"Who wrote it? Mary?"
"No: father—saying what had happened to Mary, and telling me not to come back home till things was pulled straight again. Here—here's what he said—under the big grease-spot. 'If you can get continued employment anywhere abroad, accept it instead of coming back. Better for you, at your age, to be spared the sight of such sorrow as we are now suffering.' Do you see that?"
"Yes, yes, I see. Ah! poor man! he couldn't give no kinder better advice; and you—"
"Deserted from my ship. The devil was in me to be off on the tramp, and father's letter did the rest. I got wild and desperate with the thought of what had happened to Mary, and with knowing they were ashamed to see me back again at home. So the night afore the ship sailed for England I slipped into a shore-boat, and turned my back on salt-junk and the boatswain's mate for the rest of my life."
"You don't mean to say you've done nothing but wander about in foreign parts from that time to this?"
"I do, though! I'd a notion I should be shot for a deserter if I turned up too soon in my own country. That kep' me away for ever so long, to begin with. Then tramps' fever got into my head; and there was an end of it."
"Tramps' fever! Mercy on me! what do you mean?"
"I mean this: when a man turns gypsy on his own account, as I did, and tramps about through cold and hot, and winter and summer, not caring where he goes or what becomes of him, that sort of life ends by getting into his head, just like liquor does—except that it don't get out again. It got into my head. It's in it new. Tramps' fever kep' me away in the wild country. Tramps' fever will take me back there afore long. Tramps' fever will lay me down, some day, in the lonesome places, with my hand on my rifle and my face to the sky; and I shan't get up again till the crows and vultures come and carry me off piecemeal."
"Lord bless us! how can you talk about yourself in that way?" cried Mrs. Peckover, shuddering at the grim image which Mat's last words suggested. "You're trying to make yourself out worse than you are. Surely you must have thought of your father and sister sometimes—didn't you?"
"Think of them? Of course I did! But, mind ye, there come a time when I as good as forgot them altogether. They seemed to get smeared out of my head—like we used to smear old sums off our slates at school."
"More shame for you! Whatever else you forgot, you oughtn't to have forgotten—"
"Wait a bit. Father's letter told me—I'd show you the place, only I know you couldn't read it—that he was a going to look after Mary, and bring her back home, and forgive her. He'd done that twice for me, when I run away; so I didn't doubt but what he'd do it just the same for her. She'll pull through her scrape with father just as I used to pull through mine—was what I thought. And so she would, if her own kin hadn't turned against her; if father's own sister hadn't—" He stopped; the frown gathered on his brow, and the oath burst from his lips, as he thought of Joanna Grice's share in preventing Mary's restoration to her home.
"There! there!" interposed Mrs. Peckover, soothingly. "Talk about something pleasanter. Let's hear how you come back to England."
"I can't rightly fix it when Mary first begun to drop out of my head like," Mat continued, abstractedly pursuing his previous train of recollections. "I used to think of her often enough, when I started for my run in the wild country. That was the time, mind ye, when I had clear notions about coming back home. I got her a scarlet pouch and another feather plaything then, knowing she was fond of knick-knacks, and making it out in my own mind that we two was sure to meet together again. It must have been a longish while after that, afore I got ashamed to go home. But I did get ashamed. Thinks I, 'I haven't a rap in my pocket to show father, after being away all this time. I'm getting summut of a savage to look at already; and Mary would be more frighted than pleased to see me as I am now. I'll wait a bit,' says I, 'and see if I can't keep from tramping about, and try and get a little money, by doing some decent sort of work, afore I go home.' I was nigh about a good ten days' march then from any seaport where honest work could be got for such as me; but I'd fixed to try, and I did try, and got work in a ship-builder's yard. It wasn't no good. Tramps' fever was in my head; and in two days more I was off again to the wild country, with my gun over my shoulder, just as damned a vagabond as ever."
Mrs. Peckover held up her hands in mute amazement. Matthew, without taking notice of the action, went on, speaking partly to her and partly to himself.
