Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

With many kisses to Charles, with many hand-shakes from all, she took her departure. The Bishop of Helstonleigh, high and dignified prelate that he was, and she a poor, hard-working barge-woman, took her hand into his, and shook it as heartily as the rest. Mr. Channing went out with her. He was going to say a word of gratitude to the man. The bishop also went out, but he turned the other way.

  As he was entering Close Street, the bishop encountered Arthur. The latter raised his hat and was passing onwards, but the bishop arrested him.

  “Channing, I have just heard some news from your father. You are at length cleared from that charge. You have been innocent all this time.”

  Arthur’s lips parted with a smile. “Your lordship may be sure that I am thankful to be cleared at last. Though I am sorry that it should be at the expense of my friend Yorke.”

  “Knowing yourself innocent, you might have proclaimed it more decisively. What could have been your motive for not doing so?”

  The ingenuous flush flew into Arthur’s cheek. “The truth is, my lord, I suspected some one else. Not Roland Yorke,” he pointedly added. “But — it was one against whom I should have been sorry to bring a charge. And so — and so — I went on bearing the blame.”

  “Well, Channing, I must say, and I shall say to others, that you have behaved admirably; showing a true Christian spirit. Mr. Channing may well be happy in his children. What will you give me,” added the bishop, releasing Arthur’s hand, which he had taken, and relapsing into his free, pleasant manner, “for some news that I can impart to you?”

  Arthur wondered much. What news could the bishop have to impart which concerned him?

  “The little lost wanderer has come home.”

  “Not Charles!” uttered Arthur, startled to emotion. “Charles! and not dead?”

  “Not dead, certainly,” smiled the bishop, “considering that he can talk and walk. He will want some nursing, though. Good-bye, Channing. This, take it for all in all, must be a day of congratulation for you and yours.”

  To leap into Mr. Galloway’s with the tidings, to make but a few bounds thence home, did not take many minutes for Arthur. He found Charles in danger of being kissed to death — Mrs. Channing, Lady Augusta, Constance, and Judith, each taking her turn. I fear Arthur only made another.

  “Why, Charley, you have grown out of your clothes!” he exclaimed. “How thin and white you are!”

  The remarks did not please Judith. “Thin and white!” she resentfully repeated. “Did you expect him to come home as red and fat as a turkey-cock, and him just brought to the edge of the grave with brain fever? One would think, Master Arthur, that you’d rejoice to see him, if he had come back a skeleton, when it seemed too likely you’d never see him at all. And what if he have outgrown his clothes? They can be let out, or replaced with new ones. I have hands, and there’s tailors in the place, I hope.”

  The more delighted felt Judith, the more ready was she to take up remarks and convert them into grievances. Arthur knew her, and only laughed. A day of rejoicing, indeed, as the bishop had said. A day of praise to God.

  Charley had been whispering to his mother. He wanted to go to the college schoolroom and surprise it. He was longing for a sight of his old companions. That happy moment had been pictured in his thoughts fifty times, as he lay in the boat; it was almost as much desired as the return home. Charley bore no malice, and he was prepared to laugh with them at the ghost.

  “You do not appear strong enough to walk even so far as that,” said Mrs. Channing.

  “Dear mamma, let me go! I could walk it, for that, if it were twice as far.”

  “Yes, let him go,” interposed Arthur, divining the feeling. “I will help him along.”

  Charley’s trencher — the very trencher found on the banks — was brought forth, and he started with Arthur.

  “Mind you bring him back safe this time!” called out Judy in a tone of command, as she stood at the door to watch them along the Boundaries.

  “Arthur,” said the boy, “were they punished for playing me that ghost trick?”

  “They have not been punished yet; they are to be. The master waited to see how things would turn out.”

  You may remember that Diggs, the boat-house keeper, when he took news of Charles’s supposed fate to the college school, entered it just in time to interrupt an important ceremony, which was about to be performed on the back of Pierce senior. In like manner — and the coincidence was somewhat remarkable — Charles himself now entered it, when that same ceremony was just brought to a conclusion, only that the back, instead of being Pierce senior’s, was Gerald Yorke’s. Terrible disgrace for a senior! and Gerald wished Bywater’s surplice had been at the bottom of the river before he had meddled with it. He had not done it purposely. He had fallen in the vestry, ink-bottle in hand, which had broken and spilt its contents over the surplice. In an unlucky moment, Gerald had determined to deny all knowledge of the accident, never supposing it would be brought home to him.

