Philosopher Jack by Robert Michael Ballantyne (thriller books to read .TXT) 📕

had moderated a little.

"Nobody ill or--dead?" asked Jack, with a look of anxiety.

"No, nobody."

"Then I'm prepared for any other kind of bad news," said our philosopher with a quiet smile.

"The Blankow Bank," said his father, laying a hand impressively on his shoulder, "has failed, and every penny of your gold is gone!"

The family had become very grave. Jack looked from one to the other with a bewildered air.

"You are jesting, father."

"No, my boy; I would that it were not true. The distress that is abroad in the land because of this calamity is very great. Not only is all your fortune gone, Ted, but anything that you may have brought home with you will be taken to pay the creditors of the bank; and they require so much money that it would ruin you, though you had thousands upon thousands of pounds."

A strange smile flitted across the youth's face as he replied--

"What I brought home with me won't benefit them much, for it lies with the wreck of the _Rainbow_ at the bottom of the sea."

This was indeed a surprise to the old couple, who now learned, for the first time, that the wrecked ship, about which a rumour had just reached them, was that in which their son had come home.

"But, father," continued Jack, with a look of deepening anxiety, "if this be as you say, then my comrades must also be ruined, for their gold was all invested by Mr Wilkins in the same bank."

"All ruined," replied the old man in a sad tone. "Mr Wilkins himself is bankrupt--the first call brought him and many others down."

"And yourself father; I hope you had no shares in it."

"None, my boy, thank God. Prosperity has attended me ever since I got the first money you sent home. _That_ saved me, Teddie."

A gleam of joy overspread Philosopher Jack's countenance as he started to his feet.

"Then am I well and undeservedly rewarded, daddy," he exclaimed; "but all this news is pretty tough. I must go out to tackle it. I'll be back in a few minutes."

He sprang through the cottage door and sped away over the moor like a greyhound. Reaching the top of a rising ground--from which he could see a boundless stretch of border-land, with the sea in the far distance and the sun setting in a flood of golden light--he drew himself up, and pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands, stood gazing wistfully into the radiant glory.

"So like a dream--so like a dream!" he murmured. "It was God who gave; surely it is He who has taken away. Can there be anything but good in all this?"

His hands dropped to his side as he spoke, and he sauntered slowly down the slope on which he stood. Entering a small plantation of fir-trees at the foot of it, he disappeared.

When he returned to the cottage all trace of strong feeling was gone. "We won't talk of the bank to-night," he said, "let's be jolly," and jolly he was accordingly. Not only so, but he made Dobbin jolly too, by supplying him with such a number of treacle-pieces that the child could hardly gasp his refusal of the last slice offered, and was made sticky from the ends of his filthy fingers to the crown of his curly head.

It is not necessary, nor would it be pleasant to describe minutely the effect of the "bad news" on the other members of our gold-digging party. Captain Samson and Watty Wilkins took it well, but Polly and Simon O'Rook could not easily reconcile themselves to their fate. The former, it is true, sorrowed not for herself, but for her father. O'Rook, however, was more selfish, and came down very heavily on what he called his "luck."

"Sure it's a misfortunate pig I've been iver since I left Owld Ireland," he remarked to his pipe one day after dinner, being alone with that implement at the time; "an no sooner does the first stroke of good luck befall me, an me fortune's made intirely, than whoop! down goes the whole consarn to the bottom of the say. It's well, hows'ever, that ye didn't go down yerself along with it, Simon. Ye've raison to be thankful for that, anyhow."

If O'Rook's pipe did not offer him a comforting reply it appeared to console him with its fumes, for after a pause, during which the smoke played voluminously about his nose, he wrinkled his visage into a smile of good humour.

"Now, Simon," he said, rising and putting the black little implement in his pocket, "you're in a fit state to go an' comfort the widdy."

Saying which he went out of the cheap refreshment room in which he had dined, and betook himself to the principal street of the city, whose name we have already declined to mention.

To explain his remark, we may state here that after the most diligent inquiry without success, the Irishman had, by the merest chance, discovered the widow of David Ban--in this very city, to which he had accompanied Philosopher Jack and Captain Samson, after clearly ascertaining that every vestige of the wreck of the _Rainbow_ had disappeared, and that all his gold was irrevocably gone. Walking along the principal street one day, he had been attracted by a temperance eating-house named the "Holly Tree." Entering it for the purpose of, as he said, "revictualling the ship," he was rooted to the spot by hearing a customer call out, "Another cup of coffee, please, Mrs Bancroft," while at the same moment an assistant at the counter addressed the comely woman, who replied, "Yes, sir," by the name of "Lucy." Could proof be more conclusive? Upon inquiry "Lucy" turned out in very truth to be the widow of David Bancroft, and the lock of hair corresponded. Of course O'Rook revealed to her the sad circumstances connected with her husband's end. To say that Mrs Bancroft was overwhelmed with grief would not be true. She had long mourned him as dead, and although the information, corroborated as it afterwards was by Edwin Jack and Captain Samson, did re-open the old wound to some extent, she nevertheless bore it heroically, and took Simon O'Rook's comforting observations in good part. But we must not anticipate. Let us return to Watty Wilkins.

