Philosopher Jack Part 21

"Liked, father, of _course_. I should have been overjoyed to have gone with you, but--but--the truth is," she said, with a little laugh and a glance at O'Rook, "circ.u.mstances have come about that _I_ can't speak of just now."

"Well, my pet," rejoined the captain, with a puzzled, anxious look, "we'll _not_ talk about 'em. Now, you must know that I've got up a small party to meet you here to-night, and expect you to do me credit.

The pastry-cook next door has undertaken to send in cakes, and tea, and hot sausages, and buns, at a moment's notice. I expect his man here every minute to lay out the spread. Now, who d'ee think are coming?

You'll never guess. There's Mr and Mrs John Jack, the father and mother of Edwin Jack--you remember him, Polly? Philosopher Jack we used to call him."

"Yes," replied Polly, in a low tone.

"Well, they happen to be in town just now with their family, and they're all coming. Then there's my first mate, Simon O'Rook; he would be coming, only he's come already, a full hour before his time! Then there's a Mr Burr and a Mr Buckley, both returned from California with fortunes--"

"A-rowlin' in gold," muttered O'Rook, in a low tone.

"You don't _really_ mean, father, that--"

"Yes I do, Polly. I mean that Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley are coming. I met 'em only two days ago in the streets, going about in chimney-pot hats and broadcloth like gentlemen--which they are, every inch of 'em, if worth and well-doing and wisdom make the gentleman. So, knowing you were to be here, I made 'em promise to come. Well, then, there's your old friend Watty Wilkins, who, by the way, is engaged to be married to Susan Trench. I tried to get Susan to come too, but she's shy, and won't. Besides these, there's a doctor of medicine, whom I think you have met before, a very rising young man--quite celebrated, I may say. Got an enormous practice, and--"

The captain was interrupted by the rattle of wheels outside, and the pulling up of a carriage at the door.

Polly rose quickly, with a half-frightened look.

"Don't be alarmed, Poll, it's only the doctor," he said, going out to the pa.s.sage.

"Pardon my coming so much before the appointed time," said a familiar voice; "but I have something to communicate before she comes--something very important and--"

Philosopher Jack stopped short, for he had entered the room and saw that Polly had already come. With one spring he was at her side, seized her in his arms, and imprinted on her lips what her father afterwards called the "stiffest nor'wester he'd ever seen." At the time, however, the captain strode up to our philosopher with a frown.

"Come, come, doctor," he said, sternly, "there is a limit to familiarity even among--"

"Pardon me," said our hero, drawing Polly's unresisting hand through his arm; "I had no intention of doing it until I had your consent; but somehow--I can't tell how--it came upon me suddenly while I was paying my respects to her in London, not long ago, and before I knew where I was, it all came out, and she accepted me, on the understanding that I should consider it no engagement until I had obtained your consent. So now, I have to ask your forgiveness and your blessing--father."

Captain Samson stood there, bereft of speech, and O'Rook stood there, the picture of benignity, in a corner. What the former would have said it is impossible to tell, for at that moment there came an impatient rapping at the door.

"Hurrah! captain, I could not help looking in before the time," cried Watty Wilkins, "to tell you that Susan's coming after all. The dear girl--"

He stopped suddenly, and stared at Polly, as if he had applied the term of endearment to her.

"The ghost of Polly Samson!" he exclaimed, after a breathless pause.

"Nothing of the sort, my boy," said the captain, grasping his little friend's hand, "but an enlarged and improved edition of Polly Samson, not yet full-bound, but goin' to be, very soon, by Philosopher Jack."

At that auspicious moment the pastry-cook made his appearance, and compelled the party to quit the premises. They therefore went for a stroll while he put things in order. When they returned, it was found that his wonderful powers had made a change little short of miraculous.

The floor was swept. Chairs had been introduced on the scene. The table groaned, being weak in the legs, under a surfeit of viands. The hammock had been removed. The fire leaped high, as if desirous of going up the chimney altogether, and the huge kettle sat thereon, leaning back, with its spout in the air, pouring its very heart out in a joyous domestic song.

Need we say that the united party made the most of their opportunity?

