Put Yourself in His Place [219]
this contract should be signed he should come home and claim Mr. Carden's promise. He complained a little that he got no letters, but concluded the post-office authorities were in fault, for he had written to New York to have them forwarded. However, he soon should be in that city and revel in them.
This troubled Coventry, and drove him to extremities. He went on his knees to Grace, and implored her to name the day.
She drew back with horror and repugnance; said, with a burst of tears, she was a widow, and would not marry till a decent time had elapsed since--; then, with sudden doggedness, "I will never marry at all."
And so she left him to repent his precipitation.
He was at his wits' end, and could do nothing but look unhappy, and temporize, and hope the wind might change.
The wind did not change, and he passed a week or two of outward sorrow, but inward rage.
He fell ill, and Mr. Carden pitied him openly.
Grace maintained a sullen silence.
One day, as he was in bed, an envelope was brought him, with a large "L." He opened it slowly, fearing the worst.
The letter was full of love, and joy, and triumph that made the reader's heart faint within him till he came to this sentence:
"The gentleman who treats with me for the railway clip makes it an express stipulation that I shall spend a month in his works at Chicago, superintending the forging and perfecting of the clip. As he intends to be there himself, and to buy it out-and-out if it answers his expectations, I shall certainly go, and wear a smith's apron once more for your sake. He is even half inclined to go into another of my projects--the forging of large axes by machinery. It was tried at Hillsborough two years ago, but the Union sent a bullet through the manufacturer's hat, and he dropped it."
The letter from which I give this extract was a reprieve. He had five or six weeks before him still.
Soon after this, his faithful ally, Mr. Carden, worked on Grace's pity; and as Coventry never complained, nor irritated her in any way, she softened to him. Then all the battery of imploring looks was brought to bear on her by Coventry, and of kind admonition and entreaty by her father; and so, between them, they gently thrust her down the slope.
"Stop all their tongues," said Mr. Carden. "Come back to Hillsborough a wife. I gave up my choice to yours once. Now give me my way. I am touched to the heart by this young man's devotion: he invites me to live with him when you are married. What other young fellow would show me so much mercy?"
"Does he?" said Grace. "I will try and reward him for that, and for speaking well of one who could not defend himself. But give me a little time."
Mr. Carden conveyed this to Coventry with delight, and told him he should only have another month or so to wait. Coventry received this at first with unmixed exultation, but by-and-by he began to feel superstitious. Matters were now drawing to such a point that Little might very well arrive before the wedding-day, and just before it. Perhaps Heaven had that punishment in store for him; the cup was to be in his very grasp, and then struck out of it.
Only a question of time! But what is every race? The space between winner and loser strikes the senses more obviously; but the race is just as much a question of time as of space. Buridan runs second for the Derby, defeated by a length. But give Buridan a start of one second, and he shall beat the winner--by two lengths.
Little now wrote from Chicago that every thing was going on favorably, and he believed it would end in a sale of the patent clip in the United States and Canada for fifty thousand dollars, but no royalty.
This letter was much shorter than any of the others; and, from that alone, his guilty reader could see that the writer intended to follow it in person almost immediately.
Coventry began almost to watch the sun in his course. When it was morning he wished it was evening, and when it was evening he wished it was morning.
Sometimes he half wondered to see
This troubled Coventry, and drove him to extremities. He went on his knees to Grace, and implored her to name the day.
She drew back with horror and repugnance; said, with a burst of tears, she was a widow, and would not marry till a decent time had elapsed since--; then, with sudden doggedness, "I will never marry at all."
And so she left him to repent his precipitation.
He was at his wits' end, and could do nothing but look unhappy, and temporize, and hope the wind might change.
The wind did not change, and he passed a week or two of outward sorrow, but inward rage.
He fell ill, and Mr. Carden pitied him openly.
Grace maintained a sullen silence.
One day, as he was in bed, an envelope was brought him, with a large "L." He opened it slowly, fearing the worst.
The letter was full of love, and joy, and triumph that made the reader's heart faint within him till he came to this sentence:
"The gentleman who treats with me for the railway clip makes it an express stipulation that I shall spend a month in his works at Chicago, superintending the forging and perfecting of the clip. As he intends to be there himself, and to buy it out-and-out if it answers his expectations, I shall certainly go, and wear a smith's apron once more for your sake. He is even half inclined to go into another of my projects--the forging of large axes by machinery. It was tried at Hillsborough two years ago, but the Union sent a bullet through the manufacturer's hat, and he dropped it."
The letter from which I give this extract was a reprieve. He had five or six weeks before him still.
Soon after this, his faithful ally, Mr. Carden, worked on Grace's pity; and as Coventry never complained, nor irritated her in any way, she softened to him. Then all the battery of imploring looks was brought to bear on her by Coventry, and of kind admonition and entreaty by her father; and so, between them, they gently thrust her down the slope.
"Stop all their tongues," said Mr. Carden. "Come back to Hillsborough a wife. I gave up my choice to yours once. Now give me my way. I am touched to the heart by this young man's devotion: he invites me to live with him when you are married. What other young fellow would show me so much mercy?"
"Does he?" said Grace. "I will try and reward him for that, and for speaking well of one who could not defend himself. But give me a little time."
Mr. Carden conveyed this to Coventry with delight, and told him he should only have another month or so to wait. Coventry received this at first with unmixed exultation, but by-and-by he began to feel superstitious. Matters were now drawing to such a point that Little might very well arrive before the wedding-day, and just before it. Perhaps Heaven had that punishment in store for him; the cup was to be in his very grasp, and then struck out of it.
Only a question of time! But what is every race? The space between winner and loser strikes the senses more obviously; but the race is just as much a question of time as of space. Buridan runs second for the Derby, defeated by a length. But give Buridan a start of one second, and he shall beat the winner--by two lengths.
Little now wrote from Chicago that every thing was going on favorably, and he believed it would end in a sale of the patent clip in the United States and Canada for fifty thousand dollars, but no royalty.
This letter was much shorter than any of the others; and, from that alone, his guilty reader could see that the writer intended to follow it in person almost immediately.
Coventry began almost to watch the sun in his course. When it was morning he wished it was evening, and when it was evening he wished it was morning.
Sometimes he half wondered to see