Two Years Ago Volume I Part 5

"Poor Molly! How she'll miss him! Do you think she'll ever walk, Doctor?"

"I do indeed."

"Hum! ah! well! if she grows up, Doctor, and don't go to join her poor dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish her a better husband than your boy."

"It would be a poor enough match for her."

"Tut! she'll have the money, and he the brains. Mark my words, Doctor, that boy'll be a credit to you; he'll make a noise in the world, or I know nothing. And if his fancy holds seven years hence, and he wants still to turn traveller, let him. If he's minded to go round the world, I'll back him to go, somehow or other, or I'll eat my head, Ned Thurnall!"

The Doctor acquiesced in this hopeful theory, partly to save an argument; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined to scientific matters; and he made up to his own self-respect by patronising the Doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes pretty sharply to task on practical matters.

"Best fellow alive is Thurnall; but not a man of business, poor fellow. None of your geniuses are. Don't know what he'd do without me."

So Tom carried Mary about all the morning, and went to Minchampstead in the afternoon, and got three hours' good shooting; but in the evening he vanished; and his father went into Armsworth's to look for him.

"Why do you want to know where he is?" replied Mark, looking sly.

"However, as you can't stop him now, I'll tell you. He is just about this time sewing up Briggs's coat-sleeves, putting copperas into his water jug, and powdered galls on his towel, and making various other little returns for this morning's favour."

"I dislike practical jokes."

"So do I; especially when they come in the form of a black dose. Sit down, old boy, and we'll have a game at cribbage."

In a few minutes Tom came in--"Here's a good riddance. The poisoner has fabricated his pilgrim's staff, to speak scientifically, and perambulated his calcareous strata."

"What!"

"Cut his stick, and walked his chalks; and is off to London."

"Poor boy," said the Doctor, much distressed.

"Don't cry, daddy; you can't bring him back again. He's been gone these four hours. I went to his room, at Bolus's, about a little business, and saw at once that he had packed up, and carried off all he could. And, looking about, I found a letter directed to his father.

So to his father I took it; and really I was sorry for the poor people. I left them all crying in chorus."

"I must go to them at once;" and up rose the Doctor.

"He's not worth the trouble you take for him--the addle-headed, ill-tempered c.o.xcomb," said Mark. "But it's just like your soft-heartedness. Tom, sit down, and finish the game with me."

So vanished from Whitbury, with all his aspirations, poor John Briggs; and save an occasional letter to his parents, telling them that he was alive and well, no one heard anything of him for many a year. The Doctor tried to find him out in London, again and again; but without success. His letters had no address upon them, and no clue to his whereabouts could be found.

And Tom Thurnall went to Paris, and became the best pistol-shot and billiard-player in the Quartier Latin; and then went to St.

Mumpsimus's Hospital in London, and became the best boxer therein, and captain of the eight-oar, besides winning prizes and certificates without end, and becoming in due time the most popular house-surgeon in the hospital: but nothing could keep him permanently at home. Stay drudging in London he would not. Settle down in a country practice he would not. Cost his father a farthing he would not. So he started forth into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science, as anatomical professor to a new college in some South American republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that the annual revolution had just taken place, and that the party who had founded the college had been all shot the week before. Whereat he whistled, and started off again, no man knew whither.

"Having got round half the world, daddy," he wrote home, "it's hard if I don't get round the other half. So don't expect me till you see me; and take care of your dear old eyes."

With which he vanished into infinite s.p.a.ce, and was only heard of by occasional letters dated from the Rocky Mountains (where he did shoot a grizzly bear), the Spanish West Indies, Otahiti, Singapore, the Falkland Islands, and all manner of unexpected places; sending home valuable notes (sometimes accompanied by valuable specimens), zoological and botanical; and informing his father that he was doing very well; that work was plentiful, and that he always found two fresh jobs before he had finished one old one.

His eldest brother, John, died meanwhile. His second brother, William, was in good general practice in Manchester. His father's connections supported him comfortably; and if the old Doctor ever longed for Tom to come home, he never hinted it to the wanderer, but bade him go on and prosper, and become (which he gave high promise of becoming) a distinguished man of science. Nevertheless the old man's heart sank at last, when month after month, and at last two full years, had pa.s.sed without any letter from Tom.

