Author: George Manville Fenn
Category: Nonfiction
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CHAPTER SIX.
It was some time before the boy could do anything but sit with elbowsupon knees, chin upon hands, gazing straight before him into vacancy.His head throbbed so that he could not think consistently. In hisstruggle on the pier he had been a good deal shaken, and that alone wasenough to produce a feverish kind of excitement. Then on the way backhis brain had been much troubled, while, worst of all, there had beenthe scene with his uncle.
It was then no wonder that he could not arrange his thoughts so as tosit in judgment upon his acts, especially that last one, in which he hadstubbornly, as it seemed, refused or declined to respond to his uncle'squestion.
He tried, and tried hard, with a curious seething desire working in hisbrain, to decide upon going straight to the old man and speaking out,giving him frankly his reason for refusing to speak. But this alwayscame to the same conclusion: "I can't--I dare not--I can't."
At last, wearied out and confused more and more by his throbbing brain,the boy rose and walked slowly to the looking-glass, where he started indismay at the image reflected there. For a few moments it seemed to bepart and parcel of some confused dream, but its truth gradually forceditself upon him, and finally he burst out into a mocking, halfhysterical laugh.
"I don't wonder at uncle," he cried; "I don't wonder at his being in arage."
With a weary sigh he went to the washstand and half filled the basin.
"I'd no idea I looked such a sight," he muttered, as he began to bathehis stiff and swollen features. "The brute!" he said, after a fewmoments. "I wish I'd told uncle, though, that I beat him well. But,oh, dear! what a muddle it all seems! I wish I'd hit him twice ashard," he said, with angry vehemence, half aloud. "Yes?"
For there was a gentle tapping at the door.
"Aren't you coming down to dinner, Master Aleck?"
"No, Jane; not to-day."
"But it's all over-done, my dear--been ready more than an hour. Do, docome, or it'll be spoiled."
"Go and tell uncle then. I'm not coming down."
"But I have been, my dear, and he said I was to come and tell you. Heisn't coming down. Do make haste and finish and come down."
"No, not to-day, Jane. I can't come."
"But what is the matter, dear? Is master in a temper because you felloff the cliff and cut your face?"
"I didn't fall off the cliff and cut my face," said Aleck.
"Then, whatever is the matter, my dear?"
"Well, if you must know, Jane, I've been fighting--like a blackguard, Isuppose," cried the boy, pettishly.
"And is that what made master so cross?"
"Yes."
"Did it hurt you very much?" came through the door crack in a whisper.
"Yes--no," replied Aleck.
"I don't know what you mean, my dear," sighed Jane.
"Never mind. Go away, please, now. I'm bathing my face."
"But my dinner's all being spoiled, my dear. You won't come, and masterwon't come. What am I to do?"
"Go and sit down and eat it," cried Aleck, in a passion now; "only don'tbother me."
"Well, I'm sure!" cried the captain's maid, tartly. "Master's temper'sbad enough to drive anyone away, and now you're beginning too. I don'tknow what we're coming to in--" _um--um--murmur--murmur--murmur--bang_!
At least that is how it sounded to Aleck as he went on with his bathing,the sharp closing of the passage door bringing all to an end and leavingthe boy to continue the bathing and drying of his injuries by degrees,after which he sat down by the open window, to rest his aching head uponhis hand and let the soft sea air play upon his temples.
He was very miserable, and in a good deal of bodily pain, but thetrouble seemed to be the worse part, and it was just occurring to himthat he felt very sick and faint and that a draught of water would dohim good, when there was a sharp tap at the door after the handle hadbeen tried.
"Uncle!" thought the lad, and the blood flushed painfully to his face.
Then the tap was repeated.
"Master Aleck, Master Aleck!"
"Yes."
"I've brought you up some dinner on a tray."
"I don't want any--I couldn't eat it," said the boy, bitterly.
"Don't tell me, my dear. You do want something--you must; and you caneat it if you try. Now, do come and open the door, please, or you'll beill."
Aleck rose with a sigh and crossed the room, and the maid came in with acovered plate of something hot which emitted an appetising odour.
"It's very good of you, Jane," began Aleck; "but--"
"My! You are a sight, Master Aleck! Whatever have you been a-doing toyourself?"
"Fighting, I tell you," said the boy, smiling in the middle-aged maid'shomely face.
"Who with, my dear?"
"Oh, some of the fishermen's boys over at the town."
"Then it didn't ought to be allowed. You _are_ in a state!"
"Yes; I know without your telling me. What's under that cover?"
"Roast chicken and bacon, my dear."
"Oh, I couldn't touch it, Jane!"
