THE DICE-BOX.
That same afternoon, at four o'clock, Captain Barker and Captain
Runacles entered Harwich and advanced up the West Street side by
side. Each had a bulky letter in his side-pocket, and the address
upon each letter was the same. They talked but little.
On the right-hand side of West Street, as you enter the town, and a
hundred yards or more from the town gate, there stood at that time a
two-storeyed house of more pretensions than its fellows--from which
it drew back somewhat. A line of railings, covered with ironwork of
a florid and intricate pattern, but greatly decayed, shut it off from
the roadway. The visitor, on opening the broad iron gate over which
this pattern culminated in the figure of a Triton blowing a
conch-shell, found himself in a pebbled court and before a massive
front-door.
Neglect hung visibly over house and court alike as the two captains
entered by the iron gate and looked around them with more trepidation
than they had ever displayed in action. Grass sprouted between the
pebbles and a greenish stain lay upon the flagstones. The drab
frontage was similarly streaked; dust and rain together had set a
crust upon the windows, and tufts of dark mossy grass again
flourished in the gutter-pipes beneath the eaves.
Surveying this desolation, Captain Jemmy uttered a grunt and Captain
John a "p'sh!" They fumbled in their pockets, drew out their two
letters, and moved to the blistered front-door. A bell-pull, as
rusty as the railings outside, depended by the jamb. Captain Jemmy
tugged at it. It was noteworthy that whenever any effort had to be
put forth, however small, the tall man stepped forward and the
hunchback looked on. It was Captain Jemmy, for instance, who had, a
moment before, pushed back the gate.
He had to tug thrice before a discordant bell sounded within the
house, and twice again before footsteps began to shuffle along the
passage.
A bolt was let down and the big door fell open, disclosing a small
serving-girl, who stared upon the visitors with round eyes.
"Is your mistress within?"
"Mistress Salt is within, sirs; but--"
"But what?"
"She--she can't see you!" The girl burst into tears.
"Who the devil asked her to see us?" rapped out Captain Barker.
"You are to take these two letters," interposed Captain Runacles.
Each captain held out his letter. "You are to take these two--blow
your nose and dry your eyes--letters to your mistress at once--mind
you, _at once_--and together--_together_, you understand, and--what
in thunder are you whimpering about?"
"I c-c-can't, sirs."
"Can't! Why, in the name of--don't drip on 'em, I tell you! Why, in
the name of--"
The iron gate creaked behind them, and the two captains turned their
heads. A portly, broad-shouldered gentleman, in a suit of snuff
colour, came slowly across the court, with both hands behind him, and
a cane rapping against his heels.
"Dr. Beckerleg."
"Hey? Why--Captain Barker! Captain Runacles! Glad to see you
both--glad to see you both home again! Also I'd be glad to know what
you're both doing here, at such a time."
The captains looked at each other and coughed. They turned towards
the doorway. The serving-girl had disappeared, taking their letters
with her. Captain Barker faced round upon the Doctor.
"You said 'at such a time,' sir."
"I did."
"And why not at this time, as well as another?"
"God bless me! Is it possible you don't know?"
"It is not only possible, but certain."
The Doctor bent his head, pointed up at a window, and whispered; then
went softly up the three steps into the house.
He left the two friends staring at each other. They stood and stared
at each other for three minutes or more. Then Captain Barker spoke
in a hoarse whisper.
"Jemmy, do you know anything about this--this kind of business?"
"Nothing. I was abroad, you know, when my own little maid--"
"Yes, I remember. But I thought, perhaps--say, I can't go home
till--till I've seen the Doctor again."
"Nor I."
A dull moan sounded within the house.
"Oh, my God!" groaned Captain Runacles; "Meg--Meg!"
A lattice was opened softly above them and the doctor leant out.
"Go away--you two!" he whispered and waved his hand towards the gate.
"But, Doctor--"
"H'sh! I'll come and tell you when it's over. Where shall you be?"
"At the Three Crowns, down the street here."
"Right."
The lattice was closed again very gently. Captain Barker laid his
hand upon the tall man's sleeve.
"Jemmy, we're out of this action. I thought I knew what it meant to
lay-to and have to look on while a fight went forward; but I didn't.
