Читать книгу Come and Find Me - Elizabeth Robins - Страница 5

“What did he see?” Jack gathered together his sprawled-out body and sat up.

Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into space. “No settlements. Beyond the creek, barren hills to the north. No hope that way. East and west the tundra stretched to the horizon line level as the ocean. No hope right or left. He turned round and saw off there to the south the coast where he’d been wrecked, and the sand-spit the Esquimaux were making ready to leave, and beyond that, against the horizon—what was that! He nearly fell off the rock. For a two-masted schooner was lying a couple of miles off the shore. Two masts! It flashed over him those were the two poles he’d seen sticking up above the tundra, several hours before. Well, he got down off that rock double quick, and he nearly killed himself tearing back to the coast, and signaling the ship. He was only just in time—they were weighing anchor.”

“Well,” said Jack, with a long breath of relief, “it was a good fing he climbed vat funny hill!”

“Y—yes,” said Nathaniel Mar. His tone was hardly satisfactory.

“Didn’t he get back to his fwiends all wight?”

“Oh, yes, he got back all right.”

“What did vey say when he told vem about ve gold?”

“He didn’t tell anybody about that just then.”

“Why not?”

“If he had, somebody might have rushed there and cleaned the whole creek out, before he had a chance.”

“Oh! How soon did he go back?”

“He—he didn’t go.”

Jack sat there wide-eyed. “W—why didn’t he?”

“Mar’s eyes looked over the little boy’s head into space”

“Well, you see, he had a pretty bad time with that leg of his.”

“Oh, it was his leg, was it?”

“A—yes—his leg. He kept waiting for the doctors to cure it. Instead of curing it they kept cutting off little bits of it.”

“Ow! Well—and after vat, when it did get well.”

“It didn’t.”

“And was he lame always, like you?”

“Something like me.”

“Why didn’t he get a store leg, too?”

“He did, I believe—ultimately.”

“And wasn’t it any good?”

“It wasn’t quite the same as the one he’d lost.”

“Oh, no.” Jack realized that, with a creep down his back. He could still feel the dreadful touch of it on his fingers. “But I suppose he sent somebody else up after vat gold?”

“N-no.”

“Well, what did he do?”

“He—he got married.”

“Oh—h. And after vat?”

“Then he got a post of some sort—not easy to get, still harder to leave.”

“And—”

“And then he got some children. Oh, he was always getting things, that fellow! Once it was intermittent fever. Anyhow he had to stay where he was.”

“Ven who got ve gold?”

“Nobody. Not yet.”

“Ve gold is waitin’ vere now?” Jack jumped to his feet with dancing eyes.

“So—a—so he says.”

“Oh—oh!” Then with an air of fiery impatience:

“What you say vat man’s doin’ now?”

“He—well—I understand he’s hanging on to that post.”

“Hangin’ on a post!” Jack colored as Mar laughed, and added hurriedly, “Just waitin’ to see if vat leg won’t get better, I s’pose.”

“Waiting for—several things.”

Jack came closer. “Oh, doesn’t he mean to never mind his leg, and go back some day?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he had times of thinking he would go back somehow. After he’s educated his children, and got them off his hands, and can afford to take risks. Or, if the worst comes to the worst, his sons will go one day.”

“Or I might go,” said Jack, quickly.

Mar smiled and fell silent. Jack walked away with his hands in his breeches pockets, and his eyes big with dreams. The opening of the door made them both start.

“Didn’t I tell you not to get out of that chair till supper?” Mrs. Mar demanded. She stood there with the butter dish in one hand and the milk pitcher in the other, snapping her bright eyes at the culprit.

He for his part had turned about sharply, and he fell from the infinite skies with a bump.

“I—I—” he stammered, backing against the bookcase.

“It’s on the lower shelf,” said Mar, calmly. “The heavy brown book.” Jack turned again, utterly bewildered, but following the direction indicated by Mr. Mar’s walking-stick.

“That’s ‘Franklin’s Second Voyage,’ next the dictionary. Yes, that’s what I want. I think,” he went on to his wife, as Jack stooped to obey him, “I think I must always keep a small prisoner in here, to hand me things out of my reach.”

She answered nothing as she set down the butter and the milk, but she kept her eyes on Jack.

“Oh, yes,” he was saying hurriedly, “vis is Fwanklin.” He carried the book to his friend.

“Fwanklin!” repeated that gentleman with affectation of scorn, as he opened the book. “Now, sir, go back to your seat and practice your R’s. It’s ridiculous for a boy of your age to be talking baby talk.”

“Yes, sir,” said Jack, getting very red as he returned to his place. Mrs. Mar stood at the sideboard making a dressing for the salad. Every now and then she looked over her shoulder. But Jack sat impeccable in the penitential chair, saying softly, but with careful emphasis:

“Awound ve wugged wocks ve wagged wascal wan. Awound ve,”—but his eyes were too shining to show a mind properly bent upon the course pursued by that particular wascal.

After supper, while Mrs. Mar was putting Trennor and Harry to bed, Jack Galbraith looked everywhere he could think of for his book. No, Mr. Mar hadn’t seen it. “Here, I’ll lend you mine. You’ll understand some of the chapter about,”—and he turned the pages till he found the place, and he put in a slip of paper. “There! Franklin didn’t find what he was looking for, but he’s written the best travel book I know.”

“Oh, fank you, sir.” Jack took the big volume in both arms, and was making off with it.

“And look here, Jack, about that other fellow—the man who did find something up there, you and I won’t tell anybody about that.”

“Oh!” He stopped and nodded at Mar over the great book. “All wight. But I may speak to you about it sometimes—”

“When we’re alone.”

“All wight. Hasn’t he,” Jack lowered his tone to conspirator’s pitch, “hasn’t he ever told anybody but you?”

“Oh, he’s told one or two. But in confidence, you know. People he can trust.”

Jack pulled himself up proudly. “I can keep secrets like anyfing.” But again he lowered his voice, and smiling delightedly, “What do vey say,” he demanded with lively anticipation, “vose ovvers, when vey hear about it?”

Mr. Mar did not answer instantly.

Jack drew nearer, still clasping the great book. “Oh, do tell me what vey say.”

“They—they think he dreamed it.”

“B—b—but,” Jack stuttered with indignation, “doesn’t he show vem ve nugget, and ve handkerchief wiv ve—”

“No,” said Mar, sadly. “He lost that handkerchief somewhere on the tundra.”