“Of course we will wait,” said the doctor, “and as long as you like; and in the meantime we will eat our dinner, and after that, suppose we have a drive together? Not so far as to meddle with the pain, but I think we might get a breath of what lies outside the city for once in a way.”
The battle lasted well into the night, in spite of the drive behind Jet, and everything the doctor could think of to make it seem as if there were no such thing as fighting in the world. But though Thorndyke had begged for a truce, he was determined not to go to sleep till the enemy was put to rout again, and it seemed at one time as if it were going to take the whole night to do it. He lay with his eyes wide open, the moon shining into the little room that had seemed so wonderful when it was first given him, but only a mockery so many times since; and the forms of all the terrible things he should have to meet if he did as the doctor wished stalked about it like evil spirits of the night. The fight had been sharp enough when he determined to open the door for patients again, and the first time he went home with Aleck it seemed as if he should die; but opening the door was for the doctor, and he had got accustomed to it now; and Nellie Halliday never seemed to see anything but his face, and had taken it in her slender white hands one day and asked him if he knew it was a wonderful gift of Heaven; he could not tell what she meant, but he had never been afraid to let her see him since then.
But Halliday’s! There would be hundreds of people coming in all day long, and he himself would be standing behind the counter scarcely able to look over it, and every one looking down upon him to see how strangely he was made! And then going through the street so many times every day! Going on errands here and there, very likely, and letting every one wonder where Halliday had found such a strange little creature to do his work! He could bear the pain, he could bear knowing that he was never to learn the games of the boys, and to go about with them as the doctor had thought he should, he could bear never feeling that he was one of the princes again, but he could not bear this!
He shut his eyes, but there it all was, just the same; what could he do? The ugly forms would not be beaten down, and yet he must not give it up!
But at last, a different thought rose up, that seemed to make them shrink away, and he felt himself gaining a little once more! There were the Prince Royal and the doctor! If they wished it, and it would please them, why should he care for anything else! If he could only once determine that he did not care! No, he never could do that, but if he could only be so happy in pleasing them as to trample all the pain that might come from anywhere else under his feet! And after all, would it not be a great thing to have a business, a profession of his own, and know so much that he could be really of some use as well as if he were like other people, instead of “hiding away all his life,” as the doctor called it? And perhaps other people might come to respect him for what he knew and could do, some day! Oh, he could see it all now! Why had he not seen it before, and how could he ever thank the doctor for seeing it for him? He would do it; he would be ready any day!
The battle was won, and the tired soldier turned on his pillow to go to sleep, with something nearer the old joyous thrill in his veins than he had thought he could ever feel again.
CHAPTER XVII.
So it was decided, and when Thorndyke had once decided, he was ready, and an early day was fixed for his first morning at Halliday’s before the week was past.
“Why, hallo, old fellow, if this isn’t about the jolliest go! We’ll have the old store all in the family yet!” was Aleck’s greeting, so joyous that it didn’t stop to be elegant; and a “jolly go” it was, as far as he could possibly help to make it so. Thorndyke could never make a mistake, in his view; and as to teaching him, that was only letting him see once how a thing must be done, and he knew it as well as his teacher. As for Thorndyke, he always felt that the sun shone, and everything was right, as soon as Aleck came in. All went on as gayly as it could, and by the time a year had passed, nobody thought the store was quite right if Thorndyke was absent for a day. Mr. Halliday missed something, he could not tell what; the customers wanted to know what had become of “the little fellow;” and Aleck felt as if he were in imminent peril of some catastrophe, for, paragon as Thorndyke thought him, he had his one fault, which horrified Uncle Ralph, and humiliated himself: he did now and then forget something very important to be remembered, and Thorndyke had not been long in the store before he established himself as guardian over this possibility, and had already saved Aleck half a dozen times when just “on the brink” of some predicament or other.
But the absences came very seldom, only here and there when the pain was too bad for a day, and then he was back again: sometimes so out of sight that only a little rustling told he was there; sometimes just coming into view above a showcase, and sometimes, again, mounting a little step which had been run along for him just inside the counter, and which brought him high enough to wait upon customers conveniently. It made every one start at first to see those great, brilliant eyes, the high, white forehead, and the delicate features, looking over at them, when they could scarcely see what they belonged to. And every one that knew much of such things could read in the wistful eyes and patient smile a good deal of what had come into them after that dreadful day a year ago, with still a little change. The pain was still there; he knew he should never be like other people, but he was bearing it as a brave soldier should, and he was glad other people were not like him, and he should learn to be useful to them, yet.
So another year went on, and another examination-day was coming at the professor’s, and Tom Haggarty came in the day before to talk about it with Aleck, though Aleck had taken good care to hush him up when Thorndyke came within hearing.
“It’s just as well not to say anything about that before Thorndyke,” he said; “it isn’t likely to bring very pleasant reminiscences to him!”
“That’s a fact,” said Tom; “I shouldn’t think he’d ever want to hear of the school again as long as he lives; and it’s a horrid shame, too, and always will be; and I always feel as if I had something to do with it, though I never could tell how. But wont you come down? We shall have a high old time, and it’s the last but one for me. You know I’m through next year.”
“You’ve done well,” said Aleck. “You’re a little shaver to be fitted for college.”
“Little’s nothing,” said Tom. “I was thirteen last fall, and I shall be almost fifteen when I step off. It has seemed for ever and a day to me since I first saw the professor.”
“But that’s too young; you wont think of entering right away, will you?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I may have to wait a bit, but I sha’n’t know how to; if it only wasn’t for being a freshman, and the hazing, and all that. I don’t see how a fellow is ever to get through with that part of it, but I suppose I’ve got to be hazed wherever I go. If I can live through it, ’twill be better than to be shut up in a store all my life. I don’t see how you make it go, with such a smooth face.”
