Chapter 6

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_ CHAPTER SIX.

It was some time before the boy could do anything but sit with elbows upon knees, chin upon hands, gazing straight before him into vacancy. His head throbbed so that he could not think consistently. In his struggle on the pier he had been a good deal shaken, and that alone was enough to produce a feverish kind of excitement. Then on the way back his brain had been much troubled, while, worst of all, there had been the scene with his uncle.

It was then no wonder that he could not arrange his thoughts so as to sit in judgment upon his acts, especially that last one, in which he had stubbornly, as it seemed, refused or declined to respond to his uncle's question.

He tried, and tried hard, with a curious seething desire working in his brain, to decide upon going straight to the old man and speaking out, giving him frankly his reason for refusing to speak. But this always came to the same conclusion: "I can't--I dare not--I can't."

At last, wearied out and confused more and more by his throbbing brain, the boy rose and walked slowly to the looking-glass, where he started in dismay at the image reflected there. For a few moments it seemed to be part and parcel of some confused dream, but its truth gradually forced itself upon him, and finally he burst out into a mocking, half hysterical laugh.

"I don't wonder at uncle," he cried; "I don't wonder at his being in a rage."

With a weary sigh he went to the washstand and half filled the basin.

"I'd no idea I looked such a sight," he muttered, as he began to bathe his stiff and swollen features. "The brute!" he said, after a few moments. "I wish I'd told uncle, though, that I beat him well. But, oh, dear! what a muddle it all seems! I wish I'd hit him twice as hard," he said, with angry vehemence, half aloud. "Yes?"

For there was a gentle tapping at the door.

"Aren't you coming down to dinner, Master Aleck?"

"No, Jane; not to-day."

"But it's all over-done, my dear--been ready more than an hour. Do, do come, or it'll be spoiled."

"Go and tell uncle then. I'm not coming down."

"But I have been, my dear, and he said I was to come and tell you. He isn't coming down. Do make haste and finish and come down."

"No, not to-day, Jane. I can't come."

"But what is the matter, dear? Is master in a temper because you fell off the cliff and cut your face?"

"I didn't fall off the cliff and cut my face," said Aleck.

"Then, whatever is the matter, my dear?"

"Well, if you must know, Jane, I've been fighting--like a blackguard, I suppose," cried the boy, pettishly.

"And is that what made master so cross?"

"Yes."

"Did it hurt you very much?" came through the door crack in a whisper.

"Yes--no," replied Aleck.

"I don't know what you mean, my dear," sighed Jane.

"Never mind. Go away, please, now. I'm bathing my face."

"But my dinner's all being spoiled, my dear. You won't come, and master won't come. What am I to do?"

"Go and sit down and eat it," cried Aleck, in a passion now; "only don't bother me."

"Well, I'm sure!" cried the captain's maid, tartly. "Master's temper's bad enough to drive anyone away, and now you're beginning too. I don't know what we're coming to in--" _um--um--murmur--murmur--murmur--bang_!

At least that is how it sounded to Aleck as he went on with his bathing, the sharp closing of the passage door bringing all to an end and leaving the boy to continue the bathing and drying of his injuries by degrees, after which he sat down by the open window, to rest his aching head upon his hand and let the soft sea air play upon his temples.

He was very miserable, and in a good deal of bodily pain, but the trouble seemed to be the worse part, and it was just occurring to him that he felt very sick and faint and that a draught of water would do him good, when there was a sharp tap at the door after the handle had been tried.

"Uncle!" thought the lad, and the blood flushed painfully to his face.

Then the tap was repeated.

"Master Aleck, Master Aleck!"

"Yes."

"I've brought you up some dinner on a tray."

"I don't want any--I couldn't eat it," said the boy, bitterly.

"Don't tell me, my dear. You do want something--you must; and you can eat it if you try. Now, do come and open the door, please, or you'll be ill."

Aleck rose with a sigh and crossed the room, and the maid came in with a covered plate of something hot which emitted an appetising odour.

"It's very good of you, Jane," began Aleck; "but--"

"My! You are a sight, Master Aleck! Whatever have you been a-doing to yourself?"

"Fighting, I tell you," said the boy, smiling in the middle-aged maid's homely face.

"Who with, my dear?"

"Oh, some of the fishermen's boys over at the town."

"Then it didn't ought to be allowed. You _are_ in a state!"

"Yes; I know without your telling me. What's under that cover?"

"Roast chicken and bacon, my dear."

"Oh, I couldn't touch it, Jane!"

"Now, don't say that, my dear. People must eat and drink even if they are in trouble; because if they don't they're ill. I know what I've brought you isn't as nice as it should be, because it's all dried up, and now it's half cold. So be a good boy, same as you used to be years ago when I first knew you. There was no quarrelling with your bread and butter then, and you were always hungry. But, there, I must go. I wouldn't have master catch me here now for all the millions in the Bank of England. Oh, what a temper he is in, to be sure!"

