Graham's Magazine, Vol XXXIII, No. 6, December 1848

Upon his son all the hopes of Captain Sydney were centered. It was his earnest wish to see him happily married, and determined to express the desire to Harry, he one day sought his side for that purpose. Both to his surprise and approval, the latter informed his father that he had already met one to whom his heart's warmest affections were given. He added that the young lady, though poor and dependent upon her own exertions for her support, and that of an invalid father, was the descendant of a family said to be highly respectable. "Her grandfather," he continued, "was Robert Lindsay, a well-known merchant of Boston; and though his son, Alfred, has dissipated the patrimony left him by his parent, and now relies solely for maintenance upon the proceeds of his daughter's needle, I am sure, my dear father, this praiseworthy effort, on the part of one so young and lovely as Ida, will but elevate her in your estimation?"

"Robert Lindsay! Alfred Lindsay!" were the exclamations of Captain Sydney, in a voice full of passion, as those well-remembered names fell upon his ear for the first time in many years; "boy – did you say that Alfred Lindsay was her parent? Then be assured that never, while life lasts, will I give my consent to your marriage with the daughter of him who was the enemy of my unprotected youth!"

"Father – what mean you?" asked Harry, in tones of amazement, for the tale whose memory had so sudden an effect upon his companion, had never been breathed to him. And suddenly recalled to a sense of his son's ignorance upon the subject, Captain Sydney now hurriedly sketched the history of the past.

"It is very strange," said Harry, musingly; "but they never mentioned that they were related to me. It is probable that Ida's father, if aware of the fact, concealed it from her knowledge."

"Or rather that he instigated her to keep it a secret, that in the end she might reap the benefit of his injured cousin's wealth," was the rejoinder.

"Oh, no, father!" replied the young man, warmly. "I could not wrong Ida by a suspicion of that kind. She is too good and pure-hearted to countenance deception, and," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "I cannot give her up and wreck both her own happiness and mine, for the sake of her parent's faults."

These words aroused Captain Sydney's indignation. He accused his son of want of spirit in refusing to resent the occurrences that clouded his youth; and when Harry responded that he felt them deeply, but could not on their account brand himself with dishonor, by breaking the troth already plighted to Ida Lindsay, his father parted from him in anger, declaring that if his son married Ida, he might never expect his blessing.

The thought of uniting his son by indissoluble ties to the child of his early foe, was, indeed, repugnant to the heart of Captain Sydney; and while he remembered his resolve uttered on the night when he went forth from his uncle's roof a desolate, friendless and dishonored being – dishonored through the machinations of his cousin Alfred – he was determined that it should be fulfilled, even though in so doing he thwarted the earnest wishes of the one dearest to him.

A few days afterward Captain Sydney departed upon one of his accustomed voyages, and was absent several months. On his return he found his son just recovering from a lingering fever, brought on, as the physician averred, by distress of mind. He looked very pale and thin, and his father could scarcely help feeling a sensation akin to reproach, as he gazed upon that colorless cheek and wasted form. He knew that this indisposition was occasioned by the manner in which he had treated his son's engagement, for, through the medium of a friend, he had learned that Ida Lindsay had nobly refused longer to encourage attentions, which, as she learned from Harry, were tendered in opposition to his father's desires. Alfred Lindsay, too, had died a few weeks before, and the object of his resentment being no more, Captain Sydney began to feel less reluctant to the match which he had at first looked upon with such violent disapprobation. Conscience told him he had acted cruelly in thus casting a blight over his child's sweetest hopes, and he was determined that he would now do all in his power to further them. And when Harry grew strong enough to bear a conversation upon the subject, he communicated the change in his feelings. Both startled and appalled was he at his son's reply.

"My father, would you mock me with this show of kindness, when it is too late to profit by it? Know you not that she is now dying of consumption? I was sure that she was too delicate to endure the steady occupation necessary for her support – and my presentiment has been verified. Yes, Ida Lindsay is dying! I would have saved her – I would have borne her to a more genial clime, where she might, perhaps, have revived; but she refused to give me a right to be her guardian, for it was against the will of my parent, without whose sanction, she said, our union would never prosper."

He bowed his face, while for an instant his frame shook with emotion. Hastily his father drew nearer to him, but he turned shudderingly from those words of penitence and self-reproach, and dashing aside the extended hand, rushed from the apartment.

It was, indeed, too true – Ida Lindsay was dying! The constant confinement called for by her continued exertions to obtain a livelihood, had proved too much for a constitution by no means strong – and it was his anxiety for her failing health which had caused the illness of Harry Sydney. Oh! what would not the erring father have given for power to recall the past; but it was too late – too late! A few hours after the interview with his son the intelligence of Ida's death was received, and during the whole of the succeeding evening Captain Sydney could plainly distinguish the sound of Harry's footsteps as he wildly paced his chamber, and each echo sent a thrill of remorse to his soul. Little did the repentant and sorrowing parent then think it was the last time that footfall would ever resound in his dwelling – for that night Harry Sydney departed from his home, leaving no trace of his destination. Days, weeks, months passed on, and the heart of his father grew dark with the anguish of despair, for he felt most surely that he should behold his son no more. Whither the latter had gone was a mystery he tried in vain to solve, though sometimes he remembered Harry's predilection for a mariner's life, and blighted as he had been in his affections, might he not now have followed the yearnings of former times, as the only means of gaining oblivion of his sorrows? So, night after night, Captain Sydney sat alone at his deserted hearth – a father, and yet childless, with a host of dark recollections pressing heavily upon his spirit. And at last he sought forgetfulness of his errors in the sparkling wine-cup, whose draught he drained with an intense eagerness, for it enabled him to mock at his misery.