"Now, don't say that, my dear. People must eat and drink even if theyare in trouble; because if they don't they're ill. I know what I'vebrought you isn't as nice as it should be, because it's all dried up,and now it's half cold. So be a good boy, same as you used to be yearsago when I first knew you. There was no quarrelling with your bread andbutter then, and you were always hungry. But, there, I must go. Iwouldn't have master catch me here now for all the millions in the Bankof England. Oh, what a temper he is in, to be sure!"
"Have--have you seen him lately?" asked Aleck, excitedly.
"Seen him? No, my dear. He's shut himself up, like he does sometimes;but I could hear him in the kitchen, walking all over my head, just likea wild beast in a cage, and now and then he began talking to himselfquite out loud. It's all your fault, Master Aleck, for he was asgood-tempered as could be this morning when I went in to ask him what Iwas to get ready for dinner, and what time."
Jane closed the door after her with these words and left Aleck with thetray.
"Yes," he said, bitterly, in his pain; "it's all my fault, I suppose,and I'm to go away from everything I like here."
He raised the cover over the plate as he spoke, and a pleasant,appetising odour greeted his nostrils; but he lowered the cover againwith a gesture of disgust.
"I couldn't touch it," he said, with a shudder, "even to do me good.Nothing would do me good now. My face feels so stiff, and my eyes arejust as if they'd got something dark over them."
He went near the window again to look out in the direction of the sea,with some idea of watching the birds, of which so many floated up intosight above the cliffs that shut in the Den. But it was an effort tolook skyward, and he sat down by the window to think, in a dull, heavy,dreamy way, about his uncle's words.
And it seemed to him, knowing how stern and uncompromising the old manwas, that it would be a word and a blow. For aught he knew to thecontrary letters might have been written by then, making arrangementsfor him to go to some institution where he would be trained to enterinto some pursuit that he might detest. Time back there had been talkabout his future, the old man having pleasantly asked him what he wouldlike to be. He had replied. "An officer in the Army," and then stoodstartled by the change which came over the old man's face.
"No," he had said, scowling, "I could never consent to that, Aleck. Imight agree to your going into the Navy, but as a soldier, emphaticallyno."
"Why doesn't he want me to be a soldier?" mused the boy. "He was asoldier himself. I should like to know the whole truth. It can't bewhat he said."
Aleck sat wrinkling up his brow and thinking for some little time. Notfor long; it made his head ache too much, and he changed from soldieringto sailoring.
"I don't see why I shouldn't," he said, half drowsily, for a strangesensation of weariness came over him. "I should like to be a sailor.Why not go? Tom Bodger would help me to get
a ship; and as uncle isgoing to send me away, talking as if he had quite done with me, I don'tsee why I shouldn't go."
The drowsy feeling increased, so that the boy to keep it off began tolook over his clothes, thinking deeply the while, but in a way that wasrather unnatural, for his hurts had not been without the effect ofmaking him a little feverish. And as he thought he began to mutterabout what had taken place that afternoon.
"Uncle can't like me," he said. "He has been kind, but he never talkedto me like this before. He wants to get rid of me, to send me awaysomewhere to some place where I shouldn't like to go. I've no father,no mother, to mind my going, so why shouldn't I? He'll be glad I'mgone, or he wouldn't have talked to me like that."
Aleck rested his throbbing head upon his crossed arms and sank into afeverish kind of sleep, during which, in a short half-hour, he wentthrough what seemed like an age of trouble, before he started up, and inan excited, spasmodic way, hardly realising what he was doing in hishalf-waking, half-sleeping state, but under the influence of histroubled thoughts, he roughly selected a few of his under-things for achange and made them up into a bundle, after which he counted over themoney he had left after the morning's disbursement, and told himself itwould be enough, and that the sooner he was away from the dear old Denthe better.
At last all his preparations were made, even to placing his hat and afavourite old stick given him by his uncle ready upon the chair whichheld his bundle; and then, with his head throbbing worse than ever,producing a feeling of confusion and unreality that was more thanpainful, he went once more to the glass to look at his strangely-alteredfeatures.
"I can't go like that," he said, shrinking back in horror. But like ananswer to his words came from far back in his brain, and as if in afaint whisper: "You must now. You've gone too far. You must go now,unless you're too great a coward."
"Yes," he muttered, confusedly; "I must go now--as soon as it's dark.Not wanted here--Tom Bodger--he'll help me--to a ship."
He had sunk heavily into a chair, right back, with his head noddingforward till his chin rested upon his breast, and the next moment he hadsunk into a feverish stupor, in which his head was swimming, and in someunaccountable way he seemed to be once more heavily engaged with BigJem, whose fists kept up a regular pendulum-like beat upon his head,while in spite of all his efforts he could never get one blow back inreturn at the malicious, jeering, taunting face, whose lips moved asthey kept on saying words which nearly drove him wild with indignation.
And what were the words, repeated quite clearly now?
"Master Aleck, don't be so silly! Wake up, you're pretending to beasleep. Oh, my! what a state your face is in! And your head's as hotas fire."