CHAPTER V {1}--THE RESTITUTION
Captain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village of
Lanrean under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning to
the King Arthur's Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his trouble,
when he beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet him,
accompanied by a stranger. A glance at this stranger assured the
captain that he could be no other than the Seafaring Man; and the
captain was about to hail him as a fellow-craftsman, when the two
stood still and silent before the captain, and the captain stood
still, silent, and wondering before them.
"Why, what's this?" cried the captain, when at last he broke the
silence. "You two are alike. You two are much alike. What's
this?"
Not a word was answered on the other side, until after the sea-
faring brother had got hold of the captain's right hand, and the
fisherman brother had got hold of the captain's left hand; and if
ever the captain had had his fill of hand-shaking, from his birth to
that hour, he had it then. And presently up and spoke the two
brothers, one at a time, two at a time, two dozen at a time for the
bewilderment into which they plunged the captain, until he gradually
had Hugh Raybrock's deliverance made clear to him, and also
unravelled the fact that the person referred to in the half-
obliterated paper was Tregarthen himself.
"Formerly, dear Captain Jorgan," said Alfred, "of Lanrean, you
recollect? Kitty and her father came to live at Steepways after
Hugh shipped on his last voyage."
"Ay, ay!" cried the captain, fetching a breath. "Now you have me in
tow. Then your brother here don't know his sister-in-law that is to
be so much as by name?"
"Never saw her; never heard of her!"
"Ay, ay, ay!" cried the captain. "Why then we every one go back
together--paper, writer, and all--and take Tregarthen into the
secret we kept from him?"
"Surely," said Alfred, "we can't help it now. We must go through
with our duty."
"Not a doubt," returned the captain. "Give me an arm apiece, and
let us set this ship-shape."
So walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, while
the neglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the brothers
settled their course of action.
It was that they should all proceed by the quickest means they could
secure to Barnstaple, and there look over the father's books and
papers in the lawyer's keeping; as Hugh had proposed to himself to
do if ever he reached home. That, enlightened or unenlightened,
they should then return to Steepways and go straight to Mr.
Tregarthen, and tell him all they knew, and see what came of it, and
act accordingly. Lastly, that when they got there they should enter
the village with all precautions against Hugh's being recognised by
any chance; and that to the captain should be consigned the task of
preparing his wife and mother for his restoration to this life.
"For you see," quoth Captain Jorgan, touching the last head, "it
requires caution any way, great joys being as dangerous as great
griefs, if not more dangerous, as being more uncommon (and therefore
less provided against) in this round world of ours. And besides, I
should like to free my name with the ladies, and take you home again
at your brightest and luckiest; so don't let's throw away a chance
of success."
The captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind interest
and foresight.
"And now stop!" said the captain, coming to a standstill, and
looking from one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of
wrinkles about each eye; "you are of opinion," to the elder, "that
you are ra'ather slow?"
"I assure you I am very slow," said the honest Hugh.
"Wa'al," replied the captain, "I assure you that to the best of my
belief I am ra'ather smart. Now a slow man ain't good at quick
business, is he?"
That was clear to both.
"You," said the captain, turning to the younger brother, "are a
little in love; ain't you?"
"Not a little, Captain Jorgan."
"Much or little, you're sort preoccupied; ain't you?"
It was impossible to be denied.
"And a sort preoccupied man ain't good at quick business, is he?"
said the captain.
Equally clear on all sides.
"Now," said the captain, "I ain't in love myself, and I've made many
a smart run across the ocean, and I should like to carry on and go
ahead with this affair of yours, and make a run slick through it.
Shall I try? Will you hand it over to me?"
They were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily.
"Good," said the captain, taking out his watch. "This is half-past
eight a.m., Friday morning. I'll jot that down, and we'll compute
how many hours we've been out when we run into your mother's post-
office. There! The entry's made, and now we go ahead."
