CHAPTER IX.
The trusting heart's repose, the paradise
Of home, with all its loves, doth fate allow
The crown of glory unto woman's brow.
Mrs. Hemans.
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It has again become necessary to advance the time; and
we shall take the occasion thus offered to make a few explanations
touching certain events which have been passed
over without notice.
The reason why Captain Mull did not chase the yawl
of the brig in the Poughkeepsie herself, was the necessity
of waiting for his own boats that were endeavouring to regain
the sloop-of-war. It would not have done to abandon
them, inasmuch as the men were so much exhausted by
the pull to windward, that when they reached the vessel
all were relieved from duty for the rest of the day. As
soon, however, as the other boats were hoisted in, or run
up, the ship filled away, stood out of the passage and ran
down to join the cutter of Wallace, which was endeavouring
to keep its position, as much as possible, by making
short tacks under close-reefed luggs.
Spike had been received on board the sloop-of-war, sent
into her sick bay, and put under the care of the surgeon
and his assistants. From the first, these gentlemen pronounced
the hurt mortal. The wounded man was insensible
most of the time, until the ship had beat up and gone
into Key West, where he was transferred to the regular
hospital, as has already been mentioned.
The wreckers went out the moment the news of the
calamity of the Swash reached their ears. Some went in
quest of the doubloons of the schooner, and others to pick
up anything valuable that might be discovered in the neighbourhood
of the stranded brig. It may be mentioned
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here, that not much was ever obtained from the brigantine,
with the exception of a few spars, the sails, and a little
rigging; but, in the end, the schooner was raised, by means
of the chain Spike had placed around her, the cabin was
ransacked, and the doubloons were recovered. As there
was no one to claim the money, it was quietly divided
among the conscientious citizens present at its re-visiting
“the glimpses of the moon,” making gold plenty.
The doubloons in the yawl would have been lost but for
the sagacity of Mulford. He too well knew the character
of Spike to believe he would quit the brig without taking
the doubloons with him. Acquainted with the boat, he
examined the little locker in the stern-sheets, and found
the two bags, one of which was probably the lawful property
of Captain Spike, while the other, in truth, belonged
to the Mexican government. The last contained the most
gold, but the first amounted to a sum that our young mate
knew to be very considerable. Rose had made him acquainted
with the sex of Jack Tier since their own marriage;
and he at once saw that the claims of this uncouth
wife, who was so soon to be a widow, to the gold in question,
might prove to be as good in law, as they unquestionably
were in morals. On representing the facts of the case
to Captain Mull and the legal functionaries at Key West,
it was determined to relinquish this money to the heirs of
Spike, as, indeed, they must have done under process, there
being no other claimant. These doubloons, however, did
not amount to the full price of the flour and powder that
composed the cargo of the Swash. The cargo had been
purchased with Mexican funds; and all that Spike or his
heirs could claim, was the high freight for which he had
undertaken the delicate office of transporting those forbidden
articles, contraband of war, to the Dry Tortugas.
Mulford by this time was high in the confidence and
esteem of all on board the Poughkeepsie. He had frankly
explained his whole connexion with Spike, not even attempting
to conceal the reluctance he had felt to betray the brig
after he had fully ascertained the fact of his commander's
treason. The manly gentlemen with whom he was now
brought in contact entered into his feelings, and admitted
that it was an office no one could desire, to turn against
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the craft in which he sailed. It is true, they could not
and would not be traitors, but Mulford had stopped far
short of this; and the distinction between such a character
and that of an informer was wide enough to satisfy all their
scruples.
Then Rose had the greatest success with the gentlemen
of the Poughkeepsie. Her youth, beauty, and modesty,
told largely in her favour; and the simple, womanly affection
she unconsciously betrayed in behalf of Harry, touched
the heart of every observer. When the intelligence of
her aunt's fate reached her, the sorrow she manifested was
so profound and natural, that every one sympathized with
her grief. Nor would she be satisfied unless Mulford
would consent to go in search of the bodies. The latter
knew the hopelessness of such an excursion, but he could
not refuse to comply. He was absent on that melancholy
duty, therefore, at the moment of the scene related in our
last chapter, and did not return until after that which we
are now about to lay before the reader. Mrs. Budd, Biddy,
and all of those who perished after the yawl got clear of
the reef, were drowned in deep water, and no more was
ever seen of any of them; or, if wreckers did pass them,
they did not stop to bury the dead. It was different, however,
with those, who were first sacrificed to Spike's selfishness.
