Terry

“ Terry's countenance crimsoned, and his head dropped upon his breast, while he worked his hands together nervously. At last he managed to stammer out,—
"Faith, captain, I didn't say so."
"No, Terry, you didn't," said the captain, in a soothing tone. "Nor did you mean it either. I'm only testing you a bit. Look here, Terry, listen to me now. What do you intend to do with yourself as you grow older? Do you think of following the sea?" ”

“ By which deliverance Terry showed himself to be a true philosopher, with a very sound and practical theory of life. But, like many other mortals, Terry could teach a great deal better than he could practise, the truth being that the impulse of his race to take a hand in any fun or fighting that might be going was as strong in him as if he had been born on the green sod. ”

“ Terry repeated the question.
“Send for a doctor!—give you money!” echoed the old man. “Where the devil would I get money to pay a doctor?”
“You have it, and ten times as much,” said Terry, “and you cannot deny it.”
“If I have as much money as would buy me a coffin,” said the Boccough, “may my soul never rest quiet in the grave.”
Terry crossed his brow with terror. He knew the unhappy wretch was dying with a lie on his tongue, but he resolved not to press the matter further.
“You are dying as fast as you can,” remarked Terry; “have you any thing to say before you go?” ”

“ Terry found himself facing a short-throated man with heavy shoulders; he wore a shapeless black hat bunched on his head as though the whole hand had grasped the crown and shoved the hat into place. It sat awkwardly to one side. And the hat typified the whole man. There was a sort of shifty readiness about him. His eyes flashed in the lamplight as they glanced at the bed, and then flicked back toward Terry. And a smile began somewhere in his face and instantly went out. It was plain that he had understood the maneuver. ”

“ Unhappily, too, Terry was not a favourite among the servants: he had never learnt how much deference is due from the ragged man to the pampered menial of a rich household; he had not been trained to that subserviency of demeanour which should mark the intercourse of a poor, houseless, friendless creature like himself, with the tagged and lace-covered servants of a wealthy master. Terry, by some strange blunder of his nature, imagined that, in his freedom and independence, he was the better man of the two ”

“ It was with a queer jumble of feelings palpitating in his young bosom that Terry, attired as never before in his life, set out for Long Wharf on Monday morning. Blind Alley seemed to swarm with women and children, who first gazed in wild-eyed astonishment at his appearance, and then proceeded to give vent to their admiration or envy in remarks that would have sorely tried the composure of a stump orator hardened by many campaigns. ”

“ Terry sat on the shaft in front, swinging his legs, and got a crick in his neck turning his head to admire her dishevelled hair and the brown shadows beneath her Irish eyes, 'rubbed in with a dirty finger,' as the saying goes.
For the next six months Terry lived upon the memory of that day. It formed the high-water mark of his influence with the girl whom he grew to love the more she disregarded him: for a man's love feeds upon starvation. ”

“ Not until then did Terry recognize in the man he was helping the sailor whose ire he had aroused by refusing to enter into the ship's service, and his heart glowed at the thought that he had shown him that he could not refuse an appeal for aid even from him.
Throughout the rest of that awful afternoon Terry toiled like a beaver, bearing water to the wounded and to those working the guns, and earning countless blessings from the grateful sailors. He seemed to bear a charmed life. Men fell all round him, while he went unscathed. ”

“ I saw Terry again as I had seen him first, with the glamour of ardent love, the love that overleaps all barriers and, if only for an instant, stands face to face with love, unhesitating, tumultuous, and triumphant. The memory of even one perfect moment can never leave us, even if life be ever so dark and harsh and bitter, there will always be that single ray of light to illumine the darkness, and keep our steps from utter and complete stumbling. ”

“ Terry answered so promptly and politely that she became quite interested in him, and finally began to sound him as to his plans for the future.
"Do you know, Terry," said she, with a winning smile that sent a thrill of pleasure clear down to the tips of the boy's bare toes, "I believe something good might be made out of you. Your face tells me that you've got it in you to make your way in the world. Many a rich and famous man had no better start than you. ”

