He was already sick to death of war. But the fight was not yet over. He heard footsteps on the ladder behind him, and turned just in time to escape a sweeping sword stroke. Next instant he was locked in a deadly struggle with the captain of theNevski, a brave man, who, it seems, had refused to surrender, and had cut his way through all Sievers's men in the desperate resolve to retrieve the consequences of his own carelessness. Maclean, however, was a practised wrestler, and although lean almost as a lath, the muscles he possessed were as strong as steel bands. Even as they fell he writhed uppermost, and baffling with an active elbow the captain's last effort to transfix him, he dashed his adversary's head upon the boards. A second later he arose, breathless, but quite uninjured.
Sievers was calling to him: "Maclean! Maclean! I say!"
"Hallo, there!" he gasped back, hoarsely.
"Look out for the captain. He escaped us!"
"I've got him!" croaked Maclean, with a grim glance at his unconscious foe. "How about the rest?"
"All sigarnio! What shall I do?"
"Drive them forward to the foc'sle."
Sievers obeyed, and very soon five splendidly upholstered, but shamefaced-looking gentlemen, three stewards, and four sailors were standing underneath the beacon light before the forecastle companion. Maclean noted that already many of theSaigon'smen carried swords and carbines. He watched the rest arm themselves with theNevskisailors' discarded weapons as they marched their prisoners along the deck. His breast began to swell with pride.
"Any casualties?" he demanded.
"Two of ours have crossed over," replied Sievers, "and some of us are hurt a bit. But we can't grumble. There are four Russian corpses aft, and I see you've bagged seven."
"Damned pirates!" commented Maclean. "I've a mind to shoot the rest of them out of hand."
"Just give the word, sir."
"No," said Maclean, "we'll maroon them instead. Lower away all the boats but one, Sievers, and bring them under the bows. I can look after these dogs!"
"Ay, ay, sir. But first three cheers for Captain Maclean, lads!"
The cheers were given with hearty good-will, and then the men tramped off to carry out their new task.
Maclean, whose face was still flushed from the compliment that had been paid him, leaned over the machine-gun and surveyed the prisoners.
"Can any of you pirate scum speak English?" he demanded truculently.
"I have that privilege, sir," replied a swart-faced lieutenant.
"Then kindly inform your friends that at the first sign of any monkey trick I'll send you all to kingdom come."
The officer complied presumably with this command, and when he had finished, addressed Maclean:
"You cannot intend to maroon us, sir?" he cried. "The island yonder is totally uninhabited."
"You're a liar!" retorted Maclean. "Fires don't light themselves. Look yonder."
The officer choked back an oath. "Have a care what you are doing, sir," he muttered in a strangled voice. "This will lead to a war between your country and mine."
"I guess not—not even if I hanged the lot of you—you dirty pirates. But if it did, what then?"
"You should see, sir."
"And so would you—see that Englishmen can fight a durned sight better than the Japs. I guess you know howtheyfight by this."
"I have always heard that the English are generous foes, sir——"
"None of your blarney," interrupted Maclean. "Short shrift to pirates, is an English motto. You sank our ship: we take yours. Fair exchange is no robbery. You should be thankful to get off with your skins."
"At least permit us to take with us our personal belongings."
"Not a match."
"Some provisions?"
"Not a biscuit."
"Some arms, then, to defend ourselves against the natives, if we are attacked?"
"Not a penknife."
"Sir, you condemn us to death!"
"Sir, we have but forestalled your intention in regard to us!"
"As God hears me, sir——"
"Shut up!" cried Maclean, "your voice hurts my ears."
Nevertheless, when all was ready, Maclean commanded Sievers to stock the boats with water and provisions, and to throw some fifty swords and bayonets aboard. Then began the debarkation. Using the officer who could speak English as his mouthpiece, Maclean commanded the crew of theNevskito file out one by one from the forecastle, and slide down a rope over the vessel's bows into the waiting boats. They numbered one hundred and thirty-three all told, but not a man offered to resist, and within an hour the last boat had sheered off, carrying with its hale company the still unconscious bodies of the Russian captain and the officer of the watch. Maclean's next business was to bury the dead, which done, he searched the ship. He made two discoveries: He found in the captain's cabin a chest containing no less than fifteen thousand golden rubles; and locked away in one of the disused bathrooms astern, inhumanly disposed of in a tub, the silent form of Captain Brandon. But the tough little bulldog of an Englishman was by no means dead, and when some three days later the ghost of what had been theNevskisteamed out of the bay of Tramoieu, he was already so far recovered from the terrible blow that had laid him low, but which had, nevertheless, failed to shatter his hard skull, as to be engaged in a confused but constant effort to remember. On the following morning he insisted upon getting up, and was helped afterward by a steward to the bridge.
Maclean greeted him with a genial smile.
"Well done, sir," he cried heartily. "Glad to see you up again and looking so fit. The oldSaigonhas been as dull as a coffin-ship without you."
Captain Brandon nodded, frowned, and glanced around him. A carpenter close by was busily at work paintingS.S. Saigonupon a row of virgin-white life buoys. The captain wondered and glanced up at the masts. They were just ordinary masts in the sense that they had no fighting tops, but they gleamed with wet paint. He frowned again, and, wondering more and more, looked forward. There was not the slightest trace of a cannon to be seen—but the deck in one place had a canvas covering. He began to crack his fingers, his old habit, but a moment later he abruptly turned and faced the mate.
"Maclean," said he.
The eyes of the two men met.
"This is not theSaigon, Maclean," said Captain Brandon.
"You'll see it in iron letters on her bows, sir, if you look."
"Come into the chart-room."
Maclean obeyed, chuckling under his breath.
"Tell me how you did it," commanded the captain as he took a chair.
"It was as easy as rolling off a log, sir," replied the first mate. "The blighters clapped us into the small after-hold, but totally forgot there was such a thing there as a propeller tunnel. We got into the stoke-hole and collared the engine-room while the Russians were at dinner. Then, while I covered the sailors forward with the machine-gun on the bridge, Sievers took the gold-laced crowd aft with a rush. The rest is not worth telling, for you know it. All that is to say, barring the fact that we're the richer by 15,000 rubles and triple-expansion engines, and the poorer by two of our crew the Russian captain killed."
Captain Brandon drew a deep breath.
"What course are we steering," he demanded.
"Straight for Kobe, sir, to carry out our charter. We've every stick of the old cargo aboard—the pirates saw to that—also our books and papers. The guns are all at the bottom of the sea. We'll be a bit late, but we can easily rig up a yarn to explain."
"But the Russians will talk."
"No fear, sir: they'd be too ashamed to own up the truth; ay, and afraid as well, for what they did was piracy on the high seas—nothing less. You take my tip for it, sir, one of these days we'll hear that theNevskistruck a reef."
"We'll have to tell the owners, though—what will they say?"
Maclean closed one eye. "The newSaigonhas triple-expansion engines, sir. If I know anything of Mr. Keppel, he'll be better pleased with a ship in the hand than a cause of action against the Russian Government."
