AT HOME IN MY NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE.
Touchtone woke as the clock struck nine. The farm-house was as silent
as ever. He dressed himself hurriedly and made an observation outside.
The garden lay peaceful in the morning sunshine. Towzer and the large
white cat that had suddenly appeared, and was on the easiest of social
terms with Towzer, came about his legs on the door-sill. Sails in
plenty shone in the blue sea distance, but no craft was heading for the
island. He discovered a group of white dots and dashes stretching along
at one remote point of the shore.
“Chantico, for sure!” he thought. “We must start for there to-morrow,
at the latest. It wont do to put it off an hour longer than is
necessary.” Then came into his mind their weary indifference to the
position of the boat. It gave him a disagreeable start. If they had
only been somewhat less exhausted and impatient! But he would go down
to the cove and get a look at the boat in course of an hour, at the
furthest.
He lighted the kitchen fire and surveyed that appetizing stock of
eatables on which they had made some inroads the night before. Audacity
and a notion of a more breakfast-like meal for Gerald inspired him. He
found the coffee in a caddy, and descended into the cellar to plunder
its stores a little. Then, arrayed in a violently green calico apron
that hung behind the entry door, he proceeded to find out if he could
not concoct as decent a breakfast in a farm-house that didn’t belong to
him as in a forest camp that did. Mr. Marcy had often declared, “Phil,
you’re a born cook! When the _chef_ of the Ossokosee strikes for higher
wages, you’d better apply to me.” So he beat an omelet vigorously and
then went to call Gerald.
“H-m-m?――y-e-s――what’s――what’s the matter?” asked the boy, confusedly,
lifting his head from the pillow and uttering a round dozen of sleepy
sentences before consciousness came back――a specially slow process with
him.
“Breakfast is ready,” laughed Touchtone. “Only ourselves to eat it.
Come. It’s a stunning day. How do you feel?”
“O, I’m all right.”
But his flushed face and unduly bright eyes and hot hands made
Touchtone uneasy. He pronounced the breakfast indeed a quite surprising
masterpiece, but hardly took the practical interest in it that Philip
expected. When he got up from the table, yawning, he suddenly declared
that he felt “too tired to walk.” Even his concern for this remarkable
situation, and his eagerness to have it changed for the better, seemed
slight. He moved listlessly about the rooms and door-ways while
Touchtone cleared away the table.
“I guess I’m too much used up to care about the Probascos, or the house
here, or how to get word ashore, or――well――any thing,” he declared
apologetically. Touchtone was not surprised, nor relieved. Alone he
went down to the cove, Towzer at his heels, taking a short cut that
saved the long walk by the road. In dismay, he realized what he had
feared――that the boat was indeed gone, drifted out to sea, likely, or
along toward the coast with the turning of the tide.
“How abominably careless of me!” he exclaimed, appreciating that every
thing must be at a completer stand-still because of this loss. He could
not find another boat about the Probasco’s dock nor stored in the one
or two deposits of miscellanies, nautical and agricultural.
“We’ve got to wait, with a vengeance!” he said to himself. Curiosity as
to his hosts gave place to angry impatience at his having taken things
so for granted and at his own heedlessness; came, too, greater anxiety
for Mr. Marcy’s and Mr. Saxton’s enlightenment. “They may have had our
funerals, Towzer; given us both up for dead!” he exclaimed, addressing
the attentive representative of the absent farm-house folk. Towzer
seemed resolved that nothing should be done without his notice, and
trotted at Touchtone’s heels every-where.
He was dismayed when he crossed the threshold of the farm-house. Gerald
had gone back to bed with a throbbing headache and what Philip rightly
judged would prove a fever. It gained perceptibly. By noon the younger
boy was tossing in a restlessness that hinted at coming delirium. Now
and then, as he dreamed, he muttered to imaginary people, or, awakened
again, he would ask Touchtone questions that were pitiful in their
sudden intensity and unanswerableness. Philip knew that a new care and
suspense had come.
“He’s very ill――very! And he’s likely to go on and become worse.”
