Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 66

"Dan grieves after his brother dreadfully: they were always companions, you see," said the captain. "He has foolish fancies also: thinks he sees King continually. We have had to put him to sleep with Fred downstairs, for nothing would persuade him that King, poor fellow, did not come and get into his old place in bed. The night the poor lad was buried, Dan startled the whole house up; he flew down the stairs crying and shrieking, and saying that King was there. We don't know what to do: he seems to get worse, rather than better. Did you notice how thin he has become? You saw him as you came in."

"Like a bag of bones," said the Squire.

"Ay. Some days he is so nervous and ill he can't go to school. I never knew such a thing, for my part. I was for trying flogging, but his mother wouldn't have it."

"But--do you mean to tell us, Sanker, that he fancies he sees King's _ghost_?" cried the Squire, in great amazement.

"Well, I suppose so," answered the captain. "He fancies he sees _him_: and poor King, as far as this world's concerned, can be nothing but a ghost now. The other evening, when Dan had been commanded to the head-master's house for something connected with the studies and detained till after dark, he came rushing in with a white face and his hair all wet, saying he had met King under the elm-trees, as he was running back through the green towards Edgar Tower. How can you deal with such a case?"

"I should say flogging would be as good as anything," said the Squire, decidedly.

"So I thought at first. He's too ill for it now. There's nothing, hardly, left of him to flog."

"Captain Sanker, there is only one thing for you to do," put in Mrs.

Todhetley. "And that is, consult a clever medical man."

"Why, my dear lady, we have taken him to pretty nearly all the medical men in Worcester," cried the captain. "He goes regularly to Dr.

Hastings."

"And what do the doctors say?"

"They think that the catastrophe of King's unhappy death has seized upon the lad's mind, and brought on a sort of hypochondriacal affection. One of them said it was what the French would call a _maladie des nerfs_.

Dan seems so full of self-reproach, too."

"What for?"

"Well, for not having made more of King when he was living. And also, I think, for having suffered himself to fall asleep that afternoon on the bench outside the Well: he says had he kept awake he might have been with King, and so saved him. But, as I tell Dan, there's nothing to reproach himself with in that: he could not foresee that King would meet with the accident. The doctors say now that he must have change of air, and be got away altogether. They recommend the sea."

"The sea! Do you mean sea-air?"

"No; the sea itself; a voyage: and Dan's wild to go. A less complete change than that, they think, will be of little avail, for his illness borders almost--almost upon lunacy. I'm sure, what with one thing and another, we seem to be in for a peck of misfortunes," added the captain, rumpling his hair helplessly.

"And shall you let him go to sea?"

"Well, I don't know. I stood out against it at first. Never meant to send a son of mine to sea; that has always been my resolution. Look at what I had to starve upon for ever so many years--a lieutenant's half-pay--and to keep my wife and bring up my children upon it! You can't imagine it, Squire; it's cruel. Dan's too old for the navy, however; and, if he does go, it must be into the merchant service. I don't like that, either; we regular sailors never do like it, we hold ourselves above it; but there's a better chance of getting on in it and of making money."

"I'm sure I am very sorry for it altogether," said Mrs. Todhetley. "A sailor cannot have any comfort."

"I expect he'll have to go," said the captain, ruefully: "he must get these ideas out of his head. It's such a thing, you see, for him to be always fancying he sees King."

"It is a dreadful thing."

"My wife had a brother once who was always seeing odd colours wherever he looked: colours and shadows and things. But that was not as bad as this. His doctor called it nerves: and I conclude Dan takes after him."

"My dear, I think Dan takes after your side, not mine," calmly put in Mrs Sanker, who had her light hair flowing and something black in it that looked like a feather. "He is so very pa.s.sionate, you know: and I could not go into a pa.s.sion if I tried."

"I suppose he takes after us both," returned Captain Sanker. "I know he never got his superst.i.tious fancies from me, or from any one belonging to me. We may be of a pa.s.sionate nature, we Sankers, but we don't see ghosts."

In a week or two's time after that, Dan was off to sea. A large shipping firm, trading from London to India, took him as midshipman. The ship was called the _Bangalore_; a fine vessel of about fourteen hundred tons, bound for some port out there. When Captain Sanker came back from shipping him off, he was full of spirits, and said Dan was cured already. No sooner was Dan amidst the bustle of London, than his fears and fancies left him.

It was some time in the course of the next spring--getting on for summer, I think--that Captain Sanker gave up his house in Worcester, and went abroad, somewhere into Germany. Partly from motives of economy, for they had no idea of saving, and somehow spent more than their income; partly to see if change would get up Mrs. Sanker's health, which was failing. After that, we heard nothing more of them: and a year or two went on.

"Please, sir, here's a young man asking to see you."

"A young man asking to see me," cried the Squire--we were just finishing dinner. "Who is it, Thomas?"