"But our own men?"
"Why, sir, we have 7,000 rubles to share among them. They'll be made for life."
"But I thought you said just now there were 15,000?"
"So I did, sir; but there's only you and Sievers and myself know how much there is exactly: there was no call to shout it all over the ship. And I've figured it out this way: You, as captain, are entitled to the most, and you'll want all of four thousand to heal up the memory of that crack you got on your skull properly. That'll leave two for Sievers to do with as he likes, and two for me to buy Nellie—that's Mrs. Maclean that is to be—just the sort of house she's set her heart on these ages back. What do you say, sir?"
"What do I say, Maclean?" cried Captain Brandon, his eyes big with excitement and surprise, too, perhaps. "Why, I say this: You are that rare thing, a sensible, honest man! Tip us your flipper!"
"That," said Ethel Marsh judicially, "is the least stupid remark you have made during our five weeks' acquaintance."
"Which means that I am improving," John Chesney murmured. "There is hope even for me. You cannot possibly understand how greatly I appreciate——"
The sentence trailed off incoherently as if the effort had been all too much. It was hard to live up to the mental brilliance of Ethel Marsh. She had had the advantage, too, of a couple of seasons in town, whilst Chesney was of the country palpably. She also had the advantage of being distractingly pretty.
Really, she had hoped to make something of Chesney. It seemed to her that he was fitted for better things than tennis-playing and riding and the like. It seemed strange that he should prefer his little cottage to the broader delights of surveying mankind from China to Peru.
The man had possibilities, too. For instance, he knew how to dress. There was an air about his flannels, a suggestion in his Norfolk suits. He had the knack of the tie so that it sat just right, and his boots.... A clean-cut face, very tanned; deep, clear gray eyes, very steady. He was like a dog attached very much to a careless master. The thing had been going on for five weeks.
Ethel was staying with the Frodshams. They were poor for their position, albeit given to hospitality—at a price. Most people call this kind of thing taking in paying guests. It was a subject delicately veiled. Ethel had come down for a fortnight, and she had stayed five weeks. Verily the education of John Chesney was a slow process. Chesney was a visitor in the neighborhood, too; he had a little furnished cottage just by the Goldney Park lodge gates, where a house-keeper did for him. As for the rest he was silent. He was a very silent man.
It was too hot for tennis, so the two had wandered into the woods. A tiny trout stream bubbled by, the oak and beech ferns were wet with the spray of it. Between the trees lances of light fell, shafts of sunshine on Ethel's hair and face. It was at this point that Chesney made the original remark. It slipped from him as naturally as if he had been accustomed to that kind of thing.
"I am afraid you got that from Mr. John Kennedy," Ethel said. "I am sure that you have seen Mr. Kennedy's comedy 'Flies in Ointment.' Confess now!"
"Well, I have," Chesney confessed accordingly. "I—I saw it the night it was produced. On the whole it struck me as rather a feeble thing."
"Oh, really? We are getting on, Mr. Chesney. Let me tell you that I think it is the cleverest modern comedy I have ever seen."
"Yes! In that case you like the part of 'Dorothy Kent?'"
Ethel's dainty color deepened slightly. She glanced suspiciously at the speaker. But he was gazing solidly, stolidly, into space—like a man who had just dined on beef. The idea was too preposterous. The idea of John Chesney chaffing her, chaffing anybody.
"I thought perhaps you did," Chesney went on. "Mr. Kent is a bit of a butterfly, a good sort at the bottom, but decidedly of the species lepidopteræ——"
"Stop!" Ethel cried. "Where did you get that word from? Whence comes it in the vocabulary of a youth—a youth? Oh, you know what I mean."
"I believe it is a general name for insects," Chesney said humbly. "Mrs. Kent is a good sort, but a little conceited. Apt to fancy herself, you know. Young widows of her type often do. She is tired of the artificial existence of town, and goes off into the country, where she leads the simple life. She meets a young man there, who, well, 'pon my word, is rather like me. He was a bit of an ass——"
"He was nothing of the kind," Ethel cried indignantly. "He was splendid. And he made that woman love him, he made her acknowledge that she had met her match at last. And he turned out to be one of the most brilliant——"
"My dear Miss Ethel, after all it was only a play. You remind me of 'Mrs. Kent,' and you say that I remind you of the hero of the play who——"
"I didn't, Mr. Chesney. I said nothing of the kind. It is unfair of you——"
"When the likeness is plain enough," Chesney said stubbornly. "You are 'Mrs. Kent,' and I am the hero of the comedy. Do you think that there is any possibility that some day you and—of course not yet, but——"
Miss Marsh sat there questioning the evidence of her coral-pink ears. She knew that she was furiously angry because she felt so cool about it. She knew that the more furious one was, the more calm and self-contained the senses become. The man meant nothing, either—one could see that by the respectful expression of his eye. Still——
"You are quite wrong," Ethel said. "You have altogether misunderstood themotifof the play. I presume you know what amotifis?"
"I think so," Chesney said humbly. "It is a word they apply in music when you don't happen to understand what the composer—especially the modern composer—is driving at."
"Oh, let it pass," Ethel said hopelessly. "You have misunderstood the gist of the play, then! 'Walter Severn' in the comedy is a man of singular points. He is a great author. Instead of being that woman's plaything, he is her merciless analyst. The great scene in the play comes when she finds this out. Now, you do not for a moment presume to put yourself on a level with 'Walter Severn,' do you?"
Chesney was bound to admit the height of his audacity. His eyes were fixed humbly on his Minerva; he was Telemachus seated at the feet of the goddess. And even yet he did not seem really cognizant of the enormity of his offence. He saw the sunlight on that sweetly serious face, he saw the beams playing with the golden meshes of her hair. No doubt he was fully conscious of his own inferiority, for he did not speak again. It was for him to wait. The silence deepened; in the heart of the wood a blackbird was piping madly on a blackthorn.
"Before you go away," Chesney hazarded, "I should very much like——"
"But I am not going away, at least not yet. Besides, I have a purpose to serve. I am waiting until those impossible people leave Goldney Park. I understand that they have already gone, but on that head I am not sure. I want to go over the house. The late owner, Mr. Mainbrace, was a great friend of my family. Before he died he was so good as to express a wish that the heir to the property should come and see us and—but that part is altogether too ridiculous. And as an only daughter——"
"I see," Chesney said reflectively. "The heir and yourself. It sounds ridiculous. Now, if you had been in the least like the romantic type of young woman, perhaps——"
"How do you know that I am not? Am I like Byron's woman: 'Seek roses in December, ice in June'? Well, perhaps you are right. After all, one doesn't find ice in June. However, the heir to the Goldney Park estate and myself never met. He let the place to those awful Gosway people for three years and went abroad. There was not even the suspicion of a romance. But I am curious to see the house, all the same."
"Nothing easier, Miss Marsh. Let us go and see it after luncheon. The Gosways have gone, you may take my word for that, and only a caretaker is in possession. Will you come with me this afternoon?"
