All the next morning the boys lay in the wire-grass on top of their special sand-hill, on the look-out for their new friend. But he did not come.
Instead, he walked over to Carne, and coming first on the back door, rapped on it, and was confronted by Mrs. Lee. It seemed to him that she eyed him with something more than native caution, and after what he had heard from Dr. Yool he was not surprised at it.
"Can I see Sir Denzil?" he asked cheerily. "I'm the new curate."
The old woman's mouth wrinkled in a dry smile, as though the thought of Sir Denzil and the curate compassed incongruity.
"Yo' can try," she said. "Knock on front door and maybe Kennet'll hear yo'." And Eager went round to the front.
Continuous knocking at last produced some result. The great front door looked as if it had not been opened for years. It opened at last, however, and Mr. Kennet stood regarding him with disfavour and surprise and a touch of relief on his hairless red face. Carne had few callers, and Kennet's first idea, when summoned to that door, was that Captain Denzil had come home, a return which could hardly make for peace and happiness.
"Can I see Sir Denzil?" asked Eager once more. "Tell him, please, that Mr. Eager, the new curate, begs the favour of an interview with him."
Kennet looked doubtful, but finally, remembering that he was a gentleman's gentleman, asked him to step inside while he inquired if Sir Denzil could see him.
The hall was a large and desolate apartment, flagged with stone and destitute of decoration or clothing of any kind, and was evidently little used. There was a huge fireplace at one side, but the bare hearth gave a chill even to the summer day. A wide oak staircase led up to a gallery off which the upper rooms opened, and from which Sir Denzil at times in the winter quietly overlooked the boys at their play down below, and sought in them unconscious indications of character.
And presently, Kennet came silently down the staircase and intimated that the visitor was to follow him. He ushered him into a room looking out over the sea, and Sir Denzil turned from the window, snuff-box in hand, to meet him.
There was an intimation of surprised inquiry in the very way he held his snuff-box. He bowed politely, however, and his eyebrows emphasised his desire to learn the reasons for so unexpected a visit.
"I trust you will pardon my introducing myself, Sir Denzil," said Eager. "I am taking Mr. Smythe's place, and the vicar is away."
"Ah!" said Sir Denzil, taking a pinch very elegantly, "I had not the pleasure of Mr. Smythe's acquaintance,"--and his manner politely intimated that he equally had not sought that of Mr. Smythe's successor.
"I have come with a very definite object," said Eager, cheerfully oblivious to the old man's frostiness, and going straight to his mark, as was his way. "I want you to let me take those two boys in hand. I met them on the sands yesterday. In fact, they amused themselves by hiding my clothes while I was in bathing, and I looked like having to go home clad only in a towel." And he laughed again at the recollection.
"They shall be punished----"
"My dear sir! You don't suppose I came for any such purpose as that! It broke the ice between us. I got my things and made two friends. I want to improve the acquaintance--with your sanction."
"To what end?"
"To the end of making men of them, Sir Denzil. There are great possibilities there. You must not neglect them, or the responsibility will be yours."
"That, I presume, is my affair."
"No--excuse me! In the natural course of things those boys will be here when you and I are gone. As their feet are set now, so will they walk then. If you leave them untrained the responsibility for their deeds will be yours. It is no light matter."
Sir Denzil extracted a pinch very deliberately and closed the box with a tap on the First Gentleman's snub nose.
"And suppose I prefer to let them run wild for the present?"
"Then you are not doing your duty by them, and sooner or later it will recoil upon your own head--or house."
"Yes; but, as you say, I shall probably not be here, and so I shall not suffer."
"Your name--the name of your house will suffer----" Sir Denzil shedded the prospect with a shrug.
"Who set you on this business, Mr. Eager?" he asked, with a touch of acidity.
"God."
"Ah!"--snuffing with extreme deliberation. "Now we approach debatable ground."
"No, sir. We stand on the only ground that offers sound footing."
"Well, well! I suppose some people still believe such things."
"Fortunately, yes. Now about the boys. May I take them in hand?"
Sir Denzil regarded him thoughtfully while he shook his snuff box gently and prepared another pinch.
"On conditions, possibly yes," he said at last.
"And the conditions?"
"What have you heard about those boys, Mr. Eager?"
"I think I may say everything."
"Egad! Then you know more than I do. You have wasted no time. Who told you the story?"
"Perhaps you will not press that question, Sir Denzil. Having got interested in the boys I naturally desired to learn what I could about them. It was from no idle curiosity, I assure you."
"So you went to Dr. Yool, I suppose. I felt sure he would be at the root of the matter."
"I assure you he is not. The root of the matter is simply my desire for those boys. I would like to try my hand at making men of them."
"Very welt. You shall try--on this condition. As you are aware, one of them comes of high stock on both sides, the other of low stock on one side. The signs may crop out, must crop out in time. You will have opportunities, such as I have not, of observing them. What I ask of you is to bring all your intelligence and acumen to bear on the solution of my problem--which is which?"
"I understand, and I will willingly do my best. But you must remember, Sir Denzil, that there is no infallibility in such indications. The crossing of blue blood with red sometimes produces a richer strain than the blending of two thin blues."
"That is so. Still I hope there may be indications we cannot mistake, and then I shall know what to do. It is, as you can understand, a matter that has caused me no little concern."
"Naturally. By God's help we will make men of both of them. The rest we must trust to Providence."
Sir Denzil's pinch of snuff cast libellous doubts on Providence.
"You design them for the army, I presume?" asked Eager.
"Unless one should show an inclination for the Church," said the old cynic suavely. "Which I should be inclined to look upon as a clear indication of his origin."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Eager, with a smile. "The Church has its heroes no less than the army."
"You will find them difficult to handle."
"We shall soon be good friends. I'm going to begin by teaching them to swim."