This great fear made Philip forget every thing else that was to be
worried over. What should he do? How add the knowledge and care of a
doctor and a nurse to the burden already on his shoulders? “If he does
get downright sick, I don’t know enough to fight the thing. I’ll do
the best I can to keep him comfortable. But, O, if any body _could_
only come! What on earth would I best begin with?” He felt his own
self-dependence giving way.
He ran over various necessities. Taking advantage of an hour when
Gerald all at once became perfectly quiet, in an unrestful doze, he
went out and quickly collected a pile of brush and kindling-wood in
the space behind the garden. By throwing some kerosene oil and then
water on the blaze he started a dense smoky column that he hoped should
attract notice aboard some one of the vessels that glided far out. He
came to the conclusion that there must be an uncertain and dangerous
chain of reefs and shoals that made it necessary for vessels to give
the little place a wide berth. He distinguished a light-house. “To
those who know any thing about these Probasco people it will seem like
only the farmer burning up some litter on the place, of course. Nobody
will think twice about the smoke, unless the farm-folk themselves get
sight of it”――which was precisely the case.
The fire smoldering successfully, he set to rummaging in the Probascos’
stock of books for one the title of which had happened to catch his
eye a little earlier. He found it, a flashy-backed little volume,
“presented” by a patent medicine company, giving some simple directions
for taking care of the sick without a doctor. This guide-book showed
its chief signs of wear and tear and agitated consultation on the pages
devoted to “Rheumatism” and “Influenza,” hinting in what particular
emergency it had been oftenest consulted. Devoting himself to one or
two dark chimney-cupboards, he unearthed a limited and dingy stock of
family medicines. Bottles were half filled and empty. Luckily, one or
two of them were called for by Dr. Bentley’s _Ready Guide_ aforesaid.
Gerald was too weak to refuse the dose that could be ministered.
“For my sake, old fellow. It’s the best I know how to do for you,”
Philip said, apologetically; and Gerald, half in stupor, opened his
lips. Then, after he had given the younger boy the last teaspoonful
prescribed, and had sat beside his pillow a long time with a heavy and
more and more fear-shaken heart, he sat down beside the window.
He wrote Mr. Saxton and Mr. Marcy the dispatch and the letter that
ought to be ready for any opportunity. When that might arrive, of
course, he could not reckon. At any moment communication with the world
might be opened to them; it might not be for hours yet, possibly for
days. He had given up speculating what had called away their hosts so
suddenly, ceased fancying the cause of their absolutely inexplicable
delay to return to their home and to the care of house, live stock,
and garden. No ordinary accident probably lay at the bottom of the
riddle. Now he could think of nothing besides the fact that he and
Gerald were here, shut up in this singular asylum together, waiting for
its owners and a deliverance to “turn up,” and that Gerald lay there
in the broad bed before him lapsing into a fever, now and then into a
light-headedness. That topped the list of the anxieties and sufferings
of the past week. But he must just take things as they came.
“I never knew before now,” he ended his letter to Mr. Marcy, “what it
was to feel a hundred years older, simply because what has happened
in a few days has been of a kind to make one feel so. It seems as if
it has been as long as that since we were all at the hotel, as gay as
larks, and I with no more to worry me than Gerald had. I don’t see how
there has been time for so much.” And verily, the Philip Touchtone
laughing, rowing races on the lake, playing tennis before the Ossokosee
House piazza, and riding about in Mr. Marcy’s light wagon seemed like
an insignificant sort of creature who had known nothing of life.
“And to think that I would be――well――that other fellow, that _old_
Philip Touchtone, this minute if Gerald had not happened to come up to
the Ossokosee to spend the summer!” he reflected, as his eyes turned
upon the sick boy’s flushed face. “But I don’t believe that there are
many things in life that _happen_.” And it is to be concluded that
there are not.
Speculations as to Belmont were not left out of his thoughts. Truly
there was something more and more malevolent in the man’s conduct,
however explainable. But he hoped that that chapter of their experience
was ended as abruptly as it had begun.
