The Lady and the Pirate by Emerson Hough (best new books to read txt) 📕

full of blood and wine and love, and savored not so wholly of dull commonplace!

But indeed, (or so I presume; for at the moment my own imagination swept on with theirs) none manned the walls or rattled the chains of gate and bridge. The saffron Hiroshimi opened the screen door before us, showing no surprise or interest in my strange companions. Thus we made easy conquest of our castle. As we entered, there lay before us, lighted softly by the subdued twilight which filtered through the surrounding grove, the interior of that home which in three years I had learned much to love, lonely as it was. Here I now dwelt most of the time, leaving behind me, as though shut off by a closed door, the busy scenes of an active and successful life. (I presume I may fairly speak thus of myself, since there is no one else to speak.)

My pirate companions, suddenly grown shy, stood silent for a moment, for the time rather at a loss to carry on the play which had been easier in the open. I heard Jimmy draw a long breath. He was first to remove his hat. But his companion was quicker to regain his poise, although for a moment he forgot his pirate speech. “Gee!” said he. “Ain’t this great!”

I doubt if any praise I ever heard in my life pleased me more than this frank comment; no, not even the kind word and hand-clasp of old Judge Henderson, what time I won my first cause at law. For this that lay about me was what I had chosen for my life to-day. I had preferred this to the career into which my father’s restless ambition had plunged me almost as soon as I had emerged from my college and my law-school—a career which my own restless ambition had found sufficient until that final break with Helena Emory, which occurred soon after the time when my father died; when the news went out that I, his heir, was left with but a shrunken fortune, and with many debts to pay; news which I, myself, had promulgated for reasons of my own. After that, called foolish by all my friends, lamented by members of my family, forgotten, as I fancy, by most who knew me, I had retired to this lodge in the wilderness. Here, grown suddenly resentful of a life hitherto wasted in money-getting alone, I had resolved to spend the remainder of my days, as beseemed a student and a philosopher. Having read Weininger and other philosophers, I was convinced that woman was the lowest and most unworthy thing in the scale of created things, a thing quite beneath the attention of a thinking man.

I have said that I was scarce beyond thirty years of age. Even so, I found myself already old; and like any true philosopher, I resolved to make myself young. As hitherto I had had no boyhood, I determined to achieve a boyhood for myself. Studying myself, I discovered that I had rarely smiled; so I resolved to find somewhat to make me smile. The great realm of knowledge, widest and sweetest of all empires for a man, lay before me alluringly when I entered upon my business career; and so interested was I in my business and my books that only by chance had I met the woman who drove me out of both. A boy I had never been; nay, nor even a youth. I had always been old. True, like others of my station, I had owned my auto cars, my matched teams—owned them now, indeed—but I had never owned a dog. So, when I came hither with ample leisure, perhaps my chief ambition was a deliberate purpose to encompass my deferred boyhood. Thus I had built this house of logs which now—with a surprised and gratifying throb of my heart I learned it—appealed to the souls of real boys. It was the castle where I dreamed; and now it was the palace of their dreams also. I felt, at least, that I had succeeded. My heart throbbed in a new way, very foolish, yet for some reason suddenly enjoyable.

My house was all of logs and had no decorations of paint or tapestry within. Its only arras was of the skins of wild beasts—of the African lion and leopard, the zebra, many antelopes. The walls were hung with mounted heads—those of the moose, the elk, the bighorn, most of the main trophies of my own land and to these, through my foreign hunting, I had added heads of all the great trophies of Africa and Asia as well. A splendid pair of elephant tusks stood in a corner. A fine head of the sheep of Tibet, ovus poli—and I prize none of my trophies more, unless it be the fine robe of the Chinese mountain tiger—looked full front at us from above the fireplace. My rod racks, and those which supported my guns and rifles, were here and there about the room. The whole gave a jaunty atmosphere to my home. I had gone soberly about the business of sport; and in these days, that can be practised most successfully by a man with much leisure and unstinted means.

My books lay about everywhere, also, books which perhaps would not have appealed to all. My copies of the Vedas, many works on the Buddhist faith, and translations from Confucius, lay side by side with that Bible which we Christians have almost forgot. Here, too, stood my desk with its cases of preserved mosquitoes—for this year I was studying mosquitoes as an amusement. I had collected all the mosquito literature of the world, and my books, in French, German and English, lay near my great microscope. I had passed many happy hours here in the oblivion of mental concentration, always a delight with me, now grown almost a necessity if I were to escape the worst of all habits, that of introspection and self-pity.