“Don’t you?” said Aleck, laughing; “come and try it a while, and perhaps you’ll see.”
“No, thank you,” said Tom, “I should hate it so that they would turn me off in a very short time. It’s hard enough to make a fellow’s way in the world if you let him take the way he likes best, and I’m thankful enough I’ve got the promise ahead for all the study I can do for the next eight or ten years. I shall have to strike out for myself then, and it will be tough enough, I suppose, but I don’t mean to worry myself about that till the time comes. Come down to-morrow, wont you?”
Tom went off, and Aleck soon followed towards home, for it was his hour to go to tea. He walked quickly, for he begrudged every moment lost on the way, and was soon near the house, with some thoughts running on that came up once in a while, and which went to make up the only secret ever kept between himself and Nelly. Tom was right about business. To be sure, his own came nearer to being professional than almost anything, and there was some comfort in helping to save people’s lives, if he did only come in as second fiddler. But his dream of a profession! Neither Uncle Ralph nor Nelly should ever have a suspicion of the sacrifice he was making. Why should they? If there didn’t happen to be money enough for him to study on, it was no fault of theirs; and if Uncle Ralph could take any pleasure in having him in the store, why, he need not think the favor was all on that side; he had something to be thankful for himself.
But what was that sound behind him? A horse’s hoofs flying wildly up the pavement, and wheels swaying from one side to the other of the street! He turned, and one glance was enough to show him what was happening, and that he had better look out for himself while there was time. It was Tom Haggarty’s father and the horse he was accustomed to drive quietly past on his way home every night; but in some way the animal had become terrified and altogether beyond his control, and was dashing wildly up the road, and aiming now directly for the spot where Aleck stood. Aleck had just time to spring aside and mount his doorstep with a flying leap when the wheels struck the curbstone, the horse’s hoofs clattered on the sidewalk, there was a crash, a plunge, an overthrow, and in another moment the horse had cleared himself from the carriage, and was dashing madly on, while his owner lay senseless on the pavement.
In an instant a group had gathered about the fallen man, but Aleck was first among them, raising his head and searching hastily for his pulse.
“All right so far,” he said; “he’s breathing yet, but—” and he glanced quickly towards the window. Nelly was standing there, and answered the look with a beckoning signal.
“Lend a hand here, will you?” said Aleck; “we’ll get him inside and then see what’s to be done next.”
They lifted him, hardly believing Aleck that he was still alive, and carrying him in, laid him on the sofa to which Nelly pointed.
“Is he alive, Aleck?”
“Yes, his pulse is beating.”
“Then a doctor, and the nearest one. Remember what a friend he was to papa!”
“Not so much the nearest one, as the best one,” thought Aleck as he sped away. “I’ll have Dr. Thorndyke here, if he can be found, and I think it’s just the time Jet is most likely to be standing at the door.”
Yes, there was Jet, the reins thrown over his back, and still panting after his dash into town from a visit a mile outside; the doctor had just closed the front-door behind him, and it took but a moment for Aleck to find him and tell his errand.
For the first time in his life there was a moment when the doctor didn’t care a fig about what was wanted, compared to some other considerations. He should see Nelly Halliday in her own house at last, after all this time that Thorndyke had been having it all to himself, without the slightest appreciation of what it was!
But only an instant; at the next he and Aleck were in the chaise, and one more brought them to where the shattered carriage still lay before the door.
“Isn’t that enough to bring a dead man to life!” thought the doctor as he stepped into the room. There was the same face he had seen two years ago smiling from the conservatory-window at Thorndyke, the same soft eyes, the same rippling sunlight in her hair, just as he had remembered them all this while, only this time bending over the still motionless form of her fathers friend, and watching anxiously for some sign of returning consciousness.
But there was no time for ceremony.
“Here is Dr. Thorndyke, Nelly,” said Aleck, and with a quick smile of recognition she stepped aside and let the doctor come close to his patient.
“Ah! Possibly she recollects, too!” thought the doctor. “But pshaw! there’s nothing to be thought of just here but this poor fellow,” and he plunged into the examination of his patient.
Not a word was spoken for a few moments, except as the doctor asked for what he wanted.
“A wine-glass, please,” and Nelly handed it to him with a quick, noiseless movement.
But when he had given the restorative and was waiting a moment for its effect, she spoke,
“Is it so very bad, doctor? Oh, I hope you can say it is not!”
“It is pretty bad, I am afraid. If we cannot succeed in improving things in a few moments, I think Aleck had better call a carriage and get him home as soon as possible. This has been something of a shock to you already, Miss Halliday.”
The remedies seemed of no avail; only a low, heavy breathing and flitting pulse told there was any life remaining, and at a sign from the doctor Aleck disappeared. It was but a few moments until he returned with the carriage, but it seemed hours to Nelly as she watched the doctor trying one remedy after another, and all equally in vain. The doctor did not tell her he was almost sure it would be so before he began; he went on as quietly as if there were more hope, with a few cheerful words now and then, and at last Aleck came with the carriage.
“You have been very kind, doctor,” she said, when Mr. Haggarty was placed inside the carriage and the doctor was preparing to go with him. “I take it almost as if it were done for papa, they were such friends. You’ll come again, will you not, some brighter day, and let us thank you?”
The doctor answered with one of those quick looks in her face which Thorndyke knew so well.
“Some one ought to come very soon and see how you are,” he said. “This has been rather trying for you, Miss Halliday.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
Poor Tom! It was a dark to-morrow to which he had invited Aleck, and darker still the days that followed, that he had thought would be full of holiday enjoyment! Could it be true that his father was gone? Gone! What did that mean! Oh, if it only were not true! If every one were mistaken, or had told him false!
