"Looked hungry, did you say?" Harry asked, lighting the dip at an oil lamp that swung near the bar.
"Yes--holler"s a drum--see straight through him; tired too--beat out.
You"d think so if you see him. My play--clubs."
Harry turned to the landlord: "If this man comes in again give him food and lodging," and he handed him a bank bill. "If he is here in the morning let me see him. I"m going to bed now. Good-night, men!"
CHAPTER XXV
Should I lapse into the easy-flowing style of the chroniclers of the period of which I write--(and how often has the scribe wished he could)--this chapter would open with the announcement that on this particularly bleak, wintry afternoon a gentleman in the equestrian costume of the day, and mounted upon a well-groomed, high-spirited white horse, might have been seen galloping rapidly up a country lane leading to an old-fashioned manor house.
Such, however, would not cover the facts. While the afternoon was certainly wintry, and while the rider was unquestionably a gentleman, he was by no manner of means attired in velveteen coat and russet-leather boots with silver spurs, his saddle-bags strapped on behind, but in a rough and badly worn sailor"s suit, his free hand grasping a bundle carried loose on his pommel. As to the horse neither the immortal James or any of his school could truthfully picture this animal as either white or high-spirited. He might, it is true, have been born white and would in all probability have stayed white but for the many omissions and commissions of his earlier livery stable training--traces of which could still be found in his sc.r.a.ped sides and gnawed mane and tail; he might also have once had a certain commendable spirit had not the ups and downs of road life--and they were pretty steep outside Kennedy Square--taken it out of him.
It is, however, when I come to the combination of horse and rider that I can with entire safety lapse into the flow of the old chroniclers. For whatever Harry had forgotten in his many experiences since he last threw his leg over Spitfire, horsemanship was not one of them. He still rode like a Cherokee and still sat his mount like a prince.
He had had an anxious and busy morning. With the first streak of dawn he had written a long letter to his Uncle George, in which he told him of his arrival; of his heart-felt sorrow at what Pawson had imparted and of his leaving immediately, first for Wesley and then Craddock, as soon as he found out how the land lay at Moorlands. This epistle he was careful to enclose in another envelope, which he directed to Justice Coston, with instructions to forward it with "the least possible delay" to Mr.
Temple, who was doubtless at Craddock, "and who was imperatively needed at home in connection with some matters which required his immediate personal attention," and which enclosure, it is just as well to state, the honorable justice placed inside the mantel clock, that being the safest place for such precious missives, at least until the right owner should appear.
This duly mailed, he had returned to the Sailors" House, knocked at the door of the upstairs room in which, through his generosity, the street vendor lay sleeping, and after waking him up and becoming a.s.sured that the man was in real distress, had bought at twice their value the China silks which had caused the disheartened pedler so many weary hours of tramping. These he had tucked under his arm and carried away.
The act was not alone due to his charitable instincts. A much more selfish motive influenced him. Indeed the thought came to him in a way that had determined him to attend to his mail at early dawn and return at sunrise lest the owner should disappear and take the bundle with him.
The silks were the very things he needed to help him solve one of his greatest difficulties. He would try, as the sailor-pedler had done, to sell them in the neighborhood of Moorlands--(a common practice in those days)--and in this way might gather up the information of which he was in search. Pawson had not known him--perhaps the others would not: he might even offer the silks to his father without being detected.
With this plan clearly defined in his mind, he had walked into a livery stable near the market, but a short distance from his lodgings, with the silks in a bundle and after looking the stock over had picked out this unprepossessing beast as best able to take him to Moorlands and back between sunrise and dark.
As he rode on, leaving the scattered buildings of the town far behind, mounting the hills and then striking the turnpike--every rod of which he could have found in the dark--his thoughts, like road-swallows, skimmed each mile he covered. Here was where he had stopped with Kate when her stirrup broke; near the branches of that oak close to the ditch marking the triangle of cross-roads he had saved his own and Spitfire"s neck by a clear jump that had been the talk of the neighborhood for days. On the crest of this hill--the one he was then ascending--his father always tightened up the brakes on his four-in-hand, and on the slope beyond invariably braced himself in his seat, swung his whip, and the flattened team swept on and down, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake that blurred the road for minutes thereafter.
When noon came he dismounted at a farmer"s out-building beside the road--he would not trust the public-houses--fed and watered his horse, rubbed him down himself, and after an hour"s rest pushed on toward the fork in the road to Moorlands. Beyond this was a cross-path that led to the outbarns and farm stables--a path bordered by thick bushes and which skirted a fence in the rear of the manor house itself. Here he intended to tie his steed and there he would mount him again should his mission fail.
The dull winter sky had already heralded the dusk--it was near four o"clock in the afternoon--when he pa.s.sed some hayricks where a group of negroes were at work. One or two raised their heads and then, as if rea.s.sured, resumed their tasks. This encouraged him to push on the nearer--he had evidently been mistaken for one of the many tradespeople seeking his father"s overseer, either to sell tools or buy produce.
Tying the horse close to the fence--so close that it could not be seen from the house--he threw the bundle of silks over his shoulder and struck out for the small office in the rear. Here the business of the estate was transacted, and here were almost always to be found either the overseer or one of his a.s.sistants--both of them white. These men were often changed, and his chance, therefore, of meeting a stranger was all the more likely.
