"Do you remember Buckland?" asked Rosny, as they walked up Broadway.
"The Virginian? Yes, perfectly."
"There he is."
Morton, following the direction of his companion's eye, saw, a little in advance, a tall man, slenderly but gracefully formed, walking slowly, with a listless air, as if but half conscious of what was going on around him. They checked their pace, to avoid overtaking him.
"Poor fellow!" said Rosny; "he's in a bad way."
"I am sorry to hear it. He was a lively, pleasant fellow when I knew him,—very fond of the society of ladies."
"That's all over now. He has been very dissipated for the last two or three years, and is broken down completely, body and mind. It's a great pity. I am very sorry for him," said Rosny, in whom, notwithstanding his restless ambition, there was a vein of warm and kindly feeling.
"Is he living in New York?"
"Yes, he has been here ever since leaving college. He began to practise as a lawyer. It's much he ever did or ever will do at the law! There was never any go-ahead in him—no energy, no decision—and he does nothing now, but read a little, and lounge about, in a moody, abstracted way, with his wits in the clouds. Get him into good company, and wind him up with a glass of brandy, and he is himself again for a while,—tells a story and sings a song as he used to do,—but it is soon over. Do you want to speak to him?"
"Yes."
"Come on, then. How are you, Buckland? Here's an old friend, redivivus."
Hearing himself thus accosted, Buckland turned towards the speaker a face which, though pale and sallow, was still handsome. His dress, contrary to his former habit, was careless and negligent; and, though he could not have been more than thirty, a few gray hairs had begun to mingle with his long, black moustache. Changed as he was, he had that air of quiet and graceful courtesy which can only be acquired by habitual intercourse with polished society in early life; and Morton saw in him the melancholy wreck of a highly-bred gentleman.
When the first surprise of the meeting was over, Rosny related the story of Morton's imprisonment to the wondering ear of Buckland. Having urgent business on his hands, he soon after took leave of his two companions. Morton and Buckland, after strolling for a time up and down Broadway, entered the restaurant attached to Blancard's hotel, and took a table in a remote corner of the room, which was nearly empty.
Buckland was, as Rosny had described him, moody and abstracted, often seeming at a loss to collect his thoughts. He sipped his chocolate in silence, and, even when spoken to, sometimes returned no answer. Morton, in little better spirits than his companion, sat leaning his forehead dejectedly on his hand.
"I am sorry," said Buckland, after one of his silent fits, "to be so wretched a companion; but I am not the man I used to be."
"We are but a melancholy pair," replied Morton.
"I saw from the first that you were very much out of spirits,—not at all what one would expect a man to be who had just escaped from sufferings like yours. There is some trouble on your mind."
Morton was fatigued and sick at heart. He had practised self-control till he was tired of it; and he allowed a shade of emotion to pass across his face.
"There is a woman in it," said Buckland, regarding him with a scrutinizing eye.
"Why do you say that?" demanded Morton, startled and dismayed at this home thrust.
"Are not women the source of nine tenths of our sufferings?" replied Buckland. "The world is a huge, clashing, jangling, disjointed piece of mechanism, and they are the authors of its worst disorder."
"Sometimes," said Morton, "men will blame women for sufferings which they might, with better justice, lay at their own doors."
Buckland raised his head quickly, and looked in his companion's face. "It may be so," he said, after a moment's pause. "Perhaps you are right,—perhaps you are right. But, let that be as it will, there are no miseries in life to match those which spring out of the relation of the sexes."
Morton, for reasons of his own, did not care to pursue the subject, and his companion relapsed into his former silence. After a time, they went into the smoking room, where Buckland lighted a cigar. Morton observed that, as he did so, his fingers trembled in a manner which showed that his whole nervous system was shattered and unstrung.
"I would not advise you to smoke much," said Morton; "you have not the constitution to bear it."
Buckland smiled bitterly. He had grown reckless whether he injured himself or not.