It seemed to him he could never see the boys again. But Aleck would not leave him to that very long, and Tom really felt the first touch of comfort when he heard him asking for him at the door.
“Oh, but you don’t know anything about it, Aleck; you don’t understand! No one can understand, until it come, how terrible it seems.”
“And isn’t that the very way I can understand?”
Tom stared at him with wide eyes a moment.
“Oh, I forgot! How could I forget! It was horrid in me, but it seems as if I could not remember anything or know anything except this one terrible feeling that is everywhere through the house. And it doesn’t seem as if it could ever be any better!”
“It will be better,” said Aleck, but Tom only shook his head. “Don’t you suppose it was just as terrible in the houses that the Lord Jesus came into long ago, because there was trouble in them?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom, hesitating a little, for he was not used to talking of such things, and didn’t know exactly where he was; “but he came to bring people back to life, then, and he doesn’t do that now.”
“No, he doesn’t, but he comes just as close and just as much to bring comfort as he did then. Suppose he should come so close and speak so tenderly that you could almost feel his heart beating against yours, wouldn’t that make it better? And if he should promise he would never go away, but would watch you even more faithfully than your father could, and help you along to make the man he hoped to see you, wouldn’t that make it better?”
“Perhaps so,” said Tom, not very clear yet that all this amounted to anything more than talking.
“I tell you there’s no mistake,” said Aleck. “There are just two or three things, it seems to me, that we have got to have before we can be happy, taking us just as we are; we want some one to love and some one to love us; we want something to do that’s worth doing, and we want our own affairs to be looked out for at the same time.”
“But I’ve got to look out for myself, now,” said poor Tom.
“I know it, Tom, and yet you haven’t, after all. If your father had been here when you went to college, didn’t you expect to send to him when you needed anything, or when you didn’t see just what ’twas best to do about anything? And wouldn’t that have left you free to go right along with your work, and interest yourself for other people, instead of all the time worrying about yourself? And can’t you do just the same with the Lord?”
“But I loved him so! I miss him so!” cried poor little Tom, breaking down altogether.
“I know; that comes hard, and there’s no getting away from it; but I tell you, Tom, it isn’t going to be such a very great while, and I don’t believe he’s so very far off either. It may be there’s only a veil between, and who knows but he can see through it as plainly as if wasn’t there at all? And you’ll find lots to do; that’s one of the greatest things after all. Just think what you can come to be in taking his place at home, besides something for somebody outside, every day of your life, if you’re only looking out for it. And there’s no one to say he wont see it; and however that may be, there’s One that will be sure to, and think a good deal of it too.”
Tom didn’t say much, but he had his own times of going over in his mind all Aleck had said, until things did begin to seem a little better after a while, as Aleck had promised, and going back to school did not seem so very terrible as he had thought; and as the year came once more to a close, the thought of the new step into college studies really looked bright and tempting.
All but the freshman woes, in the way of hazing and all that sort of thing. Poor Tom hadn’t yet got over his dread of being snubbed or run upon, only as he had been in the higher class the last year, and there was no one left in the school who was quite so endlessly doing it since Hal had left. He had almost forgotten how uncomfortable it was; at any rate, he was sure he never could see any worse times than some he had had with Hal, and he had lived through those somehow.
So he was making the most of his holidays, and the little interval of deciding what came next; and going into Halliday’s now and then, for a few moments with Aleck and Thorndyke, was one of the great resources of the time.
He came gayly out one day, to see some one beckoning to him, and reining in his horse close by. Ah, that was Mr. Willoughby, his guardian, and Tom ran to the chaise.
“Going towards home, Haggarty?” he said. “Suppose you jump in, and we drive out together. I want to talk to you about one or two matters, if you’re not aiming in another direction.”
Tom sprang in, only too gladly. He should hear something about going to college, he was sure.
“Well, and how does it seem to be a free man once more?” he asked, as Tom took his seat and they started off.
“Prime,” said Tom, “only if a free man never has anything to do, I shouldn’t like it to last very long.”
“Good,” said Mr. Willoughby, laughing, “and that’s just the very point. How long should you call long enough?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I suppose I ought to enter college this Commencement, if I’m going at all this year; and if I wait till next, I ought to be studying or working at something before a great while.”
“And you are sure of going this year or next? Could you not think of anything but college and be satisfied?”
Tom started.
“My father wished me to go to college.”
“I know he did; but, Tom, he is not here now to send you. You have been a brave fellow this last year, and I know you will be brave about what I have to tell you. I have said nothing about money-matters so far, for I wished you to get through school with a quiet mind; but perhaps it is best now to let you understand just how things are. There were some embarrassments in your father’s affairs that he could have overcome if he had lived a year or two longer, but as things were left, they have made a great deal of trouble; and in fact, there does not seem to be the means of carrying out his plans for you. I’m afraid you’ll have to go to work, my boy, without waiting for college or Germany or anything of the kind; and the sooner you can make a man of yourself and get a start in the world, the better it will be for the rest at home.”
Tom took hold of the side of the chaise; it seemed to him that the whole of life had been knocked out from under his feet.
“I can’t think you’ll find business so very bad,” went on Mr. Willoughby, “and I think you’ve got the making of a good business man in you; all you want is a fair chance, and a good send off, to begin with, and that I think I’ve found for you, by good luck. I’ve been making some proposals to the Fenimores, and they are ready to take you in there, and see what you can do for yourself, as soon as you can make up your mind that you’re ready. It isn’t every day that a chance like that opens to a boy of your age, and I rather think you’ll decide to make the most of it.”
Poor Tom! If what Aleck had said to him that day had been a comfort before, he needed to get closer hold of it yet this time.
“You’ll find lots to do, Tom, and that is one of the greatest things, after all; and there’s One that will be sure to see, and think a good deal of it, too.”
