“A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.”
There were plenty of old friends in Fardale who were ready and willing
to take Bernard Burrage in and do all in their power for him, but Alvin
Brander was on hand with a comfortable sleigh to bear Inza’s father from
the station when the next train came in over the line from the place of
the wreck.
Inza accompanied her father, of course. Frank Merriwell, Roy Swift, and
Walter Burrage, the latter with his left arm in a sling, were also on
the train, but they decided to stop at the hotel.
Of course, they were heroes to the villagers, who had thousands of
questions to ask about the wreck. Not a few of the injured had belonged
in Fardale, or were known there, and one among the four killed outright
had once lived in the little village. It was a mighty sensation for a
town of that size.
Frank was remembered and recognized by many. Some recognized Swift. But
no one seemed to know Walter Burrage, who registered at the hotel under
a fictitious name.
Mr. Burrage, strange to say, had received very few bodily injuries in
the catastrophe; but mentally he had been given a terrible shock, and
his condition was regarded as critical. The following morning, however,
the inquiring and solicitous villagers learned that he seemed somewhat
better.
Walter Burrage tried to avoid Swift, but this he found rather difficult,
for the young soldier refused to be dodged. And so, biding his time,
Swift caught Walter alone in his room after the latter had visited his
father and Inza that morning. The young man in uniform walked right into
the room, with an air of easy assurance that was a trifle annoying.
“Good morning, Burrage,” he said loudly.
“If you don’t mind, it will please me for you to call me by the name I
have registered under—Burton,” said Walter, in a low tone. “You know I
do not care about being recognized here, and I depend on this beard to
serve as a disguise.”
“Rather careless of you, to say the least,” declared Swift. “But I’m
perfectly willing to call you any old thing you like. It doesn’t matter
to me, and I’m your friend, you know.”
“I hope you are.”
“Oh, I am—your particular friend. How is your arm this morning, old
man?”
“Well, you may be sure it doesn’t feel pleasant.”
“Sorry. But you were lucky to get off so easy.”
“That’s right,” agreed Walter.
“You have a way of bumping into hard luck, you know,” said Swift, taking
a seat and lighting a cigar before offering one to his companion. “Have
a smoke?”
Walter declined.
“That little affair which obliterated you from the map of the United
States was very unfortunate,” pursued the soldier, without guarding his
voice in the least.
“What are you trying to do, man?” demanded Walter, a flush in his cheeks
and his eyes flashing. “Are you determined to tell these people here who
I am?”
“Not at all. Just carelessness of me. But it would be a bad thing if it
got out, wouldn’t it? You’d be nabbed and have to stand trial. They’d be
sure to convict you, and you’d get ten or twenty years. I say, Walt, old
chum, you’re running a deuce of a risk coming here.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. I know it well enough. But I’ve been
hungry for a sight of the old places and of my father, sister, and
friends. You don’t know what it is, Swift, to be an outcast, a man
without a country. I don’t suppose I’d felt half so bad if I’d thought I
might come back any time without fear of anything; but the knowledge of
what was hanging over my head the moment I placed my foot on the soil of
the United States made me wild to see the land in which I was born, my
native land, the land I love!”
“Don’t believe I’d felt that way in your place. I’d felt that I didn’t
care a rap for a country where I had been treated in such a shabby
manner.”
“Did you ever read Edward Everett Hale’s wonderful story, ‘The Man
Without a Country’?”
“Naw! I don’t read stories. They’re such rot!”
“Some are; some are not. The one I speak of seems to me the greatest
story ever written, for I am much like the poor wretch in that story. He
railed against his native land, cursed it, expressed a wish to never set
foot on its shores again. As he was an officer in the regular army, this
was regarded as treason. He was tried and condemned to eternal
banishment from the United States. He had said that he wished never
again to hear the name of his country, and in the decree of his
punishment it was directed that never again should he hear it.
“He was sent to sea on a vessel of the American Navy. From the time the
shores of the United States vanished from his view until his death, he
never saw it more. He was transferred from ship to ship, so that always
he was kept in foreign waters. Orders were that no one should ever speak
to him of the United States. Further than that, no book, newspaper, or
printed matter of any sort bearing any information or telling anything
about the United States was permitted to reach his hands.
“He never received a letter from a single friend in his native land. He
was in every way ‘a man without a country.’ What was the result? Soon
his feelings began to change. He longed to know something about the land
of his birth. What was taking place there? It was all unavailing for him
to try to find out. His questions remained unanswered, and finally he
ceased to ask them. But always in his eyes there was a look of such
unspeakable longing as to touch the heart of every one who saw him.
