COMETHUP SUFFERS A LOSS.

Comethup was glad to think, as he sat at the captain’s feet, looking after Brian and his father, that Brian had appeared to remember him last and most of all; he was glad to recall it afterward when Brian was gone. The suddenness of the boy’s departure made the whole circumstance more surprising and dramatic than it otherwise would have been; this sudden whipping of him off into fortune and grandeur, at a few moments’ notice, quite took away Comethup’s breath. Indeed, the emotional meeting between father and son, acted out to the accompaniment of sounding phrases on the part of Mr. Robert Carlaw before their very eyes, had held them all breathless. It was only when the two figures disappeared over a ridge that the three watching ones seemed to gasp in concert, and to blink their eyelids, as though awaking from a dream.

“Dear me!” said the captain, pushing his hat back from his forehead and looking down at Comethup, “it’s very sudden, isn’t it?” In his simple heart, although he scarcely liked to acknowledge it to himself, he felt a certain great relief come upon him with the departure of father and son. It can not be actually said that he disliked Brian; but he was puzzled by him—perhaps even a little afraid of him. With their going, the peace of the day seemed to be restored, and the captain could find it in his heart to hope that fortune might indeed be awaiting Brian in London, and that the boy might remain there to enjoy it.

“I’m sorry he’s gone,” said Comethup, smothering a sigh.

“I expect you’ll miss him?” said the captain. Comethup detected, with quick sympathy, young though he was, a little note of jealousy in the captain’s tones, and did not reply.

“He didn’t want to go,” said ’Linda, slowly, with her eyes still turned toward where the two figures had disappeared.

“No, but I’ll warrant he’ll want to stay,” said the captain sagely, with a laugh.

They fell to talking of him, and of the wonder of his sudden fortune; and from that the captain drifted into telling them of London, and of the width and length of its streets, and the glory of its buildings, and the wonder and mystery that the monster held, a riddle never to be read. He went on talking of the place, as he had known it years before, almost forgetful of his audience, while the children listened breathlessly. Presently, remembering where he was, and that time was flying, he got up abruptly, and took a hand of each and marched them off to his cottage to dinner.

Comethup felt his cousin’s absence more than might have been supposed. Now that there was no longer any necessity for fitting in his meetings with the boy and with the captain so as to preserve with nicety the balance between them, he blamed himself, in his sensitive little soul, for possible past neglect, remembered that Brian had called to him last of all before he disappeared, and wished many times that he could have made some atonement. The charm of Brian’s light-hearted, mad way of taking life, his resource and daring, were full upon the gentler boy; his disappearance to claim that mysterious fortune which awaited him seemed but a fitting part of all he had done before. Comethup thought of him at night when he lay awake; pictured him in those wondrous streets and palaces and buildings, the glory of which the captain had but faintly suggested; saw him petted and admired; looked forward to a time when he would come back to the sleepy old town, richly dressed, perhaps even with a carriage and prancing horses, to pay a flying visit to his old friends.

Nearly a week went by, during which he paid his daily visit to the captain, and saw ’Linda once or twice, and went through the old quiet routine. He had almost settled in his own mind that Brian had gone out of his life, and was beginning, with the carelessness of childhood, to dismiss the matter from his mind, or at all events to cease to think strongly about it, when one evening, as he sat at the window of his father’s house, conning over a lesson which the captain had set him, he heard a shout, and, looking up, saw with astonishment the laughing face of Brian on the other side of the glass, nodding at him. Comethup had time to notice, even as he hurriedly pushed open the window, that there was no new grandeur about Brian: that he wore the clothes he had been accustomed to wear, and looked in every respect precisely as though he had never set out with his father to discover his eccentric aunt and her great wealth.

“Why, you’ve come back!” gasped Comethup.

Brian leaned his elbows easily on the window sill, and nodded and laughed. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve come back. But we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of things. My word, you should see London!”

But Comethup was absolutely palpitating with questions. “But have you come down to see us? And how long do you stay? And when are you going back?”