He kept saying it over to himself, and the rest of what Aleck had said about “some one caring for him, while he went about his work for other people.” And he needed it all; “pretty tough,” Aleck called the sudden change in his prospects, when he heard of it, but even then he hadn’t the least idea how Tom dreaded coming so directly in Hal’s way as he knew he should, every day. That seemed to be the last and bitterest drop in the cup! Not that Hal wasn’t a good fellow; he knew he was, and that he would do him many a kind turn before the year was out, but—pshaw! he must get over being such a goose!
CHAPTER XIX.
Thorndyke had left the store just as Mr. Willoughby picked Tom up; he never stayed in the evening and it was six o’clock now. But he had an errand to do that took him past the little cottage with the bay window, and there stood Jet and the doctor’s chaise. And the doctor himself came out of the door, just as he came in sight again on his way back.
“Stand still, Jet!” said the doctor, and Jet pawed the ground till Thorndyke came up. The doctor reached him a hand, he climbed in, and Jet’s hoofs struck sparks again as he carried them towards home. The doctor scarcely spoke, but there was a shining in his eyes that made Thorndyke feel he could say a good deal if he chose; indeed he had seen it there every day of late; he wondered if anything had happened!
But when he came into the office, he was sitting as quietly over a medical review as if nothing had ever happened, or would ever happen, and Thorndyke took his own book and his own seat in the window. But it did not last long; Thorndyke heard a flutter and a fall, and the doctor had sent the magazine flying.
“Come over here, Thorndyke,” he said; “I want to say something to you.”
Thorndyke started, but before he had got halfway, the doctor met him, and stood there with his hands on his shoulders, and looking full into his eyes with the shining out of his own brighter than ever.
“Little man,” he said, “if I told you you had been the means of bringing to me the greatest gift of my life, what would you say?”
For an instant Thorndyke stood as much astonished as on the day when the doctor first talked to him about fishing and going to school.
“I never gave you anything,” he said; “you give me everything, and it makes me feel happy and strong even to know that you are near; but I never gave you anything. What do I ever have to give?”
“Tut,” said the doctor stooping a little and looking closer into his face with the old smile, “don’t you know you are all I have in the world; all I have had, rather. Did you ever see my chaise standing where it did to-night, before?”
“Yes,” said Thorndyke, “and I supposed something was the matter, but I did not ask of course.”
The doctor laughed, and letting go his hold of Thorndyke, walked back and forth across the room.
“Did it ever occur to you,” he asked, after a while, “did it ever occur to you that you and I had lived here like two miserable old bachelors, almost long enough? And if there was any one on the face of the earth that could come here and take this old world of ours and make a new one of it that would seem a good deal like Paradise, who should you say it would be?”
A sudden thought swept over Thorndyke’s mind, though it seemed only a dream.
“The princess!” he exclaimed; “but—”
“Ah, you think that would be like plucking the morning star down from over our own heads? And so it is, more like that than anything I ever thought I should dare try, much less have success granted me, if I did; but she is coming, little man! The King has given her to me! But I should never have seen her, much less known her, a thousand times less asked for her, if you had not found her for me!”
“Well, if this isn’t about the most magnificent thing that ever happened!” said Aleck the next day, when a sharp look into Thorndyke’s face told him he knew all; “The doctor is the only man I know in the world fit to loosen the latchet of Nellie’s shoe, but I don’t believe there’s another woman fit to do the same for him, and I shall be the proudest fellow in the city when I can call him brother. Except you, Thorndyke! He is a heap more yours than he ever will be mine, no matter what he calls me, and I always thought you were the luckiest fellow in the world to have a claim on him; but I never thought I should ever come in for any share! But what will become of me, when I’m left alone in my glory?”
This was a question that came into Nellie’s mind also, and she had her own plans to meet it. When October was turning all the world to garnet and gold once more, then came the wedding, and Thorndyke was there with the rest. No pain of any kind could have kept him away; the old throbbing at his heart rose up, until he could hardly breathe, and when the bride, with all her beauty and her loveliness, her orange blossoms and the veil that seemed to Thorndyke like a halo around her golden hair, stooped and gave him his kiss, he didn’t know whether he were in the world or not! Only let him get out of sight once more! He slipped away into a sheltered spot and Uncle Ralph stepped into his place.
“Uncle Ralph,” said Nelly, when almost all the guests were gone. “I know you cannot find it in your heart to refuse me anything on my wedding-day. I want to leave the house just as it is for Aleck, but of course he cannot stay in it alone. Wont you say goodby to your hotel room, and come and fill my place here until either you or he follow in my footsteps?”
Uncle Ralph pooh-poohed for a while, but he couldn’t find it in his heart, as Nelly said, to refuse her; and before the wedding journey was over, bachelor’s hall was thoroughly established behind the conservatory window.
CHAPTER XX.
The Cumbermede had made a long list of successful voyages since Aleck watched her out of sight and waved his farewell to Carter, and she was homeward bound once more, with a full cargo and a quick run so far, before the trade-winds. The moonlight lay soft and clear across the deck, the phosphorus flashed like monster diamonds in her track, and not a sound was heard but the low plashing at the bow, as the vessel made her seven knots, steady before a light breeze. But now the wind freshened, and the second mate’s voice was heard giving sharp quick orders to two of his watch.
“Go aloft there, and close up the main-top-gallant.”
The men sprang to the rigging, and a few moments more one of them came down the ratlines and went forward to some work he had left, but the other seemed to find some delay in accomplishing his share of the task. The mate glanced impatiently into the rigging once or twice, then angrily, and then shouted aloft:
“What are you about up there, you landlubber Jake? If I had a dog and he didn’t know more than you do, I’d shoot him.”
