THE CAPTAIN IN STRANGE COMPANY.
For the first time in his remarkably short existence Comethup Willis began to lead a double life. He had already done so, to a very small extent, in regard to his meetings with Brian and with the captain; but now he began systematically to divide his life into two parts. His reason for this was purely an instinctive one, and he would have been puzzled, under any circumstances, to explain even to himself why he saw in his childish mind that such a course of action was necessary. But, although he admired and almost worshipped his cousin Brian, as abeing superior in every way to his very humble self and of more brilliant parts, he yet felt that, in a delicate matter like that on which he had embarked with the captain, Brian must be set aside.
It caused him many heart-pangs to arrive at this conclusion, but to his childish understanding it was the only thing possible; having once made up his mind, he kept stiffly to it. He had entered into a compact of the emotional order with the captain, and he consoled himself for any disloyalty to Brian with the thought that he was only concerned with the captain in the matter, and that the secret was not really his own.
This species of deception, while it added a new element of excitement to his life, made him also frantically desirous of falling in with every plot and plan arranged or invented by his cousin on the few occasions on which they met. Those occasions were few indeed, for the captain had shown, in some curious, curt fashion, that he did not like the boy Brian; and Brian, for his part, was laughingly contemptuous of the captain. So that poor Comethup, in order to keep all his friends, and in the deep desire he had not to wound the feelings of any of them, had a very difficult task to perform. A child of blunter character or perception would have got through with the matter very easily, and would not have troubled about it at all; but Comethup took everything, even in those days, in deadly earnest, and lay awake many nights in the dark, sore at heart with the thought that some light word of his to the captain, or some half-promise broken to Brian, might have given either of them pain. Comethup had that strange and—for the possessor—terrible quality of being able to feel, with the utmost acuteness, any pain borne by those with whom he came in contact; the quality of feeling it so instantly that it was often more real in its intensity to him than to them.
It is possible that the captain understood the desire in Comethup’s mind that Brian should not be included in their compact to befriend ’Linda; indeed, it was a matter so completely between Comethup and the captain thatprobably neither of them would have thought of including any one else in their confidence. Moreover, the matter, begun in secret and at night, had, in all appropriateness, to be carried on in the same fashion. Even the captain was not too old, and Comethup certainly not too young, to have a mutually romantic feeling that that was the proper course to adopt. They talked it over together in all seriousness.
“You see, Comethup,” said the captain, “we were not received with that—that cordiality which could lead us, with any delicacy, to approach Dr. Vernier again. I’m not quite sure that we wish to do so; but, in any case, it will be wiser to leave him out of the question.”
Comethup nodded, feeling that that argument was unanswerable.
“The question then resolves itself into this,” said the captain, sitting stiffly upright, with a hand on each knee, and looking down at Comethup, who was imitating his attitude as far as possible, on a stool before him, “how are we to save fair ladies who are wandering about in dreary woods, and getting wet, unless we do it by force of arms, and bid defiance to the enemy?” The captain had, in his many conversations with the boy, got the true poetic, romantic ring; it was a never-ceasing delight to Comethup that his wonderful friend was able to bring that glamour into the commonest circumstance of life.
“We might go and walk round the house, and—and hide among the trees until she comes out,” said Comethup.
The captain shook his head. “Scarcely dignified, I’m afraid, Comethup,” he said. “Of course,” he added with a fine air of carelessness, “we might happen to stroll past the place, and we might just look in at the gates, and——”
Comethup understood perfectly, and nodded with much vigour. So complete indeed was the understanding between them that, when the captain, on parting with him, said with much ceremony, “You might call for me about seven o’clock, Comethup, if you are not better employed,” the boy felt his heart leap, and was eager for the expedition.
But the captain was a man of bluntness, and totally unused to lurking ways. They reached the gates in the semi-darkness, and looked in up the dreary avenue, and then walked slowly on side by side. The captain even waved his stick skyward, and predicted airily that it would be a fine day on the morrow. Comethup agreed with him, with more eagerness than befitted the occasion, even going out of his way to recall impressions of yesterday’s weather as compared with the present. Then, about a hundred yards from the gate, the captain swung on his heel, and they strolled back again. Still no sound about the deserted place, and no little figure in the garden. The captain came from pretence to reality at a bound, and faced sternly upon Comethup.
“Boy, this isn’t right, and I’m not right to be teaching you to hide and skulk here. I’m going up to the house.”
“I think perhaps it would be better,” admitted Comethup slowly.
They marched with much determination through the wind-swept garden and among the drifting leaves. Both Comethup and the captain looked eagerly all about, but saw nothing; they made the circuit of the house, and then stopped at the door by which they had previously entered.
The captain raised his stick and struck sharply on the panel; waited a little, but there was no response. Then he stepped back and glanced up at the windows; but they were all closely shuttered, and no light appeared anywhere. The captain stepped up to the door again and renewed his attack on the panel. After another long period of waiting, there was a sound of shuffling feet on the bare boards within, and the door was opened so far as the length of a chain that held it would allow. The captain pressed forward to the aperture and spoke:
“Is Dr. Vernier within?”
“The doctor say he can’t see no one,” came the reply.
“Oh, I’m much obliged,” said the captain. “I wantedto know if the child—the little girl—is well? You remember I——”
“Oh, yes, I knows all about you,” replied the woman sharply. “And there’s folks as can look after her, and mind their business without no interferin’.” The door was slammed quickly, and they heard the shuffling feet going down the hall.
The captain remained very upright for a moment, recovering himself; and then turned to Comethup. “Let that be a warning to you, boy,” he said stiffly, “never to argue with your inferiors. The enemy is not to be surprised, that’s evident; we must try stratagem. As a soldier, Comethup, I have learned that stratagem is very useful. I despise it, but it’s very useful.”
But all the stratagem the captain could employ, and all the loyal aid given by Comethup in a cause in which he was desperately interested, failed to bring them any nearer the object of their search. They walked past the garden many times after that, on many successive days, taking it casually in their walks first, and afterward going there of set purpose. But the garden was always empty, and the house apparently deserted. They had almost given up in despair, when one night, rather later than usual, when they passed the gates, Comethup, lingering for a moment, saw the faint flutter of something white among the trees, and ran to it, crying softly “’Linda!” The captain went in too, but remained standing just within the gates. With a delicacy which belonged to him, he let the children meet in their own impulsive, breathless fashion alone.
’Linda was clinging to the boy, divided between laughter and tears, when the captain, looking past them, observed a figure hurrying toward them from the house—the figure of a woman certainly not portly enough to be Mrs. Blissett. The captain took a few strides forward, and reached the children at the same moment that the woman came up with them; she stood, almost in an attitude of defiance, looking at him. He noticed that she was tall and rather slight, and quite young. Instinctivelyhis hat came off, and he bowed in his stiff fashion. For a moment there was silence between them; each seemed to be waiting for the other to speak.
“What do you want, sir?” she asked at last, in a suppressed voice.
