dormer colville attached so much importance to the captain's grave jest that he interpreted it at once to monsieur de gemosac.
“captain clubbe,” he said, “tells us that he does not need to be informed that this loo barebone is the man we seek. he has long known it.”
which was a near enough rendering, perhaps, to pass muster in the hearing of two persons imperfectly acquainted with the languages so translated. then, turning again to the sailor, he continued:
“monsieur de gemosac would naturally wish to know whether there were papers or any other means of identification found on the woman or the child?”
“there were a few papers. the woman had a roman catholic missal in her pocket, and the child a small locket with a miniature portrait in it.”
“of the queen marie antoinette?” suggested colville, quickly.
“it may well have been. it is many years since i saw it. it was faded enough. i remember that it had a fall, and would not open afterward. no one has seen it for twenty-five years or so.”
“the locket or the portrait?” inquired colville, with a light laugh, with which to disclaim any suggestion of a cross-examination.
“the portrait.”
“and the locket?”
“my wife has it somewhere, i believe.”
colville gave an impatient laugh. for the peaceful air of farlingford had failed to temper that spirit of energy and enterprise which he had acquired in cities—in paris, most likely. he had no tolerance for quiet ways and a slow, sure progress, such as countrymen seek, who are so leisurely that the years slide past and death surprises them before they have done anything in the world but attend to its daily demand for a passing effort.
“ah!” he cried, “but all that must be looked into if we are to do anything for this young fellow. you will find the marquis anxious to be up and doing at once. you go so slowly in farlingford, captain. the world is hurrying on and this chance will be gone past before we are ready. let us get these small proofs of identity collected together as soon as possible. let us find that locket. but do not force it open. give it to me as it is. let us find the papers.”
“there are no papers,” interrupted captain clubbe, with a calm deliberation quite untouched by his companion's hurry.
“no papers?”
“no; for frenchman burnt them before my eyes.”
dormer colville meditated for a moment in silence. although his manner was quick, he was perhaps as deliberate in his choice of a question as was captain clubbe in answering it.
“why did he do that? did he know who he was? did he ever say anything to you about his former life—his childhood—his recollections of france?”
“he was not a man to say much,” answered clubbe, himself no man to repeat much.
colville had been trying for some time to study the sailor's face, quietly through his cigar smoke.
“look here, captain,” he said, after a pause. “let us understand each other. there is a chance, just a chance, that we can prove this loo barebone to be the man we think him, but we must all stand together. we must be of one mind and one purpose. we four, monsieur de gemosac, you, barebone, and my humble self. i fancy—well, i fancy it may prove to be worth our while.”
“i am willing to do the best i can for loo,” was the reply.
“and i am willing to do the best i can for monsieur de gemosac, whose heart is set on this affair. and,” colville added, with his frank laugh, “let us hope that we may have our reward; for i am a poor man myself, and do not like the prospect of a careful old age. i suppose, captain, that if a man were overburdened with wealth he would scarcely follow a seafaring life, eh?”
“then there is money in it?” inquired clubbe, guardedly.
“money,” laughed the other. “yes—there is money for all concerned, and to spare.”
captain clubbe had been born and bred among a people possessing little wealth and leading a hard life, only to come to want in old age. it was natural that this consideration should carry weight. he was anxious to do his best for the boy who had been brought up as his own son. he could think of nothing better than to secure him from want for the rest of his days. there were many qualities in loo barebone which he did not understand, for they were quite foreign to the qualities held to be virtues in farlingford; such as perseverance and method, a careful economy, and a rigid common sense. frenchman had brought these strange ways into farlingford when he was himself only a boy of ten, and they had survived his own bringing up in some of the austerest houses in the town, so vitally as to enable him to bequeath them almost unchastened to his son.
as has been noted, loo had easily lived down the prejudices of his own generation against an un-english gaiety, and inconsequence almost amounting to emotion. and nothing is, or was in the solid days before these trumpet-blowing times, so unwelcome in british circles as emotion.
frenchman had no doubt prepared the way for his son; but the peculiarities of thought and manner which might be allowed to pass in a foreigner would be less easily forgiven in loo, who had farlingford blood in his veins. for his mother had been a clubbe, own cousin, and, as gossips whispered, once the sweetheart of captain clubbe himself and daughter of seth clubbe of maiden's grave, one of the largest farmers on the marsh.
“it cannot be for no particular purpose that the boy has been created so different from any about him,” captain clubbe muttered, reflectively, as he thought of dormer colville's words. for he had that simple faith in an almighty purpose, without which no wise man will be found to do business on blue water.