They spoke of the golden land, of their toils and joys, their successes and losses, and of their Heavenly Father's guiding hand. The ex-gold-diggers, Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley, fought their battles over again, and sang the camp-fire songs. Philosopher Jack sat beside his mother, who was a little deaf, to explain the miners' slang and point the jokes. Watty Wilkins became involved in Susan, and was comparatively useless; but he laughed at the jokes, whether he saw them or not, and joined with telling effect in the choruses. Polly sang, in a voice that corresponded with her sweet face, two or three of the hymns with which they had been wont to make vocal the palm grove on the coral island in the southern seas, and Philosopher Jack related the story of the slaying of the bear at Grizzly Bear Gulch. All this was a rare treat to the family from the lonely cottage on the Border, the younger members of which had by that time ascended, through Christian example and improved education, to a high level in the social scale. Dobbin, in particular, had become a strapping youth of gentlemanly mien, and would as soon have thought of shoe-blacking as of treacle to his bread. He retained a sneaking fondness for it, however, especially when presented in the form of golden syrup.

But we must not prolong the scene. It is sufficient to say that they had a glorious night of it, on strictly temperance principles, which culminated and drew to a close when Captain Samson, opening his Bible, and reading therefrom many precious promises, drew his friends' minds from things seen and temporal to things unseen and eternal. Thereafter he prayed that neither he nor they should be permitted to forget that a loving Father holds the helm and guides the souls of his people, whether in joy or in sorrow, success or failure, through time into eternity.

And now it is inc.u.mbent on us to draw our story to a close.

On the day following the feast Captain Samson called with his chief mate on the writer of the important letter, and found that his princ.i.p.al chest of gold had indeed been fished up from the deep. He and O'Rook were able to give so correct an account of its contents that their claim was at once admitted, and thus the captain became possessor of gold to the value of about four thousand pounds sterling, while O'Rook recovered upwards of one thousand. This was only a fraction of their original fortune, but the interest of it was sufficient to supply their moderate wants.

Going straight off to the Holly Tree, of which a healthy shoot had been planted in the suburbs, O'Rook proceeded, according to use and wont, to "comfort the widdy."

"It's a rich man I am, darlin', after all," he said, on sitting down beside her.

"How so, Simon?"

Simon explained.

"An' would you consider yourself a poor man if you had only me?" asked the widow, with a hurt air.

"Ah! then, it's the women can twist their tongues, anyhow," cried O'Rook. "Sure it's about dirty goold I'm spakin', isn't it? I made no reference to the love of purty woman--did I, now? In regard of that I wouldn't change places with the Shah of Pershy."

"Well now, Simon, if it's the women that can twist their tongues, it's the Irishmen that can twist their consciences, so you an' I will be well matched."

"That's well said, anyhow," rejoined O'Rook. "An' now, darlin', will ye name the day?"

"No, Simon, I won't; but I'll think about it. There, now. Go home, it's gettin' late, and if ye happen to be pa.s.sing this way to-morrow you may give us a call."

Thus Simon O'Rook prosecuted his courtship. In process of time he married the widow, and was finally installed as master of the juvenile Holly Tree in the suburbs, while his wife conducted the parent stem in town. Vegetables and other country produce had to be conveyed to the town Tree regularly. For this purpose a pony-cart was set up, which travelled daily between it and the country branch. Thus it came to pa.s.s that O'Rook's Californian dreams were realised, for "sure," he was wont to say, "haven't I got a house in the country an' a mansion in the town, an' if I don't drive my carriage and four, I can always drive me cart an' wan, anyhow, with a swate little widdy into the bargain."

It is, we suppose, almost superfluous to say that Doctor Jack and Polly Samson were united in due course, but it is necessary to record that, by special arrangement, Walter Wilkins, Esquire, and Susan Trench were married on the same day. More than that, the Doctor and Watty so contrived matters that they rented a double villa in the suburbs of the nameless city, one-half of which was occupied by Dr Jack's family, the other by that of Wilkins. Still further, it was so contrived by Philosopher Jack that a small cottage was built on an eminence in his garden, in which there was a room, precisely similar in all respects to that in which he had first met his father-in-law. There was a hammock in this room, slung as the original hammock had been, and although the old telescopes and sou'-westers and marine stores and charts had been sold and lost past redemption, a good many new things, bearing a strong resemblance to such articles, were purchased and placed on the walls and in the corners, so that almost the only difference between it and the old room was the absence of fishy smells. There was an improvement, also, in the view; for whereas, in the old room, the window commanded a prospect of about ten yards in extent, comprising a brick wall, a lamp-post, and a broken pump, the windows of the new room overlooked miles and miles of landscape, embracing villages, hamlets, fields, and forests, away to the horizon.

