Left to Themselves: Being the Ordeal of Philip and Gerald. Edward Prime-Stevenson
started almost to his feet.
“Why, who was his father?” asked another indolent voice. “What did he do?”
Gerald was a boy of delicate honor. He was about to hurry away, eager as he was to sympathize with his attractive “guardian’s” trouble. He scorned to play the eavesdropper, and he equally scorned to be told this secret until Philip would utter it. But before he could step to the soft turf, and so slip out of ear-shot, Philip Touchtone himself came up beside him. Philip had stepped with unintentional lightness to the bench where he had left his little protégé and caught the last clearly spoken sentences.
Gerald would have drawn him away, too; but Philip took the hand of the younger boy and made a sign to him to remain and hear what General Sawtelle would reply. He put his finger upon his lips.
“Why,” responded the general, from within this arbor, “his father was Touchtone—Reginald Touchtone—who was so badly involved in the famous robbery of the Suburban Trust Company, years ago, in X——, just outside of New York.”
“O,” returned the other speaker, “I remember. Touchtone was the cashier.”
“Yes; the man that turned out to be a friend of the gang that did the business,” another speaker chimed in.
“Certainly. They were sure that the scamp opened the safe for them. They made out a clear case against him. He went to the penitentiary with the rest of ’em.”
Gerald was trembling, and held Philip’s cold hand as the two lads stood there to hear words so humiliating to one of them. But Philip whispered, “Don’t go!” and still restrained him.
“Yes, it was as plain as daylight. The fellow opened the safe for the rogues! At first the indictment against him was rather shaky. He was tried, and got off with a light sentence; only a year or so, I believe.”
“Convicted, all of ’em, on State’s evidence, weren’t they?”
“Yes, this Touchtone included. One of the crowd decided to speak what he knew. I presume Touchtone had had his share of what they all got. But it didn’t do the man much good.”
“Why, what became of him?” asked another voice.
“O, he and his wife rented a little cottage up here. They left their house near New York, or in it, and came here till Touchtone died. He had consumption. Marcy was an old friend of the lad’s mother, and helped them along, I understand, till this boy, Philip, was left alone by her dying, too. She was a fine woman, I’ve been told. Stuck to her husband and to his innocence, till the last. After that, Marcy took Phil with him. I think he expects to adopt him.”
“Well, he’s a nice boy, anyway,” came the other voice, “and Marcy’s proud of him, I can see. I guess he’ll turn out a credit in spite of his father. What time is it? My watch has stopped.”
“Come,” said Philip, softly. He walked away with Gerald. Neither spoke.
At length Gerald said, gently, “Is that all, Philip? You made me listen!”
“All?” replied young Touchtone, bitterly. “Isn’t it enough? Yes, I made you listen! I wanted you to know the story before you saw any more of me. There’s another side to it, but that isn’t the one you will find people trouble themselves over. I wanted you to hear what you did. But I couldn’t tell you myself. I am the son of—of—my father. I don’t care for mere outsiders, who know it already and think none the worse of me for it. But other people, if I care any thing about them, why, they must know with whom they are taking up.”
It cost him a struggle to say this. Gerald was younger than he. But the manly, solitary little guest of the Ossokosee had gained in these two days a curious hold over him. Philip had never had a brother. If he had ever thought of one, the ideal conjured up would have been filled by Gerald. He felt it now as he stopped and faced the latter in the moonlight.
But Gerald looked straight up into Philip’s face. He smiled and said, “Philip, I believe your father didn’t do that.”
Touchtone put out his hand with a quick gesture of intense surprise.
“Gerald!” he cried as their two palms met in a clasp that hurt the smaller one, “what in the world made you say that?” There was something solemn, as well as eager, in his tone.
“O, nothing particular,” the heir of the Saxton impulsiveness answered, simply; “but I don’t believe it, that’s all! I don’t!”
“He don’t believe it either,” Gerald heard Philip say, as if to himself, “and I don’t. What a little trump you are, Gerald Saxton!” They walked a little further in silence; then Philip again spoke, in a tone from which all the sudden joy and cheerfulness were gone: “Well, Gerald, you and I may be able to prove it together some day to the people. But I don’t know—I don’t know!”
Certainly they were to accomplish many strange things together, whether that was to be one of them or not.
CHAPTER III.
ALL ABOUT A ROW.
The guests of the Ossokosee had the pleasure of seeing a bright, still day for the regatta. By nine o’clock the shady road leading to the lake began to echo with carriages. In the little wind that stirred flags swayed down in the village and from the staffs on the Ossokosee and the little boat-house. As for the pretentious Victors’ head-quarters, they were flaunting with streamers and bunting to an extent that must have severely taxed the treasury.
“I don’t see where so many more people than usual have come from!” exclaimed Mr. Marcy to Gerald and Mrs. and Miss Davidson as they drove along toward the starting-point. And, in truth, for a race between two crews of lads, and of such local interest, the crowd was flattering. Country wagons lined the bank, in which sat the farmers of the district, with their wives and daughters gorgeously arrayed in pink and blue and white calico gowns; and bunches of roses and dahlias were every-where about them.
“There are Mr. Wooden and Mrs. Wooden, with Miss Beauchamp,” exclaimed Gerald, nodding his head vigorously to the group.
Fashionable carriages were not few, filled with ladies in gay colors, who chatted with knickerbockered young men, or asked all sorts of questions of their husbands and brothers and cousins about the two crews.
“Those must be regular parties from the other hotels about here,” said Miss Davidson, “made up expressly to drive over here this morning. Well, well!”
“Yes,” Mr. Marcy assented, “I never expected to see such a general turning out at one of the Ossokosee regattas. Do notice, too, how the shores over there are covered with people, walking and sitting! Bless my heart! I hope that Phil and his friends are—h’m—not going to be so badly beaten, when there are so many hundreds of eyes to see it! Never was such a fuss made over our race before, especially a race so late in the season.”
Mr. Marcy jumped out. They were near the Ossokosee boat-house. After he had seen how the oarsmen who bore the name and credit of his hotel were feeling over their coming struggle he was to get into a good-sized barge with several other gentlemen, one of them being the starter and umpire.
Gerald was looking at him with the full power of his blue eyes as Mr. Marcy stood directing the driver where to station the carriage for Mrs. Davidson and her daughter. The boy’s glance was so eloquent that the proprietor of the Ossokosee House exclaimed:
“Why, Gerald, what was I thinking of? You come along with me if you choose to. That boat is apt to be crowded, but you’re a little fellow and wont add much to the party. I guess I can have you squeezed in.”
So the delighted boy followed his elderly friend through the grass toward the boat-house and the judge’s barge.
“Shall