The Captain's Bunk Part 10

'We said "Our Father," me and Theo,' she whispered innocently to the captain, as he sat by her little bed holding her hands, 'and He sent Geoff and Binks directly to pick us out of the water; and then Theo went off to sleep in the boat, and my new shoes is spoilt most dreadful!'

With Theo it was otherwise. She had sustained a severe mental shock, as well as the bodily strain, in her fruitless efforts to pull the heavy boat through the water. And it had been a terrible spasm of terror to sink slowly, helplessly, in the yawning waves, trying all the time to hold up the precious little sister. When the doctor from Brattlesby arrived, he looked grave enough over his elder patient; and next day he was even more serious.

'She is in for brain fever!' he said briefly. He was a man of few words, leaving the burden of conversation, as a rule, to his patients.

Hence, perhaps, it was that little Dr. Cobbe was the most popular being, man or doctor, for miles round Northbourne.

And with regard to Theo it was as he said. For many weeks Theo Carnegy lay battling for her life in the cruel clutches of the fever, unconscious that her most devoted and tenderest nurse was the father whom she had bitterly imagined thought more of his hobby than of his boys and girls. All Northbourne, as with one heart, sorrowed aloud for their favourite Miss Theedory; her grave condition was the sole theme of talk in the cottages round the bay.

'Happen she was too good to live!' croaked Jerry Blunt's mother, with an appropriate melancholy in her voice; and the gossips nodded approvingly at a sentiment which fitted in with their own views of life.

'Nothin' o' the sort!' struck in a dissentient voice, which belonged to Goody Dempster herself. 'There's none too good to live, seein' as life is a great gift that can only come from the Lord Himself. He gives, and He takes away, that's how we've got to look at things. And, please G.o.d, He will see fit to raise up Miss Theedory among us again, hale and sound. She's one as could be ill spared.'

'Amen!' a.s.sented more than one voice among the listeners, in ready response.

But there was one heart that felt heavier than all others--too heavy to hold a ray of hope--and that belonged to Alick Carnegy. When he returned home from his stolen holiday, and found what had happened during his absence, the remorse of the boy was uncontrollable. He could not but feel it to be true, what others did not scruple to tell him bluntly, for plain-speaking was a distinguishing feature of the fishing village, that had he and Ned Dempster been at home, they could have reached his sisters in far less time than Geoff, younger and weaker of muscle, and Binks, long past his heyday of strength and stiffened with rheumatism, had done.

With cold shivers of dread, he heard how Theo, though delivered from one perilous strait, lay in jeopardy of her life in the new peril of fever.

She would die, he was convinced, and voices seemed to be incessantly crying in his ears: 'It will be your fault, all your fault! You fought to have your own way, in spite of her pleadings, and now she will die because you were not here to help her in such sore peril. She was deserted, so she will die, our Theo!'

Alick, a boy of strong feelings, became maddened by despair, and exaggerated the calamity. As time went on--and brain fever rarely hurries itself--Theo grew no better, but rather weaker, and Alick secretly called himself her murderer. He was distraught.

'Oh, Ned, if we had been at home, you and I, we could have reached them in half the time Geoff and old Binks took! We could have rescued them before "The Theodora" began to settle down!' he blurted out when he found Ned sobbing helplessly in a corner of the tea-house, The latter, though not possessed of Alick's torturing powers of imagination, was overcome with remorse for his own share in the transaction.

Oh, Muster Alick, it ain't "we" it's me, only me, as is to blame!' he hoa.r.s.ely said, in a voice choked with sobs.

'What do you mean?' asked Alick heavily; and he stared down at the crouching speaker.

'Miss Theedory telled I to mend the leak,' moaned Ned. 'And she thought I'd done it, I expec', for she showed how 'twas to be mended; but I knowed how as well as she did, for I've seed a-many done. But I put off the doin' of it to go to Brattlesby Woods along with you, Muster Alick, and Jerry Blunt, an' I deceived her; an' now she's drowned, Miss Theedory is! Leastways, 'tis the same thing; for all Northbourne's a-sayin' as she's bound to die of it all!' The boy, burying his head, broke down into a loud, irrepressible fit of crying.

