The Captain's Bunk Part 13

Philip Price, before his health broke down, had been for a few months doing duty as curate in a still more squalid colony of human nests than even this. When the sailor flinched, and hung back, Philip strode forward, determined to conquer, unheeding the battery of stares turned upon himself and his companion by the inhabitants, and the free-and-easy comments, of which they were by no means chary.

Already the captain and Philip had that day spent many fruitless hours in the search, when they hit on a fresh clue and an address in Mulliner's Rents. But here, even, difficulties bristled, and the tide of hopelessness was setting in upon both men when a wretched old crone was dragged out of a public-house to confront them, with dazed eyes and with a hateful odour of gin oozing from her whole person.

'Yes--well, yes,' she grudgingly admitted, in answer to the eager questions of the searchers; 'I does know a boy down with fever. What o' that? I ain't done no harm to him! He's 'ad the best I could offer; and five shillin's don't go far when there's sickness,' she ended, with a whimper, for she was maudlin with drink.

'Take us to that boy at once!' commanded Philip Price; for the captain's agitation unmanned him for the moment.

The wretched woman, awed by Philip's tone, complied. Perhaps, also, she obeyed, half in fear of the policeman, who had stepped up to join the gentlemen, and half in hope of getting more silver to spend on more drink.

Before half an hour was over Alick Carnegy was found. It was a terrible shock to the captain to recognise his boy in the squalid, dirty, delirious sufferer tossing wearily on a heap of sacks, on the grimy floor of an attic at the top of an evil-smelling, dilapidated house, to which the crone stumblingly conducted them.

'Merciful powers!' he groaned in dismayed horror.

'Hush!' enjoined Philip. 'Be as calm as you can. I believe the poor little chap is off his head; but, if there's a gleam of consciousness, it would send him over the precipice again to witness your agitation.'

There was small fear of the captain doing any further mischief; he was stunned into helplessness, and stood mute, trying to force himself to believe that the huddled heap of squalid misery was his very own son--smart, manly-looking Alick Carnegy. Though the captain was thus helpless, Philip Price seemed to know exactly what to do, and how to do it.

Getting the address of a doctor, he rushed off, in the first place, to fetch him. Then a bedstead and clean bedding were hired in. In an hour or two more the grimy room was swept and tidied as far as possible; the window propped up to stay open; the hapless, dirty sufferer cleansed and made straight; and beside his bed sat a gentle-faced, trained nurse, whose wholesome presence seemed to transform the room.

'Now, captain,' cheerily said Philip, who looked another man in the excitement, 'you are going to take a bit of advice from me, I hope.

You will go straight back to Brattlesby by the night train. Your invalid at home must not be forgotten; anxiety is not the best sort of tonic for her. And I mean to remain here with your boy.'

'G.o.d bless you, Price!' The old sailor's voice trembled as he wrung Philip's hand. 'I never knew it was in you! Man, how one can be deceived! I thought your head was in the clouds, and that you didn't know your right hand from your left, practically speaking. Yes, yes!

I'll run down to-night, and to-morrow I can return. I can trust my boy to you. Let nothing be spared; there's my purse. The doctor seemed a downright good sort of chap and _she_ is worth a gold-mine!' He pointed to the nurse, who was deftly bathing Alick's burning brow.

'What a splendid lad that Price is! He's the very salt of the earth!'

murmured the old captain, as he threaded his way later through the unsavoury streets, now ablaze with lights that enticed and beckoned forth misery to stalk out from every dark corner. 'He is a true Christian--that's what it is! To think how my boys have ill-treated him, and here he is caring for Alick so tenderly that the poor boy's mother couldn't have done more, had she been spared! That's what you call returning good for evil, with a vengeance! Well, well, please G.o.d, I'll mend my own ways too! If I have my girl and my boy both restored to me, I'll be a different father to them from what I have been.'

It had been borne in upon the captain's mind, during the cloud of sorrow overshadowing his home, that he had, somehow, failed in his duty. And, with the courage that belongs only to the brave heart, he admitted his shortcomings.

There was tremendous excitement in Northbourne when it was known that Alick had actually been found. The Bunk was besieged by an ever-growing crowd, anxious to have the news verified. And where was Ned Dempster? The captain himself had to a.s.sure them his next step would be to discover the hapless Ned. Yes, yes; Ned also should be found and brought back. Not a stone should be left unturned until he rescued Ned likewise.

And the old sailor kept his word. On his return to London he and Philip Price took it in turn, between their spells of watching beside Alick's sick-bed, to seek out the wandering half of the show-circus.

Time went on, but they were still unsuccessful, however. Not until the fever died out, and Alick, weak and exhausted, almost beyond building up, began to show faint signs of interest in his surroundings, could any questions be put to him. It was Philip Price who managed, without agitating the sufferer, to win from his feeble lips the name of the show. After that it was a tolerably easy matter to unearth its whereabouts.

On demanding Ned's release, a series of denials met them as to the boy being with the establishment at all. A storm of furious resistance which followed had to be quelled by the stern detective who accompanied the captain in his raid upon the show. Back in triumph to the Whitechapel attic they carried the trembling Ned, who had to be scoured and fed and clothed into his 'right mind' once again.

