thee had seen him when we took him this way first. Old Betsey yonder sells magnolia flowers in June, and also pond-lilies, which thee may know as reasonably pleasant things to thee or me; but of a sudden I find our friend Schmidt kneeling on the pavement with his head over a tub of these flowers, and every one around much amazed."
"Was it not seemly?" said Schmidt, joining us. "There are who like music, but to me what music is there like the great attunement of color? and mayhap no race can in this rise over our black artists hereabout the market-ends."
"Thee is crazed of many colors," said Wholesome laughing—"a bull of but one."
Schmidt stopped short in the crowd, to Wholesome's disgust. "What," said he, quite forgetful of the crowd, "is more cordial than color? This he recalleth was a woman black as night, with a red turban and a lapful of magnolias, and to one side red crabs in a basket, and to one side a tubful of lilies. Moss all about, I remember."
"Come along," said Wholesome. "The man is cracked, and in sunny weather the crack widens."
And so we went away down street to our several tasks, chatting and amused.
Those were most happy days for me, and I found at evening one of my greatest pleasures when Schmidt called for me after our early tea and we would stroll together down to the Delaware, where the great India ships lay at wharves covered with casks of madeira and boxes of tea and spices. Then we would put out in his little rowboat and pull away toward Jersey, and, after a plunge in the river at Cooper's Point, would lazily row back again while the spire of Christ Church grew dim against the fading sunset, and the lights would begin to show here and there in the long line of sombre houses. By this time we had grown to be sure friends, and a little help from me at a moment when I chanced to guess that he wanted money had made the bond yet stronger. So it came that he talked to me, though I was but a lad, with a curious freedom, which very soon opened to me a full knowledge of those with whom I lived.
One evening, when we had been drifting silently with the tide, he suddenly said aloud, "A lion in the fleece of the sheep."
"What?" said I, laughing.
"I was thinking of Wholesome," he replied. "But you do not know him. Yet he has that in his countenance which would betray a more cunning creature."
"How so?" I urged, being eager to know more of the man who wore the garb and tongue of Penn, and could swear roundly when moved.
"If it will amuse," said the German, "I will tell you what it befell me to hear to-day, being come into the parlor when Mistress White and Wholesome were in the garden, of themselves lonely."
"Do you mean," said I, "that you listened when they did not know of your being there?"
"And why not?" he replied. "It did interest me, and to them only good might come."
"But," said I, "it was not—"
"Well?" he added as I paused. "—'Was not honor,' you were going to say to me. And why not? I obey my nature, which is more curious than stocked with honor. I did listen."
"And what did you hear?" said I.
"Ah, hear!" he answered. "What better is the receiver than is the thief? Well, then, if you will share my stolen goods, you shall know, and I will tell you as I heard, my memory being good."
"But—" said I.
"Too late you stop me," he added: "you must hear now."
The scene which he went on to sketch was to me strange and curious, nor could I have thought he could give so perfect a rendering of the language, and even the accent, of the two speakers. It was a curious revelation of the man himself, and he seemed to enjoy his power, and yet to suffer in the telling, without perhaps being fully conscious of it. The oars dropped from his hands and fell in against the thwarts of the boat, and he clasped his knees and looked up as he talked, not regarding at all his single silent listener.
"When this is to be put upon the stage there shall be a garden and two personages."
"Also," said I, "a jealous listener behind the scenes."
"If you please," he said promptly, and plunged at once into the dialogue he had overheard:
"'Richard, thee may never again say the words which thee has said to me to-night. There is, thee knows, that between us which is builded up like as a wall to keep us the one from the other.'
"'But men and women change, and a wall crumbles, or thee knows it may be made to. Years have gone away, and the man who stole from thee thy promise may be dead, for all thee knows.'
"'Hush! thee makes me to see him, and though the dead rise not here, I am some way assured he is not yet dead, and may come and say to me, "'Cilla"—that is what he called me—"thee remembers the night and thy promise, and the lightning all around us, and who took thee to shore from the wrecked packet on the Bulkhead Bar." The life he saved I promised.'
"Well, and thee knows—By Heaven! you well enough know who tortured the life he gave—who robbed you—who grew to be a mean sot, and went away and left you; and to such you hold, with such keep faith, and wear out the sweetness of life waiting for him!'
"'Richard!'
"'Have I also not waited, and given up for thee a life, a career—little to give. I hope thee knows I feel that. Has thee no limit, Priscilla? Thee knows—God help me! how well you know—I love you. The world, the old world of war and venture, pulls at me always. Will not you find it worth while to put out a hand of help? Would it not be God taking your hand and putting it in mine?'
"'Thee knows I love thee.'
"'And if the devil sent him back to curse you anew—'
"'Shame, Richard! I would say, God, who layeth out for each his way, has pointed mine.'
"'And I?'
"'Thee would continue in goodness, loving me as a sister hardly tried.'
"'By God! I should go away to sea.'
"'Richard!'
"Which is the last word of this scene," added Schmidt. "You mayhap have about you punk and flint and steel."
I struck alight in silence, feeling moved by the story of the hurt hearts of these good people, and wondering at the man and his tale. Then I said, "Was that all?"
"Could you, if not a boy, ask me to say more of it? Light thy pipe and hold thy peace. Happy those who think not of women. I, who have for a hearth-side only the fire of an honest pipe—'Way there, my lad! pull us in and forget what a loose tongue and a soft summer night have given thee to hear from a silly old German who is grown weak of head and sore at soul. How the lights twinkle!"
Had I felt any doubt at all of the truth of his narration I should have ceased to do so when for the next few days I watched Mr. Wholesome, and saw him, while off his guard, looking at Mistress White askance with a certain wistful sadness, as of a great honest dog somehow hurt and stricken.
When an India ship came in, the great casks of madeira, southside, grape juice, bual and what not were rolled away into the deep cellars of the India houses on the wharves, and left to purge their vinous consciences of such perilous stuff as was shaken up from their depths during the long homeward voyage. Then, when a couple of months had gone by, it was a custom for the merchant to summon a few old gentlemen to a solemn tasting of the wines old and new. Of this, Mr. Wholesome