“I merely called—came here, I should say—in the hope of seeing the child, and knowing that she was well,” said the captain. “I found her here the other night, and, though it is no business, of course, of mine, I feared that she was lonely, and, forgive me, perhaps neglected. I came here a few evenings ago, but was refused admittance.”
“You are a friend of—of Dr. Vernier’s?” she hazarded.
“No, not exactly a friend,” replied the captain, diplomatically. “We—we have met—that is all. Are you the child’s nurse?”
The woman bent her head and stretched an arm out, and drew the child close against her.
“I thought perhaps you might be a—a relative,” ventured the captain, replacing his hat.
“No,” she replied, in a low voice, “I am not a relative. Dr. Vernier has engaged me chiefly to look after the child.”
“I am glad,” said the captain, with awkward gallantry, “that she is in such good hands.” The situation was becoming embarrassing; the captain knew that he had no earthly right there, and felt that he must withdraw his forces without delay. He stooped, and held his hand out to the child, who shyly took it; bade her “Good-night” with much gentleness, and turned and left the garden, followed by Comethup, who glanced back again and again at the little white figure walking with the woman in the direction of the house.
Comethup was very serious indeed as they walked toward his father’s house. This new figure in the story could not be dealt with with the ease with which a mere Blissett might be tackled. He saw a prospect of losing forever that little figure which had so strongly interested him.He expressed his fears tremblingly to the captain as he trotted beside him.
“Shall we see her again, sir?”
“Don’t know, Comethup,” replied the captain, dejectedly. “Direct attack has failed; stratagem has failed also. I’m afraid we can’t do anything else to assist your little damsel in distress, Comethup.”
Comethup went to his bed, to dream that he went again to the garden, and found the gates fastened strongly against him; that he beat his hands against the bars of them, crying to the child to let him in, and to the captain to come with his sword and break the gates down. He awoke in the dark, with the tears still wet upon his cheeks, and cried himself to sleep again.
Sick with the necessity for consolation, he went on the following morning to see the captain. The captain had constituted himself, for some time past, a sort of informal instructor to Comethup; had dragged from an old box some very out-of-date lesson books, and was renewing his own youth by plodding steadily over that first stony ground of knowledge with the boy, taking infinite delight in his pupil’s progress. Comethup had learned many things at those lessons—scraps of this and bits of that—and had had, interwoven with the more technical subjects, a certain thread of hard and pure and very fine morality as to straightness of living and one’s duty to one’s fellows, which had formed the captain’s creed throughout all his simple life.
On this particular morning, although neither mentioned his distress to the other, the matter was very fully in the minds of both, and no real attempt was made to take lessons seriously. Indeed, the captain, with a very fine intuition, had guessed what would be the condition of Comethup’s mind, and had not even got out the books. Comethup found him standing near the window, examining, with a somewhat troubled face, a pair of boots, passing one finger delicately over places in the uppers which seemed untrustworthy, and holding them from him at arm’s length, to get a more general effect in regard totheir appearance. The soles of the boots were very thin, and the heels rather high.
“I am going,” said the captain, setting the boots down on the window seat, and gravely returning Comethup’s salute, “to pay a visit to the shoemaker’s.” He regarded the boots with a thoughtful frown. “Theymightgo a week or two longer, Comethup, but the result would probably be disastrous. One gets used in time, when one is not rich, to judge exactly the moment when delay, in a matter of this kind, is no longer safe, and when the thing must be done, if it is to be done at all. It’s like fighting a battle, Comethup; either you must strike at a given moment, or you’d better not strike at all. Will you come with me?”
The captain always addressed the boy with equal courtesy, and Comethup had learned to reply with gravity. He expressed his willingness now to accompany the captain, and they set out.
In a quaint little street, in the very heart of the town—a place which Comethup had not before explored, and which was reached by diving under an archway and then doubling sharply round a corner—they came upon the shop which the captain sought. He had wrapped the boots neatly in brown paper, and carried them tucked under his arm, probably with the desire that no one should guess his errand; he even glanced about him to right and left for a moment before stepping into the low doorway of the shop.
It was a very little shop, so low and small that it seemed half underground; the captain, although by no means a tall man, had to duck his head a little in entering. Comethup noticed at once that it was not like an ordinary shop, in that it had no counter, and that only a heavy bench ran along one side of it, on which an old man was seated, hammering away with much fierceness on something fastened to his knee. But Comethup had no time to take in more than the bare details of the place, for his eyes were arrested by something else: a little figure perched up on the rough bench beside theman and looking with wide, astonished eyes at the captain and the boy. It was ’Linda.
The man who worked had looked up at them for a moment sharply out of keen black eyes, and then had bent his head again over his leather. He worked as one in a frantic hurry—a man who had no time for thought, scarcely a moment even to breathe; the hammer rose and fell sharply, rising up above the level of his head, so closely were his eyes bent on the work. The child sat quite near to him, smiling at the visitors.
The captain’s voice broke in across the hammering, and stopped it. “Why, little one,” he said, gently, “what are you doing here?”
The hammer rested on the leather, the man’s knotted hand grasping it firmly; his black eyes looked up sideways at the captain. “Why not?” he asked in a quick, harsh voice. “What should harm her?” He did not speak like a countryman. Comethup was a little afraid of him, and of his black eyes, but the child beside him only smiled, and did not move.
“Nothing, nothing,” said the captain, hastily. “I was merely surprised to see the child here; she is a little friend of mine—wearefriends, are we not, ’Linda?”
The child nodded, and Comethup, emboldened by her smile, crossed to where she sat and shyly held out his hand. She leaned forward and put her arm about his neck and kissed him. The shoemaker glanced at them sharply, and then, with a grunt, started hammering again at his leather.
“We have been looking for you, ’Linda,” said Comethup, softly.
The old man caught the remark and paused in his hammering, in the same fashion as before, and looked quickly round at them. “Yes, that’s what you do from the time they lift you first into your cradle till the hour they slip a winding sheet round you; it’s the old story, begun by baby lips, and whispered by the dying. Looking for her?” He put out a hand and touched Comethup on the breast and pushed him almost roughly away.“Let be, let be; the little maid can bide here as long as she will.” He spoke with a certain stern sadness, and Comethup and the captain looked at him in perplexity.
“Oh, they’re very good friends, and he’s a good boy,” said the captain, laughing. “You don’t know the boy.”
The old man glanced up at him sharply. “No, but they’re all alike.” He leaned forward suddenly and took Comethup by the shoulder and drew him toward himself, looking straight into his eyes. Comethup’s heart beat a little faster than usual, but he did not flinch.
“Well,” said the captain, after the scrutiny had lasted for some moments, “what do you make of him?”
The shoemaker, still keeping a grip of Comethup’s shoulder, looked up at the captain and spoke in a low voice. “A good face,” he said, “and the eyes of one who will dream dreams, and carry them with him always. I’ve dreamed my dreams, but”—he passed his hand over his forehead in a lost, dazed fashion—“I’ve lost them all.” He sighed, and took up his hammer and fell to work again, muttering to himself. Presently, coming back to realities with a start, he put down the hammer and asked the captain civilly if he could do anything for him.
