Under the Waves - Robert Michael Ballantyne (red queen ebook .TXT) 📗

wit and strong will, he did not neglect it. Turning suddenly to the fair girl, he said, in a voice low and measured--

"Aileen, your father commanded me to have no further intercourse with you, and he made me aware that he had laid a similar injunction on yourself. I know full well your true-hearted loyalty to him, and do not intend to induce you to disobey. I ask you to make no reply to what I say that is not consistent with your promise to your father. For myself, common courtesy tells me that I may not leave your presence for a distant land without saying at least good-bye. Nay, more, I feel that I break no command in making to you a simple deliberate statement."

Edgar paused for a moment, for, in spite of the powerful restraint put on himself, and the intended sedateness of his words, his feelings were almost too strong for him.

"Aileen," he resumed, "I may never see you again. Your father intends that I shall not. Your looks seem to say that you fear as much. Now, my heart tells me that I _shall_; but, whatever betide, or wherever I go, let me assure you that I will continue to love you with unalterable fidelity. More than this I shall not say, less I could not. You said that these New Testaments"--pointing to a pile of four or five which lay on the table--"are meant to be given to poor men. _I_ am a poor man: will you give me one?"

"Willingly," said Aileen, taking one from the pile.

She handed it to her lover without a single word, but with a tender anxious look that went straight to his heart, and took up its lodging there--to abide for ever!

The youth grasped the book and the hand at once, and, stooping, pressed the latter fervently to his lips.

At that moment Miss Pritty was heard tripping along the passage.

Edgar sprang to intercept her, and closed the door of the boudoir behind him.

"Why, Edgar, you seem in haste!"

"I am, dear aunt; circumstances require that I should be. Come down-stairs with me. I have stayed too long already. I am going abroad, and may not spend more time with you this evening."

"Going abroad!" exclaimed Miss Pritty, in breathless surprise, "where?"

"I don't know. To China, Japan, New Zealand, the North Pole--anywhere. In fact, I've not quite fixed. Good-bye, dear aunt. Sorry to have seen so little of you. Good-bye."

He stooped, printed a gentle kiss between Miss Pritty's wondering eyes, and vanished.

"A most remarkable boy," said the disconcerted lady, resuming her seat at the tea-table--"so impulsive and volatile. But he's a dear good boy nevertheless--was so kind to his mother while she was alive, and ran away from school when quite young--and no wonder, for it was a dreadful school, where they used to torture the boys,--absolutely tortured them. The head-master and ushers were tried for it afterwards, I'm told. At all events; Eddy ran away from it after pulling the master's nose and kicking the head usher--so it is said, though I cannot believe it, he is usually so gentle and courteous.--_Do_ have a little more tea. No? A piece of bun? No? Why, you seem quite flushed, my love. Not unwell, I trust? No? Well, then, let us proceed to business."


CHAPTER FOUR.


DIVERS MATTERS.

Charles Hazlit, Esquire, was a merchant and a shipowner, a landed proprietor, a manager of banks, a member of numerous boards and committees, a guardian of the poor, a volunteer colonel, and a good-humoured man on the whole, but purse-proud and pompous. He was also the father of Aileen.

Behold him seated in an elegant drawing-room, in a splendid mansion at the "west end" (strange that all aristocratic ends would appear to be west ends!) of the seaport town which owned him. His blooming daughter sat beside him at a table, on which lay a small, peculiar, box. He doated on his daughter, and with good reason. Their attention was so exclusively taken up with the peculiar box that they had failed to observe the entrance, unannounced, of a man of rough exterior, who stood at the door, hat in hand, bowing and coughing attractively, but without success.

"My darling," said Mr Hazlit, stooping to kiss his child--his only child--who raised her pretty little three-cornered mouth to receive it, "this being your twenty-first birthday, I have at last brought myself to look once again on your sainted mother's jewel-case, in order that I may present it to you. I have not opened it since the day she died. It is now yours, my child."

Aileen opened her eyes in mute amazement. It would seem as though there had been some secret sympathy between her and the man at the door, for he did precisely the same thing. He also crushed his hat somewhat convulsively with both hands, but without doing it any damage, as it was a very hard sailor-like hat. He also did something to his lips with his tongue, which looked a little like licking them.

"Oh papa!" exclaimed Aileen, seizing his hand, "how kind; how--"

"Nay, love, no thanks are due to me. It is your mother's gift. On her deathbed she made me promise to give it you when you came of age, and to train you, up to that age, as far as possible, with a disregard for dress and show. I think your dear mother was wrong," continued Mr Hazlit, with a mournful smile, "but, whether right or wrong, you can bear me witness that I have sought to fulfil the second part of her dying request, and I now accomplish the first."

