The Bell-Ringer of Angel's, and Other Stories Part 5

For Miss Circe had appeared--had absolutely been obliged to wait a whole half-minute un.o.bserved--and now stood there a dazzling but pouting apparition. In eagerly turning to receive her, Jack's foot slipped on the step, and he fell. The thoroughbred started, gave a sickening plunge forward, and was off! But so, too, was Jack, the next moment, on his own horse, and before Miss Circe's screams had died away.

For two blocks on Ocean Avenue, pa.s.sersby that afternoon saw a strange vision. A galloping horse careering before a light buggy, in which a small child, seated upright, was grasping the tightened reins. But so erect and composed was the little face and figure--albeit as white as its own frock--that for an instant they did not grasp its awful significance. Those further along, however, read the whole awful story in the drawn face and blazing eyes of Jack Bracy as he, at last, swung into the Avenue. For Jack had the brains as well as the nerve of your true hero, and, knowing the dangerous stimulus of a stern chase to a frightened horse, had kept a side road until it branched into the Avenue. So furious had been his pace, and so correct his calculation, that he ranged alongside of the runaway even as it pa.s.sed, grasped the reins, and, in half a block, pulled up on even wheels.

"I never saw such pluck in a mite like that," he whispered afterwards to his anxious auditory. "He never dropped those ribbons, by G--, until I got alongside, and then he just hopped down and said, as short and cool as you please, 'Dank you!'"

"Me didn't," uttered a small voice reproachfully.

"Didn't you, dear! What DID you say then, darling?" exclaimed a sympathizing chorus.

"Me said: 'd.a.m.n you!' Me don't like silly fool geegees. Silly fool geegees make me sick--silly fool geegees do!"

Nevertheless, in spite of this incident, the attempts at Johnnyboy's physical reformation still went on. More than that, it was argued by some complacent casuists that the pluck displayed by the child was the actual result of this somewhat heroic method of taking exercise, and NOT an inherent manliness distinct from his physical tastes. So he was made to run when he didn't want to--to dance when he frankly loathed his partners--to play at games that he despised. His books and pictures were taken away; he was hurried past h.o.a.rdings and theatrical posters that engaged his fancy; the public was warned against telling him fairy tales, except those constructed on strictly hygienic principles.

His fastidious cleanliness was rebuked, and his best frocks taken away--albeit at a terrible sacrifice of his parents' vanity--to suit the theories of his critics. How long this might have continued is not known--for the theory and practice were suddenly arrested by another sensation.

One morning a children's picnic party was given on a rocky point only accessible at certain states of the tide, whither they were taken in a small boat under the charge of a few hotel servants, and, possibly as part of his heroic treatment, Johnnyboy, who was included in the party, was not allowed to be attended by his regular nurse.

Whether this circ.u.mstance added to his general disgust of the whole affair, and his unwillingness to go, I cannot say, but it is to be regretted, since the omission deprived Johnnyboy of any impartial witness to what subsequently occurred. That he was somewhat roughly handled by several of the larger children appeared to be beyond doubt, although there was conflicting evidence as to the sequel. Enough that at noon screams were heard in the direction of certain detached rocks on the point, and the whole party proceeding thither found three of the larger boys on the rocks, alone and cut off by the tide, having been left there, as they alleged, by Johnnyboy, WHO HAD RUN AWAY WITH THE BOAT. They subsequently admitted that THEY had first taken the boat and brought Johnnyboy with them, "just to frighten him," but they adhered to the rest. And certainly Johnnyboy and the boat were nowhere to be found.

The sh.o.r.e was communicated with, the alarm was given, the telegraph, up and down the coast trilled with excitement, other boats were manned--consternation prevailed.

But that afternoon the captain of the "Saucy Jane," mackerel fisher, lying off the point, perceived a derelict "Whitehall" boat drifting lazily towards the Gulf Stream. On boarding it he was chagrined to find the expected flotsam already in the possession of a very small child, who received him with a scornful reticence as regarded himself and his intentions, and some objurgation of a person or persons unknown. It was Johnnyboy. But whether he had attempted the destruction of the three other boys by "marooning" them upon the rocks--as their parents firmly believed--or whether he had himself withdrawn from their company simply because he did not like them, was never known. Any further attempt to improve his education by the roughing gregarious process was, however, abandoned. The very critics who had counseled it now clamored for restraint and perfect isolation. It was ably pointed out by the Rev.

