Chapter XXIV: "coals of Fire."

BY dint of persevering inquiries made through the agency of his once guardian, Mr. Rackstraw, John had ascertained at what time the Sea Bird was likely to arrive in port. It wanted but a few days of this date when the final touches were put to the preparation of Tincroft House. And then John announced to Sarah that the time was come for them to take their journey to London.

"It will not matter, my dear, if we should have to wait a week before the ship gets in," said he; "but it won't do to be a day too late!"

So places were taken in the Trotbury coach—for the London and Trotbury and Smashum line was not open then—and two days afterwards they were on the road. That same evening they had ensconced themselves in a private boarding-house in the City, having first of all made arrangements for extra rooms for the expected homeward-bound ones.

They had not to wait many days. The winds and waves were propitious; and as they sat at breakfast on the fourth morning after their departure from home, news came that the ship—having coming up from Gravesend on the previous day—was then in the—docks. No time was to be lost, therefore. But hurried as were their movements that morning, we must precede the Tincrofts some short space of time, and take our station on the quarter-deck of the Sea Bird.

There, pacing to and fro, with slow and feeble steps, and clad in rough but warm sea-going garments, was a tall man, of well-built and once powerful frame, viewing with a kind of languid interest the busy scene around him. He was pale, what part of his face was not concealed by the thick dark beard he wore; and he looked pensive, not to say sorrowful.

By this sick man's side, and waiting on him as it seemed with anxious watchfulness, was a tall, slight young woman, whom it was natural to suppose was his daughter. A flush of health intensified the brunette hue of her cheeks and forehead, and added to the general loveliness of her countenance as it beamed forth under the warm and closely-fitting bonnet which partly concealed her dark brown hair. But the great charm of her countenance at that time was expressed in the loving, trusting, earnest, half-sad and half-hopeful gaze she fixed on her companion.

"This is London, Helen; what do you think of it?" said the invalid, gravely.

"I don't like it, father," the girl returned, with a shudder. "But it is not all like this—ships and water, piers and warehouses—I suppose?"

"No, there are streets and churches, and public buildings—but it all amounts to much the same thing, houses and men here and there and everywhere."

The man said this wearily, as though he had seen too much of civilisation at some former time.

"But we shall not live in London, father?"

"For a time we must, perhaps. But I don't know yet what we shall do. The first thing will be to get ashore as soon as we can; and then, in a day or two, I will write to—to the gentleman I was telling you of; and if he will let us go and see him for a few days till we can find a home, well and good."

"And then you are to get well again, you know, father, and strong, and we will be happy—so happy again."

There was a great crushing and bustling on the main-deck. But I shall not stay to describe it, save only that great numbers of people were now coming on board. They were of all sorts; and among them, stepping on board from the gangway, was a bewildered-looking, well-dressed couple, whose fate seemed to be to get in everybody's way, while their immediate object was to get out of it.

"I never was so pushed about in all my life, John," said the lady. "And do you think we shall find them in this crowd?"

"We will try, Sarah," said the gentleman. "If there were anybody I could ask now, we should be all right, but I don't see—"

"Look, look, John!" cried Sarah in an excited, agitated tone. "Isn't that Walter up there? Him with the beard, I mean, and that beautiful girl! But, oh, how bad he seems!"

John looked as he was directed; and then the Tincrofts, squeezing their way, presently made good their footing on the quarter-deck. In another half minute, or less, Sarah's trembling hand was laid on the bearded man's arm.

"Walter!"

Yes, it was Walter Wilson, of course. And the recognition was mutual. It needed only to turn his eyes upon the half-frightened woman—indeed, it needed only to hear that one word, uttered by her voice, to tell the returned emigrant who it was that stood beside him.

"Sarah, dear Cousin Sarah, I did not think of this. It is very kind of you to come here to welcome me back; but I did not think of it; I couldn't have expected it."

And then, with tears in both pairs of eyes, there was a cousinly embrace.

"It was John that did it, Cousin Walter; he would have me come. He is so good; and I love him; and so will you, Cousin Walter, when you know him."

