ON THE SCENT
Dormer Colville attached so much importance to the Captain's grave jest
that he interpreted it at once to Monsieur de Gemosac.
"Captain Clubbe," he said, "tells us that he does not need to be informed
that this Loo Barebone is the man we seek. He has long known it."
Which was a near enough rendering, perhaps, to pass muster in the hearing
of two persons imperfectly acquainted with the languages so translated.
Then, turning again to the sailor, he continued:
"Monsieur de Gemosac would naturally wish to know whether there were
papers or any other means of identification found on the woman or the
child?"
"There were a few papers. The woman had a Roman Catholic Missal in her
pocket, and the child a small locket with a miniature portrait in it."
"Of the Queen Marie Antoinette?" suggested Colville, quickly.
"It may well have been. It is many years since I saw it. It was faded
enough. I remember that it had a fall, and would not open afterward. No
one has seen it for twenty-five years or so."
"The locket or the portrait?" inquired Colville, with a light laugh, with
which to disclaim any suggestion of a cross-examination.
"The portrait."
"And the locket?"
"My wife has it somewhere, I believe."
Colville gave an impatient laugh. For the peaceful air of Farlingford had
failed to temper that spirit of energy and enterprise which he had
acquired in cities--in Paris, most likely. He had no tolerance for quiet
ways and a slow, sure progress, such as countrymen seek, who are so
leisurely that the years slide past and death surprises them before they
have done anything in the world but attend to its daily demand for a
passing effort.
"Ah!" he cried, "but all that must be looked into if we are to do
anything for this young fellow. You will find the Marquis anxious to be
up and doing at once. You go so slowly in Farlingford, Captain. The world
is hurrying on and this chance will be gone past before we are ready. Let
us get these small proofs of identity collected together as soon as
possible. Let us find that locket. But do not force it open. Give it to
me as it is. Let us find the papers."
"There are no papers," interrupted Captain Clubbe, with a calm
deliberation quite untouched by his companion's hurry.
"No papers?"
"No; for Frenchman burnt them before my eyes."
Dormer Colville meditated for a moment in silence. Although his manner
was quick, he was perhaps as deliberate in his choice of a question as
was Captain Clubbe in answering it.
"Why did he do that? Did he know who he was? Did he ever say anything to
you about his former life--his childhood--his recollections of France?"
"He was not a man to say much," answered Clubbe, himself no man to repeat
much.
Colville had been trying for some time to study the sailor's face,
quietly through his cigar smoke.
"Look here, Captain," he said, after a pause. "Let us understand each
other. There is a chance, just a chance, that we can prove this Loo
Barebone to be the man we think him, but we must all stand together. We
must be of one mind and one purpose. We four, Monsieur de Gemosac, you,
Barebone, and my humble self. I fancy--well, I fancy it may prove to be
worth our while."
"I am willing to do the best I can for Loo," was the reply.
"And I am willing to do the best I can for Monsieur de Gemosac, whose
heart is set on this affair. And," Colville added, with his frank laugh,
"let us hope that we may have our reward; for I am a poor man myself, and
do not like the prospect of a careful old age. I suppose, Captain, that
if a man were overburdened with wealth he would scarcely follow a
seafaring life, eh?"
"Then there is money in it?" inquired Clubbe, guardedly.
"Money," laughed the other. "Yes--there is money for all concerned, and
to spare."
Captain Clubbe had been born and bred among a people possessing little
wealth and leading a hard life, only to come to want in old age. It was
natural that this consideration should carry weight. He was anxious to do
his best for the boy who had been brought up as his own son. He could
think of nothing better than to secure him from want for the rest of his
days. There were many qualities in Loo Barebone which he did not
understand, for they were quite foreign to the qualities held to be
virtues in Farlingford; such as perseverance and method, a careful
economy, and a rigid common sense. Frenchman had brought these strange
ways into Farlingford when he was himself only a boy of ten, and they had
survived his own bringing up in some of the austerest houses in the town,
so vitally as to enable him to bequeath them almost unchastened to his
son.
As has been noted, Loo had easily lived down the prejudices of his own
generation against an un-English gaiety, and inconsequence almost
amounting to emotion. And nothing is, or was in the solid days before
these trumpet-blowing times, so unwelcome in British circles as emotion.
Frenchman had no doubt prepared the way for his son; but the
peculiarities of thought and manner which might be allowed to pass in a
foreigner would be less easily forgiven in Loo, who had Farlingford blood
in his veins. For his mother had been a Clubbe, own cousin, and, as
gossips whispered, once the sweetheart of Captain Clubbe himself and
daughter of Seth Clubbe of Maiden's Grave, one of the largest farmers on
the Marsh.
"It cannot be for no particular purpose that the boy has been created so
different from any about him," Captain Clubbe muttered, reflectively, as
he thought of Dormer Colville's words. For he had that simple faith in an
Almighty Purpose, without which no wise man will be found to do business
on blue water.
"It is strange how a man may be allowed to inherit from a grandfather he
has never seen a trick of manner, or a face which are not the manner or
face of his father," observed Colville, adapting himself, as was his
habit, to the humour of his companion. "There must, as you suggest, be
some purpose in it. God writes straight on crooked lines, Captain."
Thus Dormer Colville found two points of sympathy with this skipper of a
slow coaster, who had never made a mistake at sea nor done an injustice
to any one serving under him; a simple faith in the Almighty Purpose and
a very honest respect for money. This was the beginning of a sort of
alliance between four persons of very different character which was to
influence the whole lives of many.
