BRIAN PAYS HIS DEBTS.
Mr. Robert Carlaw, having once started that beautiful and simple
scheme which he had devised, felt that something more was necessary
for its completion; the first bold stroke had been given, but other
bold strokes would be needed. Accordingly, he set about the matter
delicately; sent copies of Brian's books of verse to the old woman,
in order, as it were, to prepare the way for the entry of the poet
himself into the position which had been so long usurped by another.
He had decided not to tell his son anything about the matter until the
business had been successfully concluded and Miss Charlotte Carlaw was
ready to open her arms to her new heir.
But when day after day went by and then week after week, and there came
no response from his sister, he began to be possessed with doubts
and fears; wondered if, after all, he had snatched away the one means
of living left open to them all, and had failed to discover another.
He told himself, however, with a knowing shake of the head, that he
knew women better than that; he counted on the fact of Miss Carlaw's
desperate loneliness should she have discarded Comethup. Perplexed and
troubled and trembling, Mr. Carlaw at last made up his mind to seek his
sister and endeavour to learn the true position of affairs.
He was admitted without delay to her presence, and found her standing
in the same room and in the same attitude as when he had last seen her,
almost as though she had not moved since. But her face was worn, and
lines appeared upon it which he did not remember to have seen before;
for the rest she was as upright and dignified as ever.
"Well, brother Bob," she said, with some bitterness, "have you brought
me any other fine news? Do you come again, in pure unselfishness, with
the desire solely to help a fellow-creature? Come, let's know what you
want. Out with it."
"My dear sister," began Mr. Carlaw, "when last I saw you, on a
memorable and a painful occasion, I went away with the horrible fear
tugging at my heart that it would have been wiser had I said nothing;
that the probability was that you would behave--quite naturally, I
admit--somewhat harshly to a foolish and headstrong youth. That fear
has haunted me ever since, and haunts me still."
"Well, I'm afraid it will have to continue haunting you, brother Bob,"
replied Miss Carlaw dryly. "If you want to know full particulars of the
matter I can tell you in a dozen words. I asked my nephew whether the
statement was true or false; he admitted that it was true. He left my
house that night."
Mr. Robert Carlaw, remembering his sister's affliction, felt it safe to
indulge in a smile of satisfaction; but his tones when he spoke were
tinged with sadness. "My dear Charlotte," he said, "this is quite what
I feared. Will you not permit me to plead for the boy, to suggest----"
"Not a word," broke in Miss Carlaw fiercely. "I don't know why you come
here, unless you want to triumph over a lonely old woman; but I want to
hear nothing more about the matter. The boy is done with, and I won't
listen to the pleading of an archangel about him. Have you anything
more to say?"
Mr. Carlaw hesitated for a few moments and then began his petition
lamely. "My dear sister, I will not, of course, say anything further
about the unhappy matter if you do not desire to have it spoken about.
Perhaps I may say that, more than anything else, my heart has been
touched for you; my sympathy has gone out to you in this hour of your
loneliness more than you would think possible."
"I was lonely for a good many years, brother Bob, and it didn't seem to
affect you much. Come, deal squarely with me; what is it you want to
say?"
"My dear Charlotte, you are ever impatient; but that is characteristic
of you, and I think I love you for it--I'm quite sure I do. I was going
to suggest, if I might be permitted to do so, that having been used for
so long to young society you will naturally feel the desire for that
sort of society very strongly. In a word, my dear sister, you want to
be taken out of yourself, as it were."
"Well, go on," said Miss Carlaw, who was listening intently.
Thus encouraged, her brother proceeded more glibly: "Now, it has seemed
to me that if you could receive visits from--may I say it?--from those
who are interested in you, those whose society is cheerful, whose lives
are fresh and sweet and unspotted from the world, it would have a
beneficial effect upon you. Now, for example, my son Brian----"
She burst suddenly into a peal of bitter, scornful laughter; the man
stopped and looked at her angrily. "You're a bad pleader, brother Bob,"
she said; "you don't do the thing well at all. So this is your idea,
is it? You think that as I have got rid of one who seemed all the world
to me, and who seemed to take the first place in my heart--you think,
because of that, you'll suggest a substitute." She stamped her foot and
rapped her stick upon the ground. "No, a thousand times no! I tried
with one; thought him the best there was on earth; I'll try no more.