The prospect was not displeasing. Miss Marsh poised it in her mind for a few moments. There was Chesney's education to be thought of as well. On the whole, she decided that there might be less pleasant ways of spending a hot August afternoon.
"I think I'll come," she said. "I want to see the old furniture and the pictures. I love old furniture. Perhaps if the heir to the property had gone on his knees whilst I was seated on a priceless Chippendale settee, I might——"
"You might, but I don't think you would," Chesney interrupted. "Whatever your faults may be I am sure you are not mercenary."
"Really! How good of you! The thing that we are apt to call depravity——"
"Is often another name for the promptings of poor human nature."
Miss Marsh turned and stared at the speaker. Really, his education was progressing at a most amazing rate. Without the least sign of mental distress he had delivered himself of an epigram. There was quite a flavor of Piccadilly about it. And Chesney did not appear in the least conscious of his achievement. Ethel rose and shook out the folds of her dainty muslin dress.
"Isn't it getting late?" she asked. "I'm sure it is lunch time. You can walk as far as the gate with me, and I will meet you here at three o'clock."
She passed thoughtfully across the lawn to the house, her pretty brows knitted in a thoughtful frown. Was she giving her pupil too much latitude? Certainly he had begun to show symptoms of an audacious presumption, which in the earlier days had been conspicuous by its absence. Whereupon Miss Marsh sighed three times without being in the least aware of the painful fact.
"This," said Chesney, "is the Norman Tower, built by John Mainbrace, who was the original founder of the family. The first two trees in the avenue of oaks that leads up to the house were planted by Queen Elizabeth. She also slept on several occasions in the house; indeed, the bedroom she occupied is intact to this day. The Virgin Queen seemed to pass most of her time, apart from affairs of state, in occupying bedrooms, so that the descendants of her courtiers might be able to boast about it afterward. Those who could not give the royal lady a shakedown had special bedrooms fitted up and lied about them. It was an innocent deception."
Miss Marsh eyed her pupil distrustfully. The educational progress was flattering, and at the same time a little disturbing. She had never seen Chesney in this gay and frivolous, not to say excited, mood before. The man was positively glib. There were distinct flashes of wit in his discourse, too. And where did he get so close and intimate a knowledge of the old house from?
He knew every nook and corner. He took her through the grand old park where the herd of fallow deer were grazing; he showed her the Dutch and Italian gardens; he knew even the history of the sundial on the terrace. And yet they had not been within the house, though the great hall door stood hospitably open. They moved at length out of the glare of the sunshine into the grateful shadows. Glint of armor and gleam of canvas were all there. Ethel walked along in an ecstasy of quiet enjoyment. Rumor had not lied as to the artistic beauties of Goldney Park. The Mainbraces must have been a tasteful family. They had it all here, from the oaken carvings of the wandering monks down through Grinling Gibbons and Pugin, and away to Chippendale and Adam, and other masters of the Georgian era. They came at length to the chamber sacred to the Virgin Queen; they contemplated the glorious view from the window in silent appreciation tinged with rapture.
"It's exquisite," Ethel said in a low voice. "If this were my house I should be very much tempted to commit an act of sacrilege. I should want this for my own room. I'm afraid I could not resist such an opportunity."
"Easily done," said Chesney. "No trouble to discover from the family archives that a mistake had been made, and that Elizabeth of blessed memory had not slept in this room. Being strong-minded she preferred a north aspect, and this is due south. You would get a reputation for sound historical knowledge as well."
Certainly the education was progressing. But Ethel let it pass. She was leaning out of the latticed windows with the creamy roses about her hair; she was falling unconsciously under the glamour of the place.
"It is exquisite," she sighed. "If this were only mine!"
"Well, it is not too late. The heir will be here before long, probably. You have only to introduce the name of Mr. Mainbrace and say who you are, and then——"
"Oh, no. If I happened to be in love with a man—what am I saying? Of course, no girl who respects herself could possibly marry a man for the sake of his position. Even 'Mrs. Dorothy Kent,' to whom you compared me this morning, was above that kind of thing. She married the man she loved after all, you know. But I forget—you did not think much of the comedy."
"I didn't. I thought it was vague and incomplete. I am certain of it now. This is the real thing; the other was merely artificial. And when the hero brought 'Dorothy Kent' to the home of his ancestors he already knew that she loved him. And I am glad to know that you would never marry a man like that because it gives me courage——"
"Gives you courage! Whatever for?"
"Why, to make a confession. You laughed at me just now when I presumed to criticize your favorite modern comedy. As a matter of fact, I have every right to criticize it. You see, I happen to be the author. I am 'John Kennedy'! I have been writing for the stage, or trying to write for the stage, for years. I got my new idea from that old wish of my uncle's that you and I should come together. It struck me as a pretty suggestion for a comedy."
"Stop, stop," Ethel cried. "One thing at a time, if you please. Positively you overwhelm me with surprise. In one breath you tell me you are 'John Kennedy,' and then, without giving a poor girl a chance, you say you are the owner of Goldney Park."
"But I didn't," Chesney protested. "I never said anything of the kind."
"No, but you inferred it. You say you got the idea from your uncle—I mean the suggestion that you and I—oh, I really cannot say it."
"I'm afraid I'm but a poor dramatist after all," Chesney said lamely. "I intended to keep that confession till after I had—but no matter. At any rate, there is no getting away from the fact that my pen name is 'John Kennedy.'"
"And you wrote 'Flies in Ointment'? And you have been laughing at me all this time? You were amused because I took you for a simple countryman, you whom men call the Sheridan of to-day! After all the pains I took with your education."
Ethel's voice rose hysterically. Points of flame stood out from the level of her memory of the past five weeks and scorched her. How this man must have been amused, how consumedly he must have laughed at her! And she had never guessed it, never once had she had an inkling of the truth.
"You have behaved disgracefully, cruelly," she said unsteadily.
"I don't think so," Chesney said coolly. "After all is said and done, we were both posing, you know. You were playing 'Mrs. Kent' to my hero. It seemed a pity to disturb so pleasant a pastoral. And no harm has been done."
Ethel was not quite so sure of that. But then for the nonce she was regarding the matter from a strictly personal point of view.
"I hardly think you were playing the game," she said.
"Why not? I come down here where nobody knows me. It is my whim to keep quiet the fact that Goldney Park belongs to me. As to my dramatic tastes, they don't concern anybody but myself. I take a cottage down here until those tenants of mine are ready to go. They are such utter bounders that I have no desire to disclose my identity to them. And so it falls about that I meet you. Then I recollect all that my uncle has said about you. I cultivate your acquaintance. It wasn't my fault that you took me for a countryman with no idea beyond riding a horse and shooting a pheasant. Your patronage was very pretty and pleasing, and I am one of those men who always laugh or cry inside. It is perhaps a misfortune that I can always joke with a grave face. But don't forget that the man who laughs inside is also the man who bleeds inside, and these feel the worst. Come, Ethel, you are not going to be angry because you have lost the game playing with your own weapons."
