The Channings Part 47

"Shall I help you in, father!"

"I can help myself now, Hamish. I remember you promised me I should have no fly on my return. You have thought better of it."

"Yes, sir, wishing to get you home before bed-time, which might not be the case if you were to show yourself in the town, and stop at all the interruptions."

Mr. Channing stepped into the fly. Hamish followed, first giving the driver a nod. "The luggage! The luggage!" exclaimed Mrs. Channing, as they moved off.

"The porter will bring it, mother. He would have been a month putting it on to the fly."

How could they suppose anything was the matter? Not a suspicion of it ever crossed them. Never had Hamish appeared more light-hearted. In fact, in his self-consciousness, Hamish a little overdid it. Let him get them home before the worst came!

"We find you all well, I conclude!" said Mrs. Channing. "None of them came up with you! Arthur is in college, I suppose, and Tom and Charles are in school."

"It was Arthur's hour for college," remarked Hamish, ignoring the rest of the sentence. "But he ought to be out now. Arthur is at Galloway's again," he added. "He did not write you word, I believe, as you were so shortly expected home."

Mr. Channing turned a glance on his son, quick as lightning. "Cleared, Hamish?"

"In my opinion, yes. In the opinion of others, I fear not much more than he was before."

"And himself?" asked Mr. Channing. "What does he say now?"

"He does not speak of it to me."

Hamish put his head out at the window, nodding to some one who was pa.s.sing. A question of Mr. Channing's called it in again.

"Why has he gone back to Galloway's?"

Hamish laughed. "Roland Yorke took an impromptu departure one fine morning, for Port Natal, leaving the office and Mr. Galloway to do the best they could with each other. Arthur buried his grievances and offered himself to Mr. Galloway in the emergency. I am not quite sure that I should have been so forgiving."

"Hamish! He has nothing to forgive Mr. Galloway. It is on the other side."

"I am uncharitable, I suppose," remarked Hamish. "I cannot like Mr. Galloway's treatment of Arthur."

"But what is it you say about Roland Yorke and Port Natal?" interposed Mrs. Channing. "I do not understand."

"Roland is really gone, mother. He has been in London these ten days, and it is expected that every post will bring news that he has sailed. Roland has picked up a notion somewhere that Port Natal is an enchanted land, converting poor men into rich ones; and he is going to try what it will do for him, Lord Carrick fitting him out. Poor Jenkins is sinking fast."

"Changes! changes!" remarked Mr. Channing. "Go away only for two or three months, and you must find them on return. Some gone; some dying; some--"

"Some restored, who were looked upon as incurable," interrupted Hamish. "My dear father, I will not have you dwell on dark things the very moment of your arrival; the time for that will come soon enough."

Judy nearly betrayed all; and Constance's aspect might have betrayed it, had the travellers been suspicious. She, Constance, came forward in the hall, white and trembling. When Mrs. Channing shook hands with Judy, she put an unfortunate question--"Have you taken good care of your boy?" Judy knew it could only allude to Charles, and for answer there went up a sound, between a cry and a sob, that might have been heard in the far-off college schoolroom. Hamish took Judy by the shoulders, bidding her go out and see whether any rattletraps were left in the fly, and so turned it off.

They were all together in the sitting-room--Mr. and Mrs. Channing, Hamish, Constance, Arthur, and Annabel; united, happy, as friends are and must be when meeting after a separation; talking of this and of that, giving notes of what had occurred on either side. Hamish showed himself as busy as the rest; but Hamish felt all the while upon a bed of thorns, for the hands of the timepiece were veering on for five, and he must get the communication over before Tom came in. At length Mrs. Channing went up to her room, accompanied by Constance; Annabel followed. And now came Hamish's opportunity. Arthur had gone back to Mr. Galloway's, and he was alone with his father. He plunged into it at once; indeed, there was no time for delay.

"Father!" he exclaimed, with deep feeling, his careless manner changing as by magic: "I have very grievous news to impart to you. I would not enter upon it before my mother: though she must be told of it also, and at once."

Mr. Channing was surprised; more surprised than alarmed. He never remembered to have seen Hamish betray so much emotion. A thought crossed his mind that Arthur's guilt might have been brought clearly to light.

"Not that," said Hamish. "It concerns--Father, I do not like to enter upon it! I shrink from my task. It is very bad news indeed."

"You, my children, are all well," cried Mr. Channing, hastily speaking the words as a fact, not as a question. "What other 'very bad' news can be in store for me?"

