The Stolen Singer Part 14

"It is bad enough, with this fever. If his const.i.tution is sound, he may pull through."

Not very encouraging, but Agatha extracted the best from it. "Oh, I'm so thankful!" she exclaimed. Doctor Thayer looked at her, a deep interest showing in his grim old face. While she looked at James, he studied her, as if some unusual characteristic claimed his attention, but he made no comment.

Doctor Thayer was short in stature, ma.s.sively built, with the head and trunk of some ancient Vulcan. His heavy, large features had a rugged n.o.bility, like that of the mountains. His face was smooth-shaven, ruddy-brown, and deeply marked with lines of care; but most salient of all his features was the ma.s.sively molded chin and jaw. His lips, too, were thick and full, without giving the least impression of grossness; and when he was thinking, he had a habit of thrusting his under jaw slightly forward, which made him look much fiercer than he ever felt.

Thin white hair covered his temples and grew in a straggling fringe around the back of his head, upon which he wore a broad-brimmed soft black hat.

Doctor Thayer would have been noticeable, a man of distinction, anywhere; and yet here he was, with his worn satchel and his old-fashioned clothes, traveling year after year over the country-side to the relief of farmers and fishermen. He knew his science, too. It never occurred to him to doubt whether his sphere was large enough for him.

"I haven't found out yet where we are, or to what place we are going.

Will you tell me, sir?" asked Agatha.

"You came ash.o.r.e near Ram's Head, one of the worst reefs on the coast of Maine; and we're heading now for Charlesport; that's over yonder, beyond that next point," Doctor Thayer answered. After a moment he added: "I know nothing about your misfortunes, but I a.s.sume that you capsized in some pesky boat or other. When you get good and ready, you can tell me all about it. In the meantime, what is your name, young woman?"

The doctor turned his searching blue eyes toward Agatha again, a courteous but eager inquiry underneath his brusque manner.

"It is a strange story, Doctor Thayer," said Agatha somewhat reluctantly; "but some time you shall hear it. I must tell it to somebody, for I need help. My name is Agatha Redmond, and I am from New York; and this gentleman is James Hambleton of Lynn--so he told me.

He risked his life to save mine, after we had abandoned the ship."

"I don't doubt it," said Doctor Thayer gruffly. "Some blind dash into the future is the privilege of youth. That's why it's all recklessness and foolishness."

Agatha looked at him keenly, struck by some subtle irony in his voice.

"I think it is what you yourself would have done, sir," she said.

The doctor thrust out his chin in his disconcerting way, and gave not the least smile; but his small blue eyes twinkled.

"My business is to see just where I'm going and to know exactly what I'm doing," was the dry answer. He turned a watchful look toward James, lying still there between them; then he knelt down, putting an ear over the patient's heart.

"All right!" he a.s.sured her as he came up. "But we never know how those organs are going to act." Satisfying himself further in regard to James, he waited some time before he addressed Agatha again. Then he said, very deliberately: "The ocean is a savage enemy. My brother Hercules used to quote that old Greek philosopher who said, 'Praise the sea, but keep on land.' And sometimes I think he was right."

Agatha's tired mind had been trying to form some plan for their future movements. She was uneasily aware that she would soon have to decide to do something; and, of course, she ought to get back to New York as soon as possible. But she could not leave James Hambleton, her friend and rescuer, nor did she wish to. She was pondering the question as the doctor spoke; then suddenly, at his words, a curtain of memory snapped up. "My brother Hercules" and "Charlesport!"

She leaned forward, looking earnestly into the doctor's face. "Oh, tell me," she cried impulsively, "is it possible that you knew Hercules Thayer? That he was your brother? And are we in the neighborhood of Ilion?"

"Yes--yes--yes," a.s.sented the doctor, nodding to each of her questions in turn; "and I thought it was you, Agatha Shaw's girl, from the first.

But you should have come down by land!" he dictated grimly.

"Oh, I didn't intend to come down at all," cried Agatha; "either by land or water! At least not yet!"