They went ahead so well that before the Barnstaple lawyer's office
was open next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on the step
of the door, waiting for the clerk to come down the street with his
key and open it. But instead of the clerk there came the master,
with whom the captain fraternised on the spot to an extent that
utterly confounded him.
As he personally knew both Hugh and Alfred, there was no difficulty
in obtaining immediate access to such of the father's papers as were
in his keeping. These were chiefly old letters and cash accounts;
from which the captain, with a shrewdness and despatch that left the
lawyer far behind, established with perfect clearness, by noon, the
following particulars:-
That one Lawrence Clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a time
when he was a thriving young tradesman in the town of Barnstaple,
the sum of five hundred pounds. That he had borrowed it on the
written statement that it was to be laid out in furtherance of a
speculation which he expected would raise him to independence; he
being, at the time of writing that letter, no more than a clerk in
the house of Dringworth Brothers, America Square, London. That the
money was borrowed for a stipulated period; but that, when the term
was out, the aforesaid speculation failed, and Clissold was without
means of repayment. That, hereupon, he had written to his creditor,
in no very persuasive terms, vaguely requesting further time. That
the creditor had refused this concession, declaring that he could
not afford delay. That Clissold then paid the debt, accompanying
the remittance of the money with an angry letter describing it as
having been advanced by a relative to save him from ruin. That, in
acknowlodging the receipt, Raybrock had cautioned Clissold to seek
to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so risk money
again.
Before the lawyer the captain said never a word in reference to
these discoveries. But when the papers had been put back in their
box, and he and his two companions were well out of the office, his
right leg suffered for it, and he said, -
"So far this run's begun with a fair wind and a prosperous; for
don't you see that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his
father maintained by the slow member of the Raybrock family?"
Whether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now. Not
that the captain gave them much time to contemplate the state of
things at their ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise
again, and bore them off to Steepways. Although the afternoon was
but just beginning to decline when they reached it, and it was broad
day-light, still they had no difficulty, by dint of muffing the
returned sailor up, and ascending the village rather than descending
it, in reaching Tregarthen's cottage unobserved. Kitty was not
visible, and they surprised Tregarthen sitting writing in the small
bay-window of his little room.
"Sir," said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen and
all, "I'm glad to see you, sir. How do you do, sir? I told you
you'd think better of me by-and-by, and I congratulate you on going
to do it."
Here the captain's eye fell on Tom Pettifer Ho, engaged in preparing
some cookery at the fire.
"That critter," said the captain, smiting his leg, "is a born
steward, and never ought to have been in any other way of life.
Stop where you are, Tom, and make yourself useful. Now, Tregarthen,
I'm going to try a chair."
Accordingly the captain drew one close to him, and went on:-
"This loving member of the Raybrock family you know, sir. This slow
member of the same family you don't know, sir. Wa'al, these two are
brothers,--fact! Hugh's come to life again, and here he stands.
Now see here, my friend! You don't want to be told that he was cast
away, but you do want to be told (for there's a purpose in it) that
he was cast away with another man. That man by name was Lawrence
Clissold."
At the mention of this name Tregarthen started and changed colour.
"What's the matter?" said the captain.
"He was a fellow-clerk of mine thirty--five-and-thirty--years ago."
"True," said the captain, immediately catching at the clew:
"Dringworth Brothers, America Square, London City."
The other started again, nodded, and said, "That was the house."
"Now," pursued the captain, "between those two men cast away there
arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred pound."
Again Tregarthen started, changing colour. Again the captain said,
"What's the matter?"
As Tregarthen only answered, "Please to go on," the captain
recounted, very tersely and plainly, the nature of Clissold's
wanderings on the barren island, as he had condensed them in his
mind from the seafaring man. Tregarthen became greatly agitated
during this recital, and at length exclaimed, -
"Clissold was the man who ruined me! I have suspected it for many a
long year, and now I know it."
"And how," said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to
Tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder,--"how may you
know it?"