"You have not seen us all," was Hamish's answer. And Mr. Channing, alarmed, now looked inquiringly at him. "It concerns Charles. An--an accident has happened to him."

Mr. Channing sat down and shaded his eyes. He was a moment or two before he spoke. "One word, Hamish; is he dead?"

Hamish stood before his father and laid his hand affectionately upon his shoulder. "Father, I wish I could have prepared you better for it!" he exclaimed, with emotion. "We do not know whether he is dead or alive."

Then he explained--explained more in summary than in detail--touching lightly upon the worst features of the case, enlarging upon his own hopeful view of it. Bad enough it was, at the best, and Mr. Channing found it so. He could feel no hope. In the revulsion of grief, he turned almost with resentment upon Hamish.

"My son, I did not expect this treatment from you."

"I have taken enough blame to myself; I know he was left in my charge," sadly replied Hamish; "but, indeed, I do not see how I could have helped it. Although I was in the room when he ran out of it, I was buried in my own thoughts, and never observed his going. I had no suspicion anything was astir that night with the college boys. Father, I would have saved his life with my own!"

"I am not blaming you for the fact, Hamish; blame is not due to you. Had I been at home myself, I might no more have stopped his going out than you did. But you ought to have informed me of this instantly. A whole month, and I to be left in ignorance!"

"We did it for the best. Father, I a.s.sure you that not a stone has been left unturned to find him; alive, or--or dead. You could not have done more had you hastened home; and it has been so much suspense and grief spared to you."

Mr. Channing relapsed into silence. Hamish glanced uneasily to that ever-advancing clock. Presently he spoke.

"My mother must be told before Tom comes home. It will be better that you take the task upon yourself, father. Shall I send her in?"

Mr. Channing looked at Hamish, as if he scarcely understood the meaning of the words. From Hamish he looked to the clock. "Ay; go and send her."

Hamish went to his mother's room, and returned with her. But he did not enter. He merely opened the door, and shut her in. Constance, with a face more frightened than ever, came and stood in the hall. Annabel stood there also. Judy, wringing her hands, and sending off short e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns in an undertone, came to join them, and Sarah stood peeping out from the kitchen door. They remained gazing at the parlour door, dreading the effect of the communication that was going on inside.

"If it had been that great big Tom, it wouldn't matter so much," wailed Judith, in a tone of resentment. "The missis would know that _he'd_ be safe to turn up, some time or other; a strong fellow like him!"

A sharp cry within the room. The door was flung open, and Mrs. Channing came forth, her face pale, her hands lifted. "It cannot be true! It cannot be! Hamish! Judith! Where is he?"

Hamish folded her hands in his, and gently drew her in again. They all followed. No reason why they should not, now that the communication was made. Almost at the same moment, Mr. Huntley arrived.

Of course, the first thought that had occurred to the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Channing was, that had they been at home to direct affairs in the search, Charley would have been found. It is the thought that would occur to us all: we never give others credit for doing as much as we should have done. "This might have been tried, and the other might have been tried." It makes little difference when told that they have been tried; for then we fall back upon some other suggestion. Mrs. Channing reproached Hamish with keeping it from them.

"My dear lady, you must blame me, not him," interposed Mr. Huntley. "Left to himself, Hamish would have started Arthur off to you, post haste. It was I who suggested the desirability of keeping you in ignorance; it was I who brought Hamish to see it: and I know that, when the brunt of your grief shall have pa.s.sed, you will acknowledge that it was the best, the wisest, and the kindest course."

"But there are so many things that we could have suggested; that perhaps none but a father or mother would think of!" urged Mrs. Channing, lifting her yearning face. They wished they could see her weep.

"You could have suggested nothing that has not been done," returned Mr. Huntley. "Believe me, dear Mrs. Channing! We have had many good counsellors. b.u.t.terby has conducted the search."

Mr. Channing turned to them. He was standing at the far window. "I should like to see b.u.t.terby."

"He will be here in an hour's time," said Hamish. "I knew you would wish to see him, and I requested him to come."

"The worst feature of the whole," put in Judith, with as much acrimony as ever was displayed by Mr. Ketch, "is that them boys should not have got their deserts. They have not as much as had a birching; and I say that the college masters ought to be hooted. I'd 'ghost' 'em!"

