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LEFT TO THEMSELVES
BEING
THE ORDEAL OF PHILIP AND GERALD
BY
EDWARD IRENÆUS STEVENSON
Author of “_The Golden Moon_,” “_White Cockades_,” “_Janus_,” etc.
_NEW YORK: HUNT & EATON_
_CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE_
1891
Copyright, 1891, by
HUNT & EATON,
NEW YORK.
TO
H. Harkness Flagler
THIS VIGNETTE OF THE BEGINNING OF AN EARLY
AND LASTING FRIENDSHIP
IS INSCRIBED
ΑΘ. τοιγὰρ κατὰ χθόν’ οὖσ’ ἐπικτήσει φίλους.――ÆSCHYLUS.
PREFACE.
A preface to a little book of this sort is an anomaly. Consequently it
should be understood the sooner that these fore-words are not intended
for any boys or girls that take up _Left to Themselves_. It is solely
for the benefit of the adult reader led by curiosity or carefulness to
open the book. The young reader will use his old privilege and skip it.
It was lately observed, with a good deal of truth, that childhood and
youth in their relations to literature are modern discoveries. To
compare reading for the boys or girls of to-day with that purveyed even
twenty-five years ago, in quantity and quality, is a trite superfluity.
But it has begun to look as if catering to this discovery of what
young minds relish and of what they absorb has gone incautiously far.
There exists a good measure of forgetfulness that children, after
all is said, are little men and little women, with hearts and heads,
as well as merely imaginations to be tickled. Undoubtedly these last
must be stirred in the story. But there is always a large element
of the young reading public to whom character in fiction, and a
definite idea of human nature through fiction, and the impression of
downright personality through fiction, are the main interests――perhaps
unconsciously――and work a charm and influence good or bad in a very
high degree. A child does not always live in and care for the eternal
story, story, story, incident, incident, incident, of literature
written for him. There are plenty of philosophers not yet arrived at
tail-coats or long frocks. They sit in the corners of the library or
school-room. They think out and feel the personality in narrative
deeply. This element, apart from incident, in a story means far more
to impress and hold and mold than what happens. Indeed, in the model
story for young readers――one often says it, but often does not succeed
in illustrating it――the clear embodiment of character is of the first
importance, however stirring or however artistically treated or
beneficial the incidental side. Jack feels more than he says from the
personal contact, feels more, may be, than he knows; and Jill is surely
apt to be as sensitive as Jack.
Has there not little by little come to be a little too much of kindly
writing down to childhood and to youth? of writing down to it until
we are in danger of losing its level and getting below it? Is not
thoughtless youth more thoughtful than our credit extends to it?
Certainly a nice sense of the balance between sugar and pill seems
needed just now――admitting the need of any actual pill. Children, after
the earliest period, are more serious and finer and more perceptive
natures than we may have come to allowing, or for which we may have
come to working. We forget the dignity of even the young heart and
mind. Light-hearted youth does not necessarily mean light-headed youth.
This story――with apology for such a preamble――is written in the aim at
deferring to the above ideas; and, furthermore, at including in the
process one or two literary principles closely united to them. It will
be found its writer hopes to embody study, as well as story, for the
thoughtful moments in young lives, on whose intelligences daily clearly
break the beauty and earnestness of human life, of resolute character,
of unselfish friendship and affection, and of high aim. To them, and of
course to all adult readers, who do not feel themselves out of sympathy
with the idealizings and fair inclusions of one’s early time in this
world, what follows is offered.
NEW YORK CITY, _February, 1891_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
MR. SIP’S APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE――PHILIP
AND GERALD BREAK ICE IN SUMMER 9
CHAPTER II.
MUTUAL CONFIDENCES; AND PHILIP TURNS RED IN THE
FACE 25
CHAPTER III.
ALL ABOUT A ROW 41
CHAPTER IV.
UNDER SAILING ORDERS 58
CHAPTER V.
“THE UNGUESSED BEGINNINGS OF TROUBLE” 67
CHAPTER VI.
A RIDDLE NOT EASILY ANSWERED――THE “OLD PROVINCE” 90
CHAPTER VII.
OPEN WAR 102
CHAPTER VIII.
IN NIGHT AND MIST 120
CHAPTER IX.
