Even Captain Kidd's treasure, in those times so
actively sought for along the whole stretch of the New England
coast, conjured up a small brick building with "Jacob Raymond,
Banker" in gilt letters above the lintel of the door.
But there came a day when that door stayed locked and a hundred
white faces gathered about it, blocking the village street and
talking in whispers though the noonday sun was shining. Raymond's
bank was insolvent, and the banker himself, a fugitive in tarry
sea clothes, was hauling ropes on a vessel outward bound for
Callao. He might have stayed in Middleborough and braved it out,
for he had robbed no man and his personal honour was untarnished,
having succumbed without dishonesty to primitive methods and lack
of capital. But he chose instead the meaner course of flight. Of
all the reproachful faces he left behind him his wife's was the
one he felt himself the least able to confront; and thus,
abandoning everything, with hardly a dozen dollars in his pocket,
he slipped away to sea, never to be seen or heard of again.
Mrs. Raymond was a woman of forty-five, a New Englander to her
finger-tips, proud, arrogant, and fiercely honest; a woman who
never forgot, never forgave, and who practised her narrow
Christianity with the unrelentingness of an Indian. She lived up
to an austere standard herself, and woe betide those who fell one
whit behind her. She was one of those just persons who would have
cast the first stone at the dictates of conscience and with a sort
of holy joy in her own fitness to do so.
Pages:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106