The captain produced his parcel and began, with great care, to point out exactly what he wanted done and what he desired left undone. The shoemaker obviously saw here a work on which his finest arts could be exercised, and listened with equal care to the minute directions. The business being finished and the price arranged, the captain lingered in the doorway of the little shop and carelessly put a question:
“Does she come often to see you?”
“When she will,” replied the old man, softly hammering. “Sometimes a week goes by and I see nothing of her; and then she’ll slip in and sit beside me for an hour, and be gone again—so lightly that I think afterward it’s a dream, and that she has not been here at all. It’s all dreams; nothing is real.”
“Oh, I’m afraid some things are very real,” said the captain gravely.
“No.” He brought the hammer down sharply to emphasize the word. “If they were real we could not bear them; we should go mad. It’s because they are dreams that we can laugh a little sometimes and say that it doesn’t matter, and pray for the hour when we shall wake. Nothing’s real, nothing’s real; we should be glad of that.” He fell to hammering again, in the same hurried fashion as when they had first seen him. Indeed, nothing would rouse him again; even when the captain asked that he might take the girl with him, and she slipped down from the bench and walked with Comethup to the door, the shoemaker merely raised his eyes for a moment to look at her, and went on again with his work. They heard the noise of the hammering long after they had passed through the doorway and through the little street; it only seemed to die away when they came out through the archway into the busier parts of the town.
The captain had a delightful new pupil that day. The three went out to the marshes beyond the town, and there, at Comethup’s modest suggestion, the captain assisted in the building of the forts and instructed ’Linda in the first principles of military tactics. She proved an apt and eager pupil, overleaping obstacles which appeared to present themselves to the slower mind of the captain, and showing a delightful sense of the fine art of strategy and a quickness of resource in a difficult situation, which elicited that gentleman’s warm approval. In the most natural and fearless fashion she walked back with them to the captain’s cottage and partook of the captain’s simple dinner, unconsciously and quickly taking a position in the small household which no one had dared to occupy before. She showed unbounded delight at the salute given by Homer, the captain’s man, and actually called him back into the room again and insisted on his repeating the performance in order that she might see exactly how it was done, making the blushing man do it very slowly indeed, that she might take in every turn and twist of his arm.
Comethup trembled a little, lest the captain shouldtake offence; but the captain’s heart had been taken by storm, and he allowed the mite to rule him as completely as she appeared to rule others with whom she came in contact outside her father’s house. Finally, Comethup received instructions to take her back home in safety; and the two children set off hand in hand, the captain standing at the garden gate of his cottage to watch their departure. She had completed her conquest of that gallant warrior by seizing him by the lapels of his coat and drawing his head down in the most unexpected fashion and kissing him before she dashed out of the cottage with Comethup, whose salute to the captain was a mere undignified flying wave of the arm, in consequence of her haste.
At the big iron gates which led to her father’s house they saw the woman standing who had been in the garden on the previous day; she drew the child swiftly within the gates, and went down on her knees and held her close to her breast without a word. Comethup, embarrassed, stood looking on, not knowing whether to go or to stay; he felt, however, that the necessity of the situation compelled him to explain the child’s absence.
“We met ’Linda quite by accident,” he said, “the captain and I, and she has had dinner with the captain. I do assure you, ma’am”—he had got that phrase from the captain—“that she has been perfectly safe.”
“Oh, I am quite sure she has,” replied the woman, looking round at him with a smile. “And I am very grateful to the captain and to you.—Say ‘Good-night,’ ’Linda,” she added to the child.
Comethup was getting quite used to that rapturous hug with which ’Linda favoured her friends—was getting rather to like it. He lingered for a moment outside the gate, until the two figures had disappeared, and then sped away homeward, planning for to-morrow, and for many other morrows, in which the captain and ’Linda explored again with him the wonders of the old town and of the buried ramparts, and renewed acquaintance, for ’Linda’s sake, with all the strange things he had learned under the captain’s tuition.
It happened that night that the captain was restless and ill at ease. A man of simple tastes and simple habits, he had lived for some years in the old town, scarcely seeing any one but his man Homer before Comethup came into his life. It had cost him not a little to shake himself free from the stiff and rigid rules of life into which he had grown; but, led by Comethup’s persuasive hand, he had done so, and had, in a sense, renewed his lost youth in the child’s company. He was frightened a little now sometimes when he thought of what it would mean to him if, by any chance or change of circumstance, he lost the boy; he dared not contemplate the barren life he had been content to live for so long, nor think how empty it would be if he had to return to it.
And now, in the strangest fashion, this child had led him to another—had brought even a softer element into his life, and increased his responsibilities. The captain, in a gentle, foolish fashion, was proud of those responsibilities, and would not willingly have let them go. He might have argued with himself that the children had natural guardians who could look after them, and whose rights were greater than any he possessed; but he plumed himself with the idea that the children had turned to him, and relied upon him more completely than on any one else. As he paced about his little room in the dark, he seemed to feel again that baby’s arm round his neck and her soft, rounded face pressed to his hollow one; he thought of her sitting in the strange company of the old shoemaker; remembered, with a pang, the forlorn little figure he had first seen in the garden.
It all ended in a determination to see the shoemaker and to learn something more of him. He had visited him on one or two occasions when a specially delicate matter of repairing had to be explained and when the man Homer could scarcely have been intrusted with it, but beyond that he knew nothing of the man. The captain weighed theprosandconsof the matter carefully, and finally put on his hat and set out for the shoemaker’s house.
It was a fine moonlight night, and the captain, on turning into the little street through the archway, saw that the door of the shoemaker’s shop was open, and that the man he sought was sitting on the step, with his feet in the room and his back propped against the doorpost. The captain walked on, carelessly swinging his cane, and trying to hum a tune; stopped opposite the little shop, and remarked upon the beauty of the night. The old man grunted some inaudible reply, and looked up at him suspiciously; he was smoking a short, black pipe, pulling and puffing at it as furiously and rapidly as he appeared to do everything.
“If you’ve come about those boots——” he began aloud, but the captain checked him.
“No; of course I did not expect them yet,” he replied. “I happened to be strolling round this way, and thought I should like a chat with you.”
The shoemaker took his pipe from between his teeth and stared at the captain for a moment; then replaced the pipe and nodded. The captain was a little disconcerted, but he had an obstinate feeling that he would not go away with his purpose defeated, and so he leaned against the other doorpost and smiled and nodded back at the shoemaker.
“Yes,” he said airily, “I was interested in what you said to-day—about—about what you call your dreams; and about—the child.”
