CAPTAIN HARRY AND MR. HANMER.
"Guests, has he?--Out of my road, you rascal! Guests? I'll warrant
there's none so welcome--"
A good cheery voice--a voice the curtain could not muffle--rang it down
the corridor as on the note of a cornet.
The wine was at Ruth's lip, scarcely wetting it. She lowered the glass
steadily and turned half-about in her chair at the moment when, as
before a whirlwind, the curtain flew wide and a stranger burst in on the
run with Manasseh at his heels.
"Oliver!" The stranger drew himself up in the doorway--a well-knit
figure of a man, clear of eye, bronzed of hue, clad in blue sea-cloth
faced with scarlet, and wearing a short sword at the hip. "Where's my
Oliver?" he shouted. "You'll forgive my voice, gentlemen. I'm Harry
Vyell, at your service, fresh from shipboard, and not hoarse with
anthems like old what-d'ye-call-him." Running his gaze along the table,
he sighted the Collector and broke into a view-halloo.
"Oliver! Brother Noll!" Captain Harry made a second run of it, caught
his foot on the prostrate toper whom Langton had dragged out of Miss
Quiney's way, and fell on his brother's neck. Recovering himself with a
"damn," he clapped his left hand on Sir Oliver's shoulder, seized Sir
Oliver's right in his grip and started pump-handling--"as though"
murmured Langton, "the room were sinking with ten feet of liquor in the
hold."
"Harry--is it Harry?" Sir Oliver stammered, and made a weak effort to
rise.
"Lord! You're drunk!" Captain Harry crowed the cheerful discovery.
"Well, and I'll join you--but in moderation, mind! Newly married man--
if some one will be good enough to pass the decanter? . . . My dear
fellow! . . . Cast anchor half an hour ago--got myself rowed ashore
hot-foot to shake my Noll by the hand. Lord, brother, you can't think
how good it feels to be married! Sally won't be coming ashore
to-night; the hour's too late, she says; so I'm allowed an hour's
liberty." Here the uxorious fellow paused on a laugh, indicating that
he found irony in the word. "But Sally--capital name, Sally, for a
sailor's wife; she's Sarah to all her family, Sal to me--Sally is
cunning. Sally gives me leave ashore, but on condition I take Hanmer to
look after me. He's my first lieutenant--first-rate officer, too--but
no ladies' man. Gad!" chuckled Captain Harry, "I believe he'd run a
mile from a petticoat. But where is he? Hi, Hanmer! step aft-along
here and be introduced!"
A tall grave man, who had entered unnoticed, walked past the line of
guests and up to his captain. He too wore a suit of blue with scarlet
facings, and carried a short sword or hanger at his belt. He stood
stiffly, awaiting command. The candle-light showed, beneath his right
cheek bone, the cicatrix of a recent wound.
But Captain Harry, slewing round to him, was for the moment bereft of
speech. His gaze had happened, for the first time, on little Miss
Quiney.
"Eh?" he stammered, recovering himself. "Your pardon, ma'am. I wasn't
aware that a lady--" Here his eyes, travelling to the end of the table,
were arrested by the vision of Ruth Josselin. "Wh-e-ew!" he whistled,
under his breath.
"Sir Oliver--" Batty Langton stood up.
"Hey?" The name gave Captain Harry yet another shock. He spun about
again upon his brother. "'Sir Oliver'? _Whats_ he saying?"
"You've not heard?" said the Collector, gripping his words slowly, one
by one. "No, of course you've not. Harry, our uncle is dead."
There was a pause. "Poor old boy!" he muttered. "Used to be kind to
us, Noll, after his lights. If it hadn't been for his womenkind."
"They're coming across to visit me, damn 'em!"
"What? Aunt Carrie and Di'? . . . Good Lord!"
"They're on the seas at this moment--may be here within the week."