Ned too! Alick's lips quivered as he turned abruptly away. He himself it was who tempted Ned away, and caused the boy to neglect his duty, bringing down all this misfortune. He had been thinking himself the only person in fault for being wilfully absent, but it was worse and worse! He had lured away, and placed another in the same position, so wide-spreading can a single evil step be in its results. Even through his sinking fears about Theo, Alick could not but feel pathetically sorry for poor Ned, whose grief grew wilder in its abandon after his confession was out.

'Have you told any one about not mending the leak, Ned? Does my father know?' he came back to Ned's side to ask anxiously.

'I dussn't!' was the choking reply. 'But I feels bound, somehow, to tell you,' he added. 'If Miss Theedory dies, 'twill be me as did it; an' you can tell 'em all so, if you like! They'll put me in gaol, o'

course; p'raps they'll hang me. They may bring it in manslaughter. I dunno what they haven't the power to do!' ended Ned desperately.

Alick stared through the window out to sea, with an equally woebegone face with that of his companion in misery. Two more unhappy boys one could not have well beheld. And this grievous state of affairs had revengefully trodden on the heels of the delightfully fascinating expedition to the woods, which had been forbidden to the one boy, and which the other boy had shirked his duty to join in!

'What would be the end of it all?' Alick dully asked himself.

'Ned,' he said aloud, and there was a pa.s.sionate ring of regret in his voice, 'it wasn't worth it!'

'No, muster, it warn't!' a.s.sented Ned, fully understanding that Alick would have given his right hand to have put back the clock of time, that he might again have the chance of apologising as Geoff had done, and returning to his duty in the schoolroom. Both boys felt positively a.s.sured that had they been on the spot the catastrophe could not possibly have occurred.

There was a spell of silence in the tea-house. Now and again the echo of a sob shook Ned from head to foot. Alick leaned his forehead against the window jamb, and stared sullenly at the leaping waves below. As he gazed, a strange resolve came into the boy's mind, born of the deepening despair consuming him.

In the black gloom that environed him, came Satan's opportunity.

'You will never be forgiven if Theo dies,' whispered the tempting voice. 'Perhaps you also will be put in prison, who knows, with Ned as an accomplice!' Alick Carnegy, it will be seen, had but confused notions as to what manslaughter meant. He shivered and cowered at the terrifying notions of being shut up for life, perhaps, in some gloomy gaol. Better-informed boys may jeer at Alick's ignorance of things in general, but Northbourne was an out-of-the-way, stand-still spot, with few or no opportunities of smartening the wits, of keeping up with the times.

'The best way out of the difficulty would be to run away, wouldn't it?'

as he brooded, somebody seemed to suddenly and swiftly whisper in his ear. And Alick, when the sense of the suggestion penetrated his mind, abruptly lifted his hanging head. He gasped aloud in relief. A door of escape opened in the black, impenetrable wall that was closing in round him.

'Ned,' he said softly, nudging the other boy, 'listen to me! Be done with that cry-baby business! We two, you and I, have got ourselves into an awful sc.r.a.pe, and there's only one thing for us. Can't you guess what that is? Rouse up! Can't you guess?' he repeated impatiently.

'Me guess? No! I can't make Miss Theedory get well; and what else matters?' Ned lifted a tear-stained face to say brokenly.

'You've often said you'd be game to run away to sea, if I made up my mind to do it, haven't you? Well, all the blame of whatever happens comes on us--you and me. We are bound to suffer the penalty.' Alick spoke slowly, and with the air of weighing his words, while Ned listened in awe. 'Now, then, it seems to me, is our chance to do it.

Let's set out this very night; they'd never miss us in all the--the worry about Theo, until it would be too late to overtake us. We could walk to London in about three days, I expect; and once at the Docks it would be queer if you and I couldn't slip quietly on board some North-bound vessel, as we've often planned to do. Speak up! Will you come?'

And Alick breathlessly waited for Ned's long-of-coming answer.