The shoemaker did a surprising thing: he got up suddenly, thrust his face toward the captain, and looked at him in the moonlight steadily; then turned abruptly, and stumbled down the two steps which led into his shop, leaving the captain gasping and staring after him. In a few moments the captain, looking in through the doorway, saw the glimmer of a light; then saw the old man bending to light a candle which stood on the bench while a gigantic shadow, grotesque and hideous, danced and sprawled all over the wall behind him and the ceiling above. When he had got the candle alight, and had carefully set his foot upon the match, he went to the dooragain and beckoned. “Come in,” he said; and the captain went down the two steps a little doubtfully.
The shoemaker closed the door and dropped a wooden bar across it. The door fitted above the two steps; the shoemaker seated himself upon the topmost one and waved his hand toward the bench, on one end of which the candle stood.
“Sit down,” said the man.
The captain seated himself, and glanced somewhat apprehensively about him. The window was shuttered, and the tools with which the man worked had been piled neatly together on a little table with a raised edge which stood against the wall. Boots in every stage of formation and repair lay all bout the place—some mere gaping upper parts, and others having but the faint suggestion of what they might ultimately become in roughly cut leather sheets. The captain drew his coat-tails about his knees and rested his hands on them, and waited for the other to speak. The shoemaker waited for some moments, and then began in a low voice, with his eyes bent on the ground:
“I wasn’t born in these parts—it doesn’t matter where I came from; some might call me a rough and common man, working at a dirty trade. Yet time was when I read and talked and held my own with men who’d been to school and college. Many and many a night I’ve laid awake reading and thinking and working—trying, as men say, to better myself. And what has it all brought me?” He threw out his arms with a passionate gesture and without raising his head, and let them fall at his sides again.
The captain was silent, wondering what was coming, seeing in the man’s attitude and in his voice some long, pent-up story, and wondering, in his simple fashion, why the man should have chosen him to hear the tale.
“My life was not all work and book-learning. I married. Looking at me now, any man might say I am a hard and bitter creature; but I was the happiest in the world then. We had a child—a baby girl—the fairest,sweetest thing that ever came straight out of God’s arms.”
He sprang up with a cry and waved his arms fiercely above his head. “Straight out of God’s arms!” he cried, in a loud voice. “Let any man deny that she has gone straight back into them!”
“She is dead, then?” said the captain softly.
The man dropped his arms and stared about him for a moment helplessly. “Yes, but that happened long after. I can remember her now, as a tiny child, coming into the room where I worked and climbing on the bench beside me, and prattling to me in her baby fashion—music sweeter than any other that a man hears. I wish”—he had begun to roam restlessly up and down the place, swinging his arms as he went—“I wish it might have been possible for her to remain like that forever. But, of course, that wasn’t to be. She grew up, and I was proud of her and proud to think that she belonged to me and held me dearer than any one else. Then into our paradise came the man—as the man always comes. I think he must have loved her—at first, at least; she was so good and beautiful and pure that no man could pass her by and look into her eyes without loving her. And then—oh, ages ago; I’ve forgotten when it was—she went away, and wrote me a letter saying that she had gone with him and that she would never forget me, and that some day she would come back with him, and that we were all to be happy together.”
The captain’s elbow was resting on his knee and his head was propped on his hand, so that the hand shaded his eyes. The shoemaker went on, in a dull, heavy voice. He had clearly forgotten that he had a listener.
“I tried to find him, tried everywhere. I watched for her, night after night, until they said that want of sleep and care and sorrow had driven me ill. It was then I first began to dream; I have dreamed ever since. And when at last I was better, and was able to get again to my work, her mother was gone; they did not tell me where at first, but afterward I learned that she had died, andI was completely alone. I came here then; it was a place where no one knew me, and none could ask questions. And here, two years ago, a letter followed me, written by the man, and saying that she was dead. That is the hardest thing of all—that she died in some strange land, far over the seas; and I can not even know where she lies buried, or where she sleeps, or whether the sun shines on her grave. It doesn’t matter—it doesn’t matter.”
The captain raised his head and looked at him. “Perhaps she was happy in her new life; perhaps——”
The man broke in upon the words fiercely. “She died in shame and want and misery. The man had tired of his plaything; in his cold and brutal letter he told me that they had not agreed, and that he had deemed it wiser to part from her. He begged of me to believe”—the scorn in the old man’s voice as he flung out his arm passionately was terrible—“that he would have married her had it been possible; he was sorry for her death.”
He had drawn his arm, in an uncouth fashion, across his eyes, and his voice shook as he finished. Presently he let his arm fall to his side and looked about him in that curious, helpless way, with something of a smile upon his face.
“And so you see,” he went on, in a gentler tone, “I live on here from day to day, and dream my dreams; and am happy to forget sometimes which is truth and which is dream. And then quite suddenly one day, while I sat at my work here, I lifted up my eyes and saw—O God, my heart leaps now when I think of it!—sawher, as I thought, come back to me, a baby again, standing in the doorway smiling. That was the best dream of all; that is the best dream still.” He raised his eyes, laughed aloud, and clasped his hands.
“Does she come here often?” asked the captain, gently.
“Yes, often and often. We do not even speak to each other sometimes, but I like to feel her close beside me, just as the other one sat, ages and ages ago. Who knows”—he laid a hand upon the captain’s arm andsank his voice to a whisper—“who knows but that she is mine, come back, like a fairy child, in purity and innocence, to comfort me, and to tell me that all the rest has been a dream indeed? How else should she come to me? Yes, I like to think that—it comforts me.”
The captain would not have stripped away that dream from the man for the world. He was so touched that he begged quite humbly that he might be permitted to come again to see him; and finally went out into the darkness and took his way homeward. But the captain was troubled in spirit, and the shining heavens above him did not seem to have quite the clear and fine message of peace that they had held so long for his simple soul. He took a circuitous route, and came again to the great dreary place where the child lived and looked in through the dilapidated gates. He sighed a little as he turned away, and whispered softly, “God keep you, baby—God keep you!”
IN WHICH SEPARATIONS ARE SUGGESTED.
In quite the strangest and yet the most natural way the old shoemaker was drawn into that little circle which revolved round the captain. It was a curious little band in most respects, formed of strange beings, with nothing of the practical about them; the captain seemed sometimes to be the youngest of them all.
Comethup’s life, at that enchanting time, was very full indeed—so full that he had sometimes to stop and gasp with wonder at all the extraordinary things and the extraordinary people that filled it. The captain had been something to be grateful about, and to hug one’s self over; the ghost in the garden had resolved itself into a very sweet and tender personality. And now came this wonderful old man, who hammered away half underground,and talked sometimes like a book and sometimes like scraps out of twenty books, all disjointed; whose hair was wild and whose eyes shone, and who was something to be a little afraid of at first and to love desperately afterward, although, for that matter, there were but few people who came into Comethup’s life that he was not able to give some part of his heart to. There was but one little hunger in his heart, and that was that he could not bring Brian into what he would have termed the chief glory of his life, for he had that keen and unerring instinct which told him that Brian would be impatient of the old shoemaker, and as scornful of him as he was of every one else who did not exactly please him.
