Jessie Graham Part 19

"Bein' you're here, I'll go out a bit," and she left the room.

Walter looked uneasily after her, and when she was gone, said:

"Lock the door, and keep her out. Don't let her come back. She's one of Macbeth's witches, and makes one think of Jessie's grandmother, who won't let me talk of love to Jessie, until I am-well, no matter what. Do you know my father?"

"No," and the captain shook his head mournfully, while Walter continued:

"Are you anybody's father?"

"I don't know," and the voice was sadder than when it spoke before.

"I'm looking for my father," Walter said, "just as Telemachus looked for his. Do you know Ulysses?"

The captain had heard of Ulysses, and the mention of him carried him back to an old stone house on the hill, where he had read the wonderful adventures of the hero.

"Well," Walter continued, "I am hunting for my father, and Jessie cried up in the pines when I told her about him, and how her father testified against him. Do you know Mr. Graham?"

"Who?" screamed the captain, bounding to his feet, and bending so near to Walter that his hot breath stirred the thick brown hair. "Do I know whom?"

But Walter refused to answer, or even to speak; the captain's manner had startled him, or it may be there was something in the keen eye fixed so earnestly upon him, which held him speechless.

For a moment the two gazed fixedly at each other,-the old man and the young,-the latter with a bright, vacant stare, while the other sought for some token to tell him that it was not without a reason his heart beat so fast with a hope of he scarcely knew what.

"I will inquire below," he said at last, as he failed to elicit any information from Walter, and going to the office, he turned the leaves of the register back to the day when he had left three weeks before.

Then with untiring patience he read on and on, read Jones and Smith, and Smith and Brown, some with wives and some without, some with daughters, some with sisters, and some alone, but none as yet were sent to No. 40.

So he read on again and then at last he found the name he sought,-_Walter Marshall_.

"Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!" he uttered faintly, and those who heard only the last word thought to themselves:

"I never knew the captain _swore_ before."

With great effort he compelled himself to be calm, and when at last he spoke none detected in his voice a trace of the shock that name had given him, bringing back at once the gable-roofed farm-house far away, the maple tree where his name was cut, the brown-haired wife, the stormy night when the wind rushed sobbing past the window where he stood and looked his last on her, the mother long since dead, and the father who believed him guilty.

All this pa.s.sed in rapid review before his mind, and then his thoughts came back to the present time, and centered themselves upon the restless, tossing form which, up in No. 40, had said to him:

"Do you know my father?"

"What is it, captain?" the landlord asked. "Your face is white as paper."

"I am thinking," and the captain spoke naturally, "I am thinking that I will take care of that young man. I find I know his people, or used to know them, rather. Dismiss that imbecile old woman," and having said so much he left the room and fled up the stairs seeing nothing but that name as it looked upon the page,-_Walter Marshall_.

He repeated it again and again, and in the tone with which he did so there was a peculiar tenderness, such as mothers are only supposed to feel toward their children.

"Walter Marshall,-my boy,-Ellen's and mine," and over the boy, which was Ellen's and his, the man, old before his time, bent down and wept great teardrops, which fell upon the white handsome face, which grew each moment more and more like the young girl wife, whose grave the broken-hearted husband had never looked upon.

"Why do you cry?" asked Walter, and the captain replied:

"I had a son once like you, and it makes me cry to see you here so sick.

I am going to take care of you, too, and send that woman off."

"Oh! will you?" was Walter's joyful cry, "and will you stay until I find my father?"

"Yes, yes, I will stay with you always," and again Seth Marshall's lips touched those of his son.

"Isn't it funny for men to kiss men?" Walter asked, pa.s.sing his hand over the spot. "I thought they only kissed women, girls like Jessie, and I don't kiss her now. I haven't since she was a little thing and gave me one of her curls. It's in my trunk, with a lock of mother's hair. Did you know _mother_, man?"