He proceeded to unlock, the fastenings of the little box, which was made of some dark metal resembling iron, and was deeply as well as richly embossed on the lid and sides with quaint figures and devices.

Mr Hazlit had acquired a grand, free-handed way of manipulating treasure. Instead of lifting the magnificent jewels carefully from the casket, he tumbled them out like a gorgeous cataract of light and colour, by the simple process of turning the box upside down.

"Oh papa, take care!" exclaimed Aileen, spreading her little hands in front of the cataract to stem its progress to the floor, while her two eyes opened in surprise, and shone with a lustre that might have made the insensate gems envious. "How exquisite! How inexpressibly beautiful!--oh my dear, darling mother--!"

She stopped abruptly, and tears fluttered from her eyes. In a few seconds she continued, pushing the gems away, almost passionately--

"But I cannot wear them, papa. They are worthless to me."

She was right. She had no need of such gems. Was not her hair golden and her skin alabaster? Were not her lips coral and her teeth pearls? And were not diamonds of the purest water dropping at that moment from her down-cast eyes?

"True, my child, and the sentiment does your heart credit; they are worthless, utterly worthless--mere paste"--at this point the face of the man at the door visibly changed for the worse--"mere paste, as regards their power to bring back to us the dear one who wore them. Nevertheless, in a commercial point of view"--here the ears of the man at the door cocked--"they are worth some eight or nine thousand pounds sterling, so they may as well be taken care of."

The tongue and lips of the man at the door again became active. He attempted--unsuccessfully, as before--to crush his hat, and inadvertently coughed.

Mr Hazlit's usually pale countenance flushed, and he started up.

"Hallo! My man, how came _you_ here?"

The man looked at the door and hesitated in his attempt to reply to so useless a question.

"How comes it that you enter my house and drawing-room without being announced?" asked Mr Hazlit, drawing himself up.

"'Cause I wanted to see you, an' I found the door open, an' there warn't nobody down stair to announce me," answered the man in a rather surly tone.

"Oh, indeed?--ah," said Mr Hazlit, drawing out a large silk handkerchief with a flourish, blowing his nose therewith, and casting it carelessly on the table so as to cover the jewel-box. "Well, as you are now ere, pray what have you got to say to me?"

"Your ship the _Seagull_ has bin' wrecked, sir, on Toosday night on the coast of Wales."

"I received that unpleasant piece of news on Wednesday morning. What has _that_ to do with your visit?"

"Only that I thought you might want divers for to go to the wreck, an' _I'm_ a diver--that's all."

The man at the door said this in a very surly tone, for the slight tendency to politeness which had begun to manifest itself while the prospect of "a job" was hopeful, vanished before the haughty manner of the merchant.

"Well, it is just possible that I may require the assistance of divers," said Mr Hazlit, ringing the bell; "when I do, I can send for you.-- John, show this person out."

The hall-footman, who had been listening attentively at the key-hole, and allowed a second or two to elapse before opening the door, bowed with a guilty flush on his face and held the door wide open.

David Maxwell--for it was he--passed out with an angry scowl, and as he strode with noisy tread across the hall, said something uncommonly pithy to the footman about "upstarts" and "puppies," and "people who thought they was made o' different dirt from others," accompanied with many other words and expressions which we may not repeat.

To all of this John replied with bland smiles and polite bows, hoping that the effects of the interview might not render him feverish, and reminding him that if it did he was in a better position than most men for cooling himself at the bottom of the sea.

"Farewell," said John earnestly; "and if you should take a fancy to honour us any day with your company to dinner, _do_ send a line to say you're coming."

John did not indulge in this pleasantry until the exasperated diver was just outside of the house, and it was well that he was so prudent, for Maxwell turned round like a tiger and struck with tremendous force at his face. His hard knuckles met the panel of the door, in which they left an indelible print, and at the same time sent a sound like a distant cannon shot into the library.

"I'm afraid I have been a little too sharp with him," said Mr Hazlit, assisting his daughter to replace the jewels.

Aileen agreed with him, but as nothing could induce her to condemn her father with her lips she made no reply.

"But," continued the old gentleman, "the rascal had no right to enter my house without ringing. He might have been a thief, you know. He looked rough and coarse enough to be one."

"Oh papa," said Aileen entreatingly, "don't be too hasty in judging those who are sometimes called rough and coarse. I do assure you I've met many men in my district who are big and rough and coarse to look at, but who have the feelings and hearts of tender women."

"I know