Comethup got quite into the habit of paying hurried visits to the shoemaker’s shop, and then lingering for a while, in the fascination of the man and of the place. Very often he found ’Linda there, seated silently beside the man on the bench. Very few customers ever seemed to come there, and the few who did took no notice of the children. The old man’s moods varied greatly: sometimes he was in a savage humour and worked fiercely, hammering away at the leather as if for dear life, and taking no notice of the children; at other times he would sit, with his hands clasped idly on his apron, staring dreamily out of the window, and occasionally muttering to himself. On one such occasion he called Comethup suddenly to him and put his arm about his shoulders and stretched out the other hand toward the window. “Look, boy, look!” he cried. “What do you see?”
Comethup gazed blankly through the window, the panes of which were of old and common glass that distorted everything seen through them. He shook his head, and looked round at the old man. “Nothing,” he said, “only the houses, and the church spire at the end of the street.”
The shoemaker shook him gently but impatiently. “Look again,” he whispered; “move your head from side to side, as I move it—so. See the houses leap and jump and tremble; see the spire of the church double up like areed, and seem as if it would plunge down into the street. Again—move your head again—see how they leap and tremble and fall!”
Comethup, a little frightened, moved his head, and then laughed faintly. “But it’s only the glass,” he said.
“Ah, but a man may sit here—a man poor and humble and with no power—and yet dream that he has the power so to sweep away those who have wronged him; to bring their fine houses tumbling about their ears, like things built of cards. Boy, I tell you if a man can dream that, he is stronger and greater than those who have the power to build—eh?”
Comethup obediently said, “Yes, I suppose so,” and the old man laughed, and took up his work and fell to hammering. Comethup, after he reached home, tried the plan with other windows, and trembled a little when he remembered the fierce whisper in which the old man had spoken; he wondered, too, why he should carry in his breast the desire to injure any one, or to wreck what he had built. Meanwhile, Brian had to be reckoned with; it was impossible to ignore him completely, and the hours which Comethup spent with him were growing fewer and fewer. But one morning he sprang suddenly into the very midst of it all, as it were, and quite accidentally.
He had been attending the grammar school on the outskirts of the town, in a desultory fashion, staying away when it pleased him, throwing his soul into the work for a day or two, and thinking of nothing else, and then disappearing for the whole day for about a week, dashing home, tired and hungry and dusty at the end of each day, and refusing any account of his movements. Once or twice, when Comethup had been away with the captain, he had heard on his return that his cousin had called; but when he went himself to his uncle’s house, to express his contrition, Mr. Robert Carlaw airily informed him that he hadn’t the remotest notion where Brian was, or what he was doing.
“Takes after his father, the young rip. I was just the same when I was a boy; began to go to the devil before Iwas breeched. It’s in the blood, and, damme, I’m the last man to try and stop him, the rascal!”
Comethup usually came away feeling desperately sorry for his cousin, and trembling considerably at the thought of the path that unfortunate youngster was treading, yet having, nevertheless, a sneaking admiration both for him and his ways.
It happened, on the morning in question, that Comethup had arranged to meet the captain; they would, in all probability, find ’Linda at the old shoemaker’s, and after that there was the glorious prospect of some hours on the marshes in the captain’s delightful company, with deeds of daring to be recited and romantic possibilities to be discussed. It had been firmly agreed upon between the captain and Comethup as to what their duties were to be in a moment of emergency, should the old town, for instance, be attacked by an alien foe, and ’Linda carried off by the besiegers. Comethup almost wished, with a beating heart, that it might happen, because, according to the captain’s account—and the captain was very serious when he mentioned it—it would mean midnight rides, and shootings, and maimings, and slaughterings to an absolutely delightful extent.
But this morning disappointment was in store for them. ’Linda was not to be discovered at the shoemaker’s, and the old man, being in a bad humour, growlingly stated that he knew nothing about her, not even pausing in his hammering to make the remark. Comethup and the captain turned away sorrowfully. Former experience had taught them that it would be useless to apply at her father’s house; but they walked past it, and Comethup even ran a little way into the garden, and softly called her name. But there was no response, and, after waiting a few moments, they were compelled to set out on their expedition without her.
She had taken so prominent a part in their lives of late, and imagination so cruelly suggested her figure in every place they visited, that the business of the day had no zest in it. The captain presently seated himself on abank out on the marshes, with his cane lying across his knees, while Comethup sprawled at his feet and watched the distant line of the sand hills beyond which the sea lay. Suddenly the captain sat rigidly upright and stared away across the marshes in an opposite direction to that in which Comethup was looking; an ejaculation escaped his lips, and Comethup twisted round on one elbow and followed the direction of the captain’s gaze.
Two figures were running toward them, coming breathlessly over the uneven ground, and waving to them as they ran. Comethup sat up with a start. “Why, it’s ’Linda!” he exclaimed; and then, in a more surprised tone, “and Brian!”
The two came up pantingly, and the girl dropped down beside Comethup; the boy Brian tossed his hair back from his face, and burst out with his tale.
“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he exclaimed. “You know I couldn’t find you at your house”—this to Comethup—“nor at the captain’s; and dad was in one of his frightful tempers, and had been raving about the house, swearing he’d kill me. He often does that, you know; I’m quite used to it. So you see I didn’t know what to do, until at last I thought of that house we went to see, Comethup, you know, the one that was haunted. It wasn’t half bad in the daylight, and it wasn’t haunted, after all.”
“I know that,” said Comethup. “And so does the captain.”
“How did you find this—this child?” asked the captain, dropping one hand lightly on the girl’s head.
“I’m coming to that,” replied Brian, briskly. “I went into the garden and had a good look round, and there didn’t seem to be anything to be afraid of. So I walked round the house to see what there was to be seen, and I——”
“And you saw me up at the window,” broke in ’Linda, with a laugh.
The boy smiled back at her, and dropped down beside her on the sandy ground. “Yes,” he said, “and I askedyou if you were the ghost, and what you were doing up there; and you said you were waiting for Comethup. And I said that I was looking for him, too, and we’d better go and look together. Then I showed you how to get down from the window by the ivy, and—and here we are.” He rolled over on his back, crossed his hands under his head, and laughed again.
It was all true. He had stormed the situation in a fashion which neither Comethup nor the captain would have dreamed of; had flung himself joyously, as it were, into the midst of a matter from which they had innocently plotted to exclude him. ’Linda, too, had entertained him with an account of all that had happened: of her expeditions with Comethup and the captain, down to the minutest details, proud of the fact that she had so much to tell to this new and charming companion.
Comethup and the captain, with a quick mutual appreciation of the matter born of their intimacy, glanced at each other rapidly; the captain turned away his head, and sighed a little. ’Linda saw that, in some strange fashion, she had offended her former friends; the keen edge had been taken from the adventure, and she looked at Comethup with a little sudden quivering of the lip. Brian, blissfully unconscious, lay on his back on the ground, whistling softly to himself.
