The Great Quest Part 5

When I saw that Arnold was looking closely at the foils, which stood in a corner, an idea came to me. Cornelius Gleazen had praised my swordsmans.h.i.+p to the skies, and, indeed, I was truly becoming a match for him. Twice I had actually taken a bout from him, with a great swis.h.i.+ng and clattering of blades and stamping of feet, and now, although he continued to give me lessons, he no longer would meet me in an a.s.sault. As for the other young fellows, I had far and away outstripped them.

"Would you like to try the foils once, Arnold?" I asked. "I'll give you a lesson if you say so."

For a moment I thought there was a twinkle in the depths of his eyes; but when I looked again they were sober and innocent.

"Why, yes," he said.

Something in the way he tested the foils made me a bit uneasy, in spite of my confidence, but I shrugged it off.

"You have learned well by watching," I said, as we came on guard.

"I have tried it before," said he.

"Then," said I, "I will lunge and you shall see if you can parry me."

"Very well."

After a few perfunctory pa.s.ses, during which I advanced and retreated in a way that I flattered myself was exceptionally clever, and after a quick feint in low line, I disengaged, deceived a counter-parry by doubling, and confidently lunged. To my amazement my foil rested against his blade hardly out of line with his body--so slightly out of line that I honestly believed the attack had miscarried by my own clumsiness. Certainly I never had seen so nice a parry. That I escaped a riposte, I attributed to my deft recovery and the constant pressure of my blade on his; but even then I had an uncomfortable suspicion that behind the veil of his black mask Arnold was smiling, and I was really dazed by the failure of an attack that seemed to me so well planned and executed.

Then, suddenly, easily, lightly, Arnold Lamont's blade wove its way through my guard. His arms, his legs, his body moved with a lithe precision such as I had never dreamed of; my own foil, circling desperately, failed to find his, and his b.u.t.ton rested for a moment against my right breast so surely and so competently that, in the face of his skill, I simply dropped my guard and stood in frank wonder and admiration.

Even then I was vaguely aware that I could not fully appreciate it.

Though I had thought myself an accomplished swordsman, the man's dexterity, which had revealed me as a clumsy blunderer, was so amazingly superior to anything I had ever seen, that I simply could not realize to the full how remarkable it was.

I whipped off my mask and cried, "You,--you _are_ a fencer."

He smiled. "Are you surprised? A man does not tell all he knows."

As I looked him in the face, I wondered at him. Uncle Seth had come to rely upon him implicitly for far more than you can get from any ordinary clerk. Yet we really knew nothing at all about him. "A man does not tell all he knows"--He had held his tongue without a slip for all those years.

I saw him now in a new light. His face was keen, but more than keen.

There was real wisdom in it. The quiet, confident dignity with which he always bore himself seemed suddenly to a.s.sume a new, deeper, more mysterious significance. Whatever the man might be, it was certain that he was no mere shopkeeper's clerk.

That afternoon Uncle Seth and Gleazen, the one strangely elated, the other more pompous and grand than ever, returned in the carriage. Of their errand, for the time being they said nothing.

Uncle Seth merely asked about Abe Guptil's note; and, when I answered him, impatiently grunted.

Poor Abe, I thought, and wondered what had come over my uncle.

In the evening, as we were finis.h.i.+ng supper, Uncle Seth leaned back with a broad smile. "Joe, my lad," he said, "our fortunes are making. Great days are ahead. I can buy and sell the town of Topham now, but before we are through, Joe, I--or you with the money I shall leave you--can buy and sell the city of Boston--aye, or the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts. There are great days ahead, Joe."

"But what," I asked, with fear at my heart, "but what is this great venture?"

Uncle Seth looked at me with a smile that expressed whatever power of affection was left in his hard old sh.e.l.l of a heart,--a meagre affection, yet, as far as it went, all centred upon me,--and revealed a great conceit of his own wisdom.

"Joe," he said, leaning forward on his elbows till his face, on which the light threw every testy wrinkle into sharp relief, was midway between the two candles at the end of the table, "Joe, I've bought a s.h.i.+p and we're all going to Africa."

For a moment his voice expressed confidence; for a moment his affection for me triumphed over his native sharpness.

"You're all I've got, Joey," he cried, "You're all that's left to the old man, and I'm going to do well by you. Whatever I have is yours, Joey; it's all coming to you, every cent and every dollar.