Come--"
They passed out of the courtyard and down the street towards the
Three Crowns. Beneath the sign of that inn there lounged a knot of
officers wearing the flesh-coloured facings of the Buffs, and within
a young baritone voice was uplifted and trolling, to the
accompaniment of clinking glasses, a song of Mr. Shirley's:
You virgins that did late despair
To keep your wealth from cruel men,
Tie up in silk your careless hair:
Soft Peace is come again! . . .
There was one sitting-room but no bedroom to be had at the Three
Crowns. So they ordered up a dinner which they could not touch, but
sat over in silence for two weary hours, drinking very much more
burgundy than they were aware of. Captain Jemmy, taking up three
bottles one after another and finding them all empty, ordered up
three more, and drew his chair up to the hearth, where he sat kicking
the oaken logs viciously with his long legs. The little hunchback
stared out on the falling night, rang for candles, and began to pace
the room like a caged beast.
Before midnight Captain Runacles was drunk. Six fresh bottles stood
on the table. The man was a cask. Even in the warm firelight his
face was pale as a sheet, and his lips worked continually.
Captain Barker still walked up and down, but his thin legs would not
always move in a straight line. His eyes glared like two globes of
green fire, and he began to knock against the furniture. Few men can
wait helplessly and come out of it with credit. Every time Captain
John hit himself against the furniture Captain Jemmy cursed him.
Tie up in silk your careless hair;
Soft Peace is come again!
--Sang the little man, in a rasping voice. "Your careless hair," he
hiccoughed; "your careless hair, Meg!"
Then he sat down on the floor and laughed to himself softly, rocking
his distorted body to and fro.
"Bah!" said his friend, without looking round. "You're drunk."
And he poured out more burgundy. He was outrageously drunk himself,
but it only affected his temper, not his wits.
"Meg," he said, "will live. What's more, she'll live to marry me."
"She won't. She'll die. Hist! there's a star falling outside."
He picked himself up and crawled upon the window-seat, clutching at
the red curtains to keep his footing.
"Jemmy, she'll die! What was it that old fool said to-day?
The door's closing on us both. To think of our marching up, just
now, with those two letters; and the very sun in heaven cracking his
cheeks with laughter at us--us two poor scarecrows making love thirty
years after the time!"
His wry head dropped forward on his chest.
After this the two kept silence. The rest of the house had long
since gone to rest, and the sound of muffled snoring alone marked the
time as it passed, except when Captain Jemmy, catching up another oak
log, drove it into the fire with his heel; or out in the street the
watch went by, chanting the hour; or a tipsy shouting broke out in
some distant street, or the noise of dogs challenging each other from
their kennels across the sleeping town.
A shudder of light ran across the heavens, and over against the
window Captain Barker saw the east grow pale. For some while the
stars had been blotted out and light showers had fallen at intervals.
Heavy clouds were banked across the river, behind Shotley; and the
roofs began to glisten as they took the dawn.
Footsteps sounded on the roadway outside. He pushed open the window
and looked out. Doctor Beckerleg was coming up the street, his hat
pushed back and his neckcloth loosened as he respired the morning
air.
The footsteps paused underneath, by the inn door; but the little
Captain leant back in the window-seat without making a sign. He had
seen the Doctor's face. Before the fire Captain Jemmy brooded, with
chin on breast, hands grasping the chair-rail and long legs stretched
out, one on each side of the hearth. The knocking below did not
rouse him from this posture, nor the creaking of feet on the stairs.
Doctor Beckerleg stood in the doorway and for a moment contemplated
the scene--the empty bottles, the unsnuffed candles guttering down
upon the table, and the grey faces of both drunken men. Then he
turned and whispered a word to the drawer, who had hurried out of bed
to admit him and now stood behind his shoulder. The fellow shuffled
downstairs.
Captain Barker struggled with a question that was dried up in his
throat. Before he could get it out the Doctor shook his head.
"She is dead," he announced, very gravely and simply.
The hunchback shivered. Captain Runacles neither spoke nor stirred
in his chair.
"A man-child was born at two o'clock. He is alive: his mother died
two hours later."