The situation was becoming embarrassing, and the captain had just cleared his throat, with the idea of making some commonplace remark which should set them all at their ease, when, looking up, he descried another figure coming swinging toward them at a rapid rate. The swirl of the coat-tails and the poise of the hat were not to be mistaken. He exclaimed hurriedly, “Brian, here’s your father!”
Brian Carlaw turned lazily over on one side and surveyed the approaching figure; resumed his former attitude, and said with a laugh: “I suppose he’s come to kill me; I didn’t think he’d find me here.” He appeared quite unconcerned about the matter, and Comethup could nothelp looking at him with increasing admiration as he observed his indifference to the approaching danger.
But it was obvious, as Mr. Robert Carlaw drew nearer, that he had no hostile intention. He was apparently greatly agitated, and seemed to be shouting something to them as he almost ran forward over the ground. He waved in his right hand a sheet of paper. He came upon the waiting group literally at a bound, and so out of breath that for a few moments he could do nothing but alternately thump his chest and tap the sheet of paper with a trembling forefinger and stretch it out appealingly toward his son. His dignity was too great to permit him to sit down, even on the bank beside the captain; he remained pacing about, and gaspingly endeavouring to speak for some moments, before he could get a word out, and when the words came they were, in view of what Brian said, certainly surprising.
“My son, my beloved son!” He stretched out his arms toward the recumbent boy, and something seemed to catch in his throat, as though he swallowed with difficulty.
Brian raised himself on one elbow and looked at his father through half-closed eyes. “I thought you were going to lick me,” he said.
Mr. Robert Carlaw again agitatedly indicated the letter. “My boy, forgive me, I beg. This is a moment when indiscretion, hastinesses of temper, may be forgotten. This is a moment that comes but once in every man’s life. You are not—not too young to understand. My boy, I have sought for you”—he swept his arm vaguely toward the horizon—“everywhere. I have been cut—cut to the heart at the thought that I—I had driven you from me. My son, thank Heaven I have found you!” He took off his hat, breathed heavily, and mopped his face with a delicate handkerchief. They looked at him in astonishment, not unmixed with awe; he appeared to be so terribly in earnest.
“Is anything the matter?” asked the captain, breaking a silence which began to be oppressive.
Robert Carlaw replaced his hat at a greater angle than usual, struck himself on the breast, laughed, and shook the letter at the little captain with ferocious playfulness. “Matter, sir? Matter enough! No longer can it be said that Robert Carlaw and his son hide their heads under a bushel—or under two bushels; this letter, sir, contains the promise of fortune—fortune rightly bestowed. No longer shall my son live obscurely, as his wretched parent has been compelled to do; no longer shall he herd with the sons of tradesmen and commoners; henceforth he takes that brilliant path which Fortune has mapped out for him.” He laughed again, and stretched out his arms again toward Brian, who was sitting up, staring at him in amazement.
“I’m afraid we don’t understand,” said the captain mildly.
Robert Carlaw, feeling that he had to deal with inferior minds, came down from the heights. “My dear sir, the matter, bluntly, is this. We are friends here, and there is no reason why all the world should not know such news as I have to tell. This, sir”—he indicated the paper he held—“is a letter from an eccentric lady, of—er—excellent birth—in point of fact, my sister; older than myself, a spinster, and childless. She writes, in her dear eccentric fashion—sweet woman, but, like myself, a spice of brimstone in her—to say that her loneliness tells upon her with advancing years; that she seeks some one to whom she may give what tenderness is in her, some one who shall become her heir. She suggests—nay, in her eccentric fashion, demands—my son. He is to fill the vacant place in her heart, and in her house; he is to become, when it shall please the good Lord”—Mr. Carlaw raised his eyes piously, and touched the brim of his hat with his fingers—“to call her from us, the possessor of her wealth.”
“That’s very fine for the boy,” said the captain slowly.
“Yes,” responded Mr. Carlaw, thoughtfully, “the boy is like his father; he was not built for toil. There arethose who are made—positively made, sir—to cut a figure in the world, that duller eyes may look on them, and admire. I am one of those; it is in the blood; Brian is another.” With a great show of hurry upon him, he thrust the precious letter in his pocket, and stooped and caught Brian by the arm and dragged him to his feet. The boy, with that unbelief in his father which past experience had probably sown deep in his breast, resisted a little, and did not enter quite so joyously into the spirit of the matter as his parent wished.
“But what have I got to do?” he asked, petulantly, rising slowly to his feet with his fathers assistance.
“Do?” exclaimed that gentleman. “My son, there is not a moment to be lost. You do not know your Aunt Charlotte; I have but stated the case mildly when I say that she is eccentric. She may change her mind at any moment; may have forgotten the suggestion she makes in this letter before we have time to reach London. Come; there is not a moment to be lost; it is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Oh, we’re going to London, are we?” asked the boy, his face brightening.
“Yes, my son,” cried Mr. Carlaw, clapping him affectionately on the shoulder, “to London! London the glorious, the wonderful! London, where you shall take your place among the best of them, and be no more hidden from sight here. Your poor father would have taken his place among its notables years ago, but that the purse-strings had to be kept too tightly. Come, my son, it wrings a father’s heart to have to part with you, but Fate has been good to you, my son, Fate has been very good to you.”
He had got his arm round the boy’s shoulders, and was actually dragging him away, without remembering the proprieties, when Brian turned and looked back over his shoulder, compelling his father to halt for a moment. The smile that Comethup thought always was like light played about his face for a moment as they sat there watching him.
“Good-bye!” he called. “I don’t want to go a bit, but if dad says I must, there’s no help for it. Good-bye; don’t forget me. I won’t forget you, any of you, and I’ll come back soon to see you. Good-bye, Comethup.”
The last they saw of him was his slight, boyish figure, still encircled by his father’s arm, going across the uneven ground toward the town. Mr. Robert Carlaw was waving his disengaged hand enthusiastically in that direction, as though he pointed to fortune and all desirable things.
COMETHUP SUFFERS A LOSS.
Comethup was glad to think, as he sat at the captain’s feet, looking after Brian and his father, that Brian had appeared to remember him last and most of all; he was glad to recall it afterward when Brian was gone. The suddenness of the boy’s departure made the whole circumstance more surprising and dramatic than it otherwise would have been; this sudden whipping of him off into fortune and grandeur, at a few moments’ notice, quite took away Comethup’s breath. Indeed, the emotional meeting between father and son, acted out to the accompaniment of sounding phrases on the part of Mr. Robert Carlaw before their very eyes, had held them all breathless. It was only when the two figures disappeared over a ridge that the three watching ones seemed to gasp in concert, and to blink their eyelids, as though awaking from a dream.