"It must have been about that time when Mary and father, and all what had to do with them, begun to drop out of my head. But I kep' them two knick-knacks, which was once meant for presents for her—long after I'd lost all clear notion of ever going back home again, I kep' 'em—from first to last I kep' 'em—I can't hardly say why; unless it was that I'd got so used to keeping of them that I hadn't the heart to let 'em go. Not, mind ye, but what they mightn't now and then have set me thinking of father and Mary at home—at times, you know, when I changed 'em from one bag to another, or took and blew the dust off of 'em, for to keep 'em as nice as I could. But the older I got, the worse I got at calling anything to mind in a clear way about Mary and the old country. There seemed to be a sort of fog rolling up betwixt us now. I couldn't see her face clear, in my own mind, no longer. It come upon me once or twice in dreams, when I nodded alone over my fire after a tough day's march—it come upon me at such times so clear, that it startled me up, all in a cold sweat, wild and puzzled with not knowing at first whether the stars was shimmering down at me in father's paddock at Dibbledean, or in the lonesome places over the sea, hundreds of miles away from any living soul. But that was only dreams, you know. Waking, I was all astray now, whenever I fell a-thinking about father or her. The longer I tramped it over the lonesome places, the thicker that fog got which seemed to have rose up in my mind between me and them I'd left at home. At last, it come to darken in altogether, and never lifted no more, that I can remember, till I crossed the seas again and got back to my own country."
"But how did you ever think of coming back, after all those years?" asked Mrs. Peckover.
"Well, I got a good heap of money, for once in a way, with digging for gold in California," he answered; "and my mate that I worked with, he says to me one day:—'I don't see my way to how we are to spend our money, now we've got it, if we stop here. What can we treat ourselves to in this place, excepting bad brandy and cards? Let's go over to the old country, where there ain't nothing we want that we can't get for our money; and, when it's all gone, let's turn tail again, and work for more.' He wrought upon me, like that, till I went back with him. We quarreled aboard ship; and when we got into port, he went his way and I went mine. Not, mind ye, that I started off at once for the old place as soon as I was ashore. That fog in my mind, I told you of, seemed to lift a little when I heard my own language, and saw my own country-people's faces about me again. And then there come a sort of fear over me—a fear of going back home at all, after the time I'd been away. I got over it, though, and went in a day or two. When I first laid my hand on the churchyard gate that Mary and me used to swing on, and when I looked up at the old house, with the gable ends just what they used to be (though the front was new painted, and strange names was over the shop-door)—then all my time in the wild country seem to shrivel up somehow, and better than twenty year ago begun to be a'most like yesterday. I'd seen father's name in the churchyard—which was no more than I looked for; but when they told me Mary had never been brought back, when they said she'd died many a year ago among strange people, they cut me to the quick."
"Ah! no wonder, no wonder!"
"It was a wonder to me, though. I should have laughed at any man, if he'd told me I should be took so at hearing what I heard about her, after all the time I'd been away. I couldn't make it out then, and I can't now. I didn't feel like my own man, when I first set eyes on the old place. And then to hear she was dead—it cut me, as I told you. It cut me deeper still, when I come to tumble over the things she'd left behind her in her box. Twenty years ago got n
igher and nigher to yesterday, with every fresh thing belonging to her that I laid a hand on. There was a arbor in father's garden she used to be fond of working in of evenings. I'd lost all thought of that place for more years than I can reckon up. I called it to mind again—and called her to mind again, too, sitting and working and singing in the arbor—only with laying holt of a bit of patchwork stuff in the bottom of her box, with her needle and thread left sticking in it."
"Ah, dear, dear!" sighed Mrs. Peckover, "I wish I'd seen her then! She was as happy, I dare say, as the bird on the tree. But there's one thing I can't exactly make out yet," she added—"how did you first come to know all about Mary's child?"
"All? There wasn't no all in it, till I see the child herself. Except knowing that the poor creeter's baby had been born alive, I knowed nothing when I first come away from the old place in the country. Child! I hadn't nothing of the sort in my mind, when I got back to London. It was how to track the man as was Mary's death, that I puzzled and worrited about in my head, at that time—"
"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Peckover, interposing to keep him away from the dangerous subject, as she heard his voice change, and saw his eyes begin to brighten again. "Yes, yes—but how did you come to see the child? Tell me that."