Doctor Thayer's jaw shot out and his eyes shone, but not with humor this time. He looked distinctly irritated. "But my dear Miss Agatha Redmond, where _did_ you intend to go?"

Agatha couldn't, by any force of will, keep her voice from stammering, as she answered: "I wasn't g-going anywhere! I was k-kidnapped!"

Doctor Thayer looked sternly at her, then reached toward his medicine chest. "My dear young woman--" (Why is it that when a person is particularly out of temper, he is constrained to say My _Dear_ So and So?) "My dear young woman," said Doctor Thayer, "that's all right, but you must take a few drops of this solution. And let me feel your pulse."

"Indeed, Doctor, it is all so, just as I say," interrupted Agatha.

"I'm not feverish or out of my head, not the least bit. I can't tell you the whole story now; I'm too tired--"

"Yes, that's so, my dear child!" said the doctor, but in such an evident tone of yielding to a delirious person, that he nearly threw her into a fever with anger. But on the whole, Agatha was too tired to mind. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and slowly shook his head; but what he had to say, if he had anything, was necessarily postponed.

The launch was putting into the harbor of Charlesport.

Even on the dull day of their arrival, Charlesport was a pleasant looking place, stretching up a steep hill beyond the ribbon of street that bordered its harbor. Fish-houses and small docks stood out here and there, and one larger dock marked the farthest point of land. A great derrick stood by one wharf, with piles of granite block near by.

Little Simon was calling directions back to Hand at the engine as they chugged past fishing smacks and mooring poles, past lobster-pot buoys and a little bug-lighthouse, threading their way into the harbor and up to the dock. Agatha appealed to the doctor with great earnestness.

"Surely, Doctor Thayer, it is a Providence that we came in just here, where people will know me and will help me. I need shelter for a little while, and care for my sick friend here. Where can we go?"

Doctor Thayer cast a judicial eye over the landscape, while he held his hat up into the breeze. "It's going to clear; it'll be a fine afternoon," said he. Then deliberately: "Why don't you go up to the old red house? Sallie Kingsbury's there keeping it, just as she did when Hercules was alive; waiting for you or the lawyer or somebody to turn her out, I guess. And it's only five miles by the good road. You couldn't go to any of these sailor shacks down here, and the big summer hotel over yonder isn't any place for a sick man, let alone a lady without her trunk."

Agatha looked in amazement at the doctor. "Go to the old red house--to stay?"

"Why not? If you're Agatha Redmond, it's yours, isn't it? And I guess n.o.body's going to dispute your being Agatha Shaw's daughter, looking as you do. The house is big enough for all creation; and, besides, they've been on pins and needles, waiting for you to come, or write, or do something." The doctor gave a grim chuckle. "Hercules surprised them all some, by his will. But they'll all be glad to see you, I guess, unless it is Sister Susan. She was always pretty hard on Hercules; and she didn't approve of the will--thought the house ought to go to the Foundling Asylum."

Agatha looked as if she saw the gates of Eden opened to her. "But could I really go there? Would it be all right? I've not even seen the lawyer." There was no need of answers to her questions; she knew already that the old red house would receive her, would be a refuge for herself and for James, who needed a refuge so sorely.

The doctor was already making his plans. "I'll drive this man here,"

indicating James, "and he'll need some one to nurse him for a while, too. You can go up in one of Simon Nash's wagons; and I'll get a nurse up there as soon as I can."

The launch had tied up to the larger dock, and Hand and Little Simon had been waiting some minutes while Agatha and the doctor conferred together. Now, as Agatha hesitated, the businesslike Hand was at her elbow. "I can help you, Mademoiselle, if you will let me. I have had some experience with sick men." Agatha looked at him with grateful eyes, only half realizing what it was he was offering. The doctor did not wait, but immediately took the arrangement for granted. He began giving orders in the tone of a man who knows just what he wants done, and knows also that he will be obeyed.

"You stay here, Mr. Hand, and help with this gentleman; and Little Simon, here, you go up to your father's livery stable and harness up, quick as you can. Then drive up to my place and get the boy to bring my buggy down here, with the white horse. Quick, you understand? Tell them the doctor's waiting."

