“sure, and it’s not meself can tackle the road, the day. as well be ‘docked’ for the end as the beginnin’, an’ i’m minded to keep that lot company a piece,” remarked timothy dowd, to his sister’s husband’s cousin. “that monkey is most interestin’, most interestin’ an’ improvin’; an’ ’tisn’t often a lad from old ireland has the chance to get acquaintance of the sort, leave alone that glory girl, what’s took up quarters in me heart an’ won’t be boosted thence, whatever. the poor little colleen! a-lookin’ for one lost old man out of a world full! bless her innocent soul! yes. i’ve a mind to company them a bit. what say, mary, woman?”
“what need to say a word, sence when a man’s bent to do a thing he does it? but keep an open ear, timothy, boy. i’m curious to know what sort o’ trouble ’tis, dennis hints at, as comin’ to them old people yon. and he’d never say, considerin’ as he does, that what goes on in the big house is no consarn o’ the cottage, an’ fearin’ to remind ’em even’t we’re alive, lest they pack us off an’ fetch in folks with no childer to bless an’ bother ’em. yes, go, timothy; and wait; here’s one them handy catch-pins, that glory might tighten her skirt a bit.”
timothy’s usually merry face had been sadly overclouded as he watched the departure of glory and her companions, but it lightened instantly when mary favored his suggestion to follow and learn their fortune. with his hat on the back of his head, his stick over his shoulder, and his unlighted pipe in his mouth–which still managed to whistle a gay tune despite this impediment–he sauntered along the road in the direction the others had taken, though at some distance behind them. but when they passed boldly through the great iron gates and followed the driveway winding over the beautiful lawn, his bashfulness overcame him, and he sat down on the bank-wall to await their return, which must be, he fancied, by that same route; soliloquizing thus:
“sure, tim, me boy, if it’s tramps they object to, what for ’s the use o’ turnin’ your honest self into such? them on ahead has business to tend to; the business o’ makin’ sweet music where music there is none; an’ may the pennies roll out thick an’ plenteous an’ may the eyetalian have the good sense in him to share them same with my sweet colleen. it’s thinkin’ i am that all is spent on such as her is money well invested. so i’ll enjoy the soft side this well-cut top-stone, till so be me friends comes along all in a surprise to see me here.”
his own whistling had ceased, and though he listened closely he could not hear luigi’s organ or any sound whatever. the truth was that the way seemed endless from the entrance to the house upon the terrace; and that having reached it at last, both luigi and glory were dismayed by the magnitude of the mansion and confused by its apparently countless doorways. before which they should take their stand, required time to decide; but unobserved, they finally settled this point. luigi rested his instrument upon its pole, loosed jocko to his gambols, and tuned up.
the strains which most ears would have found harsh and discordant sounded pleasantly enough to the listening timothy, who nodded his head complacently, wishing and thinking:
“now he’s off! may he keep at it till he wheedles not only the pence but the dollars out the pockets o’ them that hears! ’twill take dollars more’n one to keep glory on her long road, safe and fed, and―bless us! what’s that?”
what, indeed, but the wildest sort of uproar, in which angry voices, the barking of dogs, the screams of frightened women drowning the feeble tones of “oft in the stilly night,” sent timothy to his feet and his feet to speeding, not over the graveled driveway, but straight across the shaven lawn, where passage was forbidden. but no “keep off the grass” signs deterred him, as he remembered now, too late, all that he had heard of the ferocity of the broadacre dogs which its master kept for just such occasions as this.
“bloodhounds! and they’ve loosed them! oh, me darlin’ colleen! ill to me that i let ye go wanderin’ thus with that miserable eyetalian! but i’m comin’! tim’s comin’!” he yelled, adding his own part to the wild chorus above.
he reached the broad paved space before the great door none too soon, and though, ordinarily, he would have given the yelping hounds a very wide berth, he did not hesitate now. huddled together in a group, with the frantic animals bounding and barking all around them, though as yet not touching them, stood the terrified luigi and his friends; realizing what vagrancy means in this “land of the free,” and how even to earn an honest living one should never dare to “trespass.”
but even as timothy forced his stalwart frame between the children and the dogs, the great door opened and a white-haired gentleman came hurrying out. thrusting a silver whistle to his lips he blew upon it shrilly, and almost instantly the uproar ceased, and the three hounds sprang to his side, fawning upon him, eager for his commendation. instead of praise, however, they were given the word of command and crouched beside him, licking their jaws and expectant, seemingly, of a further order to pounce upon the intruders.
“who loosed the dogs?” demanded the gentleman, in a clear-ringing, indignant tone.
now that he seemed displeased by their too solicitous obedience, none of the gathering servants laid claim to it; and while all stood waiting, arrested in their attitudes of fear or defense, a curious thing happened. glory beck threw off the protecting arms of timothy dowd and, with bonny angel clasped close in her own, swiftly advanced to the granite step where the white-haired gentleman stood. her face that had paled in fear now flushed in excitement as with a voice unlike her own she cried:
“you, sir! you, sir! what have you done with my grandfather?”
the gentleman stared at her, thinking her fright had turned her brain; but saying kindly, as soon as he could command his voice:
“there, child. it’s all right. the dogs won’t touch you now.”