"When we were fellow-clerks," replied Tregarthen, "in that London
house, it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book an
account of the sums received that day by the firm, and afterward
paid into the bankers'. One memorable day,--a Wednesday, the black
day of my life,--among the sums I so entered was one of five hundred
pounds."
"I begin to make it out," said the captain. "Yes?"
"It was one of Clissold's duties to copy from this entry a
memorandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the
bankers' paid in there. It was my duty to hand the money to
Clissold; it was Clissold's to hand it to the clerk, with that
memorandum of his writing. On that Wednesday I entered a sum of
five hundred pounds received. I handed that sum, as I handed the
other sums in the day's entry, to Clissold. I was absolutely
certain of it at the time; I have been absolutely certain of it ever
since. A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the
house to have been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold's
memorandum, and from the entries in my book. Clissold, being
questioned, stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter, and
emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested by
'Tregarthen's book.' My book was examined, and the entry of five
hundred pounds was not there."
"How not there," said the captain, "when you made it yourself?"
Tregarthen continued:-
"I was then questioned. Had I made the entry? Certainly I had.
The house produced my book, and it was not there. I could not deny
my book; I could not deny my writing. I knew there must be forgery
by some one; but the writing was wonderfully like mine, and I could
impeach no one if the house could not. I was required to pay the
money back. I did so; and I left the house, almost broken-hearted,
rather than remain there,--even if I could have done so,--with a
dark shadow of suspicion always on me. I returned to my native
place, Lanrean, and remained there, clerk to a mine, until I was
appointed to my little post here."
"I well remember," said the captain, "that I told you that if you
had no experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, you
were a lucky man. You went hurt at that, and I see why. I'm
sorry."
"Thus it is," said Tregarthen. "Of my own innocence I have of
course been sure; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. Of
Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to certainty;
but they have never been confirmed until now. For my daughter's
sake and for my own I have carried this subject in my own heart, as
the only secret of my life, and have long believed that it would die
with me."
"Wa'al, my good sir," said the captain cordially, "the present
question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not
dying. Now, here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock
and the slow. Here they stand, agreed on one point, on which I'd
back 'em round the world, and right across it from north to south,
and then again from east to west, and through it, from your deepest
Cornish mine to China. It is, that they will never use this same
so-often-mentioned sum of money, and that restitution of it must be
made to you. These two, the loving member and the slow, for the
sake of the right and of their father's memory, will have it ready
for you to-morrow. Take it, and ease their minds and mine, and end
a most unfortunate transaction."
Tregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to each
of the young men, but positively and finally answered No. He said,
they trusted to his word, and he was glad of it, and at rest in his
mind; but there was no proof, and the money must remain as it was.
All were very earnest over this; and earnestness in men, when they
are right and true, is so impressive, that Mr. Pettifer deserted his
cookery and looked on quite moved.
"And so," said the captain, "so we come--as that lawyer-crittur over
yonder where we were this morning might--to mere proof; do we? We
must have it; must we? How? From this Clissold's wanderings, and
from what you say, it ain't hard to make out that there was a neat
forgery of your writing committed by the too smart rowdy that was
grease and ashes when I made his acquaintance, and a substitution of
a forged leaf in your book for a real and torn leaf torn out. Now
was that real and true leaf then and there destroyed? No,--for says
he, in his drunken way, he slipped it into a crack in his own desk,
because you came into the office before there was time to burn it,
and could never get back to it arterwards. Wait a bit. Where is
that desk now? Do you consider it likely to be in America Square,
London City?"
Tregarthen shook his head.
"The house has not, for years, transacted business in that place. I
have heard of it, and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way
altered. Things alter so fast in these times."
"You think so," returned the captain, with compassion; "but you
should come over and see me afore you talk about that. Wa'al, now.
This desk, this paper,--this paper, this desk," said the captain,
ruminating and walking about, and looking, in his uneasy
abstraction, into Mr. Pettifer's hat on a table, among other things.