“ Terry was all atingle. Life was shaping itself to an adventure.
And so, though it appeared that all of the time in the world was theirs for loitering—for it should be a simple matter to come to Red Creek well in advance of Blenham and his dupe—Terry yielded to her excitement, Steve yielded out of hand to the lure of Terry, and, quite gay about it, they sped away through the moonlight. While Terry, driver, perforce kept her eyes busied with the road, Steve Packard leaned back in his seat and contented himself with the vision of his fellow adventurer. ”

“ Terry went on: "The tide of sentiment is turning against us. They seem more antagonistic, more sullen. So please be careful."
Terry lapsed silent and sat in the door, chin in hand. Soon the increasing wind drove the Major under his blanket again, and overcome by a curious feeling of comfort and security in the mere presence of the slight figure huddled at the door, he soon fell asleep.
Terry, unmindful of the chill breeze, remained in the doorway, deep in thought. ”

“ Terry pulled off his ragged cap in token of promise to do so, and the light carriage whirled away, leaving him with thoughts such as had never stirred his brain before. Of course he knew that men had made their way up from humble beginnings to high positions, but the fact had hitherto never been so closely brought home to him; and it was while under the excitement of this idea that he so astonished his mother as related above. ”

“ At daylight the Hillman was proudly mounting homeward, Terry's belt tightly buckled about his naked trunk. The white man's last dispensable possession had gone as a reward for the service.
Terry's joyous urge carried him swiftly, so that in an hour he dropped out of the foothills and into the heat of the jungled lowlands. At noon he climbed Sears' steps and dropped into a porch chair, his clothes wet with perspiration and torn by contact with brush and thorn, for he had cut straight through the woods. ”

“ Jealous rage fired Terry’s heart also, for Eva, even as a child, had felt for him a subtle aversion she could never overcome, and that was only increased in the past year by some lover-like advances he had imprudently made.
“Poor Terry, how strange the instinct that draws him to me, while I, in my turn, recoil from him. He is not such a bad fellow, truly,” she had thought more than once, in girlish pity. ”

“ Although Terry had come to Hampton Roads a warm little sympathizer with the South, his feelings had undergone considerable change as he observed the splendid bravery of the Northern sailors; and now, while he watched the contending ironclads, he found his heart going out towards the little Monitor rather than towards the big black Merrimac.
"Sure it doesn't seem fair play at all," he exclaimed to Captain Afleck, in a decided tone of indignation. "That small little thing's no match for the big fellow. There ought to be two of them anyhow to make it even." ”

“ Terry had his alternate moods of optimism and despondency, but I was uniformly oppressed with a sort of Wehmut or Weltschmerz or whatever untranslatable thing the Germans call it. The cold dawn came as we ran into Salzburg, and by noon the sun was blazing on the red-roofed chalets above Innsbrück. All the time I was thinking far more of the past than of the future; the parting with Mizzi seemed to me far more pitiable than anything that had or could have happened to Severn. I didn't talk to Terry about it, for he, who never understood a woman at all, had certainly never understood Mizzi. ”

“ Of course, this kind of life could not go on for ever, and there were times when Terry paused in his eager quest for amusement long enough to ask himself what he would like to be and to do for a living. The answers to the question were as various as Terry's moods. He fain would be a sailor, soldier, fireman, policeman, or coachman, according as he had been most lately impressed with the advantages and attractions of that particular occupation. He even sometimes let his thoughts aspire as high as the position of clerk in the offices of Drummond and Brown, the owners of Long Wharf. ”

“ Much pleased in his turn, Captain Afleck leaned over and twitched Terry's ear in a not ungentle fashion.
"I guess you can take pretty good care of yourself, my hearty," said he. "Some fine day you'll be one of the bosses at Long Wharf, wearing a big gold chain, and fine black suit, and a tall shiny hat, while, if I'm alive, I'll be nothing better than I am now, glad if I can knock out a living with my schooner—if I ever get another one." ”