“the dogs!” retorted the child, in infinite scorn. “what do i care for the dogs? it’s you i want. you, that ‘snug-harbor’-bonnicastle-man who coaxed my grandpa simon beck away from his own home an’ never let him come back any more!”
then her anger subsiding into an intensity of longing, she threw herself at his feet, clasping his knees and imploring, piteously:
“oh! take me to him. tell me, tell me where he is. i’ve looked so long and i don’t know where and–please, please, please.”
for a moment nobody spoke; not even colonel bonnicastle, for it was he, indeed, though he silently motioned to a trustworthy man who had drawn near to take the dogs away; and who, in obedience, whistling imperatively, gathered their chains in his hands and led them back to their kennel.
when the dogs had disappeared, the master of broadacres sank into a near-by chair, wiping his brow and pityingly regarded the little girl who still knelt, imploringly. he was trying to comprehend what had happened, what she meant, and if he had ever seen her before. captain simon beck! that was a familiar name, surely, but of that ungrateful seaman, who wouldn’t be given a “snug harbor” whether or no, of him he had never heard nor even thought since his one memorable uncomfortable visit to elbow lane.
“simon beck–simon beck,” he began, musingly. “yes, i know a simon beck, worthy seaman, and would befriend him if i could. is he your grandfather, child, and what has happened to him that you speak to me so–so–well, let us say–rudely?”
then he added, in that commanding tone which few who knew him ever disobeyed:
“get up at once, child. your kneeling to me is absurd, nor do i know in what way i can help you, though you think i can do so–apparently. why! how strange–how like–”
he had stooped and raised glory, gently forcing her to her feet, and as he did so, bonny angel turned her own face around from the girl’s breast where she had buried it in her terror of the dogs.
wasted and shorn of her beautiful hair, clothed in the discarded rags of a fogarty twin, it would have taken keen eyes indeed to recognize in the little outcast the radiant “guardian angel” who had flashed upon glory’s amazed sight that day in elbow lane; yet something about it there was which made the near-sighted colonel grope hastily for his eyeglasses and in his haste overlook them, so that he muttered angrily at his own awkwardness.
into the blue eyes of the little one herself crept a puzzled wondering look, that fixed itself upon the perplexed gentleman with a slowly growing comprehension.
just then, too, when forgetting her own anxiety, glory looked from the baby to the man and back again, startled and wondering, a lady came to the doorway and exclaimed:
“why, brother, whatever is the matter! such an uproar―”
but her sentence was never finished. bonny’s gaze, distracted from the colonel to his sister, glued itself to the lady’s face, while the perplexity in the blue eyes changed to delight. with a seraphic smile upon her dainty lips, a smile that would have made her recognizable anywhere, under any disguise, the little creature propelled herself from glory’s arms to the outstretched arms of miss laura, shrilling her familiar announcement:
“bonny come! bonny come!”
how can the scene be best explained, how best described? maybe in words of honest timothy dowd himself; who, somewhat later, returning to the queen anne cottage, called the entire fogarty family about him and announced to the assembled household:
“well, sirs! ye could knock me down with a feather!” after which he sank into profound silence.
“huh! and is that what ye’re wantin’ of us, is it? well, you never had sense,” remarked mary, turning away indignantly.
thus roused, the railroader repeated:
“sure, an’ ye could. a feather’d do it, an’ easy. but sit down, woman. sit down as i bid ye, an’ hear the most wonderful, marvelous tale a body ever heard this side old ireland. faith, i wish my tongue was twicet as long, an’ i knew better how to choose the beginnin’ from the end of me story, or the middle from any one. but sit down, sit down, lass, an’ bid your seven onruly gossoons to keep the peace for onct, while i tell ye a story beats all the fairy ones ever dreamed. but–where to begin!”
“huh! i’ll give you a start,” answered mrs. fogarty, impatiently. “you went from here: now go on with your tale.”
“i went from here,” began timothy, obediently, and glad of even this small aid in his task. “i went from here an’ i follyed the three of ’em, monkey an’ man an’ girl―”
“and the baby. that’s four,” corrected dennis, junior, winking at a brother.