The education was finished, the schoolmaster was abroad—very much abroad. In his cool, masterful way Chesney had taken matters into his own hands. He was none the less handsome because he looked so stern, so sure of his ground.
"You are a man and I am a woman," she faltered.
"Of course. How could the comedy proceed otherwise? Now where shall we move these Elizabethan relics? After what you said just now they could not possibly remain here. Among the family archives I dare say——"
Chesney paused; he was conscious of the fact that two large diamond drops were stealing down Ethel's cheeks. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to cross over and take her hands in his.
"My dear child, what have I said to pain you," he said. "I am truly sorry."
"You—you take too much for granted," Ethel sobbed. "You make me feel so small and silly. And you have no right to assume that I—I could care for anybody simply because he happens to possess a p—p—place like Goldney Park."
"But, my darling, I didn't. I was delighted when you said just now that you would never marry a man you did not care for, even if he could give you Chippendale for breakfast, so to speak. I watched your face then. I am sure that you were speaking from the bottom of your heart. I have been watching you for the last five weeks, my sweetheart. And they have been the happiest weeks in my life.
"Laughing at me, I suppose! It's all the same if you do laugh inside."
"No, I don't think I laughed," Chesney said thoughtfully. "I only know that I have been very much charmed. And besides, see how useful it has been to me to be in a position to hear all the weak points in my literary armor. When I come to write my next comedy, it will be far in advance of 'Flies in Ointment.' I have learned so much of human nature, you see."
Ethel winked the tears from her lids; her eyes were all the brighter for the passing shower, like a sky in April, Chesney thought. A smile was on her face, her lips were parted. As a lover Chesney was charming. She wondered how she was playing her part. But she need not have had any anxiety. There was nothing wanting in the eyes of the man opposite, and his face said so.
"You are going to put me into it?" she asked.
"Why, of course. There is no other woman so far as I can see. Why are you pulling my roses to pieces like that? Do you know that that rose tree was planted a hundred years ago by Thomas à Becket after the battle of Agincourt? My dear, I am so happy that I could talk nonsense all day. And I say, Ethel——"
The girl broke off one of the creamy roses and handed it shyly to Chesney.
"Væ victis," she said with a flushing smile. "It is yours. You have conquered."
"Yes, but I want all the fruits of victory. I ask for a hand and you give me—a rose. Am I not going to have the hand as well as the rose, dear?"
He had the hand and the rose and the slender waist; he drew her toward him in his strong, masterful way, and his lips lay on hers in a lingering pressure. It was a long time before the girl looked up; then her eyes were full of shy happiness.
In thecourse of our dealings over the curiosities that my brother sent home from Burma, Mr. Levy and I became very good friends. When we had finished one of our deals we generally had a chat in the quaint little room behind his queer little shop in the old-world alley frequented by sailormen. On one of these occasions he mentioned that the cigar which he had given me was the brand which he always smoked; and the quality of the cigar suggested opulence.
"If you can afford cigars like this," I remarked, "you must make some pretty good bargains with your curiosities!"
"Good and bad," he said. "That's the way in business—in life, if you come to that!" He was a bit of a philosopher.
"You make more good bargains than bad ones, I'll be bound," I asserted.
"Yes," he agreed; "but it isn't so much that. The bad aren't very bad, as a rule; and some of the good are very good. That's where I get my profit."
"What was the best bargain you ever made?" I asked.
He filled his glass and pushed the decanter toward me.
"The best bargain I ever made," he said, "was over a ditty-box."
I helped myself to a little whiskey.
"A ditty-box? I thought they were ordinary sailors' chests that they keep their clothes in?"
"Not exactly chests," he corrected. "They're smallish boxes that they keep their needles and thread in, and their money, and anything else that they set store by—their letters or their sweethearts' photos, or their wives'—or other people's! There's no profit in them, and I don't deal in them in a general way. I got my gain out of this one in a roundabout fashion; but it was handsome. If you've got half an hour to spare I'll tell you about it."
This was his story:
It was eight years ago, and I'd had Isaac for seven years, and concluded that he was to be trusted. So I took it into my head to have a fortnight's holiday and leave him in charge of the shop. Everything was in order when I came back, and the books balanced to a penny. Business had been pretty good, he told me, but nothing out of the ordinary.
"Unless," he said, "I've stumbled on a good thing by accident. It's a ditty-box; rather a superior one, and a good bit bigger than usual; almost a chest; brass bound and a nice bit of poker-work on it; a girl's head. I've put it in your bedroom."
"Ah!" I said. "Ah-h!" He wouldn't make this fuss over a bit of poker-work, I knew.
"The mate of theSaucy Janebrought it here," he went on. "It belonged to the captain. George Markby, the name was; and that's poker-work on it, too. He sickened of a fever over at Rotterdam and died at sea; and they sold off his things to send the money to his widow. I gave a sovereign for it. There's a tray inside with a lock-up till. Keys all complete. Ought to fetch thirty-five shillings."
"As much as that?" I said. I knew there must be a good deal more in it than appeared, but it's no use hurrying Isaac. He likes to tell things his own way.
"I thought it might suit you to lock up your books and papers. That was all—till the day before yesterday. Then a ginger-haired sailor came in. North countryman. Wanted a ditty-box, he said. I told him we weren't marine outfitters, and he'd better try Barnard's, round the corner. He said he didn't want the ordinary sort, but something out of the common; extra large size; brass-bound; tray with a lock-up till. 'Mind if it was a trifle old?' I asked. 'Carved or cut about a bit? You know how some chaps use their knives on them, just to pass the time.' He said he didn't care for things that were hacked about, but he wouldn't object to a bit of poker-work on it. I told him I'd look through the warehouse and let him know in the morning, and he went. Byles, the dock policeman, was standing outside. I went and asked him who the chap was. He said he was cook on theAnne Traylor, just come in, and he believed he'd done time. If he hadn't I'll swear he ought to have, from the look of him.
"About half an hour afterward in walks an oldish chap with a stoop and a gray goat's beard. He wanted a ditty-box, too; something extra large and old, and strong, and a tray with a lock-up till in it. He was a fireman on theAnne Traylor, I found; a shifty sort of chap that couldn't look you in the face. He offered to go to a couple of pounds for the right thing. I told him I'd look through our stuff and let him know if we had one of the sort.
"Just as I was closing, a smart young fellow swaggered in. He was second mate of theAnne Traylor, and he'd heard of the death of her old captain on theSaucy Jane, and that we'd bought some of his effects, and he'd like to have a memento; just a matter of sentiment, he explained. I asked him what form the sentiment took, and he said a ditty-box; and if we had the one that belonged to the old man he'd give two pounds five for it. I put him off like the others.
"Two Swedish sailors came in after the shutters were up, while the door was still open. They wanted a ditty-box of the identical description. I told them I'd look for it, same as I told the rest. You always brought me up not to close too soon with a customer who was keen on a thing."
"Very good, Isaac," I said. "Very good! Go on!"
