Part 45 (2/2)
you are not a father. How quickly he found that out! Well, I am, and he touched me to the quick. I love my little Jane as dearly as he loves his Julia, every bit: and I feel for _him._ And then he put me in mind of my own father, poor man. That seems strange, doesn't it? a sailor and a banker. Ah! it was because they were both honest men. Yes, it was like a wholesome flower coming into a close room, and then out again and heaving a whiff behind was that sailor. He left the savour of Probity and Simplicity behind, though he took the things themselves away again.
Why, why couldn't he leave us what is more wanted here than even his money? His integrity: the pearl of price, that my father, whom I used to sneer at, carried to his grave; and died simple, but wise; honest, but rich--rich in money, in credit, in honour, and eternal hopes. Oh, Skinner! Skinner! I wish I had never been born.”
Skinner was surprised: he was not aware that intelligent men who sin are subject to fits of remorse. Nay, more, he was frightened; for the emotion of this iron man, so hard to move, was overpowering when it came: it did not soften, it convulsed him.
”Don't talk so, sir,” said the little clerk. ”Keep up your heart! Have a drop of something.”
”You are right,” said Mr. Hardie gloomily; ”it is idle to talk: we are all the slaves of circ.u.mstances.”
With this, he unlocked a safe that stood against the wall, chucked the L. 14,000 in, and shammed the iron door sharply; and, as it closed upon the Cash with a clang, the parlour door burst open as if by concert, and David Dodd stood on the threshold, looking terrible. His ruddy colour was all gone, and he seemed black and white with anger and anxiety; and out of this blanched yet lowering face his eyes glowed like coals, and roved keenly to and fro between the banker and the clerk.
A thunder-cloud of a man.
CHAPTER XVII
JAMES MAXLEY came out of the bank that morning with nine hundred and four pounds b.u.t.toned up tight in the pocket of his leather breeches, a joyful man; and so to his work, and home at one o'clock to dinner.
At 2 P.M. he was thoughtful; uneasy at 3; wretched at 3.30. He was gardener as well as capitalist, and Mr. Hardie owed him 30s. for work.
Such is human nature in general, and Maxley's in particular, that the L.
900 in pocket seemed small, and the 30s. in jeopardy large.
”I can't afford to go with the creditors,” argued Maxley: ”Dividend on 30s.! Why, that will be about thirty pence: the change for a hard*
half-crown.”
*_i.e._ a half-crown in one piece.
He stuck his spade in the soil and made for his debtor's house. As he came up the street, Dodd shot out of the bank radiant, and was about to pa.s.s him without notice, full of his wife and children; but Maxley stopped him with a right cordial welcome, and told him he had given them all a fright this time.
”What, is it over the town already that my s.h.i.+p has been wrecked?” And Dodd looked annoyed.
”Wrecked? No; but you have been due this two months, ye know. Wrecked?
Why, Captain, you haven't ever been wrecked?” And he looked him all over as if he expected to see ”WRECKED” branded on him by the elements.
”Ay, James, wrecked on the French coast, and lost my chronometer, and a tip-top s.e.xtant. But what of that? I saved _It._ I have just landed It in the Bank. Good-bye; I must sheer off: I long to be home.”
”Stay a bit, Captain,” said Maxley. ”I am not quite easy in my mind.
I saw you come out of Hardie's. I thought in course you had been in to draa: but you says different. Now what was it you did leave behind you at that there shop, if _you_ please: not money?”
”Not money? Only L. 14,000. How the man stares! Why, it's not mine, James; it's my children's: there, good-bye;” and he was actually off this time. But Maxley stretched his long limbs, and caught him in two strides, and griped his shoulder without ceremony. ”Be you mad?” said he sternly.
”No, but I begin to think you are.”
”That is to be seen,” said Maxley gravely. ”Before I lets you go, you must tell me whether you be jesting, or whether you have really been so simple as to drop fourteen--thousand--pounds at Hardie's?” No judge upon the bench, nor bishop in his stall, could be more impressive than this gardener was, when he subdued the vast volume of his voice to a low grave utterance of this sort.
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