TWO OUT OF TWELVE 132
CHAPTER X.
FROM AN OLD SCRAP-BOOK 143
CHAPTER XI.
A NAMELESS HAVEN 149
CHAPTER XII.
INVADING THE UNKNOWN 163
CHAPTER XIII.
AT HOME IN MY NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE 179
CHAPTER XIV.
ALLIES 201
CHAPTER XV.
STORM-STAYED 218
CHAPTER XVI.
SUSPENSE 247
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE ARBOR 270
CHAPTER XVIII.
EXPLANATIONS; AND MR. JENNISON SENDS A REQUEST 293
CHAPTER XIX.
AFTER MANY DAYS 305
CHAPTER XX.
PRESENT AND FUTURE 317
LEFT TO THEMSELVES:
BEING
THE ORDEAL OF PHILIP AND GERALD.
CHAPTER I.
MR. SIP’S APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE――PHILIP AND GERALD BREAK ICE IN
SUMMER.
Mr. Patrick Sip had seated himself by the side of the brook that purled
through the deep green ravine lying about three miles back of the
Ossokosee House. Mr. Sip was not a guest at that new and flourishing
summer resort. Mr. Sip, indeed, had hardly found himself a welcome
guest anywhere within five or six years. He possessed a big, burly
figure, a very unshaven and sunburnt face, and a suit of clothes once
black, when upon the back of an earlier wearer, but long since faded
to a dirty brown. Mr. Sip never used an umbrella nowadays, although
he exercised much in the open air. Upon his unkempt hair slanted a
tattered straw hat. Beside him lay a thickish walking-stick without
any varnish. There was one thing which Mr. Sip had not about him,
as any body would have inferred at a glance, although it is often
difficult to detect by sight――a good character. In short, Mr. Sip
looked the complete example of just what he was――a sturdy, veteran
tramp of some thirty summers and winters, who had not found through
honest labor a roof over his head or a morsel between his bristly lips
since his last release from some one of the dozen work-houses that his
presence had graced.
“Humph!” said Mr. Sip, half aloud, as he changed his position so as to
let his bare feet sink deeper in the rippling creek (Mr. Sip was laving
them), “I see plenty o’ water around here, but there aint nothin’ in
sight looks like bread. Plague them turnips! Raw turnips aint no sort
o’ a breakfast for a gentleman’s stomach. Is they, now?”
He splashed his feet about in the pure cold water, by no means to
cleanse them from the dust of the highway, but simply because it was
easier to drop them into the stream than to hold them out as he sat on
the abrupt bank. He whistled a part of a tune and seemed to forget
having put his question to the wrens and wagtails in the sassafras.
“If, now, I could jist stick out my hand and pull a ham sangwich off o’
that there useless little tree,” pursued Mr. Sip, complainingly; “or if
you could sort o’ lay here an’ meditate an’ presen’ly find a good-sized
pan o’ cold victuals a-comin’ a-floatin’ up.”
Neither of these attractive phenomena seeming likely to occur
immediately, Mr. Sip sighed as if injured, shook his head, and said
with decided temper, “Ugh, natur’! They talk so much about natur’ in
them books an’――an’ churches, an’ p’lice courts, an’ sich. What’s there
nice about natur’, I’d like to know, when a man can keep company with
natur’ as stiddy as I do an’ never git so much as his reg’lar meals out
o’ her one day in the week? Natur’, as fur as I’ve found out, don’t
mean nothing ’cept wild blackberries in season. I don’t want no more
to do with natur’!” Mr. Sip concluded with an angry slap at a huge
horsefly that had lighted upon his ankle, and uttered his favorite
exclamation, “My name aint Sip!”――which, although he meant the phrase
merely as an expletive when he was particularly put out over any
matter, happened to be the case.
Just at that moment Mr. Sip looked across to the opposite bank of the
creek and discovered that he and the horsefly were not alone. A boy was
standing rather further up the stream with a fishing-rod in his hand
observing the odd figure this wandering philosopher upon nature cut.
The boy appeared to be in the neighborhood of twelve years of age. He
had a trim figure and fair hair, and the sunlight on it and through
a green branch of a young maple behind him made the brightest spots
of color in the somber little chasm. On his young face were mingled
expressions of amusement and disgust as to Mr. Sip. Across his arm was
a basket. A napkin dangled out of this suggestively.