"The punishment lies in abeyance for the present," explained Hamish. "A different punishment from any the head-master could inflict will be required, should--should--" Hamish stopped. He did not like to say, in the presence of his mother, "should the body be found." "Some of them are suffering pretty well, as it is," he continued, after a brief pause. "Master Bill Simms lay in bed for a week with fright, and they were obliged to have Mr. Hurst to him. Report goes, that Hurst soundly flogged his son, by way of commencing his share."

A pushing open of the outer door, a bang, and hasty footsteps in the hall. Tom had arrived. Tom, with his sparkling eyes, his glowing face. They sparkled for his father only in that first moment; his father, who turned and walked to meet him.

"Oh, papa! What baths those must be!" cried honest Tom. "If ever I get rich, I'll go over there and make them a present of a thousand pounds. To think that nothing else should have cured you!"

"I think something else must have had a hand in curing me, Tom."

Tom looked up inquiringly. "Ah, papa! You mean G.o.d."

"Yes, my boy. G.o.d has cured me. The baths were only instruments in His hands."

CHAPTER LIV.

"THE SHIP'S DROWNED."

Rejecting all offers of refreshment--the meal which Constance had planned, and Judith prepared, both with so much loving care--Mr. Channing resolved to seek out b.u.t.terby at once. In his state of suspense, he could neither wait, nor eat, nor remain still; it would be a satisfaction only to see b.u.t.terby, and hear his opinion.

Mr. Huntley accompanied him; scarcely less proud than Hamish would have been, to walk once more arm in arm with Mr. Channing. But, as there is not the least necessity for our going to the police-station, for Mr. b.u.t.terby could tell us no more than we already know; we will pay a short visit to Mr. Stephen Bywater.

That gentleman stood in the cloisters, into which he had seduced old Jenkins, the bedesman, having waited for the twilight hour, that he might make sure no one else would be there. Ever since the last day you saw old Jenkins in the cathedral, he had been laid up in his house, with a touch of what he called his "rheumatiz." Decrepit old fellows were all the bedesmen, monopolizing enough "rheumatiz" between them for half the city. If one was not laid up, another would be, especially in winter. However, old Jenkins had come out again to-day, to the gratification of Mr. Bywater, who had been wanting him. The cloisters were all but dark, and Mr. Ketch must undoubtedly be most agreeably engaged, or he would have shut up before.

"Now then, old Jenkins!" Bywater was saying. "You show me the exact spot, and I'll give you sixpence for smoke."

Old Jenkins hobbled to one of the mullioned windows near to the college entrance, and looked over into the dim graveyard. "'Twas about four or five yards off here," said he.

"But I want to know the precise spot," returned Bywater. "Get over, and show me!"

The words made old Jenkins laugh. "Law, sir! me get over there! You might as well ask me to get over the college. How am I to do it?"

"I'll hoist you up," said Bywater.

"No, no," answered the man. "My old bones be past hoisting now. I should never get back alive, once I were propelled over into that graveyard."

Bywater felt considerably discomfited. "What a weak rat you must be, old Jenkins! Why, it's nothing!"

"I know it ain't--for you college gents. 'Twouldn't have been much for me when I was your age. Skin and clothes weren't of much account to me, then."

"Oh, it's that, is it?" returned Bywater, contemptuously. "Look here, old Jenkins! if your things come to grief, I'll get my uncle to look you out some of his old ones. I'll give you sixpence for baccy, I say!"

The old bedesman shook his head. "If you give me a waggin load of baccy, I couldn't get over there. You might just as good put a babby in arms on the ground, and tell it to walk!"

"Here! get out of the way for an old m.u.f.f!" was Bywater's rejoinder; and in a second he had mounted the window-frame, and dropped into the burial-ground. "Now then, old Jenkins, I'll go about and you call out when I come to the right spot."

By these means, Bywater arrived at a solution of the question, where the broken phial was found; old Jenkins pointing out the spot, to the best of his ability. Bywater then vaulted back again, and alighted safe and sound in the cloisters. Old Jenkins asked for his sixpence.

"Why, you did not earn it!" said Bywater. "You wouldn't get over!"

"A sixpence is always useful to me," said the old man; "and some of you gents has 'em in plenty. I ain't paid much; and Joe, he don't give me much. 'Tain't him; he'd give away his head, and always would--it's her. Precious close she is with the money, though she earns a sight of it, I know, at that shop of her'n, and keeps Joe like a king. Wine, and all the rest of it, she's got for him, since he was ill. 'There's a knife and fork for ye, whenever ye like to come,' she says to me, in her tart way. But deuce a bit of money will she give. If it weren't for one and another friend giving me an odd sixpence now and then, Master Bywater, I should never hardly get any baccy!"

