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Updated: April 30, 2025
"Whatever temptations he has yielded to," said Mrs. Weguelin, "his filial piety has stood proof." "He refused," added Mrs. "That was hard!" I exclaimed. She totally misapplied my sympathy. "Oh, Anna Mayrant," she corrected herself, "John's mother, Mrs. Hector Mayrant, had harder things than forgetful sons to bear! I've not laid eyes on those boys since the funeral."
To me John Mayrant made no sign of any sort by word or in writing, and this is the highest proof he ever gave me of his own delicacy, and also of his reliance upon mine; for he must have been pretty sure that I had overheard those last destiny-deciding words spoken between himself and Hortense in the boat, as we reached the Hermana's gangway.
And with such mysterious machinery are we human beings filled machinery that is in motion all the while, whether we are aware of it or not that now, with some part of my mind, and with my pencil assisting, I composed several stanzas to my kingly ancestor, the goal of my fruitless search; and yet during the whole process of my metrical exercise I was really thinking and wondering about John Mayrant, his battles and his loves.
Upon his pointing to it, and before we had spoken or I had seen the name, I inquired eagerly: "Not the lieutenant of the Bon Homme Richard?" and then saw that Mayrant was not the name upon it. My knowledge of his gallant sea-fighting namesake visibly gratified him. "I wish it were," he said; "but I am descended from this man, too.
A few steps from our front door I came upon John Mayrant, and saw at once too plainly that no ease had come to his spirit during the hours since the bridge. He was just emerging from an adjacent house. "And have you resigned?" I asked him. "Yes. That's done. You haven't seen Miss Rieppe this morning?" "Why, she's surely not boarding with Mrs. Trevise?" "No; stopping here with her old friend, Mrs.
John Mayrant worked in the custom house, and Kings Port frowned upon this; not merely Kings Port in general which counted little with the boy, if indeed he noticed general opinion at all but the boy's particular Kings Port, his severe old aunts, and his cousins, and the pretty girl at the Exchange, and the men he played cards with, all these frowned upon it, too; yet even this condemnation one could disregard if some lofty personal principle, some pledge to one's own sacred honor, were at stake but here was no such thing: John Mayrant hated the position himself.
I followed where I imagined she had gone, out by a side door, into the beautiful graveyard; but among the flowers and monuments she was not, nor was he; and next I saw, through the iron gate, John Mayrant in the street, walking with his intimate aunt and her more severe sister, and Miss La Heu.
So full was I of my thoughts concerning John Mayrant, and the vicissitudes of his heart, and the Custom House, that I was moved to have words with the old man upon the general topic. "Well," I said, "and so Mr. John is going to be married." No attempt to start a chat ever failed more signally.
A wagging tail knocked on the floor behind the counter. "General says that he will think about it. What makes you like Mr. Mayrant so much?" This question struck me as an odd one; nor could I make out the import of the peculiar tone in which she put it. "Why, I should think everybody would like him except, perhaps, his double victim." "Double?" "Yes, first of his fist and then of of his hand!"
I left them all free again to say what they pleased; for John Mayrant called for me to go upon our walk while we were still seated at table, and at table they remained after I had excused myself. The bruise over John's left eye was fading out, but traces of his spiritual battle were deepening.
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