The Tides of Barnegat Part 24

All these things rushed through her mind as she stood leaning against the stone wall, Archie's hand in hers, his big blue eyes still fixed on her own.

"Who said that to you, my son?" she asked in a.s.sumed indifference, in order to gain time in which to frame her answer and recover from the shock.

"Scootsy Mulligan."

"Is he a nice boy?"

"No, he's a coward, or he wouldn't fight as he does."

"Then I wouldn't mind him, my boy," and she smoothed back the hair from his forehead, her eyes avoiding the boy's steady gaze. It was only when someone opened the door of the closet concealing this spectre that Jane felt her knees give way and her heart turn sick within her. In all else she was fearless and strong.

"Was he the boy who said you had no mother?"

"Yes. I gave him an awful whack when he came up the first time, and he went heels over head."

"Well, you have got a mother, haven't you, darling?" she continued, with a sigh of relief, now that Archie was not insistent.

"You bet I have!" cried the boy, throwing his arms around her.

"Then we won't either of us bother about those bad boys and what they say," she answered, stooping over and kissing him.

And so for a time the remembrance of Scootsy's epithet faded out of the boy's mind.

CHAPTER XIV

HIGH WATER AT YARDLEY

Ten years have pa.s.sed away.

The st.u.r.dy little fellow in knee-trousers is a lad of seventeen, big and strong for his age; Tod is three years older, and the two are still inseparable. The brave commander of the pirate ship is now a full-fledged fisherman and his father's main dependence. Archie is again his chief henchman, and the two spend many a morning in Tod's boat when the blue-fish are running. Old Fogarty does not mind it; he rather likes it, and Mother Fogarty is always happier when the two are together.

"If one of 'em gits overboard," she said one day to her husband, "t'other kin save him."

"Save him! Well, I guess!" he replied. "Salt water skims off Archie same's if he was a white bellied gull; can't drown him no more'n you kin a can buoy."

The boy has never forgotten Scootsy's epithet, although he has never spoken of it to his mother--no one knows her now by any other name. She thought the episode had pa.s.sed out of his mind, but she did not know everything that lay in the boy's heart. He and Tod had discussed it time and again, and had wondered over his own name and that of his nameless father, as boys wonder, but they had come to no conclusion. No one in the village could tell them, for no one ever knew. He had asked the doctor, but had only received a curious answer.

"What difference does it make, son, when you have such a mother? You have brought her only honor, and the world loves her the better because of you. Let it rest until she tells you; it will only hurt her heart if you ask her now."

The doctor had already planned out the boy's future; he was to be sent to Philadelphia to study medicine when his schooling was over, and was then to come into his office and later on succeed to his practice.

Captain Holt would have none of it.

"He don't want to saw off no legs," the bluff old man had blurted out when he heard of it. "He wants to git ready to take a ship 'round Cape Horn. If I had my way I'd send him some'er's where he could learn navigation, and that's in the fo'c's'le of a merchantman. Give him a year or two before the mast. I made that mistake with Bart--he loafed round here too long and when he did git a chance he was too old."

Report had it that the captain was going to leave the lad his money, and had therefore a right to speak; but no one knew. He was closer-mouthed than ever, though not so gruff and ugly as he used to be; Archie had softened him, they said, taking the place of that boy of his he "druv out to die a good many years ago."

Jane's mind wavered. Neither profession suited her. She would sacrifice anything she had for the boy provided they left him with her.

Philadelphia was miles away, and she would see him but seldom. The sea she shrank from and dreaded. She had crossed it twice, and both times with an aching heart. She feared, too, its treachery and cruelty. The waves that curled and died on Barnegat beach--messengers from across the sea--brought only tidings fraught with suffering.

Archie had no preferences--none yet. His future was too far off to trouble him much. Nor did anything else worry him.

One warm September day Archie turned into Yardley gate, his so'wester still on his head framing his handsome, rosy face; his loose jacket open at the throat, the tarpaulins over his arm. He had been outside the inlet with Tod--since daybreak, in fact--fishing for ba.s.s and weakfish.

Jane had been waiting for him for hours. She held an open letter in her hand, and her face was happier, Archie thought as he approached her, than he had seen it for months.

There are times in all lives when suddenly and without warning, those who have been growing quietly by our side impress their new development upon us. We look at them in full a.s.surance that the timid glance of the child will be returned, and are astounded to find instead the calm gaze of the man; or we stretch out our hand to help the faltering step and touch a muscle that could lead a host. Such changes are like the breaking of the dawn; so gradual has been their coming that the full sun of maturity is up and away flooding the world with beauty and light before we can recall the degrees by which it rose.

Jane realized this--and for the first time--as she looked at Archie swinging through the gate, waving his hat as he strode toward her. She saw that the sailor had begun to a.s.sert itself. He walked with an easy swing, his broad shoulders--almost as broad as the captain's and twice as hard--thrown back, his head up, his blue eyes and white teeth laughing out of a face brown and ruddy with the sun and wind, his throat and neck bare except for the silk handkerchief--one of Tod's--wound loosely about it; a man really, strong and tough, with hard sinews and capable thighs, back, and wrists--the kind of sailorman that could wear tarpaulins or broadcloth at his pleasure and never lose place in either station.

In this rude awakening Jane's heart-strings tightened. She became suddenly conscious that the Cobden look had faded out of him; Lucy's eyes and hair were his, and so was her rounded chin, with its dimple, but there was nothing else about him that recalled either her own father or any other Cobden she remembered. As he came near enough for her to look into his eyes she began to wonder how he would impress Lucy, what side of his nature would she love best--his courage and strength or his tenderness?

The sound of his voice shouting her name recalled her to herself, and a thrill of pride illumined her happy face like a burst of sunlight as he tossed his tarpaulins on the gra.s.s and put his strong arms about her.

"Mother, dear! forty black ba.s.s, eleven weakfish, and half a barrel of small fry--what do you think of that?"

"Splendid, Archie. Tod must be proud as a peac.o.c.k. But look at this!"

and she held up the letter. "Who do you think it's from? Guess now,"

and she locked one arm through his, and the two strolled back to the house.

"Guess now!" she repeated, holding the letter behind her back. The two were often like lovers together.

"Let me see," he coaxed. "What kind of a stamp has it got?"

"Never you mind about the stamp."

"Uncle John--and it's about my going to Philadelphia."

Jane laughed. "Uncle John never saw it."

"Then it's from--Oh, you tell me, mother!"

"No--guess. Think of everybody you ever heard of. Those you have seen and those you--"

"Oh, I know--Aunt Lucy."

"Yes, and she's coming home. Home, Archie, think of it, after all these years!"

"Well, that's bully! She won't know me, will she? I never saw her, did I?"

"Yes, when you were a little fellow." It was difficult to keep the tremor out of her voice.

"Will she bring any dukes and high daddies with her?"