FullReads

The next morning a messenger arrived from the village, bearing a note from Mr. George, etc. Millinet, in which he attempted to excuse his behavior the preceding evening. Mary declined opening it, however, and contented herself with sending word by the bearer that the writer need not give himself any further trouble on her account, an answer that was sufficiently intelligible. But the old commander shouted after the messenger, “Tell that lubberly yoho [1] that if I catch him within a cable’s length of my house, I’ll break every d–d bone in his tailor-built body.”

This threat was duly reported to the crest-fallen vender of pins and bobbin, who settled his bills, and accomplished his escape, with as little parade and as much expedition as possible; a movement that excited full as much conversation as his first appearance and intimacy in Captain Bowline’s family; and while one party were confident that he had only gone to New York to make preparations for his marriage, and another were equally sure that Mary had, in nautical parlance, “given him his walking ticket,” the story of the accident and Mary Bowline’s narrow escape at the Devil’s Gap came out, with suitable additions and embellishments, and of course the whole affair wore a different face at once. Old Haddock, the fisherman, was seized upon one evening in a ship-chandlery and grocery store, that was the usual Rialto of the loungers in B—-, and rigorously cross-questioned. The man of hooks and lines hitched up his trowsers, and proceeded to enlighten his audience as follows:–

“Why you see that ‘are New York chap and Miss Mary took a stroll down Jade’s Walk as it might be about five o’clock in the arternoon, P. M. as the newspapers say. Well, they went down Squaw Beach, and so clean away out as fur as the pint; and when they was coming back, and got to the furder eend of the walk, the Yorker he kinder shinned up to her, and she didn’t like it, for I knowed all along she meant to have Captain Kelson. Well, one word brought on another, till finally he conducted himself in a very promiscuous manner, and she told him to go ‘long about his business, or she’d tell Captain Kelson of his doings. Well, that made him just about as mad as a hoe, and so when they come to the Devil’s Gap he kinder kicked away one eend of the bridge, and then turned to and hauled down that ‘ere scrub oak that growed clost to the bridge, so’s folk mought think ’twas done by accident; and so there the poor gal was left by herself till old Captain Bowline and I and my two boys and Captain Kelson, come there and rigged a kind of trumporary bridge like, and got her safe over, and that’s the whole consarnment of the matter as far as I know any thing on’t.”

This account of the affair, coming from an eye-witness, was considered authentic, being full as correct as the stories of eye-witnesses generally are. Mary at first attempted to contradict it, but finding her efforts fruitless, prudently determined to let the story die a natural death, which it soon did; a tremendous gale of wind and a shipwreck on the Whale’s Nose having in less than a week most effectually turned the current of conversation into another channel.

Mr. Millinet reached New York in safety, and solaced himself for his defeat in New England by attention to his pretty person, and his pretty customers, balls, assemblies, and billiards; in process of time made a fashionable failure, a fashionable marriage, and commenced business afresh. To the questions of his acquaintance respecting his excursion “down east,” he was shy and reserved; evading all questions on the subject by declaring that he had passed his time very pleasantly while he was in New England, but that the people had some very peculiar and odd notions of things. In process of time the story of his repulse reached New York with all its embellishments. Some of his friends were exceedingly shocked at the idea of his having made an attempt upon the life of a young lady, for such seemed the tenor of the story; but those who knew him best fully acquitted him of any thing of the kind, inasmuch as he had not courage sufficient to offer violence to a hen and chickens. A true version of the story soon after came out, and Mr. George Frederic was compelled to undergo the ridicule of all his acquaintance.

Mary Bowline became Mrs. Thomas Kelson on “Thanksgiving-day-night,” as the New England folks call it, on which joyful occasion the flagstaff was rigged “all a-tanto,” and the colors kept flying from eight o’clock in the morning till sunset; according to the regulations of the naval service, and were also hoisted the next day.

It was a leading article in Mary’s consent to the marriage, that her husband should give up going to sea, which he and her father contended did not include or contemplate his probably making a coasting “trip,” if business required, and Mary at last consented to admit the exception. The bridge at the Devil’s Gap was substantially repaired, and was often visited by Mary and her husband; and Jade’s Walk was long celebrated as a favorite evening stroll when the weather permitted, not only with young lovers, but even with “old married fudges,” as young ladies who are husband-hunting very politely call them.

[Footnote 1: Yoho, an animal, probably the ourang-outang, in whose existence sailors are firm believers, and of whose courage, intelligence, cunning, malicious and mischievous disposition, they tell wonderful stories. The word seems to be a corruption of Dean Swift’s “Yahoo.”]