He could not always warm up, now, with the old Hawkeye fervor. By and by his lips trembled and his voice got unsteady. He said:
"Don't give up the ship, my boy--don't do it. The wind's bound to fetch around and set in our favor. I know it."
And the prospect was so cheerful that he wept. Then he blew a trumpet- blast that started the meshes of his handkerchief, and said in almost his breezy old-time way:
"Lord bless us, this is all nonsense! Night doesn't last always; day has got to break some time or other. Every silver lining has a cloud behind it, as the poet says; and that remark has always cheered me; though-- I never could see any meaning to it. Everybody uses it, though, and everybody gets comfort out of it. I wish they would start something fresh. Come, now, let's cheer up; there's been as good fish in the sea as there are now. It shall never be said that Beriah Sellers-- Come in?"
It was the telegraph boy. The Colonel reached for the message and devoured its contents:
"I said it! Never give up the ship! The trial's, postponed till February, and we'll save the child yet. Bless my life, what lawyers they, have in New-York! Give them money to fight with; and the ghost of an excuse, and they: would manage to postpone anything in this world, unless it might be the millennium or something like that. Now for work again my boy. The trial will last to the middle of March, sure; Congress ends the fourth of March. Within three days of the end of the session they will be done putting through the preliminaries then they will be ready for national business: Our bill will go through in forty-eight hours, then, and we'll telegraph a million dollar's to the jury--to the lawyers, I mean--and the verdict of the jury will be 'Accidental murder resulting from justifiable insanity'--or something to, that effect, something to that effect.--Everything is dead sure, now. Come, what is the matter? What are you wilting down like that, for? You mustn't be a girl, you know."
"Oh, Colonel, I am become so used to troubles, so used to failures, disappointments, hard luck of all kinds, that a little good news breaks me right down. Everything has been so hopeless that now I can't stand good news at all. It is too good to be true, anyway. Don't you see how our bad luck has worked on me? My hair is getting gray, and many nights I don't sleep at all. I wish it was all over and we could rest. I wish we could lie, down and just forget everything, and let it all be just a dream that is done and can't come back to trouble us any more. I am so tired."
"Ah, poor child, don't talk like that-cheer up--there's daylight ahead. Don't give, up. You'll have Laura again, and--Louise, and your mother, and oceans and oceans of money--and then you can go away, ever so far away somewhere, if you want to, and forget all about this infernal place. And by George I'll go with you! I'll go with you--now there's my word on it. Cheer up. I'll run out and tell the friends the news."
And he wrung Washington's hand and was about to hurry away when his companion, in a burst of grateful admiration said:
"I think you are the best soul and the noblest I ever knew, Colonel Sellers! and if the people only knew you as I do, you would not be tagging around here a nameless man--you would be in Congress."
The gladness died out of the Colonel's face, and he laid his hand upon Washington's shoulder and said gravely:
"I have always been a friend of your family, Washington, and I think I have always tried to do right as between man and man, according to my lights. Now I don't think there has ever been anything in my conduct that should make you feel Justified in saying a thing like that."
He turned, then, and walked slowly out, leaving Washington abashed and somewhat bewildered. When Washington had presently got his thoughts into line again, he said to himself, "Why, honestly, I only meant to compliment him--indeed I would not have hurt him for the world."
CHAPTER LII.