“Oh, uncle – yes!” cried the girl, with the tears glittering in her eyes.
“Yes, my darling, a worthy husband for you; one who will love and protect you when I’m gone.”
“But, uncle, dear – ” faltered the girl.
“Yes – yes?”
“Does – does he know?”
“That he is to marry you? Yes. He knows by now that he is a rich man, or will be when I’m gone, and that he has the sweetest, truest little wife waiting for him here. Put the book away; you and Mr Hampton know everything. Lock up the cabinet and put the keys under the pillow again; and some morning, when you find I’m too fast asleep to wake again, take the keys and keep them for my dear boy.”
“Oh, uncle, dearest!” sobbed the girl.
“God bless you, my pet! But I put it off too long. I may not see my boy again. That’s right; quite under the pillow, dear. Thank you. Kiss me, not as your uncle, but as James Harrington, the grim old man who told your father and mother he would protect their little girl, and has tried to do his duty by her.”
Gertrude raised the withered hand, and held it to her lips, as, after removing the pillow, the old man lay back, tired out, and slept calmly and peacefully. And, as she watched him, she thought of her position there in that great house a dozen miles from town. How she had grown up with no young companions save those she had encountered at school, and how the time had glided away. How of late the old man who had adopted her had begun to talk of his approaching end, and chilled her at first with horror till she grew accustomed to his conversation; but never chilling her so much as when Saul Harrington, the old man’s nephew, had begun to make advances to her – advances which filled her with disgust and dread.
She shivered as she thought of the scene in the dining-room that day; and, like a black cloud, the idea arose as to what her fate would be if the old man, hanging, as it were, on the brink of eternity, should pass away, leaving her alone.
There was Mrs Denton, the old housekeeper, and there were Mr and Mrs Hampton, old Harrington’s confidential solicitor and his wife, friends both – Mrs Hampton, in her harsh, snappish way, always meaning to be most kind. And then there was the doctor. Yes; and Bruno. But still, she would soon be alone, and at the mercy of Saul Harrington, a man whom she had always dreaded when he came to pester his uncle for money.
Then came a change in her musings, and she began to picture the man who had been selected for her husband, and the warm blood came and went in her cheeks as she found herself wondering what he would be like, what he would think of her, and whether, under the circumstances, her future would be happy.
She bent down and covered her face with her hands, as she sat listening to the old man’s faint, regular breathing, and seemed to see the bright-eyed, sharp-witted child who had made so great an impression on her guardian. Then the blue tattooed heart upon his little white skin stood out before her mind’s eye, and she half shuddered as she thought of the pain the brave child must have suffered under his sea-going father’s whim.
And, as she thought and thought, wondering what her future would be, she was so intent that she did not hear the door open, and a footstep cross the carpet, the first suggestion of another presence being a hand laid lightly upon her shoulder, and she started into wakefulness to encounter the mocking countenance of Saul.
Chapter Three
Out West
Dan Portway sat in the shade cast by a large hemlock, an extinct pipe between his lips, and his chin resting upon his hands, gazing down upon his companion, whose head and breast alone were in the shade, for the sun seemed to have veered farther round since they ate their meal together, and then lay down to rest until the heat had grown less. They were upon the steep slope of one of the mountains which shot up rugged and bare on all sides, and sank down in dangerous gulches, like rocky crevices in the earth, their precipitous sides sometimes going down sheer to where water gushed, and roared, and sprang from rock to rock, hundreds of feet below. Wherever a sheltered spot offered itself for foothold, the pines and hemlocks had risen, like dark green cones, towards the deep blue skies, their heads glistening in the sunshine, and exhaling a perfume that floated upon the mountain breezes far and wide. It was one of Nature’s solitudes in the Far West, and the two men, as their rifles and accoutrements showed, had climbed up there in search of the game which found a home in these wilds.
They had had a long tramp and climb that day, but neither bear nor mountain sheep had fallen before their bullets, and they found themselves at last miles away from the pine grove where they had set up their tent, with the sombre boughs above and the pine-needles forming a thick bed below. The surroundings were glorious. It was the ideal haunt of a mountain hunter, and here a month before, on a farewell excursion, before obeying the recall he had received, George Harrington had revisited the neighbourhood which he had discovered far up in the mountains years before, when prospecting for gold.
The days had glided by, and evening after evening he had come to the determination that after the next day he would begin to move in the direction of civilisation, and hunt and shoot as he went; but, in spite of the fact that they had come twice over upon Indian signs there was so much fascination in the place that he always determined upon leaving in another day or two.
When George Harrington started upon his trip it was in company with an experienced guide, but the man had fallen ill and gone back to one of the towns, and just as Harrington was in despair, he had come suddenly upon a man whom he had twice before encountered and with whom he had hunted. Hearing from George the quandary in which he was placed, Dan Portway, a man of good birth and education, who had emigrated to the West a couple of years before and found the hunting life in the mountains more to his taste than straightforward labour, at once volunteered to accompany him. The offer was eagerly accepted, for it seemed suicidal to go alone, and as Dan had proved himself to be companionable, a clever shot, and well versed in hunting craft, the time had glided pleasantly away without their once encountering a soul.
Two men with a similarity of tastes cannot chum together in a little tent here and there in the mountains without becoming confidential, hence it was that before long George Harrington pretty well knew his companion’s impecunious history – that is, as much as he chose to tell, and on the other hand, not only had Portway, apparently without pumping, learned Harrington’s position, but had received an invitation to accompany him to England.
“Have another day,” Portway would say laughingly; “at present you are free. Who can say when you will enjoy such another succession of climbs as you have out here.”
“True,” Harrington said thoughtfully.
“When you get back, of course, it will be pleasant to inherit the money; but what about the wife?”
“Well,” said Harrington sternly, “what about her?”
“I mean,” said Portway hastily, “how do you know what she may be like? Take another view of the case – pass me the tobacco pouch – I am a selfish man as well as a poor one. You are giving me a delightful trip, finding me in food, a horse, rifle and ammunition, everything I could wish for, including a glass of prime old Bourbon whiskey. So I say, let’s keep it on as long as we can. By the way, how long have we been out here?”
“Going on for six weeks.”
“Which are like six days.”
“Ah, well,” said Harrington over and over again, “we will not give up yet.”
This conversation, or one very similar, occurred again and again before the day waned.
Dan Portway sat with his chin in his hands gazing down at the sleeping figure in the shade.
When Dan Portway smiled, his was a pleasant though rather a coarse face, and his changeful life had made him a man full of information, but when he did not smile his face was not a pleasant one, vice in more than one form having left its mark. When he looked at Harrington waking, he invariably smiled; but Harrington was sleeping, and Dan Portway did not smile now.
But