Still less should I be disposed to put in his place one who comes of
such a stock as you. It's a pretty idea, brother Bob; 'pon my word,
it's a fine idea! But it won't do; from this moment forward I've done
with everything and every one. I thought I could find love and truth in
the world; I've failed to find them, although God knows I've tried hard
enough. Therefore I have the right to say that I don't believe they
exist; and I _shall_ say it, and take my way through life accordingly.
Now, I ask only one thing and I intend to have it; and that one thing
is--to be left alone, to be troubled no more with any of you!"
"But, my dear sister, be reasonable; think for a moment of----"
"Think!" she echoed bitterly. "Do you imagine that I haven't thought
and thought and thought until my brain reels; until all my past days,
good and bad, file before my darkened eyes like a long-drawn-out
procession that never ends? Is it possible for you, I wonder, to
understand all that this thing means to me? Is it possible for you
to know how I wander through the empty rooms of this place and hear
his voice again as I heard it when he was a child? Heavens, man! do
you know what it is to have set up something to worship, to have had
nothing else in all your life that was quite so fine and splendid, and
then to be told quite suddenly that you've been dreaming; that it never
existed, that you've been cheating yourself all the time and have got
to unlearn all the pretty fable you've taught yourself? And then you
think I could fill his place; you imagine I could start all over again
with the chance of being cheated afresh? I know now what was meant when
it was written that a rich man couldn't enter into heaven; I suppose
it applies equally well to a rich woman. This was my heaven, more than
a paradise; and my accursed wealth has driven me out of it and closed
it to me forever! If I had been poor, he might have clung to me and
cared for nothing else, but the money stood in the way. Well, I ought
to have known; I'm old enough to have learned my lesson before this.
Now, brother Bob, let's put an end to this; go your way and I'll go
mine. That's my final word."
He knew that she meant it; saw in one horrible moment that he had
lost, and that to plead with her would be of no more use than to fling
himself against a rock. Coming out into the streets he walked along
with his hat tilted on the back of his head, staring before him in a
dazed fashion as he went.
"My dear Bob Carlaw," he muttered to himself, "you've most decidedly
made a horrible mess of things. You've killed the goose that laid the
golden eggs, with a vengeance. I thought this was going to be the
smartest thing I'd ever done. Worst of all, there's Brian to be faced,
and Brian's temper is positively devilish. This comes of trying to help
others; if I'd fought for my own hand through life I believe I should
really have cut a figure in the world, after all."
He kept his miserable secret for some weeks, hoping that an event would
occur which would render it unnecessary for the matter to be disclosed
at all, trusting in that Providence which in a vague fashion he had
alternately blessed and cursed all his days. There was a forced gaiety
about him at this time; he burst into unnatural snatches of song at the
most inopportune and unexpected moments, as though to keep his spirits
up and to assure his doubting mind that all was well. But the crash
came when Brian, finding that funds were running low, airily suggested
to his father that the usual appeal should be made to Comethup Willis.
Mr. Robert Carlaw, in coward fashion, put off the matter for a day or
two; and then, when concealment was no longer possible, blurted out
the truth, not without tears. He implored his son, his dear son, to
remember that he had at all times been a fond and indulgent parent,
and that he had in this as in all other things acted for the best. He
urged, moreover, that they should not yet despair; his eccentric sister
might restore Comethup to her favour, or might, best of all, look with
kindly eyes upon Brian and his young wife. Their credit was good, owing
to the costly manner in which they had lived. There was still time, the
trembling man argued, in which to look about them and make up their
minds what to do.
To say that Brian was stunned by the intelligence would be to put
the matter mildly. In characteristic fashion he had gone on from day
to day, complacently confident that the next would bring all that he
needed to make life pleasant; and here in a moment he saw the whole
thing stripped away from him--saw in imagination the pleasant prospect
upon which he had so long gazed closed in by the hard, dull wall of
privation, against which he might beat his hands in vain. He had lived
in luxury like a spoiled child, ministering to his every whim and
caprice, happy and flattered and careless of everything and every one
about him. When at last he fully grasped what had happened, his fury
and violence were greater even than his father could have imagined; he
cursed that long-suffering man roundly, cursed every circumstance of
what he termed his poverty-stricken existence, and ended his outburst
by whimpering feebly, like a child thrust out suddenly in the cold and
the darkness.
