Part 5 (1/2)

”This youth is safe,” soliloquised the host of the the cave; ”he must be taught to keep my counsel and his own, for although hereafter he may be rather an inc.u.mbrance to me than of use, it will not do to let him go,-- he would betray me, to a certainty. He has roughed it and seen service; though he is not clever, he has lots of pluck; on the whole, perhaps, I may make him useful, and it would be deuced lonely work to find my way across the country without any help. We must look about for arms; I saw large pieces of the wreck drifting this way after the crazy old craft went to pieces.

”I wish I had not seen that girl, though. I cannot forget her; how the blood bubbled up with the foam!

”The wind has changed, I suspect, but the river will be impa.s.sable to those red-jackets for days to come; we must collect our traps together without loss of time, and make ready for a start; I must do the amiable to this lad; he is a soft-hearted youth, I know.

”That fellow Tanner, I wonder if he is still trafficking up there in the kloof; he is an infernal rogue; I hope he won't turn informer--I think not, though, for I could betray him, and he knows it.”

He rapidly chalked out in his mind's eye a map of his plans, and as he heard the wind again veering about to all points of the compa.s.s, and at last return to its deadly quarter, from which it had breathed its fury on the hapless s.h.i.+p, he rubbed his hands cheerfully together. ”Blow, gentle gales,” said he, and as Gray answered the apostrophe with a loud snore, Lee laughed and lay down, taking care to appropriate to himself a goodly portion of the green baize coverlet. Ere long he, too, was in a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE DESERTER.

It is time to give our reader some further insight into the circ.u.mstances which had brought these two sleepers to their present condition, for they will occupy a prominent and peculiar part in the narrative.

Although Gray is the last adventurer on the scene, I will give him the precedence, since all that is necessary to relate concerning his previous history may be comprised in the following sketch.

He was the foremost boy of the village school of M--, industrious, high-spirited, and well-looking; he made slow but steady progress in his education, and his pastor entertained fair hopes touching his future prospects; but these hopes were suddenly overclouded by Gray's enlisting into a company of artillery quartered at a neighbouring town.

Thus it fell out. Let us go back to his earliest days, when he had been accustomed to stop at his uncle's garden-gate to call for his cousin Katy on his way to school. She would come with her school-bag hanging on her arm and singing down the walk as merry as a bird, and hand in hand they would wend their way along the lane to the school-house, where they parted at the porch with a tender but most innocent farewell, she for the girls' cla.s.s, he for the boys'. On Sundays they stood side by side round the pulpit to recite their catechism--often, however, threatened with a separation, because Martin Gray _would_ prompt Katy.

On Sunday evenings in the summer prime they sat beneath the apple-trees in the garden belonging to Martin's bereaved father, and on winter nights it was cheering to see the light glowing on the walls and s.h.i.+ning through the cottage cas.e.m.e.nts; for there were the three a.s.sembled round the fire, Martin reading to earnest auditors.

A sorrowful evening hour it was for Katy, when her cousin parted with her at her own door. Love, and joy, and peace, all departed with him, and she exchanged happiness for the misery of finding her father and mother quarrelling after their return from the alehouse. Morning would chase away the sad thoughts the darkness had brought. Morning brought healing on its wings, for then Katy and Martin were again hand in hand, singing through the lanes, and gathering primroses or crocuses on their way to the school-house.

Then Katy ”got a place;” her mother thought it a very fine thing indeed, to have her daughter admitted as under-housemaid at the Hall. Katy and her cousin met at church on alternate Sundays, Katy growing smarter and prettier in Martin's eyes every time he saw her; but he began to find out that the das.h.i.+ng valets, who accompanied their showy masters to the Hall, were freely permitted to join him and Katy in their summer evening strolls. He remonstrated. Katy was clever and self-opinionated. She replied that she was not a school-girl; he quizzed the valets; she observed they were _gentlemen_ to him, adding that Mrs White, the housekeeper, thought she demeaned herself by keeping company with such as he; he grew angry, Katy laughed at him, and one of her admirers, pa.s.sing by, hearing the laugh, paused, stepped up to her, learned the cause of the merry peal, and walked off with her in triumph.

She looked in vain for Martin at church on the following Sunday; she dawdled through the churchyard, and her friend, ”My Lord Wellor's valet,” overtook her: he thought she was lingering for him. She did not drive him away, as she had discarded poor Martin Gray, with a laugh, but she was evidently thinking of some one else. With all his vanity, he guessed as much, and quitted her to join some gay ladies'-maids, who were flaunting along the meadow path. Katy never noticed them, though they watched her all across the meadow, out at the gate, up the lane to the turnstile, where she stood for a while, but turned back, and so met the giddy party again.

It was now her turn to feel the bitterness of laughter, when directed against herself; for the prettiest of the party, a rival of hers in the affections of Lewis the valet, cried out, ”Well, Mistress Kate, were you looking for your sweetheart, Martin Gray? It is all of no use, my dear; he is gone for a soldier.”

”Gone for a soldier!” Katy pa.s.sed the giddy waiting-women and their obsequious attendant, and hastened to the nursery garden of Martin's father. He was sitting alone beneath the apple boughs. The pathway was unswept, the clove pinks streeling over the neat box borders. He looked very sad, indeed. ”Uncle,” said Katy, with white lips, ”where is Martin?”

”Gone for a soldier, Katy,” replied the old gardener, striking his gnarled oaken stick angrily on the gravel path.

”Oh, uncle!” Katy burst into a pa.s.sionate fit of weeping.

”It is no use crying now, Katy,” said Gray, ”it is too late;” and rising, but not without difficulty, for he was an infirm man, ”well stricken in years,” he walked towards the cottage, Katy following him like a culprit.

The elder Gray did not close his door upon his pretty niece; in truth, he could only suspect her as being the cause of his boy's departure, for Martin had formed some military acquaintances latterly; but one of; his son's last acts had been to collect some gifts, which this father knew to be ”keepsakes from Katy,” and these were lying on the window-sill, packed up and addressed to ”Miss Katharine, at the Hall.”

Martin had left; the cottage two days before with a sergeant of artillery, who had long had designs of enlisting so fine a young man, and from the adjoining town had addressed, a few lines to his father.

He spoke of his wish for other countries, of the Artillery service being one of a superior character, as he considered, to the Line, and antic.i.p.ated great satisfaction at speedily embarking for Gibraltar; not a word was said or Katy, not a single regret was expressed at the idea of leaving his native village, and from the style of the letter, it was very evident that it was written as a matter of duty to the old man--all sorrow at quitting him was superseded by the antic.i.p.ation of visiting far lands. The father laid the letter on the table, and observing, for the first time, the parcel on the window-sill, he wiped the mist from his spectacles, read the direction, and formed his opinion of Martin's reasons for leaving home.

”Don't open it here, if you please,” said old Gray, as he put the parcel into his niece's hands.

He sat down in his accustomed corner; Katy placed herself in the tall, old-fas.h.i.+oned arm-chair in front of the window, and Martin's dog, a long-haired s.h.a.ggy terrier, lay with its nose to the ground in an att.i.tude of expectation, which had doubtless been increased by the entrance of Katy; as she had come, he thought his master must soon follow.