Captain Barker and Captain Runacles had been friends from boyhood. They had been swished together at Dr. Huskisson's school, hard by the Water Gate; had been packed off to sea in the same ship, and afterwards had more than once smelt powder together. Admiral Blake and Sir Christopher Mings had turned them into tough fighters by sea; and Margaret Tellworthy had completed their education ashore, and made them better friends by rejecting both. In an access of misogyny they had planned and built their blue pavilions, beside the London road, vowing to shut themselves up and look on no woman again. This happened but a short time before the first Dutch War, in which the one served under Captain Jonings in theRubyand the other had the honour to be cast ashore with Prince Rupert himself, aboard theGalloper. Upon the declaration of peace, in the autumn of 1667, they had returned, and, forgetting their vow, laid siege again to their mistress, who regretted the necessity of refusing them thrice apiece.
Upon his third rejection, Jeremy Runacles was driven by indignation to offer his hand at once to Mistress Isabel Seaman, sister of that same Robert Seaman who, as Mayor of Harwich, admitted Sir Anthony Deane to the freedom of the Corporation, and had the honour to receive, in exchange, twelve fire-buckets for the new town-hall. As Mistress Isabel inherited a third of the profits amassed by her father in the rope-making trade, she was considered a good match. Captain Barker, however, resented the marriage on the ground that she was out of place in a pavilion expressly designed for a confirmed bachelor. When, after a few months, her husband also began to hold this view, Mrs. Runacles, instead of reminding him that he, and he alone, was to blame for her intrusion, did her best to make matters easy by quitting this world altogether on St. Bartholomew's Eve, 1670, leaving behind her the smallest possible daughter. But as this daughter at once required a nurse, the alleviation proved to be inconsiderable—as Mr. Runacles would have delighted to point out to his wife, had she remained within earshot. As it was, he took infinite pains to select a suitable nurse, and forthwith neglected the child entirely—a course of conduct which was not so culpable as might be supposed, since (with the sole exception of Mrs. Runacles) he had never been known to err in choosing a subordinate. In times of peace he gave himself up to studying the mathematics, in which he was a proficient, and to the designing of such curious toys as sundials, water-clocks, pumps, and the like; which he so multiplied about the premises, out of pure joy in constructing them, that Simeon, his body-servant, had much ado to live among the many contrivances for making his life easier.
Although the two pavilions were exactly similar in shape and colour, their gardens differed in some important respects. On Captain Runacles' side of the hedge all was order—trim turf and yews accurately clipped, though stunted by the sea winds. Captain Barker's factotum, Narcissus Swiggs by name, was a slow man with but a single eye. His orbit in gardening was that of the four seasons, but he had the misfortune to lag behind them by the space of three months; while the two sides of the gravel path, though each would be harmonious in itself, could only be enjoyed by shutting one eye as you advanced from the blue gate to the blue front-door. The particular pride of Captain Barker's garden, however, was a collection of figure-heads set up like statues at regular intervals around the hedge. The like of it could be found nowhere. Here, against a background of green, and hanging forward over a green lawn, were an Indian Chief, a Golden Hind, a Triton, a Centaur, an effigy of King Charles I., another of Britannia, a third of the god Pan, and a fourth of Mr. John Phillipson, sometime alderman and shipowner of Harwich. Though rudely modelled, the majority received an extremely lifelike appearance from their colouring, which was renewed every now and then under the Captain's own supervision. He asserted them to be beautiful, and his acquaintances were content with the qualification that to an unwarned visitor, in an uncertain light, they might be disconcerting.
To this paradise Captain Barker introduced his newly adopted son, with the wet-nurse that the Doctor had found for him: and after explaining matters to Narcissus—who had heard of theWasp'sarrival in port and had been vaguely troubled by a long conversation with Simeon, next door—installed the new-comers in the two rooms under the roof of the pavilion and sat down to meditate and wait for the child's development.
On the fourth morning after the installation, Narcissus appeared and demanded a higher wage. This was granted.
On the sixth morning, Narcissus appeared again.
"That there nurse—" he began.
"What of her?"
"As touching that there nurse, your instructions were to feed her up."
"Well?"
"I've fed her up."
"Well?"
"She's ate till she's sick."
The Captain sent post-haste for Dr. Beckerleg.
"That woman's green with bile," the Doctor announced. "You've been over-feeding her."
"I did it to strengthen the child."
"No doubt; but this sort of woman will eat all that's put before her. Lower her diet."
This was done. The woman recovered in a couple of days and resigned her place at once, declaring she was starved.
A second wet-nurse was sought for and found. The child thrived, was weaned, and began to cut his teeth without any trouble to mention. Twice a day Captain Barker visited his nursery and studied him attentively.
"I'll own that I'm boggled," he confessed to Dr. Beckerleg. "You see, a child is the offspring of his parents."
"That is undeniable!" the Doctor answered.
"And science now asserts that he inherits his parents' aptitudes: therefore, to train himsecundum naturam, I must discover these aptitudes and educate or check them."
