The Great Quest. Charles Boardman Hawes
wandered over the acres on which he was raising crops by sheer strength and determination. It was a poor, stony farm, yet the man had claimed it from the wilderness and, what with fishing and odd jobs, had been making a success of life until one misfortune after another had fairly overwhelmed him.
"It must go," he said at last.
As best I could, I was taking leave of him for the long tramp home, when he suddenly roused himself and cried, "But stay! See! The storm is hard upon us. You must not go back until to-morrow."
Heavy clouds were banking in the west, and already we could hear the rumble of thunder.
It troubled me to accept the hospitality of the Guptils when I had come on such an errand; but the kindly souls would hear of no denial, so I joined Abe in the chores with such good-will, that we had milked, and fed the stock, and closed the barns for the night before the first drops fell.
Meanwhile much had gone forward indoors, and when we returned to the house I was shown to a great bed made up with clean linen fragrant of lavender. Darkness had scarcely fallen, but I was so weary that I undressed and threw myself on the bed and went quietly to sleep while the storm came raging down the coast.
As one so often does in a strange place, I woke uncommonly early. Dawn had no more than touched the eastern horizon, but I got out of bed and, hearing someone stirring, went to the window. A door closed very gently, then a man came round the corner of the house and struck off across the fields. It was Abraham Guptil. What could he be doing abroad at that hour? Going to the door of my room, which led into the kitchen, I softly opened it, then stopped in amazement. Someone was asleep on the kitchen floor. I looked closer and saw that it was a woman with a child; then I turned back and closed the door again.
Rather than send me away, even though I brought a message that meant the loss of their home, those good people had given me the one bed in the house, and themselves, man, woman, and child, had slept on hard boards, with only a blanket under them.
Since I could not leave my room without their knowing that I had discovered their secret, I sat down by the window and watched the dawn come across the sea upon a world that was clean and cool after the shower of the night. For an hour, as the light grew stronger, I watched the slow waves that came rolling in and poured upon the long rocks in cascades of silver; and still the time wore on, and still Abe remained away. Another hour had nearly gone when I saw him coming in the distance along the shore, and heard his wife stirring outside.
Now someone knocked at my door.
I replied with a prompt "Good-morning," and presently went into the kitchen, where the three greeted me warmly. All signs of their sleeping on the kitchen floor had vanished.
"I don't know what I shall do, Joe," said Abraham Guptil when I was taking leave of him an hour later. "This place is all I have."
I made up my mind there and then that neither Abraham Guptil nor his wife and child should suffer want.
"I'll see to that," I replied. "There'll be something for you to do and some place for you to go."
Then, with no idea how I should fulfil my promise, I shook his hand and left him.
When at last I got back to the store, Arnold Lamont was there alone. My uncle had not returned, and Sim Muzzy had gone fishing. It was an uncommonly hot day, and since there were few customers, we sat and talked of one thing and another.
When I saw that Arnold was looking closely at the foils, which stood in a corner, an idea came to me. Cornelius Gleazen had praised my swordsmanship to the skies, and, indeed, I was truly becoming a match for him. Twice I had actually taken a bout from him, with a great swishing and clattering of blades and stamping of feet, and now, although he continued to give me lessons, he no longer would meet me in an assault. As for the other young fellows, I had far and away outstripped them.
"Would you like to try the foils once, Arnold?" I asked. "I'll give you a lesson if you say so."
For a moment I thought there was a twinkle in the depths of his eyes; but when I looked again they were sober and innocent.
"Why, yes," he said.
Something in the way he tested the foils made me a bit uneasy, in spite of my confidence, but I shrugged it off.
"You have learned well by watching," I said, as we came on guard.
"I have tried it before," said he.
"Then," said I, "I will lunge and you shall see if you can parry me."
"Very well."
After a few perfunctory passes, during which I advanced and retreated in a way that I flattered myself was exceptionally clever, and after a quick feint in low line, I disengaged, deceived a counter-parry by doubling, and confidently lunged. To my amazement my foil rested against his blade hardly out of line with his body—so slightly out of line that I honestly believed the attack had miscarried by my own clumsiness. Certainly I never had seen so nice a parry. That I escaped a riposte, I attributed to my deft recovery and the constant pressure of my blade on his; but even then I had an uncomfortable suspicion that behind the veil of his black mask Arnold was smiling, and I was really dazed by the failure of an attack that seemed to me so well planned and executed.
Then, suddenly, easily, lightly, Arnold Lamont's blade wove its way through my guard. His arms, his legs, his body moved with a lithe precision such as I had never dreamed of; my own foil, circling desperately, failed to find his, and his button rested for a moment against my right breast so surely and so competently that, in the face of his skill, I simply dropped my guard and stood in frank wonder and admiration.
Even then I was vaguely aware that I could not fully appreciate it. Though I had thought myself an accomplished swordsman, the man's dexterity, which had revealed me as a clumsy blunderer, was so amazingly superior to anything I had ever seen, that I simply could not realize to the full how remarkable it was.
I whipped off my mask and cried, "You,—you are a fencer."
He smiled. "Are you surprised? A man does not tell all he knows."
As I looked him in the face, I wondered at him. Uncle Seth had come to rely upon him implicitly for far more than you can get from any ordinary clerk. Yet we really knew nothing at all about him. "A man does not tell all he knows"—He had held his tongue without a slip for all those years.
I saw him now in a new light. His face was keen, but more than keen. There was real wisdom in it. The quiet, confident dignity with which he always bore himself seemed suddenly to assume a new, deeper, more mysterious significance. Whatever the man might be, it was certain that he was no mere shopkeeper's clerk.
That afternoon Uncle Seth and Gleazen, the one strangely elated, the other more pompous and grand than ever, returned in the carriage. Of their errand, for the time being they said nothing.
Uncle Seth merely asked about Abe Guptil's note; and, when I answered him, impatiently grunted.
Poor Abe, I thought, and wondered what had come over my uncle.
In the evening, as we were finishing supper, Uncle Seth leaned back with a broad smile. "Joe, my lad," he said, "our fortunes are making. Great days are ahead. I can buy and sell the town of Topham now, but before we are through, Joe, I—or you with the money I shall leave you—can buy and sell the city of Boston—aye, or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There are great days ahead, Joe."
"But what," I asked, with fear at my heart, "but what is this great venture?"
Uncle Seth looked at me with a smile that expressed whatever power of affection was left in his hard old shell of a heart,—a meagre affection, yet, as far as it went, all centred upon me,—and revealed a great conceit of his own wisdom.
"Joe," he said, leaning forward on his elbows till his face, on which the light threw every testy wrinkle into sharp relief, was midway between the two candles at the end of the table, "Joe, I've bought a ship and we're all going to Africa."
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