The Captain's Bunk Part 3

'I'll work for you, mother dear; never you fear about the future!'

Philip had bravely declared. Poor lad, he had gallantly striven to do so, but sometimes he felt as though every man's hand was against him, so fruitless were his struggles. It is hard work to force one's way inside the world's pitilessly closed doors.

Certainly, Philip Price might have had his chances, as they are called, if he had not been so bent upon entering the clerical profession. His mother's relatives were City men of some repute, and a sure footing among them might have been gained by the young man, had he chosen to relinquish his dream. But Philip did not so choose. Even after he had fully qualified, and the living he had made so sure of stepping into pa.s.sed into the hands of others, and it seemed as if the labourer were not 'worthy of his hire,' Philip did not regret his choice of a career.

'It will come right, mother, don't you doubt it,' he persisted.

Meanwhile something else came. Failing health was the cross that Philip Price was required to shoulder. He grew painfully thin as time went on; his tall, elastic figure acquired a stoop; and there came, to stay, an anxious, upright line between his eyebrows, that spoke of mental worry.

'Philip dear,' his watchful mother, quick to note these signs, laid her hand on his shoulder to say, 'these pupils try you overmuch. I know they do!'

'Nonsense, dear old mater!' evaded Philip, imprisoning the wrinkled hand. He had come in looking unusually spent, and thrown himself on the hard, slippery sofa of the cheap lodging the Prices called, nowadays, their home.

The truth was the young tutor had begun to tire woefully of the daily grind he had taken up so blithely. It was the incorrigible Carnegy boys who were his special worry. His other pupils, a meek, small boy and his shy sister, though they would never set the Thames on fire by their wit, at the same time would never goad their teacher to desperation by mutinous, unruly ways. But Philip Price never carried tales out of school. Not from himself did his mother learn how tried the tutor was, but, with a woman's instinct, she divined the cause.

'I wish, dear, you had never seen that family, the Carnegys,' she said plaintively. It was a chance shot, of course, but Philip started up alert.

'I've been told a good deal about them, only to-day,' went on the widow, taking up some fleecy knitting. The mother and son were sitting in the twilight, and knitting needed no spectacles. 'It seems they are an ill-governed pack, the young people, neglected by their father, and allowed to grow up anyhow, people say. Philip, I feel quite positive that they try you beyond your strength. Is it not so? Tell me, my dear.'

'Mother,'--Philip's thin face flushed as he spoke hurriedly,--'is it quite fair of you to quote "they say" about people whom you don't know?

The Carnegys are not an "ill-governed pack," I a.s.sure you. The boys--my pupils--are, I grant you, unmanageable young rebels; but the others--Miss Carnegy and her little sister--they are----' Philip stopped abruptly.

'Well, Phil?' His mother raised her head quickly to glance at the troubled face opposite.

'They are as sweet and gentle-natured as they are fair!' said Philip in a low voice.

'I should like very well to see and know these Misses Carnegy for myself,' presently observed Mrs. Price; and Philip noted the faint, jealous displeasure in her voice.

'Mother,' he laughed in a boyish way, 'one of those Misses Carnegy, as you call them, is so charming that you could not resist taking her in your arms and setting her on your lap!'

'Oh, they are only children, these girls?'

'One of them is,' rejoined Philip, after a hesitating pause. 'She is a child of five. But the other Miss Carnegy is grown up; she is the eldest, and the mainstay of the family. There is no mother, you see.'

'Ah! Poor dear young things! Well, but, my boy, the thing troubling me most is that you should be condemned to such poor work as teaching, when, by rights, you ought to be filling a far different position. Oh, Philip, to think with your fine abilities you should be nothing better than a mere drudge! I often wish, dear, that you had not been so obstinate. You might have had a capital position by this time, with one or other of your uncles in the City.'

'Hush, mother, please!' Philip raised his thin hand. 'You know that from my childhood I've desired to be a soldier of Christ. If there be no opening prepared for me as yet, it must be that I am not fit for the work. In G.o.d's own good time He will point the way. I am content to wait that time, mother; and,' added the young man softly under his breath, 'if it be that the opening never come in this life, well, we know that all things are possible to Him, without any feeble help from us weak mortals.'

'Dear boy,' sighed the widow, 'your patience shames my discontent.

But, you see, it tries a mother's heart sorely to see her child stranded high and dry, while others, not half so fit, rush in and win the prizes of life.'

'Bide a wee, mater, bide a wee! Everything comes to the man who can wait, as the old proverb says. But I must confess I am at the end of my patience with those young scamps, the Carnegy boys.'

'Speak to their father, Philip. Rouse him up to rule in his own house,' said Mrs. Price energetically.

'I really think I must,' a.s.sented Philip; and he did.

CHAPTER VI

THE LITTLE MOTHER

The next day the hara.s.sed tutor bearded the lion in his den.

'I really must have a few words with you, captain!' he began nervously enough.

'What on earth's the matter, Price? What's wrong now?' testily demanded the captain, grievously annoyed at being disturbed over his ponderous literary labours.