Captain Barker shivered again, plucked aimlessly at a rosette in the
window-cushion, and stole a quick glance at his comrade's back.
Then, putting a finger to his lip, he slid down to the floor and
lurched across to the Doctor.
"She was left penniless?" he whispered.
"That, or almost that, 'tis said," replied Dr. Beckerleg in the same
key, though the question obviously surprised him. "Her father left
his money to the town, as all know--"
"Yes, yes; I knew that. Her husband--"
"Hadn't a penny-piece, I believe: pawned her own mother's jewels and
gambled 'em away; thereupon left her, as a dog his cleaned bone."
The little man laid a hand on his collar, and as the doctor stooped
whispered low and rapidly in his ear.
Their colloquy was interrupted.
"I'll adopt that child!" said Captain Runacles from the hearth.
He spoke aloud, but without turning his head.
Captain Barker hopped round, as if a pin were stuck into him.
"You!--adopt Meg's boy!"
"I said that."
"But you won't."
"I shall."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Jemmy; but I intend to adopt him
myself."
"I know it. You were whispering as much to the Doctor there."
"You have a little girl already."
"Precisely. That's where the difference comes in. This one, you'll
note, is a boy."
"A child of your own!"
"But not of Meg's."
Captain Runacles turned in his chair as he said this, and, reaching a
hand back to the table, drained the last bottle of burgundy into his
glass. His face was white as a sheet and his jaw set like iron.
"But not of Meg's," he repeated, lifting the glass and nodding over
it at the pair.
His friend swayed into a chair and sat facing him, his chin but
just above the table and his green eyes glaring like an owl's.
"Jemmy Runacles, _I_ adopt that boy!"
"You're cursedly obstinate, Jack."
"Having adopted him, I shall at once quit my profession and devote
the residue of my life to his education. For a year or two--that is,
until he reaches an age susceptible of tuition--I shall mature a
scheme of discipline, which--"
"My dear sir," the Doctor interposed, "surely all this is somewhat
precipitate."
"Not at all. My resolution was taken the instant you entered the
room."
"That hardly seems to me to prove--"
The little man waved aside the interruption and continued:
"Tristram--for I shall have him christened by that name--"
"He'll be called Jeremiah," decided Captain Runacles shortly.
"I've settled upon Tristram. The name is a suitable one, and
signifies that its wearer is a child of sorrow."
"Jeremiah also suggests lamentations, and has the further merit of
being my own name."
"Tristram--"
"Jeremiah--"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cried Dr. Beckerleg, "would it not be as well
to see the infant?"
"I can imagine," Captain Barker answered, "nothing in the infant that
is likely to shake my resolution. My scheme of discipline will be
based--"
"Decidedly, Jack, I shall have to run you through," said his friend
gloomily. Indeed, the Doctor stood in instant fear of this
catastrophe; for Captain Runacles' temper was a byword, and not even
his customary dark flush looked so dangerous as the lustreless,
sullen eyes now sunk in a face that was drawn and pinched and
absolutely wax-like in colour. To the Doctor's astonishment,
however, it was the little hunchback who now jumped up and whipped
out his sword.
"Run me through!" he almost screamed, dancing before the other and
threatening him with absurd flourishes--"Run me through?"
"Listen, gentlemen; listen, before blood is spilt! To me it appears
evident that you are both drunk."
"To me that seems an advantage, since it equalises matters."
"But whichever of you survives, he will be unable to forgive himself;
having sinned not only against God, but also against logic."
"How against logic?"
"Permit me to demonstrate. Mrs. Salt, whom (as I well know) you
esteemed, is lost to you; and in her place is left a babe whom--
healthy though he undoubtedly is--you cannot possibly esteem without
taking a great deal for granted, especially as you have not yet set
eyes on him. Now it is evident that, if one of you should kill the
other, a second life of approved worth will be sacrificed for an
infant of purely hypothetical merits. As a man of business I condemn
the transaction. As a Christian I deprecate the shedding of blood.
But if somebody's blood must be shed, let us be reasonable and kill
the baby!"
Captain Barker lowered his point.
"Decidedly the question is more difficult than I imagined."