Mr. Belcher that the autocratic habits begotten by wealth and pampering should be restricted, and all intercourse with their possessor promptly withheld.

But the season presently pa.s.sed with much of this and other criticism, and the Sluysdaels pa.s.sed too, carrying Johnnyboy and his small aches and long eyelashes beyond these Crustacean voices, where it was to be hoped there was peace. I did not hear of him again for five years, and then, oddly enough, from the lips of Mr. Belcher on the deck of a transatlantic steamer, as he was being wafted to Europe for his recreation by the prayers and purses of a grateful and enduring flock.

"Master John Jacob Astor Sluysdael," said Mr. Belcher, speaking slowly, with great precision of retrospect, "was taken from his private governess--I may say by my advice--and sent to an admirable school in New York, fas.h.i.+oned upon the English system of Eton and Harrow, and conducted by English masters from Oxford and Cambridge. Here--I may also say at my suggestion--he was subjected to the wholesome discipline equally of his schoolmates and his masters; in fact, sir, as you are probably aware, the most perfect democracy that we have yet known, in which the mere accidents of wealth, position, luxury, effeminacy, physical degeneration, and over-civilized stimulation, are not recognized. He was put into compulsory cricket, football, and rounders.

As an undersized boy he was subjected to that ingenious preparation for future masters.h.i.+p by the pupillary state of servitude known, I think, as 'f.a.gging.' His physical inertia was stimulated and quickened, and his intellectual precocity repressed, from time to time, by the exuberant playfulness of his fellow-students, which occasionally took the form of forced ablutions and corporal discomfort, and was called, I am told, 'hazing.' It is but fair to state that our young friend had some singular mental endowments, which, however, were promptly checked to repress the vanity and presumption that would follow." The Rev. Mr.

Belcher paused, closed his eyes resignedly, and added, "Of course, you know the rest."

"Indeed, I do not," I said anxiously.

"A most deplorable affair--indeed, a most shocking incident! It was hushed up, I believe, on account of the position of his parents." He glanced furtively around, and in a lower and more impressive voice said, "I am not myself a believer in heredity, and I am not personally aware that there was a MURDERER among the Sluysdael ancestry, but it seems that this monstrous child, in some clandestine way, possessed himself of a huge bowie-knife, sir, and on one of those occasions actually rushed furiously at the larger boys--his innocent play-fellows--and absolutely forced them to flee in fear of their lives. More than that, sir, a LOADED REVOLVER was found in his desk, and he boldly and shamelessly avowed his intention to eviscerate, or--to use his own revolting language--'to cut the heart out' of the first one who again 'laid a finger on him.'" He paused again, and, joining his two hands together with the fingers pointing to the deck, breathed hard and said, "His instantaneous withdrawal from the school was a matter of public necessity. He was afterwards taken, in the charge of a private tutor, to Europe, where, I trust, we shall NOT meet."

I could not resist saying cheerfully that, at least, Johnnyboy had for a short time made it lively for the big boys.

The Rev. Mr. Belcher rose slowly, but painfully, said with a deeply grieved expression, "I don't think that I entirely follow you," and moved gently away.

The changes of youth are apt to be more bewildering than those of age, and a decade scarcely perceptible in an old civilization often means utter revolution to the new. It did not seem strange to me, therefore, on meeting Jack Bracy twelve years after, to find that he had forgotten Miss Circe, or that SHE had married, and was living unhappily with a middle-aged adventurer by the name of Jason, who was reputed to have had domestic relations elsewhere. But although subjugated and exorcised, she at least was reminiscent. To my inquiries about the Sluysdaels, she answered with a slight return of her old vivacity:--

"Ah, yes, dear fellow, he was one of my greatest admirers."

"He was about four years old when you knew him, wasn't he?" suggested Jason meanly. "Yes, they usually WERE young, but so kind of you to recollect them. Young Sluysdael," he continued, turning to me, "is--but of course you know that disgraceful story."