They sat on the tarred seat set against the weather-beaten wall of "The
Black Sailor" until darkness came stealing in from the sea with the quiet
that broods over flat lands, and an unpeopled shore. Colville had many
questions to ask and many more which he withheld till a fitter occasion.
But he learnt that Frenchman had himself stated his name to be Barebone
when he landed, a forlorn and frightened little boy, on this barren
shore, and had never departed from that asseveration when he came to
learn the English language and marry an English wife. Captain Clubbe told
also how Frenchman, for so he continued to be called long after his real
name had been written twice in the parish register, had soon after his
marriage destroyed the papers carefully preserved by the woman whom he
never called mother, though she herself claimed that title.
She had supported herself, it appeared, by her needle, and never seemed
to want money, which led the villagers to conclude that she had some
secret store upon which to draw when in need. She had received letters
from France, which were carefully treasured by her until her death, and
for long afterward by Frenchman, who finally burnt all at his marriage,
saying that he was now an Englishman and wanted to retain no ties with
France. At this time, Clubbe remembered, Louis XVIII was firmly
established on the throne of France, the Restoration--known as the
Second--having been brought about by the Allied Powers with a high hand
after the Hundred Days and the final downfall of Napoleon.
Frenchman may well have known that it might be worth his while to return
to France and seek fortune there; but he never spoke of this knowledge
nor made reference to the recollections of his childhood, which cast a
cold reserve over his soul and steeped it with such a deadly hatred of
France and all things French, that he desired to sever all memories that
might link him with his native country or awake in the hearts of any
children he should beget the desire to return thither.
A year after his marriage his wife died, and thus her son, left to the
care of a lonely and misanthropic father, was brought up a Frenchman
after all, and lisped his first words in that tongue.
"He lived long enough to teach him to speak French and think like a
Frenchman, and then he died," said Captain Clubbe--"a young man reckoning
by years, but in mind he was an older man than I am today."
"And his secret died with him?" suggested Dormer Colville, looking at the
end of his cigar with a queer smile. But Captain Clubbe made no answer.
"One may suppose that he wanted it to die with him, at all events," added
Colville, tentatively.
"You are right," was the reply, a local colloquialism in common use, as a
clincher to a closed argument or an unwelcome truth. Captain Clubbe rose
as he spoke and intimated his intention of departing, by jerking his head
sideways at Monsieur de Gemosac, who, however, held out his hand with a
Frenchman's conscientious desire to follow the English custom.
"I'll be getting home," said Clubbe, simply. As he spoke he peered across
the marsh toward the river, and Colville, following the direction of his
gaze, saw the black silhouette of a large lug-sail against the eastern
sky, which was softly grey with the foreglow of the rising moon.
"What is that?" asked Colville.
"That's Loo Barebone going up with the sea-breeze. He has been down to
the rectory. He mostly goes there in the evening. There is a creek, you
know, runs down from Maiden's Grave to the river."
"Ah!" answered Colville, thoughtfully, almost as if the creek and the
large lug-sail against the sky explained something which he had not
hitherto understood.
"I thought he might have come with you this evening," he added, after a
pause. "For I suppose everybody in Farlingford knows why we are here. He
does not seem very anxious to seek his fortune in France."
"No," answered Clubbe, lifting his stony face to the sky and studying the
little clouds that hovered overhead awaiting the moon. "No--you are
right."
Then he turned with a jerk of the head and left them. The Marquis de
Gemosac watched him depart, and made a gesture toward the darkness of the
night, into which he had vanished, indicative of a great despair.
"But," he exclaimed, "they are of a placidity--these English. There is
nothing to be done with them, my friend, nothing to be done with such men
as that. Now I understand how it is that they form a great nation. It is
merely because they stand and let you thump them until you are tired, and
then they proceed to do what they intended to do from the first."
"That is because we know that he who jumps about most actively will be
the first to feel fatigue, Marquis," laughed Colville, pleasantly. "But
you must not judge all England from these eastern people. It is here that
you will find the concentrated essence of British tenacity and
stolidity--the leaven that leavens the whole."
"Then it is our misfortune to have to deal with these concentrated
English--that is all."
The Marquis shrugged his shoulders with that light despair which is
incomprehensible to any but men of Latin race.
"No, Marquis! there you are wrong," corrected Dormer Colville, with a
sudden gravity, "for we have in Captain Clubbe the very man we want--one
of the hardest to find in this chattering world--a man who will not say
too much. If we can only make him say what we want him to say he will not
ruin all by saying more. It is so much easier to say a word too much than
a word too little. And remember he speaks French as well as English,
though, being British, he pretends that he cannot."
Monsieur de Gemosac turned to peer at his companion in the darkness.
"You speak hopefully, my friend," he said. "There is something in your
voice--"
"Is there?" laughed Colville, who seemed elated. "There may well be. For
that man has been saying things in that placid monotone which would have
taken your breath away had you been able to understand them. A hundred
times I rejoiced that you understood no English, for your impatience,
Marquis, might have silenced him as some rare-voiced bird is silenced by
a sudden movement. Yes, Marquis, there is a locket containing a portrait
of Marie Antoinette. There are other things also. But there is one
draw-back. The man himself is not anxious to come forward. There are
reasons, it appears, here in Farlingford, why he should not seek his
fortune elsewhere. To-morrow morning--"
Dormer Colville rose and yawned audibly. It almost appeared that he
regretted having permitted himself a moment's enthusiasm on a subject
which scarcely affected his interests.
"To-morrow morning I will see to it."