'It's the old story,' said Philip dejectedly. 'The fact is, the boys are getting beyond me, Alick especially so.'

'Well,' said the captain, fidgeting impatiently with his pen as he sat surrounded by waves of MSS., 'thrash them, can't you?'

'I'd rather try any other means than that!' was the quietly spoken answer.

'Hasn't the pluck in him for it!' was the thought that pa.s.sed through the fiery old sailor's mind. But if he had noted the calm smile of a self-controlled nature that flitted across the face of the young man standing opposite him, the captain would have rapidly changed his opinion as to the lack of pluck in Philip Price.

'Oh, well, what do you want me to do, eh? You really can't expect me to come into the schoolroom and horsewhip the young scamps for you!

You see for yourself how my time is occupied on a most important subject.' The captain waved his pen over the closely-written sheets before him.

'Perhaps not. But I really must ask you to reason with Alick, if not to punish him. It is imperative that something of the sort must be done. It comes to this, captain, I don't feel that it's quite honest to be taking your money for the mockery of teaching the boys, particularly Alick!' As he forced himself to speak thus, a dark-red flush rose to Philip Price's brow, for he was one of the over-sensitive folk.

'Pshaw, man! What a fool you must be!' The blunt captain was at the end of his patience. He was quivering to get back to his work.

'Besides, boys will be boys all the world over. Alick is no worse than others, I suppose. You're too conscientious. It's absurd!' ended the sailor in a more kindly tone, after he had pushed his spectacles up into the roots of his iron-grey hair, to take a leisurely look at the earnest, agitated face confronting him.

'Now, I'll tell you what, Price!' he began again--'the best thing you can do is to go and talk the matter over with Theo. That girl can do anything with her brothers. She's got a way that some women are born with--not all women, mind you, but my Theo has it. Just go and consult her, and let me get on with my work, I beg of you. I am going over my MSS. for the fifth time, young man! That will give you an idea of my perseverance with difficulties. Follow the example, and you'll soon conquer those young limbs. Now, good morning to you, Price, good morning!' and Philip was hastily bowed out of the stuffy little sanctum, with its piles of MSS. and its odours of stale tobacco.

'Theo's the one to settle it all!' cheerfully muttered the captain, as the tutor's footsteps died away. 'She's such a sensible little woman, and has such a talent for managing and organising; she takes after me!'

he added, with a complacence that would have received a rude shock by a little plain speaking as to those duties close at hand in his home that he was daily neglecting, in order to follow a will-o'-the-wisp in the shape of literary success.

'Miss Carnegy, the captain has referred me to you about a matter I have been forced to mention to him.'

Philip Price was standing in the doorway of the tea-house, as the Carnegys called the rustic erection at the end of the long, unproductive garden, hanging sheer over the little rocky headland on which the captain had built his bunk, when he came to settle at Northbourne. A large part of the Carnegys' lives was spent in the tea-house, for as a family they loved the open air.

It was Queenie's schoolroom, in spring, summer, and autumn. The two fair heads raised at the sound of Philip's voice belonged to Theo and her pupil. They were busy over the Monday Bible-lessons, it being a wise rule of the young teacher to follow up the lessons of Sunday while they were still fresh in the childish memory of her little charge.

'What a contrast!' inwardly groaned the tutor as he took in the peaceful scene, and compared it with the one he had so recently quitted, in despair, where Geoff and Alick had that morning well-nigh goaded him to frenzy by their rebellious conduct. Alick had been in one of his worst moods, and Geoff had caught the infection. Books had been flung up to the ceiling; the ink-bottles deliberately emptied; and the rebels daringly shouted 'Rule Britannia!' from the top of the table on which they had leaped, brandishing the fire-irons. The tutor knew that he could have severely chastised one of the boys, and conquered him with ease, but he could hardly cope at once, single-handed, with the two. He therefore felt it to be the most dignified thing to leave the schoolroom in silence. All this he told, in a few brief words, to Theo, unwilling as he was to burden her youthful shoulders, already overweighted with many cares.

'I'm sorry, Mr. Price, so sorry!' Theo spoke humbly, and her sweet face coloured from chin to brow with vexation. 'It's hard for you to be subjected to such treatment. The boys are truly unmanageable. But, indeed, they have good hearts; they will be so repentant for their shocking behaviour by and by.'

'They must say so, if they are,' said Philip, firmly, his pale face growing set. 'I must have an apology from them before I can resume the lessons, whatever may be the cost.'

'Of course! oh, of course!' hurriedly a.s.sented Theo, her fingers working nervously. There were breakers ahead, she foresaw. The idea of Alick, or Geoff either, apologising! 'I shall go to them, and do my best to bring them to reason,' she said presently.

'Thank you! I am sorry that the matter should vex _you_!' was the grave reply; and lifting his hat, the tutor departed home.

'Vex me!' murmured Theo, leaning her head out of one of the open windows of the tea-house, and staring absently down upon the waves leaping over the black rocks below. 'Vex me! It's more than that.

Oh, it's too bad that all the burden should fall on me! Father _ought_ to look after the boys. It's too bad!' she repeated.