"I don't know, sir," replied old Thomas. "Some smart young fellow dressed as a sailor. I've showed him into your room, sir."

"Go and see who it is, Johnny."

It was summer-time, and we were at home at d.y.k.e Manor. I went on to the little square room. You have been in it too. Opposite the Squire's old bureau and underneath the map of Warwickshire on the wall, sat the sailor. He had good blue clothes on and a turned-down white collar, and held a straw hat in his hand. Where had I seen the face? A very red-brown honest face, with a mouth as wide as Molly's rolling-pin.

Wider, now that it was smiling.

He stood up, and turned his straw hat about a little nervously. "You've forgotten me, Master Johnny. Mark Ferrar, please, sir."

Mark Ferrar it was, looking shorter and broader; and I put out my hand to him. I take my likes and dislikes, as you have already heard, and can't help taking them; and Ferrar was one whom I had always liked.

"Please, sir, I've made bold to come over here," he went on. "Captain Sanker's left Worcester, they tell me, and I can't hear where he is to be found: and the Teals, they have left. I've brought news to him from his son, Mr. Dan: and father said I had better come over here and tell it, and maybe Squire Todhetley might get it sent to the captain."

"Have you seen anything of Mr. Dan, then?"

"I've been with him nearly all the time, Master Johnny. We served on the same ship: he as middy and I as working apprentice. Not but what the middies are apprenticed just as sure as we are. They don't do our rough work, the cleaning and that, and they mess apart; but that's pretty nigh all the difference."

"And how are you getting on, Mark?"

"First-rate, sir. The captain and officers are satisfied with me, and when I've served my four years I shall go up to pa.s.s for second mate. I try to improve myself a bit in general learning at odd moments too, sir, seeing I didn't have much. It may be of use to me if I ever get up a bit in life. Mr. Dan----"

"But look here, Ferrar," I interrupted, the recollection striking me.

"How came you and Mr. Dan to sail together? You were on a small home-coasting barque: he went in an Indiaman."

"I was in the barque first of all, Master Johnny, and took a voyage to Spain and back. But our owners, hearing a good report of me, that I was likely to make a smart and steady sailor, put me on their big ship, the _Bangalore_. In a day or two Mr. Dan Sanker came on board."

"And how is he getting on? Does he----"

"If you please, Master Johnny, I'd like to tell what I've got to tell about him to the Squire," he interrupted. "It is for that, sir, I have come all the way over here."

So I called the Squire in. The following was the condensed substance of Ferrar's narrative. What with his way of telling it, and what with the Squire's interruptions, it was rather long.

"Mr. Dan joined the _Bangalore_ the day we sailed, sir. When he saw me as one of the sailors he started back as if I shocked him. But in a week or two, when he had got round from his sea-sickness, he grew friendly, and sometimes talked a bit. I used to bring up Master King's death, and say how sorry I was for it--for you see, sir, I couldn't bear that he should think it true that I had had a hand in it. But he seemed to hate the subject; he'd walk away if I began it, and at last he said he couldn't stand the talking about King; so I let it be. Our voyage was a long one, for the ship went about from port to port. Mr. Dan----"

"What sort of a sailor did he make?" interrupted the Squire.

"Well, sir, he was a good smart sailor at his work, but he got to be looked upon as rather a queer kind of young man. He couldn't bear to keep his night watches--it was too lonely, he said; and several times he fell into trouble for calling up the hands when there was nothing to call them up for. At Hong Kong he had a fever, and they shaved his head; but he got well again. One evening, after we had left Hong Kong and were on our way to San Francisco, I was on deck--almost dark it was--when Mr.

Dan comes down the rigging all in a heap, just as if a wild-cat was after him. 'There's King up there,' he says to me: and Mr. Conroy, do what he would, couldn't get him up again. After that he went about the ship peeping and peering, always fancying King was hiding somewhere and going to pounce out upon him. The captain said his fever was coming back: Mr. Dan said it was not fever, it was King. I told him one day what I thought--that Master King had been flung down; that it was not an accident--I felt as sure of it as though I had seen it done; and what I said seemed to put him up, sir. Who did I fancy had done it, or would do it? he asked me all in anger: and I said I did not know who, but if ever I got back to Worcester I'd leave not a stone unturned to find out.

Well, sir, he got worse: worse in his fancies, and worse as to sickness.

He was seeing King always at night, and he had dysentery and ague, and grew so weak that he could hardly stand. One of the cabin-boys took sick and died on board. The night he lay below, dead, Mr. Dan burst into the saloon saying it was King who was below, and that he'd never be got out of the ship again. Mr. Conroy--he was the chief mate, sir--humoured him, telling him not to fear, that if it was King he would be buried deep in the sea on the morrow: but Mr. Dan said he'd not stop in the sea, any more than he had stopped in his grave in St. Peter's churchyard at home; he'd be back in the ship again."