They were drowned on the reef, and Harry did
actually recover the bodies of the Señor Montefalderon,
and of Josh, the steward. They had washed upon a rock
that is bare at low water. He took them both to the Dry
Tortugas, and had them interred along with the other dead
at that place. Don Juan was placed side by side with his
unfortunate countryman, the master of his equally unfortunate
schooner.
While Harry was absent and thus employed, Rose wept
much and prayed more. She would have felt herself
almost alone in the world, but for the youth to whom she
had so recently, less than a week before, plighted her faith
in wedlock. That new tie, it is true, was of sufficient importance
to counteract many of the ordinary feelings of
her situation; and she now turned to it as the one which
absorbed most of the future duties of her life. Still she
missed the kindness, the solicitude, even the weaknesses
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of her aunt; and the terrible manner in which Mrs. Budd
had perished, made her shudder with horror whenever she
thought of it. Poor Biddy, too, came in for her share of
the regrets. This faithful creature, who had been in the
relict's service ever since Rose's infancy, had become endeared
to her, in spite of her uncouth manners and confused
ideas, by the warmth of her heart, and the singular
truth of her feelings. Biddy, of all her family, had come
to America, leaving behind her not only brothers and sisters,
but parents living. Each year did she remit to the
last a moiety of her earnings, and many a half-dollar that
had come from Rose's pretty little hand, had been converted
into gold, and forwarded on the same pious errand
to the green island of her nativity. Ireland, unhappy
country! at this moment what are not the dire necessities
of thy poor! Here, from the midst of abundance, in a
land that God has blessed in its productions far beyond the
limits of human wants, a land in which famine was never
known, do we at this moment hear thy groans, and listen
to tales of suffering that to us seem almost incredible. In
the midst of these chilling narratives, our eyes fall on an
appeal to the English nation, that appears in what it is the
fashion of some to term the first journal of Europe (!) in
behalf of thy suffering people. A worthy appeal to the
charity of England seldom fails; but it seems to us that
one sentiment of this might have been altered, if not spared.
The English are asked to be “forgetful of the past,” and
to come forward to the relief of their suffering fellow-subjects.
We should have written “mindful of the past,” in
its stead. We say this in charity, as well as in truth. We
come of English blood, and if we claim to share in all the
ancient renown of that warlike and enlightened people, we
are equally bound to share in the reproaches that original
misgovernment has inflicted on thee. In this latter sense,
then, thou hast a right to our sympathies, and they are not
withheld.
As has been already said, we now advance the time
eight-and-forty hours, and again transfer the scene to that
room in the hospital which was occupied by Spike. The
approaches of death, during the interval just named, had
been slow but certain. The surgeons had announced that
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the wounded man could not possibly survive the coming
night; and he himself had been made sensible that his end
was near. It is scarcely necessary to add that Stephen
Spike, conscious of his vigour and strength, in command
of his brig, and bent on the pursuits of worldly gains, or
of personal gratification, was a very different person from
him who now lay stretched on his pallet in the hospital of
Key West, a dying man. By the side of his bed still sat
his strange nurse, less peculiar in appearance, however,
than when last seen by the reader.
Rose Budd had been ministering to the ungainly externals
of Jack Tier. She now wore a cap, thus concealing
the short, grey bristles of hair, and lending to her countenance
a little of that softness which is a requisite of
female character. Some attention had also been paid to
the rest of her attire; and Jack was, altogether, less repulsive
in her exterior than when, unaided, she had
attempted to resume the proper garb of her sex. Use and
association, too, had contributed a little to revive her
woman's nature, if we may so express it, and she had begun,
in particular, to feel the sort of interest in her patient which
we all come in time to entertain toward any object of our
especial care. We do not mean that Jack had absolutely
ever ceased to love her husband; strange as it may seem,
such had not literally been the case; on the contrary, her
interest in him and in his welfare had never ceased, even
while she saw his vices and detested his crimes; but all
we wish to say here is, that she was getting, in addition to
the long-enduring feelings of a wife, some of the interest
of a nurse.
During the whole time which had elapsed between
Jack's revealing her true character, and the moment of
which we are now writing, Spike had not once spoken to
his wife. Often had she caught his eyes intently riveted
on her, when he would turn them away, as she feared, in
distaste; and once or twice he groaned deeply, more like a
man who suffered mental than bodily pain. Still the patient
did not speak once in all the time mentioned. We should
be representing poor Jack as possessing more philosophy,
or less feeling, than the truth would warrant, were we to
say that she was not hurt at this conduct in her husband.