“In the last vessel to which he was transferred he remained a very long
time. When he died it was found he had made himself an American flag,
which hung where it would be constantly before his eyes in his
stateroom. He had drawn as well as he could a map of the United States,
that he might remember how broad and grand was the land he had cursed.
But since his banishment vast tracts of the West had been added to the
country he had lost, so the map really showed that grand land as only
about one-fourth as large as it really was.
“Of these changes he knew nothing. Mighty events had taken place, but of
them all he remained in absolute ignorance. But his love for his lost
country had grown with the years till no man ever loved it more, and
each night as he knelt before that hand-made flag, the glorious stars
and stripes, he prayed with all his heart and soul for the welfare of
the land he would see no more. In his dying moments the weight of his
terrible punishment was lifted from him, for one who was with him told
him of the stupendous changes that had taken place, of the mighty
advances the United States had made in every way, and his eyes filled
with joyous tears, while he lifted his thin old hands in thanksgiving to
God. And at last he died and was buried at sea, without ever again
seeing the shores of the land he had cursed, the land he had grown to
love with all his soul. What do you think of that story, Swift?”
“Bah! A ridiculous yarn, devised by the brain of a man who was looking
for notoriety.”
“Nothing of the sort! It appealed to me as no other story ever did.”
“Circumstances made it appeal to you. But the ‘hero’ of the yarn was a
fool! Think I’d love a country that did such a thing to me? Well, I’d
die cursing it!”
“Then something tells me that, even though you wear the uniform of your
country now, you have little real love for it in your heart.”
“Oh, I’m not a fool, Burrage! I’m a soldier in the regular army, and
haven’t I a chance to see how this country uses her subjects? I think I
have! There are lots of poor devils out in those islands who love the
States even less than I do.”
Walter’s dislike for the fellow was increasing rapidly.
“I don’t believe it!” he cried. “If it is true, they should swap places
with me. How gladly I’d do that! I’d rejoice to take the uniform of a
common soldier if I might fight beneath the flag I love. I have felt
that I, too, am a man without a country. It is a terrible feeling,
Swift! One gets to hankering for the sight of Yankeeland till it seems
that he’ll go daffy!”
“Oh, if I’d been treated as you have, I’d go to England and become a
naturalized citizen.”
“Which is proof enough that you have no real love for your own land in
your heart. That is something I’ll never do. Some day the whole affair
in which I took part may be cleared up, and I may be able to come home
without sneaking back in disguise. Then how gladly I shall come!”
“All right! We’re not all alike. You’ve been to see your father this
morning?”
“Yes.”
“How is he?”
“Far better than I expected.”
“He was not hurt in the accident?”
“Not much, although he was badly shaken up.”
“And your sister?”
“She’s quite well.”
“By Jove! I thought she was done for when I saw Merriwell creep out with
her! That gave me a terrible jolt! Do you know, Burrage, you have a
confoundedly handsome sister?”
“Yes, I know Inza is a beautiful girl,” confessed Walter, though he did
not like the manner in which Swift had spoken.
“She’s a peach!” the soldier declared. “I’m dead smashed on her, my
boy!”
“Better not be.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think she likes you very well.”
Swift flushed a little, but forced a laugh.
“That’s because I expressed my mind concerning that fellow Merriwell. I
didn’t know I was touching her so hard. But for the unpleasantness of
the situation, I’d stood by my statements. I never liked him. See here,
is Inza in love with that duffer?”
Walter shrugged his shoulders.
“Better not let him hear you speak of him like that. I don’t know
whether she is in love with him or not.”
“Well, he’s smashed on her.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, didn’t I hear him talking to her when he knelt beside her after
escaping from the wreck. She had not recovered, and he thought she was
dead. He gave himself away then.”
“Well, if Frank Merriwell is in love with my sister, I am very glad.”
“But marriage does not always follow love,” said Swift, in a mean,
insinuating way.
Walter Burrage whirled on the fellow, his face dark with anger.
“Don’t make any nasty talk like that!” he exclaimed. “I have only one
arm, but I won’t stand for it, Swift!”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything!” the soldier protested. “But I was led to
understand that Merriwell and Inza are not engaged.”
“I do not know whether they are or not. If I did, I might not tell you,
for I regard it as none of your business.”
Then Walter walked out of the room and left Swift there.
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