He induced Gerald to take a light luncheon, feeding him, and coaxing
down mouthful after mouthful and sip after sip with the gentleness
and persistency of a hospital nurse. (That is, a hospital nurse of a
certain kind. There are differences in hospital nurses, decidedly.)
Gerald lay quiet for an hour or so afterward. But about three o’clock,
when Philip returned from a stolen absence from his bedside (for the
sake of their smoldering beacon and for a reconnoiter), he found the
sick boy excited, though clear-headed, and needing any cheerfulness and
detraction Philip’s sitting down near him could bring.
“Nothing heard from them yet, these――Probascos?” he asked, rolling
about on his pillow.
“Not yet. They may march in on us any time before tea.”
“What on earth will they think? O, Philip, I’m so sorry to lie here and
do nothing and have you plan and look out for every thing. But I feel
too sick even to fret.”
“Depend on it, they will think that we have had good common sense
and certainly the best of reasons for taking the hint that this big
open house of theirs gave us. O, I’m not afraid of the Probascos!” he
returned, in honest unconcern. “One can see what sort of people they
are. I’m only too anxious for the pleasure of their acquaintance. As
for your lying there, why, there’s nothing for you to do if you had
six legs and could walk on all of them! And I am certainly glad if you
don’t ‘worry.’ What’s the use of worrying?”
“Are those letters you spoke of written?”
“All ready; and two telegrams with them, to send by the first hand that
comes along. (Fancy a hand coming along by itself! I don’t think I’d
care to shake it.)”
But Gerald’s imagination could not be interested. He mused. Then he
murmured, “Poor papa!” with another nervous turn of his body. “Give me
another swallow of water, please, Philip.” He drank thirstily. “Cold,
isn’t it? I guess papa has found out by this time that I’m rather more
to him than the yacht or his new racing team.”
He did not speak bitterly. It was evidently not a complaint with him
that his father, and only near relative in the world, seemed to regard
him so carelessly. He was used to it. He neither compared the portion
of affection that fell to him in life with that given to others nor
with his due.
“O, stuff!” returned Philip, shaking up the spare pillow. “He’s not
to find that out now, take my word for it! You’ve always been a great
deal more to your father than you’ve given credit for. He’s like lots
of other city men. He keeps his soft side inside, a little too much,
perhaps. More than the new racing team! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself!”
“You don’t know my father,” returned Gerald.
“And you, old fellow, don’t understand him. From what you tell me I’m
pretty sure he’s exactly one of those fathers who can’t _say_ half what
he wants to any son. I’ve heard of them before.”
“I suppose there is that sort,” responded Gerald, “but it’s not――not
the most――satisfactory kind to have, I think.”
“You may think differently some day,” Touchtone answered. “Why, I once
knew a man who just about worshiped his son――a fellow, I believe, not
much older than you. He was as proud as you please of him――of his
looks, his cleverness, the way people took to him, every thing. But
he didn’t often stop to realize it himself; and when he did stop he
might have been dumb for all the knack he had to tell his boy what he
thought. You and your father will find each other out, so to speak,
some day, depend on it. Come, now, try another nap, like a good fellow.
Shall I give that pillow a shake?”
He wanted to end this or any other conversation and encourage his
patient toward quiet and sleepiness. But Gerald would talk. So long
as he did not increase his fever too decidedly perhaps it was just
as well to humor him. Meditations on Mr. Saxton presently turned his
thoughts to some of Philip’s early experiences. The conversation in the
summer-house at the Ossokosee, the overhearing of which had so brought
them together, came back to him, as it often had.
“Philip,” he asked, languidly, “do you remember what you said that
night at the hotel about some day being able to prove that――that _your_
father wasn’t what――he was believed to be?”
“And didn’t do what it was decided by the most of people that he did?”
answered Touchtone, in the peculiar sort of tone that always came with
any reference to or even thought of his life’s disgrace and of his
life’s hope. “Certainly. What of it?”
“What did you mean by our being able to prove it together?”
“I meant that I’m in a hurry to grow up to be a man able to take care
of myself. When I can turn over――well, two or three stones that haven’t
been touched, I think I’ll find my father’s good name, all right, under
one of them.”