My piano and my violins also were in full sight; for the world of music, as well as the world of sport and youth, I was deliberately opening for myself, also in exchange for that closed world of affairs which I had abandoned. Indeed, all manners of the impedimenta of a well-to-do Japanese-cared-for bachelor were in evidence. To me, each object was familiar and was cherished. I had never felt need to apologize to any gentleman for my quarters or their contents—or to any woman, for no woman had ever seen my home. I may admit that, contrary to the belief of some, I was a rich man, far richer that I had need or care to be; and since it was not due to my own ability altogether nor in response to any real ambition of my own, I know I will be pardoned for simply stating the truth. My one great ambition in life was to forget; but if that might be best obtained in sport, in study, or amid the gentle evidences of good living, so much the better. Many men had called my father, stern and masterful man that he was, a robber, a thief, a pirate—in great part, I suspect, in envy that they themselves had not attained a like stature in similar achievement. But no one had ever called his son a pirate—until now! It made me oddly happy.

I ought to have been happy here all these years, able to do precisely what I liked; but sometimes I felt myself strangely alone in the world. I was always silent and apparently cold—though really, let me whisper—only shy. Sometimes, even here, I found myself a trifle sad. It is difficult to be a boy when one starts at thirty; especially difficult if one has always been rather old and staid.

I tell all these things to explain that keen pleasure, that swift exultation, that rush of the blood to my cheeks, which I felt when I saw that my house and my way of life met the approval of real boys. Pirates, too!

Swift, therefore, fell once more the magic curtain of romance. I heard a strange voice, my own voice, saying: “Enter then, my bold mates, and let us explore this castle which we have conquered.” Yes, illusion floated in through the windows on the pale light of the evening. This was a castle we had taken; and the detail that I chanced to own it was neither here nor there.

“Prisoner,” began L’Olonnois sternly—he was usually spokesman, if not always leader—“Prisoner, your life is spared for the time. Lead on! Attempt to play us false, and your blood shall be spilled upon the deck!”

“It shall be so,” I answered. “And if I do not give you the best meal you have had to-day, then indeed let my life’s blood stain the deck.”

So saying, I nodded to Hiroshimi to serve the dinner.

CHAPTER IV IN WHICH I AM A PIRATE

WITH my own hands I have trained that prize, Hiroshimi, to cook and to serve; but only Providence could give Hiroshimi his super-humanly disinterested calm. He fitted perfectly into the picture of our dream. ’Twas no ordinary log house in which we sat, indeed no house at all. Beneath us rose and fell a stanch vessel, responsive to the long lift of the southern seas. It was not a rustle of the leaves we heard through the open windows, but the low ripple of waves along our strakes came to our ears through the open ports. Hiroshimi did not depart to the kitchen; but high aloft our lookout swept the sea for sail that might offer us a prize.

If any say that this manner of illusion may not exist between two boys and a man, I answer that we did not thus classify it. By the new pleasure in my soul, by the new blood in my cheek, I swear we were three boys together, and all in quest of adventure.

True, at times our speech smacked less of nautical and piratical phrase, at times, indeed, halted. It is difficult for a twelve-year-old pirate, exceeding hungry, to ask for a third helping of grilled chicken in a voice at once stern and ingratiating. Moreover, it is difficult for a discreet and law-abiding citizen, with a full sense of duty, deliberately to aid and abet two youthful runaways. But whenever illusion wavered, L’Olonnois saved the day by resuming his stern scowl, even above a chicken-bone. His facility in rolling speech I discovered to be, in part, attributable to a volume which I saw protruding from his pocket. At my request he passed it to me, and I saw its title; The Pirate’s Own Book. I knew it well. Indeed, I now arose, and passing to my bookshelves, drew down a duplicate copy of that rare volume, recounting the deeds of the old buccaneers. The eyes of L’Olonnois widened as I laid the two side by side.

“You’ve got it, too!” he exclaimed.

I nodded.

“That explains it,” said Jean Lafitte.

“Explains what?”

“Why, how you—why now—how you could be a pirate, too, just as natural as us.”

“I have read it many a time,” said I.

“Wasn’t you never a pirate?” asked Jean Lafitte.

“No,” said I, smiling, “although many have said my father was. He was very rich.”

“Well, you can talk just like us,” said Jean Lafitte admiringly, “even if you have lost all.”

“Of course,” said I exultingly. “Why not? I think as you do. As much as you I am disgusted with the dulness of life. I, too, wish to seek my fortune. Well then, why not, John Saunders? Why not, James Henderson?”

Ah, now indeed illusion halted! Both boys, abashed, fell back in their chairs. “How did you know our names?” asked