The man halfway down by this time, finished his descent and passed the mate without a word, but a dark scowl covered his face. The mate caught sight of it and his fury increased; he seized the man by the collar and pushed him violently toward the wheel.
“There, go and try your hand at that,” he said, “and see if you can keep a decent face before your betters! A miserable fool that never saw three months’ service since he was born, shipping as able seaman, and then grumbling about under his officers’ feet till it’s enough to drive them mad! If the next wave should take you overboard ’twould be the best thing that could happen!”
The sailor recovered his balance and went off to relieve the man at the wheel, but the scowl grew darker, and harder lines gathered about his mouth. Eight bells sounded at last, and the first mate’s watch came tumbling up from their berths, to relieve those on duty. But it was too warm to go below, and after loitering a few moments till the second mate had disappeared to turn in, two or three of the men sauntered forward, the dark scowl among them, and getting noiselessly together in the shadow of the foremast, began to talk in low undertones, that could not reach far aft of their position.
“I tell you, I wont bear it any longer,” said Jake between his teeth. “One or other of us has got to go under, and that before another twenty-four hours is past.”
The man next him gave a low laugh, and then seeing how black the other’s face was, grew sober again.
“Pshaw, Jake, you look as if you were in earnest. I should think you were a landlubber, as the mate says, if you’re going to take notice of anything an officer says to a hand! If he’d shoot his dog for what you did, it’s only a wonder he didn’t knock you overboard. A sailor don’t count for as much as a dog any day.”
“He knows I’ve only had my hand out of the sling for two days, and how was I going to handle the earrings,” muttered Jake; “I tell you I mean what I say. If I can get two or three to stand by me, well and good, and if not I’ll tackle him alone. I’d as lief jump overboard with him, as lead this life any longer.”
“Jake’s about right,” growled the other sailor, under his breath; “’twould be as good a day’s work as I ever did to stand by Jake and see the second mate get his dues.”
“Humph! and do you know what they call that? That’s mutiny, in plain English, and we should have the other officers with their pistols out, and if we didn’t get a little cold lead for our pains, we should find out how bread and water tasted in the hold for a few weeks.”
“Who cares for that?” said Jake. “Let ’em come on, if they want to! They wouldn’t shoot down three or four of us; and if they should try it, we might get some new recruits on our side, and see which of us could take the ship into port. If I was a dog when I came aboard, he’s made a devil of me since, and he may look sharp that I don’t carry him where I belong, with me.”
“You wouldn’t get any of the first mate’s watch to stand by you, if the worst comes to the worst,” said the growling sailor; “a man’s got to do his duty with him, but when he’s done it he treats him as if he had a soul in him, after all.”
“That’s a fact; Carter’s the only officer I ever saw that could get duty out of a watch and never speak an ugly word to them,” said the other; “he don’t seem to like it. But he’s sharp as a gun to the mark, at the same time, where any other man would get tipped over for it.”
“I’d be sorry to go against him” said Jake, “and so I hope he’ll let me alone, that’s all; for I’ve got where nothing will stop me. If you’ll give me your hand on it, shipmates, we’ll set sail together, and if we drop anchor in a worse port, it wont be till I’ve had some satisfaction, anyhow.”
“I don’t say but I’m ready,” said the growling sailor; “we shall find we’ve raised a lively gale of wind, but I don’t much care where it blows me. I’ve made as many voyages as any man aboard, and been kicked and cursed my share; but when it comes to crowding a man every hour and minute of a day, what do you say, Jim?”
“I say I don’t like to stand to windward of a shipmate,” said Jim, “but it will be a bad business, and we’re homeward bound. You’d better speak to Ratlins, anyhow, and see what he says. He’s gone below.”
“And that’s where we’d better go,” said the growling sailor, “or the birds of the air will be getting their eye on us before we’re ready.”
Carter had taken part of his watch below, late as it was, to finish up some ship’s writing, and his stateroom being close by the companion-way, he had heard what passed between the second officer and Jake.
“Pshaw!” he said to himself, fidgeting in his chair, “what’s the use of that, Penfield? If a man’s rough enough to need that, you can’t hope to make anything of him; and if he isn’t, it hurts. A man’s got some feeling, whatever shape he’s in,” and a vision of a crooked little form, fleeing away like the wind, rose up before him, as it always had, from that miserable time at the professor’s to this very day, whenever he heard any one use taunting or cutting words.
He went on with his writing, but the second mate’s words seemed to echo in his ears.
“I wish Penfield wouldn’t be such a bear,” he said again as he put aside his book to turn in at last for a nap before his watch was called; “it don’t do to show a soft side with a man, to be sure, and I know he’s got some rough fellows in his watch; but he’s got two or three that started as fair as most men, and he’ll make beasts of them all if he goes on this way. I haven’t heard him speak to a man of them since he came aboard but as if hanging was too good for him.”
Carter’s nap was sound enough to make up for its shortness, and he paced the quarter-deck all right and fresh for the four hours before him as the second mate went below.
“’Tisn’t a bad idea that every wave we cut brings us so much nearer home,” he said as he watched the foam flying back over the bow. “‘A life on the ocean wave!’ that’s the only thing, to be sure; but, after all, it’s always certain the roughest hand aboard is counting how many days we’ve made on the home-run. Well, I’ll be glad to see it, for one.”
His thoughts made the trip before the sentence was finished, and brought up where they were very apt to do, in a place he always started for before he had been half a day ashore—Halliday’s.
“What a number-one fellow that Aleck is,” he went on, “and I owe him for some things I never should have seen if he hadn’t showed them to me,” and for the thousandth time some of Aleck’s words came up to his mind.
“The only way is to remember how the Lord has treated us, and the way he has taught us, to love our neighbor as ourselves.
