IN THE VALLEY OF DECISION.
"And now, Colorado, son of my heart," the Skipper said, "you understand
why I was a thief that yesterday, and why I could not permit you at that
instant to tell of my thieving?"
They had put the old man to bed, and Mr. Bill Hen had gone for the
doctor. In fact, when John ran out of the door, he had found Mr. Bill
Hen leaning up against it, as speechless, with amazement and confusion,
as Mr. Scraper himself! The good man, wholly unable to restrain his
curiosity, had followed the Skipper and the boy, unbeknown to them, and
posting himself in a convenient angle of the porch, had heard every word
of the conversation. The Skipper, perceiving the facts, managed to rouse
him with a few sharp words, and sent him off in hot haste to the
village; and had then proceeded to make the old gentleman comfortable,
and to set things shipshape, so far as might be.
"Do you think he will die?" asked John, peeping over the bed at the
sunken features of the old man.
"I do not!" was the reply.
"I think this my revered uncle has yet many years to live--and repent,
if so he be minded. He is a very bad old man, Colorado, this my revered
uncle! Ah, thou ancient fish, thou art finally landed!"
"Are you sorry for a person when he is so bad as that?" asked the boy,
as he had asked once before.
"Do you think a person could make him better, if he tried very hard
indeed?"
"I have no knowledge!" said the Skipper, rather shortly. "I am a human
person altogether, my son! and I concern myself not greatly with the
improvement of this my revered uncle. Behold it, the will, made by my
grandfather, the father of my poor mother, whose soul, with his, rest in
eternal glory! By this, my mother, and I after her, inherit this house,
this garden, these possessions such as they are. If I desire, son of
mine, I may come here to-day to live, sell the 'Nautilus,' or cut her
cable and let her drift down the river, with Rento and Franci, and all
the shells; and I may live here in my house, to--what do you say?
cultivate my lands, eat grass and give it to the cattle? What think you,
Colorado? Is that a life? Shall I lead it, as is my right? Have I not
had enough, think you, of roving over the sea, with no place where I may
rest, save the heaving ocean, that rests never beneath the foot? Shall
we turn out this old wicked man, who did to death his old father, who
made my mother go sad of heart to her grave, who has done of all his
life no kind act to any person--shall we turn him out, and live in peace
here, you and I?"
The child came near to him, and laid his hand on his friend's knee, and
looked up in his face with troubled eyes.
"I am not very bright," he said, "and you think so many things so
quickly that I do not know what you mean a good deal of the time.
But--but Cousin Scraper took me when my people died, and he has taken
care of me ever since, and--and he has no one else to take care of him
now."
"Yes, the fine care he has taken of you!" said the Skipper. "You are of
skin and bone, my child, and there are marks on your skin of blows, I
saw them yesterday: cruel blows, given from a bad heart. You have worked
for him, this ancient fish-skin, how long? Of wages, how much has he
paid you? Tell me these things, and I will tell you how much it is your
duty to stay by him."
But John shook his head, and the shadows deepened in his blue eyes.
"You cannot tell a person those things," he said; "a person has to tell
himself those things. But thank you all the same," he added, fervently;
"and I love you always more and more, every day and every minute, and I
always shall."
"Now the question is," said the Skipper, shrugging his shoulders in mock
despair, "must I turn pirate in truth, to gain possession of a child
whom I could hold in my pocket, and who would give all his coloured hair
from his head to go with me? Go away, son of mine, that I reflect on
these things, for you try my soul!"
John withdrew, very sad, and wondering how it was that right and wrong
could ever get mixed. He thought of looking in some of the old books to
see, but, somehow, books did not appeal to him just now. He went up to
his own little room, and took down the china poodle, and had a long
talk with him; that was very consoling, and he felt better after it; it
was wonderful how it cleared the mind to talk a thing over with an old
friend. The poodle said little, but his eyes were full of sympathy, and
that was the main thing. By-and-by, as the child sat by his little
window, polishing the pearl-shell on his sleeve, and thinking over the
strange events of the last few days, there came to him from below the
sound of voices. The doctor was there, evidently; perhaps Mr. Bill Hen,
too; and little as he felt inclined to merriment, John fell into a
helpless laughter, as he recalled the look of that worthy man when he
was discovered flattened against the door. How much older one grew
sometimes in a short time! Mr. Bill Hen used to look so old, so wise,
and now he seemed no more than another boy, and perhaps rather a foolish
boy. But seeing the Skipper made a great difference in a person's life.
Presently the door at the foot of the stairs opened, and John heard his
name called; he hastened down, and found Mr. Scraper sitting up in bed,
looking pale and savage, but in full possession of his faculties. The
doctor was there, a burly, kind-eyed man, and Mr. Bill Hen was there,
and the Skipper; and when little John entered, they all looked at him,
and no one said anything for a moment.
At length the doctor broke the silence.
"I understand, sir," he said, addressing the Skipper, "that you have a
paper, a will or the like, substantiating your claims?"