CHAPTER XV

THE BIRD-SCHOOL

Meantime, while all Northbourne, in its genuine affection for Miss Theedory, hung expectantly on the issues of life or death--for who could say which it might be?--Jerry Blunt was quietly making his preparations for pursuing his new calling of bird-trainer.

Although he had said nothing about it, one of the new pupils had been specially set apart to be given to Theo, if it pleased G.o.d to spare her young life. Theo, gentle and sweet-spoken to all, had won the reverence and loyal regard of the disabled sailor, when he returned home a cripple, by her friendly welcome to him.

Jerry Blunt was not one to forget a kind word. He had not come across so many, in his up-and-down life, that they had become cheapened.

It was not, however, until the young finches were about two months old, and showed symptoms of whistling powers, that Jerry could really begin the labour of educating them in real earnest. His first step was to systematically separate his pupils into small cla.s.ses, so to say, or groups of birds, lodging them in wicker cages. The next proceeding was to shut them up in a darkened room and keep them without food for a given time.

The skilful teacher then began the singing-lessons by slowly playing over and over the special tune he had selected--'The Blue Bells of Scotland'--for the finches to learn. He performed the melody upon a small instrument given him by Pierre Lacroix, his comrade on the expedition, the notes of which were curiously like the birds' own.

Jerry truly had marvellous need of patience. But he knew--none better--that it is only by slow means that perfect trust is gained.

His pupils sat for a considerable time sulking, perhaps with deeply injured feelings, being dinnerless; and they were, doubtless, bewildered by the darkness of the room. They were not deceived into thinking that the night had fallen, not they! As a proof, they made no attempt to sleep. They simply sat puzzling out, with suspicion, the mystery that surrounded them.

By and by, some sharper, brighter wit among his fellows began to listen to the music, so curiously familiar, with his tiny head on one side; and he was won over! Presently he tried, timidly and cautiously, to pipe a few faint notes in imitation--just a few. Then he halted.

'Not so bad for a beginning!' delightedly murmured Jerry, under his breath.

Bully, on his part, rather seemed to like the sound of his own voice.

With a vain perk and a flutter, he tried again, his note more a.s.sured.

Lo! there was a duet. A neighbour finch had joined in; another bully was won over, and Jerry chuckled softly. Old Pierre had been perfectly correct, then! The thing was possible. It was Jerry's own first attempt, and he had been careful to follow out the Frenchman's directions, though, until he heard with his own ears the result, he had been secretly somewhat sceptical.

In a few moments more there was a feeble chorus piping in unison with the tiny bird-organ which Jerry continued to softly play. The other finches had summoned up courage to join their brethren.

As an instantaneous reward the teacher let a flood of light into the dark room, in accordance with Pierre's code. More, he proceeded to give his hungry pupils a little--only a little--food, enough, in fact, to make them ravenous for more. Then he plunged the little room in sudden darkness again by shutting out the light. Thus Jerry gradually educated the birds into connecting the idea of food and light with the sound of his little instrument's melody.

After two or three repet.i.tions of this performance, it followed that the finches, kept on short commons, no sooner heard the notes of the bird-organ always playing the one unvarying tune, than they, too, attempted to sing it, in the sheer hope of being fed, and of seeing the hated darkness disappear. Jerry being ever careful not to disappoint their expectations, the result came to pa.s.s that the particular melody was committed to memory--the tune was learned, more or less correctly; for the feathered pupils were like human scholars, in that the few, not the many, arrive at perfection.

After this reward for his enormous patience, Jerry Blunt's next move was to board out his pupils in the village with trustworthy boys who were selected for the posts of pupil-teachers. One boy was appointed to each bird, in order to carry out the business of teaching _the_ tune by whistling it incessantly until the air was firmly fixed in those tiny memories, which, if they had not been exactly 'wax to receive,'

proved 'marble to retain.' As the finches grew perfect in their one life-lesson, the Scottish ditty resounded sweetly all over the village of Northbourne. After that, the pupils being p.r.o.nounced 'finished,'