A Bid for Fortune, Guy Boothby [top 10 novels .txt] 📗

any way I can be of service to you? If there is, and you will acquaint me with it, you will be conferring a great favour upon me."

"I thank your Grace," I replied--I hope with some little touch of dignity--"it is very kind of you, but I could not think of such a thing. But, stay, there is one service, perhaps you could do me."

"I am delighted to hear it, sir. And what may it be?"

"Your son's tutor, Mr. Baxter! His face is strangely familiar to me. I have seen him somewhere before, but I cannot recall where. Could you tell me anything of his history?"

"Very little, I fear, save that he seems a worthy and painstaking man, an excellent scholar, and very capable in his management of young men. I received excellent references with him, but of his past history I know very little. I believe, however, that he was a missionary in the South Seas for some time, and that he was afterwards for many years in India. I'm sorry I cannot tell you more about him since you are interested in him."

"I've met him somewhere, I'm certain. His face haunts me. But to return to your son--I hope he is none the worse for his adventure?"

"Not at all, thank you. Owing to the system I have adopted in his education, the lad is seldom ailing."

"Pardon my introducing the subject. But do you think it is quite wise to keep a youth so ignorant of the world? I am perhaps rather presumptuous, but I cannot help feeling that such a fine young fellow would be all the better for a few companions."

"You hit me on rather a tender spot, Mr. Hatteras. But, as you have been frank with me, I will be frank with you. I am one of those strange beings who govern their lives by theories. I was brought up by my father, I must tell you, in a fashion totally different from that I am employing with my son. I feel now that I was allowed a dangerous amount of license. And what was the result? I mixed with every one, was pampered and flattered far beyond what was good for me, derived a false notion of my own importance, and when I came to man's estate was, to all intents and purposes, quite unprepared and unfitted to undertake the duties and responsibilities of my position.

"Fortunately I had the wit to see where the fault lay, and there and then I resolved that if ever I were blessed with a son, I would conduct his education on far different lines. My boy has not met a dozen strangers in his life. His education has been my tenderest care. His position, his duties towards his fellow-men, the responsibilities of his rank, have always been kept rigorously before him. He has been brought up to understand that to be a Duke is not to be a titled nonentity or a pampered roue, but to be one whom Providence has blessed with an opportunity of benefiting and watching over the welfare of those less fortunate than himself in the world's good gifts.

"He has no exaggerated idea of his own importance; a humbler lad, I feel justified in saying, you would nowhere find. He has been educated thoroughly, and he has all the best traditions of his race kept continually before his eyes. But you must not imagine, Mr. Hatteras, that because he has not mixed with the world he is ignorant of its temptations. He may not have come into personal contact with them, but he has been warned against their insidious influences, and I shall trust to his personal pride and good instincts to help him to withstand them when he has to encounter them himself. Now, what do you think of my plan for making a nobleman?"

"A very good one, with such a youth as your son, I should think, your Grace; but I would like to make one more suggestion, if you would allow me?"

"And that is?"

"That you should let him travel before he settles down. Choose some fit person to accompany him. Let him have introductions to good people abroad, and let him use them; then he will derive different impressions from different countries, view men and women from different standpoints, and enter gradually into the great world and station which he is some day to adorn."

"I had thought of that myself, and his tutor has lately spoken to me a good deal upon the subject. I must own it is an idea that commends itself strongly to me. I will think it over. And now, sir, I must wish you good-day. You will not let me thank you, as I should have wished, for the service you have rendered my house, but, believe me, I am none the less grateful. By the way, your name is not a common one. May I ask if you have any relatives in this county?"

"Only one at present, I fancy--my father's brother, Sir William Hatteras, of Murdlestone, in the New Forest."

"Ah! I never met him. I knew his brother James very well in my younger days. But he got into sad trouble, poor fellow, and was obliged to fly the country."

"You are speaking of my father. You knew him?"

"Knew him? indeed, I did. And a better fellow never stepped; but, like most of us in those days, too wild--much too wild! And so you are James's son? Well, well! This is indeed a strange coincidence. But, dear me, I am forgetting; I must beg your pardon for speaking so candidly of your father."

"No offence, I'm sure."

"And pray tell me where my old friend is now?"

"Dead, your Grace! He was drowned at sea."

The worthy old gentleman seemed really distressed at this news. He shook his head, and I heard him murmur: "Poor Jim! Poor Jim!"