“And that’s something I wish we officers remembered a little oftener; to be sure they say you can’t treat a sailor like a man, and keep him where he ought to be. But Penfield is too much of a Tartar, and he’s got one fellow there that it don’t do any good to, and he don’t see the difference. Some of them will take anything; but this Jake, though he seemed fair enough when he shipped, is getting blacker every day, and the ship that takes him next voyage will find him more so, I’m afraid. I wonder what those fellows are talking about, forward there; they ought to be below, but I’ll manage not to see them, if they don’t stay too long.”
They glided down, one after the other, as he spoke, and a moment after Jake was at Ratlins’ bunk and rousing him cautiously from a rather sonorous dream. “Hush!” he said, “there’s no need of saying anything just yet;” and leaning closer to him, he whispered the substance of what had been said at the foremast in his ear.
Ratlins raised himself on his elbow and swore a bitter oath.
“How did you know that was the very thing I was dreaming of? But what’s the use? A sailor is only made to be kicked like a dog, anyhow, and if one mate kicks harder than another, why that’s all it is, and we’re homeward-bound, you know.”
“Homeward-bound,” muttered Jake; “he’s homeward-bound if I get hold of him, for I’ve got murder in my heart, and it’s his own lookout, for he put it there! I’ve got a mother at home that’s done praying enough for me to bring a worse ship into port, but she may as well give it up about this time. I tell you, Penfield is going overboard before his second dog-watch is over, unless I can get three or four of you to lend me a hand and help me settle him in some way that he’ll know more about, and wont leave a mark on me that she’d feel quite so much aground about, if she knew it. What do you say? Ned and Jim are pretty much agreed.”
“Oh, luff a little, shipmate,” said Ratlins, “and let a fellow sleep on it, anyhow. I’ll stand by you somehow, for he deserves it; but I reckon you’ll ease off a little by morning, if you don’t lay to altogether.”
“Not I,” said Jake; “but give me your hand on doing something.”
Ratlins gave him his hand, and Jake went to his bunk to nurse his revenge and lay plans for what should be done in case the men would agree to unite.
“But if they don’t,” he muttered, “’t wont save the mate. When a worm does turn, it’s sure to sting, and he’ll never go through another midnight-watch safe with me!”
The breeze died down again, and the watch was a lazy one, and Carter’s thoughts, after making voyages round the world, came back to Jake again.
“Now I suppose a fellow like that is my neighbor,” he said, “let sailors be what they will. God put a soul in him once, anyhow, and I can’t believe it’s altogether dead yet. Of course it isn’t, or he wouldn’t care for Penfield until it came to breaking his head with a marlingspike, or something of that kind. I’ve got a fellow in my watch that couldn’t feel anything less than that, but it isn’t so with Jake. I wonder if I could manage to give him a lift. Who knows but there’s somebody watching for him at home, that doesn’t want to see him spoiled? At any rate, there’s One watching above, that laid down his life for him as well as the rest of us, and it’s a pity to see a fellow so tormented, if nothing worse should come of it.”
Penfield’s dog-watch came, the men did their duty, and then went forward for breakfast. Jake’s face had lost none of its darkness with the sunrising, but was harder and more threatening than ever.
“Well, shipmate,” whispered Ratlins, as they sat down, each with his tin-dipper of coffee, his allowance of duff and ship’s biscuit, “how many knots is she making this morning? The breeze has gone down a little, hasn’t it, by daylight?”
“No, it hasn’t,” said Jake; “and remember you gave me your hand on it, last night, to stand by.”
“So I did,” said Ratlins, “and my two hours on the dog-watch this morning has given me more of a relish for it; but still—”
“No hanging fire,” said Jake. “Ned and Jim, where are you? If you’re bound another way, I can cruise alone, and if I go down, it wont be without carrying some one else with me.”
“Who said you were to cruise alone?” said the growling sailor, breaking a biscuit on his knee; “I guess we can fix something before to-night,” and the whispering grew lower and thicker, until even Jake seemed satisfied.
When seven bells struck that noon, Carter came on deck, and seemed to be loafing about for the half-hour before his watch came on, but in the course of it he managed to come across the second mate, where a few words could pass between them unobserved.
“Look here, Penfield,” he said, “I want to make a little change in the watch if it’s all the same to you. That long-limbed fellow there, Jake, I’ve taken a notion to try my hand on him, and I’ve got a fellow among mine that don’t work in so well with the rest. I’ll let you try what you can make of him, and you turn Jake over to me.”
The mate stared; a queer sort of proceeding, he thought, and wouldn’t be called ship-shape on some vessels, but he knew Carter owned in the Cumbermede, and he supposed he could do as he liked.
“Taken a notion to Jake,” he said, suppressing the oath that rose to his lips, out of respect to his superior officer, “I should as soon think of taking a notion to one of the imps below. You’re welcome to him if you want him; I’m sure I don’t care if he goes to the bottom. A miserable dog, for ever under foot, and taking more swearing to get a little duty out of him, than any three men on board.”
“Well, I’ll try him,” said Carter; “you let him know, and I’ll send Dave over to you.”
Jake stood in the broiling sun, scraping the paint from the house—ugly work in the heat, and a hideous noise, but no vessel ever stood into port in more perfect trim than the Cumbermede, and this voyage every particle of the old paint must be removed from aft, and she was to shine brighter than ever in new. He did not stir as he heard the mate approach, but he watched him with eye and ear from under his broad hat. The mate stopped beside him, and Jake set his teeth, with the thought that whatever came, it was one of the last times.
“You go over to the first mate’s watch to-night, and much joy may he have of you,” was all he said, and passed along.
Jake started, and the knife almost fell from his hands. Were they suspected? Discovered? What did it mean?