Brian laughed, and shook his head. “I’m not going back,” he said. “I don’t quite understand it; all I know is that my aunt didn’t like me, and she and dad almost had a fight about it, and called each other names. You never saw such a rumpus. And now we’ve come back, and it’s all over.” He laughed quite light-heartedly and good-naturedly, with no appreciation of the disaster.

“And you won’t have the fortune?” said Comethup, looking at him with wide, distressful eyes.

“No, and I don’t want it. I couldn’t possibly have lived with her; you never saw such a woman. Why, she’s quite blind, and goes feeling her way about with a stick. And if anything upsets her she swears, just as dad does; I really don’t know which of them got the best of it. But I’m glad it’s all over, although dad went on like a madman about it at first. But he’ll get over that in time.”

“And you won’t go to London again?” said Comethup.

“No. But we had fun while it lasted. I believe dad went back to her house every day from the hotel to try and see her, and kept on ringing the bell until he found it was no use, and then we came back here. Of course I don’t care a bit; I don’t want her beastly money; but I’d liked to have stopped in London a little longer; it was jolly—would have been jollier if dad hadn’t been in such a fury all the time. Good-night; we’ve only just got back, you know, and so I ran round to see you. Good-night!” He was off out of the garden and down the street almost before Comethup could gasp out a reply.

The true story of that visit to London, and its failure as a commercial speculation, only came out long afterward. Indeed, nothing in regard to it would have been known had not Mr. Robert Carlaw remembered that, in the first flush of his joy, he had unconsciously taken the captain into his confidence; to return, apparently beaten and without his purpose accomplished, would, he felt, discredit him in that gentleman’s eyes; and he therefore hastened to give him some explanation, from his own point of view, at least. He paid a visit to the captain on the very evening of his arrival from London.

The captain was, perhaps, as greatly surprised by the visit as Comethup had been by the apparition of Brian. Mr. Robert Carlaw had lifted the latch of the cottage door without ceremony, and stood in the dim light of the evening, a heavy figure, gazing half defiantly at the little captain, who had risen in haste from his chair. Mr. Carlaw, in characteristic fashion, seized the situation at once, and plunged into his explanation before the captain had had time to utter a word.

“My dear sir,” he exclaimed, advancing into the room and stretching out a hand with much cordiality, “you’re surprised to see me? Confess it; I am surprised to see myself, as our French neighbours would say. I believe I told you when we went to London something of the object of our visit, but”—he shrugged his shoulders and took off his hat with a flourish and banged it down on the little table—“the situation was absolutely impossible, not to be tolerated for an instant by a man of spirit.”

The captain did not commit himself to any expression of opinion. He crossed the room, closed the door, and came slowly back again, waiting for his visitor to continue.

“Imagine, my dear sir, what it would mean to be at the mere beck and call of a petticoat—and such a petticoat! All women are unreasonable—dear creatures, I admit, and they’ve played the devil with Bob Carlaw—but there is reason in all things. To be confronted with a shrieking harridan who doesn’t know her own mind for five minutes together, who insults her own flesh and blood.” (Mr. Carlaw struck himself frantically on the breast and wagged his head) “and loads my cherished son with reproaches—no, sir, it was not to be borne. Charlotte is a dear sister and a worthy woman, and I esteem her; but—there are limits. I trust, whatever my faults may be, that I shall never be accused of a lack of what I may term the gentler virtues. Vices I have, but they are, thank God, the vices of a gentleman. In short, sir, the situation was impossible. I am glad to think that I controlled myself and—as a soldier might express it—retreated with dignity. Frankly, I do not mind confessing that the loss, from a monetary point of view, is great. My son will not set forth upon that career for which I had destined him with such bright prospects as he might have done. But, sir, you will agree with me that there are limits—limits which may not be passed.”

Mr. Robert Carlaw leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling; he breathed heavily, and tapped the fingers of one hand upon the table. The captain began to think that he had misjudged Mr. Carlaw, and that he might be, after all, rather a fine fellow.

“I am sorry,” he said, slowly, “for the boy’s sake.”