Then, turning to me again, he took my hand.

"This makes our bond a doubly strong one. You must let me see more of you! How long do you propose remaining in England?"

"Not very much longer, I fear. I am already beginning to hunger for the South again."

"Well, you must not go before you have paid us a visit. Remember we shall always be pleased to see you. You know our house, I think, on the cliff. Good-day, sir, good-day."

So saying, the old gentleman accompanied me downstairs to his carriage, and, shaking me warmly by the hand, departed. Again I had cause to ponder on the strangeness of the fate that had led me to Hampshire--first to the village where my father was born, and then to Bournemouth, where by saving this young man's life I had made a firm friend of a man who again had known my father. By such small coincidences are the currents of our lives diverted.

That same afternoon, while tacking slowly down the bay, I met the Marquis. He was pulling himself in a small skiff, and when he saw me he made haste to come alongside and hitch on. At first I wondered whether it would not be against his father's wishes that he should enter into conversation with such a worldly person as myself. But he evidently saw what was passing in my mind, and banished all doubts by saying:

"I have been on the look-out for you, Mr. Hatteras. My father has given me permission to cultivate your acquaintance, if you will allow me."

"I shall be very pleased," I answered. "Won't you come aboard and have a chat? I'm not going out of the bay this afternoon."

He clambered over the side and seated himself in the well, clear of the boom, as nice-looking and pleasant a young fellow as any man could wish to set eyes on.

"You can't imagine how I've been thinking over all you told me the other day," he began when we were fairly on our way. "I want you to tell me more about Australia and the life you lead out there, if you will."

"I'll tell you all I can with pleasure," I answered. "But you ought to go and see the places and things for yourself. That's better than any telling. I wish I could take you up and carry you off with me now; away down to where you can make out the green islands peeping out of the water to port and starboard, like bits of the Garden of Eden gone astray and floated out to sea. I'd like you to smell the breezes that come off from them towards evening, to hear the 'trades' whistling overhead, and the thunder of the surf upon the reef. Or at another time to get inside that selfsame reef and look down through the still, transparent water, at the rainbow-coloured fish dashing among the coral boulders, in and out of the most beautiful fairy grottos the brain of man can conceive."

"Oh, it must be lovely! And to think that I may live my life and never see these wonders. Please go on; what else can you tell me?"

"What more do you want to hear? There is the pick of every sort of life for you out there. Would you know what real excitement is? Then I shall take you to a new gold rush. To begin with, you must imagine yourself setting off for the field, with your trusty mate marching step by step beside you, pick and shovel on your shoulders, and both resolved to make your fortunes in the twinkling of an eye. When you get there, there's the digger crowd, composed of every nationality. There's the warden and his staff, the police officers, the shanty keepers, the blacks, and dogs.

"There's the tented valley stretching away to right and left of you, with the constant roar of sluice boxes and cradles, the creak of windlasses, and the perpetual noise of human voices. There's the excitement of pegging out your claim and sinking your first shaft, wondering all the time whether it will turn up trumps or nothing. There's the honest, manly labour from dawn to dusk. And then, when daylight fails, and the lamps begin to sparkle over the field, songs drift up the hillside from the drinking shanties in the valley, and you and your mate weigh up your day's returns, and, having done so, turn into your blankets to dream of the monster nugget you intend to find upon the morrow. Isn't that real life for you?"

He did not answer, but there was a sparkle in his eyes which told me I was understood.

"Then if you want other sorts of enterprise, there is Thursday Island, where I hail from, with its extraordinary people. Let us suppose ourselves wandering down the Front at nightfall, past the Kanaka billiard saloons and the Chinese stores, into, say, the Hotel of All Nations. Who is that handsome, dark, mysterious fellow, smoking a cigarette and idly flirting with the pretty bar girl? You don't know him, but I do! There's indeed a history for you. You didn't notice, perhaps, that rakish schooner that came to anchor in the bay early in the forenoon. What lines she had! Well, that was his craft. To-morrow she'll be gone, it is whispered, to try for pearl in prohibited Dutch waters. Can't you imagine her slinking round the islands, watching for the patrolling gunboat, and ready, directly she has passed, to slip into the bay, skim it of its shell, and put to sea again. Sometimes they're chased."

"What then?"

"Well, a clean pair of heels or trouble with the authorities,