I felt that I could stand this no longer. "Yes," I said indignantly, "I know all about the school, and I don't call his conduct disgraceful either."

Jason stared. "I don't know what you mean about the school," he returned. "I am speaking of his stepfather."

"His STEPFATHER!"

"Yes; his father, Van Buren Sluysdael, died, you know--a year after they left Greyport. The widow was left all the money in trust for Johnny, except about twenty-five hundred a year which he was in receipt of as a separate income, even as a boy. Well, a glib-tongued parson, a fellow by the name of Belcher, got round the widow--she was a desperate fool--and, by Jove! made her marry him. He made ducks and drakes of not only her money, but Johnny's too, and had to skip to Spain to avoid the trustees.

And Johnny--for the Sluysdaels are all fools or lunatics--made over his whole separate income to that wretched, fas.h.i.+onable fool of a mother, and went into a stockbroker's office as a clerk."

"And walks to business before eight every morning, and they say even takes down the shutters and sweeps out," broke in Circe impulsively.

"Works like a slave all day, wears out his old clothes, has given up his clubs and amus.e.m.e.nts, and shuns society."

"But how about his health?" I asked. "Is he better and stronger?"

"I don't know," said Circe, "but he LOOKS as beautiful as Endymion."

At his bank, in Wall Street, Bracy that afternoon confirmed all that Jason had told me of young Sluysdael. "But his temper?" I asked. "You remember his temper--surely."

"He's as sweet as a lamb, never quarrels, never whines, never alludes to his lost fortune, and is never put out. For a youngster, he's the most popular man in the street. Shall we nip round and see him?"

"By all means."

"Come. It isn't far."

A few steps down the crowded street we dived into a den of plate-gla.s.s windows, of sc.r.a.ps of paper, of rattling, ticking machines, more voluble and excited than the careworn, abstracted men who leaned over them. But "Johnnyboy"--I started at the familiar name again--was not there. He was at luncheon.

"Let us join him," I said, as we gained the street again and turned mechanically into Delmonico's.

"Not there," said Bracy with a laugh. "You forget! That's not Johnnyboy's gait just now. Come here." He was descending a few steps that led to a humble cake-shop. As we entered I noticed a young fellow standing before the plain wooden counter with a cake of gingerbread in one hand and a gla.s.s of milk in the other. His profile was before me; I at once recognized the long lashes. But the happy, boyish, careless laugh that greeted Bracy, as he presented me, was a revelation.

Yet he was pleased to remember me. And then--it may have been embarra.s.sment that led me to such tactlessness, but as I glanced at him and the gla.s.s of milk he was holding, I could not help reminding him of the first words I had ever heard him utter.

He tossed off the gla.s.s, colored slightly, as I thought, and said with a light laugh:--

"I suppose I have changed a good deal since then, sir."

I looked at his demure and resolute mouth, and wondered if he had.

YOUNG ROBIN GRAY.

The good American barque Skysc.r.a.per was swinging at her moorings in the Clyde, off Bannock, ready for sea. But that good American barque--although owned in Baltimore--had not a plank of American timber in her hulk, nor a native American in her crew, and even her nautical "goodness" had been called into serious question by divers of that crew during her voyage, and answered more or less inconclusively with belaying-pins, marlin-spikes, and ropes' ends at the hands of an Irish-American captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much so, that the mysterious powers of the American consul at St. Kentigern had been evoked to punish mutiny on the one hand, and battery and starvation on the other; both equally attested by manifestly false witness and subornation on each side. In the exercise of his functions the consul had opened and shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck.

The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river beyond the "measured mile"; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance that secured immunity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear.

"Now that job's over ye'll be takin' a partin' dhrink," suggested the captain.

The consul thought not. Certain incidents of "the job" were fresh in his memory, and he proposed to limit himself to his strict duty.

"You have some pa.s.sengers, I see," he said, pointing to a group of two men and a young girl, who had apparently just come aboard.

"Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein'

him off, I'm thinkin'," returned the captain, surveying them somewhat contemptuously.