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On the contrary, she felt it deeply; and more than once it
had so far subdued her pride, as to cause her bitterly to
weep. This shedding of tears, however, was of service to
Jack in one sense, for it had the effect of renewing old
impressions, and in a certain way, of reviving the nature
of her sex within her—a nature which had been sadly
weakened by her past life.
But the hour had at length come when this long and
painful silence was to be broken. Jack and Rose were
alone with the patient, when the last again spoke to his
wife.
“Molly—poor Molly!” said the dying man, his voice
continuing full and deep to the last, “what a sad time you
must have had of it after I did you that wrong!”
“It is hard upon a woman, Stephen, to turn her out,
helpless, on a cold and selfish world,” answered Jack, simply,
much too honest to affect a reserve she did not feel.
“It was hard, indeed; may God forgive me for it, as I
hope ye do, Molly.”
No answer was made to this appeal; and the invalid
looked anxiously at his wife. The last sat at her work,
which had now got to be less awkward to her, with her eyes
bent on her needle,—her countenance rigid, and, so far
as the eye could discern, her feelings unmoved.
“Your husband speaks to you, Jack Tier,” said Rose,
pointedly.
“May yours never have occasion to speak to you, Rose
Budd, in the same way,” was the solemn answer. “I do
not flatter myself that I ever was as comely as you, or that
yonder poor dying wretch was a Harry Mulford in his
youth; but we were young and happy, and respected once,
and loved each other, yet you see what it's all come to!”
Rose was silenced, though she had too much tenderness
in behalf of her own youthful and manly bridegroom to
dread a fate similar to that which had overtaken poor Jack.
Spike now seemed disposed to say something, and she went
to the side of his bed, followed by her companion, who
kept a little in the back-ground, as if unwilling to let the
emotion she really felt be seen, and, perhaps, conscious that
her ungainly appearance did not aid her in recovering the
lost affections of her husband.
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“I have been a very wicked man, I fear,” said Spike,
earnestly.
“There are none without sin,” answered Rose. “Place
your reliance on the mediation of the Son of God, and sins
even far deeper than yours may be pardoned.”
The captain stared at the beautiful speaker, but self-indulgence,
the incessant pursuit of worldly and selfish
objects for forty years, and the habits of a life into which
the thought of God and the dread hereafter never entered,
had encased his spiritual being in a sort of brazen armour,
through which no ordinary blow of conscience could penetrate.
Still he had fearful glimpses of recent events, and
his soul, hanging as it was over the abyss of eternity, was
troubled.
“What has become of your aunt?” half whispered Spike—
“my old captain's widow. She ought to be here; and
Don Wan Montezuma—where is he?”
Rose turned aside to conceal her tears—but no one answered
the questions of the dying man. Then a gleaming
of childhood shot into the recollection of Spike, and,
clasping his hands, he tried to pray. But, like others who
have lived without any communication with their Creator
through long lives of apathy to his existence and laws,
thinking only of the present time, and daily, hourly sacrificing
principles and duty to the narrow interests of the
moment, he now found how hard it is to renew communications
with a being who has been so long neglected. The
fault lay in himself, however, for a gracious ear was open,
even over the death-bed of Stephen Spike, could that rude
spirit only bring itself to ask for mercy in earnestness and
truth. As his companions saw his struggles, they left him
for a few minutes to his own thoughts.
“Molly,” Spike at length uttered, in a faint tone, the
voice of one conscious of being very near his end, “I hope
you will forgive me, Molly. I know you must have a hard,
hard time of it.”
“It is hard for a woman to unsex herself, Stephen; to
throw off her very natur', as it might be, and to turn man.”
“It has changed you sadly—even your speech is altered.
Once your voice was soft and womanish—more like that
of Rose Budd's than it is now.”
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“I speak as them speak among whom I've been forced
to live. The forecastle and steward's pantry, Stephen
Spike, are poor schools to send women to l'arn language
in.”
“Try and forget it all, poor Molly! Say to me, so that
I can hear you, `I forget and forgive, Stephen.' I am
afraid God will not pardon my sins, which begin to seem
dreadful to me, if my own wife refuse to forget and forgive,
on my dying bed.”
