envy you the kind of life you lead here,—so tranquil, so removed from all bores! By the way, you get the newspapers tolerably regularly?”
“Yes, every day.”
“That's all right. If there be a luxury left to any man after the age of forty, it is to be let alone. It's the best thing I know of. ”

“ To Upton's inquiry all made the same answer. None had seen the young lord,—none could give any clew as to whither he had gone. Sir Horace at once hastened to Harcourt's room, and, after some vigorous shakes, succeeded in awakening the Colonel, and by dint of various repetitions at last put him in possession of all that had occurred.
“We must look after the lad,” cried Harcourt, springing from his bed, and dressing with all haste. “He is a rash, hot-headed fellow ”

“ Mr. Merritt was drawing on his gloves, and kindliness getting the better of his sternness for a moment, he said:
“Oh, don’t take leave of her here. Come along with us. Our course goes the same way as far as the avenue, where we take the up car, and you the down one.”
“Yes; come as far with us as you can,” pleaded Owlet, clinging to his hand.
“Willingly, my dear,” said the young man.
The three left the room together, Harcourt leading the little girl.
In the outer office Mr. Merritt stopped a moment to speak to his clerk. ”

“ Harcourt, either to begin a suit or to rest quietly under the calumny. Briefly, Mr. Fletcher, as you or your informant knows, I was the surveyor who revealed to Mr. Harcourt the value of the land to which he claimed a title from your man, this Elijah or 'Lige Curtis as you call him,”—he could not resist this imitation of his adversary's supercilious affectation of precise nomenclature,—“and it was upon my representation of its value as an investment that he began the improvements which have made him wealthy. ”

“ I can't see where I'd be any good."
"No matter," declared Harcourt impatiently. "You could soon pick up navigation; for that matter, there are plenty of men in command of craft without proper license. However, I'm not figuring on you as a sailor. I can do that, but I don't know a bally thing about business. You could handle the business end of everything and gradually work into handling the ship; she'd be my property, of course, but we'd share even on what we made."
"Go slow now," and Hammer laughed quietly while the waiter hovered about them. ”