The Lifeboat Part 25

"Ay, the blue peter's at the mast-head and the anchor tripped."

Here Bax related to his old comrade what he had previously told to Guy.

At first Jeph shook his head, but when the young sailor spoke of love being the cause of his sudden departure, he made him sit down on the grave, and listened earnestly.

"So, so, Bax," he said, when the latter had concluded, "you're quite sure she's fond o' the other feller, are ye?"

"Quite. I had it from his own lips. At least he told me he's fond of _her_, and I could see with my own eyes she's fond of _him_."

"Poor lad," said Jeph, patting his friend's shoulder as if he had been a child, "you're quite right to go. I know what love is. You'll never get cured in _this_ country; mayhap foreign air'll do it. I refused to tell you what made me come out here lad; but now that I knows how the wind blows with _you_, I don't mind if I let ye into my secret. Love!

ay, it's the old story; love has brought me here night after night since ever I was a boy."

"Love!" exclaimed his companion; "love of whom?"

"Why, who should it be but the love o' the dear girl as lies under this sod?" said the old man, putting his hand affectionately on the grave.

"Ay, you may well look at me in wonderment, but I wasn't always the wrinkled old man I am now. I was a good-lookin' lad once, though I don't look like it now. When poor Mary was murdered I was nineteen. I won't tell ye how I loved that dear girl. Ye couldn't understand me.

When she was murdered by that"--(he paused abruptly for a moment, and then resumed)--"when she was murdered, I thought I should have gone mad.

I _was_ mad, I believe, for a time; but when I came back here to stay, after wanderin' in foreign parts for many years, I took to comin' to the grave at nights. At first I got no good. I thought my heart would burst altogether, but at last the Lord sent peace into my soul. I began to think of her as an angel in heaven, and now the sweetest hours of my life are spent on this grave. Poor Mary! She was gentle and kind, especially to the poor and the afflicted. She took a great interest in the ways and means we had for savin' people from wrecks, and used often to say it was a pity they couldn't get a boat made that would neither upset nor sink in a storm. She had read o' some such contrivance somewhere, for she was a great reader. Ever since that time I've bin trying, in my poor way, to make something o' the sort, but I've not managed it yet. I like to think she would have been pleased to see me at it."

Old Jeph stopped at this point, and shook his head slowly. Then he continued--

"I find that as long as I keep near this grave my love for Mary can't die, and I don't want it to. But that's why I think you're right to go abroad. It won't do for a man like you to go moping through life as I have done. Mayhap there's some truth in the sayin', Out o' sight out o'

mind."

"Ah's me!" said Bax; "isn't it likely that there may be some truth too in the words o' the old song, `Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'

But you're right, Jeph, it wouldn't do for _me_ to go moping through life as long as there's work to do. Besides, old boy, there's plenty of _this_ sort o' thing to be done; and I'll do it better now that I don't have anybody in particular to live for."

Bax said this with reckless gaiety, and touched the medal awarded to him by the Lifeboat Inst.i.tution, which still hung on his breast where it had been fastened that evening by Lucy Burton.

The two friends rose and returned together to Jeph's cottage, where Bax meant to remain but a few minutes, to leave sundry messages to various friends. He was shaking hands with the old man and bidding him farewell, when the door was burst open and Tommy Bogey rushed into the room. Bax seized the boy in his arms, and pressed him to his breast.

"Hallo! I say, is it murder ye're after, or d'ye mistake me for a polar bear?" cried Tommy, on being put down; "wot a hug, to be sure! Lucky for me that my timbers ain't easy stove in. Wot d'ye mean by it?"

Bax laughed, and patted Tommy's head. "Nothin', lad, only I feel as if I should ha' bin your mother."

"Well, I won't say ye're far out," rejoined the boy, waggishly, "for I do think ye're becomin' an old wife. But, I say, what can be wrong with Guy Foster? He came back to the cottage a short while ago lookin' quite glum, and shut himself up in his room, and he won't say what's wrong, so I come down here to look for you, for I knew I'd find ye with old Jeph or Bluenose."

"Ye're too inquisitive," said Bax, drawing Tommy towards him, and sitting down on a chair, so that the boy's face might be on a level with his. "No doubt Guy will explain it to you in the morning. I say, Tommy, I have sometimes wondered whether I could depend on the friendship which you so often profess for me."