Agatha sat in the launch while the doctor's orders were carried out.

Little Simon was off getting the vehicles; Doctor Thayer had run up the dock to the village street on some errand, saying he would be back by the time the carriages were there; and Hand was walking up and down the dock, keeping a watchful eye on the launch. James was lying in the sheltered corner of the boat, ominously quiet. His eyes were closed, and his face had grown ghastly in his illness. Tears came to Agatha's eyes as she looked at him, seeing how much worse his condition was than when he had talked with her, almost happily, in the night. She herself felt miserably tired and ill; and as she waited, she had the sensation one sometimes has in waiting for a train; that the waiting would go on for ever, would never end.

The weather changed, as the doctor had prophesied, and the rain ceased.

Fresh gusts of wind from the sea blew clouds of fog and mist inland, while the surface of the water turned from gray to green, from green to blue. The wind, blowing against the receding tide, tossed the foam back toward the land in fantastic plumes. Agatha, looking out over the sea, which now began to sparkle in the light, longed in her heart to take the return of the sunshine as an omen of good. It warmed and cheered her, body and soul.

As her eyes turned from the sea to the village tossed up beyond its highest tides, she searched, though in vain, for some spot which she could identify with the memories of her childhood. She must have seen Charlesport in some one of her numerous visits to Ilion as a child; but though she recalled vividly many of her early experiences, they were in no way suggestive of this tiny antiquarian village, or of the rocky hillside stretching off toward the horizon. A narrow road wound athwart the hill, leading into the country beyond. It was steep and rugged, and finally it curved over the distant fields.

But the old red house was the talisman that brought back to her mind the familiar picture. She wondered if it lay over the hill beyond that rugged road. She closed her eyes and saw the green fields, the mighty balm-of-gilead tree, the lilac bushes, and the dull red walls of the house standing back from the village street, not far from the white-steepled church. She could see it all, plainly. The thought came to her suddenly that it was home. It was the first realization she had of old Hercules Thayer's kindness. It was Home for her who had else been homeless. She hugged the thought in thankfulness.

"Now, Miss Agatha Redmond, if you will come--"

The eternity had ended; and time, with its swift procession of hours and days, had begun again.

CHAPTER XII

SEEING THE RAINBOW

A few days on a yacht, with a calm sea and sun-cool weather, may be something like a century of bliss for a pair of lovers, if they happen to have taken the lucky hour. The conventions of yacht life allow a companionship from dawn till dark, if they choose to have it; there is a limited amount of outside distraction; if the girl be an outdoor la.s.s, she looks all the sweeter for the wind rumpling her hair; and on shipboard, if anywhere, mental resourcefulness and good temper achieve their full reward.

Aleck had been more crafty than he knew when he carried Melanie and Madame Reynier off on the _Sea Gull_. Almost at the last moment Mr.

Chamberlain had joined them, Aleck's liking for the man and his instinct of hospitality overcoming his desire for something as near as possible to a solitude _a deux_ with Melanie.

They could not have had a better companion. Mr. Chamberlain was nothing less than perfect in his position as companion and guest. He enjoyed Madame Reynier's grand d.u.c.h.ess manners, and spared himself no trouble to entertain both Madame Reynier and Melanie. He was a hearty admirer, if not a suitor, of the younger woman; but certain it was, that, if he ever had entertained personal hopes in regard to her, he buried them in the depths of his heart by the end of their first day on the _Sea Gull_. He understood Aleck's position with regard to Melanie without being told, and instantly brought all his loyalty and courtesy into his friend's service.

Madame Reynier had an interest in seeing the smaller towns and cities of America; "something besides the show places," she said. So they made visits ash.o.r.e here and there, though not many. As they grew to feel more at home on the yacht, the more reluctant they were to spend their time on land. Why have dust and noise and elbowing people, when they might be cutting through the blue waters with the wind fresh in their faces? The weather was perfect; the thrall of the sea was upon them.