"Good Lord!" Captain Harry repeated, and his eyes wandered again to Ruth
Josselin. "Awkward, hey? . . . But I say, Noll--you really _are_ Sir
Oliver! Dear lad, I give you joy, and with all my heart. . . .
Gad, here's a piece of news for Sally!"
Again he came to a doubtful halt, and again with his eyes on Ruth
Josselin. He was not a quick-witted man, outside of his calling, nor a
man apt to think evil; but he had been married a month, and this had
been long enough to teach him that women and men judge by different
standards.
"Sir Oliver," repeated Langton, "Miss Josselin craves your leave to
retire."
"Yes, dear"--Miss Quiney launched an approving nod towards her--"I was
about to suggest it, with Sir Oliver's leave. The hour is late, and by
the time the sedan-chair returns for me--"
"There is no reason, Tatty, why we should not return together," said
Ruth quietly. "The night is fine; and, with Manasseh for escort, I can
walk beside your chair."
"Pardon me, ladies," put in Mr. Silk. "Once in the upper town, you may
be safe enough; but down here by the quay the sh--sailors--I know 'em--
it's my buishness. 'Low me--join the eshcort."
But here, perceived by few in the room, a somewhat remarkable thing
happened. Mr. Hanmer, who had stood hitherto like a statue, put out a
hand and laid it on Mr. Silk's shoulder; and there must have been some
power in that grip, for Mr. Silk dropped into his seat without another
word.
Captain Harry saw it, and broke into a laugh.
"Why, to be sure! Hanmer's the very man! The rest of ye too drunk--
meaning no offence; and, for me,--well, for me, you see there's Sally
to be reckoned with." He laughed aloud at this simple jocularity.
"Hanmer!"
"Yes, sir."
"Convoy."
"If you wish it, sir." The lieutenant bowed stiffly; but it was to be
noted that the scar, which had hitherto showed white on a bronzed cheek,
now reddened on a pale one.
Miss Quiney hesitated. "The gentleman, as a stranger to Boston--"
"I'll answer for Hanmer, ma'am. You'll get little talk out of him; but,
be there lions at large in Boston, Jack Hanmer'll lead you past 'em."
"Like Mr. Greatheart in the parable," spoke up Ruth, whose eyes had been
taking stock of the proposed escort, though he stood in the penumbra and
at half the room's length away. "Tatty--if my lord permit and
Lieutenant Hanmer be willing--"
She stood up, and with a curtsy to Sir Oliver, swept to the door.
Miss Quiney pattered after; and Mr. Hanmer, with a bow and hand lifted
to the salute, stalked out at their heels.
"I'll warrant Jack Hanmer 'd liefer walk up to a gun," swore Captain
Harry as the curtain fell behind them. "He bolts from the sight of
Sally. I'll make Sally laugh over this." But here he pulled himself up
and added beneath his voice, "I can't tell her, though."
The road as it climbed above the town toward Sabines grew rough and full
of pitfalls. Even by the light of the full moon shining between the
elms Miss Quiney's chairmen were forced to pick their way warily, so
that the couple on the side-walk--which in comparison was well paved--
easily kept abreast of them.
Ruth walked with the free grace of a Dryad. The moonlight shone now and
again on her face beneath the arch of her wimple; and once, as she
glanced up at the heavens, Mr. Hanmer--interpreting that she lifted her
head to a scent of danger, and shooting a sidelong look despite
himself--surprised a lustre as of tears in her eyes; whereupon he felt
ashamed, as one who had intruded on a secret.
"Mr. Hanmer."
"Ma'am?"
"I have a favour to beg. . . . Is it true, by the way," she asked
mischievously, "that to talk with a woman distresses you?"
"Ma'am--"
"My name is Ruth Josselin."
Mr. Hanmer either missed to hear the correction or heard and put it
aside. "Been at sea all my life," he explained. "They caught me
young."