Left alone, the natural cowardice of the man took a new form. It had
never been his habit to bear the burdens of life--that was a matter
which might more easily be left to others; he determined he would not
bear this one. To justify his conduct had never been necessary; he
had been fortunate in seeing always the easiest path to travel, and
had immediately taken it, even though such an action involved the
stepping over some one else to reach it. Consequently there was no
thought in his mind now of the sufferings or troubles which might be
incurred by any one near to him. Brian Carlaw was the one person to be
considered, and Brian Carlaw must not starve. If any justification were
necessary, he told himself with something of pride that he had a work
to perform--a work for which the world asked and waited; he owed a duty
to the world and must perform it at whatever cost. This being the case,
when his first anger was gone he looked about for a means of escape.
Difficulties were closing in about him, and he must get away from the
net while yet there was time.
So it happened that, not for the first time in the history of this
amazing pair, Mr. Robert Carlaw found himself one day again deserted.
Brian had gone, leaving behind him a letter to his father written in
quite his best and airiest fashion, and urging that gentleman to break
the news to the deserted wife.
Mr. Robert Carlaw was, not unnaturally, annoyed; he felt that his son's
action savoured of base ingratitude when it was remembered that the
father had tried to do so much. "And the worst of it is," he muttered
to himself as he read the letter, "that he's left the woman on my
hands. That's the coolest part of the business."
'Linda, all unsuspecting, greeted him with a smile as he entered the
room; for he went to her at once, ready to blurt out the matter without
preface or disguise of any kind. He felt that he was the deeply injured
party, and it was convenient that she should be there that he might
pour out his wrongs to her.
"You look troubled," she said gently. "Is anything the matter?"
"Matter! The most infernal, disgraceful, and degrading business
that has ever come to my knowledge. 'How sharper than a serpent's
tooth!'--well, I've found out what _that_ means. Here am I, who have
sacrificed myself, sacrificed everything on earth, for the sake of an
ungrateful rascal who deserts me at a moment's notice. And then you ask
me if anything is the matter!"
She had risen from her chair and was looking at him with a troubled
expression, with the fingers of one hand trembling nervously at her
throat. In the storm of words she had caught only one or two; one of
them she had caught particularly. "Deserted!" she whispered. "I don't
understand you."
"Well, there's not much mystery about it, I should think," he cried
brutally. "Brian has gone."
She looked at him in silence for a moment with a sudden fear whitening
her face; then a little laugh crept to her lips and trembled there,
as though she would cheat herself with the thought that the man was
jesting. "But where has he gone?" she asked lightly. "Have you been
quarrelling with him again?"
"Quarrel? There has been no question of quarrelling. The fellow has
simply sneaked away and left me--I mean us--in the lurch. I suppose you
know what it means when rats desert the sinking ship, don't you? Well,
we are sinking, and away goes the first rat."
She came swiftly across to him and caught him by the arm and looked
into his face. "Do you mean what you say? Where is Brian? I won't
believe--oh, I'll go and find him!"
Halfway to the door his voice arrested her. "You may shriek the house
down and you won't find him. He's miles away. Egad! when I come to
think of it"--Mr. Robert Carlaw scratched his chin and smiled--"he's
a pretty cool hand. And I'm not sure that it isn't what his poor old
father would have done under the circumstances." He turned over the
letter he held in his hands and looked at it. "And the phrasing is
beautiful, quite the sort of thing that would grace his biography, you
know."
She came back slowly from the door and pointed to the letter. "Is that
from Brian?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes," he replied, still looking at it with a fond smile.
"May I see it? What does he say?"
"Well, I don't think it's wise for you to see it all," replied Mr.
Carlaw. "But he sends a message to you which will probably explain
matters more clearly than I could do." He turned to the letter and
presently came upon the passage he wanted. "Ah, here we are. 'Tell
her that I think, under all the circumstances, she will have no great
cause to regret me. It is a question which has been discussed on many
occasions, and as regards the solution of which I am still in doubt:
Whether men of genius should marry? It is, perhaps, a little late in
the day to raise the point; but my duty to a world which demands of me
my best compels me to gain experience of both sides of every question.
I have tried the one with no very definite success, and as I hold
that ordinary laws and rules do not govern the man who is beyond all
laws, so I feel that I have a perfect right to take my life again into
my own hands and to shape it anew. You may tell her, if you think it
necessary, that I leave her as free, from my point of view, to contract
any other alliance as I shall feel on my part. In a word, I'--I don't
think, on the whole," added Mr. Carlaw, folding up the letter, "that it
is necessary for you to hear any more."
