Chapter 7

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_ CHAPTER SEVEN.

"That you, Jane?"

"Why, of course it is. Were you really asleep?"

"Asleep? No--yes. I don't know, Jane. My head's all gone queer, I think."

"And no wonder, fighting like that, and never touching a bit of the dinner I brought you up. Yes, your head's all in a fever, and your poor swelled-up eyes too. That's better. Now, then, you must take this."

"What is it?" said the lad, drowsily.

"What is it? Why, can't you see?"

"No; my head's all swimming round and round, and my eyes won't open."

"Never mind, poor boy, this'll do you good. I've brought you up a big breakfast-cup of nice, fresh, hot tea, and two rounds of buttered toast. They'll do your head good."

"I say, Jane, where's uncle?"

"In his room. He's had some too. I didn't wait to be asked, but took the tea in."

"What was he doing?" said Aleck.

"Writing."

"His book?"

"No, letters; and as busy as could be. Come, try and drink your tea."

"But isn't it very early for tea--directly after dinner like this?"

"Directly after dinner? Why, bless the boy, it's past seven!"

"Then I must have been asleep," said the boy, speaking more collectedly now.

"I should just think you must, and the best thing for you. Hark! There's master's study bell; he wants more tea. I must go; but promise me you'll take yours?"

"Yes, I'm dreadfully thirsty," said the lad, and as the woman left the room he began to sip the tea and eat pieces of the toast till all was gone, and then, after a weary sigh, he glanced at his bundle and hat upon the chair, reeled towards the bed, held on by the painted post, while he thrust off his boots and then literally rolled upon it, with his face looking scarlet upon the white pillow. The next moment he was breathing heavily in deep, dreamless sleep.

That dreamless sleep lasted till the old eight-day clock on the landing had struck eleven, during which time Jane, who was growing anxious about him, came in three times--the first to take away the tea and dinner things, the other twice to make sure that he was not going into a high fever, as she termed it, and feeling better satisfied each time.

"Nothing like so hot," she said to herself. "It was that cup o' tea that did him good. There's nothing like a hot cup o' tea and a good sleep for a bad headache."

So Jane left and went to bed after a final peep, and, as before said, the sound sleep went on till the clock began to strike, and then he began to dream that his uncle came into the room with a chamber candlestick in his hand, set it down where its light shone full upon his stern, severe old features, and seated himself upon the chair by the bed's head.

Then he began to question him; and it seemed to the boy that in his dream he answered without moving his head or opening his eyes, which appeared strange, for he fancied he could see the old man's angry face all the time.

"Not undressed, Aleck?" said the old man.

"No, uncle."

"Shoes here ready--hat, bundle, and stick on the chair! Does that mean waiting till all is quiet, and then running away from home?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Hah! From one who took you to his heart when you were a little orphan child, just when your widowed mother had closed her eyes for ever on this weary world, and swore to treat you as if you were his own!"

"Yes, uncle."

"And why?"

"Because you are tired of me, uncle, and don't trust me--and are going to send me away."

"Hah! You are not going to try and be taken as a soldier?"

"No, uncle."

"Hah! What then? Going to seek your fortune?"

"No, uncle. I'm going to sea."

Perhaps that _hah_! that ejaculation, was louder than the other words-- perhaps Aleck Donne had not been dreaming--perhaps it was all real!

At any rate the sleeper had awakened and with his eyes able to open a little more, and through the two narrow slits he was gazing at the stern, sorrowful face, lit up by one candle, seated there within a yard of the pillow.

"Head better, my lad?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Seems clearer, eh?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Feel feverish?"

"No, uncle, I think not. I'm hardly awake yet."

"I know, my lad. You got a good deal knocked about, then?"

"I don't quite know, uncle. I suppose so. It all seems very dreamy now."

"Consequence of injury to the head. Soldiers are in that condition sometimes after a blow from the butt end of a musket."

"Are they, uncle?" asked Aleck, who was half ready to believe that this was all part of his dream.

The captain nodded, and sat silent for a few moments, before glancing at the bundle, hat, and cane. Then--

"So you've been making up your mind to run away?"

"To go away, uncle; not run."

"Hah! Same thing, my lad."

"No, uncle."

"What! Don't contradict me, sir. Do you want to quarrel again?"

"No, uncle."

"Humph! You prepared those things for running away?"

"I had some such ideas, uncle, when I tied them up," said the lad, firmly; "but I should not have done that."

"Indeed! Then why did you tie them up?"

"To go away, uncle."

"Well, that's what I said, sir."

"That was not quite correct, uncle. If I ran away it would have been without telling you."

"Of course, and that's what you meant to do."

