Part 79 (1/2)

There's a lot said. There's always more saying than doing. But it's right-down funny to see how the lad has made hard and fast friends just going about in his queer way, and no one knowing how he did it. I like him myself. He's one of those you needn't ask questions about. If there's anything said that isn't to his credit, it's not true. There's no ifs, buts, or ands about that, Ann.

Little Ann herself read the words as her father read them.

”That's the thing I believe, because I know it,” was all she said.

”It's the thing I'd swear to mysel',” her father answered bluffly.

”But, by Judd--”

She gave him a little push and spoke to him in homely Lancas.h.i.+re phrasing, and with some soft unsteadiness of voice.

”Sit thee down, Father love,” she said, ”and let me sit on thy knee.”

He sat down with emotional readiness, and she sat on his stout knee like a child. It was a thing she did in tender or troubled moments as much in these days as she had done when she was six or seven. Her little lightness and soft young ways made it the most natural thing in the world, as well as the prettiest. She had always sat on his knee in the hours when he had been most discouraged over the invention. She had known it made him feel as though he were taking care of her, and as though she depended utterly on him to steady the foundations of her world. What could such a little bit of a la.s.s do without ”a father”?

”It's upset thee, la.s.s,” he said. ”It's upset thee.”

He saw her slim hands curl themselves into small, firm fists as they rested on her lap.

”I can't bear to think that ill can be said of him, even by a wastrel like Captain Palliser,” she said. ”He's MINE.”

It made him fumble caressingly at her big knot of soft red hair.

”Thine, is he?” he said. ”Thine! Eh, but tha did say that just like thy mother would ha' said it; tha brings the heart i' my throat now and again. That chap's i' luck, I can tell him--same as I was once.”

”He's mine now, whatever happens,” she went on, with a firmness which no skeptic would have squandered time in the folly of hoping to shake.

”He's done what I told him to do, and it's ME he wants. He's found out for himself, and so have I. He can have me the minute he wants me--the very minute.”

”He can?” said Hutchinson. ”That settles it. I believe tha'd rather take him when he was i' trouble than when he was out of it. Same as tha'd rather take him i' a flat in Harlem on fifteen dollar a week than on fifteen hundred.”

”Yes, Father, I would. It'd give me more to do for him.”

”Eh, eh,” he grunted tenderly, ”thy mother again. I used to tell her as the only thing she had agen me was that I never got i' jail so she could get me out an' stand up for me after it. There's only one thing worrits me a bit: I wish the lad hadn't gone away.”

”I've thought that out, though I've not had much time to reason about things,” said Little Ann. ”If he's gone away, he's gone to get something; and whatever it happens to be, he'll be likely to bring it back with him, Father.”

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

Old Mrs. Hutchinson's letter had supplied much detail, but when her son and grand-daughter arrived in the village of Temple Barholm they heard much more, the greater part of it not in the least to be relied upon.

”The most of it's lies, as folks enjoys theirsels pretendin' to believe,” the grand- mother commented. ”It's servants'-hall talk and cottage gossip, and plenty made itself up out o' beer drunk in th'

tap-room at th' Wool Park. In a place where naught much happens, people get into th' way 'o springin' on a bit o' news, and shakin' and worryin' it like a terrier does a rat. It's nature. That lad's given 'em lots to talk about ever since he coom. He's been a blessin' to 'em. If he'd been gentry, he'd not ha' been nigh as lively. Th'

village lads tries to talk through their noses like him. Little Tummas Hibblethwaite does it i' broad Lancas.h.i.+re.”

The only facts fairly authenticated were that the mysterious stranger had been taken away very late one night, some time before the interview between Mr. Temple Barholm and Captain Palliser, of which Burrill knew so much because he had ”happened to be about.” When a domestic magnate of Burrill's type ”happens to be about” at a crisis, he is not unlikely to hear a great deal. Burrill, it was believed, knew much more than he deigned to make public. The entire truth was that Captain Palliser himself, in one of his hasty appearances in the neighborhood of Temple Barholm, had bestowed a few words of cold caution on him.

”Don't talk too much,” he had said. ”Proof is required before talk is safe. The American was sharp enough to say that to me himself. He was sharp enough, too, to keep his man hidden. I was the only person that saw him who could have recognized him, and I saw him by chance.

Palford & Grimby require proof. We are in search of it. Servants will talk; but if you don't want to run the risk of getting yourself into trouble, don't make absolute statements.”