“Dear me!” said the captain, pushing his hat back from his forehead and looking down at Comethup, “it’s very sudden, isn’t it?” In his simple heart, although he scarcely liked to acknowledge it to himself, he felt a certain great relief come upon him with the departure offather and son. It can not be actually said that he disliked Brian; but he was puzzled by him—perhaps even a little afraid of him. With their going, the peace of the day seemed to be restored, and the captain could find it in his heart to hope that fortune might indeed be awaiting Brian in London, and that the boy might remain there to enjoy it.
“I’m sorry he’s gone,” said Comethup, smothering a sigh.
“I expect you’ll miss him?” said the captain. Comethup detected, with quick sympathy, young though he was, a little note of jealousy in the captain’s tones, and did not reply.
“He didn’t want to go,” said ’Linda, slowly, with her eyes still turned toward where the two figures had disappeared.
“No, but I’ll warrant he’ll want to stay,” said the captain sagely, with a laugh.
They fell to talking of him, and of the wonder of his sudden fortune; and from that the captain drifted into telling them of London, and of the width and length of its streets, and the glory of its buildings, and the wonder and mystery that the monster held, a riddle never to be read. He went on talking of the place, as he had known it years before, almost forgetful of his audience, while the children listened breathlessly. Presently, remembering where he was, and that time was flying, he got up abruptly, and took a hand of each and marched them off to his cottage to dinner.
Comethup felt his cousin’s absence more than might have been supposed. Now that there was no longer any necessity for fitting in his meetings with the boy and with the captain so as to preserve with nicety the balance between them, he blamed himself, in his sensitive little soul, for possible past neglect, remembered that Brian had called to him last of all before he disappeared, and wished many times that he could have made some atonement. The charm of Brian’s light-hearted, mad way of taking life, his resource and daring, were full upon thegentler boy; his disappearance to claim that mysterious fortune which awaited him seemed but a fitting part of all he had done before. Comethup thought of him at night when he lay awake; pictured him in those wondrous streets and palaces and buildings, the glory of which the captain had but faintly suggested; saw him petted and admired; looked forward to a time when he would come back to the sleepy old town, richly dressed, perhaps even with a carriage and prancing horses, to pay a flying visit to his old friends.
Nearly a week went by, during which he paid his daily visit to the captain, and saw ’Linda once or twice, and went through the old quiet routine. He had almost settled in his own mind that Brian had gone out of his life, and was beginning, with the carelessness of childhood, to dismiss the matter from his mind, or at all events to cease to think strongly about it, when one evening, as he sat at the window of his father’s house, conning over a lesson which the captain had set him, he heard a shout, and, looking up, saw with astonishment the laughing face of Brian on the other side of the glass, nodding at him. Comethup had time to notice, even as he hurriedly pushed open the window, that there was no new grandeur about Brian: that he wore the clothes he had been accustomed to wear, and looked in every respect precisely as though he had never set out with his father to discover his eccentric aunt and her great wealth.
“Why, you’ve come back!” gasped Comethup.
Brian leaned his elbows easily on the window sill, and nodded and laughed. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve come back. But we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of things. My word, you should see London!”
But Comethup was absolutely palpitating with questions. “But have you come down to see us? And how long do you stay? And when are you going back?”
Brian laughed, and shook his head. “I’m not going back,” he said. “I don’t quite understand it; all I know is that my aunt didn’t like me, and she and dad almost had a fight about it, and called each other names. Younever saw such a rumpus. And now we’ve come back, and it’s all over.” He laughed quite light-heartedly and good-naturedly, with no appreciation of the disaster.
“And you won’t have the fortune?” said Comethup, looking at him with wide, distressful eyes.
“No, and I don’t want it. I couldn’t possibly have lived with her; you never saw such a woman. Why, she’s quite blind, and goes feeling her way about with a stick. And if anything upsets her she swears, just as dad does; I really don’t know which of them got the best of it. But I’m glad it’s all over, although dad went on like a madman about it at first. But he’ll get over that in time.”
“And you won’t go to London again?” said Comethup.
“No. But we had fun while it lasted. I believe dad went back to her house every day from the hotel to try and see her, and kept on ringing the bell until he found it was no use, and then we came back here. Of course I don’t care a bit; I don’t want her beastly money; but I’d liked to have stopped in London a little longer; it was jolly—would have been jollier if dad hadn’t been in such a fury all the time. Good-night; we’ve only just got back, you know, and so I ran round to see you. Good-night!” He was off out of the garden and down the street almost before Comethup could gasp out a reply.
The true story of that visit to London, and its failure as a commercial speculation, only came out long afterward. Indeed, nothing in regard to it would have been known had not Mr. Robert Carlaw remembered that, in the first flush of his joy, he had unconsciously taken the captain into his confidence; to return, apparently beaten and without his purpose accomplished, would, he felt, discredit him in that gentleman’s eyes; and he therefore hastened to give him some explanation, from his own point of view, at least. He paid a visit to the captain on the very evening of his arrival from London.
The captain was, perhaps, as greatly surprised by the visit as Comethup had been by the apparition of Brian. Mr. Robert Carlaw had lifted the latch of the cottage door without ceremony, and stood in the dim light ofthe evening, a heavy figure, gazing half defiantly at the little captain, who had risen in haste from his chair. Mr. Carlaw, in characteristic fashion, seized the situation at once, and plunged into his explanation before the captain had had time to utter a word.
“My dear sir,” he exclaimed, advancing into the room and stretching out a hand with much cordiality, “you’re surprised to see me? Confess it; I am surprised to see myself, as our French neighbours would say. I believe I told you when we went to London something of the object of our visit, but”—he shrugged his shoulders and took off his hat with a flourish and banged it down on the little table—“the situation was absolutely impossible, not to be tolerated for an instant by a man of spirit.”
The captain did not commit himself to any expression of opinion. He crossed the room, closed the door, and came slowly back again, waiting for his visitor to continue.
“Imagine, my dear sir, what it would mean to be at the mere beck and call of a petticoat—and such a petticoat! All women are unreasonable—dear creatures, I admit, and they’ve played the devil with Bob Carlaw—but there is reason in all things. To be confronted with a shrieking harridan who doesn’t know her own mind for five minutes together, who insults her own flesh and blood.” (Mr. Carlaw struck himself frantically on the breast and wagged his head) “and loads my cherished son with reproaches—no, sir, it was not to be borne. Charlotte is a dear sister and a worthy woman, and I esteem her; but—there are limits. I trust, whatever my faults may be, that I shall never be accused of a lack of what I may term the gentler virtues. Vices I have, but they are, thank God, the vices of a gentleman. In short, sir, the situation was impossible. I am glad to think that I controlled myself and—as a soldier might express it—retreated with dignity. Frankly, I do not mind confessing that the loss, from a monetary point of view, is great. My son will not set forth upon that career for which I had destined him with such bright prospects as he mighthave done. But, sir, you will agree with me that there are limits—limits which may not be passed.”
Mr. Robert Carlaw leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling; he breathed heavily, and tapped the fingers of one hand upon the table. The captain began to think that he had misjudged Mr. Carlaw, and that he might be, after all, rather a fine fellow.