Ruth looked sideways at him and laughed--a liquid little laugh, much
like the bubbling note of a thrush. "You could not have given an answer
more pat, sir. I want to speak to you about a child, caught young and
about to be taken to sea. You are less shy with children, I hope?"
"Not a bit," confessed Mr. Hanmer. He added, "They take to me, though--
the few I've met.
"Dick will take to you, for certain. Dicky is Sir Oliver's child."
"I didn't know--" Mr. Hanmer came to a full stop.
"No," said Ruth, as though she echoed him. "He is eight years old
almost." Her eyes looked straight ahead, but she was aware that his had
scanned her face for a moment, and almost she felt his start of
reassurance.
"So, the child being a friend of mine, and his father having promised
him a cruise in the _Venus_, you see that I very much want to know what
manner of lady is Captain Harry's wife; and that I could not ask you
point-blank because you would have set the question down to idle
curiosity. . . . It might make all the difference to him," she added,
getting no answer.
"A child of eight, and the country at war!" Mr. Hanmer muttered.
"His father must know that we cruise ready for action."
"I tell you, sir, what Dicky told me this morning."
"But it's impossible!"
"To that, sir, I might find you half a dozen answers. To begin with, we
all know--and Sir Oliver perhaps, from private information, knows better
than any of us--that peace is in sight. Here in the northern Colonies
it has arrived already; the enemy has no fleet on this side of the
world, and on this coast no single ship to give you any concern."
"Guarda-costas? There may be a few left on the prowl, even in these
latitudes. I don't believe it for my part; we've accounted for most of
'em. Still--"
"And Captain Harry thinks so much of them that he sails from Carolina to
Boston with his bride on board!"
"You are right, Miss Josselin, and you are wrong. . . . Mistress Vyell
has come to Boston in the _Venus_; and by reason that her husband, when
he started, had as little acquaintance with fear for others as for
himself. But if she return to Carolina it will be by land or when peace
is signed. Love has made the Captain think; and thought has made him--
well, with madam on board, I am thankful--" He checked himself.
"You are thankful he did not sight a guarda-costa." She concluded the
sentence for him, and walked some way in silence, while he at her side
was silent, being angry at having said so much.
"Yet Captain Harry is recklessly brave?" she mused.
"To the last degree, Miss Josselin," Mr. Hanmer agreed eagerly. "To the
last degree within the right military rules. Fighting a ship's an art,
you see."
It seemed that she did not hear him. "It runs in the blood," she said.
She was thinking, fearfully yet exultantly, of this wonderful power of
women, for whose sake cowards will behave as heroes and heroes turn to
cowards.
They had outstripped the chairmen, and were at the gate of Sabines.
He held it open for her. She bethought her that his last two or three
sentences had been firmly spoken, that his voice had shaken off its
husky stammer, and on the impulse of realised power she took a fancy to
hear it tremble again.
"But if madam will not be on board to look after Dicky, the more will he
need a friend. Mr. Hanmer, will you be that friend?"
"You are choosing a rough sort of nurse-maid."
"But will you?" She faced him, wonderful in the moonlight.
His eyes dropped. His voice stammered, "I--I will do my best, Miss
Josselin."
She held out a hand. He took it perforce in his rope-roughened paw,
held it awkwardly for a moment, and released it as one lets a bird
escape.
Ruth smiled. "The best of women," ran a saying of Batty Langton's,
"if you watch 'em, are always practising; even the youngest, as a kitten
plays with a leaf."
They stood in silence, waiting for the chair to overtake them.
"Tatty, you are a heroine!"
Miss Quiney, unwinding a shawl from her head under the hall-lamp,
released herself from Ruth's embrace. Her nerve had been strained and
needed a recoil.
"Maybe," she answered snappishly. "For my part, I'd take more comfort,
just now, to be called a respectable woman."
Ruth laughed, kissed her again, and stood listening to the footsteps as
they retreated down the gravelled way. Among them her ear
distinguished easily the firm tread of Mr. Hanmer.