  Sullen, angry, and resentful, he was taking his seat again, and the head-master, rather red and hot with exertion, was locking up the great birch, when the door was opened, and Arthur Channing made his appearance; a boy, carrying the college cap, with him.

  The school were struck dumb. The head-master paused, birch in hand. But that he was taller and thinner, and that the bright colour and auburn curls were gone, they would have said at once it was Charley Channing.

  The master let fall the birch and the lid of his desk. “Channing!” he uttered, as the child walked up to him. “Is it really you? What has become of you all this time? Where have you been?”

  “I have been a long way in a barge, sir. The barge-man saved me. And I have had brain fever.”

  He looked round for Tom; and Tom, in the wild exuberance of his delight, took Charley in his arms, and tears dropped from his eyes as he kissed him as warmly as Judith could have done. And then brave Tom could have eaten himself up, in mortification at having been so demonstrative in sight of the college school.

  But the school were not in the humour to be fastidious just then. Some of them felt more inward relief at sight of Charles than they cared to tell; they had never experienced anything like it in their lives, and probably never would again. In the midst of the murmur of heartfelt delight that was arising, a most startling interruption occurred from Mr. Bywater. That gentleman sprang from his desk to the middle of the room, turned a somersault, and began dancing a hornpipe on his head.

  “Bywater!” uttered the astounded master. “Are you mad?”

  Bywater finished his dance, and then brought himself to his feet.

  “I am so glad he has turned up all right, sir. I forgot you were in school.”

  “I should think you did,” significantly returned the master. But Charles interrupted him.

  “You will not punish them, sir, now I have come back safe?” he pleaded.

  “But they deserve punishment,” said the master.

  “I know they have been sorry; Arthur says they have,” urged Charley. “Please do not punish them now, sir; it is so pleasant to be back again!”

  “Will you promise never to be frightened at their foolish tricks again?” said the master. “Not that there is much danger of their playing you any: this has been too severe a lesson. I am surprised that a boy of your age, Charles, could allow himself to be alarmed by ‘ghosts.’ You do not suppose there are such things, surely?”

  “No, sir; but somehow, that night I got too frightened to think. You will forgive them, sir, won’t you?”

  “Yes! There! Go and shake hands with them,” said Mr. Pye, relaxing his dignity. “It is worth something, Charley, to see you here again.”

  The school seemed to think so; and I wish you had heard the shout that went up from it — the real, true, if somewhat noisy delight, that greeted Charles. “Charley, we’ll never dress up a ghost again! We’ll never frighten you in any way!” they cried, pressing affectionately round him. “Only forgive us!”

>   “Why are you sitting in the senior’s place, Tom?” asked Arthur.

  “Because it is his own,” said Harry Huntley, with a smile of satisfaction. “Lady Augusta came in and set things right for you, and Tom is made senior at last. Hurrah! Arthur cleared, Tom senior, Charley back, and Gerald flogged! Hurrah!”

  “Hurrah! If Pye were worth a dump, he’d give us a holiday!” echoed bold Bywater.

  CHAPTER LIX. — READY.

  The glorious surprise of Charley’s safety greeted Hamish on his return home to dinner. In fact, he was just in time, having come in somewhat before one o’clock, to witness Charley’s arrival from the college schoolroom, escorted by the whole tribe, from the first to the last. Even Gerald Yorke made one, as did Mr. William Simms. Gerald, the smart over, thought it best to put a light, careless face upon his punishment, disgraceful though it was considered to be for a senior. To give Gerald his due, his own share in the day’s exploits faded into insignificance, compared with the shock of mortification which shook him, when he heard the avowal of his mother, respecting Roland. He and Tod had been the most eager of all the school to cast Arthur’s guilt in Tom Channing’s cheek; they had proclaimed it as particularly objectionable to their feelings that the robbery should have taken place in an office where their brother was a pupil; and now they found that Tom’s brother had been innocent, and their own brother guilty! It was well that Gerald’s brow should burn. “But she’d no cause to come here and blurt it out to the lot, right in one’s face!” soliloquized Gerald, alluding to Lady Augusta. “They’d have heard it soon enough, without that.”