“Come here, sonny,” invited Mr. Sip in an amiable tone, and with a leer
of sudden good feeling――for the luncheon basket.
“What did you say?” the boy called back rather timidly, without moving
toward his new acquaintance.
“I said, ‘Come here,’” repeated Mr. Sip, sharply, drawing his feet
out of the water and beckoning. He took a hasty glance up and down
the stream. “How many nice little fishes has you and that pa o’ yourn
caught since morning? Ten?”
“I haven’t caught any fish so far,” replied the lad, “and my father
isn’t here. He’s up in Nova Scotia, thank you.”
“O,” Mr. Sip responded, “Nova Scotia? I remember I heard o’ his goin’
there. Say, sonny,” he went on, wading out to the middle of the creek
with an ugly expression deepening over his red face as he realized that
the bearer of the basket was alone, “What time is it?”
The boy retreated a few steps, pulling out a neat little silver watch,
too polite to refuse the information. “Half past eleven,” he said, in
his pleasant accent.
“O, but is that there watch correck?” inquired the evil-faced
gentleman, taking several steps in the water toward that margin from
which the lad had drawn back prudently. “Let me come up and see it for
myself, wont you? That looks like a new watch.”
“I say, keep off!” cried the owner of the watch, all at once suspecting
the designs of Mr. Sip and turning slightly pale. “Keep off, there, I
say!” The intrepid little fellow dropped his rod and caught up a stone
that lay near. “I――I don’t like your looks! I’ll throw this at you if
you come any closer.”
The boy’s face was whiter at each word, although his spirit gave a ring
to his threat. But Mr. Sip had invaded too many kitchens and terrified
far too many helpless servant-maids to allow himself to be daunted by a
boy well dressed and carrying a watch and a basket of good things. He
uttered an angry oath and splashed violently toward the lad, stumbling
among the sharp flints of the creek. It was open war begun by hot
pursuit.
The path by which Gerald Saxton (for that happened to be the name of
the solitary little fisherman) had made his way to the creek was steep
and irregular. He ran up it now, panting, with Mr. Sip in stumbling
chase, the latter calling out all manner of threats as he pursued. The
boy was frightened greatly, but to be frightened is not to be a coward,
and he knew that the path led into Farmer Wooden’s open meadow.
Through the green underbrush he darted, running up along the slope of
the ravine, prudent enough not to waste his wind in cries that would
not be at all likely to reach the farm-house, until he should dash out
in the field itself, and planting his small feet carefully.
“If he catches up to me,” thought Gerald, “he will knock me over and
get the watch and be off before I can help it! I _must_ make the
meadow!”
On hurtled Mr. Sip, floundering up the narrow path, still giving vent
to exclamations that only quickened Gerald’s flight. Suddenly Mr.
Sip saw an opportunity for a short cut by which Gerald might yet be
overtaken. He bounced into it. Just as Gerald shot forth into the long
meadow the furious philosopher found himself hardly ten yards in arrear.
“_Now_ I’ve got yer!” he called, too angry to observe that the
farm-house was in sight. “You drop――that basket――an’ that watch――or――”
Now Gerald shouted lustily, still flying ahead.
But Mr. Sip did not finish. A new figure came into action.
“What under the canopy is that?” cried a boy who was so much older and
larger than little Gerald that he might almost have been called a young
man. He was standing by the well up in the Woodens’s dooryard waiting
for the horse he had been driving to finish drinking. In another
moment he grasped the situation and was leaping swiftly and noiselessly
down the long slope over the stubble.
Tramps had been plentiful lately. His voice rang out to comfort Gerald
and warn Mr. Sip. Gerald looked up, but with a white, set little face
ran past him. Mr. Sip, taking in the height, weight, and courage of the
frightened boy’s new ally, turned and began running toward the low oak
trees.
A strong ash stick, thrown with excellent aim, struck Mr. Sip squarely
in the small of his back. He staggered for an instant, but rallied,
and, a coward to the last, vanished in the thicket with a parting
curse. Within an hour he might have been seen drinking buttermilk
thirstily at a cottage a mile away. The good-humored farmer’s daughter
gave it to him, pitying a man who was “walking all the way from
Wheelborough Heights to Paterson, in Jersey, marm, to find my old boss
and git a job he’s promised me.”
