"Me!" replied March.
Mary said nothing to this. It was quite clear that the Wild Man must
have neglected her education sadly. She did not even smile; she merely
shook her head, and gazed abstractedly at the embers of the fire.
"Dick is not your father, Mary," continued March energetically, "but he
has become your father. I am not your brother, but I'll become your
brother--if you'll let me."
March in his enthusiasm tried to raise himself; consequently he fell
back and drowned Mary's answer in a groan of anguish. But he was not to
be baulked.
"What said you?" he inquired after a moment's pause.
"Me say you be very good."
She said this so calmly that March felt severely disappointed. In the
height of his enthusiasm he forgot that the poor girl had as yet seen
nothing to draw out her feelings towards him as his had been drawn out
towards her. She had seen no "vision," except, indeed, the vision of a
wretched, dishevelled youth, of an abrupt, excitable temperament, with
one side of his countenance scratched in a most disreputable manner, and
the other side swelled and mottled to such an extent that it resembled a
cheap plum-pudding with the fruit unequally and sparsely distributed
over its yellow surface.
March was mollified, however, when the girl suggested that his pillow
seemed uncomfortable, and rose to adjust it with tender care. Then she
said: "Now me bring blankit. You go sleep. Me sit here till you sleep,
after that me go away. If ye wants me, holler out. Me sleep in next
room."
So saying, this wonderful creature flitted across the cavern and
vanished, thereby revealing to March the fact that there was a third
cavern in that place. Presently she returned with a green blanket, and
spread it over him, after which she sat down by the fire and seemed
absorbed in her private meditations while March tried to sleep.
But what a night March had of it! Whichever way he turned, that vision
was ever before his eyes. When he awoke with a start, there she was,
bending over the fire. When he dreamed, there she was, floating in an
atmosphere of blue stars. Sometimes she was smiling on him, sometimes
gazing sadly, but never otherwise than sweetly. Presently he saw her
sitting on Dick's knee, twisting his great moustache with her delicate
hand, and he was about to ask Dick how he had managed to get back so
soon, when he (the Wild Man) suddenly changed into March's own mother,
who clasped the vision fervently to her breast and called her her own
darling son! There was no end to it. She never left him. Sometimes
she appeared in curious forms and in odd aspects--though always pleasant
and sweet to look upon. Sometimes she was dancing gracefully like an
embodied zephyr on the floor; frequently walking in mid-air;
occasionally perambulating the ceiling of the cave. She often changed
her place, but she never went away. There was no escape. And March was
glad of it. He didn't want to escape. He was only too happy to court
the phantom. But it did not require courting. It hovered over him,
walked round him, sat beside him, beckoned to him, and smiled at him.
Never,--no, never since the world began was any scratched and battered
youth so thoroughly badgered and bewitched, as was poor March Marston on
that memorable night, by that naughty vision in leather!