“it is strange how a man may be allowed to inherit from a grandfather he has never seen a trick of manner, or a face which are not the manner or face of his father,” observed colville, adapting himself, as was his habit, to the humour of his companion. “there must, as you suggest, be some purpose in it. god writes straight on crooked lines, captain.”
thus dormer colville found two points of sympathy with this skipper of a slow coaster, who had never made a mistake at sea nor done an injustice to any one serving under him: a simple faith in the almighty purpose and a very honest respect for money. this was the beginning of a sort of alliance between four persons of very different character which was to influence the whole lives of many.
they sat on the tarred seat set against the weather-beaten wall of “the black sailor” until darkness came stealing in from the sea with the quiet that broods over flat lands, and an unpeopled shore. colville had many questions to ask and many more which he withheld till a fitter occasion. but he learnt that frenchman had himself stated his name to be barebone when he landed, a forlorn and frightened little boy, on this barren shore, and had never departed from that asseveration when he came to learn the english language and marry an english wife. captain clubbe told also how frenchman, for so he continued to be called long after his real name had been written twice in the parish register, had soon after his marriage destroyed the papers carefully preserved by the woman whom he never called mother, though she herself claimed that title.
she had supported herself, it appeared, by her needle, and never seemed to want money, which led the villagers to conclude that she had some secret store upon which to draw when in need. she had received letters from france, which were carefully treasured by her until her death, and for long afterward by frenchman, who finally burnt all at his marriage, saying that he was now an englishman and wanted to retain no ties with france. at this time, clubbe remembered, louis xviii. was firmly established on the throne of france, the restoration—known as the second—having been brought about by the allied powers with a high hand after the hundred days and the final downfall of napoleon.
frenchman may well have known that it might be worth his while to return to france and seek fortune there; but he never spoke of this knowledge nor made reference to the recollections of his childhood, which cast a cold reserve over his soul and steeped it with such a deadly hatred of france and all things french, that he desired to sever all memories that might link him with his native country or awake in the hearts of any children he should beget the desire to return thither.
a year after his marriage his wife died, and thus her son, left to the care of a lonely and misanthropic father, was brought up a frenchman after all, and lisped his first words in that tongue.
“he lived long enough to teach him to speak french and think like a frenchman, and then he died,” said captain clubbe—“a young man reckoning by years, but in mind he was an older man than i am to-day.”
“and his secret died with him?” suggested dormer colville, looking at the end of his cigar with a queer smile. but captain clubbe made no answer.
“one may suppose that he wanted it to die with him, at all events,” added colville, tentatively.
“you are right,” was the reply, a local colloquialism in common use, as a clincher to a closed argument or an unwelcome truth. captain clubbe rose as he spoke and intimated his intention of departing, by jerking his head sideways at monsieur de gemosac, who, however, held out his hand with a frenchman's conscientious desire to follow the english custom.
“i'll be getting home,” said clubbe, simply. as he spoke he peered across the marsh toward the river, and colville, following the direction of his gaze, saw the black silhouette of a large lug-sail against the eastern sky, which was softly grey with the foreglow of the rising moon.
“what is that?” asked colville.
“that's loo barebone going up with the sea-breeze. he has been down to the rectory. he mostly goes there in the evening. there is a creek, you know, runs down from maiden's grave to the river.”
“ah!” answered colville thoughtfully, almost as if the creek and the large lug-sail against the sky explained something which he had not hitherto understood.
“i thought he might have come with you this evening,” he added, after a pause. “for i suppose everybody in farlingford knows why we are here. he does not seem very anxious to seek his fortune in france.”
“no,” answered clubbe, lifting his stony face to the sky and studying the little clouds that hovered overhead awaiting the moon. “no—you are right.”
then he turned with a jerk of the head and left them. the marquis de gemosac watched him depart, and made a gesture toward the darkness of the night, into which he had vanished, indicative of a great despair.
“but,” he exclaimed, “they are of a placidity—these english. there is nothing to be done with them, my friend, nothing to be done with such men as that. now i understand how it is that they form a great nation. it is merely because they stand and let you thump them until you are tired, and then they proceed to do what they intended to do from the first.”
“that is because we know that he who jumps about most actively will be the first to feel fatigue, marquis,” laughed colville, pleasantly. “but you must not judge all england from these eastern people. it is here that you will find the concentrated essence of british tenacity and stolidity—the leaven that leavens the whole.”
“then it is our misfortune to have to deal with these concentrated english—that is all.”
the marquis shrugged his shoulders with that light despair which is incomprehensible to any but men of latin race.
“no, marquis! there you are wrong,” corrected dormer colville, with a sudden gravity, “for we have in captain clubbe the very man we want—one of the hardest to find in this chattering world—a man who will not say too much. if we can only make him say what we want him to say he will not ruin all by saying more. it is so much easier to say a word too much than a word too little. and remember he speaks french as well as english, though, being british, he pretends that he cannot.”
monsieur de gemosac turned to peer at his companion in the darkness.
“you speak hopefully, my friend,” he said. “there is something in your voice—”
“is there?” laughed colville, who seemed elated. “there may well be. for that man has been saying things, in that placid monotone which would have taken your breath away had you been able to understand them. a hundred times i rejoiced that you understood no english, for your impatience, marquis, might have silenced him as some rare-voiced bird is silenced by a sudden movement. yes, marquis, there is a locket containing a portrait of marie antoinette. there are other things also. but there is one drawback. the man himself is not anxious to come forward. there are reasons, it appears, here in farlingford, why he should not seek his fortune elsewhere. to-morrow morning—”
dormer colville rose and yawned audibly. it almost appeared that he regretted having permitted himself a moment's enthusiasm on a subject which scarcely affected his interests.
“to-morrow morning i will see to it.”