And now good-bye, Mr. Sip! You have done something to-day that would
surprise your lazy self immensely. You have done a stroke of work.
Thanks to your being a brutal vagrant, there is just coming about an
acquaintance that is of the utmost import in the carrying on of this
story――without which it would never have been worth writing or reading.
“Well, upon my word!” ejaculated the new-comer, wheeling about as if
disposed to waste no more pains upon a man of Mr. Sip’s kidney, and
coming back to Gerald Saxton. “I am very glad I heard you! What did
that rascal want of you? His kind have been uncommonly thick this
autumn.”
“Why――he was after my watch, I think,” replied Gerald, sitting down
on a flat rock, a smile re-appearing upon his startled face. “I was
standing down at the bottom of the path in the glen when he began
talking to me. First thing I knew I saw that he meant mischief. I
suppose it wasn’t wonderfully brave of me to run from him.”
“Brave in you!” exclaimed merrily the solid-looking older lad. “As if
a brute like that was not as big as six of you! You acted precisely
as any sensible fellow of your size would do. ‘He who fights and runs
away,’ you know. Did he do you any harm?”
“Not a bit, thanks. He didn’t get close enough to me”――this with a
chuckle.
“Were you fishing down in that lonely glen? It is a very fair spot for
bass.”
“Yes; Mr. Wooden took me down into the ravine quite a little way above
it. Do you know the place, sir?”
“O, yes, sir; I know the place very well, sir,” answered Gerald’s
defender, with a quizzical twinkle in his eyes as he repeated those
“sirs.” Then they both laughed. Gerald slyly compared their respective
heights. His new friend could not be so very much taller. Certainly he
was not over seventeen.
“You see, I was raised here――after a fashion,” went on the latter
in his clear, strong voice. “You are one of the guests over at our
Ossokosee House, aren’t you? I think I’ve seen you on the piazza.”
“Yes; I’ve been stopping there while my father is away. My name is
Gerald Saxton, though almost every body calls me Gerald.”
“And mine is Philip Touchtone, but every body calls me Philip, and
you needn’t call me ‘sir,’ please. I know Mr. Marcy, who keeps the
Ossokosee, very well. It was to deliver a message from him to the
Woodens about the hotel butter that I stopped here this afternoon. But
do tell me how that scamp dared run after you? The minute I saw him and
you, even as far off as Mrs. Wooden’s back door, I suspected that it
was a tramp, and I didn’t hesitate very long.”
“No, you didn’t,” answered Gerald. And he walked along, swinging his
arm manfully and fighting over again for Philip Touchtone’s benefit
those details of the brief skirmish between himself and Mr. Sip that
had hurriedly followed one another previous to Philip’s advent. He
continued his furtive observation of his new friend all the time.
Touchtone had gained about five feet four of his full height, with
a broad, well-developed chest, active legs, and a good straight way
of carrying himself that reminded one of his sharp, pleasant way of
speaking. His hair was dark enough to pass for black, as would his
eyes and eyebrows, although they were actually brown, and full of an
honest brightness. As for his face, it was rather long, full, and not
particularly tanned, though the sun was well acquainted with it. The
most attractive feature of it was a mouth that expressed good humor and
resolution. In short, Gerald might have easily made up his mind that
Philip Touchtone was a person born to work for and get what the world
held for him.
“Whew!” exclaimed he, as Gerald reminded him, “I forgot Mrs. Wooden’s
carpet-beater! I threw it after your friend down there. He got the full
benefit of it.”
“And I forgot my rod! I dropped it when I thought it was best to run.”
“Wait a minute and I’ll get both,” said Philip. “I know that identical
rock where you say you stood――at the foot of the path.” And before
Gerald could remonstrate Philip ran from his side and darted down into
the glen where Mr. Sip must have still lurked in wrath. But sooner than
Gerald could feel alarm for him Philip came back with rod and beater.
“We need never expect to see him again,” he said, breathlessly.
“But――halloa! There are Mrs. Wooden and Miss Beauchamp, who boards with
her. She teaches the district school here, and it’s just begun. They
must be wondering what has become of me. Suppose we hurry up a trifle.
