Part 37 (2/2)
”`You will be amused to hear,' she writes, `that good Captain Stride has come to live in Sealford. Kind old Mr Crossley has given him some sort of work connected with Withers and Company's house which I can neither understand nor describe. Indeed, I am convinced it is merely work got up on purpose by Mr Crossley as an excuse for giving his old friend a salary, for he knows that Captain Stride would be terribly cast down if offered a _pension_, as that would be equivalent to p.r.o.nouncing him unfit for further duty, and the Captain will never admit himself to be in that condition till he is dying. Old Jacob Crossley--as you used to call him--thinks himself a very sagacious and ”deep” man, but in truth there never was a simpler or more transparent one. He thinks that we know nothing about who it is that sends the old lady to buy up all the worsted-work that mother makes, but we know perfectly well that it is himself, and dear mother could never have gone on working with satisfaction and receiving the money for it all if we had not found out that he buys it for our fishermen, who are said really to be very much in need of the things she makes.
”`The dear old man is always doing something kind and considerate in a sly way, under the impression that n.o.body notices. He little knows the power of woman's observation! By the way, that reminds me that he is not ignorant of woman's powers in other ways. We heard yesterday that his old and faithful--though rather trying--housekeeper had quarrelled with him about smoking! We were greatly surprised, for we knew that the old gentleman is not and never was, a smoker. She threatened to leave, but we have since heard, I am glad to say, that they have made it up!
”H'm! there's food for meditation in all that,” said d.i.c.k Darvall, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and put it in his vest pocket.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
HUNKY BEN AND CHARLIE GET BEYOND THEIR DEPTH, AND BUCK TOM GETS BEYOND RECALL.
While hunting together in the woods near Traitor's Trap one day Charlie Brooke and Hunky Ben came to a halt on the summit of an eminence that commanded a wide view over the surrounding country.
”'Tis a glorious place, Ben,” said Brooke, leaning his rifle against a tree and mounting on a piece of rock, the better to take in the beautiful prospect of woodland, river, and lake. ”When I think of the swarms of poor folk in the old country who don't own a foot of land, have little to eat and only rags to cover them, I long to bring them out here and plant them down where G.o.d has spread His blessings so bountifully, where there is never lack of work, and where Nature pays high wages to those who obey her laws.”
”No doubt there's room enough here,” returned the scout sitting down and laying his rifle across his knees. ”I've often thowt on them subjects, but my thowts only lead to puzzlement; for, out here in the wilderness, a man can't git all the information needful to larn him about things in the old world. Dear, dear, it do seem strange to me that any man should choose to starve in the cities when there's the free wilderness to roam about in. I mind havin' a palaver once wi' a stove-up man when I was ranchin' down in Kansas on the Indian Territory Line. Screw was his name, an' a real kind-hearted fellow he was too--only he couldn't keep his hand off that curse o' mankind, the bottle. I mentioned to him my puzzlements about this matter, an' he up fist an' come down on the table wi' a crack that made the gla.s.ses bounce as if they'd all come alive, an' caused a plate o' mush in front of him to spread itself all over the place--but he cared nothin' for that, he was so riled up by the thowts my obsarvation had shook up.
”`Hunky Ben,' says he, glowerin' at me like a bull wi' the measles, `the reason we stay there an' don't come out here or go to the other parts o'
G.o.d's green 'arth is 'cause we can't help ourselves an' don't know how-- or what--don't know nothin' in fact!'
”`That's a busted-up state o' ignorance, no doubt' said I, in a soothin'
sort o' way, for I see'd the man was riled pretty bad by ancient memories, an' looked gittin' waxier. He wore a black eye, too, caught in a free fight the night before, which didn't improve his looks. `You said _we_ just now,' says I. `Was you one o' them?'
”`Of course I was,' says he, tamin' down a little, `an' I'd bin one o'
them yet--if not food for worms by this time--if it hadn't bin for a dook as took pity on me.'
”`What's a dook?' says I.
”`A dook?' says he. `Why, he's a _dook_, you know; a sort o' markis-- somewheres between a lord an' a king. I don't know zackly where, an hang me if I care; but they're a bad lot are some o' them dooks--rich as Pharaoh, king o' J'rus'lem, an' hard as nails--though I'm bound for to say they ain't all alike. Some on 'em's no better nor costermongers, others are _men_; men what keeps in mind that the same G.o.d made us all an' will call us all to the same account, an' that the same kind o'
worms 'll finish us all off at last. But this dook as took pity on me was a true blue. He wasn't one o' the hard sort as didn't care a rush for us so long as his own stummick was full. Neether was he one o' the b.u.t.ter-mouths as dursen't say boo to a goose. He spoke out to me like a man, an' he knew well enough that I'd bin born in the London slums, an'
that my daddy had bin born there before me, an that my mother had caught her death o' cold through havin' to p.a.w.n her only pair o' boots to pay my school fees an' then walk barefutt to the court in a winter day to answer for not sendin' her boy to the board school--_her_ send me to school!--she might as well have tried to send daddy himself; an' him out o' work, too, an' all on us starvin'. My dook, when he hear about it a'most bust wi' pa.s.sion. I hear 'im arterwards talkin' to a overseer, or somebody, ”confound it,” says he--no, not quite that, for my dook he _never_ swore, only he said somethin' pretty stiff--”these people are starvin',” says he, ”an' p.a.w.nin' their things for food to keep 'em alive, an' they can't git work nohow,” says he, ”an' yet you worry them out o' body an' soul for school fees!” I didn't hear no more, for the overseer smoothed 'im down somehows. But that dook--that good _man_, Hunky Ben, paid my pa.s.sage to Ameriky, an' sent me off wi' his blessin'
an' a Bible. Unfortnitly I took a bottle wi' me, an when I got to the other side I got hold of another bottle, an' another--an' there stands the last of 'em.'
”An' wi' that, Mr Brooke, he fetched the bottle in front of him such a crack wi' his fist as sent it all to smash against the opposite wall.
”`Well done, Screw!' cried the boy at the bar, laughin'; `have another bottle?'
”Poor Screw smiled in a sheepish way, for the rile was out of him by that time, an', says he, `Well, I don't mind if I do. A shot like that deserves another!'
”Ah me!” continued the scout, ”it do take the manhood out of a fellow, that drink. Even when his indignation's roused and he tries to shake it off, he can't do it.”
”Well do I know that, Ben. It is only G.o.d who can help a man in such a case.”
The scout gravely shook his head. ”Seems to me, Mr Brooke, that there's a screw loose some wheres in our theology, for I've heard parsons as well as you say that--as if the Almighty condescended to help us only when we're in bad straits. Now, though I'm but a scout and pretend to no book larnin', it comes in strong upon me that if G.o.d made us an' measures our movements, an' gives us every beat o' the pulse, an'
counts the very hairs of our heads, we stand in need of His help in _every_ case and at _all_ times; that we can't save ourselves from mischief under any circ.u.mstances, great or small, without Him.”
”I have thought of that too, sometimes,” said Charlie, sitting down on the rock beside his companion, and looking at him in some perplexity, ”but does not the view you take savour somewhat of fatalism, and seek to free us from responsibility in regard to what we do?”
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