"At least it cannot be settled before eating," said Dr. Beckerleg, as
the drawer entered with a tray. "You will forgive me that I took the
liberty of ordering breakfast as soon as I looked into this room.
Without asking to see your tongues, I prescribed dried herrings and
home-brewed ale; for myself, a fried sole, a beef-steak reasonably
under-done, a kidney-pie which the drawer commended on his own
motion, with a smoked cheek of pork, perhaps--"
"You wish us to sit still while you devour all this?"
"I am willing to give each side of the argument a fair chance."
"But I find nothing to argue about!" exclaimed Captain Runacles,
pushing his plate from him after a very faint attempt to eat.
"My mind being already made up--"
"And mine," interrupted Captain Barker.
"If I suggest that both of you adopt the child," Dr. Beckerleg begun.
"Still he must be educated; and our notions of education differ.
Moreover, when we differ--as you may have observed--we do so with
some thoroughness."
"Let me propose, then, a system of alternation, by which you could
adopt the boy for six months each, turn and turn about."
"But if--as would undoubtedly happen--each adoptive parent spent his
six months in undoing the other's work, it must follow that, at the
end of any given period, the child's mind would be a mere _tabula
rasa_. Suppose, on the other hand, we failed to wipe out each
other's teaching, the unfortunate youth would be launched upon life
with half his guns pointed inboard and his needle jerking from one
pole to the other. Consider the name, Jeremiah Tristram!"
"It is heterogeneous," admitted the Doctor.
"He would be called Tristram Jeremiah," Captain Barker put in.
"Well, but that is not less heterogeneous. O wise Solomon!" cried
the Doctor, with his mouth full of kidney-pie; "had I but the
authority you enjoyed in a like dispute, I would resign to you all
the credit of originality!"
"As it is, however, you are wasting our time, and it becomes clear
that we must fight, after all."
"By no means; for I have this moment received an inspiration.
Drawer!"
The drawer answered this summons almost before it was uttered, by
appearing in the doorway with a dish of eggs and a fresh tankard.
"Set the dish down and attend," commanded Dr. Beckerleg. "You have a
dice-box and dice in the house?"
"No, sir. His worship the Mayor--"
"My good fellow, the regulations against play in this town are well
known to me; also that the Crowns is an orderly house. Let me
suggest, then, that you have several gentlemen of the army lodging
under this roof; that one of these, if politely asked, might own that
he had come across such a thing as a dice-box during his sojourn in
the Low Countries. It may even be that in the sack of some
unpronounceable town or other he has acquired a specimen, and is
bringing it home in his valise to exhibit it to his family. Be so
good as to inform him that three gentlemen, in Room No. 6, who are
about to write a tractate on the amusements of the Dutch--"
"By your leave, sir, I don't know how it may be on campaign; but in
this house we never awaken a soldier for any reason which he cannot
grasp at once."
"In that case let him have his sleep out before you vex him with our
apologies. But meanwhile bring the dice."
The fellow went out, whispered to the chamber-maid, and returned in
less than five minutes with a pair of dice and a leathern box much
worn with use.
"They belong," he whispered, "to a young gentleman of the Admiral's
regiment, who was losing heavily last night."
"Thank you; they are the less likely to be loaded. You may retire
for a while. My friends," the Doctor continued, as soon as they were
alone, "Aristotle invented Chance to account for the astonishing fact
that there were certain things in the world which he could not
explain. I appeal to it for as cogent a reason. Indeed, had
Mistress Margaret--whose soul God has this night resumed--had she, I
say, been spared to receive and ponder the two letters which I saw
you deliver at her door; and had she invited me, as a tried friend,
to decide between them, I feel sure I should have ended by putting a
dice-box into her hands. Do not blush. No true man need blush that
he has loved such a woman: and you are both true men, if a trifle
obstinate--_justi et tenaces propositi_. Men of your character,
Flaccus tells us, do not blench at the thunderbolts of Jove himself;
and truly, I can well imagine his missile fizzing harmlessly into
your party hedge, unable to decide between the pavilion of Captain
John and the pavilion of Captain Jeremy. But Chance, being witless,
discriminates without trouble; and because she is blind, her
arbitraments offend nobody's sensibility. Do you consent?"