  Mr. William Simms, I have said, also attended Charles. Mr. William was hoping that the return of Charley would put him upon a better footing with the school. He need not have hoped it: his offence had been one that the college boys never forgave. Whether Charley returned dead or alive, or had never returned at all, Simms would always remain a sneak in their estimation. “Sneak Simms,” he had been called since the occurrence: and he had come to the resolution, in his own mind, of writing word home to his friends that the studies in Helstonleigh college school were too much for him, and asking to be removed to a private one. I think he would have to do so still.

  Hamish lifted Charley to him with an eager, fond movement. A weight was taken from his mind. Although really irresponsible for the disappearance of Charles, he had always felt that his father and mother might inwardly attach some blame to him — might think him to have been wanting in care. Now, all was sunshine.

  Dinner over, Mr. Channing walked with Hamish to the office. They were some time in getting there. Every other person they met, stopped Mr. Channing to congratulate him. It seemed that the congratulations were never to end. It was not only Mr. Channing’s renewed health that people had to speak of. Helstonleigh, from one end to the other, was ringing with the news of Arthur’s innocence; and Charley’s return was getting wind.

  They reached Guild Street at last. Mr. Channing entered and shook hands with his clerks, and then took his own place in his private room. “Where are we to put you, now, Hamish?” he said, looking at his son with a smile. “There’s no room for you here. You will not like to take your place with the clerks again.”

  “Perhaps I had better follow Roland Yorke’s plan, and emigrate,” replied Hamish, demurely.

  “I wish Mr. Huntley — By the way, Hamish, it would only be a mark of courtesy if you stepped as far as Mr. Huntley’s and told him of Charles’s return,” broke off Mr. Channing; the idea occurring to him with Mr. Huntley’s name. “None have shown more sympathy than he, and he will be rejoiced to hear that the child is safe.”

  “I’ll go at once,” said Hamish. Nothing loth was he, on his own part, to pay a visit to Mr. Huntley’s.

  Hamish overtook Mr. Huntley close to his own home. He was returning from the town. Had he been home earlier, he would have heard the news from Harry. But Harry had now had his dinner and was gone again. He did not dine at the later hour.

  “I have brought you some news, sir,” said Hamish, as they entered together.

  “News again! It cannot be very great, by the side of what we were favoured with last night from Mr. Roland,” was the remark of Mr. Huntley.

  “But indeed it is. Greater news even than that. We have found Charley, Mr. Huntley.”

  Mr. Huntley sprang from the chair he was taking. “Found Charley! Have you really? Where has he — Hamish, I see by your countenance that the tidings are good. He must be alive.”

  “He is alive and well. At least, well, comparatively speaking. A barge was passing down the river at the time he fell in, and the man leaped overboard and saved him. Charley has been in the barge ever since, and has had brain fever.”

  “And how did he come home?” wondered Mr. Huntley, when he had sufficiently digested the news.

  “The barge brought him back. It is on its way up again. Charley arrived under escort of the barge-woman, a red handkerchief on his head in lieu of his trencher, which, you know, he lost that night,” added Hamish, laughing. “Lady Augusta, who was going out of the house as he entered, was frightened into the belief that it was his ghost, and startled them all with her cries to that effect, including the bishop, who was with my father in the drawing-room.”

  “Hamish, it is like a romance!” said Mr. Huntley.

  “Very nearly, taking one circumstance with another. My father’s return, cured; Roland’s letter; and now Charley’s resuscitation. Their all happening together renders it the more remarkable. Poor Charley does look as much like a ghost as anything, and his curls are gone. They had to cut his hair close in the fever.”

  Mr. Huntley paused. “Do you know, Hamish,” he presently said, “I begin to think we were all a set of wiseacres. We might have thought of a barge.”

  “If we had thought of a barge, we should never have thought the barge would carry him off,” objected Hamish. “However, we have him back now, and I thank God. I always said he would turn up, you know.”