He paused a moment. Belmont’s taunt came into his head. Ah! he had a
new link, possibly, if he met him again――alone. “And by the time I can
start into this job you, maybe, can lend a hand at it too. That’s all.”
“If I ever can I will. Be certain of that,” the younger boy rejoined,
earnestly.
He turned so as to look Philip in the face affectionately. Philip saw
nothing but wakefulness in it; but it was a clear and not too excited
look, after all.
“You see,” Touchtone continued, “the men――some of them――who did the
burglary are probably living. They might be willing to tell more truth
about it now than then. Or they might not. There always was more to get
at; I know that.” There was a pause. “Did I ever tell you about the
night my father died?” he asked, solemnly.
“No. Go on, please.”
“I was only a little fellow like you at the time. But father meant
I should remember, and I have remembered perfectly. It had been an
awfully cold day in January. My poor mother was almost worn out with
anxiety, for father all at once sank terribly fast about nine o’clock,
though the doctor had no idea that he wouldn’t last till morning. Did
I ever drive you around by that cottage that we rented of Mr. Marcy,
where we lived those years after we came? I dare say not; I’m not fond
of the road. Well, father had mother bring me into the room where he
was. I sat by the bed, just as I sit by yours this minute, letting him
hold my hand and one of mother’s. Mr. Marcy was in New York. O, how
tired and hollow-eyed and _dying_ he looked. But he smiled a little at
seeing us two there together beside him.
“‘That’s right,’ he said softly; ‘always keep with your mother, Philip,
and remember, Hilda, nothing ought to separate you two but death.
Philip,’ he went on, ‘you’re going to grow up to be a man, I hope and
expect. I suppose that the best thing I can wish for you is that you
may never hear the people you will meet talk of me, nor even read my
name in a newspaper. But I want to say to you to-night (for I’m afraid
I sha’n’t have many words to spare by morning) that I, your father,
under the stain to-day of a crime, and believed by almost every body
I ever knew in the world, or that you may know, to be a felon――am as
innocent as you of what’s laid to my charge. Remember, I say this to
you on what I believe is my dying-bed, and going before the great God
who judges all the world, and who is sometimes the only Knower of what
is the right and what the wrong of things, great or small.’
“I began to cry. My mother pressed my hand and said, firmly, ‘No;
listen carefully to father, Philip! You will be glad of doing so some
day.’ So I bit my lips and swallowed my sobs as well as I could, and
kept my eyes on his in spite of the tears.
“‘It’s hard to have to ask such a young lad as you to go through a
scene like this, Phil (he often called me Phil, and that’s the reason
I never want any body to do it nowadays), and to stuff your head with
such unhappy thoughts as may come. But it’s best. You’re my boy,
and my name, good or bad, is yours. I was discharged and traduced
and convicted almost altogether on the evidence of two men. One was
Laverack, the ringleader of the thieves; the other, the watchman of
the bank, Samuel Sixmith. Will you remember that――Laverack and Samuel
Sixmith?’
“I nodded my head. Father went on: ‘Some day you can read all the
falsehoods that Laverack and Sixmith swore to. Never mind them now.
Only do not forget that I give to you, my son, once more, my dying
word of honor that they were falsehoods; and that, besides Laverack’s
having a reason of revenge to attack me as he did, there must have been
some conspiracy between himself and the watchman, Sixmith. Possibly you
may light on it before you die. I commit it to you and to God. If you
do, you will clear my character before the world; and although it might
come so late that the world will have little interest in it, still do
it, if God opens the way, Phil. I believe that it will be opened by
and by. I hope for your sake and your mother’s that it may not be long
shut.’”
It is to be feared that Touchtone had forgotten Gerald’s fever and
almost every thing else, in his story. The younger boy lay there
looking at Philip in admiration and sympathy; and if his hot pulse
could not but run higher at such a bit of his friend’s history,
compassion and regret may have kept mere physical and mental excitement
within a certain check.
“He talked a little more to me,” continued Philip, “and bade me
recollect always that my mother and I would have a friend in Mr. Marcy.