"Have--have you seen him lately?" asked Aleck, excitedly.

"Seen him? No, my dear. He's shut himself up, like he does sometimes; but I could hear him in the kitchen, walking all over my head, just like a wild beast in a cage, and now and then he began talking to himself quite out loud. It's all your fault, Master Aleck, for he was as good-tempered as could be this morning when I went in to ask him what I was to get ready for dinner, and what time."

Jane closed the door after her with these words and left Aleck with the tray.

"Yes," he said, bitterly, in his pain; "it's all my fault, I suppose, and I'm to go away from everything I like here."

He raised the cover over the plate as he spoke, and a pleasant, appetising odour greeted his nostrils; but he lowered the cover again with a gesture of disgust.

"I couldn't touch it," he said, with a shudder, "even to do me good. Nothing would do me good now. My face feels so stiff, and my eyes are just as if they'd got something dark over them."

He went near the window again to look out in the direction of the sea, with some idea of watching the birds, of which so many floated up into sight above the cliffs that shut in the Den. But it was an effort to look skyward, and he sat down by the window to think, in a dull, heavy, dreamy way, about his uncle's words.

And it seemed to him, knowing how stern and uncompromising the old man was, that it would be a word and a blow. For aught he knew to the contrary letters might have been written by then, making arrangements for him to go to some institution where he would be trained to enter into some pursuit that he might detest. Time back there had been talk about his future, the old man having pleasantly asked him what he would like to be. He had replied. "An officer in the Army," and then stood startled by the change which came over the old man's face.

"No," he had said, scowling, "I could never consent to that, Aleck. I might agree to your going into the Navy, but as a soldier, emphatically no."

"Why doesn't he want me to be a soldier?" mused the boy. "He was a soldier himself. I should like to know the whole truth. It can't be what he said."

Aleck sat wrinkling up his brow and thinking for some little time. Not for long; it made his head ache too much, and he changed from soldiering to sailoring.

"I don't see why I shouldn't," he said, half drowsily, for a strange sensation of weariness came over him. "I should like to be a sailor. Why not go? Tom Bodger would help me to get a ship; and as uncle is going to send me away, talking as if he had quite done with me, I don't see why I shouldn't go."

The drowsy feeling increased, so that the boy to keep it off began to look over his clothes, thinking deeply the while, but in a way that was rather unnatural, for his hurts had not been without the effect of making him a little feverish. And as he thought he began to mutter about what had taken place that afternoon.

"Uncle can't like me," he said. "He has been kind, but he never talked to me like this before. He wants to get rid of me, to send me away somewhere to some place where I shouldn't like to go. I've no father, no mother, to mind my going, so why shouldn't I? He'll be glad I'm gone, or he wouldn't have talked to me like that."

Aleck rested his throbbing head upon his crossed arms and sank into a feverish kind of sleep, during which, in a short half-hour, he went through what seemed like an age of trouble, before he started up, and in an excited, spasmodic way, hardly realising what he was doing in his half-waking, half-sleeping state, but under the influence of his troubled thoughts, he roughly selected a few of his under-things for a change and made them up into a bundle, after which he counted over the money he had left after the morning's disbursement, and told himself it would be enough, and that the sooner he was away from the dear old Den the better.

At last all his preparations were made, even to placing his hat and a favourite old stick given him by his uncle ready upon the chair which held his bundle; and then, with his head throbbing worse than ever, producing a feeling of confusion and unreality that was more than painful, he went once more to the glass to look at his strangely-altered features.

"I can't go like that," he said, shrinking back in horror. But like an answer to his words came from far back in his brain, and as if in a faint whisper: "You must now. You've gone too far. You must go now, unless you're too great a coward."

"Yes," he muttered, confusedly; "I must go now--as soon as it's dark. Not wanted here--Tom Bodger--he'll help me--to a ship."

He had sunk heavily into a chair, right back, with his head nodding forward till his chin rested upon his breast, and the next moment he had sunk into a feverish stupor, in which his head was swimming, and in some unaccountable way he seemed to be once more heavily engaged with Big Jem, whose fists kept up a regular pendulum-like beat upon his head, while in spite of all his efforts he could never get one blow back in return at the malicious, jeering, taunting face, whose lips moved as they kept on saying words which nearly drove him wild with indignation.

And what were the words, repeated quite clearly now?

"Master Aleck, don't be so silly! Wake up, you're pretending to be asleep. Oh, my! what a state your face is in! And your head's as hot as fire." _

Read next: Chapter 7

Read previous: Chapter 5

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