"Decidedly."
"Well, but his mother was an angel, and his father the dirtiest scamp that ever cheated the halter."
"I should advise you to strike a mean. What of the child himself?"
"He does nothing but eat."
"It appears to me that, striking a mean between the two extremes you mention, we arrive at mere man. I perceive a great opportunity. Suppose you teach him exactly what Adam was taught."
"Gardening?"
"Precisely. He will start with some advantage over Adam, there being no Eve to complicate matters."
"He shall be taught gardening," the little Captain decided.
"The pursuit will accord well with his temperament, which is notably pacific. The child seldom or never cries. At the same time we cannot quite revert to the Garden of Eden. His life will, almost certainly, bring him more or less into contact with his fellow-men."
"We must expect that."
"Therefore, as a mere measure of precaution, it might be as well to instruct him in the use of the small-sword."
"I will look after that. There is nothing I shall enjoy more than teaching him—precaution. We have now, I think, settled everything—"
"By no means." The Doctor put a hand into his tail-pocket, and after some difficulty with the lining pulled out a small book bound in green leather and tied with a green ribbon. "Here," he announced, "is the first volume of a treatise on education."
"Plague take your books! You're as bad as Jemmy, yonder. I tell you I'll not addle the boy's head with books."
"But this treatise has the advantage to be unwritten."
Dr. Beckerleg untied the ribbon, and holding out the book, turned over a score of pages. They were all blank.
"Undoubtedly that is an advantage. But then, it hardly seems to me to be a treatise."
"No: but it will be when you have written it."
"I?"
"Certainly, you intend to train Tristram in accordance with nature. On what do we base our knowledge of nature? On experiment and observation. For many reasons your experiments with the child must be limited; but you can observe him daily—hourly, if you like. In this volume you shall record your observations from day to day,nulla dies sine linea. It is the first present I make to him, as his godfather: and in doing so I set you down to write the most valuable book in the world, a complete History of a Human Creature."
Captain Barker took the volume.
"But I shall never live to finish it."
"We hope not. The beauty, however, of this history will be that at any point in its progress we may consult it for Tristram's good, and learn all that, up to that point, God has given us eyes to see. It may be that in deciding to make him a gardener we have been mistaken. That book will enlighten us."
"There's one blessing," said Captain Barker, tucking the book under his arm; "whatever pursuit the boy may follow, he'll want to follow it unmolested. And therefore, in any case, I must teach him to use the small-sword."
During the first few months, almost every entry in the Captain's green volume dealt with Tristram's appetite. Nor did this fluctuate enough to make the record exciting. He was a slow, phlegmatic infant, with red cheeks and an exuberant crop of yellow curls. He slept all night and a good third of the day, and, beyond cutting ten teeth in as many months, exhibited no precocity. Nothing troubled him, if we except an insatiable hunger. He was weaned with extreme difficulty, and even when promoted to bread and biscuits and milk puddings, continued to recognise his nurse's past service and reward it with so sincere an affection that the woman accepted an increase of wage and cheerfully consented to stay on and take care of him.
Captain Barker saw nothing in all this to shake his first resolution of making the boy a gardener, but rather found in each successive day a reason the more for making haste to learn something about horticulture himself, in order that when the time came he might be able to teach it. At length he took counsel with Narcissus Swiggs and unfolded his desire.
Mr. Swiggs listened sleepily, and as soon as his master had done gave him a month's notice.
"What the devil's the use of that?" Captain Barker asked.
"I thought you weren't satisfied, that's all."
"If I weren't, I should kick you out without half these words. You've been thinking of yourself all this while."
"I mostly does."
"Then don't, while I'm talking." And Captain Barker explained his scheme a second time.
"No use," pronounced Mr. Swiggs at the close, shaking his head ponderously.
"Why not?"
Mr. Swiggs swept his hand before him, summing up the whole landscape with one majestic semicircle.
"Where is your soil?" he asked. "And where is your water? Springs?"—he paused a couple of seconds—"There ain't none. All that mortal man can do, I does."
"And what is that?"
"I does without."
"But the marsh behind us—"
"Salt."
"Narcissus Swiggs, you have been in my service twenty years."
"Twenty-three."
"During that time you have once or twice argued with me. I ask you, as a Christian man, to tell me truly what you got by it."
"Naught."
"Just so. On this occasion, however, I've listened with great patience to all your objections—"
"Not a tithe of 'em."
"They're all you'll have a chance of making, at any rate. And I answer them thus: If the worst comes to the worst, I'll cover the whole of this property with a couple of tubs, one to catch rain-water and t'other filled with garden mould. If the sea rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, and a garden I'll have."