You can ride back to the hotel with me, unless you care to stay and
fish――for more tramps.”
“No, I thank you,” answered Gerald. “You would be nowhere near to help
me fight them.” A determined flash came into the boy’s countenance,
such as he had shown when he caught up the bit of rock in defiance of
the ragged Sip.
“O, I beg your pardon,” he went on in his odd, rather grown-up manner;
“I haven’t said how much obliged to you I am for coming down there.”
“You are quite welcome,” laughed his new friend, looking down with
frank eyes upon the younger boy.
“Perfectly welcome, ‘Gerald,’ you were going to say,” added his
companion, simply, feeling as if he had known for years this winning
new-comer, who seemed not so much boy or man, but a confusion of both,
that made up some one with whom he could speedily be on familiar terms.
“Hark! Mrs. Wooden is calling you. That horse of yours is eating an
apple out of Miss Beauchamp’s hand, too.”
The two Woodens and their boarder, Miss Beauchamp, walked forward to
meet the boys as they advanced from the lane.
“Well, Philip,” was the white-headed old farmer’s greeting, “where did
you fly to so sudden? Neither wife, here, nor I could set eyes on you.
And so you’ve struck up an acquaintance with Master Gerald, have you?”
“Well, yes; and struck an acquaintance of his in the middle of his
back,” responded Philip. “How do you do, Miss Beauchamp? Didn’t you,
any of you, see the fight?”
“Fight!” cried Mrs. Wooden, clapping her fat hand to her bosom and
nearly dropping the wooden tray of fresh butter she held. “Why, Philip
Touchtone! Who has been a-fightin’? Not you――nor you?” she added,
turning to Gerald.
“We all have been fighting, I’m afraid, Mrs. Wooden,” said the
latter――“three of us.”
After this preamble there had to be an account of the skirmish. Miss
Beauchamp and Mrs. Wooden alike decided it was “shocking.”
“He might have drawn a pistol on both of you!” exclaimed Miss
Beauchamp, “and a great deal more might have come of it.”
“Well,” Gerald protested, “the only thing that’s come of it is that I
have met a friend of yours here.”
“And you couldn’t do a better thing, Gerald!” exclaimed Mrs. Wooden,
beginning to stow away butter and eggs in the spring-wagon from the
Ossokosee House. “Mr. Philip Touchtone is a particular pet of Miss
Beauchamp’s and mine when he is a good boy――as he almost always is,”
the farmer’s fat wife lightly added.
“And a capital friend,” added the grave Miss Beauchamp, with a smile,
“for a boy about the age and size of one I know to have on his books.
You ask Mr. Marcy over at the hotel all about him, Gerald. Now, you do
that for me soon.”
“O, pshaw, Miss Beauchamp!” Philip interrupted, his wide-awake face
rather red, and straightening himself up to endure these broad
compliments, “you and Mrs. Wooden ought to remember that people who
praise friends to their faces are said to be fond of slandering them
behind their backs. Come, Mr. Wooden, I promised Mr. Marcy to be back
as soon as I could. Jump in, Gerald.”
The boy swung his slender figure up to the cushioned seat. Philip
quickly followed after a few more words with the farmer. Then the wagon
rattled out into the road and was soon bowling along to the Ossokosee.
Philip favored the baskets and bundles in the back of the spring-wagon
with a final glance, and then turned to Gerald with the manner of a
person who intends asking and answering a large number of questions.
And Gerald felt quite eager to do the same thing.
Why each of these lads, so entirely out of his own free will, should
have mutually confided details of their two histories, when each was
so much a stranger, met to-day, and perhaps never sitting again within
speaking-distance after to-morrow, was a riddle to both of them. But
the solution of it is as old as the rocks in Wooden’s Ravine, perhaps
older. We may keep our lives and thoughts under a lock and key as
tightly as we like until the day comes when, somewhere along this
crowded highway called Life, we all at once run square against some
other human creature who is made by fate to be our best friend. Then,
take my word for it, whether he is younger or older, he will find out
from our own lips every thing in the bottom of our hearts that he
chooses to ask about; and, what is more, we ought to find ourselves
glad to trust such a person with even more than the whole stock that is
there.