The face she turned to him almost frightened him; the change in it in
the past few minutes was pitiful. "Then there is something else?" she
asked. "Haven't I the right to know that also?"
Mr. Robert Carlaw shrugged his shoulders. "As you will," he said.
"To put it in a few words, my son Brian, with that irresponsibility
which has ever characterized him, and which I believe characterizes
most men of brilliant parts, has taken this sudden journey--well, not
unaccompanied. Do you follow me?"
She nodded and her lips moved, although no sound came from them.
"I felt you would," responded Mr. Carlaw. "You see, the lady--for she
is a lady, in that sense--has long cherished a great admiration for him
and for his work; she is extremely wealthy and I am not----"
He stopped suddenly and made a step toward her, for she had cried out
and had closed her eyes and had swayed blindly toward a chair. But
she waved him off as he came near her, and sat down quietly, staring
straight in front of her.
"You see, the question remains," went on Mr. Robert Carlaw airily,
"what are _we_ to do? Personally, I am a Bohemian, a wanderer--some
might even say a wastrel; a cup of water and a crust will suffice for
me, and I am happy. Frankly, I prefer wine and well-cooked dishes, but
in an emergency the simpler fare will do for me. But to be reduced,
as we are now, to beggary in a moment--well, it's trying to a man's
nerves."
"Are we reduced to beggary?" she asked in a low voice, and in a tone
which suggested that that was the smallest part of the matter.
"Of course we are; but for that we should probably still have my erring
son among us. The money being gone, and the source from which it was
derived gone also, my poor boy lost his head. You see, it has been
a maxim of mine throughout life to walk in the softest and shadiest
places in search of the brightest flowers, and I rather fear that my
poor son has caught the trick of the business from me. Finding that the
sun has gone out in one quarter, he naturally turns to another where it
is still shining, and where fresh flowers nod to him in a new breeze,
as it were. Really, I suppose we ought not to blame him."
"And he has left--left me nothing in the world?" she asked. "Not that
that matters in the least; but I don't quite understand what you mean."
"Well, my dear child, no man can perform impossible feats; Brian had
nothing to leave you, and therefore was helpless in the matter. Oh, I
don't think you should blame Brian for that. Having nothing, he could
leave nothing; there's the whole thing in a nutshell."
She looked at him with a puzzled expression; the greater sorrow had
slipped away for a moment, while these commonplace things were forced
upon her. "But Brian told me we were very rich, or at least that we had
a good income; he told me he made a lot of money with his books."
"Ah, my child, when a man's in love he'll say or do anything. After
all, Brian's desire was a laudable one; his wish was to keep you
from sorrow or want. His own income was small, decidedly small;
the--remainder came from another source."
"Another source," she echoed. "I seem indeed to have been living in
some world from which I am rudely awakened. What was this mysterious
income which has gone on so long and seemed inexhaustible, and yet has
suddenly ceased? What was it?"
"Well, I suppose, now that the thing is ended, you may as well know
everything; it can not matter very much. My nephew, whom I believe
you know--of course you know him--has been generous enough, having
a large private income of his own far beyond his wants, to provide
Brian with--well, with considerable sums--really, I believe, out of an
admiration he possessed for Brian's work. That's the whole matter."
"Oh, my God!" She had risen suddenly to her feet and was covering
her face with her hands; the man stood still, somewhat amazed,
watching her. Presently she took her hands away, and he saw with more
amazement that her face was wet. She came toward him quickly, and had
a difficulty at first in getting out her words; some of the phrases
were broken into by little hysterical laughs. "Of course, all this
comes--comes as something of a surprise--almost a shock--to me. You've
told it all--all so suddenly that I haven't been able to think of
it--to get it clearly. Tell me one thing: how long has this robbery
been going on?"
"Robbery! Really, my dear child, you use the wrong term. There has been
no question of robbery; all the payments that have been made have been
made freely and willingly."
"Yes, I can believe that," she said softly, and covered her face again.
"But how long has it been going on?"
"Well, I believe we were in temporary difficulties soon after my young
nephew left school. My eccentric sister--generous soul--had placed
large sums of money in the boy's hands, while we were actually on the
verge of starvation. Comethup came to our rescue; he has been coming to
our rescue periodically ever since."
"Then this house, these pictures, the carriage in which I ride, this
dress"--she struck herself fiercely on the breast--"all were bought
with--with his money? Is that so?"