"This desk, this paper,--this paper, this desk," the captain
continued, musing and roaming about the room, "I'd give--"
However, he gave nothing, but took up his steward's hat instead, and
stood looking into it, as if he had just come into church. After
that he roamed again, and again said, "This desk, belonging to this
house of Dringworth Brothers, America Square, London City--"
Mr. Pettifer, still strangely moved, and now more moved than before,
cut the captain off as he backed across the room, and bespake him
thus:-
"Captain Jorgan, I have been wishful to engage your attention, but I
couldn't do it. I am unwilling to interrupt Captain Jorgan, but I
must do it. I knew something about that house."
The captain stood stock-still and looked at him,--with his (Mr.
Pettifer's) hat under his arm.
"You're aware," pursued his steward, "that I was once in the broking
business, Captain Jorgan?"
"I was aware," said the captain, "that you had failed in that
calling, and in half the businesses going, Tom."
"Not quite so, Captain Jorgan; but I failed in the broking business.
I was partners with my brother, sir. There was a sale of old office
furniture at Dringworth Brothers' when the house was moved from
America Square, and me and my brother made what we call in the trade
a Deal there, sir. And I'll make bold to say, sir, that the only
thing I ever had from my brother, or from any relation,--for my
relations have mostly taken property from me instead of giving me
any,--was an old desk we bought at that same sale, with a crack in
it. My brother wouldn't have given me even that, when we broke
partnership, if it had been worth anything."
"Where is that desk now?" said the captain.
"Well, Captain Jorgan," replied the steward, "I couldn't say for
certain where it is now; but when I saw it last,--which was last
time we were outward bound,--it was at a very nice lady's at
Wapping, along with a little chest of mine which was detained for a
small matter of a bill owing."
The captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward
which was rendered by the other three persons present, went to
Church again, in respect of the steward's hat. And a most
especially agitated and memorable face the captain produced from it,
after a short pause.
"Now, Tom," said the captain, "I spoke to you, when we first came
here, respecting your constitutional weakness on the subject of
sunstroke."
"You did, sir."
"Will my slow friend," said the captain, "lend me his arm, or I
shall sink right back'ards into this blessed steward's cookery?
Now, Tom," pursued the captain, when the required assistance was
given, "on your oath as a steward, didn't you take that desk to
pieces to make a better one of it, and put it together fresh,--or
something of the kind?"
"On my oath I did, sir," replied the steward.
"And by the blessing of Heaven, my friends, one and all," cried the
captain, radiant with joy,--"of the Heaven that put it into this Tom
Pettifer's head to take so much care of his head against the bright
sun,--he lined his hat with the original leaf in Tregarthen's
writing,--and here it is!"
With that the captain, to the utter destruction of Mr. Pettifer's
favourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still
legible, and gave both his legs such tremendous slaps that they were
heard far off in the bay, and never accounted for.
"A quarter past five p.m.," said the captain, pulling out his watch,
"and that's thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a pritty
run!"
How they were all overpowered with delight and triumph; how the
money was restored, then and there, to Tregarthen; how Tregarthen,
then and there, gave it all to his daughter; how the captain
undertook to go to Dringworth Brothers and re-establish the
reputation of their forgotten old clerk; how Kitty came in, and was
nearly torn to pieces, and the marriage was reappointed, needs not
to be told. Nor how she and the young fisherman went home to the
post-office to prepare the way for the captain's coming, by
declaring him to be the mightiest of men, who had made all their
fortunes,--and then dutifully withdrew together, in order that he
might have the domestic coast entirely to himself. How he availed
himself of it is all that remains to tell.
Deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he
raised the latch of the post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock and
the young widow sat, and said, -
"May I come in?"
"Sure you may, Captain Jorgan!" replied the old lady. "And good
reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not been
too well used in it by some who ought to have known better. I ask
your pardon."
"No you don't, ma'am," said the captain, "for I won't let you.
Wa'al, to be sure!"
By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them.
"Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life!
There! I tell you! I could a'most have cut my own connection.
