Part 4 (1/2)
”Why, it looks as if--you were going away somewhere.”
Phil made a brief answer; and then there was a long talk, all the while he continued to pack his goods, in his perturbation stowing things together in strange juxtaposition. The end of it was that Madge, after vowing that if he went she would never speak to him again, and would hate him for ever, indignantly left him to himself.
Phil went on packing, in all the outward calmness he could muster, though I'll wager with a very pouting and dismal countenance. At last, his possessions being bestowed, and the bag fastened with much physical exertion, he left it on the bed, and slipped down-stairs to find his one remaining piece of property. Philip's cat had waxed plump in the Faringfield household, Master Ned always deterred from harming it by the knowledge that if aught ill befell it, the finger of accusation would point instantly and surely at him.
Phil was returning up the stairs, his pet under his arm, when Mistress Madge reappeared before him, with magic unexpectedness, from a doorway opening on a landing. As she stood in his way there, he stopped, and the two faced each other.
”Well,” said she, with sarcastic bitterness, ”I suppose you've decided where you're going to.”
”Not yet,” he replied. He had thought vaguely of Philadelphia or Boston, either of which he now had means of reaching, having saved most of his small salary at the warehouse, for he was not a bound apprentice.
”I make no doubt,” she went on, ”'twill be the farthest place you can find.”
Phil gave her a reproachful look, and asked where her mother and the children were, that he might bid them good-bye. He wondered, indeed, that Madge had not told her mother of his resolve, for, from that lady's not seeking him at once, he knew that she was still unaware of it. He little guessed that 'twas the girl's own power over him she wished to test, and that she would not enlist her mother's persuasions but as a last resource.
”I don't know,” she replied carelessly.
”I shall look for them,” said Philip, and turned to go down-stairs again.
But (though how could a boy imagine it?) Miss Faringfield would not have it that his yielding should be due to her mother, if it could be achieved as a victory for herself. So she stopped him with a sudden tremulous ”Oh, Phil!” and, raising her forearm to the door-post, hid her face against it, and wept as if her heart would break.
Philip had never before known her to shed a tear, and this new spectacle, in a second's time, took all the firmness out of him.
”Why, Madge, I didn't know--don't cry, Madgie--”
She turned swiftly, without looking up, and her face, still in a shower of tears, found hiding no longer against the door-post, but against Phil's breast.
”Don't cry, Madgie dear,--I sha'n't go!”
She raised her wet face, joy sparkling where the lines had not yet lost the shape of grief; and Phil never thought to ask himself how much of her pleasure was for his not going, and how much for the evidence given of her feminine power. He had presently another thing to consider, a not very palatable dose to swallow--the returning to the warehouse and telling Mr. Faringfield of his change of mind. He did this awkwardly enough, no doubt, but manfully enough, I'll take my oath, though he always said he felt never so tamed and small and ludicrous in his life, before or after.
And that scene upon the landing is the last picture, but one, I have to present of childhood days, ere I hasten, over the period that brought us all into our twenties and to strange, eventful times. The one remaining sketch is of an unkempt, bedraggled figure that I saw at the back hall door of the Faringfields one snowy night a week later, when, for some reason or other, I was out late in our back garden.
This person, instead of knocking at the door, very cautiously tried it to see if it would open, and, finding it locked, stood timidly back and gazed at it in a quandary. Suspecting mischief, I went to the paling fence that separated our ground from the Faringfields', and called out, ”Who's that?”
”Hallo, Bert!” came in a very conciliating tone, low-spoken; and then, as with a sudden thought, ”Come over here, will you?”
I crossed the fence, and was in a moment at the side of Master Ned, who looked exceedingly the worse for wear, in face, figure, and clothes.
”Look here,” said he, speaking rapidly, so as to prevent my touching the subject of his return, ”I want to sneak in, and up-stairs to bed, without the old man seeing me. I don't just like to meet him till to-morrow. But I can't sneak in, for the door's locked, and Noah would be sure to tell dad. You knock, and when they let you in, pretend you came to play with the kids; and whisper f.a.n.n.y to slip out and open the door for me.”
I entered readily into the strategy, as a boy will, glad of Ned's return for the sake of Phil, who I knew was ill at ease for Ned's absence being in some sense due to himself.
Old Noah admitted me at my knock, locked the door after me, and sent me into the smaller parlour, where the whole family happened to be.
When I whispered my message to f.a.n.n.y, she turned so many colours, and made so precipitately for the entrance hall, that her father was put on the alert. He followed her quietly out, just in time to see a very s.h.i.+vering, humble, shamefaced youth step in from the snowy outer night. The sight of his father turned Ned cold and stiff upon the threshold; but all the father did was to put on a grim look of contempt, and say:
”Well, sir, I suppose you've changed your tune.”
”Yes, sir,” said the penitent, meekly, and there being now no reason for secrecy he shambled after his father into the parlour. There, after his mother's embrace, he grinned sheepishly upon us all. f.a.n.n.y was quite rejoiced, and so was little Tom till the novelty wore off; while Madge greeted the prodigal good-humouredly enough, and one could read Phil's relief and forgiveness on his smiling face. Master Ned, grateful for an easier ordeal than he had feared, made no exception against Phil in the somewhat sickly amiability he had for all, and we thought that here were reconciliation and the a.s.surance of future peace.
Ned's home-coming brought trouble in its train, as indeed did his every reappearance afterward. It came out that he and another boy--the one in whose house he had found refuge on the night of his running away--had started off for the North to lead the lives of hunters and trappers, a career so inviting that they could not wait to provide a sufficient equipment. They travelled afoot by the Albany post-road, soliciting food at farmhouses, pa.s.sing their nights in barns; and got as far as Tarrytown, ere either one in his pride would admit to the other, through chattering teeth, that he had had his fill of snow and hunger and the raw winds of the Hudson River. So footsore, leg-weary, empty, and frozen were they on their way back, that they helped themselves to one of Jacob Post's horses, near the Philipse manor-house; and not daring to ride into town on this beast, thoughtlessly turned it loose in the Bowery lane, never thinking how certainly it and they could be traced--for they had been noticed at Van Cortlandt's, again at Kingsbridge, and again at the Blue Bell tavern. After receiving its liberty, the horse had been seen once, galloping toward Turtle Bay, and never again.
So, a few days after Ned's reentrance into the bosom of his family, there came to the house a constable, of our own town, with a deputy sent by the sheriff of Westchester County, wanting Master Edward Faringfield.