Three millions! or, The way of the world
would like to know my principles before you give me your suffrage.”
“Probably you will have none by that time.”
“I certainly shall, if, when I reach that bad eminence, I can make up
my mind beforehand which is to be the winning side. Do you take me for
a politician?”
“I hope you won’t quarrel in the beginning,” interposed Eugene.
“I hope not; but I forgot I had a letter for you, Eugene,” said Julia,
as she handed him a large envelope, post-marked Baltimore.
“Excuse me, Dick,” said he, as he opened the package.
It contained, among other papers, a draft for fifty thousand dollars,
forwarded by the eminent merchants, trustees under John Hungerford’s
will. It was the income which had accrued before and since the death of
the _millionnaire_ There were two other drafts for the legacies due
Mrs. Hungerford and Julia.
“Fifty thousand dollars! That is more money than I ever saw,” exclaimed
Eugene.
“May Heaven be kind to you!” added Dick.
“After tea, you will tell me what to do with it, Dick.”
“I shrink from the task.”
Just before sunset the young men strolled over Pine Hill. Eugene
pointed out the spot on which he purposed to build his mansion. Dick
approved it, and an aquatic excursion for the next day was planned
before they returned.
CHAPTER IV.
OFF THE GREAT BELL.
We should delight to linger with our readers around the pleasant and
happy home of the Hungerfords; but scenes more exciting than the quiet
of domestic life lie before us, and we must hasten to them. After
breakfast Eugene and Dick, on their way to the boat, stopped at the
Poppleton Bank, in the Port, to leave the drafts, which were payable
in Boston, for collection. Eugene did the President, who happened to
be there, the honor to inform him that he should make the bank the
place of deposit for his funds, and desired the fifty thousand dollars
to be placed to his credit. This was his first actual transaction as
a moneyed man, and what had before seemed to be a vision was now an
undoubted reality.
His income was fifteen thousand dollars a month, or five hundred
dollars a day, and he began to be conscious of the painful necessity
of spending some of it before the Poppleton Bank should be overwhelmed
by the surplus. At present he was going out in his boat, and could not
afford the time to consider the matter in detail; but he hoped, before
many weeks elapsed, to make his money fly with tolerable rapidity. He
had schemes enough in his head, but only time and thought could reduce
them to practice.
“Upon my soul, Hungerford, I am afraid of you,” said Dick, as they left
the bank.
“What do you mean?”
“Why, all this money! My dear fellow, you are almost as badly off as
John Jacob Astor and Stephen Girard were!”
“Stop till we get into the boat before you begin. Let me tell you what
I am going to do.”
They reached the wharf at the foot of the main street, where the boat
was moored. As we are not writing a nautical romance, we will not
trouble the reader with a description of the boat, though she was a
fine little craft. Both Eugene and Richard were somewhat “salt” in
their tendencies, and were familiar with the science of boating. The
breeze was fresh, and after running by the point of The Little Bell,
the boat went “wing and wing” down the river.
“Now, Hungerford, what are you going to do?” asked Dick, as he settled
himself back in a comfortable position on the cushioned seat in the
standing-room.
“My ideas are rather crude, so far,” replied Eugene.
“You are going to get married, in the first place, or you are sure to
lose the three millions,” added Dick, to whom all the provisions of
John Hungerford’s will had been detailed on the preceding evening.
“Perhaps not, Dick; I don’t know yet;” and Eugene thought of Mary
Kingman.
“You don’t know!”
“I do not.”
“Come, come, Hungerford; don’t play off in that manner with me. Of
course you intend to marry as soon as the thing can be decently done.”
“I don’t intend any such thing. I shall take my own time, and do
exactly the same that I should have done if John Hungerford had died
without making a will.”
“Are you going to be mulish?”
“By no means. Marriage, in my estimation, is a very serious thing,
and I will not be driven into it, or driven out of it, by any purely
selfish considerations.”
“Certainly not.”
“Three million dollars will not induce me to trade myself off, like
a swine in the market, to any living woman and three millions shall
not induce me to purchase even the most fascinating creature that ever
daintily trod this footstool.”
“I understand that; but you are giving your uncle’s will a very narrow
and bigoted interpretation. The terms are liberal; you have four or
five years given you to become a Benedick; and you are not hampered by
any conditions in regard to the lady. Don’t attempt to make a martyr of
yourself.”
“I have no such thought.”
“But you have a little vein of obstinacy in your nature, which prompts
you to go against your own interest. I don’t mean your pecuniary
interest, but your moral, social, and domestic welfare. Hungerford, if
an angel of light should suddenly appear before you, and declare that
you might go to heaven by reading the fifth chapter of Matthew every
morning during the rest of your lifetime, I think you would be content
to stay out of heaven rather than comply with the conditions.”
“I certainly should?”
“You should?”
“Certainly.”
“Because you would deem it your duty to be on the off side.”