“hist, boy! childer should speak when they’re spoke to,” returned timothy, severely, then continued, at length: “i went from here. and i follyed―”
here he became so lost in retrospection that mary tapped him on the shoulder, when he resumed as if no break had occurred:
“them four to the gate. but havin’ no business of me own on the place, i stayed behind, a listenin’. an’, purty soon up pipes the beautiful music; an’ right atop o’ that comes–bedlam! all the dogs a barkin’, the women servants screeching, the old gentleman commandin’, and me colleen huggin’ the angel tight an’ saying never a say, though the poor dago eyetalian was trembling himself into his grave, till all a sudden like, up flies glory, heedin’ dogs nor no dogs, an’ flings herself at broadacres’ feet, demanding her grandpa! fact, ’twas the same old gentleman she’d been blamin’ for spiritin’ away the blind man; and now comes true he knows no more the sailor’s whereabouts than them two twinses yon. but i’ve me cart afore me horse, as usual. for all along o’ this, out comes from that elegant mansion another old person, the lady, miss laura bonnicastle, by your leave. an’ she looks at the angel in me colleen’s arms an’ the angel looks at her; an’, whisht! afore you could wink, out flies the knowin’ baby from the one to the other! an’ then, bless us! the time there was! an’ you could hear a pin drop, an’ in a minute you couldn’t, along of them questions an’ answers, firing around, from one person to another, hit-or-miss-like, an’ all talkin’ to onct, or sayin’ never a word, any one. an’ so this is the trouble, mary fogarty, that dennis wouldn’t mention. the angel is their own child, and dennis fogarty’s the clever chap suspicioned it himself.”
“huh! now you’re fairy-talein’, indeed. ’tis old bachelor and old maid the pair of them is. i know that much if i don’t know more,” returned the house-mistress, reprovingly.
timothy was undisturbed and ignored her reproof, as he went on with his story:
“their child was left for them to care for. the only child of their nevvy an’ niece, who’s over seas at the minute, a takin’ a vacation, with hearts broke because of word comin’ the baby was lost. lost she was the very day them bonnicastles set for leaving the city house an’ comin’ to broadacres; an’ intrustin’ the little creatur’ by the care of a nursemaid–bad luck to her–to be took across the big bridge, over to that brooklyn where did reside a friend of the whole family with whom the baby would be safe till called for; meanin’ such time as them bonnicastles had done with the movin’ business an’ could take care of it theirselves, proper. little dreamin’ they, poor souls, how that that same nursemaid would stop to chatter with a friend of her own, right at the bridge-end and leave the child out of her arms just for the minute, who, set on the ground by herself, runs off in high glee an’ no more to that story, till she finds herself in the ‘littlest house,’ where me colleen lived; an’ what come after ye know. but ye don’t know how the nursemaid went near daft with the fear, and wasted good days a searchin’ an’ searchin’ on her own account; the bonnicastles’ friend-lady over in brooklyn not expecting no such visit an’ not knowin’ aught; ’cause the maid carried the note sayin’ so in her own pocket. all them rich folks bein’ so intimate-like, preparin’ ’em wasn’t needful. and then, when the truth out, all the police in the city set to the hunt, and word sent across the ocean to the ravin’-distracted young parents, an’–now, all’s right! such joy, such thanksgivin’, such cryin’ an’ laughin’–bless us! i couldn’t mention it.”
“but that poor little glory! hard on her to find the angel’s folks an’ not her own!” said mary, gently.
“not hard a bit! she’s that onselfish like, ’twould have done you proud to see her clappin’ her hands an’ smilin’, though the tears yet in her eyes, ’cause she an’ bonny must part. and ‘how’s that?’ asks miss laura, catching the girl to her heart and kissin’ her ill-cropped head, ‘do you think we will not stand by you in your search and help you with money and time and every service, you who have been so faithful to our darlin’?’ and then the pair o’ them huggin’ each other, like they’d loved each other sence the day they was born.”
here, for sheer want of breath, timothy’s narrative ended, but mary having a vivid imagination, allowed it full play then and prophesied, sagely and happily:
“well, then, all of ye listen, till i tell ye how ’twill be. that old man was run over in the street was captain simon beck; and though he was hurted bad, he wasn’t killed; and though them clever little newsboys couldn’t find him, the folks colonel bonnicastle sets searchin’ will. an’ when he’s found, he’ll be nigh well; an’ he’ll be brought out here an’ kep’ in a little cottage somewhere on broadacres property, with glory to tend him an’ to live happy ever afterward. an’ that’ll be the only ‘snug harbor’ any one’ll ever need. an’ we shan’t have lost our glory but got her for good.”
“but them billy button and nick parson boys, what of them?” demanded dennis, junior, his own sympathy running toward the clever gamins.
“they’ll come too, if they want to. they’ll come, all the same, now and again, just for vari’ty like,” comfortably assented his mother. “an’ your father’ll get well, an’ we’ll move into that other house down yon, further from the big one; an’ them bonnicastles’ll fix this up prime an’ glory’ll live here.”
“so it ought to be, an’ that we all should live happy forever an’ a day!” cried timothy, enjoying her finish of his tale more than he had his own part in it.
and so, in truth it all happened, and mary’s cheerful prophecy was fulfilled in due time.