"Practically, that _is_ so. You see, poetry, however good and however
conducive to fame, is practically a drug in the market; there is no
great income to be made from it. Consequently, other means of support
became necessary and were fortunately at hand. I don't suppose Brian's
personal income has been a tenth part of what we have been spending.
That's the melancholy fact. And now everything has gone from us."
"Then I understand that we--these payments have ceased?" she said
slowly.
"Entirely ceased. My poor nephew is no longer in a position to assist
us; he has lost his aunt's favour, and like ourselves has been cast
upon an unsympathetic world."
"Do you know how that happened?" she asked drearily.
Mr. Robert Carlaw decided under the delicate circumstances to lie.
"No," he replied, "I do not know. My worthy sister is, as I have
suggested, eccentric, and one never knows from hour to hour what whim
or fancy may seize her. No, I am not aware of the circumstances."
"So what I'm to understand is this: that the man who has helped us
so long being now himself a beggar, we are reduced to beggary; and
Brian"--her voice broke and she turned her head away--"Brian seeks some
one else who can support him. Are those the facts?"
"Crudely, those are the facts," replied Mr. Carlaw. "I have been told
that it is useless to attempt to govern genius by the ordinary laws to
which smaller humanity is subject, and so we must take my misguided son
as we find him and make the best of him. From the world's point of
view he has, like his unfortunate parent, gone to the devil--but the
world in his case will not, I think, judge him hardly. The question
that remains for us is, What shall we do?"
"What shall we do?" she echoed, starting up and facing him scornfully.
"What shall we do? Hide ourselves--hide ourselves from the sight of
every honest man and every honest woman! Creep through desert places
where no one can see us; keep out of the sight of those who might glean
the faintest idea of our story. What shall we do? You have carried a
brave face to the world while your hands were filled with money wrung
from a generous-hearted boy, who did it--God help us all!--from a
motive you wouldn't understand if you knew it. And you ask me what
we shall do! You are an old man, and I a woman suddenly grown old;
you have but few years before you--I, unfortunately, may have a long
lifetime. Yet, if I could live through all the ages, and could get that
best gift that man or woman may claim, the loss of memory, I could not
wash out the stain of this thing. That is absolutely unforgivable. That
I should have been kept in ignorance of it; that I should have taken
the hand of this good fellow in friendship and smiled into his eyes
while he fed and clothed me! Have you sunk so low that you can't feel
that--can't understand it? Can you stand there and smile at me, knowing
that you've stripped from me everything that made my life--my love--my
self-respect--my very honour? And then you ask me what I shall do!"
Mr. Robert Carlaw was somewhat abashed. He had expected to meet
tears and lamentations; he had not thought that she would look upon
the matter in this light, or that she could find it in her heart to
address such words to him. "I beg, whatever you do," he said somewhat
nervously, "I beg that you will do nothing rash; that you will think
seriously of the position and review it with calm deliberation.
Frankly, I am in that position that it is impossible for me to assist
you; if I obtain the cup of water and the crust to which I have
referred I shall consider myself fortunate."
"I want help from no one," she replied. "I only want to go away and
hide myself."
"As you will," he replied, and shrugged his shoulders and left her.
He reflected, as he went to his own room, on the ingratitude of all
created beings, and of women in particular, and decided after much
thought that his best plan for his own future self-preservation would
be to follow Brian and endeavour to get again into his good graces. He
saw with some penetration that Brian was the only man now left who had
any money at his command.
She sat for a long time after he had left her, trying to get the whole
terrible business into an ordinary compass in order that she might
understand it. It was a thing so gigantic and so terrible and so
unexpected that it was difficult for her to realize it completely. All
that she had ever hoped and prayed for--all her world, in fact--had
been swept away in an instant; she wanted, as she had said, to go and
hide herself and strive to forget it. Left alone with all her dreams
shattered, with the man in whom her faith had been centred standing
before her in a mental picture, debased and fallen and degraded, she
dared not look upon the world--scarcely dared to think about the matter.
It was quite late in the evening when, taking nothing with her, and
glancing to right and left like a guilty thing that fears to be seen,
she crept out of the house and away into the streets. In the hours that
had passed since she had heard the story she had prayed once or twice
for death; had hoped that some sudden madness might come upon her which
should cut off the years as by a magician's knife, and leave her, a
little lonely child again, in the garden of her father's house. And
with that prayer came a new thought--a sudden wish to see the place
again.