"No, uncle; I feel now that I could not have done that. I should have come to you in the morning to tell you that I felt as if I should be better away, and that I would go to sea at once."

"Humph! And if you went away, sir, what's to become of me?"

"I don't know, uncle, only I feel that you'd be better without such an obstinate, disobedient fellow as I am."

"Oh, you think so, do you? Well, you shouldn't be obstinate then."

"I didn't mean to be, uncle."

"Then, why, in the name of all that's sensible, were you? Why didn't you tell me why you fought and got in such a state?"

"I felt that I couldn't tell you, uncle."

"Why not, sir--why not?"

Aleck was silent once more.

"There you are, you see. As stubborn as a mule."

"No, I'm not, uncle."

"Now, look here, Aleck; I couldn't go to bed without trying to make peace between us. Don't contradict me, sir. I say you are stubborn. There, I'll give you one more chance. Now, then, why did you fight those lads?"

"Don't ask me, uncle, please. I can't tell you."

"But I do ask you, and I will know. Now, sir, why was it? For I'm sure there was some blackguardly reason. Now, then, speak out, or--or--or--I vow I'll never be friends with you again."

"Don't ask me, uncle."

"Once more, I will ask you, sir. Why was it?"

"Because--" began Aleck, and stopped.

"Well, sir--because?" raged out the old man. "Speak, sir. You are my sister's son. I have behaved to you since she died like a father. I am in the place of your father, and I command you to speak."

"Well, uncle, it was because they spoke about you," said the lad, at last, desperately.

"Eh? Ah! Humph!" said the old man, with his florid face growing clay-coloured. "They spoke ill of me, then?"

"Yes, uncle."

"About my past--past life, eh?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Humph! What did they say?"

"Uncle, pray don't ask me," pleaded Aleck.

"Humph! I know. Said I was disgraced and turned out of my regiment, eh? For cowardice?"

"Yes, uncle."

"And you said it wasn't true?"

"Of course, uncle."

"Got yourself knocked into a mummy, then, for defending me?"

"Yes, uncle; but I'm not much hurt."

"Humph!" ejaculated the old man, frowning, and looking at the lad through his half-closed eyes. "Said it was not true, then?"

"Of course, uncle," cried the boy, flushing indignantly.

"Humph! Thankye, my boy; but, you see, it was true."

Aleck's eyes glittered as he stared blankly at the fierce-looking old man. For the declaration sounded horrible. His uncle had been one of the bravest of soldiers in the boy's estimation, and time after time he had sat and gloated over the trophy formed by the old officer's sword and pistols, surmounted by the military cap, hanging in the study. Many a time, too, he had in secret carefully swept away the dust. More than once, too, in his uncle's absence he had taken down and snapped the pistols at some imaginary foe, and felt a thrill of pleasure as the old flints struck off a tiny shower of brilliant stars from the steel pan cover. At other times, too, he had carefully lifted the sword from its hooks and tugged till the bright blade came slowly out of its leathern scabbard, cut and thrust with it to put enemies to flight, and longed to carry it to the tool-shed to treat it to a good whetting with the rubber the gardener used for his scythe, for the rounded edge held out no promise of cutting off a Frenchman's head. And now for the old hero of his belief to tell him calmly and without the slightest hesitation that the charge was true was so staggering, so beyond belief, that the blank look of dismay produced by the assertion gradually gave place to a smile of incredulity, and at last the boy exclaimed:

"Oh, uncle! You are joking!"

The old soldier returned the boy's smile with a cold, stern gaze full of something akin to despair, as he drew a long, deep breath and said, slowly:

"You find it hard to believe, then, Aleck, my boy?"

"Hard to believe, uncle? Of course I do. Nobody could believe such a thing of you."

"You are wrong, my boy," said the old man, with a sigh, "for everyone believed it, and the court-martial sentenced me to be disgraced."

"Uncle! Oh, uncle! But it wasn't--it couldn't be true," cried Aleck, wildly, as he sat up in bed.

"The world said it was true, my boy," replied the old man, whose voice sounded very low and sad.

"But you, uncle--you denied the charge?"

"Of course, my boy."

"Then the people on the court-martial must have been mad," cried the boy, proudly. "I thought the word of an officer and a gentleman was quite sufficient to set aside such a charge."

"Then you don't believe it was true, my lad?"

"I?" cried the boy, proudly; "what nonsense, uncle! Of course not."

"But, knowing now what I have told you, suppose you should hear this charge made against me again, what would you do?"

Aleck's eyes flashed, and, regardless of the pain it gave him, he clenched his injured fists, set his teeth hard, and said, hoarsely:

"The same as I did to-day, uncle. Nobody shall tell such lies about you while I am there."