Faithful to this resolve, Captain Barker set to work to study the art in which Tristram was to be instructed, and, being by nature a hater of superficiality, determined to begin by acquainting himself with everything that had been written about the nature and habits of plants from the earliest ages to that present day. He engaged a young demy of Magdalen College, Oxford—son of Mr. Lucas, saddler, of the High Street, Harwich—who was much pinched to continue his studies at the University, to extract and translate for him whatever Aristotle, Theophrastus and others of the Peripatetic school had written on the subject; to search the college libraries for information concerning the horticulture of China and Persia, the hanging gardens of Babylon, those planted by the learned Abdullatif at Bagdad, and the European paradises of Naples, Florence, Monza, Mannheim and Leyden to draw up plans and a particular description of the Oxford Physic Garden, by Magdalen College, as well as the plantations of Worcester, Trinity and St. John's Colleges; and to ransack the bookshops of that seat of learning for such works as might be procurable in no more difficult tongue than the Latin. In this way Captain Barker became possessed of a vast number of monkish herbals, Pliny'sHistoria Naturalis, theHerbarum Vivas Eiconesof Brunsfels, the treatises of Tragus, Fuchsius, Matthiolus, Ebn Beithar and Conrad Gesner, theStirpium Adversaria NovaandPlantarum seu Stirpium Historiaof Matthew Lobel, with the works of such living botanists as Henshaw, Hook, Grew and Malpighi. As the Captain had no thought of resuming a seafaring life, he felt confident of digesting in time these masses of learning, though it annoyed him at first to find himself capable of understanding but a tenth of what he read. On summer evenings he would sit out on the lawn, with a folio balanced on his knee, and do violence to Mr. Swiggs's ears with such learned terms as "Boraginiae," "Cucurbitaceae," "Leguminosae," and as winter drew in, master and man would hold long consultations indoors over certain plants, the portraits of which in the herbals seemed familiar enough, though their habitats often proved, on further reading, to lie no nearer than Arabia Felix or the Spice Islands. Nevertheless, they took some practical steps. To begin with, the soil of the garden before the Blue Pavilion was entirely changed—Captain Barker importing from The Hague no less than thirty tons of the mould most approved by the Dutch tulip-growers. A tank, too, was sunk at the back of the building towards the marsh, as a receptacle and reservoir for rain-water; and by Tristram's fourth birthday his adoptive father began to build, on the south side of the house, a hibernatory, or greenhouse, differing in size only from that which Solomon de Caus had the honour to erect for the Elector Palatine in his gardens at Heidelberg.
Meanwhile Captain Runacles, who watched these operations from the other side of the privet hedge and picked up many scraps of rumour from the antique Simeon, was consumed with scorn and envy. The two friends no longer spoke. At the back of the Fish and Anchor, across the road, there stretched at this time the largest and fairest bowling-green in the east of England—two good acres of smooth turf, stretching almost to the edge of the sea-cliff, on which side the wall was cut down to within a foot of the ground, so that the gossips as they played, or sat and smoked on the benches about the green, might have a clear view of the ships entering or leaving the harbour, or of others that, hull-down on the horizon, took the sunset on their sails. Hither it had always been the custom of the two captains to repair at the closing in of the day, and drink their beer together as they watched this or that vessel more or less narrowly avoiding the shoals below. Nor would they commonly retire, unless the weather was dirty, until the sea-coal fire was lit above the town-gate and the lesser lighthouse upon the town-green answered with its six candles. Now, however, though they met here as usual, no salutation was exchanged. On benches as far apart as possible they drank their beer in silence and watched the players. The situation was understood by everybody at the inn; and at first some awkward attempts were made to heal the breach. But Captain Jeremy's scowl and the light in Captain John's green eyes soon convinced the busybodies that they were playing with fire, and likely to burn their fingers.
In his home Captain Runacles grew restless. To cure this, he set to work and finished a large dial which he had long intended to present to the Corporation of Harwich, to set up over the town-gate. The Corporation accepted the gift and employed their clerk to write a letter of thanks. The language of this letter was so flattering that Captain Runacles made another dial for the Exchange. Being thanked for this also, he presented an excellent pendulum clock of his own making, to be placed over his Majesty's arms upon the principal gate of the dockyard, with a bell above the clock to strike the hours of the day, as well as to summon the men to their work; and two more dials, the one for the new town-hall, the other for the almshouses near St. Helen's Port. Again the Corporation thanked him as profusely as before, but asked him to be at the expense of affixing these dials, which, both by their beauty and number, were rapidly making Harwich unique among towns of its size. Upon this Captain Runacles, in a huff, forswore all further munificence, and applied himself to the construction of a pair of compasses capable of dividing an inch into a thousand parts, and to the sinking of a well in the marsh behind his pavilion. The design of this well was extremely ingenious. It was worked by means of a wheel, nine feet in diameter, with steps in its circumference like those of a treadmill, and so weighted that by walking upon it, as if up a flight of stairs, a person of eleven or twelve stone would draw up a bucket—two buckets being so hung, at the ends of a rope surrounding the wheel, that while one ascended, full of water, the other, which was empty, sank down and was refilled. These buckets being too heavy for a man to overturn to pour out the water, he bored a hole in each, and contrived to plug the holes so that the weight of the bucket as it bumped upon the trough prepared for it at the well's edge jogged out the plug and sent the water running down the trough into whatever pail or vessel stood ready to catch it. Nor is it astonishing that he lost his temper when, after these preparations, he found the well was not deep enough, and the water as much infected with brine as if he had gathered it from the surface of the marsh.
