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A Lost Lover
by
“Going far?” inquired Melissa concisely.
“Boston,” said the man. “I’m a little too old to travel afoot. Now, if I could go by water, it would seem nearer. I’m more used to the water. This is a royal good piece o’ beef. I suppose couldn’t put your hand on a mug of cider?” This was said humbly; but the tone failed to touch Melissa’s heart.
“No, I couldn’t,” said she decisively; so there was an end of that, and the conversation seemed to flag for a time.
Presently Melissa came to speak to Miss Dane, who had just come downstairs. “Could you stay in the kitchen a few minutes?” she whispered. “There’s an old creatur’ there that looks foreign. He came to the door for something to eat, and I gave it to him; but he’s miser’ble looking, and I don’t like to leave him alone. I’m just in the midst o’ dressing the chickens. He’ll be through pretty quick, according to the way he’s eating now.”
Miss Dane followed her without a word; and the man half rose, and said, “Good-morning, madam!” with unusual courtesy. And, when Melissa was out of hearing, he spoke again: “I suppose you haven’t any cider?” to which his hostess answered, “I couldn’t give you any this morning,” in a tone that left no room for argument. He looked as if he had had a great deal too much to drink already.
“How far do you call it from here to Boston?” he asked, and was told that it was eighty miles.
“I’m a slow traveller,” said he: “sailors don’t take much to walking.” Miss Dane asked him if he had been a sailor. “Nothing else,” replied the man, who seemed much inclined to talk. He had been eating like a hungry dog, as if he were half-starved,–a slouching, red-faced, untidy-looking old man, with some traces of former good looks still to be discovered in his face. “Nothing else. I ran away to sea when I was a boy, and I followed it until I got so old they wouldn’t ship me even for cook.” There was something in his being for once so comfortable–perhaps it was being with a lady like Miss Dane, who pitied him–that lifted his thoughts a little from their usual low level. “It’s drink that’s been the ruin of me,” said he. “I ought to have been somebody. I was nobody’s fool when I was young. I got to be mate of a first-rate ship, and there was some talk o’ my being captain before long. She was lost that voyage, and three of us were all that was saved; we got picked up by a Chinese junk. She had the plague aboard of her, and my mates died of it, and I was sick. It was a hell of a place to be in. When I got ashore I shipped on an old bark that pretended to be coming round the Cape, and she turned out to be a pirate. I just went to the dogs, and I’ve been from bad to worse ever since.”
“It’s never too late to mend,” said Melissa, who came into the kitchen just then for a string to tie the chickens.
“Lord help us, yes, it is!” said the sailor. “It’s easy for you to say that. I’m too old. I ain’t been master of this craft for a good while.” And he laughed at his melancholy joke.
“Don’t say that,” said Miss Dane.
“Well, now, what could an old wrack like me do to earn a living? and who’d want me if I could? You wouldn’t. I don’t know when I’ve been treated so decent as this before. I’m all broke down.” But his tone was no longer sincere; he had fallen back on his profession of beggar.
“Couldn’t you get into some asylum or–there’s the Sailors’ Snug Harbor, isn’t that for men like you? It seems such a pity for a man of your years to be homeless and a wanderer. Haven’t you any friends at all?” And here, suddenly, Miss Dane’s face altered, and she grew very white; something startled her. She looked as one might who saw a fearful ghost.