But he went on with his work, as if the mate had only spoken to a statue. Penfield passed back and forth, but Jake did not dare lift his eyes to read his face. At any rate, he had the rest of the day for a lookout; it would be his watch below soon, and he could consult with the others.
“Now I tell you, shipmates, that’s a lucky thing all round,” said Ratlins. “Maybe they’ve got a scent on the wind; I don’t know, but it don’t look to me much like foul weather, and if they’re only wind-clouds, why then we’re all out of a bad business easy; and what do you care what the second-mate is to us, Jake, so long as he keeps out of your wake?”
“But I wont keep out of his,” said Jake. “Do you think I’ll let go as easy as that?”
“Easy,” said Ned. “You may as well reef topsails and scud before the wind a day or two, anyhow, till you see how she trims. We sha’n’t be out more than three weeks now, and there’s no great fun going into port down in the hold, with iron bracelets on.”
“What’s that got to do with paying off scores?” said Jake; but though the scowl was still dark, he turned in without another word.
All through the midnight watch there was a sharp fight going on between the hatred in Jake’s heart and some new influence that seemed to be cooling and soothing the fire, he did not know how. Was he going to be a spooney, and let what he’d vowed one night die out the next, or get frightened by Ratlins’ talk about cold lead and iron bracelets? But after all, what was the second mate to him any longer? Yet he had been something to him, and was he going to forget it? Never!
The watch wore away, and still the struggle went on.
“If it only wasn’t for the old woman at home!” thought Jake. “She’s kept a long watch and done a good deal of praying, in hopes to make something of me. And I might have been something if it hadn’t been for—!” and Jake shook his fist towards the mate’s room. “But after all, foul deeds leave a black mark on a man’s soul, and she’d fret her heart out if the hearing of it should come to her. But if every man’s hand is against me, who says it’s my fault if my hand’s against every man? It’s so long since I’ve had a word spoken to me as if I had as much of a soul as the plank under my feet, that I don’t know as I have any to put a stain on; and whose fault is it, I say? And if I don’t keep the men to their word to-night, they’re bound no longer. And what difference does it make? There’s nobody that thinks I’ve got any soul to save.”
Carter’s voice was heard giving orders to haul taut the main-sheet. The tones were quiet and decided, but there was something in them that made the men spring to with a will, and the work was done almost in a minute.
“Belay there, my hearty!” said Carter; and Jake, who had the end, glanced suddenly in his face, and caught a look of kindliness, friendliness, and good cheer, more perhaps than discipline would have allowed, the mate to show if he had thought it would be observed.
The work was done! What chord had he touched? Jake did not know, but he felt a change sweeping through his heart like coming out of an icebelt into tradewinds. A few moments later the bell relieved the watch; Jake plunged below and threw himself into his bunk, his face covered with his hard hands and sobbing like a child.
Carter had been the means of bringing one man to repentance, and saving the life of another—perhaps of half a dozen more.
CHAPTER XXI.
The same evening that Penfield’s fate was hanging in the balance, Uncle Ralph sat cosily by the library fire, newspaper in hand, and waiting for Aleck to come home. Everything was so sure to go well with his two faithful clerks, and the new luxury of home was so tempting, that he was getting into the way of leaving business early, and for the first time in his life enjoying his own fireside for an hour or two in the evening. But the newspaper was upside down this time, and his own thoughts seemed to be uppermost and so engrossing that he started when he heard Aleck’s key in the door.
“Well, sir,” he said, as Aleck came in with as light a step and as glowing a face as if such a thing as work had never been heard of, “I’ve been making a discovery, sitting here all alone; and that is, that I’ve been a poor fool not to have made a home for myself, in some shape or other, thirty years ago! Don’t you follow my example, old fellow. You must get a wife all in good time, but still it is possible there are some other things to be thought of first. What day is to-morrow?”
“Tuesday, I believe,” said Aleck.
“Humph! Yes. Anything else?”
“Only my birthday, so far as I know. I shall be twenty-one, I suppose, if I live to see it.”
“Ah! Well that is what I was thinking about half an hour ago, I believe; and I was only waiting for you to come home to ask you how you would like to have ‘Halliday’s’ known as ‘Halliday & Co.’ in future.”
Aleck started.
“O uncle, I don’t deserve that! That is too much!”
“We wont go as far as to talk of deserts,” said his uncle. “If I could tell you how my life came to be a lonely one, and how lonely it has been, you could understand better what you have been to me the last few years. If you had refused me when I asked you to come, I don’t know what I should have done, and it would be ten times worse to part with you now; and as one never knows what notion a young man may take, you see I’m only casting an anchor to windward for myself, if I can pin you a little closer. There aren’t many men lucky enough to have two such right-hands as you and Thorndyke; and if I can get one of them for a partner, why, we’ll divide the other between us, that is all. Thorndyke is a genius! If he keeps on at this rate, we old men may have to step aside and let him come in as number one some day, yet. But you are my brother’s son, Aleck, and I want you in my sight and by my side as long as I live; you have been the greatest comfort of my life; you have made a green spot in it the last few years, and it would be like going back to Sahara to give you up.”
Aleck did not sleep much that night; not for worlds would he have told his uncle that he had been fighting away with college studies all these years; and as he had watched Thorndyke coming on, a faint hope had grown stronger and stronger that he might take his place some day, and so much more than fill it that he could slip away without being really missed. But that was all gone now; he would never leave his uncle! And as for himself! Well, he had been happy in the store, even while dreaming all the time of getting away, and if he could once settle that question, and be done with fidgeting about it, he might be very happy. And he was quite sincere in all his gratitude to his uncle. He was giving him a position to be envied by any business man, and there was no better place than Halliday’s for making a fortune, at all events.