All this amid tears and sobs and hand-pressings; and then, because it was safer, perhaps, to prevent an entire breakdown by talking without exactly knowing what she said, Sarah went on:

"And you are to come to live with us, Walter, and that's John's doings; and Helen, your dear, beautiful Helen—oh, I shall love her, and—"

There is no need to write down more. The talking was, at that time, almost all done by Sarah, for Walter was struggling with too many conflicting emotions, besides being too weak and ill, to say much. Presently he turned to Tincroft, and led him to the side of the ship, leaning on his arm, while Sarah made friends with the wondering Helen.

"Mr. Tincroft," said Walter, hoarsely and feebly, "you remember when and where we saw one another before, and how we parted?"

"It is so long ago," replied John, cheerily, "that it is never worth while to try to tax the memory. All, or the best, we have to do now, is to get you down to Tincroft House, and try to make you well soon; and then will be time enough to talk about what is past and gone."

"I shall never be well again, Mr. Tincroft," rejoined the other. "It is not for long that I shall—however, I will accept your invitation and go back with you for a little while. But I must remind you of what passed when we parted. 'You will some day be sorry,' you said, Mr. Tincroft. I am sorry. I cruelly misunderstood and misinterpreted you. Forgive me!"

A good deal more passed in this strange meeting than I can write down. It is enough to say that it was late in the day when they were all four, with sundry portions of luggage, driven up to the door of John's boarding-house, where we must leave them to talk over the plans which had been mapped out, and to say as much or as little about the past as it pleased them.

Walter Wilson was deplorably ill. After a day or two in London, taking the rest rendered absolutely necessary by a state of exhaustion into which he sank on reaching the temporary lodgings provided for him—which exhaustion was probably increased by the sudden excitement caused by his meeting with John Tincroft and his cousin; and after another day or two partly spent in conferences with his lawyer—he travelled by short stages to John's home. His daughter and Tincroft were his travelling companions, Sarah having gene on before to make all needful preparations.

Tincroft House was ready to receive the visitors, therefore; and the sick man was at once installed in his state apartments, while the wondering and half-frightened little Australian bird, called Helen, had taken possession of her beautified bower.

All these arrangements were quietly submitted to, rather than actively acquiesced in and assisted, by Wilson, who was in fact, too ill to make difficulties, if he had any to make, and who was glad enough to rest his shattered frame. As to Helen, she was with her father; and if her accommodations had been far less inviting, they would have been good enough, and only too good for her, she said. Nevertheless, she was impressed with their magnificence.

"If you had only seen my poor little room in our old log-house, as I remember it at first," said she to Sarah.

By the way, Sarah's simple-heartedness had already found its way to the girl's feelings.

"She isn't like my mother, not at all," Helen said to herself; "but then, nobody could be, or ever was, like dear mother—" and here her tears began to flow; "but Mrs. Tincroft is so good to me, and does everything she can think of for poor father, that I can't help liking her."

It was quite true that Walter Wilson had received, and was receiving, all the attention from both John and Sarah that could have been shown had he been a very dear brother. His apartments were studiously and carefully kept at an equable temperature; his table was supplied with all such delicacies as would be likely to tempt a sick man's appetite, or to create it. The best medical advice in Trotbury had been invoked on his behalf, and the doctor visited him every day.

Helen was with her father the greater part of the day, reading to him if he could bear it, and silently waiting on him when his nerves were unstrung, and his distressing paroxysms of weakness came on.

The establishment at Tincroft House was enlarged now by the addition of another female domestic; and more frequent calls were made at its gates by that benevolent race who delight to supply, and even to anticipate and forestall, the animal requirements of their fellows. No doubt, the wants were even now moderate enough; but, excepting when Grigson or two, or a small flock of the species, as the case might be, had alighted on the premises for a few days—

"There had never been such goings on at Tincroft House—" as the village grocer said to the village butcher—"any time within the last twenty years."

"And that's ever since the place has been inhabited in the memory of man," responded the purveyor of beef and mutton.

There never had been such good times at Tincroft House, in John's memory, at least, as were now inaugurated. It had come at last. He had striven for it, and patiently waited for it; and it had come. And he never felt more secure in the affection and entire confidence of his Sarah than when he saw her tenderly watching over the sick man, once her lover.

And so time passed on. A long dreary winter was succeeded by the premonitions of spring. Crocuses and snowdrops and hepaticas pushed themselves out of the ground, in the flower garden beneath the young Helen's window; and, with the returning milder weather, the more distressing symptoms of Wilson's disorder somewhat abated. Not that it was believed he would recover, or even, for any length of time, rally. That he was slowly dying, he himself knew, and all around him knew it; but still his strength for a time increased. He had even ventured occasionally, when the midday sun shone out, to walk—well wrapped up—on the dry gravel paths of the flower garden, leaning his feeble frame on John's arm.