“Yes; for myself I do not care; the world has handled me roughly, but I have contrived, thank Heaven, to turn a smiling face to it, as a gentleman should. I have hopes for my son; he is not—not of common clay, and I think you will admit that his appearance is such that he should be able to cut a figure in the world. My dear sir”—he leaned forward and spoke confidentially—“I will not deceive you. There may have been—nay, there was—a selfish thought in my breast in the matter. I had a vision of my son taking his place, as he should take it, with the aid of that wealth without which we can do nothing; and I had a vision, too, of his old father, who would do him no discredit, mind you, leaning upon the boy, perhaps even guiding him a little, amid the many temptations which would beset him. I repeat, I may have had such a thought, but it was not wholly selfish; it was for the boy’s sake, entirely for the boy’s sake.”

The captain began sadly to think that he had been a little hasty in forming that better judgment of Mr. Carlaw; but he spoke diplomatically. “No doubt,” he said, “you would have been of great assistance to him.”

“My knowledge of the world and of its pitfalls would, of course, have enabled me to support rather than to lean upon him,” replied the other. “But, there, it’s useless talking of the matter; the thing is done. You may not be aware of it, my dear sir,” he added, moodily, “but disastrous luck has followed me—dogged me—all my days. Think of this: here is my son, who, it has been said, favours his father, and is—again I am quoting others—decidedly a handsome boy. Yet what does it avail him? Nothing; for the very woman whom it is necessary to impress is stone blind.”

“Blind?” ejaculated the captain.

“Exactly. Did you ever hear of such a piece of misfortune? I do not refer to her, but to the boy’s prospects. Had she been able but to look at him—only once—the thing would have been different. But it happens that she was born blind; she is the sturdiest and the strongest of the family; but her very affliction caused my father to leave practically the whole of his fortune to her. I was left to struggle along on a mere pittance. My younger sister, since dead, got nothing. Yet that very circumstance, which has given her every luxury which money can command, is the undoing of my boy’s fortunes. Think of it!”

“Then did she—did she object to the boy?” asked the captain.

“Would have nothing to do with him; didn’t like his voice; didn’t like his manner of speech to her; didn’t like anything. Then, again, she got on troublesome family matters—matters on which we were never able to agree; she rubbed me very much the wrong way; in short, the whole thing was impossible. I shook the dust of her house from my feet and came away. Mine is a nature, sir, that will not brook interference; that bows to no man, certainly to no woman.”

He got up, picked up his hat, and began to move toward the door. He had something further, however, to say; the nervousness of his manner proclaimed it. The captain rose politely to open the door for his guest, and Mr. Carlaw swung round in the doorway, as he put on his hat, and spoke in a less self-confident manner.

“I—I am bound to confess that—that the matter—has troubled me. I had—well, perhaps I hoped great things for the boy, that Fortune might smile on him more kindly than it has done on his wretched father.” He laughed, and shrugged his shoulders. “However, that’s done with; I desire to hear no more about it. After all, I suppose we all take our throw with the dice at Fortune’s table some time or other; if we lose—well, we take our bad luck like gentlemen still.”

“Certainly, certainly,” murmured the captain.

“I—I believe that I’ve mentioned—something about the matter to you before our departure for London. Of course, I regard you as—well, may I say?—a friend; and it is hardly necessary for me to add that I have no desire that this matter——”

He was stumbling so awkwardly among his words that the captain came a little stiffly to his relief. “The matter is not one which concerns me,” he said, “and as I have been honoured with your confidence, I shall, of course, regard it as a confidence.”

Mr. Robert Carlaw’s face cleared suddenly, and he darted out a hand and caught that of the captain. “My dear sir, I knew it was unnecessary for me to make such a request. You are very good. Good-night, good-night!” He went swinging away through the garden and down the street, humming a tune as he walked. The captain stood looking after him.