It was on the day following this disappointment that, while walking to and fro the length of his turfed garden, between three and four in the afternoon (for his habits were methodical), he heard a child's voice lifted on the far side of the party hedge:
"Dad!"
"Eh? What is it?" answered the voice of Captain Barker, from his new tulip-bed, across the garden.
"What thing is this?"
"A nymph." Captain Runacles guessed by this that the four-year-old's question had reference to one of the figure-heads disposed along the hedge.
"What is a nymph?"
"A sort of girl."
"I don't like this sort of girl. She's got no legs."
"Come over here and look at this tulip."
"There's a much better sort of girl next door," Tristram continued, unheeding.
"What do you know about her?" sharply inquired his guardian.
"Oh, I see her often at the top window, and sometimes out walking. Nurse says we're not to speak, so we put out our tongues at each other."
"Tristram, come over here and look—"
"She's got funny curls, and puts her doll to bed in the window-seat every night. I like that sort of girl. When I grow up," the young bashaw proceeded, "I shall have lots of that sort of girl all over the garden, instead of these wooden things."
Captain Barker treated this Oriental day-dream with silence.
"Dad—why am I worth more than all the girls in the world?"
"Who said you were?"
"Nurse. She says you think so. She says the big man next door would give his eyes to have a boy like me; but he can't make nothing of a girl, and don't try. Narcissus—"
"Hallo!" replied the heavy voice of Mr. Swiggs.
"Have you got a boy?"
"No, sir: 'nmarried."
"What did you give your eye for, then?"
"Losh!" ejaculated Narcissus, as Captain Barker pounced on the youngster and haled him off to the tulip-bed. The interrogatory was stayed for a while.
Captain Runacles, who had caught every word, strode half a dozen times up and down his grass-plot: then summoned Simeon.
"Tell nurse to send Miss Sophia down to me."
Five minutes later a small child of seven appeared in the doorway, and, after hesitating there for a moment, stepped timidly across the turf. Her figure and movements were ungainly and her complexion appeared unnaturally sallow against a dark grey frock. A wet brush, applied two minutes before with inconsiderate zeal, had taken all the curl out of her dark hair and smoothed it in preposterous bands on either side of her brow. Her arms hung stiff and perpendicular, and she fidgeted with her short skirt as she advanced.
Captain Runacles stopped short in his walk and surveyed her.
"H'm," he said. "Don't shuffle."
The little girl looked up, dropped her eyes again quickly, and let her hands hang limp beside her. She was shaking from head to foot.
"You are a girl."
"Pardon, father," she mumbled in a low whisper.
"Next door there lives a small boy. You are in the habit of putting out your tongue at him. Why?"
"I—I—"
Her voice wavered and she broke into a fit of sobbing.
"Tut, tut! Stop that noise; I haven't scolded you. On the contrary, I sent for you in the hope that you might always be able to put out your tongue at that boy. Sophia, dry your eyes and attend, please. Would you like to be an accomplished woman?"
"If it please you, father."
"Now may the devil fly away with the whole sex! If theydohappen to desire anything good in itself, it's always to please some man or another. Sophia, I ask you if, for your own sake, and for the sake of knowledge, you will be my pupil; if you care to pursue—" Captain Runacles checked himself, not because he had any idea that he was talking over the head of a girl of seven, but because a general proposition had occurred to him.
"Woman's notion of a pursuit," he said, clasping his hands behind him and regarding his daughter's tear-stained face with severity— "woman's notion of a pursuit is entirely passive. Her only idea is to be pursued, and even so her mind runs on ultimate capture. Sophia," he continued, himself forgetting for the moment his view of knowledge assui causa optandum, "would you like to please me by licking that boy across the hedge into a cocked-hat?"
"But—oh, father!"
"What is it?"
She could not answer for a moment. Nor did he know that she besought God every night to change her into a boy that she might find some grace in his sight.
"You have one advantage," said her father coldly, as she struggled to keep down her tears. "Your rival across the hedge is in a fair way to be turned into a fool. We will begin to-morrow. In a week or so I shall be able to pronounce some opinion on your capacity. Now run indoors to your nurse—why, bless my soul!"
The child had trotted forward, and, taking his hand, kissed it passionately. He looked into her face, and, finding it white as a sheet, lifted her in his arms and carried her into the pavilion.
"We must have an apiarium," Captain Barker announced a week later.
"What's that?" Mr. Swiggs asked.
"Half a dozen beehives, at least."
"No room."
"There is nothing," pursued Captain Barker, "that gives such character to a garden as an apiarium unless it be fishponds. I will have both."
"No water."