Sir Denzil looked at him thoughtfully and said:
"That might undoubtedly relieve the situation. It is a dangerous coast. If you could drown one of them for me----"
"I am going to make men of them. I can't make a man out of a drowned boy. I will take every care of them, and some time you will be proud of them."
"Of one of them possibly. The question is, which?"
The Rev. Charles was greatly uplifted as he tramped through the sand to keep his appointment with the boys. He had succeeded beyond his hopes, and a most congenial field of work and study lay open to his hand.
"Catch them young," had been hammered into his heart and brain by his five years' work in East London. With heart and brain he had fought against the stolid indifference and active evil-mindedness of the grown-ups, till heart and brain grew sick at times. His greatest hopes had settled on the children, and here were two, of a different caste indeed, but as ignorant of the essentials as any he had met with--and they were given into his hand for the moulding. By God's help he would make men of them, high-born or baseborn. The side-issue was nothing to him, but it would add zest to the work.
When he got, as he believed, into the neighbourhood of his previous day's adventure, he examined the ridge of sand-hills with care. But they were all so much alike that he could not be sure. He had hoped to find the boys on the look-out for him, but he saw no signs of them.
He struggled up the yielding side of the nearest hill and looked round. If he could find their hole he would probably find them inside it or not far away.
It was close on midday, baking hot, and the sand-hills seemed as deserted as Sahara. The sea lay fast asleep behind its banks, which reached to the horizon. When he looked back across the flats to Carne, he rubbed his eyes at sight of its stout walls bending and bowing and jigging spasmodically in an uncouth dance. The very wire-grass drooped listlessly. The only sound was the cheerful creak of a cricket.
The width, length, and height of it, the gracious spaciousness of it all filled him with fresh delight. It was all so very different from the heart-crushing straitness of the slums and alleys in which his last years had been spent. He stood drinking it all in, and then, seeing no signs of the boys, he turned his back to the shore and strode inland.
But within a few steps he caught sight of recent traces of them in fresh-turned yellow sand which the sun had not had time to whiten. He whistled shrilly, if perchance the sound might penetrate to their hold.
And then, to his astonishment, the ground in front of him cracked and heaved, and first one and then another dark sanded head and laughing face came out, and the boys sprang up from the shallow holes in which they had buried themselves and stood before him.
"You young rabbits," he laughed. "I had just about given you up. Thought I wasn't coming, I suppose."
Decisive nods from both black heads.
"Well, we'll make a start on that. Remember that I never break a promise, and I want you to do the same. The boy who makes up his mind that he'll never break his word is half a brave man."
They stared up at him with wide eyes, and whether they understood it he did not know. But he knew better than to say more just then.
"Now--why----?" And he looked from one to the other and then began to laugh. "Which of you is Jack and which is Jim? I was to remember Jack by a bump on the forehead, and now you've both got bumps. Been fighting again?"
Gleaming nods from both boys.
"We must find you something better to do. I've been seeing your grandfather, and he says I may teach you to swim."
Squirms of anticipation in the active brown bodies, and glances past him at the distant sea.
"No, not to-day. It's too late now, but it was worth spending the morning on. We'll make a start to-morrow. Can you be here at eight o'clock?"
Their energetic heads intimated that they could be there very much before eight if desired.
"Right! I'll be here. In the meantime you can be practising a bit on dry land. Here's the stroke"--and he laid himself flat on a convenient hummock and kicked out energetically, while the black eyes watched intently.
"Now try it. You first, Jack. That's right. Keep your hands a bit more sloped, and your toes more down. Thrust back with the flat of your feet as though you were trying to kick some one. First rate! Now, Jim!" But Jim was already hard at work on his own account. "That's right. Hands sloped, toes down. Draw your knees well up under your body. You'll find it easier in the water. Oh, you'll do. You'll be swimmers in no time. That'll do for just now. Now--Jack," he looked at them both, but his eyes finally settled on Jim--"if you'll fetch Robinson out well make a start on him."
Jim turned to dive down the hill-side, and was instantly tripped by Jack, who flung himself on top of him. They rolled down together, fighting like cats, amid a cloud of flying sand. Eager sprang after them, found it useless, as before, to attempt to separate them by any ordinary means, so spanked them indiscriminately till they fell apart and stood up panting. And the odd thing about it all was that no slightest ill-will seemed born of their strife. The moment it was over they were friends again.
"He told me," panted Jack in self-justification.
"He looked at me," panted Jim.
"My fault, boys. I must tie a string round one of your arms till I get to know you. Now trot along one of you--no, you "--grabbing one by the shoulder as both started off again. "We haven't much time to-day. If I'm not home by one Mrs. Jex will be eating all my dinner."
So they sat in the soft sand, and he read, and explained what he read, till Robinson Crusoe came alive and began to be as real to them as one of themselves, and they knew him as they had never known him before.
When Eager was dodging about his sheepfold that afternoon he came upon Dr. Yool in the yellow-wheeled gig. "Well, I've got 'em," said the curate.
"Got what? Measles, jumps----?"
"Those boys. I bearded the old man in his den this morning, and he has given me a free hand with them."
"You'll do," said Dr. Yool. "They'll keep you busy. Don't forget I want your help with these stinks"--pointing with his whip to the heaps of refuse lying about.
"I'm tackling stinks now. Tiger-pups in the morning, stinks in the afternoon, Dr. Yool in the evening. That's the order of service at present." And they parted the better for the meeting.
Eager had a chat with some of the wise men of Wynsloe, and got points from them as to shifting sands, and the tucking sands, and the other dangers of that treacherous coast, and in return incidentally dropped into their minds some seeds of wisdom respecting stinks and their consequences.
Five minutes to eight next morning found him a-perch of the highest sand-hill in the neighbourhood, on the look-out for his pupils.