Within a few days matters had settled down to their usual routine. It seemed impossible that Brian could ever have been away, or that it could ever have been suggested that his absence was to be permanent. Comethup was quite glad to have his small circle of friends complete again, and, as Brian himself did not appear to regret the loss of that visionary fortune, Comethup began to think that it could not matter so very greatly after all. In those early days, on which the child looked back so often afterward, there was nothing to mar his peace of mind, now that Brian had been admitted, in a sense, into complete intimacy with them all by his discovery of ’Linda, except one circumstance—a circumstance small enough in itself, but one which troubled him nevertheless.

Brian, eager at all times to be in the very thick of everything, however slight, that was in progress around him, had paid a visit to the shoemaker’s shop, going there with Comethup one morning in search of ’Linda. Before they entered, he had glanced up at the overhanging shop front, and had read there the painted name of the proprietor, “M. Theed.” He appeared to carry the name in his remembrance after he entered the place, and to be fitting it together in some way and puzzling over it. Even as he saw ’Linda seated on the bench, and nodded laughingly to her, he turned in his quick fashion to the old man, who had ceased hammering and was looking curiously at him, and asked, “What’s your other name?”

The shoemaker looked at him for a moment in silence, and then replied slowly, “Medmer.”

“That’s a queer name,” said the boy—“Medmer Theed; and what a queer place you’ve got here!” He glanced round, and then appeared to dismiss the matter altogether from his mind. “We’ve come to find ’Linda,” he added.

The old man laid down his hammer and put an arm about the child, as though to draw her to him. Comethup was a little surprised and a little frightened, on glancing at him, to see the expression of his eyes.

“Let the little maid stay here,” he said, almost in a growl; “she has naught to do with you.”

Brian stared at him and laughed, and looked with raised eyebrows toward Comethup. Comethup came quickly to the rescue.

“Why, Brian is our great friend—my cousin, you know. He’s known ’Linda a long time.”

The shoemaker did not reply for some minutes; he sat, with his arm drawn round the child and his head bent, muttering to himself. Then presently, with a sigh, he withdrew his arm and took up his work, and began hammering again steadily, as though no one were near him. After waiting for a few moments, Comethup drew nearer to the bench; and ’Linda scrambled down and put her hand in his, and prepared to go with them. Comethup politely wished the shoemaker “Good-day”; but he kept on steadily at his work, and did not appear to hear. The three children went out together, and down the little narrow street. Comethup, glancing back over his shoulder for a moment, saw that the shoemaker had come to the door of his shop, and was standing there, with one hand shading his eyes, looking after them.

Nor did his distrust of Brian appear to leave him. Absurd as it may seem, when the object of that dislike was so young a boy, the old man’s feelings were not to be mistaken. He maintained a rigid silence whenever Brian came near him, even watched him suspiciously; and although the boy, conscious of it, tried every art and charm he possessed to ingratiate himself with the shoemaker, he signally failed. His boisterousness and high spirits were useless here. Medmer Theed, like most distorted characters, was evidently as strong in his dislikes as in his likes, however unreasonable the former might be.

Nearly a year had slipped by since the sudden journey of Brian and his father to London—a year of uneventful things, during which Comethup plodded steadily on with his elementary studies with the captain, and made, according to that gentleman’s glowing accounts to David Willis, considerable progress. David Willis, in his talks with the captain, was full of vague schemes for the boy’s future—schools he should attend, and the prizes he should gain, and the brilliant things he should do generally. The two men nodded heads over him on winter evenings long after he was asleep, the captain taking as much as, if not more, personal pride in his achievements than the father. David Willis had, of course, made up his mind that the boy must be a musician; it was the one profession in the world, and there were great prizes in it—prizes which David himself had never been able to clutch, but which would lie easily within the reach of his son. The captain said nothing on that point, but shook his head in secret as he walked home through the frosty streets; there was but one profession in his mind for Comethup, and he—the captain—had already sown the seeds which should make for an abundant harvest in it. Comethup Willis should yet shine in the annals of his country as a greater soldier than the captain had ever been, and should be able to point with pride to the man who had first given him a lesson in military tactics. The captain did not see quite clearly how it was all to be managed; but Fate is good in the case of such a wonderful boy as Comethup, and things could be done somehow. At all events, there was plenty of time yet.