Jack was much mollified by this appeal. Her interest
in her offending husband had never been entirely extinguished.
She had remembered him, and often with woman's
kindness, in all her wanderings and sufferings, as the preceding
parts of our narrative must show; and though resentment
had been mingled with the grief and mortification
she felt at finding how much he still submitted to Rose's
superior charms, in a breast as really generous and humane
as that of Jack Tier's, such a feeling was not likely to endure
in the midst of a scene like that she was now called
to witness. The muscles of her countenance twitched,
the hard-looking, tanned face began to lose its sternness,
and every way she appeared like one profoundly disturbed.
“Turn to Him whose goodness and marcy may sarve
you, Stephen,” she said, in a milder and more feminine
tone than she had used now for years, making her more
like herself than either her husband or Rose had seen her
since the commencement of the late voyage; “my sayin'
that I forget and forgive cannot help a man on his deathbed.”
“It will settle my mind, Molly, and leave me freer to
turn my thoughts to God.”
Jack was much affected, more by the countenance and
manner of the sufferer, perhaps, than by his words. She
drew nearer to the side of her husband's pallet, knelt, took
his hands, and said solemnly,
“Stephen Spike, from the bottom of my heart, I do forgive
you; and I shall pray to God that he will pardon your
sins as freely and more marcifully than I now pardon all,
and try to forget all that you have done to me.”
Spike clasped his hands, and again he tried to pray; but
the habits of a whole life are not to be thrown off at will;
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and he who endeavours to regain, in his extremity, the
moments that have been lost, will find, in bitter reality,
that he has been heaping mountains on his own soul, by
the mere practice of sin, which were never laid there by
the original fall of his race. Jack, however, had disburthened
her spirit of a load that had long oppressed it, and,
burying her face in the rug, she wept.
“I wish, Molly,” said the dying man, several minutes
later, “I wish I had never seen the brig. Until I got that
craft, no thought of wronging human being ever crossed
my mind.”
“It was the Father of Lies that tempts all to do evil,
Stephen, and not the brig which caused the sins.”
“I wish I could live a year longer—only one year; that
is not much to ask for a man who is not yet sixty.”
“It is hopeless, poor Stephen. The surgeons say you
cannot live one day.”
Spike groaned—for the past, blended fearfully with the
future, gleamed on his conscience with a brightness that
appalled him. And what is that future, which is to make
us happy or miserable through an endless vista of time?
Is it not composed of an existence, in which conscience,
released from the delusions and weaknesses of the body,
sees all in its true colours, appreciates all, and punishes
all? Such an existence would make every man the keeper
of the record of his own transgressions, even to the most
minute exactness. It would of itself mete out perfect justice,
since the sin would be seen amid its accompanying
facts, every aggravating or extenuating circumstance.
Each man would be strictly punished according to his
talents. As no one is without sin, it makes the necessity
of an atonement indispensable, and, in its most rigid interpretation,
it exhibits the truth of the scheme of salvation
in the clearest colours. The soul, or conscience, that can
admit the necessary degree of faith in that atonement, and
in admitting, feels its efficacy, throws the burthen of its
own transgressions away, and remains for ever in the
condition of its original existence, pure, and consequently
happy.
We do not presume to lay down a creed on this mighty
and mysterious matter, in which all have so deep an
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interest, and concerning which so very small a portion of the
human race think much, or think with any clearness when
it does become the subject of their passing thoughts at all
We too well know our own ignorance to venture on dogmas
which it has probably been intended that the mind of
man should not yet grapple with and comprehend. To
return to our subject.
Stephen Spike was now made to feel the incubus-load,
which perseverance in sin heaps on the breast of the reckless
offender. What was the most grievous of all, his
power to shake off this dead weight was diminished in
precisely the same proportion as the burthen was increased,
the moral force of every man lessening in a very just ratio
to the magnitude of his delinquencies. Bitterly did this
deep offender struggle with his conscience, and little did
his half-unsexed wife know how to console or aid him.
Jack had been superficially instructed in the dogmas of
her faith, in childhood and youth, as most persons are instructed
in what are termed Christian communities—had
been made to learn the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and
the Creed—and had been left to set up for herself on this
small capital, in the great concern of human existence, on
her marriage and entrance on the active business of life.
When the manner in which she had passed the last twenty
years is remembered, no one can be surprised to learn that
Jack was of little assistance to her husband in his extremity.