"Zack took me into the Painter-man's big room—"
"Zack! Why, good gracious Heavens! do you mean Master Zachary Thorpe?"
"I see a young woman standing among a lot of people as was all a staring at her," continued Mat, without noticing the interruption. "I see her just as close to, and as plain, as I see you. I see her look up, all of a sudden, front face to front face with me. A creeping and a crawling went through me; and I says to myself, 'Mary's child has lived to grow up, and that's her.'"
"But, do pray tell me, how ever you come to know Master Zack?"
"I says to myself 'That's her,'" repeated Mat, his rough voice sinking lower and lower, his attention wandering farther and farther away from Mrs. Peckover's interruptions. "Twenty year ago had got to be like yesterday, when I was down at the old place; and things I hadn't called to mind for long times past, I called to mind when I come to the churchyard-gate, and see father's house. But there was looks Mary had with her eyes, turns Mary had with her head, bits of twitches Mary had with her eyebrows when she looked up at you, that I'd clean forgot. They all come back to me together, as soon as ever I see that young woman's face."
"And do you really never mean to let your sister's child know who you are? You may tell me that, surely—though you won't speak a word about Master Zack."
"Let her know who I am? Mayhap I'll let her know that much, before long. When I'm going back to the wild country, I may say to her: 'Rough as I am to look at, I'm your mother's brother, and you're the only bit of my own flesh and blood I've got left to cotton to in all the world. Give us a shake of your hand, and a kiss for mother's sake; and I won't trouble you no more.' I may say that, afore I go back, and lose sight of her for good and all."
"Oh, but you won't go back. Only you tell Mr. Blyth you don't want to take her away, and then say to him, 'I'm Mr. Grice, and—'"
"Stop! Don't you get a-talking about Mr. Grice."
"Why not? It's your lawful name, isn't it?"
"Lawful enough, I dare say. But I don't like the sound of it, though it is mine. Father as good as said he was ashamed to own it, when he wrote me that letter: and I was afraid to own it, when I deserted from my ship. Bad luck has followed the name from first to last. I ended with it years ago, and I won't take up with it again now. Call me 'Mat.' Take it as easy with me as if I was kin to you."
"Well, then—Mat," said Mrs. Peckover with a smile. "I've got such a many things to ask you still—"
"I wish you could make it out to ask them to-morrow," rejoined Matthew. "I've overdone myself already, with more talking than I'm used to. I want to be quiet with my tongue, and get to work with my hands for the rest of the day. You don't happen to have a foot-rule in the house, do you?"
On being asked to explain what motive could induce him to make this extraordinary demand for a foot-rule, Mat answered that he was anxious to proceed at once to the renewal of the cross-board at the head of his sister's grave. He wanted the rule to measure the dimensions of the old board: he desired to be directed to a timber-merchant's, where he could buy a new piece of wood; and, after that, he would worry Mrs. Peckover about nothing more. Extraordinary as his present caprice appeared to her, the good woman saw that it had taken complete possession of him, and wisely and willingly set herself to humor it. She procured for him the rule, and the address of a timber-merchant; and then they parted, Mat promising to call again in the evening at Dawson's Buildings.
When he presented himself at the timber-merchant's, after having carefully measured the old board in the churchyard, he came in no humor to be easily satisfied. Never was any fine lady more difficult to decide about the texture, pattern, and color to be chosen for a new dress, than Mat, was when he arrived at the timber-merchant's, about the grain, thickness, and kind of wood to be chosen for the cross-board at the head of Mary's grave. At last, he selected a piece of walnut-wood; and, having paid the price demanded for it, without any haggling, inquired next for a carpenter, of whom he might hire a set of tools. A man who has money to spare, has all things at his command. Before evening, Mat had a complete set of tools, a dry shed to use them in, and a comfortable living-room at a public-house near, all at his own sole disposal.