"There; don't bother!" said Bywater, dropping the coin into his hand.

"Why, bless my heart, who's this, a prowling in the cloisters at this hour?" exclaimed a well-known cracked voice, advancing upon them with shuffling footsteps. "What do you do here, pray?"

"You would like to know, wouldn't you, Mr. Calcraft?" said Bywater. "Studying architecture. There!"

Old Ketch gave a yell of impotent rage, and Bywater decamped, as fast as his legs would carry him, through the west door.

Arrived at his home, or rather his uncle's, where he lived--for Bywater's paternal home was in a far-away place, over the sea--he went straight up to his own room, where he struck a match, and lighted a candle. Then he unlocked a sort of bureau, and took from it the phial found by old Jenkins, and a smaller piece which exactly fitted into the part broken. He had fitted them in ten times before, but it appeared to afford him satisfaction, and he now sat down and fitted them again.

"Yes," soliloquized he, as he nursed one of his legs--his favourite att.i.tude--"it's as sure as eggs. And I'd have had it out before, if that helpless old m.u.f.f of a Jenkins had been forthcoming. I knew it was safe to be somewhere near the college gates; but it was as Well to ask."

He turned the phial over and over between his eye and the candle, and resumed; "And now I'll give Mr. Ger a last chance. I told him the other day that if he'd only speak up like a man to me, and say it was an accident, I'd drop it for good. But he won't. And find it out, I will. I have said I would from the first, just for my own satisfaction: and if I break my word, may they tar and feather me! Ger will only have himself to thank; if he won't satisfy me in private, I'll bring it against him in public. I suspected Mr. Ger before; not but that I suspected another; but since Charley Channing----Oh! bother, though! I don't want to get thinking of _him_!"

Bywater locked up his treasures, and descended to his tea. That over, he had enough lessons to occupy him for a few hours, and keep him out of mischief.

Meanwhile Mr. Channing's interview with the renowned Mr. b.u.t.terby had brought forth nothing, and he was walking back home with Mr. Huntley. Mr. Huntley strove to lead his friend's thoughts into a different channel: it seemed quite a mockery to endeavour to whisper hope for Charley.

"You will resume your own place in Guild Street at once?" he observed.

"To-morrow, please G.o.d."

They walked a few steps further in silence; and then Mr. Channing entered upon the very subject which Mr. Huntley was hoping he would not enter upon. "I remember, you spoke, at Borcette, of having something in view for Hamish, should I be able to attend to business again. What is it?"

"I did," said Mr. Huntley; "and I am sorry that I did. I spoke prematurely."

"I suppose it is gone?"

"Well--no; it is not gone," replied Mr. Huntley, who was above equivocation. "I do not think Hamish would suit the place."

Mr. Channing felt a little surprised. There were few places that Hamish might not suit, if he chose to exercise his talents. "You thought he would suit then?" he remarked.

"But circ.u.mstances have since induced me to alter my opinion," said Mr. Huntley. "My friend," he more warmly added to Mr. Channing, "you will oblige me by allowing the subject to drop. I candidly confess to you that I am not so pleased with Hamish as I once was, and I would rather not interfere in placing him elsewhere."

"How has he offended you? What has he done?"

"Nay, that is all I will say. I could not help giving you a hint, to account for what you might have thought caprice. Hamish has not pleased me, and I cannot take him by the hand. There, let it rest."

Mr. Channing was content to let it rest. In his inmost heart he entertained no doubt that the cause of offence was in some way connected with Mr. Huntley's daughter. Hamish was poor: Ellen would be rich; therefore it was only natural that Mr. Huntley should consider him an ineligible parti for her. Mr. Channing did not quite see what that had to do with the present question; but he could not, in delicacy, urge it further.

They found quite a levee when they entered: the Reverend Mr. Pye, Mr. Galloway--who had called in with Arthur upon leaving the office for the night--and William Yorke. All were anxious to welcome and congratulate Mr. Channing; and all were willing to tender a word of sympathy respecting Charles. Possibly Mr. Yorke had also another motive: if so, we shall come to it in due time.

Mr. Pye stayed only a few minutes. He did not say a word about the seniorship, neither did Mr. Channing to him. What, indeed, could either of them say? The subject was unpleasant on both sides; therefore it was best avoided. Tom, however, thought differently.