Five minutes past eight found him somewhat disappointed at their non-appearance. They had seemed eager enough too, the day before. Perhaps the old man had thought better of it. Then he remembered his cynical hope that the swimming might prove of service in the solution of his great problem. And then a couple of war-whoops at each of his ears jerked him off his perch with so sudden a leap that the whoopers squirmed in the sand with delight.
"Thought we weren't coming?" grinned Jack.
"Well, I began to fear you'd been stopped----"
"We promised," grinned Jim; and Eager rejoiced to think that that seed at all events had taken root.
In two minutes they were trotting across the flats, and presently they were in the tide-way, and the little savages were revelling in a fresh acquirement and a new sense of motion.
There was little teaching needed. Eager took them out, one after the other, neck-deep, and turned their faces to the shore, and they swam home like rats, and yelled hilariously from pure enjoyment as soon as they found their breath.
Then he carried them out of their depths, and loosed them, and they paddled away back without a sign of fear. Fear, in fact, seemed absolutely lacking in them. The only thing on earth of which they stood in any fear, as far as he could make out, was the grim old man in the upper room at Carne, and even in his case it seemed to be as much distrust and dislike as actual fear.
But even fearlessness has its dangers, and, mindful of his trust, Eager exacted from each of them a solemn promise not to go into the sea except when he was with them, for he had no mind to solve the old man's riddle for him in the way he had so hopefully suggested.
Those mornings on the sands and in the water proved the foundation on which he slowly and surely built the boys' characters.
A very few days of so close an intimacy stamped their individualities on his mind. After the third day he never again mistook one for the other. Time and again they tried to mislead him, but he saw deeper than they knew and never failed to detect them.
They were, at this time, remarkably alike in every way, and though, later on, each developed marked characteristics of his own, there all along remained between them resemblance enough to put strangers to confusion, a matter in which they at all times found extreme enjoyment.
But even now, like as they were, in face and body and the wild naturalness of their primeval ways, their respective personalities began to disclose themselves, as Eager broke them, bit by bit, to the harness of civilisation. And if their harnessing was no easy matter, either for themselves or their teacher, they came to realise very quickly that, though it might mean less of freedom in some ways, it meant also an immensely wider reach and outlook. Whereas their life had hitherto revolved in narrow grooves--with which indeed no man had taken the trouble to meddle, now it ran in courses that were ordered, but which also were spacious and lofty and filled with novelty and enterprise.
And as their natural characteristics began to develop in these more reasonable ways, Eager watched and studied them with intensest interest.
But little savages they remained in certain respects for a considerable time, and it was only by slow degrees that he managed to lead them out of darkness into something approaching twilight.
Jim, for instance, had a rooted detestation of every living thing he came across on the shore, and promptly proceeded to squash it with his bare foot or to pound it into jelly with his prehistoric club. From tiny delicate crab to senseless jelly-fish or screaming gull, if Jim came across it it must die if he could manage it.
To counteract, if he might, this innate lust for slaughter Eager took to explaining to them some of the more simple wonders and beauties of seashore life. He brought down a small pocket microscope and showed them things they had never dreamed of.
This appealed to Jack immensely. He became a devoted slave of the wonderful glasses, and never tired of poring over and peering into things. Jim, however, drew a double satisfaction from them. He smashed things first and then delighted in the examination of the pieces, and many a pitched battle they fought over the destruction and defence of flotsam and jetsam which formerly they would both have destroyed with equal zest.
It was all education, however, and Eager rejoiced in them greatly. He found them, in varying degrees and with notable exceptions, fairly easy to lead, but almost impossible to drive. He led them step by step from darkness towards the light, and meanwhile studied them with as microscopic a care as that with which he endeavoured to get them to study the tiny things of the shore.
Their wild free life about the sand-hills had trained their powers of observation to an unusual degree. True, the observation had generally tended to destruction, but the faculty was good, and the end and aim of it was a matter to be slowly brought within control.
They could tell him many strange things about the manners and customs of rabbits, and gulls, and peewits, and sandpipers, and bull-frogs, and tadpoles, and so on. They could forecast the weather from the look of the sky and the smell of the wind, with the accuracy of a barometer. They could run as fast and farther than he could, for they had been breathing God's sweetest air all their lives, while he had been travelling alley-ways, with tightened lips and compressed nostrils. And they could fling their little stone clubs with an aim that was deadly. Jim indeed vaunted himself on having once brought down a seagull on the wing, but the actual fact rested on his sole testimony and Jack cast doubts on it, and thereupon they fought each time it was mentioned, but proved nothing thereby.
Eager told them of the wonders of the black man's boomerang; and they laboured long and practised much, but could not compass it. It was their ideal weapon, a thing to dream of and strive after, but it always lay beyond them.
One day he brought home under his arm, from the shop in Wyvveloe, a small parcel which he took up into his own room. He borrowed Mrs. Jex's scissors, and spent a very much longer time planning and cutting than the result seemed to warrant. Then he got Mrs. Jex, who would have shaved her scanty locks to please him, to do some hemming and stitching and to sew on some bits of tape, and next day he astonished his little savages by attiring himself and them in bright-red loin-cloths, before they started for their mile sprint to the water.
The boys were inclined to resist this innovation as an unnecessary cramping of their freedom. Jim averred that he couldn't stretch his legs, and that his garment burnt him, though when it was on it looked no bigger than his hand. Jack demanded reasons, and was told to wait and he would see. However, the brilliancy of the little garments somewhat condoned their offence, and once in the water they were soon forgotten, and as they flashed back and forth across the sands the startling effects they produced in the sunny pools by degrees reconciled their wearers to their use.
About a week after this, the boys were sitting one morning in the hollow Mr. Eager used as a dressing-room, wondering why he was later than usual,
"Gone to see HIM, maybe, 'bout yon books we brought out," growled Jack gloomily.
