Vassall Morton Part 37

And leaving the hotel, he walked up the crowded sidewalk of Broadway, in a mood any thing but tranquil.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.--_Romeo and Juliet_.

He had not gone far, when he became aware of a footstep closely following him. He was about to look back, when a little man pa.s.sed before him, glancing furtively in his face with a ludicrous expression of doubt, amazement, and curiosity. Morton at once recognized the features of an odd, simple-minded cla.s.smate, named s.h.i.+ngles.

"Charley," he exclaimed, "how do you do?"

"It _is_ you," cried s.h.i.+ngles, with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of profound astonishment; "solid flesh and blood!"--grasping Morton's extended hand--"and not your ghost. Why, we all thought you were dead!"

"Not quite," said Morton.

"Dead and buried," repeated s.h.i.+ngles, "off in Transylvania, or some such place."

"I _was_ buried, but they buried me alive."

s.h.i.+ngles, who had a taste for the horrible, took the a.s.sertion literally, and dilated his eyes like an owl on the lookout for a mouse.

"But how did you manage to get out?"

"I contrived to break loose, after a few years."

s.h.i.+ngles stared in horror and perplexity.

"Don't be frightened, Charley. I'm all right,--neither ghost nor vampire. But we shall be pushed off the sidewalk, if we stand here."

"Come down into Florence's, then, and let me hear about it. Hang me if I ever expected to see you again. I shouldn't like to have met you alone, at night, any where near a graveyard. At our last cla.s.s meeting, we were all talking about you, and saying you were a deused good fellow, and what a pity it was. And here you are alive; it was all for nothing!"

"That's very unlucky," said Morton, as they descended into the restaurant.

"By Jove," exclaimed s.h.i.+ngles, whose amazement was still strong upon him, "I was never so much astonished in my life as when I saw you just now. I was coming out of a shop, as you pa.s.sed along the sidewalk. I felt as if I had seen a spirit. I followed behind you, and wasn't quite sure it was you, till I saw your trick of rapping your cane against the bricks as you walked along. Then I said to myself, it's he, or else old Beelzebub, in his likeness. But come, tell us how it was. How did you get off alive?"

Morton briefly recounted his imprisonment and escape, interrupted by the wondering e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of his auditor.

"Who would have thought," exclaimed s.h.i.+ngles, "when you and I used to go up to Elk Pond, on Sat.u.r.days, to catch perch and pickerel, that you would ever have been shut up in the dungeon of an Austrian castle? You remember those old times--don't you?"

"That I do," said Morton.

"Do you remember the old tavern, where we used to lunch, and the pretty girl that waited on the table?"

"The girl that you raved about all the way home? Yes, I remember."

"By Jove, to think you've been shut up in a dungeon! Well, I haven't any very brilliant account to give of _my_self. I began to practise law, but I was never meant for a lawyer; so I gave it up, and have been ever since at my father's old place, just pottering about, you know. I was born in the country, and brought up there, and I mean to live there, only now and then I come down to New York, on a bend,--just for a change."

"I suppose you can tell me the news. How are all the fellows? How is Meredith?"

"Very well, I believe. He is living in Boston."

"Married, or single?"

"Single. We are not much of a marrying cla.s.s. Wren was the first. Was that before you went away, or after? We voted to send him a cradle; but he did not know how to take it. He thought we were fooling him, and got quite angry. No, we are not at all a marrying cla.s.s, nor a dying cla.s.s either, for that matter. There are not more than five or six dead, and twelve or fourteen married; we reckoned them up last cla.s.s meeting."

"Vinal--what of him?"

"O, he's alive, and married, too."

Morton turned pale. "Married!--to whom?"

"Well, they say he's made a first-rate match. I don't know her myself.

I'm not a party-going man; I never was, you know. I haven't been thrown in much with that kind of people. But they tell me he couldn't have done better."

"What's her name?" demanded Morton.

"Miss Leslie--Colonel Leslie's daughter. But what's the matter? Are you ill?"

"It's nothing," gasped Morton; "I had a fever in prison, and have never been quite well since. I grow dizzy, sometimes."

"You _will_ grow dizzy, with a vengeance, if you drink wine in that way."

"It's nothing," repeated Morton; "it will be over in a minute. What were you saying?"

"About the fellows that have married,--O, Vinal,--I was saying that he had just got married."

"Well, what about it?"

"Why, nothing particular."

"When was it?"

"Last month."

"Within a month! Are you sure?"

"O, yes. I was in Boston myself at the time, and heard all about it.

Her father was ill; so the marriage was private. Vinal is a sort of fellow that somehow I never cottoned to much. I don't think he's very disinterested. I like a fellow that will swear when he is angry, and not keep close shut up, like an oyster."

The tattle of his rustic companion was become intolerable to Morton.

He had received his stab, and wished to hear no more. In a few minutes, he rose from the table. "Charley, I am sorry to leave you so suddenly, but I am not well. The fresh air and a hard walk are all that will set me up. I shall see you again."

"But where are you staying?"

"At Blancard's. Good morning, old fellow."