The boy's face flushed, and he looked for a moment really hurt.

"Tutts, Tommy, you're gettin' thin-skinned. I do but jest."

"Well, jest or no jest," said the boy, not half pleased, "you know very well that nothing could ever make me turn my back on _you_."

"Are you sure?" said Bax, smiling. "Suppose, now, that I was to do something very bad to you, something unkind, or that _looked_ unkind-- what then?"

"In the first place you couldn't do that, and, in the second place, if you did I'd like you just as well."

"Ay, but suppose," continued Bax, in a jocular strain, "that what I did was _very_ bad."

"Well, let's hear what you call very bad."

Bax paused as if to consider, then he said: "Suppose, now, that I were to go off suddenly to some far part of the world for many years without so much as saying good-bye to ye, what would you think?"

"I'd find out where you had gone to, and follow you, and pitch into you when I found you," said Tommy stoutly.

"Ay, but I did not ask what you'd do; I asked what you'd think?"

"Why, I would think something had happened to prevent you lettin' me know, but I'd never think ill of you," replied Tommy.

"I believe you, boy," said Bax, earnestly. "But come, enough o' this idle talk. I want you to go up to the cottage with a message to Guy.

Tell him not to speak to any one to-night or to-morrow about what I said to him when we were walking on the sandhills; and be off, lad, as fast as you can, lest he should let it out before you get there."

"Anything to do with smugglers?" inquired the boy, with a knowing look, as they stood outside the door.

"Why, n-no, not exactly."

"Well, good-night, Bax; good-night, old Jeph."

Tommy departed, and the two men stood alone.

"G.o.d bless the lad. You'll be kind to him, Jeph, when I'm away?"

"Trust me, Bax," said the old man, grasping his friend's hand.

Without another word, Bax turned on his heel, and his tall, stalwart figure was quickly lost to view in the dark shadows of the night.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

TOMMY BOGEY FORMS A MIGHTY RESOLVE, AND MR. DENHAM, BEING PERPLEXED, BECOMES LIBERAL.

When Tommy Bogey discovered the terrible fact that his friend Bax had really gone from him, perhaps for ever, he went straight up to the cottage, sat down on the kitchen floor at the feet of Mrs Laker, laid his head on her lap, and wept as if his heart would break.

"My poor boy!" said the sympathising Laker, stroking his head, and endeavouring to comfort him more by tone and manner than by words.

But Tommy refused to be comforted. The strongest affection he had ever known was rudely and suddenly crushed. It was hard in Bax to have done it; so Tommy felt, though he would not admit it in so many words. So Bax himself felt when the first wild rush of sorrow was past, and he had leisure to consider the hasty step he had taken, while sailing away over the distant sea towards the antipodes. Bitterly did he blame himself and repent when repentance was of no avail.

Tommy's grief was deep, but not loud. He did not express it with a howling accompaniment. It burst from him in gasping sobs for a time, then it subsided into the recesses of his young heart and gnawed there.

It did not again break bounds, but it somewhat changed the boy's character. It made him almost a man in thought and action. He experienced that strong emotion which is known to most young hearts at certain periods of early life, and which shows itself in the formation of a fixed resolve to take some prompt and mighty step! What that step should be he did not know at first, and did not care to know.

Sufficient for him, that coming to an unalterable determination of some indefinite sort afforded him great relief.

After the first paroxysm was over, Tommy rose up, kissed Mrs Laker on the cheek, bade her goodnight with unwonted decision of manner, and went straight to the amphibious hut of his friend Bluenose, whom he found taking a one-eyed survey of the Downs through a telescope, from mere force of habit.

The Captain's name was more appropriate that day than it had been for many years. He was looking uncommonly "blue" indeed. He had just heard of the disappearance of Bax, for the news soon spread among the men on Deal beach. Being ignorant of the cause of his friend's sudden departure, and knowing his deliberate, sensible nature, the whole subject was involved in a degree of mystery which his philosophy utterly failed to clear up. Being a bachelor, and never having been in love, or met with any striking incidents of a tender nature in his career, it did not occur to him that woman could be at the bottom of it!

"Uncle," said Tommy, "Bax is gone!"