"Hmph!" grunted Jim. "I don't care--'sides, he wouldn't."
And then Eager strode in with a brighter face even than usual.
"Afraid I wasn't coming, were you?" he laughed.
"Thought maybe you'd gone to see HIM again," said Jack.
"Your grandfather? No; I've been seeing some one very much nicer. Jim, did you say your verse this morning?"
This was a gigantic innovation, and still much of a mere ritual. But it was a beginning, and the rest would follow. It was the first upward step towards those higher things which Charles Eager kept ever steadily in view.
"Forgot," grunted Jim.
This again was mighty gain. A month ago--if such a contingency had been possible--he would never have owned up. To his grandfather it is doubtful if he would have owned up even now.
"Well, oblige me by going behind that sand-hill and saying it now, and think what you're saying as well as you can. And you, Jack?"
"Said um," said Jack dutifully.
"Never saw you," said Jim, on his knees. Whereupon Jack dashed at him and rolled him over prayer and all, and they had a regular former-state set-to.
The Rev. Charles, grave of face, but internally convulsed, got them separated at last, and as soon as Jim had performed his devotions they turned their faces towards the sea. Before the two boys could start out, as they usually did, like bolts from a cross-bow, however, he laid a detaining hand on each brown shoulder, and to their surprise whistled shrilly across the hills. In reply, a tiny figure in brilliant scarlet sped out from an adjacent nook, and shot, with flowing hair, and little white feet going like drumsticks, across the flats towards the sea.
The boys caught their breath and gaped in amazement.
"What is it?" gasped Jim.
"Whow! Who?" from Jack.
"My little sister. She only arrived last night. Now let's see if we can catch her! Off you go!" And they tore away across the long ribbed sands after the flying streak of scarlet in front.
They caught her long before she reached the tide-lip, and her eyes flashed merriment as they raced alongside.
She had rare beauty even as a child--and no beauty of after-life ever quite equals that of a lovely child--and the two boys had never in their lives seen anything like her. They stumbled alongside, careless of holes and lumps, with sidelong glances for nothing but that radiant vision--scarlet-wrapped, streaming nut-brown hair, dancing blue eyes, white skin flushed with the run like a hedge-rose, little teeth gleaming pearls between panting, laughing lips, a little rainbow of beauty.
"Well run, Gracie! Keep it up, old girl!" panted Eager, almost pumped himself. And then they were in the water.
Grace, it appeared, could not swim yet. The boys fell to at once and fought for the honour of helping her, though neither would have dared to touch her. She screamed at sight of their brown bodies thrashing to and fro in the foam, but was comforted at sight of her brother's laughing face.
"Come along, Gracie. Never mind the boys. They enjoy a fight more than anything. Now kick away, and strike out as I showed you how on the footstool. I'll hold your chin up. That's it! Bravo, little one! You'll be a swimmer in a week."
And so another element entered into the tiger-cubs' education, and one that, for so small a creature, exercised a mighty influence on them, both then and thereafter.
She was the Joy of Charles Eager's heart and the light of his eyes. Other sisters and brothers there had been, but all were gone save this little fairy, and they two were alone in the world. While he wrought in the dark corners of the great city he had boarded her with some maiden aunts in the suburbs, and the weekly sight of her, growing like a flower, had helped to keep his heart fresh and sweet. Not the least of the joys of his translation to this wide new sphere was the fact that he could have her always with him.
Mrs. Jex wept with joy at sight of her, vowed she was the very image of her own little Sally, who died when she was eight, and proceeded to squander on her the pent-up affections of thirty childless years.
And the Little Lady, as Mrs. Jex styled her, lorded it over them all, then and thereafter, and was a factor of no small consequence in all their lives.
Over the slowly regenerating tiger-cubs she exercised a peculiarly softening and elevating influence. It was exactly what they needed, and all unconsciously it wrought upon the simple savageries of their boy-natures as powerfully as did the Rev. Charles's more direct and strenuous endeavours.
Both boys, in moments of excitement, which were many in the course of each day, had a habit of expression, picked up from Sir Denzil and Mr. Kennet, which was not a little startling on their juvenile lips. Eager promptly suppressed these whenever they slipped out. He knew well enough that they conveyed no special meaning to the boys beyond an idea of extra forcefulness, but, besides being unseemly, they grated horribly on his sensitive ear.
As for the Little Lady, Master Jim Carron did not soon forget the effect produced on her by one of his unconscious expletives.
When Dan Fell of Wynsloe got to the end of his bottle of Hollands gin sooner than he expected one dark night at the fishing, and hurled it overboard with a curse, his only feeling was one of disgust at the shortcomings of a friend in time of need. If any one had told him that he was thereby assisting in the education of little Jim Carron of Carne he would have cursed more volubly still, under the impression that he was being made game of, which was a thing he could not stand. The bottle floated ashore, tried conclusions with a log of Norway pine thrown up by the last equinoctials, distributed itself in razor-like spicules about the soft sand, and lay in wait for unwary feet.
Jim, racing home one day from the bathing alongside the Little Lady, and dazzled somewhat, perhaps, by the gleam of the little crimson robe and the damp little mane of flowing hair, set incautious foot on one of the razor spicules, jerked out an energetic and utterly unconscious "Damn!" and bit the sand.
The Little Lady heard the word, but missed the cause.
"Oh!" cried she, in a shocked voice, and sped away to her own apartment, and began to dress with trembling sodden pink fingers in extreme haste, as though clothing might possibly afford a certain amount of protection against the ill effects of flying curses.
By the time she had got on her tiny pink petticoat, a peep round the corner showed her her brother and Jack kneeling by the fallen utterer of oaths and curses, and she began to fear something had happened.