And this was running away secretly! thought each humiliated adventurer as they gazed, stony-eyed, at one another.

Shortly after, when Alick had crept sufficiently far out of the fever, looking a white shadow of his former self, the two boys were conveyed back to Northbourne, where a genuinely hearty welcome awaited them from the fisher-folk. Jerry Blunt, indeed, had suggested a triumphal arch with WELCOME in letters tall and wide. But that notion was instantly quashed by wiser heads.

'We be thankful to see 'em back,' judicially said Northbourne; 'but we ain't a-goin' to make "conquerin' heroes" of such young limbs!'

So it came to pa.s.s that the boys who thought it such a fine, manly thing to run away to sea, as boys will think, returned meekly, with shamed eyes, and hearts bounding joyfully at sight of the homes they had not dreamed were so dear until they had forfeited them, as they thought, for ever.

CHAPTER XIX

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

'Oh, Alick!

'Oh, Theo!'

After the first cries of greeting there was a silence. Theo's arms were tight round her restored brother's neck, and Alick rested his tear-stained cheek against his sister's. They were alone in the room, but, in truth, the boy would not have cared if all Northbourne had been looking on.

'Theo,' he sobbed out presently, 'it was awful!'

'Yes, dear, it must have been,' whispered Theo sympathetically, tightening her arms. 'It was not what you expected?'

'It was _awful_!' repeated Alick. As yet he could find no words to picture his experience of life out in the hard world. 'And,' he went on, lifting up his tear-stained face, 'I am more sorry than I can ever tell that I did it, Theo--sorry and ashamed.'

'Have you told G.o.d that, Alick?' asked Theo softly, in his ear.

'Yes, I have,' was the grave, equally low reply. 'I've put it on to the end of my prayers, night and morning. And--perhaps He will forgive me some day, if I--if I can do something, work out something, you know, to show that I _am_ really and truly sorry. Don't you think I could manage something of the sort, Theo?' asked Alick earnestly, if awkwardly.

'No, Alick, I don't!' said Theo abruptly; and the boy's face fell. Of late the boy had been full of this new desire to efface his wrong-doing by some means or other himself. 'Most certainly, dear old boy,' went on his sister, more gently, 'you cannot "blot out" your transgression by your own efforts. Don't you know that we have, each and every one of us, in the heavens, that great High Priest who is interceding for us always, always? He, our dear Lord, has already done that "something"

which you are groping to do in your weak, small way. _He_ has worked out your redemption--yours and mine. What you have to do is to carry your sins to the foot of the cross, where the great "something" was accomplished for us. You remember the hymn--

'"I lay my sins on Jesus, The spotless Lamb of G.o.d."

Oh, Alick! I'm only a girl, and I can't say the words right; but you must lay _your_ sin on Jesus, who has promised to bear it. Tell Him of your sorrowing repentance. That's all you have got to do; He does the rest!'

'And, Theo, there's Price,' Alick lifted his head to say presently.

'Oh, I can't tell you what he has done for me! He nursed me all through in that slum of a Whitechapel--me, of all people! And when I begged his pardon for all my bad conduct you should have seen his face!

Theo, if you'll give me your word never to tell it to any one, I cried like a baby; for Price looked for all the world like Stephen looked when they were stoning him. But you'll never tell I said so? I was a cowardly wretch to insult him as I did; and to think how he has paid me back--"coals of fire" are nothing to it!'

'Well, I always told you, Alick, that he was a true Christian gentleman; I was sure of it.'

'I know you did. I've found it out for myself, now. Theo!'

energetically added Alick, 'I shall never be the same again, I hate my old self! I mean to be so different. I shall work, and study, and----'

'And try "to do your duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased G.o.d to call you," I hope,' put in Theo quietly. 'But, Alick, you must ask His help to hold you up, and to prevent your footsteps from sliding,' she added reverently. 'You can't do it in your own strength, dear!' As Theo ceased there were tears on her face, and Alick's also. For a long time no other words were spoken--none were needed.

The sun was setting over the bay, and the fisher-folk, busy with their preparations for the coming night's work, were cheerily shouting from one boat to another. It was good indeed, Alick felt, his heart throbbing with grat.i.tude, to be once again in the dear old home, in the clean, wholesome country.

By and by the rest of the family crowded in, and, bit by bit, Alick's tale was told to his wondering hearers.

'Well, well, boy,' said the captain, putting his arms round the neck of his prodigal son, 'your precious escapade has taught you one stern lesson among others, and that is, there's no place like home as yet.'

Alick hung his head to hide his shamed face. How good everybody was to him! The kindness seemed to stab him through and through. Father's arm round his neck; one hand clasped by Theo's, and the other hugged up in both of Queenie's fat, warm little hands; and Geoff devouring him with eyes dilated with joyful pride over his brother's safe return.

And never a harsh word had pa.s.sed any one's lips! Such treatment to a character of Alick's type was the keenest of punishment.

Under another Northbourne roof another penitent was confessing his folly that same evening.