"In the evening I made inquiries at the 'Duke of Wellington,' where the dock policemen go, and the two-penny-halfpenny money lenders and such; and old Mrs. Higgins, the landlady, knows more about the crews that come here than anyone. Lots of them knew old Markby, it seemed; a very respectable old chap and a favorite with his men, but a bit of a miser, and a trifle queer in his ways. He boasted that he didn't believe in banks and such things, and he'd got his money hidden where even his wife didn't know. And the conclusion I've come to is that those chaps believe it's in the ditty-box, and they mean to have it."
"Ah!" I said. "We'll have something to say to that, Isaac! You told them we hadn't got it, of course."
"Of course," he said; "and of course they didn't believe me! I had a rare bother with the ginger-haired man yesterday morning, and had to send the boy for a policeman before he'd go. And in the afternoon the Swedes tried to sneak through the shop into the warehouse, but I jumped out of the shop parlor and hustled them off. I've put longer screws in the bars to the windows; but I'd be easier if you'd let me sleep here."
Isaac always thought that he could look after me better than I could look after myself!
"I'm all right, Isaac," I said; "but we'll have a look at the box before you go. It might be worth a bit more if it had a secret drawer, eh?"
When the shop was closed we went upstairs and laid the box on my bed, and turned it over and tapped it, and put a lamp inside, and examined every inch. We couldn't find a trace of a secret drawer, or anything scratched on it to say where the old captain had hidden his long stocking. So I concluded that the talk was the usual nonsense, and I daresay I'd have sold it and thought no more about it, if the goat's-beard man hadn't come in the first thing the next morning. He didn't beat about the bush, but said he wanted Captain Markby's ditty-box that we'd bought, and he'd give two pounds ten for it. I told him I wished I'd got it to sell, since he was so generous, but ditty-boxes weren't in my line.
The others that Isaac had spoken of came in too. I was tempted to sell it to the mate for three pounds, but I couldn't quite make up my mind, and told him to come again the next morning. That very night the two Swedes broke into the shop. The police caught them. They're always on the look-out round my place, knowing that it's a fiver to them on the quiet if they catch anyone breaking in. The Swedes got three months apiece.
That made up my mind. I showed the mate an ordinary box when he called, and he went off grumbling that it was nothing like the one he'd asked about, and I'd played the fool with him. I never saw him again, or the Swedes either; but the old man and the ginger-headed chap were always looking in the window. They seemed to have chummed up. I had an anonymous letter that I put down to them—written in red ink that I suppose they meant me to take for blood. It warned me against keeping "a ditty-box that others have a better claim to, and is like to cost you dear." D-e-r-e they spelt it, and one t in ditty.
Two days later they called to ask if the box had come my way yet. "Yes," I said, "and I'm going to keep it. It's got two blackguards three months, and it will get two others a good hiding if they don't mind. Clear out, and don't come here again." They didn't, but we often saw them hanging round, and when I went out one of them generally followed me. I didn't worry about that, for I could have settled the two of them easily if I wasn't taken unaware. I was always a bit obstinate, and I'd sooner have chopped the chest up for firewood than have been bullied into letting them have it; but I was sorry that I hadn't taken the mate's offer, for Isaac and I had measured it all over inside and out, and calculated that there wasn't space anywhere for a secret drawer.
I'd had it about three months; and then a young girl, about twenty, came into the shop one afternoon, when Isaac was at tea. She was a pale slip of a young thing, and her clothes looked as if they'd been worn all through the summer, and it was autumn then; and she hesitated as if she was half afraid of me.
"Well, little missie," I said. "What is it?" I spoke to her with the smooth side of my tongue uppermost, as a big, rough chap generally does to a girl of that sort, if there's anything decent about him.
"My father was Captain Markby," she said, and I liked the way she spoke. "He died at sea, and they sold his things here. I want to find something of his, and I thought that perhaps you might have bought it?"
I knew directly what she meant, but I looked very innocent.
"If it was anything in the curiosity line, I might have," I answered. "You see the sort of things I deal in." I waved my hand round the place.
"No," she said. "It wasn't a curiosity. It was an oak chest with brass corners. I think they call it a ditty-box."
"A ditty-box," I said. "They're too common to be curious. Was there anything special about it?"
"It had a tray in it, and he'd drawn a head on it with a red-hot iron; a girl's head. He meant it for me; but I don't expect you'd recognize me by it. I hope not!" She smiled faintly.
"I hope not," I agreed, "judging from what I've seen of such figures." I laughed, and she laughed a little, too. "And you want to buy it, if you can find it?"
"Ye-es," she said. "At least—I haven't very much money; but I would pay you as soon as I could, if—I suppose you wouldn't be so kind—so very kind—as to agree to that?"
"Umph!" I said. "I don't generally give credit; but as it was your father's, I might stretch a point for once if I should find that I have it."
"Oh,thankyou!" she said with a flush. "It is a kindness that I have no right to expect.Thankyou!"
"I'll have a look round among my things," I promised. "I haven't bought such a box myself; but my assistant might have; or I might be able to find it for you in some of the shops round here. I'll see what I can do." I meant to let her have it, but I wanted to find out more about it first.
"How kind you are!" she cried. "I—you see I want it very particularly, Mr. Levy."
"Being associated with your father," I said, "naturally you would. Perhaps if I don't come across the ditty-box, I might find something else of his that would do, eh?"
"No-o," she said. "It wouldn't. You see we—my mother and I—aren't well off. We knew that father had some money, but we couldn't find it, or learn anything about it; and we think it must be in the box, or a paper telling us about it."
I shook my head.
"There's no paper in any box that I have," I assured her. "We always go through the things that we buy very carefully."
"You wouldn't find it," she explained eagerly. "There was a secret place. He showed it to me when I was a little girl. I don't expect he thought I would remember, but I did. You take off the brass corners on top, and then the lower part of the lid drops out. The lid's in two pieces and you could put papers—or bank notes—in between."
I couldn't help smiling.
"Aren't you rather foolish to tell me?" I suggested.
She looked at me appealingly.
"Am I?" she asked.
"No," I said. "As it happens, you aren't; but I wouldn't tell anyone else, if I were you. Theymightthink they'd like those bank notes for themselves.Imight if—well, if you weren't a good deal younger and more in need of them than I am."
"I think you are a very good and kind man, Mr. Levy," she said solemnly.
"I'm afraid not, little missie," I told her; "but there are some a good deal worse; and some of them have an inkling of what may be in that box, if I'm not mistaken. They've been inquiring after it."
"Oh!" She started. "There were two horrid men who seemed to be watching me when I came in here. I half thought I remembered one of them: an old man with a stoop. I believe I must have seen him aboard my father's ship. I felt rather nervous—because it's such a dark alley." She looked anxiously at the door.
"It is a bit dark," I agreed. "Would you feel safer if I saw you to a main thoroughfare?"
"I should feelquitesafe then," she declared, and she smiled like a child does. "I really don't knowhowto thank you enough for your goodness to me."