They seated themselves near the window; but Buckland soon grew uneasy, alternately looking at his watch and gazing into the street. At length he rose, and asked Morton to walk out with him. The latter, on the principle that misery loves company, readily complied; and they went down Broadway nearly to the Bowling Green. Here Buckland turned, and they retraced their steps to within a few squares of the Astor House. This they repeated several times, Morton's companion constantly resisting every movement on his part to vary in the least the course of their promenade. While their walk was up the street, Buckland, though evidently restless and uneasy, had the same abstracted air as before; but when they moved in the opposite direction, his whole manner changed, and he seemed anxiously on the watch, as if for some person whom he expected every moment to meet. It was about eight in the evening. The street was brilliant with gas; crowds of people, men and women, were moving along the sidewalk; and upon each group, as it approached, Buckland bent a gaze of eager scrutiny.
They were passing a large bookstore, when Morton felt his companion suddenly press the arm on which he was leaning. Hastily stepping aside, and dragging Morton with him, he ensconced himself behind the board on which the bookseller pasted his advertising placards, which partially concealed him, and, together with the projection over the shop door, screened him from the light of the neighboring gas lamp. Here he stood motionless, his eyes riveted on some approaching object. Following the direction of his gaze, Morton saw a tall man in the uniform of an army officer of rank, and, leaning on his arm, a light and delicate female figure, elegantly, but not showily dressed. They were close at hand when he discovered them, and in a moment they had passed on under the glare of the lamp, and mingled with the throng beyond; but Morton retained a vivid impression of features beautifully moulded, and a pair of restless dark eyes, roving from side to side with piercing, yet furtive glances.
Buckland, stepping from his retreat, made a hesitating, forward movement, as if undecided whether to follow them or not. He stopped with a kind of suppressed groan, and taking Morton's arm again, moved slowly with him down the street. Two or three times, Morton spoke to him, but he seemed not to hear, or, at best, answered in monosyllables, with an absent air. When they reached the hotel, then recently established on the European plan, near the Bowling Green, Buckland entered, called for brandy, and, his companion declining to join him, hastily drank the liquor with the same trembling hand which Morton had before remarked. On leaving the house, they continued their walk downward till they reached the Battery. And as they entered the shaded walks of that promenade, the moon was shining on the trees, and on the quiet waters of the adjacent bay.
"You must think very strangely of me," said Buckland, at length breaking his long silence; "in fact, I scarcely know myself. I am a changed man,—a lost and broken man, body and soul,—a sea-weed drifting helplessly on the water."
"You take too dark a view," said Morton, greatly moved; "there is good hope for you yet, if you will not fling it away."
Buckland shook his head. "I wish I had been born such a man as Rosny. He is a practical man of the world, always in pursuit of something, with nothing to excite or trouble him but the success or failure of his schemes. He cannot understand my feelings. Yes, I wish to Heaven I had been born a practical, hard-headed man,—such, for instance, as your cool, common sense Yankees. What do they know or care for the troubles that are wearing me away by inches?"
"Buckland," said Morton, "your nerves are very much weakened and disordered, and particular troubles weigh upon and engross you, as they could not if you were well. What you most need is a good physician."
"'Could he minister to a mind diseased?' Come, sit down here—on this bench. Perhaps you have never felt—I hope you have never had occasion to feel—impelled to relieve some torment pressing on your mind, by telling it to a friend. Genuine friends are rare. When one meets them, he knows them by instinct. I need not fear you; you will not laugh at me to yourself, and tell me, as some others do, that a man of force and energy would fling off an affair like mine, and not suffer it to weigh upon him like a nightmare."
"When you have recovered your health, perhaps I may tell you so; but not till then."
"I am like the Ancient Mariner," continued Buckland, with a faint smile; "when I find the man who must hear my story, I know him the moment I see his face. Your good sense will tell you that I have been a knave and a fool; but your good heart will prevent your showing me that you think so."
Morton looked with deep compassion on his old comrade, and wondered what follies or misfortunes could have sunk his former gallant spirit so far. In his weakened and depressed condition, Buckland seemed to lean for support on his friend's firmer and better governed nature, and to draw strength from the contact.
"After all," he said in a livelier tone, "what right have I to bore you with this story of mine?"
"Any thing that you are willing to tell," answered Morton, "I shall be glad to hear."