It was impossible that her mind could be left entirely blank or her
heart quite vacant; with everything that she had believed in and
trusted stripped away from her, her thoughts went back to Comethup, and
raised him a silent, splendid figure blessing and helping her through
all these years during which she had flouted him and set him aside.
Beside that splendid figure the man she had dreamed she loved faded
into nothingness; she felt that, if only for an hour, she must get back
to the old place, where she had broken his heart and left him; must get
back, if only to cry her own heart out.
She had a little money with her, and was fortunate in catching the last
train, which would take her to within a few miles of the old town.
Fatigue meant nothing to her; she alighted at Deal and set out to walk,
hurrying along the road and whispering his name as she ran, and crying
incoherently to him to forgive her.
The town was dark and silent when she reached it. She was in a mood to
sit down and cry--half from weariness, half from delight at being in
the old familiar streets again. She hastened on toward the garden and
went in, swaying a little from weakness as she passed over the fallen
gate and up the dreary avenue. There, under the balcony where she had
parted from him, she stood still, looking up at the deserted house and
weeping bitterly. And suddenly from among the shadows of the trees
there stole out the figure of a man.
He came forward slowly with his arm stretched out; as the moonlight
fell upon his face she saw that it was the old shoemaker, Medmer Theed,
and that he was smiling upon her. The sight of one friendly face in
that dark and desolate garden struck a chord in her that had not been
wakened before; she caught his hands and burst into a sudden passion of
tears.
The old man drew her gently to his breast, and laid her head there
and whispered soothingly to her. "My child, my baby!" he said. "They
shall not harm you. I knew you would come back; I have waited here so
long--so long! Yet the nights have been full of dreams of you; the wind
has whispered your name among the trees; the birds seeking their nests
have cried to me, 'She will come back; when all else desert her, she
will come back to you.' And see, they were right, and all the waiting
is ended. Just as I dreamed that she came back to me--she who died--so
the child I loved has returned, and all my watching is over."
"Take me away! Take me away, and hide me," she cried, clinging to him.
"Yes, yes, they shall not find you, child. The dreams have come true
at last, or almost true. They shall not find you; we will hide you
safely in the old place you knew as a child, and I will watch over you.
Come--they shall not find you."
Unresisting, she submitted to be half led, half carried from the garden
and along the deserted streets to the old man's house. There, with his
arm still fast about her, he unlocked the door and led her in and took
her to an inner room; with the gentleness of a woman he laid her down
there and covered her up. In a few moments, from sheer weariness, she
was fast asleep.
It happened that night that Captain Garraway-Kyle, feeling restless and
lonely, had thrown his old-fashioned military cloak about him and had
gone for a long walk. Coming back very late he paused for a moment near
the old archway through which the shop of the shoemaker was reached,
and after a moment's hesitation passed through and stopped before
the shop. The captain was a man of few friends, and had been in the
habit, since his first conversation with old Medmer Theed, of going to
the place sometimes in the evening for the sake of company. On this
occasion, feeling for some indefinite reason more lonely even than
usual, and seeing a light gleaming through the shutters, he knocked
softly at the door. In a moment it was opened, and he saw the old man,
bearing a candle, standing within the doorway. The captain civilly
wished him good-evening and made as if to enter in the ordinary way.
For the moment, however, the old shoemaker barred his entrance; then,
stepping aside, with a grunt, he somewhat churlishly admitted him.
"It's very late, I'm afraid," said the captain, "but I saw a light, and
guessed you were not in bed. Are you alone?"
"Of course," replied Theed. "What did you expect? Am I not always
alone?"
"Why, of course," replied the captain somewhat surprised at his tone.
"Like yourself, I am a lonely man, and am glad sometimes to find
a fellow-creature to whom I can talk." He had entered the little
low-roofed shop by this time and had seated himself upon a bench. "Why,
it's quite cold to-night, isn't it?" he added.
He had spoken in his usual quick, rather highly pitched voice, and
suddenly the shoemaker raised a warning forefinger, and glanced toward
the door at the back of the shop. "Hush!" he whispered softly.
The captain looked at him in amazement. "I--I'm very sorry," he said,
lowering his voice. "I had no idea that there was any one in here."
