Chapter II

Angel and I scurried up the stairway. We could hear The Seraph panting as he labored after us.

Once in the haven of our little room, we rolled in a confused heap on the bed, scuffling indiscriminately. Such a punishment was not new to us. It was a favorite one with Mrs. Handsomebody, and we had a suspicion that she relished the fact that so much food was saved when we went dinnerless. At any rate, we were not allowed to make up the deficiency at tea-time.

We always passed the hours of our confinement on the bed, for the room was very small and the one window stared blankly at the window of an unused room in the Peggs' house, which blankly returned the stare.

But these were not dull times for us. As Elizabethan actors, striding about their bare stage, conjured up brave pictures of gilded halls or leafy forest glades, so we little fellows made a castle stronghold of our bed; or better still, a gallant frigate that sailed beyond the barren walls into unknown seas of adventure, and anchored at last off some rocky island where treasure lay hidden among the hills.

What brave fights with pirates there were, when Angel as captain, I as mate, with The Seraph for a cabin-boy, fought the bloody pirate gangs on those surf-washed shores, and gained the fight, though far outnumbered!

They were not dull times in that small back room, but gay-colored, lawless times, when our fancy was let free, and we fought on empty stomachs, and felt only the wind in our faces, and heard the creak of straining cordage. What if we were on half-rations!

On this particular morning, however, there was something to be disposed of before we got to business: to wit, the rank insubordination of The Seraph. It was not to be dealt with too lightly. Angel sat up with a disheveled head.

'Get up!' he commanded The Seraph, who obeyed wonderingly.

'Now, my man,' continued Angel, with the scowl that had made him dreaded the South Seas over, 'have you anything to say for yourself?'

The Seraph hung his head.

'I was on’y danglin' a bit o' stwing,' he murmured.

'String!' repeated Angel, the scowl deepening; 'dangling a bit of string! You may be dangling yourself at the end of a rope before the sun sets, my hearty! Here we are without any dinner, all along of you. Now see here, you’ll go right over into that corner by the window with your face to the wall and stand there all the time John and I play! An’--an’ you won’t know what we’re doing nor where we’re going nor anything--so there!'

The Seraph went, weeping bitterly. He hid his face in the dusty lace window-curtain. He looked very small. I could not help remembering how father had said we were to take care of him and not make him cry.

Somehow that morning things went ill with the adventure. The savor had gone out of our play. Two were but a paltry company after all. Where was the cabin-boy with his trusty dirk, eager to bleed for the cause? Though we kept our backs rigorously turned to the window, and spoke only in whispers, neither of us was quite able to forget the presence of that dejected little figure.

After a bit The Seraph’s whimpering ceased, and what was our surprise to hear the chuckling laugh with which he was wont to signify his pleasure!

We turned to look at him. His face was pressed to the window, and again he giggled rapturously.

'What’s up, kid?' we demanded.

'Ole Joseph-an’-his-bwethern,' he sputtered, 'winkin' an’ wavin' hands wiv me!'

We were at his side like a shot, and there, in the hitherto blank window of the Peggs' house, stood the old gentleman of the flowered dressing-gown, laughing and nodding at The Seraph. When he saw us he made a sign to us to open our window, and at the same instant raised his own.

It took the three of us to accomplish it, for the window moved unreadily, being seldom raised, as Mrs. Handsomebody regarded fresh air much as she regarded a small boy, as something to be kept in its place.

At last the window rose, protesting and creaking, and the next moment we were face to face with our new acquaintance.

'Hello!' he said, in a loud, jovial voice.

'Hello!' said we; and stared.

He had a strong, weather-beaten face, and wide-open, light eyes, blue and wild as the sea.

'Hello, boy!' he repeated, looking at Angel. 'What’s your name?'

Now Angel was shy with strangers, so I usually answered questions.

'His name,' I replied then, 'is David Curzon; but mother called him Angel, so we jus' keep on doing it.'

'Oh,' said the old gentleman. Then he fixed The Seraph with his eye. 'What’s the bantling’s name?'

The Seraph, mightily confused at being called a bantling, giggled inanely, so I replied again.

'His name is Alexander Curzon, but mother called him The Seraph, so we jus' keep on doing it too.'

'Um-hm,' assented the old gentleman; 'and you--what’s your name?'

'John,' I replied.

'Oh,' he said, with an odd little smile, 'and what do they keep on calling _you_?'

'Just John,' I answered firmly, 'nothing else.'

'Who’s your father?' came the next question.

'He’s David Curzon, senior,' I said proudly, 'and he’s in South America building a railroad, an’ Mrs. Handsomebody used to be his governess when he was a little boy, so he left us with her; but some day, pretty soon, I think, he’s coming back to make a really home for us with rabbits an’ puppies an’ pigeons an’ things.'

Our new friend nodded sympathetically. Then, quite suddenly, he asked,--

'Where’s your mother?'

'She’s in heaven,' I answered simply. 'She went there two years ago.'

'Yes,' broke in The Seraph eagerly, 'but she’s comin' back some day to make a _weally_ home for us.'

'Shut up!' said Angel gruffly, poking him with his elbow.

'The Seraph’s very little,' I explained apologetically; 'he doesn’t understand.'

The old gentleman put his hand in the pocket of his dressing-gown.

'Bantling,' he said with his droll smile, 'do you like peppermint bull’s-eyes?'