She had little doubt that punishment had promptly overtaken the sinner. But she liked the sinner in spite of his sin, and she stole back to see what was the matter. That it was something serious was evident by Charles's knitted brows as he bent over the foot which Jim held tightly between his hands. His lips were pinched very close, and his brown face was mottled with putty colour, and the sand below was red. The indurated little pad, hard as leather almost with much running on the sands--for the boys scoffed at shoes--was badly sliced and bleeding freely, but the worst of it was that the treacherous spicule had broken off short and stopped inside and they had no means of getting it out.
"Rags, Gracie," said Eager, at sight of the tearful face and clasped hands and pink petticoat, and she turned and sped, over sands that rocked like waves beneath her feet, to her dressing-room, and back with an armful of garments and a handkerchief the size of his hand.
He folded the handkerchief into a square pad, and ripped something white into strips and bound the foot tightly, issuing his orders as he did so.
"Jack, get into your things and run for Dr. Yool, and tell him to go to the house. Tell him there's glass inside that must come out. Gracie, put on your frock and sit here with Jim. I'll get some things on, and then I'll carry him home!"
And the Little Lady struggled mistily into her things behind Jim's back, and then sat down alongside him without speaking.
"Doesn't hurt a bit," said Jim, through clenched teeth and whitened lips.
The Little Lady sniffed and looked at the distant sea.
"Tell you it doesn't hurt," said Jim again.
The Little Lady made no response.
And presently--"Whew!" said Jim, with a frightful twist of the face, trying by instinct the other tack, "ah!--o-o-oh!"--but all to no purpose. The Little Lady's soft heart might be wrung, but at present she could not bring herself to speak to this dreadful sinner.
"Now," said Eager, running up. "Stand up, Jim. Put your arms round my neck. Now your feet up, so, and off we go. I must get old Bent to make sandals for you youngsters. We can't have this kind of thing, you know. It'll be ten days before you can use that foot, old man."
"Damn!"
"Jim!"
And the Little Lady fell solemnly into the rear.
She would not speak to him for two whole days, though she did not mind sitting within sight of him in the side of a sand-hill, and she silently allowed him to instruct her in the art of making sand waterfalls. But the current of her usual merry chatter was frozen at the fount, and the unconscious Jim could make nothing of it.
On the third day, tiring of an abstinence that was quite as irksome to herself as to her victim, she broke the ice by informing him of the painful fact that he was doomed to everlasting punishment. She put it very shortly and concisely.
"Jim," she said, "you'll go to hell."
"Um?" chirped Jim cheerfully, glad to hear her voice once more, even at such a price. "An' why?"
"'Cause you swear."
"Ho! Very well! So will HE"--the emphatic use of the third person singular in the boys' vernacular was always understood to stand for Sir Denzil Carron of Carne--"and so will Kennet, and so will Dr. Yool."
"I don't care about any of them," said Grace impartially, "unless, perhaps, Dr. Yool. I do rather like him. But it will be such a pity for you."
The prospect did not seem to trouble him greatly, perhaps because his views on the subject were not nearly so clearly defined as hers.
"Oh, well, I won't if you don't like," he answered cheerfully.
"Thank you," said the Little Lady; and from that time, simply to oblige her, and from no great fear of direr consequences, he really did seem to do his best to avoid the use of any words which might offend her. He even went so far as to assume an oversight of his brother's rhetorical flights, and many a pitched battle they had in consequence.
These encounters were so much a part of their nature that Eager found it impossible to stop them entirely. They had fought continually since ever they could crawl within arm's length of one another. Where other boys might have argued to ill-temper, these two simply closed without wasting a word, and having settled the momentary dispute,vi et armis, were as friendly as ever. They both possessed fiery tempers, and had never seen or dreamt of the necessity of controlling them. But on the other hand, they never bore malice, and the cause of dispute, and the blows that settled it, were forgotten the moment the god of battle had awarded the palm. They were very closely matched, and no great bodily harm came of it, though to the spectators it looked fearsome enough.
Bit by bit, utilising and turning to best account their natural powers and proclivities, Eager got hold of them, to the point at all events of inducing their feet into more reasonable upward paths. But as to coming one step nearer to the reading of Sir Denzil's puzzle, he had to acknowledge completest failure.
He studied the boys, from his own intense interest in them, as no other had ever had the opportunity of studying them. And he discussed his observation of them with Sir Denzil time and again. But, so far, there were no ultra indications of disposition in either of them so marked as to offer any reasonable basis for deduction.
For men without a single common view of life, he and Sir Denzil had become quite friendly. A verbal tussle with the old heathen, in which each spoke his mind without reserve, always braced him up, just as the boys' more primitive method of argument seemed to do them good.
The old gentleman always greeted him, over a pinch of snuff, with an expression of regret that he had not yet succeeded in settling the matter out of hand by drowning one of his pupils.
"Well, Mr. Eager," he would say, "no progress yet?"
"Oh, plenty. We're improving every day."
"H'mph If you'd only drown one of them for me----"
"I've a better use for them than that."
"I doubt it. Ill stock on either side, though I say it."
"As the twig is bent----"
"Break one off and I'd thank you. Here is possibly a further complication,"--tapping with his snuff-box a small news-sheet he had been reading when Eager came in.
"What is that, sir?"
"That fool Quixande has got into a mess in Paris--got a sword through his ribs."
"Quixande?" queried Eager, not perceiving the relevancy of the matter.
"He has no issue--none that can inherit, that is. One of those whelps is his only sister's son and so comes in for the title. Which?"
"H'm, yes. It's mighty awkward. I suppose you couldn't make one of them Earl of Quixande and the other Carron of Carne?"
"It would be a solution. But which? Which? Such matters are not settled by guesswork."
"We can only wait and see."