"I have!" the Skipper replied. "The letter received by my mother,
shortly before her death, was dictated by my grandfather, and told that,
hearing for many years nothing from his son, this child's grandfather,
he had made a will in her favour. This, being timorous, he had not dared
to show to anyone, neither to send her a copy, but he bade her send a
messenger to make search in a certain cupboard of this house, on a
certain shelf, where would be found this paper. My mother dying,
commended to me this search. I at that time was a youth on adventures
bent, with already plans for eastern voyages. Keeping always the letter
in my pouch, and in my heart the desire of my mother, I came,
nevertheless, not to this part of the world; years come and go, Señor,
swiftly with men of the sea, and these shores seemed to me less of
attraction than Borneo and other places where were easily to be found my
wares. Briefly, I came not; till this year, a commission from a
collector of some extent brought the 'Nautilus' to New York. And then,
say I, how then if I go on, see this my inheritance, discover if it may
profit me somewhat? I come, I discover my revered uncle, unknown to him.
Is the discovery such that I desire to fall on his respected bosom,
crying, 'My uncle, soul of my family, behold your son!' I ask you,
Señors both! But I find this, my revered uncle, to be a collector of
shells: thus he is in one way already dear to my heart. Again, I find
here at the moment of my arrival a child, who is in effect of my own
blood, who is to me a son from the moment of our first speech. Is it so,
Colorado? Speak, my child!"
John could not speak, but he nodded like a little mandarin, and the red
curls fell into his eyes and hid the tears, so that no one but the
Skipper saw them.
"How then?" the Skipper resumed, after a moment's pause. "My soul not
calling me to reveal myself to this so-dear relative, what do I? I come
to this house, without special plan, to spy out the land, do we say? I
find my uncle forth of the house; I find my child travailing in the
garden. Good! The time appears to me accepted. I enter, I search, I find
the cupboard, I find the paper. Briefly, Señors both, behold me
possessor of this house, this garden, this domain royal."
He handed a paper to the doctor, who read it carefully, and nodded. Mr.
Scraper made an attempt to clutch it in passing, but grasped the air
only.
"What then, in finality, do I say?" the Skipper went on. "Do I desire to
stay in this place? Wishing not to grieve the Señor Pike, whom greatly I
esteem, I consider it unfit for the human being. Of property, I have
little desire; I have for my wants enough, I have my 'Nautilus,' I have
my boys, to what end should I retain these cold spots of earth, never
before seen by me? To what purpose, I ask it of you, Señors? Therefore,
in finality, I say to my revered uncle this: Give to me the child, give
to me the boy, that I take away and make a sailor, for which he was
born; and I of my part surrender house and garden, even any money bags
which may be, what know I, perhaps at this moment in the bed of my
revered uncle concealed?"
The old man gave a convulsive shudder at this, and shrieked faintly; all
started, but the Skipper laughed.
"You see, Señor Pike, and Señor Doctor, greatly respected! Who shall
know how great sums this ancient fish has hidden under him? Let him keep
them, these sums. I take the child, and I go my way. Is it finished,
uncle of my heart? Is it finished, venerable iniquity? Can you part with
the child, beloved, even as your old father was beloved, and like him
caressed and tenderly entreated? Answer, thou!"
But before Mr. Scraper could speak, little John stepped forward, very
pale, but clear in his mind.
"If you please," he said, "I should like to speak. If you please, he
(indicating the Skipper,) is so kind, and--and--he knows what I--he
knows things I have thought about, but he does not know all. Cousin
Scraper, you may be sick now, perhaps a long time, and perhaps you have
gone upon your bed to die, like that king in the Bible who had figs put
on; only he got well.
"And I want to stay and take care of you, and--and I will do as well as
I know how, and I think I can work more than I used to, because I know
more, these last days, than I did, and--and--I think that is all. But if
you don't mind--if you would try to like me a little, I think we should
get on better; and if dried figs would do, we might try those, you
know."
Here he turned to the doctor, with a face of such clear brightness that
the good man choked, and coughed, and finally went and looked out of the
window, wondering whether he was laughing or crying.
Then John came forward, and held out both hands to the old man with an
appealing gesture.
"Will you try to like me a little?" he said; and for the first time his
voice quivered.
"For now my only friend is going away, and I am sending him, and I shall
never see him again."
Mr. Endymion Scraper was a man of few ideas; and only one was in his
mind at this moment. Gathering himself up in the bed, he pushed the boy
away from him with all his feeble strength.
"Go 'way!" he said. "Go 'way, I tell ye. If that man there will take ye,
he's welcome to ye, I guess. If he's fool enough to take ye in exchange
for property, saying the property was his, which I aint fool enough to
do without a lawyer--he's welcome to ye. I say, he's welcome. I don't
want no brats round here. I took ye out of charity, and I've had enough
of ye. Go 'long, I say, with that wuthless feller, if he is my sister's
son. I want to be rid of the hull lot and passel of ye!"
His voice rose to a scream, and the veins on his narrow forehead stood
out like cords. The doctor motioned to the Spaniard; and the latter,
without another word, took the child up in his arms as he had done once
before, swung him over his shoulder, and left the room.