“ I think I must have dreamed that Terry and Mizzi were married, for I woke up thinking of it. Even now the memory of that morning comes to me enveloped in the dream of the two of them; somehow it is all bright sunlight—the sunlight on the geraniums in the wooden boxes, the sunlight on Terry's face as I left him sleeping, and the sunlight drenching Mizzi's little office....
"Morgen," she said, as I entered, and I told her that Terry was asleep, and that I had come down to have a chat with her, if she wasn't too busy. ”

“ Awakened, it upended in a sluggish dive, the heavy flirt of its great glistening tail smashing the left outrigger and drenching them to the skin.
Terry had attended strictly to the affairs which properly came under his control and in doing this and doing it well, had won the respect of natives and whites, a respect which had warmed into admiration among those who knew him better, into affection with those who knew him best. The loyal Macabebes would have followed him against any foe, and, better than that, they drilled hard and worked faithfully that they might be a credit to their leader. ”

“ For a long time the patriarch remained silent, idly opening and closing the blades of his knife. The Hillmen ranged along the wall, who had listened attentively to Terry's arguments for opening up their country to the outlanders, waited their chief's pronouncement with set faces and gleaming eyes, their brown bodies still as bronze figures. ”

“ With the upper froth of her mind, she was learning to be social.
"Grace," she said one night, as they lay in bed, "I wish you'd furbish me up a little bit, and—and drag me about with you to places, if I shouldn't be a nuisance."
"Oh, Terry! Would you really come?" There was a break in Grace's voice, and her hand sought Theresa's. "Would you? I've always wanted to."
"Have you? Won't you be ashamed? I'm such a gawk."
"Ashamed! You're lovely. I shall be so proud to show you off. There's no one like you, Terry. You're—you're a person! And if you'd only be a little tidier, you would be pretty. ”

“ From his place in the outer office, Terry had got a glimpse of the bag, and of how it had been put away, and in the talk he had with his mother every night before going to bed he told her about it.
"Faith and it looked as if it might have a heap of money in it," he concluded; "those great big gold pieces you know, mother, good for twenty dollars every one of them, like them blockade-runners have in their pockets. Man dear, but they are beauties!" ”

“ Terry was again in bed, when he started with a wild shriek. “Mother of mercy!” he frantically vociferated, “here is the Boccough Ruadh; I hear the tramp of his wooden leg on the floor.”
“Lord save us!” said the old woman in a trembling voice, “what can ail him now? Maybe it’s more money he has hid somewhere else.”
“Oh, do you hear how he rattles about! Devil a kippeen in the cabin but he will destroy,” exclaimed poor Terry. “It’s the black day to us that ever we seen himself or his dirty thrash of money; and if God saves me till morning, I’ll go back and lave every rap ov id where I got it.” ”

“ Poor Terry was in a sadly perplexed state of mind. He firmly believed in Connors' innocence; yet he was by no means sure of his father's guilt, and, without being able to explain to himself why, he had haunting suspicions as to Morley. How he longed to have a talk with Mr. Hobart! But his friend was away, and there was no one else in whom he had the same confidence, or to whom he could go for the counsel he so sorely needed.
Black Mike did not show himself in Blind Alley that night, greatly to the relief of both Terry and his mother, for they dreaded seeing him in their then state of mind. ”

“ It was a midnight mission carried on by himself, at his own expense, for the benefit of fallen humanity. This was his life-work, and he rejoiced in it, because of the many opportunities it afforded him of being both a temporal and a spiritual helper to the victims of vice or of misfortune. Terry felt irresistibly drawn towards Mr. Sargent and his wife, whose hearts so overflowed with love; and when they proposed that he should stay with them for a few days, in order that he might try to find Captain Afleck, he gladly assented. ”