Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
I'd go down at your feet and beg you to marry me. You're the wife for
a Yankee sailor, Polly Candage. If only there were two of you in this
world, we'd have a double wedding.”
He leaped up and started away.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and there was almost a wail in her
tones. “No, he does not understand girls well,” she told herself,
bitterly.
“I'm going down to Rowley's store to see if he will take his money back
and let us save interest. He told me I'd have to keep the money for a
year.”
She called to him falteringly, but with such appeal in her tones that he
halted and stared at her.
“Couldn't you--Isn't it just as well to let the matter rest
until--till--”
“Oh, there's no time like the present in money matters,” he declared,
with a laugh, wholly oblivious, not in the least understanding her
embarrassment, her piteous effort to bar her little temple of love's
sacrifice so that he could not trample in just then.
His laugh was a forced one. He realized that if he did not hurry away
from this girl he would be reaching out his arms to her, declaring the
love that surged in him, now that he had awakened to full consciousness
of that love; his Yankee reticence, his instinct of honor between men,
were fighting hard against his passion; he told himself that he would
not betray a man he did not know, nor proffer love to a girl who, so he
believed, loved another.
“May I not go with you?” she pleaded, restraining her wild impulse to
run ahead of him and warn the deacon.
“Of course!” he consented, and they walked down the street, neither
daring to speak.
They found Rowley alone in his store. He was puttering around, making
ready to close the place for the night.
As they entered, the girl stepped behind Mayo and, catching the deacon's
eye, made frantic gestures. In the half gloom those gestures were
decidedly incomprehensible; the deacon lowered his spectacles and stared
at her, trying to understand this wigwagging.
“I'd like to take up that loan and save the rest of the year's interest,
Deacon Rowley,” stated Mayo, with sailorly bluntness.
The girl was trying to convey to the deacon the fact that he must
not reveal her secret. She was shaking her head. This seemed to the
intermediary like direct and conclusive orders from the principal.
“No, sir, Captain Mayo! It can't be done.”
“I don't call that a square deal between men, no matter what straight
business may be.”
Polly now signaled eager assent, meaning to make the deacon understand
that he must take the money. But the deacon did not understand; he
thought the girl affirmed her desire for straight business.
“You took it for a year. No back tracks, captain.”
She shook her head, violently.
“No, sir! Keep it, as you agreed, and pay your interest.”
“Deacon Rowley, you're an old idiot!” blazed the girl.
When the deacon yanked off his spectacles, and Captain Mayo turned
amazed eyes to her, she put her hands to her face and ran out of the
store, sobbing. She was only a girl! She had no more resources left with
which to meet that situation in men's affairs.
Mayo's impulse was to follow, but the deacon checked him.
“I ain't going to be made a fool of no longer in this, even to make
three hundred dollars,” he rasped.
“A fool! What do you mean?”
“You go settle it with her.”
“What has Polly Candage got to do with this business?”
“It's her money.”
“You mean to say--”
“She drawed her money out of the bank, and horn-swoggled me into lying
for her. What won't a girl do when she's in love with a fellow? If you
'ain't knowed it before, it's high time you did know it!”
That last remark of the deacon's had disgusted reference only to the
matter of the money. But it conveyed something else to Captain Boyd
Mayo.
He ran out of the store!
Far up the road he overtook her. She was hurrying home. When she faced
him he saw tears on her cheeks, though the generous gloom of evening
wrapped them where they stood. He took both her hands.
“Polly Candage, why did you risk your money on me?” he demanded.
“I knew you would succeed!” she murmured, turning her face away. “It was
an--a good investment.”
“When you gave it, did you--Were you thinking--Was it only for an
investment, Polly?”
She did not reply.
“Look here! This last thing ought to tie my tongue, for I owe everything
to you. But my tongue won't stay tied--not now, Polly. I don't care if
there is somebody else up-country. I ought to care. I ought to respect
your--”
She pulled a hand free and put plump fingers on his lips. “There is
nobody up-country; there never has been anybody, Boyd,” she whispered.
He took her in his arms, and kissed her, and held her close.
“Will you tell me one thing, now? I know the answer, sweetheart mine,
but I want to hear you say it. Why did you give me all your money?”
She put her palms against his cheeks and spoke the words his soul was
hungry for:
“Because I love you!”
THE END