I called Isaac to look after the shop, and put on my hat and walked off with her. She was a bright little creature to talk to, and when she was excited she looked very pretty. I found that she was going to walk all the way, so I said that I would see her right to her road. She seemed pleased to have my company, and jabbered nineteen to the dozen. It was such a change to have someone to talk to, she said, because they had moved and knew nobody here. She told me that she tried to earn money by teaching music and by painting. I said that I was badly in want of a few little sketches, and she promised to bring some for me to look at.
"I would ask you to accept them," she said, with a flush, "if we weren't so poor."
"If it weren't for that," I said, "I should ask you to have some tea before I leave you, without fear that you would be too proud to accept. It would be a pleasure to me. Will you?" We were just outside a good place, and I stopped.
"It is very kind of you," she said, "but I don't think—I suppose Iamfoolishly proud." She laughed an uneasy laugh.
"You mustn't let your pride spoil my pleasure," I told her, and grinned at myself for talking like a book. "You can repay me when you find your fortune, if you insist; but I hope you won't."
She looked up at me quickly.
"No," she said. "I couldn't treat your kindness like that. Thank you, Mr. Levy."
So we went in, and I ordered tea and chicken and cakes. The poor little thing was positively hungry, I could see; and when she mentioned her mother the tears came into her eyes. I understood what she was thinking, and I had some meat patties put up in a package. When I left her at the corner of her road I put the package into her hands, and boarded a 'bus with a run before she had time to object. She shook her head at me when I was on top of the 'bus; but when I took off my hat she waved her hand, and laughed as if she was a great mind to cry. It's hard for an old woman and a young girl when they're left like that.
I had the corners of that ditty-box off as soon as Isaac had gone for the night. The lid was double, as she had said. Between the two boards I found a portrait of an elderly woman—her mother, no doubt—and three photos of herself; two in short frocks and one with her hair in a plait when she was about seventeen. She looked stouter and jollier then, poor girl. There was one other thing: a half sheet of note-paper. "Memo in case of accident. Money up chimney in best bedroom. Geo. Markby, sixth of April, 1897."
I started to change my clothes to go there and tell them; but just as I had taken off my waistcoat I altered my mind. The money wouldn't be in the rooms where they lived then, but in their old house; and that was probably occupied by someone else now, and even if the money was still there she would not be able to get it. It was no use raising her hopes, just to disappoint her. I would try to get the money before I spoke, I decided.
She came at eleven the next morning, and timidly produced a few little sketches, mostly copies of things. I'd like to say that they were good, but I can't. It was just schoolgirl painting, nothing else. She wanted to give me some, but I wouldn't hear of that. She had sold a few for eighteenpence apiece, she said. I said that I wanted four to frame for ships' cabins, and I'd give twelve-and-six for them, and that would leave me a fair margin. I was afraid to offer more, for fear she would suspect me; and as it was she was dubious.
"You're sure youwillget a profit?" she asked.
"You ask anyone round here about me," I said. "They'll soon tell you that I look out sharp for that. They'll look very nice when they're framed; and I make a good bit out of the frames, you see. Now about this ditty-box. I've got on the track of one that might turn out right; but there's a difficulty that I'd like to put to you. Suppose that there's no money in it, only a clue to where your father hid it. Wouldn't that be likely to be somewhere where you can't get at it? On board his ship, for example? Or in your old house?
"If it's in the house," she said, "I could get in. At least it was empty a week ago. Mother heard from an old neighbor. But perhaps it would be better to get someone else to go, and say that they wanted to look at the house?" She glanced at me doubtfully.
"You mean me?" She nodded slowly. "You are afraid that I might keep some of it?"
She stared at me in sheer amazement.
"Why, of course not!" she cried. "I was only thinking that it was a long way to ask you to go; and that I must not impose on your kindness."
"Give me the address," I said, "in case I should want it any time."
She gave me an address in Andeville. Then I changed the subject. I walked part of the way home with her. Then I had my dinner and went off to Andeville.
It was about an hour by train. By the time that I had found the agent and got the key it was growing dusk. I was some time arguing with him, because he wanted to send a man with me to lock up afterward. "We've had tramps get in several times," he explained, "and they've done a lot of damage; torn up the flooring and such senseless mischief." It occurred to me directly that the tramps were some of the men who had come after the ditty-box.
I persuaded him at last that I'd lock up all right and he let me go alone. I soon spotted what would be the best bedroom. I fumbled up the chimney and lit a match or two, and found a heavy canvas bag and a smaller one that rustled like notes. I was just looking for the last time when I heard soft steps behind me. I glanced round and saw two men before the match flickered out. The light caught the face of the foremost. It was the old man with the goat's beard. Then I was struck on the head and knocked senseless.
It was about six when I came to and lit another match and looked at my watch. The bags were gone, of course. I never saw them again or the two men. It was as well for them I didn't!
It was no use telling the agent or anybody. I never thought about that, only what I was to do about the girl and her mother. I didn't think very much about the mother, if you come to that. It seemed to me that I'd made a mess of it and lost their money, and I couldn't bear to think of the girl's disappointment. What upset me most was that I knew she'd believe every word of my story, and never dream that I'd taken the money myself, as some people would. She was such a trusting little thing, and—well, I may as well own up that I liked her. If I hadn't been fifteen years older than she was, and felt sure that she'd never look at a Jew—and a much rougher chap then than I am now—I should have had serious thoughts of courting her. And so—well, I knew that a hundred pounds was what they hoped for; and it didn't make very much odds to me. I took out the paper that night and put in twenty five-pound notes, and did it up again. A bit of folly that you wouldn't have suspected me of, eh? Then you think me a bigger fool than most people do! At the same time, it was only fair and honest. I'd had her money and lost it, you see.
I was going to take the chest to their lodgings in a cab the next morning, but she called in early to ask if I had found it. I had an unhappy sort of feeling when I saw her come smiling into the shop, thinking that she wouldn't need to come any more. It's queer how a man feels over a little slip of a girl when he's knocked about all over the world and known hundreds of women and thought nothing of them!
I'd carried it down into this room, and I took her in and showed it. Her delight was pretty to see. She fidgeted about at my elbow like a child while I was taking the corners off; and when she saw the notes she danced and clapped her hands; and when I gave them to her she sat down and hugged them and laughed and cried.
"If you knew how poor we've been!" she said, wiping her eyes. "How lonely and worried and miserable! Your kindness has been the only nice thing ever since father died. Twenty times five! That's a hundred. They're real notes aren't they? I haven't seen one for ages."
"They're real enough," I told her. "I'll give you gold for them, if you like."
"I'd rather have their very selves," she said with a laugh. She studied one carefully; and suddenly she dropped them with a cry and sprang to her feet. Her face had gone white.
"Mr. Levy!" she cried. "Oh, Mr. Levy!You put them there!"
I told her a lie right out; and I'm not ashamed of it. I was a hard man of business, I said; and a Jew; and she was a silly sentimental child, or she'd never take such an idea into her head; and she needn't suppose I kept my shop for charity, and she'd know better when she was older. She heard me out. Then she put her hand on my shoulder.
"Dear kind friend," she said, "father died in May this year. The note that I looked at was dated in June!" And I stood and stared at her like a fool. I suppose I looked a bit cut up, for she stroked my arm gently.
