“No,” came from within.
“What did you mean, then?”
“Never mind. You wait and see. I say, the old gentleman looks as if he’d got over the trouble, Master Morton. He was quite spry to-day.”
“No, he hasn’t,” said Morton. “It’s quite horrible at home. He’s ill, and never hardly speaks, and my sister frets all day long.”
“Do she though! Poor gal! Ah, she wants it found out, my lad. It wherrits her, because you see it’s just as if them jools of the old lady’s hung like to your folk, and you’d got to account for ’em.”
“Get out! Why, what nonsense, Dick.”
“What, dropped it agen, my pretty?” said the great fisherman, stooping to pick up a flower, and place it in the little fat hand that was playing with his big rough finger. “Ah, well, perhaps it be, but never mind. I say, though, the old gentleman looked quite hisself agen. My! he do go dandy-jacking along the cliff, more’n the best of ’em. He do make me laugh, he do. Why, hello, Master Morton, lad, what’s matter?”
“If you dare to laugh at my father, Dick,” cried the boy, whose face was flushed and eyes flashing, “big as you are, I’ll punch your head.”
“Naw, naw, naw, don’t do that, my lad,” said the fisherman, growing solemn directly. “I were not laughing at him. I were laughing at his clothes.”
“And if my father dresses like the Prince and the Duke and all the fashionable gentlemen, what is there to laugh at then? Suppose I were to laugh at you for living in that great pair of trousers that come right up under your arms?”
“Well, you might, lad, and welcome; they’re very comf’table. P’r’aps you’d like to laugh at my boots. Haw, haw, haw, Master Morton, what d’yer think I did yes’day? I took little flower here, after missus had washed her, and put her right into one o’ my boots, and she stood up in it with her head and arms out, laughing and crowing a good ’un. Ar’n’t she a little beauty?”
“Yes,” said Morton, looking down and playing with the child. “Whose is she?”
“Dunno. Ask the missus.”
“And she won’t tell me, Dick.”
“That’s so. But look here, lad. I’m sorry I laughed at Master Denville, for he’s a nice gentleman, and always has a kind word and a smile, if he doesn’t pay his bill.”
“Dick!”
“All right, my lad, all right. You’ll pay that when you’re rich. I say: chaps sez as you’ll marry Lady Drelincourt, now, after saving her dog, and – ”
“Don’t be a fool, Dick. Here, what were you going to say?” said the lad, reddening.
“You won’t want a bit of fishing then, I suppose?”
“Look here; are you going to speak, Dick, or am I to go?”
“All right, my lad. Look here; we eat your dabs, but never mind them. I shall just quietly leave a basket at your door to-night. You needn’t know anything about it, and you needn’t be too proud to take it, for a drop in the house is worth a deal sometimes, case o’ sickness. It’s real French sperit, and a drop would warm the old gentleman sometimes when he is cold.”
“Smuggling again, Dick?”
“Never you mind about that, Master Morton, and don’t call things by ugly names. But that ar’n’t all I’ve got to say. You lost your dabs, but if you’ll slip out to-night and come down the pier, the tide’ll be just right, and I’ll have the bait and lines ready, and I’ll give you as good a bit of fishing as you’d wish to have.”
“Will you, Dick?”
“Ay, that I will. They were on last night, but they’ll be wonderful to-night, and I shouldn’t wonder if we ketches more than we expex.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t go, Dick.”
“Why not, lad?”
“You see, I should have to slip out in the old way – through the drawing-room, and down the balcony pillar.”
“Same as you and Master Fred used, eh?”
“Don’t talk about him,” said the lad.
“Well, he’s your own brother.”
“Yes, but father won’t have his name mentioned,” said the boy sadly. “He’s to be dead to us. Here, what a fool I am, talking so to you!”
“Oh, I don’t know, my lad; we was always friends, since you was quite a little chap, and I used to give you rides in my boat.”
“Yes; you always were a friend, Dick, and I like you.”
“On’y you do get a bit prouder now you’re growing such a strapping chap, Master Morton.”
“I shan’t change to you, Dick.”
“Then come down to-night, say at half arter ’leven.”
Morton shook his head.
“Why, you ar’n’t afraid o’ seeing the old woman’s ghost, are you?”
“Absurd! No. But it seems so horrible to come down that balcony pillar to get out on the sly.”
“Why, you never used to think so, my lad.”
“No, but I do now. Do you know, Dick,” he said in a whisper, “I often think that the old lady was killed by some one who had watched me go in and out that way.”
“Eh?” cried the fisherman, giving a peculiar stare.
“Yes, I do,” said the lad, laying his hand on the big fellow’s shoulders. “I feel sure of it, for that murder must have been done by some one who knew how easy it was to get up there and open the window.”
“Did you ever see anyone watching of you?” said the fisherman in a hoarse whisper.
“N-no, I’m not sure. I fancy I did see some one watching one night.”
“Phew!” whistled the fisherman; “it’s rather hot, my lad, sitting here in the sun.”
“Perhaps some day I shall find out who did it, Dick.”
“Hah – yes,” said the man, staring at him hard. “Then you won’t come?”
“Yes, I will,” cried Morton. “It’s so cowardly not to come. I shall be there;” and, stopping to pick up the flower the child had again dropped, the pretty little thing smiled in his face, and he bent down and kissed it before striding away.
“Think o’ that, now,” said Mrs Miggles, coming to the door.
“Think o’ what?” growled her lord, breaking off an old sea-ditty he was singing to the child.
“Why, him taking to the little one and kissing it. How strange things is!”
Volume One – Chapter Twelve.
Mrs Burnett Makes a Call
“Gad, but the old boy’s proud of that chariot,” said Sir Matthew Bray, mystifying his sight by using an eyeglass.
“Yes,” said Sir Harry Payne, who was lolling against the railings that guarded promenaders from a fall over the cliff; and he joined his friend in gazing at an elegantly-appointed britzka which had drawn up at the side, and at whose door the Master of the Ceremonies was talking to a very young and pretty woman. “Yes; deuced pretty woman, May Burnett. What a shame that little wretch Frank should get hold of her.”
“Egad, but it was a good thing for her. I say, Harry, weren’t you sweet upon her?”
“I never tell tales out of school, Matt. ’Fore George, how confoundedly my head aches this morning.”
Just