Rose made an effort to administer hope and consolation,
but the terrible nature of the struggle she witnessed,
induced her to send for the chaplain of the Poughkeepsie.
This divine prayed with the dying man; but
even he, in the last moments of the sufferer, was little
more than a passive but shocked witness of remorse, suspended
over the abyss of eternity in hopeless dread. We
shall not enter into the details of the revolting scene, but
simply add that curses, blasphemy, tremulous cries for
mercy, agonized entreaties to be advised, and sullen defiance,
were all strangely and fearfully blended. In the
midst of one of these revolting paroxysms, Spike breathed
his last. A few hours later, his body was interred in the
sands of the shore. It may be well to say in this place,
that the hurricane of 1846, which is known to have
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occurred only a few months later, swept off the frail covering,
and that the body was washed away to leave its bones
among the wrecks and relics of the Florida Reef.
Mulford did not return from his fruitless expedition
in quest of the remains of Mrs. Budd, until after the death
and interment of Spike. As nothing remained to be done
at Key West, he and Rose accompanied by Jack Tier,
took passage for Charleston in the first convenient vessel
that offered. Two days before they sailed, the Poughkeepsie
went out to cruise in the Gulf, agreeably to her
general orders. The evening previously Captain Mull,
Wallace, and the chaplain, passed with the bridegroom
and bride, when the matter of the doubloons found in the
boat was discussed. It was agreed that Jack Tier should
have them; and into her hands the bag was now placed.
On this occasion, to oblige the officers, Jack went into a
narrative of all she had seen and suffered, from the
moment when abandoned by her late husband down to
that when she found him again. It was a strange account,
and one filled with surprising adventures. In most of the
vessels in which she had served, Jack had acted in the
steward's department, though she had frequently done duty
as a fore-mast hand. In strength and skill she admitted
that she had often failed; but in courage, never. Having
been given reason to think her husband was reduced to
serving in a vessel of war, she had shipped on board a
frigate bound to the Mediterranean, and had actually made
a whole cruise as a ward-room boy on that station. While
thus employed, she had met with two of the gentlemen
present; Captain Mull and Mr. Wallace. The former was
then first-lieutenant of the frigate, and the latter a passed-midshipman;
and in these capacities both had been well
known to her. As the name she then bore was the same
as that under which she now “hailed,” these officers were
soon made to recollect her, though Jack was no longer the
light, trim-built lad he had then appeared to be. Neither
of the gentlemen named had made the whole cruise in the
ship, but each had been promoted and transferred to another
craft, after being Jack's shipmate rather more than a
year. This information greatly facilitated the affair of the
doubloons.
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From Charleston the travellers came north by rail-road.
Harry made several stops by the way, in order to divert
the thoughts of his beautiful young bride from dwelling
too much on the fate of her aunt. He knew that home
would revive all these recollections painfully, and wished
to put off the hour of their return, until time had a little
weakened Rose's regrets. For this reason, he passed a
whole week in Washington, though it was a season of the
year that the place is not in much request. Still, Washington
is scarce a town, at any season. It is much the
fashion to deride the American capital, and to treat it as a
place of very humble performance with very sounding
pretensions. Certainly, Washington has very few of the
peculiarities of a great European capital, but few as these
are, they are more than belong to any other place in this
country. We now allude to the distinctive characteristics
of a capital, and not to a mere concentration of houses
and shops within a given space. In this last respect,
Washington is much behind fifty other American towns,
even while it is the only place in the whole republic which
possesses specimens of architecture, on a scale approaching
that of the higher classes of the edifices of the old
world. It is totally deficient in churches, and theatres,
and markets; or those it does possess are, in an architectural
sense, not at all above the level of village or country-town
pretensions, but one or two of its national edifices
do approach the magnificence and grandeur of the old
world. The new Treasury Buildings are unquestionably,
on the score of size, embellishments and finish, the American
edifice that comes nearest to first class architecture
on the other side of the Atlantic. The Capitol comes
next, though it can scarce be ranked, relatively, as high.
As for the White House, it is every way sufficient for its
purposes and the institutions; and now that its grounds are
finished, and the shrubbery and trees begin to tell, one
sees about it something that is not unworthy of its high
uses and origin. Those grounds, which so long lay a reproach
to the national taste and liberality, are now fast
becoming beautiful, are already exceedingly pretty, and
give to a structure that is destined to become historical,
having already associated with it the names of Jefferson,
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Madison, Jackson, and Quincy Adams, together with the
ci polloi of the later Presidents, an entourage that is suitable
to its past recollections and its present purposes.
