My Fire Opal, and Other Tales. Sarah Warner Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      It goes, without saying, that my zest for this meal was not slight; and the hunger of my guest, as may be inferred, was well-nigh as sharp as my own. The cat having obligingly dined and supped upon omelette and Lyonnaise potato, my corned beef was still intact; and, with some trifling additions, and that best of sauces – hunger – our meal proved delicious.

      Well, thought I, as I bestowed a second section of sponge cake, and a third cup of coffee, upon my hungry guest – truth is, undoubtedly, stranger than fiction! Could Alcibiades (dear man!) be told that, by scorning his kind advice, I had brought myself to so strange a pass as to be supping at midnight with an ex-convict, would he believe it? As for my dazed self, well could I have craved, with that historical old woman of abridged "petticoat," the decisive "bark" of my own "little dog" as assurance that "I was I."

      Our hunger appeased, Adam told me how he had come to find himself on that stormy night, on his way to Boston, penniless and shelterless. His sentence had, he said, expired three weeks ago; and, with his "freedom suit," and the regulation gratuity of five dollars from the Prison Aid Society, along with its immemorial offer of a ticket for the West, he had been duly discharged. Having a mind to re-establish himself in his native city – New York – he had declined emigrating to Idaho, but, finding himself somewhat the worse for five years of confinement, bad air, and poor diet, had resolved to recruit for a time, in mountain air, before seeking his city home.

      With the State gratuity, and nearly forty dollars of his own prison earnings in his purse, Adam had set forth on a frugal pedestrian tour. Having taken by the way a heavy cold, he had been obliged to lay by, for a whole fortnight, at a country tavern; and what with the board bill, the doctor's fee, and the charges for medicine, his slim purse had been soon drained. Recovered from his ailment, and renovated by the healing mountain air, he had found himself absolutely penniless, and had made thus far his homeward journey, in dependence on charity for food and shelter. Passing through B – Street to crave a night's lodging at the station-house, he had espied my light through the big knot-hole of the shed, and, on inspection, finding the place apparently unoccupied, weary and wet as he was, it had then seemed wise to accept the nearest possibility of shelter; and he had accordingly determined to attempt an entrance to this lighted outbuilding – little thinking, as he said, to find, in so rude a place, a lady whose person was held sacred by every man in the prison.

      And now, to make a long story short, Adam's recital ended, we dried his clothes, washed our supper dishes, "ridded up" the kitchen, and then took into consideration the question of ways and means. Before falling into temptation, Adam Beale had been a real estate broker, and though not, hitherto, an eminently successful one, he meant, if possible, to re-establish himself in the old business. This he thought might be done in the whirl of a great city, where identity is easily disguised, or even lost, and – and – and then – I may as well confess it at once – it all ended in my slipping off my diamond ring (one of my girlhood's treasures, and the only valuable bit of jewelry in my possession) and, after much persuasion, inducing Adam to accept it as a loan, and by putting it in pawn realize a sum that would again set him on his feet. "But, dear me!" exclaims the prudent reader, "was not this a most unsafe venture?" Yes, I suppose so; but then, most ventures are, more or less, unsafe. And, after all, what is a single diamond, or, indeed, a whole cluster of them, when weighed against the possibility of restoring a man to the safe path of rectitude, the saving of a soul?

      This risky transaction well over, Adam, by his own election, retired to pass the remainder of this strange night in the woodshed. I bestowed upon him a pillow and some warm comforters, and the cat politely kept him company, glad, no doubt, to escape from her dull imprisonment in the kitchen.

      As my convict would be afoot at early dawn, his adieus were made overnight. Once more in my own safe room, and blest with a regular bed, bolster, and pillow, I rested from the fatigue and excitement of the last ten hours, and, on consideration, felt that my mishap was all for the best. Though not downrightly distrustful of Adam, I still remembered that I had not, as the saying goes, "wintered and summered" the man. I may consequently be pardoned the uneasy consciousness that my belongings (to say nothing of myself) were a thought less safe than if lodged in the United States Bank; for had not my new friend, but two hours since, evinced that easy facility in breaking and entering, supposed to be inherent in the convict and the tramp? After an hour or two of uneasy slumber, it was an infinite relief to hear the "loud clarion" of an early cockerel, followed by an audible stir in the woodshed and a heavy footstep in the yard. Springing from my bed, I watched Adam's tall form as it passed evenly down the drive. Well outside our gate, he went directly down street, and soon disappeared from my view. After that, I slept the blessed sleep of the weary and content, though not until I had taken the precaution to bring from the shed the tell-tale pillow and comforter devoted to Adam's use.

      The sun was already four hours high, when Cicely's return awoke me. I scrambled down to let her in, and, ere long, was seated at the late breakfast which she briskly prepared for me. As I lingered luxuriously over my coffee, this valued Hibernian abruptly entered, with upraised hands, and hair on end, to inform me that "a nasty divil of a tramp, be the tokens, had slept the night in our woodshed. An' God save us, me'm," went on the excited creature, "wid yurself slapin aboove like an innocent babe, an' the master an' young jintlemen away, and meself takin' me ase at me cousin's! Praise be to God ye weren't killed intirely! Come out, if ye plase, me'm, this same minute, and see, wid your two eyes, where the crature slept." Regretting that I had thoughtlessly left palpable evidence of Adam's visit, I meekly followed Cicely into the shed.

      "Did you find the door unhooked, Cicely?" I inquired, aware that something must be said.

      "Unhooked, is it?" replied she, "indade an' it was thin! an' wide open! Holy Mary! but it's the narrow escape ye's had!"

      "Cicely," I said, decisively, "put these shavings back in the barrel. They will kindle as well as ever, and the sheets will come out, unharmed, from the wash. As for this fishy coat, when Dennis comes for the ashes, you may as well give it to him. There is some wear in it yet. And, upon the whole, Cicely, you had better say nothing of the tramp to Mr. Simpleton and the young gentlemen. It would only frighten them, and to no purpose, as it's now all past and gone."

      That afternoon, during my visit to the State Prison, I related to the warden so much of the above adventure as pertained to my transaction with Adam Beale. I found that he had been discharged as stated, and had declared his intention of recruiting while in the country, before returning to his home in New York, "but as for your diamond ring, my dear lady," said the astute official, "make up your mind that you have parted with it for good and all; for, as I know the convict, not one in a hundred could resist the temptation of retaining it."

      "Well," I said, resignedly, "let it go, then; life is replete with mishaps, and I have already survived many a disaster, far more heavy than the loss of a diamond."

      When my little family were again re-united, it was Alcibiades who first observed and commented on the continuous absence of my diamond ring from my left-hand middle finger.

      "Oh, my ring?" I said, lightly, "well, I am just leaving it off for a time. One does not care to appear eternally in diamonds, like a fat frau of a German Jew."

      Alcibiades, least inquisitive of mortals, thus easily put off, I resigned myself to the loss of my ring, confident that, at the worst, it had not (as "Mantalini" would have put it) quite "gone to the demnition bow-wows."

      More than six months had elapsed, when, one day, the expressman handed me a small package, addressed in a fine, clear hand, and marked "valuable —with care."

      Luckily, I was alone, and could, unquestioned, receipt for the parcel. It was, as I had suspected, my ring; and glad was I to receive it, but still more rejoiced to have found, unaided by the lantern of any Diogenes, an honest man!

      And now, my story might, with propriety, СКАЧАТЬ