Then we all said the Lord’s Prayer together, and my father kissed me on
the forehead and told mother to take me into the next room. She left
me with our servant. Poor old Biddy Farrelly! I wonder if she’s alive
now? She’d been crying as if her heart would break. I guess she’d been
listening at the door a bit. Mother went back to father, and I was
told to go to bed. I was too excited to sleep much in the first part
of the night, and I lay there thinking over all that father had said.
I haven’t forgotten a word of it, names or any thing, Gerald, and I
never shall. Besides, mother and I often talked it all over quietly
together; and she told me more that she knew about my father’s trial.
I didn’t see him again. He died in the night, and wouldn’t allow me to
be called. ‘I have bidden Phil good-bye,’ he said, ‘and I do not want
him to forget what I said to him through any other farewell now.’ Poor
father!”
There was a pause. The clock struck four. It was almost a home-like
sound to them now. This solemn story of the past had unconsciously
blunted the sharpness of present troubles.
“Laverack and the watchman, Sixmith,” repeated Gerald, slowly. “Those
two. What became of them? Have you ever seen them or had any chance to
speak with them?”
“No,” answered Touchtone. “Laverack served his term with the other
four, and I dare say has had dozens of other names since, if he still
lives in this country or anywhere. Sixmith was discharged from the bank
at once, I believe, but father never heard what became of him.”
“Did Mr. Marcy ever try to clear up the matter any further, for your
mother’s sake and yours?” asked Gerald.
Touchtone blushed and replied, awkwardly, “Yes――that is, no. He
couldn’t try much. There was so little ground to start from,” he added,
in apology for his protector; “and Mr. Marcy has done so much for us
without it. He seldom speaks of _that_.”
“But he believes, as you do, that your father wasn’t guilty?” persisted
Gerald, raising himself on one elbow and staring hard at Touchtone.
“Yes――yes,” Philip returned slowly, and then more slowly still, “but
not so much, I’m afraid, as I do. I tell you, we very seldom talk about
it. I――I――don’t know.”
That answer told a plain story. Gerald did not pursue the inquiry.
“Well, if we get out of here and see papa you must tell him every
thing. He’s a first-class one to help any body in any thing. You
can take my word for it. Between us all we may bring the truth to
light――for every body, Mr. Marcy included. I can’t tell you how I thank
you for letting me hear all about this. I believed as you do from the
first, you know.”
“Yes, I know you did,” said Touchtone. “It seemed so odd and
unexpected. I was glad. But come, we wont talk any more now. You must
try to get to sleep. I’ve been awfully thoughtless. Does your head ache
as hard as it did?”
“Not nearly; and instead of being as hot and as miserable as I was I
believe I’m better.” His hands and temples were cooler, and after a few
moments of silence Philip thankfully noticed that he dozed. The doze
became a slumber.
Philip made the room less light. He was thinking of the patient cow
and wondering whether he could safely go to her. Suddenly the sound
of the dog’s barking came into the windows. It did not waken the sick
boy. Noiselessly he hurried from the room into the kitchen and around
the corner of the house, where Towzer appeared to be standing in some
sudden fit of vigilance.
A man and a woman were coming up from the dock, where a large cat-boat
was moored. They were looking toward the farm-house and at the smoke
in the garden in evident perturbation. At the sight of his own figure
hastening toward the gate to meet and admit them their haste and
surprise doubled. On they came. They were loaded with a couple of large
carpet-bags and innumerable bundles. They were middle-aged people. The
man was low-statured, smooth-faced, and a little stout; the woman tall
and angular. Their shrewd, puzzled faces were kindly, and the man waved
an unknown reply to Philip’s gesture of recognition. He could hear them
exchanging ejaculations and queries.
“The Probascos, for certain――at last!” he exclaimed. Advancing toward
the couple outside the gate, bareheaded, he bowed and repeated the
name interrogatively, “Mr. and Mrs. Obed Probasco, of this place, I
believe?” as they came up.
The farmer dropped his belongings and answered in a bewilderment that
had nothing of ill-nature, “The same, sir, at your service, sartin
sure. An’ who might I have the pleasure of addressin’?”