In this cottage Captain Samson took up his abode, rent free, and the money which he was thus enabled to save, or which Jack insisted on his saving, was spent in helping the poor all round his dwelling. Here the captain spent many happy hours in converse with Polly and her husband.

To this room, as time rolled on, he brought a small child, to which, although not its nurse, he devoted much of his spare time, and called it "Polly."

And oh! it was a wonderful sight to see Polly the second, with her heart in her mouth and her hair flying in the air, riding the captain's foot "in a storm!"

Here, too, as time continued to roll on, he fabricated innumerable boats and ships for little boys, whose names were Teddie, Watty, Ben, Baldwin, and such like. In this room, also, every Sunday morning early, the captain was to be found with a large, eager, attentive cla.s.s of little boys and girls, to whom he expounded the Word of G.o.d, with many an ill.u.s.trative anecdote, while he sought to lead them to that dear Lord who had saved his soul, and whose Holy Spirit had enabled him to face the battles of life, in prosperity and adversity, and had made him "more than conqueror." Here, also, in the evenings of the same holy day, he was wont to gather a meeting of old people, to whom he discanted on the same "old, old story." In all which works he was aided and abetted by the families of the double house close by.

Besides his constant visitors among the young, the aged, and the poor, the captain had a few occasional visitors at his residence, which, by the way, was named Harmony Hall.

Among these were Bailie Trench and his wife, who were naturally attracted to that region by the presence there of a slender, loving, sprightly boy, whose name was Benjamin Walter Wilkins, and who bore--at least they thought he bore--a striking resemblance to their loved and lost son Ben. The family from the cottage on the Border also paid annual visits to Number 1 of the double house (which was the Doctor's), and the various members of that family, being very fond of a chat with the old sailor, often found themselves of an evening in "the old store-room" (as the boys styled it) of Harmony Hall.

These visits were regularly returned, chiefly in the summer-time, by the captain and the families of the double house, on which occasions the cottage on the Border was taxed to such an extent that Philosopher Jack was obliged to purchase a neighbouring barn, which he had fitted up as a dormitory that could accommodate almost a battalion of infantry. During these visits the trouting streams of the neighbourhood were so severely whipped that the fish knew the difference between a real and an artificial fly as well as their tormentors, but they were captured for all that.

Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley were also among the occasional visitors at the Hall; but their visits were few and far between, because of their having taken up their permanent abode in California. Only when they came home on business, once in the two years, had they an opportunity of seeing their old comrade, but they never failed to take advantage of such opportunities. These men were not p.r.o.ne to speak about themselves, but from various remarks they made, and from their general appearance, it was easy to see that they were substantial and influential members of society in foreign parts.

From Baldwin the captain heard that Bob Corkey had, during his wanderings, fallen in with Bounce and Badger, and that these three had formed a partnership, in which they tried their luck at gold-digging, farming, fur-trading, and many other sources of livelihood, but, up to the last news of them, without success. There was hope of them yet, however, so thought Baldwin Burr, because of the latest remarks made by them in the hearing of credible witnesses. Bob Corkey, having attained to the lowest depths of dest.i.tution and despair, had, it was said, made to his comrades the following observation: "Mates, it strikes me that we are three great fools;" whereupon Bounce had replied, "We're more than that Bob, we're three great sinners;" to which Badger had added, with considerable emphasis, "That's a fact," and when men come to this, there is hope for them.

The only personage of our tale who now remains to be mentioned is Mrs Niven.

That steady-going female continued her vocation of ministering to the wants of young students, some of whom treated her well, while others--to their shame, be it said--took advantage of her amiability. In regard to this latter fact, however, it may be recorded that Peggy proved a sharp-witted, tight-handed, and zealous defender of her mistress. Among Mrs Niven's other boarders there was one who was neither young nor a student. He came to reside with her in the following manner:--

One evening Peggy was heard in altercation with a man in the pa.s.sage who seemed bent on forcing his way into the house. The students who chanced to be in their rooms at the time c.o.c.ked their ears, like war-steeds snuffing the battle from afar, and hoped for a row. Mrs Niven, after opening the parlour door softly, and listening, called out, "Let the gentleman come up, Peggy."

"Gentleman indeed!" cried the irate Peggy, who had the intruder by the throat, "he's only a dirty auld blagyird."

"Niver ye mind, Peggy," returned Mrs Niven peremptorily; "I ken him.