They are not quite on a level with the parks of London,
it is true; or even with the Tuileries, or Luxembourg, or
the Boboli, or the Villa Reale, or fifty more grounds and
gardens, of a similar nature, that might be mentioned;
but, seen in the spring and early summer, they adorn the
building they surround, and lend to the whole neighbourhood
a character of high civilization, that no other place
in America can show, in precisely the same form, or to the
same extent.
This much have we said on the subject of the White
House and its precincts, because we took occasion, in a
former work, to berate the narrow-minded parsimony
which left the grounds of the White House in a condition
that was discreditable to the republic. How far our philippic
may have hastened the improvements which have
been made, is more than we shall pretend to say; but
having made the former strictures, we are happy to have an
occasion to say (though nearly twenty years have intervened
between the expressions of the two opinions) that
they are no longer merited.
And here we will add another word, and that on a subject
that is not sufficiently pressed on the attention of a
people, who, by position, are unavoidably provincial. We
invite those whose gorges rise at any stricture on anything
American, and who fancy it is enough to belong to the
great republic to be great in itself, to place themselves in
front of the State Department, as it now stands, and to
examine its dimensions, material and form with critical
eyes, then to look along the adjacent Treasury Buildings,
to fancy them completed, by a junction with new edifices
of a similar construction to contain the department of
state; next to fancy similar works completed for the two
opposite departments; after which, to compare the past
and present with the future as thus finished, and remember
how recent has been the partial improvement which
even now exists. If this examination and comparison do
not show, directly to the sense of sight, how much there
was and is to criticise, as put in contrast with other
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countries, we shall give up the individuals in question, as too
deeply dyed in the provincial wool ever to be whitened.
The present Trinity church, New York, certainly not more
than a third class European church, if as much, compared
with its village-like predecessor, may supply a practical
homily of the same degree of usefulness. There may be
those among us, however, who fancy it patriotism to maintain
that the old Treasury Buildings were quite equal
to the new, and of these intense Americans we cry their
mercy!
Rose felt keenly on reaching her late aunt's very neat
dwelling in Fourteenth Street, New York. But the manly
tenderness of Mulford was a great support to her, and a
little time brought her to think of that weak-minded, but
well-meaning and affectionate relative, with gentle regret,
rather than with grief. Among the connexions of her
young husband, she found several females of a class in life
certainly equal to her own, and somewhat superior to the
latter in education and habits. As for Harry, he very
gladly passed the season with his beautiful bride, though a
fine ship was laid down for him, by means of Rose's fortune,
now much increased by her aunt's death, and he was
absent in Europe when his son was born; an event that
occurred only two months since.
The Swash, and the shipment of gunpowder, were
thought of no more in the good town of Manhattan. This
great emporium—we beg pardon, this great commercial
emporium—has a trick of forgetting, condensing all interests
into those of the present moment. It is much addicted
to believing that which never had an existence, and
of overlooking that which is occurring directly under its
nose. So marked is this tendency to forgetfulness, we
should not be surprised to hear some of the Manhattanese
pretend that our legend is nothing but a fiction, and deny
the existence of the Molly, Captain Spike, and even of
Biddy Noon. But we know them too well to mind what
they say, and shall go on and finish our narrative in our
own way, just as if there were no such raven-throated commentators
at all.
Jack Tier, still known by that name, lives in the family
of Captain Mulford. She is fast losing the tan on her face
-- 217 --
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and hands, and every day is improving in appearance. She
now habitually wears her proper attire, and is dropping
gradually into the feelings and habits of her sex. She
never can become what she once was, any more than the
blackamoor can become white, or the leopard change his
spots; but she is no longer revolting. She has left off
chewing and smoking, having found a refuge in snuff.
Her hair is permitted to grow, and is already turned up
with a comb, though constantly concealed beneath a cap.
The heart of Jack, alone, seems unaltered. The strange,
tiger-like affection that she bore for Spike, during twenty
years of abandonment, has disappeared in regrets for his
end. It is succeeded by a most sincere attachment for
Rose, in which the little boy, since his appearance on the
scene, is becoming a large participator. This child Jack
is beginning to love intensely; and the doubloons, well invested,
placing her above the feeling of dependence, she is
likely to end her life, once so errant and disturbed, in tranquillity
and a home-like happiness.
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THE END.