Here,--you must be wanting a bit of money to spend,--here!" He thrust his hand into his pocket and flung half a dozen gold pieces down on the dark, well-oiled mahogany where they rang and rolled and shone dully in the candle-light. "I swear, Joey, I think a lot of you."

I suppose that not five people in all Topham had ever seen Uncle Seth in such a mood. I am sure that, if they had, the town could never have thought of him as only a cold, exacting man. But now a fear apparently overwhelmed him lest by so speaking out through his reticence he had committed some unforgivable offense--lest he had told too much. He seemed suddenly to snap back into his hard, cynical sh.e.l.l. "But of that, no more," he said sharply. "Not a word's to be said, you understand. Not a word--to _any one_."

When I went back to the store that evening, I sat on the porch in the darkness and thought of Uncle Seth as I had seen him across the table, his face thrust forward between the candles, his elbows planted on the white linen, with the dim, restful walls of the room behind him, with the faces of my father and my mother looking down upon us from the gilt frames on the wall. I knew him too well to ask questions, even though, as I sat on the store porch, he was sitting just behind me inside the open window.

What, I wondered, almost in despair, could we, of all people, do with a s.h.i.+p and a voyage to Africa? Had I not seen Cornelius Gleazen play upon my uncle's fear and vanity and credulity? I had no doubt whatever that the same Neil Gleazen, who had been run out of town thirty years before, was at the bottom of whatever mad voyage my uncle was going to send his s.h.i.+p upon.

Then I thought of good old Abraham Guptil, so soon to be turned out of house and home, and of Arnold Lamont, who saw and knew and understood so much, yet said so little. And again I thought of Cornelius Gleazen; and when I was thinking of him, a strange thing came to pa.s.s.

Down in the village a dog barked fiercely, then another nearer the store, then another; then I saw coming up the road a figure that I could not mistake. The man with that tall hat, that flowing coat, that nonchalant air, which even the faint light of the stars revealed, could be no other than Cornelius Gleazen himself.

In the store behind me I heard the low drone of conversation from the men gathered round the stove, the click of a chessman set firmly on the board, the voice of Arnold Lamont--so clear, so precise, and yet so definitely and indescribably foreign--saying, "Check!"

Through the small panes of gla.s.s I saw my uncle frowning over his ledgers. Now he noted some figure on the foolscap at his right, now he appeared to count on his fingers.

I turned again to watch Cornelius Gleazen. Of course he could not know that anyone was sitting on the porch in the darkness. When he pa.s.sed the store, he looked over at it with a turn of his head and a twist of his shoulders. His gesture gave me an impression of scorn and triumph so strong that I hardly restrained myself from retorting loudly and angrily. Then I bit my lip and watched him go by and disappear.

"Who," I wondered, "who and _what_ really is Cornelius Gleazen?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

II

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VI

GOOD-BYE TO OLD HAUNTS AND FACES

That some extraordinary thing was afoot next day, every soul who worked in our store, or who entered it on business, vaguely felt. To me, who had gained a hint of what was going forward,--baffling and tantalizing, yet a hint for all that,--and to Arnold Lamont, who, I was convinced as I saw him watch my uncle's nervous movements, although he had no such plain hint to go upon, had by his keen, silent observation unearthed even more than I, the sense of an impending great event was far from vague. I felt as sure as of my own name that before nightfall something would happen to uproot me from my native town, whose white houses and green trees and hedges, kindly people and familiar a.s.sociations, lovely scenes and quiet, homely life I so deeply loved.

The strange light in Cornelius Gleazen's eyes, as he watched us hard at work taking an inventory of stock, confirmed me in the presentiment. My uncle's hara.s.sed, nervous manner as he drove us on with our various duties, Sim Muzzy's garrulous bewilderment, and Arnold Lamont's keen, silent appraisal, added each its little to the sum of my convictions.

The warmer the day grew, the harder we worked. Uncle Seth flew about like a madman, picking us up on this thing and that, and urging one to greater haste, another to greater care. Throwing off his coat, he pitched in with his own hands, and performed such prodigies of labor that it seemed as if our force were doubled by the addition of himself alone. And all the time Neil Gleazen sat and smiled and tapped his beaver.

He was so cool, so impudent about it, that I longed to turn on him and vent my spleen; but to Uncle Seth it apparently seemed entirely suitable that Gleazen should idle while others worked.

Of the true meaning of all this haste and turmoil I had no further inkling until in the early afternoon Gleazen called loudly,--

"He's here, prompt to the minute."