Читать книгу Seibert of the Island - Gordon Young - Страница 11

That afternoon old Combe walked moodily about his house, up and down the veranda, in and out of doors, all through the great, lonely, barn-like building. When night came, and his friends had not returned, he grew afraid that something had happened, and walked out among the trees to the road. The stars danced overhead in twinkling multitudes.

Combe was sure that something must have gone wrong. Seibert was a powerful man, with servants about him, and overseers that went armed.

For all of his years as a convict, Combe had never hurt anything more than a few hares in his boyhood poaching days, for which he had been deported; and though there was no sternness in his nature, his helplessness was not due to a lack of courage, but rather to a fuddling uncertainty of purpose. But now, as fears increased, and dread gave stimulation to his imaginings, he suddenly wished there were no children in his home; then, with a chill, ague-like feeling all through his body, he upraised his trembling arms in the shadows and swore that if his friends had come to harm, that he would take a pistol and go to Seibert and shoot him. The excitement of thinking such a thing caused him to shake from head to feet, and his mouth became so dry that he could not speak his oath aloud, though he tried.

Presently he heard the soft clatter of hoofs—the cloof-cloof, cloof-cloof, cloof-cloof of men riding rapidly and easily. Dark forms emerged against the skyline as the road along which Combe peered came over a rise, and he saw that they were returning.

They swung themselves from the saddles, and, without speaking, walked rapidly to the house, where Combe, shambling nervously, went before them into the "office," saying that he would make a light.

This had been Waller's bedroom, and the bed remained. He had built a house large as a barracks, and used but one room of it.

Combe fumbled with a lamp, breaking two or three sulphur matches that he tried to light; and when the wick took fire he puttered for a time, trying to trim it by pinching with his fingers, then couldn't recall where he had set the chimney; and searched from table-top to the floor. He adjusted and readjusted the chimney, doing what he could to delay facing about, for he was sure that they had failed or they would have spoken.

Then Brundage, with long, unhurried step, crossed to the desk and threw down a package of papers as he said in dry, hard tones: "Tom, you're a damned old skinflint. Seibert says he'll pay, just to be neighbourly, but if he'd known this was the way you were going to treat him he'd never have come near you. He won't any more, ever. He said so."

Williams said nothing. He was grim, silent, alert, waiting to go. Combe stood tremulously—the lamp was behind him—looking from Brundage to Williams, trying to say something, wanting to offer something, to give up something; but there was nothing that he could offer, and little that he could say, for his was not a glib tongue.

With an air of putting himself out of the scene, Brundage sat down in the chair by the desk, stretched out his long legs, leaned back, and, scratching his leathery chin, looked with a glint of amusement at Combe's troubled awkwardness.

He took two or three aimless steps forward. His stoopshouldered silhouette was blotted against the lamplight, so that the agitated old fellow appeared grotesque.

He said to Wiliams, "You know how I feel, but it don't matter 'bout me. I—I——" His voice got away from him and squeaked. "I—I'm old—but——" Again the squeak. "It's them. I want them to have what money gets. I want——". An idea came. His voice rose shrilly. "I'll get them—it's for them to thank 'ee!"

He shuffled to the door. His arms hung loosely, as if tied to his shoulders, and jerked shakily as he walked. He opened the door only a little, and edged through hurriedly, as if slipping away. He called, but no answer came. He went along the wide, dark hall, calling.

From far off through the gloom there was a child's thin answer.

"Come here! Come here! Or'na dear, Nada darlin', come t' daddy!"

A hurrying patter of bare feet over the mats, then two lithe little shapes emerged from the darkness with a bound, and grasped him, clinging fast, holding on with impetuous expectancy, demanding why he had called. He often tried to surprise them in this way with something that they wanted.

He brought them along with him down the gloomy hall. They were at once a little awed by the silence and strangeness in his manner, and held tightly to his arms. He seemed so changed that it brought to them the feeling that their mother had died again.

He opened the door wide and urged them in; but they timidly held back, peering through with animal shyness at the stranger, grim and motionless, his grey eyes on them.

Combe coaxed anxiously, but they would not move except to shrink more closely against his legs, until Brundage, from across the room, spoke. They crossed to him with a breathless little scurry, and Oreena, the younger got around behind him, but Nada stood between his knees. She felt companionable with Brundage. Very few persons ever did.

The ill-trimmed lamp fretted smokily, so that shadows bounced and leaped about the room like bodiless devils trying to dodge through the light. The children gazed with a kind of wide-eyed shyness at the strange, roughly-bearded man, whose eyes alarmed them; and Brundage leaned back with a half-smile at Combe, who, now near the centre of the room, felt the need of making something of a speech, of saying what would impress his children so that they would always remember this moment, and something, too, that would be valued by the sternly silent man of whom Combe himself was always a little in awe.

"Children—Nada, Or'na dear—I want you—here——"

He gestured boldly, forgot what he meant to say, paused with bearded mouth a-droop, waiting for the next word to come through, and it did not come.

After a moment's hesitation he blurted desperately: "He's done more for you than your old daddy's ever done——"

This made the children open their eyes a little wider in distrust, for there are few things that childhood resents so much as a rival to one that is loved.

"No matter what we ever do, we ain't begun to pay him back——"

It was painfully like a hopeless, dreary debt that would follow one down to the grave, and old Combe's voice was pitched to melancholic shrillness.

Brundage smiled that hard, lined smile of his, eyeing Combe.

"We wouldn't ha' had no house 'r home but for him, an'——"

Williams showed something very like a trace of discomfort. He shifted his feet slightly, raised a hand no higher than his shoulder, and, glaring with disconcerting severity, said in an abrupt, unchallengeable way: "Combe, I'm leaving for the bay and need another horse."

Combe, relieved by an excuse to get away, almost stumbled over his own feet in hurrying through the door as he went to call up a horse for the hard climb across the ridge to a well-hidden bay where a little black schooner lay concealed.

Then with a slight gesture, and "I'm off," to Brundage, Williams turned to go. They knew each other too well to need handshakes and fair words at parting.

But Brundage called, "Skipper, here are these two young ladies that want to meet you. Children, this is Captain Williams—Hurricane Williams."

Their father—it had been like him to do just that—had neglected to say who this stern, forbidding man was; but at the sound of his name they knew him for that half-legendary personage always mentioned in their home with praise and a touch of awe. He was to them like a remote guardian, a powerful, just man, associated in their childish fancies as an equal with many figures in historical stories.

Under the pressure of Brundage's hand, Oreena, a slim little thing of seven, edged forward as the patient, heat-faded governess had taught her, making a dainty curtsey which looked very odd in that nickering lamplight, coming from a bare-legged little maid with loose hair flowing down her back.

Williams, half stooping, looked at her with an intentness like great hunger; but before he spoke she had backed away, afraid of his eyes. Nada the impetuous, the elder by two years, swept at him with arms out-reaching and closed on his neck.

Straightening, he raised her, held her, looked at her, pressed his face to her cheek, and put her down without a word.

Abashed by her sudden daring, she darted back to Brundage and hid her face against his breast.

Williams did not speak, but turned and went from the room.

Now, something over ten years later, Nada had come to him in a San Francisco lodging-house.