"If Quixande dies we cannot wait--the succession cannot."
"For his own sake we'll hope he'll pull through. He may repent of his sins."
"Quixande?"--with raised brows, and a shake of the head. "You don't know him."
"If I did, I'd try to bring him to his senses."
"Waste of time. With these cubs you may be able to do something, though I doubt it. Quixande's past mending."
"No man is past mending till he's dead. Perhaps not then----"
"Ah!"--with a pinch of snuff and a wave of the hand, "A hopeful creed, but with no more foundation than most others. It would, however, undoubtedly commend itself to Quixande on his death-bed."
"A hopeful creed is better than a hopeless one," said Eager, with emphasis.
"Undoubtedly, if you admit the necessity of such things."
"Thank God, I do."
"Well, well! However--what you are doing for those boys should benefit one of them, though it's thrown away upon the other."
"And if you never solve the puzzle?"
"If one of them dies I accept the other in full. That's the solution."
There were times when all Eager's knocking on the great front door was productive of no result whatever. Then he would go round to the back and interview Mrs. Lee, but never with any satisfaction.
"Ay?" she would say to his statement, straightening up from her work, arms akimbo, and gazing steadily at him with her dark eyes. "Maybe they're out."
But he had never met Sir Denzil out, nor had any of the villagers ever encountered him, and Dr. Yool said brusquely that both the old gentleman and his gentleman were probably lying dead drunk in the upper rooms.
Eager never mentioned these abortive visits to Sir Denzil, and there was never anything in his appearance to justify Dr. Yool's assertions.
Eager spread his nets very wide for the capture for higher things of these two callow souls cast so carelessly into his hands. Carelessly, that is, on the part of Sir Denzil. For his own part he believed devoutly in the Higher Hand in the great game of life, and never for a moment doubted that here was a work specially designed for him by Providence.
He put his whole heart into the matter, as he did into all matters. He felt himself very much in the position of a missionary breaking up new ground, except, indeed, that here were no old beliefs to get rid of. It was absolutely virgin soil, and he felt and rejoiced in the responsibility.
Perfect little savages they were in many respects, and their training had to begin at the very beginning. Manners they lacked entirely, and their customs were simply such as they had evolved for themselves in their free-and-easy life on the flats, Their beliefs were summed up in a wholesome fear of Sir Denzil and his representative Mr. Kennet. These two were to them as the gods of the heathen; powers of evil, to be avoided if possible, and if not, then to be propitiated by the assumption of graces--such as unobtrusiveness, and if observed, then of meekness and conformability--which were no more than instantly assumed little masks concealing the true natures within, which true natures found their full vent and expression in the wilds of the sand-hills and the untrammelled freedom of the shore.
Old Mrs. Lee was a power of another kind, on the whole benevolent; provident, at all events, and not given to such incomprehensible outbreaks of anger and punishment as were the others at times.
They had known no coddling, had run wild with as little on as possible--and in their own haunts with nothing on at all--since the day they could crawl out of the courtyard down to the ribbed sand below. They were hard as nails, and feared nothing, except Sir Denzil and Mr. Kennet.
Eager's first and most difficult work was to break them off their evil habits--their natural lust for slaughter and destruction, the perpetual resort to fisticuffs for the settlement of the most trifling dispute, the use of language which conveyed no meaning beyond that of emphasis to their own minds, but which to other ears was terribly revolting.
Just as, if he had had a couple of wild colts to take to stable, he would have found it better to lead them than to drive, so he strove to win these two from the miry ways and pitfalls among which a shameful lack of oversight had left them to stray. He forced no bits into their mouths, laid no halters on their touchy heads. He just won their confidence and liking, till they looked up to him, trusted him, finally worshipped him, and followed, unquestioning, where he chose to lead them.
And--Providence or no Providence--they could not have fallen into better hands.
Charles Eager was one of the newer school, a muscular Christian if ever there was one, rejoicing greatly in his muscularity, and as wise as he was thorough in his Master's work. He had pulled stroke in his boat at Cambridge, and when he went there had looked forward to the sword as his oyster-opener. And so he had given much time to fitting himself adequately for an army career. He would have backed himself to ride, or box, or fence with any man of his time; and he had so unmistakable a bent for mechanics, and was so skilful a hand with lathe and tools, that there could not be a moment's doubt as to which branch nature designed him for.
And then, when he had perfected himself for the way he had chosen, a better way opened suddenly before him. Without a sign of the cost, he renounced all he had been looking forward to all his life, and dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the greater work.
All that he had acquired, however, with so different an end in view, remained with him, and helped to make him the man he was; and it was into such hands that, by the grace of God, these two wild Carron colts had fallen.
A missionary, when he sets out to turn his unruly flock from their old savageries, must, if he understands human nature and his work, provide other and less harmful outlets for the energies resulting from generations of tumult and slaughter. Eager taught his young savages boxing on the most scientific principles, and made the gloves himself. He taught them fencing with basket-hilted sticks, constructed under his own eyes by the old basket-weaver in the village. Prompt appeal to arms was still permitted in settlement of their endless disputes; but the business was regularised, and tended, all unconsciously on the part of the combatants, to education.
For their inexhaustible energies he found new and much-appreciated vent in games on the sands. And if these were crude enough performances, compared with their later developments familiar to ourselves, they still had in them those elements of saving grace which all such games teach in the playing--self-control, fair-play, honour And these be mighty things to learn.
In the summer they played cricket. The bat and ball Eager provided; the stumps he made himself.
He also instructed them in the mysteries of hare-and-hounds, which chimed mightily with their humour, especially when he supplemented it with a course of Fenimore Cooper. They became mighty hunters and notable trackers, their natural instincts and previous training standing them in excellent stead.
In the winter the flats rang to their shouts at football and hockey, crudely played, but mightily relished.