On one of these occasions the invalid halted in his slow progress, and turned to his supporter.

"In all the time I have been here, and living at your cost—I and my Helen—we have never spoken a word about money matters," said he, breathing hard.

"Really," replied John, "I don't know what there is to say, Walter." (For John had learned to call his guest by his familiar name.) "All I can say is that you are heartily welcome to the small accommodation we have been able provide for you. I only wish it had been larger."

"That is all very well, and I am sure you mean what you say, Mr. Tincroft; but we ought to be coming to an understanding. I don't want to be living at free cost. I can afford to pay for what we eat and drink, I hope."

"I have no doubt of it, my friend; but we will not discuss that question now," rejoined John; "there will be time enough for that another day. But there is something I have been thinking about. May I mention it?"

"If it is not very unpleasant," said Wilson, with a faint laugh.

"I hope it will not be, I and sure it should not be," said John; and then, after a little while, he went on:

"Do you know, Walter, what has been my greatest drawback—what I most of all regret in my life's history, looking back upon it as I do now?"

Wilson did not know—could not guess, as he looked inquiringly into his host's countenance.

"I never knew my parents," said John, speaking slowly. "My mother died when I was an infant; my father, when I was a mere child. I was thus thrown upon the tender mercies of strangers; and that made me—but I won't speak about that. What I mean is—I have been thinking, Wilson, that you have a father and mother—brothers and sister too, all living in England."

"I suppose I have," said the other, rather haughtily, as it seemed to John, who went on, nevertheless.

"You have never written to them since you came back from Australia, I think?" John continued.

"No, nor for a long time before, if the truth were known."

"I am afraid you are not quite good friends with them?" said John.

"Possibly," said Walter, curtly; "I was not over and above pleased with what they did between us two and another, years ago," he added.

"But that is past and gone. And, after all, though it was a mistake on their part, it may have turned out for the best, you know," said John, in his simplicity, which, after all, was better than some men's cunning. "If such and such events hadn't happened, others would have come to pass which would have brought their share of trouble, I daresay. And, as it was, you have enjoyed much happiness and some prosperity in life, although not in the way you first thought of."

"And am come back to die," said the other, sadly.

"And death is the portal of life—the entrance into it, if we could but see it so," rejoined Tincroft. "But I was speaking of your parents and your old home. Don't you think you ought to let bygones be bygones, and make it up with them?"

"Do you think so, Mr. Tincroft?"

"I do think so," said John. "I am quite sure that it will be one of the happiest days of your life when you can feel that you have forgiven, from your heart, the trespasses which men have trespassed against you."

"Ah! And how do you know that?" demanded Wilson, quickly.

"By having tried it, Walter," said John, meekly.

The conversation, broken and disjointed as it was, and imperfectly as it has been reported, did not terminate here; but it took another turn. But as this bore upon matters which do not immediately concern our history, it may be omitted here. It is enough to say that, a few days afterwards, Wilson renewed the former subject.

"I have been thinking over what you said, and I think I ought not to keep up my bad feelings. I mean to write home and offer to be friends."

"I am glad you do think and mean so," said John, dubiously.

"Of course, I shall expect some acknowledgment," added Wilson.

"I was afraid of that. If I were you, I wouldn't make that a condition."

"Wouldn't you, though, really?"

"No. Only think a little, Walter."

"I have thought. And all I can make of it is that they used me badly—father, mother, Elizabeth, and all. And you came in for your share of it, Mr. Tincroft, and Cousin Sarah, she did too. And it seems to me that it is only right that they should make some sort of acknowledgment, as I said a minute ago."

"I would not insist upon it, Walter," said John, and he repeated, in the same tone as before, the same words, "Only think a little."

"I have very little power of thought left," said Walter, with a heavy sigh. "You must help me. What would you have me think?" he asked.

"Think of what our dear Lord said," replied John, gently and lovingly, "when He taught us to pray, 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.'"

It was in the early twilight of evening when, as the two sat together, these words were spoken, and before either spoke again the twilight had deepened into darkness.