As he approached the low sill of the door which was level with the ground, and which now stood wide open, he caught the glow of a fire and could make out the figure of a man seated at a desk bending over a ma.s.s of papers. The man pushed back a green shade which had protected his eyes from the glare of a lamp and peered out at him.
It was his father!
The discovery was so unexpected and had come with such suddenness--it was rarely in these later days that the colonel was to be found here in the afternoon: he was either riding or receiving visitors--that Harry"s first thought was to shrink back out of sight, or, if discovered, to make some excuse for his intrusion and retire. Then his mind changed and he stepped boldly in. This was what he had come for and this was what he would face.
"I have some China silks to sell," he said in his natural tone of voice, turning his head so that while his goods were in sight his face would be in shadow.
"Silks! I don"t want any silks! Who allowed you to pa.s.s in here? Alec!"
He pushed back his chair and moved to the door. "Alec! Where the devil is Alec! He"s always where I don"t want him!"
"I saw no one to ask, sir," Harry replied mechanically. His father"s appearance had sent a chill through him; he would hardly have known him had he met him on the street. Not only did he look ten years older, but the injury to his sight caused him to glance sideways at any one he addressed, completely destroying the old fearless look in his eyes.
"You never waited to ask! You walk into my private office unannounced and--" here he turned the lamp to see the better. "You"re a sailor, aren"t you?" he added fiercely--a closer view of the intruder only heightening his wrath.
"Yes, sir--I"m a sailor," replied Harry simply, his voice dying in his throat as he summed up the changes that the years had wrought in the colonel"s once handsome, determined face--thinner, more shrunken, his mustache and the short temple-whiskers almost white.
For an instant his father crumpled a wisp of paper he was holding between his fingers and thumb; and then demanded sharply, but with a tone of curiosity, as if willing the intruder should tarry a moment while he gathered the information:
"How long have you been a sailor?"
"I am just in from my last voyage." He still kept in the shadow although he saw his father had so far failed to recognize him. The silks had been laid on a chair beside him.
"That"s not what I asked you. How long have you been a sailor?" He was scanning his face now as best he could, shifting the green shade that he might see the better.
"I went to sea three years ago."
"Three years, eh? Where did you go?"
The tone of curiosity had increased. Perhaps the next question would lead up to some basis on which he could either declare himself or lay the foundation of a declaration to be made the next day--after he had seen his mother and Alec.
"To South America. Para was my first port," he answered simply, wondering why he wanted to know.
"That"s not far from Rio?" He was still looking sideways at him, but there was no wavering in his gaze.
"No, not far--Rio was our next stopping place. We had a hard voyage and put in to--"
"Do you know a young man by the name of Rutter--slim man with dark hair and eyes?" interrupted his father in an angry tone.
Harry started forward, his heart in his mouth, his hands upraised, his fingers opening. It was all he could do to restrain himself. "Don"t you know me, father?" was trembling on his lips. Then something in the sound of the colonel"s voice choked his utterance. Not now, he thought, mastering his emotion--a moment more and he would tell him.
"I have heard of him, sir," he answered when he recovered his speech, straining his ears to catch the next word.
"Heard of him, have you? So has everybody else heard of him--a worthless scoundrel who broke his mother"s heart; a man who disgraced his family--a gentleman turned brigand--a renegade who has gone back on his blood! Tell him so if you see him! Tell him I said so; I"m his father, and know! No--I don"t want your silks--don"t want anything that has to do with sailormen. I am busy--please go away. Don"t stop to bundle them up--do that outside," and he turned his back and readjusted the shade over his eyes.
Harry"s heart sank, and a cold faintness stole through his frame. He was not angry nor indignant. He was stunned.
Without a word in reply he gathered up the silks from the chair, tucked them under his arm, and replacing his cap stepped outside into the fast approaching twilight. Whatever the morrow might bring forth, nothing more could be done to-day. To have thrown himself at his father"s feet would only have resulted in his being driven from the grounds by the overseer, with the servants looking on--a humiliation he could not stand.
As he stood rolling the fabrics into a smaller compa.s.s, a gray-haired negro in the livery of a house servant pa.s.sed hurriedly and entered the door of the office. Instantly his father"s voice rang out:
"Where the devil have you been, Alec? How many times must I tell you to look after me oftener. Don"t you know I"m half blind and--No--I don"t want any more wood--I want these vagabonds kept off my grounds. Send Mr.
Grant to me at once, and don"t you lose sight of that man until you have seen him to the main road. He says he is a sailor--and I"ve had enough of sailors, and so has everybody else about here."
The negro bowed and backed out of the room. No answer of any kind was best when the colonel was in one of his "tantrums."
"I reckon I hab to ask ye, sah, to quit de place--de colonel don"t "low n.o.body to--" he said politely.
Harry turned his face aside and started for the fence. His first thought was to drop his bundle and throw his arms around Alec"s neck; then he realized that this would be worse than his declaring himself to his father--he could then be accused of attempting deception by the trick of a disguise. So he hurried on to where his horse was tied--his back to Alec, the bundle shifted to his left shoulder that he might hide his face the better until he was out of sight of the office, the old man stumbling on, calling after him:
"No, dat ain"t de way. Yer gotter go down de main road; here, man--don"t I tell yer dat ain"t de way."