At last, when full four years were past and gone since Tom started for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail, with a serene and healthful countenance; and with no more look of interest in his face than if he had been away on a two days' visit, shouldered his carpet-bag, and started for his father's house. He stopped, however; as there appeared from the inside of the mail a face which he must surely know. A second look told him that it was none other than John Briggs. But how altered! He had grown up into a very handsome man,--tall and delicate-featured, with long black curls, and a black moustache. There was a slight stoop about his shoulders, as of a man accustomed to too much sitting and writing; and he carried an eye-gla.s.s, whether for fashion's sake, or for his eyes' sake, was uncertain. He was wrapt in a long Spanish cloak, new and good; wore well-cut trousers, and (what Tom, of course, examined carefully) French boots, very neat, and very thin. Moreover, he had lavender kid-gloves on. Tom looked and wondered, and walked half round him, sniffing like a dog when he examines into the character of a fellow dog.

"Hum!--his mark seems to be at present P.P.--prosperous party: so there can be no harm in renewing our acquaintance. What trade on earth does he live by, though? Editor of a newspaper? or keeper of a gambling-table? Begging his pardon, he looks a good deal more like the latter than the former. However--"

And he walked up and offered his hand, with "How d'e do, Briggs? Who would have thought of our falling from the skies against each other in this fashion?"

Mr. Briggs hesitated a moment, and then took coldly the offered hand.

"Excuse me; but the circ.u.mstances of my visit here are too painful to allow me to wish for society."

And Mr. Briggs withdrew, evidently glad to escape.

"Has he vampoosed with the contents of a till, that he wishes so for solitude?" asked Tom; and, shouldering his carpet-bag a second time, with a grim inward laugh, he went to his father's house, and hung up his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk, and walked into the study; and not finding the old man, stepped through the garden to Mark Armsworth's, and in at the drawing-room window, frightening out of her wits a short, pale, ugly girl of seventeen, whom he discovered to be his old playfellow, Mary. However, she soon recovered her equanimity: he certainly never lost his.

"How d'e do, darling? How you are grown! and how well you look! How's your father? I hadn't anything particular to do, so I thought I'd come home and see you all, and get some fishing."

And Mary, who had longed to throw her arms round his neck, as of old, and was restrained by the thought that she was grown a great girl now, called in her father, and all the household; and after a while the old Doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son, who, whether from affectation, or from that blunted sensibility which often comes by continual change and wandering, took all their affection and delight with the most provoking coolness.

Nevertheless, though his feelings were not "demonstrative," as fine ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag contained little but presents, and those valuable ones--rare minerals from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circa.s.sian pistols for Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, and old Mark said--

"Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that. What did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?"

"That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn't pay for it."

"Oh!" said Mary, doubtingly.

"No, Mary. I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful princess; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his fingers: so I thought it would just suit your wrist."

"Oh, Tom--Mr. Thurnall--what nonsense!"

"Come, come," said his father: "instead of telling us these sort of stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you seem quite to forget that we have not heard from you for more than two years."

"Whew! I wrote," said Tom, "whenever I could. However, you can have all my letters in one now."

So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of himself; while his father marked with pride that the young man had grown and strengthened in body and in mind; and that under that nonchalant, almost cynical outside, the heart still beat honest and kindly.

For before Tom began, he would needs draw his chair closer to his father's, and half-whispered to him,--

"This is very jolly. I can't be sentimental, you know. Knocking about the world has beat all that out of me: but it is very comfortable, after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy and a good coal fire."

"Which of the two could you best do without?"

"Well, one takes things as one finds them. It don't do to look too deeply into one's feelings. Like chemicals, the more you a.n.a.lyse them, the worse they smell."

So Tom began his story.

"You heard from me at Bombay; after I'd been up to the Himalaya with an old Mumpsimus friend?"

"Yes."

"Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose doctor had fallen ill; and then I must needs see a little of Egypt; and there robbed was I, and nearly murdered, too; but I take a good deal of killing."