“No; if an angel made such a declaration as that to me, I should
set him down as a humbug, for I do not believe that heaven is to be
purchased by compliance with a form; if it were, it would not be worth
having. I believe in heaven, and I hope to reach it when I die. Your
simile suits my argument better than it does your own. I shall endeavor
to live a true and good life, not as the price which I am to pay for
heaven, but because it is right that I should so live--because God
requires such a life of me. My prayer shall not be the weary, toilsome,
distasteful struggle of a doubting spirit, of which heaven is the
guerdon, but my heart-breathing to Him who made me, who loves me, and
to whom I am always grateful for his mercies. When I read the fifth
chapter of Matthew--which I shall often do, I hope--it will be because
the Saviour speaks there to my soul, and I love to hear his words.”
“Upon my word, Hungerford, you will be a parson yet.”
“No; but with all the means which God has placed in my hands, I hope to
be a minister of the gospel in my own way to the poor and needy ones of
earth.”
“Then you intend to set up as a philanthropist,” laughed Dick.
“I certainly do not intend to ‘set up’ as such; but you have run away
from the question. When I marry--if I do marry--it shall be as I go
into heaven--if I do go there; not by purchase, not by barter, trade,
or compromise. If it suits me to wed, I shall so do; if it does not
suit me to do so, I shall not. I only mean to say that, in a matter so
serious and solemn, I shall do precisely the same as though my uncle
had sunk his three millions in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Is that
obstinacy?”
“I think it is.”
“You don’t mean it, Dick.”
“I do.”
Dick bent down in the bottom of the boat, and lighted a cigar. It was
plain that he had something to say.
“Would you be bought into matrimony?” demanded Eugene, a little excited.
“Have a cigar, Hungerford?”
“No; thank you.”
“I would not be bought into matrimony. That is not the question. If
your uncle had not left you a single sou, you would, in the ordinary
course of events, have fallen in love, and would have married. Now,
because two and a half millions depend primarily upon your doing so,
you have set your teeth against it. I’m ashamed of you, Hungerford.”
“If you don’t argue a legal case better than you do a matrimonial one,
you will never succeed as a lawyer. You are all wrong, Dick.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. I haven’t said I should not marry.”
“What you have said amounts about to that.”
“I have only said that I would not be dragooned into marriage.”
“But you mean to be obstinate; you mean to be on the off side.”
“I do not; I only mean not to be influenced in the slightest degree by
this price which has been set upon my marriage. Things shall take their
natural course.”
“Hungerford, if you see a pretty girl, with all wifely qualifications,
you will think of what you call the ‘price,’ and give her the cold
shoulder.”
“No; and I have already seen the one whom you describe,” said Eugene,
glancing behind him at the wake of the boat, because he did not wish to
have his looks scrutinized, as he made this important declaration.
“Is it possible?”
“It is a fact, told in confidence, of course.”
“To be sure; but I am afraid you will give her the cold shoulder.”
“No.”
“The thought of the ‘price’ will make you a slow wooer. You will be so
fearful of selling yourself, as you call it, that you will be distant
and reserved, and permit the bird to fly away from you in disgust. You
will think she is going to smile upon you for your money, or you will
take so much time in satisfying yourself it is not so, that she will
grow cold towards you. The three millions will be like the turtle that
swallowed its own head.”
“The matter must take its natural course.”
“You will not let it take its natural course. You cannot help being
influenced by the ‘price.’ Be a little more selfish, and you will be
more just to yourself and to the lady. By the way, who is she?”
Eugene pointed to the old worn-out farm-house, on The Great Bell, and
told him all he knew of Mary Kingman, which was more than the reader
yet knows.
“Now, Hungerford, I must do you the justice to say that I was wrong in
my estimate of your position,” continued Dick Birch, when the story
was told. “I think you don’t mean to avoid marriage on account of that
condition in your uncle’s will.”
“I do not.”
“But I fear that you will be so cramped by it, that the fair lady of
your castle on the isle may die an old maid for all you will do to save
her. Mind, I don’t say you will be so cramped and influenced; I only
say, I fear it--fear it; that’s all.”
“I hope not.”
“There is not a particle of danger that you will do anything from
mercenary motives; but you must study to avoid the other extreme--that
of cheating yourself out of a loving, beautiful, and accomplished wife,
from the very fear of taking her at a price. But, Hungerford, you
haven’t told me what you are going to do with your money, though you
have hinted that you intend to be a universal philanthropist.”
“I distinctly said that I had no intention of ‘setting up’ as a
philanthropist. Your knight errant of philanthropy is just as
ridiculous to me as the veritable hero of Salamanca. There are as many
Don Quixotes among the reformers of the age, as in any other class.”
“Good!”
“By a most astounding turn of events, I find myself in possession of an
enormous income. I shall be worth at least a million when I am thirty,
and possibly three millions.”
“Probably,” laughed Dick.
“Well, probably, then; but it will only increase my responsibility. I
don’t want to prate about even what I sincerely feel, but, in view of
this immense wealth, I regard myself as the almoner of God’s bounty. I
say this to you in the privacy of our friendship, Dick; I shouldn’t be
willing to tell it, or to have it told, in town meeting, or even in the
church. You understand me, Dick.”
“I do, my dear fellow;” and the idea was so lofty and grand, that Dick
could not help casting a glance of admiration at his friend.
“It is no affectation for me to say to you that I value this money only
for the good it will do to me and to others.”