Part 9 (1/2)
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 grand-son-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.[6]
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.)