So it was all settled, and no one was more proud of the new arrangement than the senior clerk, as Thorndyke now became.
“And a lucky fellow you are, Thorndyke, to get your foot on that round in the ladder,” said Tom, who had come in to see how Aleck carried his new dignity, and stopped, as he always did, for a few words with Thorndyke. “If I thought I should ever get to that I should take courage, but it seems as if I never should; and I don’t know that I shall be any better off, after all, when the day comes at last.”
Thorndyke glanced quickly in Tom’s face. It had seemed to him looking rather wobegone for some time past, and he wondered if Tom was having any trouble. He could give a faint guess, for he had been sent over to Fenimore & Co.’s a good many times since he had been in the store, and though the thought of Hal was so inseparably connected with the one terrible memory of his life, that he had avoided even the sight of him when possible, he had heard him speak to Tom with those same taunting tones that brought the whole thing up with a rush, and made him tingle to his fingers’ ends for Tom. Never since that dreadful day could he hear an unkind word spoken to any human being without a shiver through his own heart; and when it came in Hal’s own voice, he could only look at Tom and wonder how he could bear it, and wish he were a strong man and a rich one, that he might somehow get hold of him and pull him out of the reach of it.
“It wont be very long, will it?” he asked; “isn’t Hal going in as partner soon?”
“Yes,” said Tom, “in two or three months; but there’s Gray between us, you know; and, after all, I don’t know that it makes any great difference. It will be the same old mill, whatever wheel in it I turn, and the same ugly grind. Some day before I know it I shall find it has ground whatever soul I ever had into such small dust I cannot find it.”
“If you think there is any danger of that, why don’t you get out of it?” asked Thorndyke, more earnestly than he dared to show Tom, and the next moment he was almost frightened at the look that came into Tom’s face.
“I tell you,” said Tom, “it’s all very fine to ask a drowning man why he don’t catch at some straw, when there are half a dozen other people hanging on him at the same time. If it wasn’t that they’re depending on me at home, and have been waiting for me all these years, the world isn’t so wide but I’d put half of it between me and Fenimore’s before many days had passed. But, as things are, of course there’s nothing for it but to stick by. I’ll hold on as long as I can, but if I go down, and the rest with me, I can’t help it.”
Tom’s eyes met Thorndyke’s with an almost desperate look, and then he turned suddenly away. “Pshaw, Thorndyke, I tell you again you don’t know what a lucky dog you are. Shut up here with a fellow like Aleck I should not think you had a trouble left in the world!”
So it was all out! It was Hal, as Thorndyke had thought! And with Tom’s forlorn face turning away as if ashamed of what he had said, Thorndyke felt more troubled than ever. What could he do about it?—as he had asked himself many times before.
But after Tom had gone the consciousness of another pain came over him; he had felt it like a stab, at Tom’s last words, but he was too much engrossed by anxiety for him, to dwell upon them at the moment; now they came echoing back: “I shouldn’t think you’d feel you had a trouble in the world.”
And was that all Tom knew, all he realized after all these years and with his memory of that terrible day long ago? Well, that was just as Thorndyke had meant it should be, just as he was trying to have it all the time; and why should he feel this strange pain when he found it was so? He had been so bent on being a brave soldier.
He had let every one look at him, and heard whisperings now and then, and had done his work, and gone home with a smile for the doctor and Nellie, and the thought of the great Captain had kept him strong through it all. It had been hard enough sometimes, and some of the hardest had been when the other boys came in to tell Aleck about their games or their excursions, or to beg him off to join them.
“All but me!” always came quickly up with its old ring, and brought with it the echo of what the doctor had said when he nodded good-by to him at the school-room.
“Remember you don’t run too hard till you are used to it; but I wont be afraid to match you with the fleetest of them, in a few months’ time.”
He thought no one had ever guessed a word; the pale face and great dark eyes looked quietly over the counter, or went about their work, or smiled good-by as Aleck went off, as if they had no thought of anything else; but Aleck and the doctor knew it all; and the doctor used to tramp up and down the room now and then, until Nelly would glance up wonderingly from her work.
“The very same! The very same look he gave me the first time he opened his eyes at me, after it began to seem as if he might pull through after all! Nothing in the world for him, and it’s all right there shouldn’t be, and he’s glad there’s such a good time for you and me; that’s what there is in that smile of his.”
“I don’t see how he can quite feel that there’s nothing in the world for him when he has us all,” said Nelly gently. “He surely can’t forget that.”
“No,” said the doctor, “he does not forget that, and I don’t believe the thought of us is out of his mind a moment from the time he leaves the house in the morning, and he hangs upon it till he comes back at night; but still, life has something outside of us, or ought to have, to a fellow like him. And it would have had, if it hadn’t been for a set of miserable——”
The doctor’s book was very near taking another fly out of the window; but he only added quietly, “However, he’ll find out that he’s somebody yet, and make his fortune, if nothing more. Halliday says he’s a genius, and he’ll be known as the first chemist in the state, some day.”
The doctor was right about Thorndyke’s “hanging on.” It seemed as if, aside from the thought of the Prince Royal, he lived and moved in the doctor and Aleck; and as for Nelly, she had never come to seem quite like a real person yet, always the beautiful vision of the flower window. The doctor was first of all, of course; Thorndyke watched his every movement as if it were food for his eyes, no matter how engrossed they might be with any work. But still, it only seemed wonderful that he had them all; he could not make it seem anything that really belonged to him; only a grace from day to day.
But poor Tom! He was sure he was having trouble somehow, and to see any one in trouble was always trouble itself to Thorndyke; what could he do? How could he make things seem any better? If he could only get Tom over to Halliday’s, with Aleck! But that would be throwing away the years he had been working and waiting for promotion at Fenimore’s.