In the Roar of the Sea Part 44

"You cannot be serious--_I_ to marry Captain Cruel!"

"It is a serious offer."

"But papa!--what would he say?"

"I never was in a position to tell his thoughts and guess what his words would be."

"But, Auntie--he is such a bad man."

"You know a great deal more about him than I do, of course."

"But--he is a smuggler, I do know that."

"Well--and what of that. There is no crime in that."

"It is not an honest profession. They say, too, that he is a wrecker."

"They say!--who say? What do you know?"

"Nothing, but I am not likely to trust my future to a man of whom such tales are told. Auntie! Would you, supposing that you were----"

"I will have none of your suppositions, I never did wear a rush ap.r.o.n, nor act as Jack Pudding."

"I cannot--Captain Cruel of all men."

"Is he so hateful to you?"

"Hateful--no; but I cannot like him. He has been kind, but--somehow I can't think of him as--as--as a man of our cla.s.s and thoughts and ways, as one worthy of my own, own papa. No--it is impossible, I am still a child."

She took the end of the peac.o.c.k's feather, the splendid eye l.u.s.trous with metallic beauty, and bowed the plume without breaking it, and, unconscious of what she was doing, stroked her lips with it. What a fragile fine quill that was on which hung so much beauty? and how worthless the feather would be when that quill was broken. And so with her--her fine, elastic, strong spirit, that when bowed sprang to its uprightness the moment the pressure was withdrawn; that on which all her charm, her beauty hung.

"Captain Coppinger has, surely, never asked you to put this alternative to me?"

"No--I do it myself. As you are a child, you are unfit to take charge of your brother. When you are engaged to be married you are a woman; I shift my load on you then."

"And you wish it?"

"I repeat I have no wishes in the matter."

"Give me time to consider."

"No. It must be decided now--that is to say if you do not wish Jamie to be taken away. Don't fancy I want to persuade you; but I want to be satisfied about my own future. I shall not remain in Pentyre with you.

As you enter by the front door, I leave by the back."

"Where will you go?"

"That is my affair."

Then in at the door came the two Scantlebrays and Jamie between them, gagged and with his hands bound behind his back. He had run out, directly his examination was over, and had been secured, almost without resistance, so taken by surprise was he, and reduced to a condition of helplessness.

Judith leaned against the mantel-shelf, with every tinge of color gone out of her cheeks. Jamie's frightened eyes met hers, and he made a slight struggle to speak, and to escape to her.

"You have a close conveyance ready for your patient?" asked Aunt Dionysia of the brothers.

"Oh, yes, a very snug little box on wheels. Scanty and I will sit with our young man, to prevent his feeling dull, you know."

"You understand, gentlemen, what I told you, that in the deciding whether the boy is to go with you or not, I am not the only one to be considered. If I have my will, go he shall, as I am convinced that your establishment is the very place for him; but my niece, Miss Judith, has at her option the chance of taking the responsibility for the boy off my shoulders, and if she chooses to do that, why then, I fear she will continue to spoil him, as she has done heretofore."

"It has cost us time and money," said Scantlebray, senior.

"And you shall be paid, whichever way is decided," said Miss Trevisa.

"Every thing now rests with my niece."

Judith seemed as one petrified. One hand was on her bosom, staying her heart, the other held the peac.o.c.k's feather before her, horizontally.

Every particle of color had deserted, not her face only, but her hands as well. Her eyes were sunless, her lips contracted and livid. She was motionless as a parian statue, she hardly seemed to breathe. She perfectly understood what her aunt had laid upon her, her bodily sensations were dead whilst a conflict of ideas raged in her brain.

She was the arbiter of Jamie's fate. She did not disguise from herself that if consigned to the keeper of the asylum, though only for a week or two, he would not leave his charge the same as he entered. And what would it avail her or him to postpone the decision a week or a fortnight.

The brothers Scantlebray knew nothing of the question agitating her, but they saw that the determination at which she was resolving was one that cost her all her powers. Mr. Obadiah's heavy mind did not exert itself to probe the secret, but the more eager intellect of his elder brother was alert, and wondering what might be the matter that so affected the girl, and made it so difficult for her to p.r.o.nounce the decision. The hard eyes of Miss Trevisa were fixed on her. Judith's answer would decide her future--on it depended Oth.e.l.lo Cottage, and an annuity of fifty pounds. Jamie looked through a veil of tears at his sister, and never for a moment turned them from her, from the moment of his entry into the room. Instinctively the boy felt that his freedom and happiness depended on her.

One or the other must be sacrificed. That Judith saw Jamie was dull of mind, but there were possibilities of development in it. And, even if he remained where he was, he was happy, happy and really harmless, if a little mischievous; an offer had been made which was likely to lead him on into industrious ways, and to teach him application. He loved his liberty, loved it as does the gull. In an asylum he would pine, his mind become more enfeebled, and he would die. But then--what a price must be paid to save him? Oh, if she could have put the question to her father. But she had none to appeal to for advice. If she gave to Jamie liberty and happiness, it was at the certain sacrifice of her own. But there was no evading the decision, one or the other must go.

She stretched forth the peac.o.c.k's feather, laid the great indigo blue eye on the bands that held Jamie, on his gagged lips, and said: "Let him go."

"You agree!" exclaimed Miss Trevisa.

Judith doubled the peac.o.c.k's feather and broke it.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THROUGH THE TAMARISKS.

For some time after Judith had given her consent, and had released Jamie from the hands of the Scantlebrays, she remained still and white. Uncle Zachie missed the music to which he had become used, and complained. She then seated herself at the piano, but was distraught, played badly, and the old bird-stuffer went away grumbling to his shop.

Jamie was happy, delighted not to be afflicted with lessons, and forgot past troubles in present pleasures. That the recovery of his liberty had been bought at a heavy price, he did not know, and would not have appreciated it had he been told the sacrifice Judith had been ready to make for his sake.

In the garden behind the cottage was an arbor, composed of half a boat set up, that is to say, an old boat sawn in half, and erected so that it served as a shelter to a seat, which was fixed into the earth on posts. From one side of this boat a trellis had been drawn, and covered with eschalonia, and a seat placed here as well, so that in this rude arbor it was possible for more than one to find accommodation. Here Judith and Jamie often sat; the back of the boat was set against the prevailing wind from the sea, and on this coast the air is unusually soft at the same time that it is bracing, enjoyable wherever a little shelter is provided against its violence.

For violent it can be, and can buffet severely, yet its blows are those of a pillow.

Here Judith was sitting one afternoon, alone, lost in a dream, when Uncle Zachie came into the garden with his pipe in his mouth, to stretch his legs, after a few minutes' work at stuffing a cormorant.

In her lap lay a stocking Judith was knitting for her brother, but she had made few st.i.tches, and yet had been an hour in the summer-house.

The garden of Mr. Menaida was hedged off from a neighbor's grounds by a low wall of stone and clay and sand, in and out of which grew roughly strong tamarisks now in their full pale pink blossom. The eyes of Judith had been on these tamarisks, waving like plumes in the sea-air, when she was startled from her reverie by the voice of Uncle Zachie.

"Why, Miss Judith! What is the matter with you? Dull, eh? Ah--wait a bit, when Oliver comes home we shall have mirth. He is full of merriment. A bright boy and a good son; altogether a fellow to be proud of, though I say it. He will return at the fall."