"The fishponds shall be constantly supplied with running water. I will have three ponds at different levels, connected with miniature waterfalls and approached by anallee verte. The glimpse of water between green hedges will be extremely refreshing to the eye. The apiarium shall stand close to these ponds—as Virgil commends:"
At liquidi fontes et stagna virentia muscoAdsint, et tenuis fugiens per gramina rivus
At liquidi fontes et stagna virentia muscoAdsint, et tenuis fugiens per gramina rivus
At liquidi fontes et stagna virentia muscoAdsint, et tenuis fugiens per gramina rivus
"—And shall be surrounded with beds of violets and lavender and such blue flowers as bees especially love. When, Narcissus, I glance over the hedge at the back of the house and behold Captain Runacles' two acres lying waste, cumbered like a mining country with the ruins of his mechanical toys, I have a mind to—"
"He'll neither sell nor lend."
"I perceive that in time we must set about draining so much of the marsh outside as belongs to me. There, if anywhere, the fishponds must lie. In the meantime there is a full rood of ground beyond the northern hedge that we may consider. By cutting a path through the privet there and enclosing this parcel, we gain for our bees a quadrangle which will not only give them their proper seclusion, but may be planted in the classical style without detriment to the general effect of our garden. The privet serving as a screen.…"
Invigorated by Mr. Swiggs's opposition, the little man continued for twenty minutes to revel in details, and ended by rushing his companion off to examine the ground. In his hot fit he forgot all about Tristram, who, tired of listening, had slipped away among the gooseberry-bushes, with a half-eaten slice of bread and butter in his hand.
The fruit proved green and hard—for it was now the third week of May—and by the time his bread and butter was eaten the boy had a fancy to explore farther. He wandered through the strawberry-beds, and, finding nothing there but disappointment, allowed himself to run lazily after a white butterfly, which led him down to the front of the pavilion, over the parterres of budding tulips and across to an east border gay with heart's-ease, bachelor's buttons, forget-me-nots and purple honesty. The scent of budding yews met him here, blown softly across from Captain Runacles' garden. The white butterfly balanced himself on this odorous breeze, and, rising against it, skimmed suddenly over the hedge and dropped out of sight.
Now there was set, under an archway in this hedge, a blue door, the chinks of which were veiled with cobwebs and the panels streaked with the silvery tracks of snails. By thispervius usus(as Captain Runacles called it) the two friends had been used to visit each other, but since the quarrel it had never been opened. No lock had been fixed upon it, however. Only the passions of two obstinate men had kept it shut for four years and more.
The child contemplated this door for a minute, then lifted himself on tip-toe and stretched his hand up towards the rusty latch. It was a good six inches above his reach.
He glanced back over his shoulder. Nobody was in sight. His eyes fell on a stack of flower-pots left by Narcissus beside the path. He fetched one, set it upside-down in front of the door and climbed atop of it.
This time he reached the latch and lifted it with some difficulty. His weight pressed the door open and he fell forward, sprawling on hands and knees, into the next garden.
He picked himself up, and was on the point of fetching a prolonged howl, but suddenly thought better of it and began to stare instead.
Barely six paces in front of him, and in the centre of a round garden-bed, a small girl was kneeling. She held a rusty table-knife, the blade of which was covered with mould; and as she gazed back at him the boy saw that her face was stained with weeping.
"Hallo!"
"Hallo!"
"I was just thinking of you, little boy, and beginning to despise you, when plump—in you tumbled."
"But, I say—look here, you know—I've been told what despising is, and if you despise me you ought to say why."
"Because I've been ordered to. I'm going to do it out of this book here. Listen: 'A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude,' and that's only the beginning. Oh, my dear, I'll wither you up—you just wait a bit!"
She dug the knife viciously into the earth.
"I don't care," said Tristram affably.
"P'r'aps you don't know what 'Don't Care' came to?"
"No, I don't."
"Well, he came to—a place. It was a good deal deeper down than this hole I'm digging."
"What's the hole for?"
"My doll, here. I've got to put away childish things; so I'm going to cover her right up and never see her face again. Oh! oh!"
She began to sob as if her heart would break.
"I wouldn't cry if I were you. I didn't cry just now when I tumbled off the flower-pot."
"You don't know what it is to be a mother."
"No, but I can dig ever so much better than you. Look here. I've got a spade of my own, and I'll show you how to dig properly, if you like."
He ran off and returned with it in less than a minute. In another minute they were engrossed in the burial rites, the girl still playing at tragedy, but enjoying herself immensely.
"We must read something over the remains," she announced.
"Why?"
"Because it's always done, unless the dead person is buried with a stake through his inside."
"Then we'd better take her out again and put a stake through her; because I can't read."
"Haven't you begun to learn yet?"
"No."
"Well," said Sophia, picking up the Euclid, "you can hold a corner of the book and listen to what I read, and perhaps you can repeat some of it after me, you contemptible boy."
They were standing over the doll's grave, side by side, and chanting in antiphon the fourth proposition of the First Book of Euclid, when Captain Runacles came round the corner of the house and halted to rub his eyes.
At the sound of his footstep on the gravel Sophia snatched the book from Tristram and looked desperately round. It was too late. Her father was glaring down upon them both, with his hands behind him and his chin stuck forward.