"Yes, sleeping," whispered the old man eagerly. "When the winds sang of
her in the trees, and the trees bent to each other to whisper of her
coming, she came suddenly to me in the old place where I had waited so
long; she came weeping, as I had dreamed she would come, and crying to
me to take her away and hide her. And so I brought her here, that none
may find her."
"I don't understand," said the captain in a startled whisper. "Who is
it?"
"She came to me as a little child; was sent to me by God for my
comfort. Often and often she has sat where you sit now while I worked,
and has made the dreams I dreamed about her more real than my waking
life. But they shall not find her--they shall not find her."
"'Linda!" whispered the captain, and caught the other's arm. "What
brings her here; what is the meaning of it?"
"I do not know; I have not asked," replied the shoemaker. "I know only
that she came weeping, as I had dreamed she would come; weeping as that
other child who grew to be a woman must have wept, as all women are
born to weep. But she is safe now; they shall not find her again."
"Let me see her," whispered the captain, rising from the bench on which
he sat and approaching the door of the inner room. "Remember, I loved
her too; let me see her."
For a moment old Medmer Theed stood jealously before the door; then
drew aside somewhat reluctantly, and pushed it open and signed to the
captain to follow him. Treading cautiously, they went in and stood
beside the little rough bed on which she lay. She was still sleeping
soundly, and as the captain bent over her he saw that there were traces
of tears still on her face. After a few moments they came out again
into the shop.
The captain felt that nothing could be done that night; he knew nothing
of what story she had to tell or of what had happened. Perplexed and
troubled, he bade the old shoemaker good-night, and set off for his
cottage. Medmer Theed barred the door and then, after glancing in
again for a moment to see that his charge was safely sleeping, laid
himself down across the threshold of the room and rested there all
night, although he scarcely slept at all. Every slightest noise in the
street seemed to his excited imagination the sound of pursuit, and he
half sprang up more than once, watchful and eager to defend her. When
day came at last he did not unfasten the shop as usual, but left the
shutters still closed, so that the only lights in the place were two
long streams of sunlight which poured through certain round holes in
them. His work was left untouched, and he hovered about between the
inner room and the shop, pressing food upon 'Linda and treating her in
every way with more than a woman's tenderness.
'Linda for her part sat throughout the day with her chin propped in
her palms, thinking. How much she reviewed in those hours it would be
impossible to say; in what new and better light she saw many events she
had not fully understood before. Everything had been torn from her;
she had to start her life again, to build up new hopes and new dreams
and new beliefs; but she could not do that yet. Years seemed to have
passed since the previous day; she had for the first time in her life
taken great strides within a few hours--been shaken suddenly to an
understanding of what her life had been as she had never understood it
at any other time.
The captain came down to the shop during the day, but finding it closed
he hesitated to knock and went away again. In truth, the captain was
puzzled what to do: to leave her alone with the strange old creature
Medmer Theed, to leave her to face and fight against the desperate
trouble which had driven her there, seemed impossible; and yet as the
captain had never seen her since the day of her flight with Brian, he
hesitated now to intrude upon her sorrow. However, when night again
came on, he set out for the shoemaker's shop, determined at least to
gain some tidings of her or to learn that she was well.
He had a curious feeling as he walked along that some one was following
him, even trying, in a half-hesitating fashion, to overtake him. As he
turned in at the old archway the one who followed had evidently made up
his mind, for the steps drew nearer, and before the captain could turn
his head a hand was laid on his shoulder. He stopped and looked round,
and recognized by the dim light of the lamp above them the features of
Mr. Robert Carlaw.
"Pray pardon me," said that gentleman in a curiously subdued tone.
"I have taken the liberty of following you for some distance; I was
not quite sure as to your identity, and one does not care to accost a
stranger in the street and meet with a rebuff."
"You wish to see me?" asked the captain coldly.
"My dear sir," replied the other, "I am in such a state of mind at
the present moment that I really don't know what I am doing or what I
am saying. I have a dim notion that duty has brought me here, and the
thought of duty has always been paramount with me. Sir"--he struck an
attitude and slapped himself with one hand on the breast--"I am in a
state verging on distraction!"
The captain looked at him critically; he almost thought for a moment
that the man had been drinking. But he was still more astonished when
he caught the gleam of tears in his faded eyes. "I fear you are in
trouble," said the captain gently.
"Trouble!" echoed the other. "I want a new word to describe my
feelings, an entirely new word. My son could have found the word or the
phrase, and my son is dead!"