Like the dealer in my country, away West, who when he had let
himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, 'Now I tell you
what! I'll never speak to you again.' And he never did, but joined
a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication table
into their language,--which is a fact that can be proved. If you
doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see if he'll
have the face to contradict it."
He took the child from her mother's lap and set it on his knee.
"Not a bit afraid of me now, you see. Knows I am fond of small
people. I have a child, and she's a girl, and I sing to her
sometimes."
"What do you sing?" asked Margaret.
"Not a long song, my dear.
Silas Jorgan
Played the organ.
That's about all. And sometimes I tell her stories,--stories of
sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was
abandoned." Here the captain musingly went back to his song, -
Silas Jorgan
Played the organ;
repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the
child on his knee. For he felt that Margaret had stopped working.
"Yes," said the captain, still looking at the fire, "I make up
stories and tell 'em to that child. Stories of shipwreck on desert
islands, and long delay in getting back to civilised lauds. It is
to stories the like of that, mostly, that
Silas Jorgan
Plays the organ."
There was no light in the room but the light of the fire; for the
shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep
out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out
from among the foliage when the night departed. The captain felt
that Margaret's eyes were upon him, and thought it discreetest to
keep his own eyes on the fire.
"Yes; I make 'em up," said the captain. "I make up stories of
brothers brought together by the good providence of GOD,--of sons
brought back to mothers, husbands brought back to wives, fathers
raised from the deep, for little children like herself."
Margaret's touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look
round now. Next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast,
and she was on her knees before him,--supporting the mother, who was
also kneeling.
"What's the matter?" said the captain. "What's the matter?
Silas Jorgan
Played the -
Their looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not finish
the song, short as it was.
"Mistress Margaret, you have borne ill fortune well. Could you bear
good fortune equally well, if it was to come?"
"I hope so. I thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so!"
"Wa'al, my dear," said the captain, "p'rhaps it has come. He's--
don't be frightened--shall I say the word--"
"Alive?"
"Yes!"
The thanks they fervently addressed to Heaven were again too much
for the captain, who openly took out his handkerchief and dried his
eyes.
"He's no further off," resumed the captain, "than my country.
Indeed, he's no further off than his own native country. To tell
you the truth, he's no further off than Falmouth. Indeed, I doubt
if he's quite so fur. Indeed, if you was sure you could bear it
nicely, and I was to do no more than whistle for him--"
The captain's trust was discharged. A rush came, and they were all
together again.
This was a fine opportunity for Tom Pettifer to appear with a
tumbler of cold water, and he presently appeared with it, and
administered it to the ladies; at the same time soothing them, and
composing their dresses, exactly as if they had been passengers
crossing the Channel. The extent to which the captain slapped his
legs, when Mr. Pettifer acquitted himself of this act of
stewardship, could have been thoroughly appreciated by no one but
himself; inasmuch as he must have slapped them black and blue, and
they must have smarted tremendously.
He couldn't stay for the wedding, having a few appointments to keep
at the irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles. So
next morning all the village cheered him up to the level ground
above, and there he shook hands with a complete Census of its
population, and invited the whole, without exception, to come and
stay several months with him at Salem, Mass., U.S. And there as he
stood on the spot where he had seen that little golden picture of
love and parting, and from which he could that morning contemplate
another golden picture with a vista of golden years in it, little
Kitty put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on both his
bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face upon his storm-beaten
breast, in sight of all,--ashamed to have called such a noble
captain names. And there the captain waved his hat over his head
three final times; and there he was last seen, going away
accompanied by Tom Pettifer Ho, and carrying his hands in his
pockets. And there, before that ground was softened with the fallen
leaves of three more summers, a rosy little boy took his first
unsteady run to a fair young mother's breast, and the name of that
infant fisherman was Jorgan Raybrock.
Footnotes:
{1} Dicken's didn't write chapters three and four and they are
omitted in this edition. The story continues with Captain Jorgan
and Alfred at Lanrean.
