Flint Part 3

"I hate to see the poor things suffer--"

"You are too tender-hearted?"

"Say rather too weak-nerved--I should not care if every fish in the sea died a violent death after prolonged suffering, provided I was not obliged to watch the process."

Flint smiled.

"But don't you know these cold-blooded creatures can't be made to suffer? I dare say the keenest enjoyment a fish ever feels is when his nervous system is gently stimulated by a hook in his mouth."

"Perhaps--I don't know--I tell you it is no question of sympathy. It is simply physical repulsion; and then I loathe the soft slipperiness of the bait."

"That's so," put in the boy at the tiller. "Fred groans every time I put a worm on the hook, and squeals when the fish flop round in the bottom of the boat, especially if they come anywhere near her skirts."

"Fred," repeated Flint to himself, "I might have known she would have a boy's name--" Aloud, he said: "I suppose, Master Jim, you have found all the best fishing-grounds in the pond."

Jim softened visibly at this tribute to his skill.

"Well, I know one good one over at Brightman's, and I'll show it to you to-morrow, if you like."

His sister shot a warning glance from under her level eyebrows.

"Don't make plans too far ahead, Jim. Sufficient unto the day, you remember--and unless this gentleman gets dry and warm soon, I am afraid he will spend some days to come under the doctor's care.

Haven't you some brandy or whiskey?" she asked, turning more fully toward Flint, and noticing for the first time that his lips were blue and his teeth chattering in spite of his efforts at unconcerned conversation.

"Yes," he answered; "a flask full of excellent old whiskey--over there," and he pointed disconsolately to the line of green water where the tell-tale fluttered above the wrecks of "The Aquidneck."

The young lady knit her brows in puzzled thought, "What is in our locker, Jim?"

"Bread and b.u.t.ter, cocoanut b.a.l.l.s and ginger-ale."

"Get out the ginger-ale."

"But it is your luncheon," deprecated Flint.

"No, it isn't--it is your medicine. Try it."

Flint pressed the iron spring, and poured down the spluttering liquid, striving to conceal his wry face.

"Bully, ain't it?" exclaimed Jim, not without a tinge of regret for lost joys in his tone.

"Excellent!" returned Flint, perjuring himself like a gentleman.

"It is better than nothing," Miss Fred answered judicially. "I will send Jim up to the inn with some brandy; Marsden's stuff is rank poison. I had some once this summer when I was ill, and straightway sent off to town for a private supply. If you feel able to exercise, I should advise you to let us put you off at this point, and make a run across country to Marsden's."

"I don't know how to thank you," Flint murmured as Jimmy pulled the row-boat up, and the young man prepared to climb in after him.

"There is no occasion for thanks. But if you insist on a debit and credit account, please charge it off against the ruin of your fishing-rod."

"I am humiliated."

"You?"

"Yes; I must have been a model of incivility."

"No; it was I who was in fault, rushing about the country like a jockey riding down everything in sight."

"Who except a fool would have had a fishing-rod trailing half-way across the road?"

"Look here," grumbled Jim, "I can't hold this dory b.u.mping against the side of the boat forever--"

"Don't be impertinent, Jim. Besides apologies never last long. It is only explanations which take time--"

Flint jumped from the gunwale of the sail-boat into the dory, and took the oars. As he headed for sh.o.r.e, he turned his eyes once more to the sail-boat, and the glimpse that he had of its skipper he carried for long after--the vision of her standing there in the stern, against the stretch of blue water, her soft handkerchief of some red stuff knotted about her throat above the gray jacket, her felt hat thrust up in front above the waves of her hair, and her eyes smiling with frank mirthfulness.

CHAPTER III

OLD FRIENDS

"It's an ower-come sooth For age and youth, And it brooks wi' nae denial, That the oldest friends Are the dearest friends, And the new are just on trial."

Flint was glad enough on reaching the inn to creep into bed. In spite of his cross-country run he was chilled through. Little shivers ran down his back, and his hands and feet seemed separated by s.p.a.ces of numbness from the warmth of his body. The brandy arrived, and he swallowed some eagerly; but it had little effect on his chilly apathy.

The dinner-bell clanged below. Flint heard it, but he paid no heed to the summons. He had forgotten what it was to desire food. A blur before his eyes, and an iron band about his head, occupied his attention to the exclusion of the outside world.

By three o'clock the headache-fiend had entered into full possession, had perched itself in the centre of consciousness, and seemed to Flint's excited nerves to be working its octopus claws in and out among the folds of his brain.

Waves of pain vibrated outward to his ears and eyes. He watched the shade against the blindless window flap to and fro. Each streak of light admitted, struck the sufferer like a blow. He got up, went to the washbasin and sopped a towel, which he bound about his head and lay down again--no relief. He could endure it no longer. He dropped his boots one after the other on the floor, till at length Marsden heard the signal of distress, came lumbering up the stairs, and thumped upon his door.

Flint bade him come in and state in the fewest possible words whether there was any doctor within reach.

"There was."

"How long would it take to fetch him?"

"About half an hour."

"Let it be done."

Again Flint sank into a sort of stupor, from which he was awakened by a knock, and the entrance of a nervous, little wiry gentleman whose clothes of rusty black had the effect of having been purchased in a fit of absence of mind.

The sufferer roused himself as the physician came in.

"The doctor?"

"Yes."