Being skillful enough at all carpenter's work of an ordinary kind, he would, under most circumstances, have completed in a day or two such an employment as he had now undertaken. But a strange fastidiousness, a most uncharacteristic anxiety about the smallest matters, delayed him through every stage of his present undertaking. Mrs. Peckover, who came every morning to see how he was getting on, was amazed at the slowness of his progress. He was, from the first, morbidly scrupulous in keeping the board smooth and clean. After he had shaped it, and fitted it to its upright supports; after he had cut in it (by Mrs. Peckover's advice) the same inscription which had been placed on the old board—the simple initials "M. G.," with the year of Mary's death, "1828"—after he had done these things, he was seized with an unreasonable, obstinate fancy for decorating the board at the sides. In spite of all that Mrs. Peckover could say to prevent him, he carved an anchor at one side, and a tomahawk at the other—these being the objects with which he was most familiar, and therefore the objects which he chose to represent. But even when the carving of his extraordinary ornaments had been completed, he could not be prevailed on to set the new cross-board up in its proper place. Fondly as artists or authors linger over their last loving touches to the picture or the book, did Mat now linger, day after day, over the poor monument to his sister's memory, which his own rough hands had made. He smoothed it carefully with bits of sand-paper, he rubbed it industriously with leather, he polished it anxiously with oil, until, at last, Mrs. Peckover lost all patience; and, trusting in the influence she had already gained over him, fairly insisted on his bringing his work to a close. Even while obeying her, he was still true to his first resolution. He had said that no man's hand should help in the labor he had now undertaken; and he was as good as his word, for he carried the cross-board himself to the churchyard.
All this time, he never once looked at that lock of hair which had been accustomed to take so frequently from his pocket but a few days back. Perhaps there was nothing in common between the thought of tracing Arthur Carr, and the thoughts of Mary that came to him while he was at work on the walnut-wood plank.
But when the cross-board had been set up; when he had cleared away the mud and brambles about the mound, and had made a smooth little path round it; when he had looked at his work from all points of view, and had satisfied himself that he could do nothing more to perfect it, the active, restless, and violent elements in his nature seemed to awake, as it were, on a sudden. His fingers began to search again in his pocket for the fatal lock of hair; and when he and Mrs. Peckover ne
xt met, the first words he addressed to her announced his immediate departure for Dibbledean.
She had strengthened her hold on his gratitude by getting him permission, through the Rector of Bangbury, to occupy himself, without molestation, in the work of repairing his sister's grave. She had persuaded him to confide to her many of the particulars concerning himself which he had refused to communicate at their first interview. But when she tried, at parting, to fathom what his ultimate intentions really were, now that he was leaving Bangbury with the avowed purpose of discovering Arthur Carr, she failed to extract from him a single sentence of explanation, or even so much as a word of reply. When he took his farewell, he charged her not to communicate their meeting to Mr. Blyth, till she heard from him or saw him again; and he tried once more to thank her in as fit words as he could command, for the pity and kindness she had shewn towards Mary Grice; but, to the very last, he closed his lips resolutely on the ominous subject of Arthur Carr.
He had been a fortnight absent from London, when he set forth once more for Dibbledean, to try that last chance of tracing out the hidden man, which might be afforded him by a search among the papers of Joanna Grice.
The astonishment and delight of Mr. Tatt when Matthew, appearing in the character of a client at the desolate office door, actually announced himself as the sole surviving son of old Joshua Grice, flowed out in such a torrent of congratulatory words, that Mat was at first literally overwhelmed by them. He soon recovered himself, however; and while Mr. Tatt was still haranguing fluently about proving his client's identity, and securing his client's right of inheritance, silenced the solicitor, by declaring as bluntly as usual, that he had not come to Dibbledean to be helped to get hold of money, but to be helped to get hold of Joanna Grice's papers. This extraordinary announcement produced a long explanation and a still longer discussion, in the middle of which Mat lost his patience, and declared that he would set aside all legal obstacles and delays forthwith, by going to Mr. Nawby's office, and demanding of that gentleman, as the official guardian of the late Miss Grice's papers, permission to look over the different documents which the old woman might have left behind her.
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