So another summer came round again, with its promise of a renewal of all the old delights, and Comethup was eight years old. Not a great age, certainly, save to the mind of a little child; but Comethup was older than his years, and looked on life, perhaps, with graver eyes than most. Nothing seemed to have changed in his small world; the captain looked exactly the same as of old, and carried himself as stiffly erect as ever. ’Linda had grown, but not to an extent to be marked by one who saw her almost daily. Then suddenly into Comethup’s quiet life came a great and terrible change.

One summer Sunday morning he was waiting as usual for the captain at the door of his father’s cottage. The bells above him were ringing for church, and he was expecting every moment that his father would pass him, as usual, with his books under his arm, and a kindly word for the child on his lips, on his way into the church. But this morning, although he could see at the far end of the sunlit street the figure of the captain marching toward him, he had seen nothing of his father; and the bell above him had started that slow, dull tolling which gave warning that it would stop in a few moments. Fearing that something might have delayed his father, or that he might—although that seemed impossible—have forgotten the time, he turned, and ran up the stairs to his father’s room. It was a small room near his own; the big best bedroom in which he had been born and in which his mother had died, was never used, and was always kept scrupulously clean and neat behind its closed door.

But David Willis was not in his room, and Comethup, a little vaguely frightened, was coming down again, when he saw that the door of the unused room stood slightly open. He paused, and then drew near and peeped in. In the semi-darkness—for the blinds were always drawn there—he saw his father kneeling beside the great bed, with his arms stretched out upon it, and his head buried between them; he seemed to be praying. Ashamed even at the thought of prying at such a moment, Comethup stole gently down the stairs, turned at the foot of them, and called loudly to his father, for the bell had stopped ringing now, and the captain was standing, watch in hand, in the cottage doorway.

He heard a movement above him, and his father came hurriedly down the stairs. He looked dazed, and something glistened about his eyes like tears; but Comethup had never seen a man cry, and did not believe that they could, and therefore dismissed that suggestion as impossible.

“I—I had quite forgotten,” said David Willis, glancing with a smile at the captain. “And the bell has stopped. I must hurry.” He went past them at a run, and Comethup and the captain quickly followed.

Late though he was, he paused for a moment at the church door and looked away across the little graveyard to the mound which Comethup had seen him decorate so often with flowers from his dead wife’s garden; then, remembering himself, he hurried into the church. The captain and Comethup crept in noiselessly by their own door and got into their places. They heard the first wheezy sounds of the organ above them, and then the first notes of the voluntary; then, even while the congregation were rising to their feet, the organ stopped abruptly, dying away on a long, thin note like a wail.

In the silence which followed—a silence in which he did not even seem to hear the sharp whispers of those about him, and in which the beating of his own heart was painfully loud and stifled—Comethup had time to feel with unerring instinct that something dreadful had happened. Moreover, the captain, who was looking up toward the organ-loft, had closed his hands on the boy’s shoulder with a grip which hurt him. A moment later, while the people were still standing looking up in the same direction, the captain had pushed past Comethup, bidding him, in a stern whisper, to stay where he was, and was making his way toward the organ-loft. Some one near at hand—a woman—cried out suddenly, and there was a movement about her, and, before Comethup had quite realized all that had happened, another woman, young and pretty and with eyes that smiled at him through tears, had glided into the pew where the boy stood and had drawn him down on the seat, with his head against her breast. Then, dimly understanding that something was very wrong indeed, he clung to her, and let his tears have vent.

The next thing that he remembered was that the captain was in the pew behind, bending over and touching his head softly with one lean old hand; the woman was rocking him to and fro and murmuring to him, as though he had been in pain. And the people were all rustling out of church.

“Boy,” said the captain, in a low voice, “you did not—did not know your mother?”

The boy turned his head and looked up at the captain without answering.

“She was very beautiful and very good, Comethup. She—she went away when you came into the world. Your father was very fond of her—loved her dearly.” The captain bent his head, turned away his face, and lowered his voice. “And he is gone to meet her. Come home with me, Comethup.”