'Yes,' said The Seraph, 'I like them--one for each of us.'

Whereupon this extraordinary man began throwing us peppermints as fast as we could catch them. It was surprising how we began to feel at home with him, as though we had known him for years.

He had traveled all over the world, it seemed, and he brought many curious things to the window to show us. One of these was a starling, whose wicker cage he placed on the sill where the sunlight fell.

He had got the bird, he said, from one of the crew of a trading vessel off the coast of Java. The sailor had brought it all the way from Devon for company; and he added, 'The brute had put out both its eyes so that it would learn to talk more readily; so now, you see, the poor little fellow is quite blind.'

'Blind--blind--blind!' echoed the starling briskly,--'blind--blind--blind!'

He took it from its cage on his finger. It hopped up his arm till it reached his cheek, and there it began to peck at his whiskers, crying all the while in its shrill, lonely tones, 'Blind--blind--blind!'

We three were entranced; and an idea that was swiftly forming in my mind struggled for expression.

If this wonderful old man had, as he said, sailed the seas from Land’s End to Ceylon, was it not possible that he had seen, even fought with, real pirates? Might he not have followed hot on the trail of hidden treasure? My cheeks burned as I tried to put the question.

'Did you,' I began,--'did you--'

'Well?' he encouraged. 'Did I what, John?'

'Oh, did you,' I burst out, 'ever see a pirate ship, an’ pirates--real ones?'

His face lit up.

'Surely,' he replied casually, 'many an one.'

'Praps,' ventured Angel, with an excited laugh, 'praps you’re one yourself!'

The old gentleman searched our eager faces with his wide-open, sea-blue eyes; then he looked cautiously into the room behind him, and, being apparently satisfied that no one could overhear, he put his hand to the side of his mouth, and said in a loud, hoarse whisper,--

'That I am. Pirate as ever was!'

I think you could have knocked me down with a feather. I know my knees shook and the room reeled. The Seraph was the first to recover, piping cheerfully,--

'I yike piwates!'

'Yes,' repeated the old gentleman, reflectively, 'pirate as ever was. The things I’ve seen and done would fill the biggest book you ever saw, and it’d make your hair stand on end to read it--what with fights, and murders, and hangings, and storms, and shipwreck, and the hunt for gold! Many a sweet schooner or frigate I’ve sunk, or taken for myself, and there isn’t a port on the South Seas where women don’t hush their children’s crying with the fear of Captain Pegg!'

Then he added hastily, as though he feared he had gone too far,--

'But I’m a changed man, mark you--a reformed man. If things suit me pretty well here, I don’t think I shall break out again. It is just that you chaps seem so sympathetic, makes me tell you all this; but you must swear never to breathe a word of it, for no one knows but you. My son and daughter-in-law think I’m an archæologist. It’d be an awful shock to them to find that I’m a pirate.'

We swore the blackest secrecy, and were about to ply him with a hundred questions, when we saw a maid carrying a large tray enter the room behind him.

Captain Pegg, as I must now call him, gave us a gesture of warning and began to lower his window. A pleasant aroma of roast beef came across the alley. The next instant the flowered dressing-gown had disappeared and the window opposite stared blankly as before.

Angel drew a deep breath. 'Did you notice,' he said, 'how different he got once he had told us he was a pirate--wilder and rougher, and used more sailor words?'

'However did you guess it first?' I asked admiringly.

'I think I know a pirate when I see one,' he returned loftily. 'But oh, I say, wouldn’t Mrs. Handsomebody be waxy if she knew?'

'An’ wouldn’t Mary Ellen be scared stiff if _she_ knew?'

'An’ won’t we have fun? Hurray!'

We rolled in ecstasy on the much-enduring bed.

We talked excitedly of the possibilities of such a wonderful and dangerous friendship. And as it turned out, none of our imaginings equaled what really happened.

The afternoon passed quickly. As the hands of our alarm clock neared the hour of four we obliterated the traces of our sojourn on the bed as well as we could; and when Mrs. Handsomebody entered, she found us sitting in a row in the three cane-bottomed chairs on which we hung our clothes at night.

The scolding she gave us was even longer and more humiliating to our manhood than usual. She shook her hard white finger near our faces, and said that for very little she would write to our father and complain of our actions.

'Now,' she said, in conclusion, 'give your faces and hands a thorough washing, and comb your hair, which is disgraceful; then come quietly down to tea.'

The door closed behind her.

'What beats me,' said Angel, lathering his hands, 'is why that one white hair on her chin wiggles so when she jaws us. I can’t keep my eyes off it.'

'It wiggles,' piped The Seraph, as he dragged a brush over his curls, ''cos it’s nervous, an’ I wiggle when she scolds, too, 'cos _I’m_ nervous.'

'Don’t you worry, old man,' Angel responded gayly, 'we’ll take care of you.'

We were in fine spirits despite our scolding. Indeed, we almost pitied Mrs. Handsomebody for her ignorance of the wonders among which she had her being.

Here she was, fussing over some stuffed birds in a glass case, when a live starling, who could talk, had perched near her very window-sill! She spent hours in conversation with her Unitarian minister, while a real pirate lived next door!

It was pitiful, and yet it was very funny. We found it hard to go quietly down to tea with such thoughts in our minds, and after five hours in our bedroom.