And always, in and alongside their play and in between, but so deftly administered that it seemed to them but a natural part of the whole, their education proceeded by leaps and bounds. They drank in knowledge unawares, and learned intuitively things that mere teaching is powerless to teach.
When he found them they were simply self-centred and selfish little savages--each for himself, and heedless of anything outside his own skin; and their manners and customs were such as naturally fitted their state.
As their minds opened to the larger things outside, and they began to be drawn away from themselves, their natural proclivities came into play. Like hardy wild-flowers, their rough outer sheaths began to open to the sun, revealing glimpses of the better things within.
And, all unconsciously to herself or to them, little Grace Eager was the sun to whom, in the beginning, their expansion was due.
Eager, watching them all with keenest interest, used to say to himself that she was doing as much for them as he, if not more.
She was so novel to them, so altogether sweet and charming. She supplied something that had hitherto been a-wanting in their lives, and of whose lack they had not even been aware, until she came into them, and made them conscious of the want by filling it.
Now and again at first, and presently almost as a matter of course, the tiger-cubs were invited up to Mrs. Jex's cottage for a homely meal, after some hotly contested game on the sands or some long chase after the tricky two legged hare or astute and elusive Redskin.
And, in the beginning, Indian brave who knew no fear, but knew almost everything else that was to be known in his own special line, and cunning hare and vociferous hound, and tireless champion of the bat and hockey-stick, and valiant fighters on all possible occasions, would sit mumchance and awkward, watching the Little Lady, with wide, observant eyes, as she dispensed her simple hospitalities with a grace and sweetness that set her above and apart from anything they had ever known.
And then she was so extraordinarily different indoors from what she was on the sands. There, at cricket or hockey, or football, she danced and shrieked with excitement, and was never still for a moment. Here, at the table, she suddenly became many years older, knew just what to do, and did it charmingly,--ordering even the Rev. Charles about, and beaming condescendingly on them all, from the lofty heights of her experience and knowledge of the world as learned from her aunts in London.
Painfully aware of deficiency, they began to strive to fit themselves for such occasions, repressed themselves into still greater awkwardness and silence, fought one another afterwards on account of too obvious lapses from what they considered proper behaviour and unkind brotherly comment thereupon, but all the time unconsciously absorbed the new atmosphere and by degrees became able to enjoy it without discomfort.
"Jim, my dear boy," she would say, on occasion, "are you comfortable on that chair?"
A quick nod from the conscious and obviously uncomfortable Jim.
"You shouldn't just nod your head, my dear. You should say, 'Yes, thank you,' or 'Not entirely,'--as the case may be. It's rude just to nod."
"Not entirely, then," blurted Jim, with a very red face, and many times less comfortable than before.
"I'm sorry, but they're all the same, and if you sit on the sofa you can't reach the table. And if you sit on the floor I can't see you."
"I can do, thank you."
"Who lives in that cottage we passed to-day, down along the shore by the Mere?" asked Eager, by way of diversion.
"Old Seth," from both boys at once, much relieved at being put into a position to answer a question that had nothing to do with themselves.
"Old Seth? I've not come across him yet. Old Seth what?"
"Old Seth Rimmer. He's a Methody," said Jack.
"It's a lonely place to live, away out there. Has he a wife,--any children?"
"Mrs. Rimmer's always in bed."
"An invalid. I must call and see her, Methody or no Methody."
"And there's young Seth and Kattie."
"I saw the girl peeping out after you'd passed. She's a nice-looking girl. I shall call and get to know her," said the Little Lady decisively.
"We'll go and make their acquaintance to-morrow," said her brother. "What does Mr. Rimmer do? Fishing?"
A nod from Jim. "Keeps his boat up in the river, two miles further on."
"And the Mere? Any fish there?"
"Ducks in winter. We got one once."
"Had to lie in the rushes all day," said Jack, with a reminiscent shiver.
"It was a good duck," said Jim.
And the next afternoon the Rev. Charles set out for the cottage, with Grace skipping about him in search of treasure-trove of beach and sand-hill.
It was a stoutly-built little wooden house, standing back in a hollow of the sand-hummocks, and its solitariness was enhanced by reason of the vast and lonely expanse of Wyn Mere, which lay just behind it. The shore of the Mere was thick with reeds and rushes. The long unbroken stretch of water silently mirroring the blue sky, with its margin of rustling reeds, possessed a beauty all its own, but something of sadness and solemnity too.
Grace, standing on top of a sand-hill, with a high tide dancing merrily up the flats on the one side and the long silent Mere on the other, put it into words.
"How unhappy it looks, Charlie! I like the sea best. It laughs."
"It laughs just now, my dear, but sometimes it roars and thunders."
"All the same, I like it best. This other looks as if it drowned people."
"I don't suppose it ever drowned as many people as the sea, Gracie."
"Then it seems as if it thought more of those it has drowned. I wouldn't live here for anything. I'd cut a hole through the sand-hills and let the sea wash it all away."
"Better see what Mr. Rimmer thinks of it before you do that." And he laid a restraining hand on her arm as the door of the wooden house opened quietly, and a man came out backwards and stood for a moment with his head bent towards the door as if he were listening. His hair was long and of scanty grizzled gray. He wore a blue jersey and high sea-boots, and carried his sou'wester in his hand. Then he straightened up, clapped on his hat, and strode away round the house towards the Mere. Eager jumped down the sand-hill and ran after him, and caught him before he reached a flat-bottomed skiff drawn up on to the sedgy shore.
"Is this Mr. Rimmer?" he asked.
"Seth Rimmer, at yore service, sir." And there turned on them a fine old gray face, laced and seamed with weather-lines that told of bitter black nights on the sea, when the spume flew and the salt bit deep. The blue eyes, very deep under the bushy gray brows, were shrewd and kindly; the mouth, half hidden in gray moustache and beard, was set very firmly.