The two captains looked at the dice-box and nodded.
"The conditions?"
"One throw," said Captain Runacles.
"And the highest cast to win," added Captain Barker.
"You, Captain Barker, are the senior by a year, I believe. Will you
throw first?"
The little man caught up the box, rattled the dice briskly, and
threw--four and three.
Captain Runacles picked them up, and made his cast deliberately--six
and ace.
"Gentlemen, you must throw again. Fortune herself seems to hesitate
between you."
Captain Barker threw again, and leant back with a sob of triumph.
"Two sixes, upon my soul!" murmured the Doctor.
"I'm afraid, Captain Jeremy--" Captain Jeremy took the dice up,
turned them between finger and thumb, and dropped them slowly into
the box. As he lifted his hand to make the cast he looked up and saw
the gleam in his friend's greenish eyes.
The next moment box and dice flew past the hunchback's head and out
at the open window.
"That's my throw," Captain Runacles announced, standing up and
turning his back on the pair as he staggered across the room for his
hat. But the little man also had bounced up in a fury.
"That's a vile trick! I make the best throw, and you force me to
fight."
"Ah," said the other, facing slowly about and putting on his hat.
"I didn't see it in that light. Very well, Jack, I decline to fight
you."
"You apologise?"
"Certainly."
The little man held out a hand. "I might have known, Jemmy, you were
too good a fellow--" he began.
"Oh, stow away your pretty speeches and take back your hand. I can't
prevent your playing the fool with Meg's child; but if I had a decent
excuse, you may make up your mind I'd use it. As it is, the sight of
you annoys me. Good morning!"
He went out, slamming the door after him, and they heard him descend
the stairs and turn down the street.
"A day's peace," mused Captain Barker, "strikes me as more expensive
than a year's war. It has cost me my two dearest friends."
He strode up and down the room muttering angrily; then looked up and
said:
"Take me to Meg; I want to see her."
"And the child?"
"To be sure. I'd clean forgotten the child."
Dr. Beckerleg led the way downstairs. A pale sunshine touched the
edge of the pavement across the road, and while Captain Barker was
settling the bill, the doctor stepped across and picked a dice-box
out of the gutter.
"Luckily I found the dice, too; they were lying close together," said
he, as his companion came out. He turned the box round and appeared
to be reflecting; but next moment walked briskly into the bar and
returned the dice to the drawer, with a small fee.
"She is not much changed?" asked the Captain, as they moved down the
street arm in arm.
"Eh? You were saying? No, not changed. A beautiful face."
Though middle-aged and lined with trouble it was, as Dr. Beckerleg
said, a beautiful face that slept behind the dusty window above the
court where the sparrows chattered. From a chamber at the back of
the house the two men were met, as they climbed the stairs, by the
sound of an infant's wailing. Dr. Beckerleg went towards this, after
opening for the Captain the door of a room wherein no sound was at
all.
When, half an hour later, Captain Barker came out and closed this
door gently, Dr. Beckerleg, who waited on the landing, forbore to
look a second time at his face. Instead he stared fixedly at the
staircase wall and observed:
"I think it is time we turned our attention upon the child."
"Take me to him by all means."
Margaret's son was reclining, very red and angry, in the arms of
an old woman who attempted vainly to soothe him by tottering up
and down the room as fast as her decrepit legs would carry her.
The serving-girl, who had opened the door on the previous evening,
stood beside the window, her eyes swollen with weeping.
"He is extremely small," said the Captain.
"On the contrary, he is an unusually fine boy."
"He appears to me to want something."
"He wants food."
"Bless my soul! Has none been offered to him?"
"Yes; but he refuses it."
"Extraordinary!"
"Not at all. I understand--do I not?--that you have adopted this
infant."
The Captain nodded.
"Then your parental duties have already begun. You must come with me
at once and choose a wet nurse."
As they passed through the hall to the front-door, Captain Barker
perceived two letters lying side by side upon a table there.
He snatched them up hastily and crammed one into his pocket.
Then, handing the other to Dr. Beckerleg:
"You might give that to Jemmy when you see him, and--look here, as
soon as the child is out of the house, I think--if you went to
Jemmy--he might like to see Meg, you know."