  “I must come and see him,” said Mr. Huntley. “I was at the college school this morning, therefore close to your house, but I did not call. I thought your father would have enough callers, without me.”

  Hamish laughed. “He has had a great many. The house, I understand, has been like a fair. He is in Guild Street this afternoon. It looks like the happy old times, to see him at his post again.”

  “What are you going to do, now your place is usurped?” asked Mr. Huntley. “Subside into a clerk again, and discharge the one who was taken on in your stead, when you were promoted?”

  “That’s the question — what is to be done with me?” returned Hamish, in his joking manner. “I have been telling my father that I had perhaps better pay Port Natal a visit, and join Roland Yorke.”

  “I told your father once, that when this time came, I would help you to a post.”

  “I am aware you did, sir. But you told me afterwards that you had altered your intention — I was not eligible for it.”

  “Believing you were the culprit at Galloway’s.”

  Hamish raised his eyebrows. “The extraordinary part of that, sir, is, how you could have imagined such a thing of me.”

  “Hamish, I shall always think so myself in future. But I have this justification — that I was not alone in the belief. Some of your family, who might be supposed to know you better than I, entertained the same opinion.”

  “Yes; Constance and Arthur. But are you sure, sir, that it was not their conduct that first induced you to suspect me?”

  “Right, lad. Their conduct — I should rather say their manner — was inexplicably mysterious, and it induced me to ferret out its cause. That they were screening some one, was evident, and I could only come to the conclusion that it was you. But, Master Hamish, there were circumstances on your own part which tended to strengthen the belief,” added Mr. Huntley, his tone becoming lighter. “Whence sprang that money wherewith you satisfied some of your troublesome creditors, just at that same time?”

>   Once more, as when it was alluded to before, a red flush dyed the face of Hamish. Certainly, it could not be a flush of guilt, while that ingenuous smile hovered on his lips. But Hamish seemed attacked with sudden shyness. “Your refusal to satisfy me on this point, when we previously spoke of it, tended to confirm my suspicions,” continued Mr. Huntley. “I think you might make a confidant of me, Hamish. That money could not have dropped from the clouds; and I am sure you possessed no funds of your own just then.”

  “But neither did I steal it. Mr. Huntley” — raising his eyes to that gentleman’s face— “how closely you must have watched me and my affairs!”

  Mr. Huntley drew in his lips. “Perhaps I had my own motives for doing so, young sir.”

  “I earned the money,” said Hamish, who probably penetrated into Mr. Huntley’s “motives;” at any rate, he hoped he did so. “I earned it fairly and honourably, by my own private and special industry.”

  Mr. Huntley opened his eyes. “Private and special industry! Have you turned shoemaker?”

  “Not shoemaker,” laughed Hamish. “Book-maker. The truth is, Mr. Huntley — But will you promise to keep my secret?”

  “Ay. Honour bright.”

  “I don’t want it to be known just yet. The truth is, I have been doing some literary work. Martin Pope gave me an introduction to one of the London editors, and I sent him some papers. They were approved of and inserted: but for the first I received no pay. I threatened to strike, and then payment was promised. The first instalment, I chiefly used to arrest my debts; the second and third to liquidate them. That’s where the money came from.”

  Mr. Huntley stared at Hamish as if he could scarcely take in the news. It was, however, only the simple truth. When Martin Pope paid a visit to Hamish, one summer night, frightening Hamish and Arthur, who dreaded it might be a less inoffensive visitor; frightening Constance, for that matter, for she heard more of their dread than was expedient; his errand was to tell Hamish that in future he was to be paid for his papers: payment was to commence forthwith. You may remember the evening, though it is long ago. You may also remember Martin Pope’s coming hurriedly into the office in Guild Street, telling Hamish some one was starting by the train; when both hastened to the station, leaving Arthur in wonder. That was the very London editor himself. He had been into the country, and was taking Helstonleigh on his way back to town; had stayed in it a day or two for the purpose of seeing Martin Pope, who was an old friend, and of being introduced to Hamish Channing. That shy feeling of reticence, which is the characteristic of most persons whose genius is worth anything, had induced Hamish to bury all this in silence.