"He looked good but hard. But I liked him," was Gracie's comment afterwards.
"Yo' be the new curate," he said at once, taking in Eager in a large comprehensive gaze.
"Charles Eager, the new curate, Mr. Rimmer. How is your wife to-day? I understand----"
"Ay, hoo's bed-rid. We're Wesleyans, but hoo'll be glad to see yo' and th' little lady." And he turned back to the house.
"An' what's yore name?"--to Gracie.
"Grace Eager."
"Yore sister?"
"All I have left. There have been many between, but we are the last, and so we're very good friends."
"An' so ye should. A fine name yon, Grace Eager. An' what are yore graces, an' what are yo' eager for, missie?"
"She's full of all graces and eager for all good, like her big brother. Isn't that it, Gracie?" laughed Charles, to cover her confusion at so pointed a questioning.
She nodded and squeezed his hand and skipped by his side, and so they came back to the house.
"Someun to see yo', Kattrin," he said, as he opened the door and ushered them in.
It was but a small room and the furnishings were of the simplest, but everything was spick-and-span in its ordered brightness. There was a small fire with a kettle on the hob, and in one corner was a bed with a sweet-faced woman in it, propped up with pillows so that she could look out of the window.
"Yo're welcome, whoever yo' are," she said.
"It's new curate, Mr. Eager, an' 's li'll sister."
"Ech, a'm glad to see yo', sir, though we don't trouble church much here. Nivver set eyes on last curate, nivver once."
"I apologise for him, Mrs. Rimmer; perhaps he found the long walk through the sand too much for him."
"Ay; he wasn't much of a man," said Rimmer quietly. "Yo're a different breed, I'm thinking. Yo're tackling them Carron lads, an' that's a good job. I seen yo' about the sands with 'em."
"Yes; they're worth tackling, aren't they?"
"Surely; and yo're the man for the job! Now I mun get along or I'll miss tide. Yo'll excuse me, an' if yo'll talk a while with the missus she'll be glad. She dunnot get too many visitors. Good-bye, wife!" And he went out quietly and tramped sturdily away to his work.
"He's a right good mon," said his wife fervently. "And he aye bids me good-bye in case he nivver comes back, and he aye says a prayer for me outside the door. It's a bad, bad coast this," she said, with a sigh. "It took his feyther, an' his grandfeyther, and it's aye on his mind that sometime it'll take him too. An' it may be onytime."
"He's in better hands than his own, Mrs. Rimmer," said Eager.
"Aye, I. know, and so was they, an' it's no good thinking o' death and drownin's till you see 'em. But I seen so many it's not easy to get away from 'em, lying here all alone."
"Where's your little girl?" asked Gracie suddenly.
"Kattie? She should be in by this. She stops chattin' wi' th' neebors now an' then. It's lonesome here for childer, yo' see. I sometimes wish we was nearer folk, but we've lived here all our lives an' I wouldna like to move now."
"And who are your nearest neighbours, Mrs. Rimmer?" asked Eager.
"Oh, there's plenty across Mere--Bill o' Jack's, an' Tom o' Bob's o' Jim's, an'----" She stopped and lay listening. "That's her now." And presently a girl's voice lilting a song drew near from the direction of the Mere.
The door opened and she came in carrying a pail of milk.
"'Ello!" she jerked in her astonishment, and then lapsed into silence.
"Where's your manners, Kattie?" from her mother, as she stood staring at the strangers, especially at Gracie.
"How are you, Kattie?" said Eager. "I'm the new curate. This is my sister, Gracie. She saw you the other day and wanted to see you again."
Kattie put out the tip of a red tongue and smiled in rich confusion.
She was a remarkably pretty child, with large, dark-blue eyes, a mane of brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, and the healthy red-brown skin of the dwellers on the flats.
Like the boys of Carne, she obviously wore only what she had to wear of necessity. In her shy grace she was like a startled fawn, looking her first on man, and ready to bound away at smallest sign of advance.
"Where's yore manners, lass?" said her mother again; and Kattie drew in the tip of her tongue and twisted her little red mouth and stared at Gracie harder than ever.
"Suppose you two run away out and make one another's acquaintance," said Eager to Gracie, "and I'll have a chat with Mrs. Rimmer." And the girls slipped out contentedly.
"Ech, but you do wear a lot o' clothes!" jerked Kattie, the moment they got outside.
"It must be jolly to wear so few," said Gracie enviously. "When I've lived here a bit perhaps I can too. You see I've always been used to wearing a lot."
"They're gey pratty, but I'd liever not carry 'em."
"Is that your boat? Do you row it all by yourself?"
"O' course! I'll show you." And she sped down to the long-prowed shallop from which she had just landed, shoved it off, tumbled in, regardless of wet feet and display of bare leg, and sent the little craft bounding over the smooth dark mirror, her vivid little face sparkling with delight at this opportunity for the display of superior accomplishment.
Grade meanwhile danced with desire on the sedgy shore.
"Me too, Kattie! Come back and take me too! What a love of a little boat! And you row like a man."
"I can scull too," cried Kattie vauntingly, and drew in one oar and slipped the other over the stern and came wobbling back with a manly swing that seemed to Gracie to court disaster.
"I like the rowing best," she gasped, as she crawled cautiously in over the projecting prow. "Let me try one."
And thereafter they were friends.
"I like Kattie," said Grade exuberantly, as she danced along home holding Charlie's hand.
"She's a pretty little thing, but she seems very shy."
"She's not a bit shy when you know her. And she can row and swim, and once she shot a duck on the Mere. And she knows where they lay their eggs, and . . ."
And so, for better or worse, Kattie Rimmer came into the story.