Captain Lawrence caught his young champion to his breast and held him tightly for a few moments, before, in a husky, quivering voice, he said:

"Yes, Aleck, boy, for they are lies. But the mud thrown at me stuck in spite of all my efforts to wash it away, and the stains remained."

"But, uncle--"

"Don't talk about it, boy," cried the old man, hoarsely. "You are bringing up the past, Aleck, with all its maddening horrors. I can't talk to you and explain. It was at the end of a disastrous day. Our badly led men were put to flight through the mismanagement of our chief--one high in position--and someone had to suffer for his sins, there had to be a scapegoat, and I was the unhappy wretch upon whom the commander-in-chief's sins were piled up. They said that the beating back of my company caused the panic which led to the headlong flight of our little army. Yes, Aleck, they piled up his sins upon my unlucky shoulders, and I was driven out into the wilderness--hounded out of society, a dishonoured, disgraced coward. Aleck, boy," he continued, with his voice growing appealing and piteous, "I was engaged to be married to the young and beautiful girl I loved as soon as the war was over, and I was looking forward to happiness on my return. But for me happiness was dead."

"Oh! but, uncle," cried the boy, excitedly, catching at the old man's arm, "the lady--surely she did not believe it of you?"

"I never saw her again, Aleck," said the old man, slowly. "Six months after my sentence the papers announced her approaching marriage."

"Oh!" cried the lad, indignantly.

"Wait, my boy. No; she never believed it of me. She was forced by her relatives to accept this man. I have her dear letter--yellow and time-stained now--written a week before the appointed wedding-day which never dawned for her, my boy. She died two days before, full of faith in my honour."

Aleck's hands were both resting now upon his uncle's arm, and his eyes looked dim and misty.

"There, my boy, I said I could not explain to you, and I have uncovered the old wound, laying it quite bare. Now you know what it is that has made me the old cankered, harsh, misanthropic being you know--bitter, soured, evil-tempered, and so harsh; so wanting in love for my kind that even you, my boy, my poor dead sister's child, can't bear to live with me any longer."

"Uncle!" panted Aleck. "I didn't know--"

"Let's see," continued the old man, with a resumption of his former fierce manner; "you said you would not run away, only go. To sea, eh?"

"Uncle," cried Aleck, "didn't you hear what I said?"

"Yes, quite plainly," replied the old man, bitterly; "I heard. I don't wonder at a lad of spirit resenting my harsh, saturnine ways. What a life for a lad like you! Well, you've made up your mind, and I'll be just to you, my lad. You shall be started well. When would you like to go?"

"When you drive me away, uncle," cried the boy, passionately. "Oh, uncle, won't you listen to me--won't you believe in me? How can you think me such a coward as to leave you, knowing what I do?"

The old man caught him by the shoulders, held him back at arm's length, and stood gazing fiercely in his eyes for a few moments, and then his own began to soften, and he said, gently:

"Aleck, when I was your age my sister and I were constant companions. You have her voice, boy, and there is a ring in it so like--oh, so like hers! Yes, I heard, and I believe in you. I believe, too, that you will respect my prayers to you that all I have said this night shall be held sacred. I do not wish the world to know our secrets. But, there, there," he said, in a totally changed voice, "what a day this has been for us both! You have suffered cruelly, my boy, for my sake, and I in my blindness and bitterness treated you ill."

"Oh, uncle, pray, pray say no more!" cried the boy, piteously.

"I must--just this, Aleck: I have suffered too, my boy. Another black shadow had come across my darkened life, and in my ignorance I turned against you as I did. Aleck, boy, your uncle asks your forgiveness, and--now no more, my boy; it is nearly midnight, and we must try and rest. Can you go to sleep again?"

"Yes, uncle," cried the boy, eagerly, "I feel as if it will be easy now. Good-night, uncle."

"Good-night, my boy," whispered the old man, huskily, and he hurried out, whispering words of thankfulness to himself; but they were words the nephew did not hear.

As the door closed Aleck sprang off the bed on to his feet, his knuckles smarting as he struck an attitude and tightly clenched his fists, seeing in imagination Big Jem the slanderer standing before him once again.

"You cowardly brute!" he muttered; and then his aspect changed in the dim light shed by the candle, for there was a look of joyous pride in his countenance, disfigured though it was, as he said, hurriedly: "I didn't half tell uncle that I thoroughly whipped him, after all. But old Tom Bodger--he'll be as pleased as Punch."

It was rather a distorted smile on Aleck's lips, as, after undressing, he fell fast asleep, but it was a very happy one all the same, and so thought Captain Lawrence as he stole into the room in the grey dawn to see if his nephew was sleeping free from fever and pain, and then stole out again without making a sound. _

Read next: Chapter 8

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