"Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that. What did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?"
"That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn't pay for it."
"Oh!" said Mary, doubtingly.
"No, Mary. I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful princess; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his fingers: so I thought it would just suit your wrist."
"Oh, TomMr. Thurnallwhat nonsense!"
"Come, come," said his father: "instead of telling us these sort of stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you seem quite to forget that we have not heard from you for more than two years."
"Whew! I wrote," said Tom, "whenever I could. However, you can have all my letters in one now."
So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of himself; while his father marked with pride that the young man had grown and strengthened in body and in mind; and that under that nonchalant, almost cynical outside, the heart still beat honest and kindly. For before Tom began, he would needs draw his chair closer to his father's, and half-whispered to him,
"This is very jolly. I can't be sentimental, you know. Knocking about the world has beat all that out of me: but it is very comfortable, after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy and a good coal fire."
"Which of the two could you best do without?"
"Well, one takes things as one finds them. It don't do to look too deeply into one's feelings. Like chemicals, the more you analyse them, the worse they smell."
So Tom began his story.
"You heard from me at Bombay; after I'd been up to the Himalaya with an old Mumpsimus friend?"
"Yes."
"Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose doctor had fallen ill; and then I must needs see a little of Egypt; and there robbed was I, and nearly murdered, too; but I take a good deal of killing."
"I'll warrant you do," said Mark, looking at him with pride.
"So I begged my way to Cairo; and there I picked up a Yankeea New Yorker, made of money, who had a yacht at Alexandria, and travelled en prince; and nothing would serve him but I must go with him to Constantinople; but there he and I quarrelledmore fools, both of us! I wrote to you from Constantinople."
"We never got the letter."
"I can't help that; I wrote. But there I was on the wide world again. So I took up with a Russian prince, whom I met at a gambling-table in Pera,a mere boy, but such a plucky one,and went with him to Circassia, and up to Astrakhan, and on to the Kirghis steppes; and there I did see snakes."
"Snakes?" says Mary. "I should have thought you had seen plenty in India already."
"Yes, Mary! but these were snakes spiritual and metaphorical. For, poking about where we had no business, Mary, the Tartars caught us, and tied us to their horses' tails, after giving me this scar across the cheek, and taught us to drink mares' milk, and to do a good deal of dirty work beside. So there we stayed with them six months, and observed their manners, which were none, and their customs, which were disgusting, as the midshipman said in his diary; and had the honour of visiting a pleasant little place in No-man's Land, called Khiva, which you may find in your atlas, Mary; and of very nearly being sold for slaves into Persia, which would not have been pleasant; and at last, Mary, we ran awayor rather, rode away, on two razor-backed Calmuc ponies, and got back to Russia, viâ Orenberg,for which consult your atlas again; so the young prince was restored to the bosom of his afflicted family; and a good deal of trouble I had to get him safe there, for the poor boy's health gave way. They wanted me to stay with them, and offered to make my fortune."
"I'm so glad you didn't," said Mary.
"WellI wanted to see little Mary again, and two worthy old gentlemen beside, you see. However, those Russians are generous enough. They filled my pockets, and heaped me with presents; that bracelet among them. What's more, Mary, I've been introduced to old Nick himself, and can testify, from personal experience, to the correctness of Shakspeare's opinion that the prince of darkness is a gentleman."
"And now you are going to stay at home?" asked the Doctor.
"Well, if you'll take me in, daddy, I'll send for my traps from London, and stay a month or so."
"A month!" cried the forlorn father.
"Well, daddy, you see, there is a chance of more fighting in Mexico, and I shall see such practice there; beside meeting old friends who were with me in Texas. Andand I've got a little commission, too, down in Georgia, that I should like to go and do."
"What is that?"
"Well,it's a long story and a sad one: but there was a poor Yankee surgeon with the army in Circassiaa Southerner, and a very good fellow; and he had taken a fancy to some coloured girl at homepoor fellow, he used to go half mad about her sometimes, when he was talking to me, for fear she should have been soldsent to the New Orleans market, or some other devilry; and what could I say to comfort him? Well, he got his mittimus by one of Schamyl's bullets; and when he was dying, he made me promise (I hadn't the heart to refuse) to take all his savings, which he had been hoarding for years for no other purpose, and see if I couldn't buy the girl, and get her away to Canada. I was a fool for promising. It was no concern of mine; but the poor fellow wouldn't die in peace else. So what must be, must."
"Oh, go! go!" said Mary. "You will let him go, Doctor Thurnall, and see the poor girl free? Think how dreadful it must be to be a slave."
"I will, my little Miss Mary; and for more reasons than you think of.
Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave."
"Hum!" said Mark Armsworth. "That's a queer story. Tom, have you got the poor fellow's money? Didn't lose it when you were taken by those Tartars?"
"Not I. I wasn't so green as to carry it with me. It ought to have been in England six months ago. My only fear is, it's not enough."
"Hum!" said Mark. "How much more do you think you'll want?"
"Heaven knows. There is a thousand dollars; but if she be half as beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may want more than double that."
"If you do, pay it, and I'll pay you again. No, by George!" said Mark, "no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a balance at his bankers' he let a poor girl" and, recollecting Mary's presence, he finished his sentence by sundry stamps and thumps on the table.
"You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to free all poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia," said the Doctor.
"Well, what of that? Them I don't know of, and so I ain't responsible for them; but this one I do know of, and sothere, I can't argue; but, Tom, if you want the money, you know where to find it."
"Very good. By the byI forgot it till this momentwho should come down in the coach with me but the lost John Briggs."
"He is come too late, then," said the Doctor. "His poor father died this morning."
"Ah! then Briggs knew that he was ill? That explains the Manfredic mystery and gloom with which he greeted me."
"I cannot tell. He has written from time to time, but he has never given any address; so that no one could write in return."
"He may have known. He looked very downcast. Perhaps that explains his cutting me dead."
"Cut you?" cried Mark. "I dare say he's been doing something he's ashamed of, and don't want to be recognised. That fellow has been after no good all this while, I'll warrant. I always say he's connected with the swell mob, or croupier at a gambling-table, or something of that kind. Don't you think it's likely, now?"
Mark was in the habit of so saying for the purpose of tormenting the Doctor, who held stoutly to his old belief, that John Briggs was a very clever man, and would turn up some day as a distinguished literary character.