"You miserable child!"
He pronounced it deliberately, syllable by syllable, and turned upon Tristram.
"Will you kindly explain, sir, to what I owe the honour of your presence in my garden?"
Tristram, who had never before been addressed with harshness, failed to understand the tone of this speech, and answered with amiable directness—
"I tumbled in, off a flower-pot."
"Indeed!"
"Yes; and I stayed because I liked the girl here."
"You do her infinite honour."
"I'm going away now because I'm hungry. But I'll come back again after dinner, all right."
"No," said Captain Runacles grimly; "on that point you must allow me to correct you. You infernal young cub, if I catch you here again—"
"Hi! Captain!" interrupted a voice at the foot of the garden.
Doctor Beckerleg stood beside the blue gate and held it open to admit another visitor, whose dress and appearance were unfamiliar to the Captain. He paused midway in his threat and removed his eyes from the children. Sophia crept towards the house, while Tristram seized his opportunity and slipped away to the safe side of the privet hedge.
"Let me present," said the Doctor, "Mr. Josias Finch, of Boston, New England."
"Attorney-at-law," Mr. Finch added, lifting his hat politely.
He was a little man with a triple chin and small, intelligent eyes that twinkled deep in a round, fat face. His dress was of a slate-coloured material, decorated with silver buttons, and he wore a voluminous wig.
"With news for you, Captain."
"Important news," Mr. Finch echoed. He pulled out a silver snuff-box and offered it to Captain Runacles. "You don't indulge? But you will suffer me, no doubt. Ah," he went on, inhaling a pinch, "it has been a long journey, sir, and my stomach abhors sea-voyaging."
"Shall we step into the house?" suggested Captain Runacles.
"By all means, sir. My business is simple, but may require some elucidation. May I suggest that Dr. Beckerleg accompanies us? He is already acquainted with the drift of my commission, for reasons I will expound hereafter."
"Of course. Come in, Doctor." He led the pair into his dining-room. "I may as well state, Mr. Finch, that my temper is somewhat impatient. If you come as a friend, my hospitality is yours for as long as you care to use it; but I'd take it kindly if you came to the heart of your business at once."
"To be sure, sir, and a very proper attitude. I plunge, then, into the middle of affairs. You will doubtless remember Silvanus Tellworthy, younger brother of the late Sir Jabez Tellworthy whose virtues recently ceased to adorn this neighbourhood."
"Perfectly."
"His conscience led him to exchange this country, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, for a soil more amical to his religious opinions."
"I have heard 'twas for fear of the attentions of a widow in Harwich; but proceed."
"After amassing a considerable fortune he died, sir, of a paralytical stroke, upon the 12th of November last."
"I am sorry to hear it."
"That was the common expression of Boston at the time. Dismissing for a more leisurely occasion the consideration of his civic virtues, I may say that I had the honour to possess his confidence in the double capacity of friend and legal adviser. It fell to me to draw up his will, some few years before his decease; and now I am left to the task of giving it effect. He was a childless man, and, with the exception of some trifling legacies to the town of Boston and a few private friends, bequeathed his wealth to his only niece, Margaret, daughter of the Sir Jabez Tellworthy already mentioned, and her heirs."
Captain Runacles uncrossed his legs and addressed Dr. Beckerleg.
"Doctor, haven't you brought this gentleman to the wrong pavilion?"
"Wait a moment."
"I should rather say," Mr. Finch continued, "that a life interest only was bestowed upon Margaret Salt, the bulk of the estate going to the anticipated heirs of her body, and being (also by anticipation) apportioned among them on a principle of division which need not occupy our attention, for (as it turns out) she has left but one child. My client made this will soon after receiving the news of his niece's marriage with Captain Roderick Salt, and before he had any reason to suspect that gentleman's real character. It was therefore natural that in selecting a couple of trustees he regarded the Captain as the man who, of all others, might be reckoned on to look after the interests of the child or children. When, however, the unamiable qualities of Captain Salt reached his ear, he would doubtless have made some alteration in the will, but for the tidings of that officer's death in the Low Countries. He had such confidence in the surviving trustee—"
"Man alive!" Captain Runacles broke in, "if you are talking of yourself, let me advise you to quit England by the first ship that sails. The child is already furnished with a guardian—a guardian, my dear sir, who will nullify your legal claim upon the child by the simple expedient of taking your life."
"But, excuse me—"
"You will waive your claim, of course. But let me advise you also to conceal it; for Captain Barker is quite capable, should he get hold of this will, of regarding your mere existence as an insult."
"But, dear me—if you'll allow me to speak—I am not talking of myself."
"No?"
"No; I am not the child's legal guardian."
"I congratulate you. But who is it, then?"
"It is you, Captain Runacles."
"What!" The Captain leapt up and glared at Mr. Finch incredulously.
