Part 29 (1/2)
The American took a very scrubby note-book from his pocket, and made a short calculation with a pencil.
”Well!” said he, in a drawling, dreary sort of way, ”it ain't much. I suppose you was years over it?”
”Yes,” said Luttrell, taken suddenly off his guard, ”they occupied me many very sad days and nights. They were labours that lightened sorrow, and took me away from cares that were eating into my heart.”
”Ah! and how much better you'd have been, stranger, if you'd ha' been doin' something genuine useful, something to make yourself and others more comfortable, and not a grubbin' after old shoe-buckles and saints'
s.h.i.+nbones. Well, you don't think so! No matter; that's our way o'
lookin' at it. Now to business. There's just one thing in these diggins that has tuk my fancy. It's the only thing here that I'd give a red cent for, on my own account; but I do like it wonderful. I don't suppose you'll let me have it to buy, but if you'll jist give a loan of it, we'll say for a year or two--two years--I'll close the deal, and give you your first price, fifteen hundred dollars.”
Luttrell's dark face lighted up at the prospect of relief from much embarra.s.sment, and his eyes ranged over the room to see what it possibly could be that had captivated his strange visitor's fancy. A few gaffs, a single-barrel gun, and some fis.h.i.+ng-taekle, were in one corner, and a pair of high sealskin boots in another, and a rough wolflike ”lurcher”
lay under the table--could it be any of these? It was scarcely credible, and yet the American had seen none other--he had walked straight from the landing-place to the Abbey. ”What signifies what it is?” said Luttrell to himself. ”It is the caprice of an unlettered fellow, who would, perhaps, care more for a tobacco-pouch than for my 'Book of the Four Gospels.'”
”I have no doubt that I shall accept your offer, and gladly accept it”
said Luttrell; ”but it would gratify me if you were to say what it is that you desire to possess.”
”It's then just as likely you'd refuse me.”
”And I mistake you much if, in such a case, you'd hold me to my bargain!”
For the first time the American's features brightened; the dull leaden cheek coloured, and the firm-set thin lip curved into a pleasant smile as he said, ”You're right there, Britisher--you're right there. I'd not ha' clinched the nail, if I saw it was goin' to fester you! Here's how it is, then,” and he drew a long breath to give him courage--”here's how it is--I want your 'buoy.'”
”My what?”
”Your buoy; your son!”
”You want my son,” said Luttrell, drawing himself up, and looking with an air of haughty insolence. ”Have you forgotten, Sir, which side of the Atlantic you are standing on, and that you are no longer in a land where men deal in their fellow-men? Or is it that, presuming on what poverty you have seen here, you dare to insult me with a proposal your own mean whites would have resented with a bowie-knife?”
”You'd ha' been a rare chap on a stump, Britisher, that's a fact!” said the Yankee, coolly. ”Your words come rus.h.i.+n' out like water out of a pump; but they don't squash me, for all that. Hairy Dodge--Dan Webster always called me Hairy, the short for Herodotus--Hairy Dodge is a hard grit, and it's not every millstone can grind him.”
”Will you do me the favour, Sir, to accept the very humble hospitality I can offer,” said Luttrell, proudly, ”and let there be no more question of any business between us? I think I heard mention of a sick friend who accompanied you.”
”He ain't a friend of mine. It was a critter I met at the inn, and who wanted to come over here to see you, and so we agreed we'd take the lugger between us.”
”He is ill, I am told.”
”Jist fright--nothing but fright! The first sea that took the boat on the quarter, he cried out 'Lord a mercy on us!' 'Oh, are ye there?' says I; 'are ye a prayin' for that sort o' thing?' and, surely, he did go at it, till he grew too sick for anything but groans. There was no use reasonin' with him, for all he said was, 'Put me ash.o.r.e where you like, and I'll give you five hundred pounds.' He got up to a thousand; and once, when the peak halyards gave way, and the sail came clattering down, he raised the bid to half his whole fortune.”
”So that there is no actual malady in the case?”
”Nothin' o' the kind. It's jist fright--mere fright! How you're ever to get him off this to the mainland again, is clean beyond me. He'll not go, that's certain, if he can help it.”
”I must look to him, and see that, so far as our very poor accommodation serves, he wants nothing. You'll excuse me, I trust, Sir.”
Luttrell spoke in a cold and formal tone, hoping, that his visitor, seeing no prospect of any transaction between them, would now take his leave. Mr. Dodge, however, either did not deem the battle lost, or he saw no reason to retire from the field, for he disposed himself once more in the old chair, and taking out a cigar about as long as a modern parasol, prepared to smoke.
”You haven't any objection to this sort o' thing?” he asked, coolly, as he lit it.
”None whatever. I'd say, Make yourself at home, Sir, if it were not that this humble house of mine is so little like a home.”