“I am sorry,” he said, slowly, “for the boy’s sake.”
“Yes; for myself I do not care; the world has handled me roughly, but I have contrived, thank Heaven, to turn a smiling face to it, as a gentleman should. I have hopes for my son; he is not—not of common clay, and I think you will admit that his appearance is such that he should be able to cut a figure in the world. My dear sir”—he leaned forward and spoke confidentially—“I will not deceive you. There may have been—nay, there was—a selfish thought in my breast in the matter. I had a vision of my son taking his place, as he should take it, with the aid of that wealth without which we can do nothing; and I had a vision, too, of his old father, who would do him no discredit, mind you, leaning upon the boy, perhaps even guiding him a little, amid the many temptations which would beset him. I repeat, I may have had such a thought, but it was not wholly selfish; it was for the boy’s sake, entirely for the boy’s sake.”
The captain began sadly to think that he had been a little hasty in forming that better judgment of Mr. Carlaw; but he spoke diplomatically. “No doubt,” he said, “you would have been of great assistance to him.”
“My knowledge of the world and of its pitfalls would, of course, have enabled me to support rather than to lean upon him,” replied the other. “But, there, it’s useless talking of the matter; the thing is done. You may not be aware of it, my dear sir,” he added, moodily, “but disastrous luck has followed me—dogged me—all my days. Think of this: here is my son, who, it has been said, favours his father, and is—again I am quoting others—decidedly a handsome boy. Yet what does itavail him? Nothing; for the very woman whom it is necessary to impress is stone blind.”
“Blind?” ejaculated the captain.
“Exactly. Did you ever hear of such a piece of misfortune? I do not refer to her, but to the boy’s prospects. Had she been able but to look at him—only once—the thing would have been different. But it happens that she was born blind; she is the sturdiest and the strongest of the family; but her very affliction caused my father to leave practically the whole of his fortune to her. I was left to struggle along on a mere pittance. My younger sister, since dead, got nothing. Yet that very circumstance, which has given her every luxury which money can command, is the undoing of my boy’s fortunes. Think of it!”
“Then did she—did she object to the boy?” asked the captain.
“Would have nothing to do with him; didn’t like his voice; didn’t like his manner of speech to her; didn’t like anything. Then, again, she got on troublesome family matters—matters on which we were never able to agree; she rubbed me very much the wrong way; in short, the whole thing was impossible. I shook the dust of her house from my feet and came away. Mine is a nature, sir, that will not brook interference; that bows to no man, certainly to no woman.”
He got up, picked up his hat, and began to move toward the door. He had something further, however, to say; the nervousness of his manner proclaimed it. The captain rose politely to open the door for his guest, and Mr. Carlaw swung round in the doorway, as he put on his hat, and spoke in a less self-confident manner.
“I—I am bound to confess that—that the matter—has troubled me. I had—well, perhaps I hoped great things for the boy, that Fortune might smile on him more kindly than it has done on his wretched father.” He laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. “However, that’s done with; I desire to hear no more about it. After all, I suppose we all take our throw with the dice at Fortune’stable some time or other; if we lose—well, we take our bad luck like gentlemen still.”
“Certainly, certainly,” murmured the captain.
“I—I believe that I’ve mentioned—something about the matter to you before our departure for London. Of course, I regard you as—well, may I say?—a friend; and it is hardly necessary for me to add that I have no desire that this matter——”
He was stumbling so awkwardly among his words that the captain came a little stiffly to his relief. “The matter is not one which concerns me,” he said, “and as I have been honoured with your confidence, I shall, of course, regard it as a confidence.”
Mr. Robert Carlaw’s face cleared suddenly, and he darted out a hand and caught that of the captain. “My dear sir, I knew it was unnecessary for me to make such a request. You are very good. Good-night, good-night!” He went swinging away through the garden and down the street, humming a tune as he walked. The captain stood looking after him.
Within a few days matters had settled down to their usual routine. It seemed impossible that Brian could ever have been away, or that it could ever have been suggested that his absence was to be permanent. Comethup was quite glad to have his small circle of friends complete again, and, as Brian himself did not appear to regret the loss of that visionary fortune, Comethup began to think that it could not matter so very greatly after all. In those early days, on which the child looked back so often afterward, there was nothing to mar his peace of mind, now that Brian had been admitted, in a sense, into complete intimacy with them all by his discovery of ’Linda, except one circumstance—a circumstance small enough in itself, but one which troubled him nevertheless.
Brian, eager at all times to be in the very thick of everything, however slight, that was in progress around him, had paid a visit to the shoemaker’s shop, going there with Comethup one morning in search of ’Linda. Before they entered, he had glanced up at the overhanging shopfront, and had read there the painted name of the proprietor, “M. Theed.” He appeared to carry the name in his remembrance after he entered the place, and to be fitting it together in some way and puzzling over it. Even as he saw ’Linda seated on the bench, and nodded laughingly to her, he turned in his quick fashion to the old man, who had ceased hammering and was looking curiously at him, and asked, “What’s your other name?”
The shoemaker looked at him for a moment in silence, and then replied slowly, “Medmer.”
“That’s a queer name,” said the boy—“Medmer Theed; and what a queer place you’ve got here!” He glanced round, and then appeared to dismiss the matter altogether from his mind. “We’ve come to find ’Linda,” he added.
The old man laid down his hammer and put an arm about the child, as though to draw her to him. Comethup was a little surprised and a little frightened, on glancing at him, to see the expression of his eyes.
“Let the little maid stay here,” he said, almost in a growl; “she has naught to do with you.”
Brian stared at him and laughed, and looked with raised eyebrows toward Comethup. Comethup came quickly to the rescue.
“Why, Brian is our great friend—my cousin, you know. He’s known ’Linda a long time.”
The shoemaker did not reply for some minutes; he sat, with his arm drawn round the child and his head bent, muttering to himself. Then presently, with a sigh, he withdrew his arm and took up his work, and began hammering again steadily, as though no one were near him. After waiting for a few moments, Comethup drew nearer to the bench; and ’Linda scrambled down and put her hand in his, and prepared to go with them. Comethup politely wished the shoemaker “Good-day”; but he kept on steadily at his work, and did not appear to hear. The three children went out together, and down the little narrow street. Comethup, glancing back over his shoulder for a moment, saw that the shoemaker hadcome to the door of his shop, and was standing there, with one hand shading his eyes, looking after them.
Nor did his distrust of Brian appear to leave him. Absurd as it may seem, when the object of that dislike was so young a boy, the old man’s feelings were not to be mistaken. He maintained a rigid silence whenever Brian came near him, even watched him suspiciously; and although the boy, conscious of it, tried every art and charm he possessed to ingratiate himself with the shoemaker, he signally failed. His boisterousness and high spirits were useless here. Medmer Theed, like most distorted characters, was evidently as strong in his dislikes as in his likes, however unreasonable the former might be.