"Here is a copy of the will; read for yourself. My friend, Silvanus Tellworthy, remembered you as a friend of his early days and as a man of probity. He had heard also, from time to time, news of your public actions that increased his esteem. He was informed—pardon me if I mention it—of your sincere and honourable affection for his niece; and, indeed, hoped, I may say—"
"No more on that point, if you please."
"Sir, I am silent, and ask your pardon."
"But—but—Doctor, this is simply astounding. Do you hear what this gentleman says?—that I—I alone—am Tristram's guardian after all?"
Mr. Finch and Dr. Beckerleg exchanged an anxious look. The Doctor cleared his throat and took up the story.
"No, my dear Captain, I regret that you make one mistake. You said 'alone.'"
"What? Is there another trustee?"
"There is the man already mentioned—Roderick Salt."
"Tut, tut—he's dead."
"I fear, on the contrary, that he's alive."
"But he was drowned, confound him!"
"Some meddling Netherlander, cursed with too much humanity, must have baulked the will of Heaven by dragging him out of the ditch and reviving him. He was rescued, sir, and clapped into prison; escaped by turning traitor and entering the service of the Prince of Orange— in what capacity I dare not say, but likely enough as a spy, or perhaps a kidnapper of soldiers. There are plenty of the trade along the frontiers just now. He has changed his name, but has been recognised by more than one Harwich man at The Hague, and again at Cuxhaven. For a year now I have heard nothing of him. Belike he is off upon a dirty mission to some German principality no bigger than your back-garden; ambassadors of his size are as easy to find on the Continent of Europe as a needle in a bottle of hay. Or maybe he wanders on some gaming campaign of his own."
The face of Captain Runacles, as the Doctor proceeded, went through three rapid changes of colour—white, scarlet and purple.
"You knew all this?" he shouted, the congested veins standing out upon his temples; "you knew all this, and kept us in the dark?"
"I did. It affected the child in no way. The fellow clearly knew nothing, or cared nothing, about Tristram. Even supposing—which was absurd—that he would wish to burden himself with the boy, I felt pretty sure of Barker's ability to cope with him at the briefest notice. Moreover, considering his mode of life, I hoped by waiting a very short while to be able to tell you that Captain Salt's career was ended by the halter. You see, he was evidently not born to be drowned, and I drew the usual inference. But Mr. Finch's news puts a very different complexion on the business. Tristram being heir, as I understand, to some fifteen hundred pounds per annum—"
"Mr. Finch," said the Captain calmly, stepping to the door and locking it, "have you, by any chance, the intention of seeking out my co-trustee?"
"H'm: I am bound, sir, to consider my duty as a professional man."
"Let me entreat you also to reconsider it."
The little attorney glanced over his shoulder at the closed door.
"Sir," he replied with dignity, "I perceive that I have been unfortunate enough to give you a wrong notion of my character. Let me say that, in interpreting my duty, I am even less likely to be coerced by threats than by the strict letter of the law. I will not be dragooned. And I decide nothing until you have opened that door."
"And that's mighty well said," commented Dr. Beckerleg.
Captain Jemmy slipped back the bolt.
"I shall nevertheless hold you to account," he growled.
"Thank you; I am accustomed to responsibility. And now let me say that as the child seems to be in good hands—"
"On the contrary, he's in outrageously bad ones."
"—Or rather, in the hands of an upright and kindly gentleman, I think we may perhaps agree that these rumours about Captain Salt are—shall we say?—too good to be true. May I ask Dr. Beckerleg here if he believes in ghosts?"
"Firmly," answered the Doctor, hiding a smile.
"I have known occasions," the attorney went on, with a serious face, "when a cautious belief in ghosts has proved of the very highest service in dealing with apparently intractable problems. Or suppose we call it an hypothesis, liable to correction?"
"That's it," assented the Captain heartily. "I can believe Roderick Salt to be a ghost until he comes to me and proves that he is not."
"Decidedly."
"And then I'll make him one."
The corners of Mr. Finch's mouth twitched perceptibly.
"Gently, dear sir! Remember, please, that I am only concerned with the immediate situation. To-morrow I start again for Bristol, leaving the future to be dealt with as your prudence may direct. But I have no doubt," he added, with a bow "that you will act, in all contingencies, with a single eye to the child's welfare. It is understood, then, that the child, Tristram Salt, remains under the care of Captain Barker, your friend, and his adoptive father—"
"Not at all."
"I think so," said Dr. Beckerleg quietly, looking straight into the Captain's eyes.
"That's for me to decide, Doctor."
"Tut, tut! it was decided the moment you were born."
"I think," Mr. Finch interposed, "it is time I gave Captain Runacles some necessary information about the boy's inheritance."
It was close upon four o'clock when the little blue door which, until that morning, had remained shut for over four years was opened a second time and Captain Runacles stepped through into Captain Barker's domain. His wig was carefully brushed and he carried a gold-headed cane. Whatever emotion he may have felt was concealed by the upright carriage and solemn pace proper to a visit of state.
