Part 63 (1/2)

”I'm in a great hurry just now,” said Richling; ”but I'll talk about this thing with you again to-morrow or next day,” and so left.

The restaurateur turned to his head-waiter, stuck his tongue in his cheek, and pulled down the lower lid of an eye with his forefinger. He meant to say he had been lying for the pure fun of it.

When Dr. Sevier came that afternoon to see Reisen--of whom there was now but little left, and that little unable to leave the bed--Richling took occasion to raise the subject that had entangled his fancy. He was careful to say nothing of himself or the restaurateur, or anything, indeed, but a timid generality or two. But the Doctor responded with a clear, sudden energy that, when he was gone, left Richling feeling painfully blank, and yet unable to find anything to resent except the Doctor's superfluous--as he thought, quite superfluous--mention of the island of Cozumel.

However, and after all, that which for the most part kept the public mind heated was, as we have said, the political campaign. Popular feeling grew tremulous with it as the landscape did under the burning sun. It was a very hot summer. Not a good one for feeble folk; and one early dawn poor Reisen suddenly felt all his reason come back to him, opened his eyes, and lo! he had crossed the river in the night, and was on the other side.

Dr. Sevier's experienced horse halted of his own will to let a procession pa.s.s. In the carriage at its head the physician saw the little rector, sitting beside a man of German ecclesiastical appearance.

Behind it followed a majestic hea.r.s.e, drawn by black-plumed and caparisoned horses,--four of them. Then came a long line of red-s.h.i.+rted firemen; for he in the hea.r.s.e had been an ”exempt.” Then a further line of big-handed, white-gloved men in beavers and regalias; for he had been also a Freemason and an Odd-fellow. Then another column, of emotionless-visaged German women, all in bunchy black gowns, walking out of time to the solemn roll and pulse of the m.u.f.fled drums, and the brazen peals of the funeral march. A few carriages closed the long line. In the first of them the waiting Doctor marked, with a sudden understanding of all, the pale face of John Richling, and by his side the widow who had been forty years a wife,--weary and red with weeping.

The Doctor took off his hat.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

RISE UP, MY LOVE, MY FAIR ONE.

The summer at length was past, and the burning heat was over and gone.

The days were refreshed with the balm of a waning October. There had been no fever. True, the nights were still aglare with torches, and the street echoes kept awake by trumpet notes and huzzas, by the tramp of feet and the delicate hint of the bell-ringing; and men on the stump and off it; in the ”wigwams;” along the sidewalks, as they came forth, wiping their mouths, from the free-lunch counters, and on the curb-stones and ”flags” of Carondelet street, were saying things to make a patriot's heart ache. But contrariwise, in that same Carondelet street, and hence in all the streets of the big, scattered town, the most prosperous commercial year--they measure from September to September--that had ever risen upon New Orleans had closed its distended record, and no one knew or dreamed that, for nearly a quarter of a century to come, the proud city would never see the equal of that golden year just gone. And so, away yonder among the great lakes on the northern border of the anxious but hopeful country, Mary was calling, calling, like an unseen bird piping across the fields for its mate, to know if she and the one little nestling might not come to hers.

And at length, after two or three unexpected contingencies had caused delays of one week after another, all in a silent tremor of joy, John wrote the word--”Come!”

He was on his way to put it into the post-office, in Royal street. At the newspaper offices, in Camp street, he had to go out into the middle of the way to get around the crowd that surrounded the bulletin-boards, and that scuffled for copies of the latest issue. The day of days was pa.s.sing; the returns of election were coming in. In front of the ”Picayune” office he ran square against a small man, who had just pulled himself and the most of his clothing out of the press with the last news crumpled in the hand that he still held above his head.

”h.e.l.lo, Richling, this is pretty exciting, isn't it?” It was the little clergyman. ”Come on, I'll go your way; let's get out of this.”

He took Richling's arm, and they went on down the street, the rector reading aloud as they walked, and shopkeepers and salesmen at their doors catching what they could of his words as the two pa.s.sed.

”It's dreadful! dreadful!” said the little man, thrusting the paper into his pocket in a wad.

”Hi! Mistoo Itchlin,” quoth Narcisse, pa.s.sing them like an arrow, on his way to the paper offices.

”He's happy,” said Richling.

”Well, then, he's the only happy man I know of in New Orleans to-day,”

said the little rector, jerking his head and drawing a sigh through his teeth.

”No,” said Richling, ”I'm another. You see this letter.” He showed it with the direction turned down. ”I'm going now to mail it. When my wife gets it she starts.”

The preacher glanced quickly into his face. Richling met his gaze with eyes that danced with suppressed joy. The two friends attracted no attention from those whom they pa.s.sed or who pa.s.sed them; the newsboys were scampering here and there, everybody buying from them, and the walls of Common street ringing with their shouted proffers of the ”full account” of the election.

”Richling, don't do it.”

”Why not?” Richling showed only amus.e.m.e.nt.

”For several reasons,” replied the other. ”In the first place, look at your business!”

”Never so good as to-day.”