"Yes, yes, oh, Heaven, yes," and the man thus questioned fell upon his knees, and hiding his face in the bed-clothes, sobbed aloud.

His grief distressed Walter, who, without understanding it clearly, felt that he was himself in some way connected with it, and laying his hand upon the gray hair within his reach, he smoothed it caressingly, saying:

"Don't cry. It won't do any good. I used to cry when I was a boy and thought of poor, dear father."

"Say it again. Say, 'poor, dear father,' once more," and the white, haggard face lifted itself slowly up and crept on until it lay beside the feverish one upon the pillow.

Thus it was the father met his son, and all through the afternoon he sat by him, soothing him to sleep, and then bending fondly over him to watch him while he slept.

"He is some like Ellen," he whispered, "but more like me, as I was in my early manhood, and yet, as he lies sleeping, there is a look about him that I have often seen on Ellen's face when she was asleep. Darling wife, we little thought when we talked together of our child, that the first time I beheld him would be beneath the California skies, and he a bearded man."

Then, as he remembered what Walter had said of the hair, he opened the lid of the trunk, and hunted until he found Jessie's raven curl, and the longer, browner tress. He knew in a moment that it was Ellen's hair,-and kissing it reverently he twined it about his fingers just as he used to when the soft eyes it shaded looked lovingly into his.

"Walter's is like it," he said, stealing to the bedside, and laying it among the brown locks of his son. "Bless my boy,-bless my boy!" and going back again, he placed the lock of hair beside this jet black ringlet wondering who Jessie was, and why she had married another.

It was growing dark when Walter awoke, but between himself and the window he saw the outline of his friend, and knowing he was not alone, fell away again to sleep, resting better that night than he had done before since the commencement of his illness.

For many days Captain Murdock watched by him, and when at last the danger was pa.s.sed, and Walter restored to consciousness, he was the first to know it, and bending over him he breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for the restoration of his son.

"Who are you?" Walter asked after objects and events had a.s.sumed a rational form. "Who are you, and why have you been so kind to me, as I am sure you have?"

"I am called Captain Murdock," was the answer "This is my room; the one I have occupied for a long, long time. I left the city some weeks ago on business and during my absence you came. As the house was full the landlord put you in here for one night, but in the morning you were too ill to be moved. You have been very sick, and as your nurse was none of the best, I dismissed her and took care of you myself, because if I had a son in a strange land I should want some one to care for him, and I only did what your father would wish me to do. You have a father, young man?"

The question was put affirmatively, and without looking at the eyes fixed so intently upon him, Walter colored crimson as he replied:

"I hope I have, though I don't know. I never saw him except in dreams."

Captain Murdock turned toward the window for a moment, and then in a calm voice continued:

"I will not seek your confidence. You said some strange things in your delirium, but they are safe with me,-as safe as if I were the father you never saw. This came for you some days ago," and he held up Mr. Graham's letter, the sight of which had wrung a cry of pain from his own lips, for he knew whose hand had traced the name that letter bore.

"And has anybody written to the people at home?" Walter asked, and Captain Murdock replied:

"Yes, the landlord sent a few lines, saying that you were ill, but well cared for. He directed to 'Walter Marshall's Friends, Deerwood, Ma.s.s.,'

for by looking over your papers, we found your family lived there. A grandfather, perhaps, if you have no father?" and Seth Marshall waited anxiously for the answer which would tell him if his aged sire were yet numbered among the living.

In his ravings Walter had never spoken of him, and the heart, not less a child's because its owner was a man, grew faint with fear lest his father should be dead. Walter's reply, however, dissipated all his doubt.

"Yes, my grandfather lives there, but this is not from him," and breaking open the envelope, Walter read what Mr. Graham had written, heeding little what was said of business, scarcely knowing, indeed, that business was mentioned at all, in his great joy at finding that Charlotte and not Jessie was William's chosen bride.

"He deceived me purposely," he thought, and then, as he realized more and more that Jessie was not married, he said aloud, "I am so glad, so glad."