Captain Barker, who stood at the lower end of the garden and stooped over his beloved tulips, started at the sound of footsteps, looked round, and hastily plucking his wig from the handle of a spade that stood upright in the mould by his elbow, arranged it upon his bald scalp and awaited the other's advance.
The pair did not shake hands.
"I have come to speak with you about—er—Tristram." The name stuck in Captain Jeremy's throat.
"The boy strayed into your premises to-day. I know it. If you are aggrieved by such a trifle—"
"I am not. If you doubt the sufficiency of my excuse for calling upon you, let me say at once that I come as the boy's guardian."
"Upon my word—"
"As his legal guardian."
"Bah! This is too much! Do you conceive yourself to be jesting?"
"Have you ever known me to jest?"
"Not wilfully."
"Not, at any rate, upon parchment. Be so good as to run your eye over this."
The little man took the copy of Silvanus Tellworthy's will and fumbled it between his fingers.
"Is this some dirty trick of lawyer's work?"
"It is."
"Do you really wish me to read it?"
"Unless you prefer me to explain."
"I do—vastly."
"Very well, then."
And Captain Runacles proceeded to explain the will in a hard, methodical voice, nodding his head whenever he reached a point of importance at the parchment which rustled between Captain Barker's fingers. For a while this rustle sounded like the whisper of a gathering storm.
"It follows from this," concluded Captain Runacles, "that I am responsible for the child's upbringing. Can you carry the reasoning a step farther?"
The little man looked up. The wrath had clean died out of his puckered face; and in place of it there showed a blank despair, mingled with loathing and unspeakable bitterness of soul.
"Yes, I can," he replied very slowly, and turning away his face leant a hand on the spade beside him. "Oh, Jemmy, Jemmy!" he muttered.
There was no entreaty in the words, but they pierced Captain Jemmy's heart like two stabs of a knife. He took a step forward and stretched out a hand as if to lay it on his old friend's shoulder. The little man jumped aside, faced him again, hissing out one word—
"You!"
The arm dropped.
"Jack—I'm sorry; but you have drawn the wrong conclusion."
The pair looked each other in the face for a moment, and Captain Runacles went on, but more coldly and as if repeating a task—
"Yes, the wrong conclusion. For my own part, as you once pointed out, I have a girl. I may add that I propose to train up Sophia; and I haven't the faintest doubt that, in spite of her sex, I can train her to knock your Tristram into a cocked-hat in every department of useful knowledge. At the same time it has occurred to me that, as his guardian, I am at least bound to give the boy every chance. You are teaching him gardening?"
Captain Barker nodded, with a face profoundly puzzled.
"You object to it?" he asked.
"Decidedly, under your present conditions. You are cramped for space."
"We are using every inch between the road and the marsh."
"You forget my back-garden, which lies waste at present."
"My dear Jemmy!"
"By knocking a hole in the party hedge you gain two and a half acres at least. Then, as to water—you depend on the rainfall."
"That's true."
"But there's an excellent spring between this and Dovercourt; and the owner will sell."
"It's half a mile away."
"God bless my soul! I suppose I am not too old to design a conduit."
Captain Jack's arm stole into Captain Jemmy's.
"You'll be saying next," the latter went on, "that I'm too old to set about draining the marsh. Then, as to sundials: you're amazingly deficient in sundials. Now half a dozen here and there—and a fish-pond or two—unless you'd like to have a moat. I could run you a moat around the back, and keep it supplied with fresh water all the year round. By the way, talking of moats and fresh water, did I tell you that Roderick Salt was not drowned, after all?"
"Eh? How did he die, then?"
"He's not dead."
"Good God!"
"He has been seen at The Hague, and again at Cuxhaven, by men of this very port. Beckerleg will give you their names."
"But you tell me—the will, here, says—that he's joint guardian—"
"Yes: it's serious, if he finds out. Mr. Finch—I may say I've a large respect for that attorney—Mr. Finch suggests that it may have been his ghost. I think, Jack, we must take that explanation."
"Rubbish!"
"Ghosts have some useful properties."
"Name one or two."
"Well, to start with, they can be disbelieved in until seen."
"I begin to see."
"Then, again, should one appear, he can be believed in and walked through. This is a rule without exceptions. If you have reason to believe that a ghost stands before you, your first step would be to make a hole in him to convince yourself."
"But if one should be mistaken?"
"If the apparition gives up the ghost, so to speak, and you find yourself mistaken, I see no harm in owning it. As co-trustee of aggrieved man, I will at any time listen to your apologies. By the by, I have asked Mr. Finch to call upon you to-morrow and explain his theory, among other matters of business. You will understand that I bear no affection towards this boy of yours: on the contrary, I sincerely desire my Sophia to shame him with her attainments. It is a mere matter of my duty towards him; and I'll be obliged if you keep him, as far as possible, out of my sight. Now about those dials—"
Captain Barker understood, but replied only by tightening for a moment the hand that rested on his comrade's sleeve. The old friends moved on beside the flower-borders and fell into trivial converse to hide a joy as deep as that of sweethearts who have quarrelled and now are reconciled.