"You dear, good fellow!" she said. She seemed to have grown from a child into a woman in a few minutes. "I can't take them, but it will help me to be a better girl, to have known someone like you!"
"Like me!" I said, and laughed. "I'm just—just a rough, money-grubbing Jew. That's all I am."
She shook her head like mad.
"You may say what you like," she told me; "but you can't alter what I think. You're good—good—good!"
Then I told her just what had happened.
"So, you see, you owe me nothing," I wound up.
She wiped her eyes and took hold of me by the sleeve.
"I will tell you what I owe you," she said. "Food when I was hungry; kindness when I was wretched; your time, your care—yes, and the risk of your life. If you had had your way you would have given me all that money. You—Mr. Levy, you say that it is just a matter of business. What profit did you expect to make?"
"I expected—to make you happy," I said; and she looked up at me suddenly; and I saw what I saw. "Little girl!" I cried. "May I try? In another way."
I held out my arms, and she dropped into them.
"My profits!" I said.
"Oh!" she cried. "I hope so. I will try—try—try!"
Mr. Levy offered me a fresh cigar and took another himself.
"It's a class of profit that's difficult to estimate," he remarked. "I had a difficulty with Isaac over the matter. You see he has 5 per cent. over the business that he introduces, but that was only meant for small transactions, I argued. He argued that there were no profits at all; not meaning any disrespect to her, but holding that there was no money in it; or, if there was, it was a loss because I'd have to keep her, and nobody knew how a wife would turn out. She held much the same, except that she was sure she was going to turn out good; but she thought I ought to find some plan of doing something for Isaac. We settled it that way. He wanted to get married, so I gave him a rise and let them have the rooms over the shop to live in; and there they are now."
"And how do you reckon the profits yourself?" I asked.
"Well," he said "in these last eight years I've cleared forty thousand pounds, though you wouldn't think it in this little shop. I reckon that I cleared a good bit more over that ditty-box. Come round to my house one evening, and I'll introduce you to her."
Theminister of Blue Mountain Church, and the minister's wife, were enjoying their first autumn fire, and the presence of the cat on the hearth between them.
"He came home this afternoon," the minister's wife was saying, "while I was picking those last peppers in the garden, and he jumped on my shoulder and purred against my ear as unconcernedly as if he'd only been for a stroll in the lower pasture, instead of gone for three months—the little wretch!"
"It does seem extraordinary"—the minister unbent his long legs and recrossed them carefully, in order to remove his foot from the way of the tawny back where it stretched out in blissful elongation—"very extraordinary, that an animal could lead that sort of double life, disappearing completely when summer comes and returning promptly with the fall. I daresay it's a reversion to the old hunting instinct. No doubt we could find him if we knew how to trail him on the mountains."
"The strangest thing about it is that this year and last he came back fat and sleek—always before, you know, he has been so gaunt and starved looking in the fall." She leaned over and stroked the cat under his chin; he purred deeply in response, and looked up into her eyes, his own like wells of unfathomed speech. "I have an eerie feeling," she said, "that if he could talk he'd have great things to tell."
The minister laughed, and puffed away at his corncob pipe. "Tales of the chase, my dear, of hecatombs of field-mice and squirrels!"
But she shook her head. "Not this summer—that cat has spent these last two summers with human beings who have treated him as a kind of fetich—just as we do!" As she rubbed his ear she murmured regretfully: "To think of all you've heard and seen and done, and you can't tell us one thing!"
The Yellow Cat's eyes narrowed to mere slits of black across two amber agates; then he shook his ears free, yawned, and gave himself up to closed lids and dreams. If he could have told it all, just as it happened, not one word of it could those good souls have comprehended—and this was the way of it.
It was near the close of a June day when the cat made his entrance into that hidden life of the summers from which his exits had been as sudden, though less dramatic. In the heart of the hills, where a mountain torrent has fretted its way for miles through a rocky gorge, there is a place where the cleft widens into a miniature valley, and the stream slips along quietly between banks of moss before it plunges again on its riotous path down the mountain. Here the charcoal-burners, half a century ago, had made a clearing, and left their dome-shaped stone kiln to cover itself with the green velvet and lace of lichen and vine. The man who was stooping over the water, cleaning trout for his supper, had found it so and made it his own one time in his wandering quest for solitude. The kiln now boasted a chimney, a door, and one wide window that looked away over the stream's next plunge, over other mountains and valleys to far horizons of the world of men. This was the hermitage to which he brought his fagged-out nerves from the cormorant city that feeds on the blood and brains of humans. Here through the brief truce of summer he found time to fish and hunt enough for his daily wants, time to read, to write, time to dream and to smoke his evening pipe, to think long thoughts, and more blessed than all—to sleep! When autumn came he would go back with renewed life and a pile of manuscript to feed to his hungry cormorant. He was chewing the cud of contentment as he bent to his fish cleaning, when, glancing to one side where the fire, between stones, was awaiting his frying-pan, he caught sight among the bushes of two gleaming eyes, and then the sleek back and lashing tail of the Yellow Cat. The man, being a cat lover was versed in their ways, so for a time he paid no attention, then began to talk softly.
"If you'd come out of that," he said, as he scraped the scales, "and not sit there watching me like a Comanche Indian, I'd invite you to supper!"
Whether it was the tone of his voice or the smell of the fish that conquered, the tawny creature was suddenly across the open with a rush and on the stooping shoulders. That was the beginning of the companionship that lasted until fall. The next season brought the animal as unexpectedly, and they took up the old relation where it had left off the previous summer. They trudged together through miles of forest, sometimes the cat on the man's shoulder, but often making side excursions on his own account and coming back with the proud burden of bird or tiny beast. Together they watched the days decline in red and gold glory from the ledge where the stream drops over the next height, or when it rained, companioned each other by the hearth in the hut. There was between them that satisfying and intimate communion of inarticulate speech only possible between man and beast.
There came a day when the man sat hour after hour over his writing, letting the hills call in vain. The cat slept himself out, and when paws in the ink and tracks over the paper proved of no avail, he jumped down and marched himself haughtily off through the door and across the clearing to the forest, tail in air. Late that afternoon the man was arrested midway of a thought rounding into phrase by the sudden darkness. There was a fierce rush of wind, as if some giant had sighed and roused himself. The door of the hut slammed shut and the blast from the window scattered the papers about the floor. As he went to pull down the sash the cat sprang in, shaking from his feet the drops of rain already slanting in a white sheet across the little valley. At the same moment there was a "halloo" outside, and a woman burst open the door, turning quickly to shut out behind her the onrush of the shower and the biting cold of the wind. She stood shaking the drops from her hair, and then she looked into the astonished face of the man and laughed.
She was as slim and straight as a young poplar, clad in white shirt-waist and khaki Turkish trousers with gaiters laced to the knee. Her hair was blown about in a red-gold snarl, and her eyes looked out as unabashed as a boy's. The two stared at each other for a time in silence, and finally it was the woman who spoke first.