Having broken the news of Ben Trench's death to the Bailie and his family--and a terrible duty he found it to be,--Watty went straight to his father's house. We drop the curtain on the meeting. The joy of the elder Wilkins can only be fully understood by those who can say of an only son, "He was lost and is found."

"Now, Watty, dear boy," said Mr Wilkins when they came to talk of ordinary matters, "God has mingled mercy with my sorrows. My business has indeed been ruined, and I have passed through the bankruptcy court; but I am by no means so unfortunate as hundreds of people who have been reduced to absolute poverty by this crash. You remember my brother James--Uncle Jimmy? well, he has got a flourishing business in the West Indies. For some years past he had been meditating the establishment of an agency in connection with it in this city. The moment he heard of my failure he offered to make me his agent here, with a good salary. Of course I was only too glad and thankful to accept the offer, and after my affairs were wound up, entered upon the office. So now, you see, here I am, through God's goodness, still inhabiting the old house, which I now rent from the person who purchased it. Of course I can no longer keep a carriage, and it will cost me some calculation and economy to make the two ends meet, but these are small matters."

"Oh, father, I'm so glad and thankful!" said Watty with sparkling eyes.

"But," continued Mr Wilkins, with a look of profound gravity, "at present I happen to be troubled with a great difficulty."

"What's that?" asked his little son, with a ready sympathy that was natural to him, and which his recent experiences had rendered much more powerful.

"I find the nature of my duties too much for me," replied Mr Wilkins with a peculiar smile, "and it is almost impossible that I can get along without a clever, honest, intelligent clerk, or, shall we say, secretary--a character that is not easily found in these degenerate days. Can you recommend one, Watty?"

"O yes," cried the youth, springing up and seizing his father's hand in both of his; "you mean _me_! Don't you, now? You _can't_ get on without me."

Watty felt inclined to dance a hornpipe, but he sat down instead, and, covering his face with his hands, burst into tears of joy. Being a tender-hearted man, Mr Wilkins could not help joining him, but in a moderate degree. We will leave them thus engaged, merely remarking that if the act was a weakness, it nevertheless seemed to do them a world of good.

After a considerable time had elapsed, Philosopher Jack left the Border cottage one day, went up to town, and presented himself at his old lodgings to Mrs Niven. That lady's feelings, under the influence of surprise, had a tendency, as we have shown, to lay her flat on the floor. But the faithful Peggy had come to understand her tendencies, and was usually too much for her. When her old lodger made his appearance in her parlour, Mrs Niven exhibited symptoms which caused Peggy to glide swiftly forward and receive her in her arms, whence she was transferred to an easy-chair.

Recovering, she gave Jack what, in the circumstances, was a hearty welcome.

"Losh me, laddie, ye'll be the death o' me!"

"I hope not, Mrs Niven," said Jack, laughing, as he shook her hand heartily and sat down, "for my own sake as well as yours; because I have come to take my old room if it is vacant."

"Yer auld room, Maister Jack!" exclaimed the bewildered woman.

"Yes, if it is not already occupied."

"The yin wi' the reeky lum and the view o' chimbley-pots frae the wundy?"

"The same. I hope I can have it, for I'm going to college again, and I've an affection for the old place, despite the smoky chimney and the cans on the cats' parade."

"Yer jokin', Maister Jack."

"Indeed I am not, Mrs Niven."

"They telt me ye was in Callyforny, an had made 'eer fortin there by howkin' gold."

"Well, they told the truth, my good woman, but I happened to invest all in Blankow Bank shares, and--"

"Wow! wow!" exclaimed Mrs Niven, whimpering, for she understood full well the meaning of that, "an' 'ee've been ruined! Oh dear! Weel, weel, ay, ay, an it's come to that. Jist like my kind freen' Maister Black. Losh me! man," she added in a sudden burst of indignation, "what for disna the Government order a penny subscription ower the hail kingdom to git the puir guiltless shareholders oot o' their diffeeculties?"

Philosopher Jack declined to enter upon so subtle a question, but after finding that his old room was vacant, retook it, and then went out to the region of the docks to pay a visit