"This isn't exactly what I call a warm welcome—not just what the cat led me to expect! It was really the cat who brought me—I met him over on Slide Mountain—he fled and I pursued, and now here we are!"
She made a hasty survey of the hut, and then of its owner, putting her head on one side as she looked about her with a quick, bird-like movement, he still staring in stupefaction.
"Of course you detest having me here, but you won't put me out in the rain, again, will you?"
At once he was his courteous self. With the same motion he dumped the astonished cat from the cushioned chair by the writing table, and drew it forward to the fire. Then he threw on a fresh stick of pine that flared up in a bright blaze, and with deferring gentleness took the sweater that hung from her shoulders and hung it to dry over a section of tree-trunk that served as a chimney seat.
"You are as welcome to my hut as any princess to her palace," he smiled on her, "indeed, it is yours while you choose to stay in it!"
"Don't you think," she made reply, as he drew another chair up opposite to her, "that under the circumstances we might dispense with fine speeches? It is hardly, I suppose, what one would call a usual situation, is it?"
He looked at her as she stretched her small feet comfortably to the blaze, her face quite unconcerned.
"No," he acquiesced, "it certainly is not usual—or I should hate it—the 'usual' is what I fly from!"
She threw back her head, clasping her hands behind it as she laughed. She seemed to luxuriate as frankly in the heat and the dryness as the cat between them.
"And I"—she turned the comprehension of her eyes upon him—"I cross the ocean every year in the same flight!"
The storm drove leaves and flying branches against the window, while they sat, for what seemed a long time, in contented silence. He found himself as openly absorbing her charm as if she had been a tree or a mountain sunset, while she was making further tours of inspection with her eyes about the room.
"It is entirely adorable," she smiled at him, "but it piques my curiosity!'
"Ask all the questions you wish—no secrets here."
"Then what, if you please, is the object I see swung aloft there in the dome?"
"My canvas hammock which I lower at night to climb into and go to bed, and pull up in the daytime to clear the decks."
"And the big earthen pot in the fireplace—it has gruesome suggestions of the 'Forty Thieves!'"
"Only a sort of perpetual hot-water tank. The fire never quite goes out on this domestic hearth, and proves a very acceptable companion at this high altitude. There is always the kettle on the crane, as you see it there, but limitless hot water is the fine art of housekeeping—but, perhaps you don't know the joy there is to be found in the fine art of housekeeping?"
"No, I do not," her eyes took on a whimsical expression, "but I'd like to learn—anything in the way of a new joy! In the way of small joys I am already quite a connoisseur, indeed I might call myself a collector in that line—ofbibeloteditions, you understand, for thus far I seem to have been unable to acquire any of the larger specimens! Would you be willing to take me on as a pupil in housekeeping?"
"It would add to my employment a crowning joy—not abibelot!"
"Pinchbeck fine speeches again," she shrugged. "Do you stop here all the long summer quite alone?"
"All the 'short summer,'" he corrected, "save for the society of the cat, who dropped down last year from nowhere. He must have approved of the accommodations, for he has chosen me, you see, a second time for a summer resort."
"Yes—I think he was trying to protest about you being his exclusive find, when I invited myself to follow him down the mountain—leading and eluding are so much alike, one is often mistaken, is it not so?"
She was sitting forward now, chin in hands, elbows on her knees, gazing into the flames where a red banner waved above the back log. When she turned to him again the westering sun had broken through the clouds and was sending a flare of rosy light in at the window. Studying her face more fully, he saw that she was years—fully ten years—older than he had supposed. The boyish grace that sat so lightly was after all the audacious ease of a woman of the world, sure of herself.
"I, too, am living the hermit life for the summer. I am the happy possessor of a throat that demands an annual mountain-cure. Switzerland with its perpetual spectacular note gets on my nerves, so last year we found this region—I and my two faithful old servitors. Do you know the abandoned tannery in the West Branch Clove? That has been fitted up for our use, and there we live the simple life as I am able to attain it—but you have so far outdone me that you have filled my soul with discontent!"
"Alas," said the man, "you have served me the very same trick! I could almost wish—"
"That I had not come!"
"Say, rather, that you would come again!"
She stood up and reached for her sweater, waiting for him to open the door. The round of the little valley was a glittering green bowl filled with pink cloud scuds. They stepped out into a jubilant world washed clean and freshly smiling. She put out her hand in good-bye.
"I almost think I shall come again! If you were a person with whom one could be solitary—who knows!"
When she appeared the next time she found him by the noise of his chopping. They climbed to the top of the moss-covered boulder that hangs poised over the ledge where the stream leaps into the abyss. Below them the hills rolled in an infinite recession of leaf-clad peaks to the sky line, where they melted to a blur of bluish-green mist.
"Oh, these mountains of America!" she cried, "their greenness is a thing of dreams to us who know only bare icy and alps!"
"Far lovelier," he said, "to look down upon than to look up to, I think. To be a part of the height comes pretty near to being happy, for the moment."
She turned from the view to study her companion. The lines in the corners of his kind, tired eyes, the lean, strong figure, hair graying about the temples. He grew a little impatient under it before she spoke.
"Do you know," she said slowly, "I am going to like you! To like you immensely—and to trust you!"
"Thank you, I shall try to be worthy"—even his derision was gentle—"I seem to remember having been trusted before by members of your sex—even liked a little, though not perhaps 'immensely'! At any rate this certainly promises to be an experience quite by itself!"
"Quite by itself," she echoed.
"Wouldn't it be as well for you to know my name, say, as a beginning?"
"No," she nodded, "that's just what I don't want! I only want to know you. Names are extraneous things—tags, labels—let us waive them. If I tell you how I feel about this meeting of ours will you try to understand me?"
The answer was less in words than in the assent of his honest gray eyes.
"I have been surfeited all my life," she went on, "with love—I want no more of it! The one thing I do want, more than anything else, is a man friend. I have thought a great deal about such a friendship—the give and take on equal terms, the sexless companionship of mind—what it could be like!"
He brushed the twigs from the lichens between them and made no answer.
"Fate—call the power what you will"—she met the disclaimer that puckered the corners of his mouth—"fate brought us together. It was the response to my longing for such a friendship!"
"It was the Yellow Cat!"
"The Yellow Cat plus fate! While I sat there by your fire I recognized you for that friend!"
Far below over the tree tops cloud shadows and sunlight were playing some wonderful game of follow-my-leader; a hawk hung poised on tilting wings; and on the veil of mist that was the spirit of the brook where it cast itself from the ledge curved the arch of a rainbow. The man pointed to the augury.
"You might try me," he said, and they shook hands on the compact, laughing half shamefacedly at their own solemnity.
"As woman to woman," he offered.
"Let it be rather as man to man," she shrugged.
"As you like—as women we should have to begin by explaining ourselves."
"Precisely, and men companion each other on impersonal grounds."
"Then it is a man's friendship?"
"Better still," she mused, "we'll pattern it after the ideals of the disembodied! We'll make this summer, you and I together, a gem from the heart of life—I will have it so!"