The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters, Edward Sylvester Ellis [red white royal blue txt] 📗

war-r-n ye to make no claim to relationship. There's some things a respictable leddy can't stand."

"Did ye not almost break me heart by thinking I was a Dutchman?" asked Mike reprovingly.

"I'll make the same roight by axing the pardon of ivery Dutchman I maats for the rist of me born days. 'Twas har-r-d on the poor haythen."

"Aunt Maggie, I'll give ye all me wealth if ye'll consint to let me dry mesilf in front of yer fire."

"Arrah, now, what are ye saying? Five cints is no object to me----"

Just then, in spite of an effort to prevent it, Mike's teeth chattered. Now that he had ceased walking he quickly became chilled. The woman noticed it and her warm sympathy instantly welled up.

"'Tis a shame that I kipt ye talking nonsense wid me while ye was shivering. Do ye walk straight into the house and war-r-m yersilf till I come, which will be in a jiffy whin I have the rest of me clothes hung out. And if ye're hungry ye shall have food."

"I thank ye, aunty, but I am not in need of that."

Two small wooden steps were in front of the only door on that side of the neat little cottage. He pressed his thumb on the latch, pushed open the door and the next instant faced one of the greatest surprises of his life.

The lower floor consisted of two rooms, a kitchen and a general living room. The fire in the former would have been enough for the interior, but for the fact that a visitor had preceded Mike, and because of his presence a roaring fire was burning on the hearth. In front of this sat a young man leaning back in a rocking chair, with a bandaged leg resting on a pillow laid upon a second chair in front of him. He was smoking a cigarette, and despite the fact that something ailed him, looked quite comfortable.

As the door opened, his eyes met those of Mike Murphy, who halted with one foot over the threshold, started and exclaimed:

"Can I belave what me eyes tell me! Is it _yersilf_?"

The young man sitting before him, smoking and nursing his injured limb, was Orestes Noxon, whom Mike chased away from the Beartown post office the night before, and who received a part of the charge from the shotgun of Gerald Buxton.

The face of the injured youth flushed and he laughed nervously, but with amazing coolness answered:

"I guess you don't need spectacles. You've got the best of me; I'm down and you're up."

"There's an old account to be squared atween us, but that can rist till ye become yersilf. Be the same token, are ye much hurt?"

Mike's Irish sympathy immediately went out to the fellow, who certainly was at his mercy.

"I can't say I am. But your clothing is wet. I heard a part of your talk with Mrs. McCaffry--God bless her splendid soul!--so suppose you come closer where you will be in front of the fire and can dry yourself, and we'll get on better."

It was good advice and Mike acted upon it. Standing with his back to the blaze, he looked down in the face of the criminal whose self-possession he could not help admiring.

"You remember our little foot race from the back of the Beartown post office?" said Noxon, as if referring to an incident in which he felt no particular interest.

"I do, but I niver won a prize at running and ye give me the slip."

"Only to get in front of that beefeater with a shotgun. Why didn't you fire when you were chasing and threatening me?"

"I couldn't have touched off that busted gun any more than I could have fired a broom handle."

"I made the mistake of thinking the other fellow would be equally forbearing and kept on running, till all at once, bang! he let drive. I caught a good part of the charge in that leg below the knee. It didn't hurt much at first, and after managing to get hold of his gun I made him dance for me. It would have killed you to see him," and at the recollection the young man laughed hard.

"His boy Jim obsarved it all and told us and we laughed," said Mike, with a grin. "The sight must have been very insthructive."

"It was, to that old codger, who won't get over his lesson for a month. Well, as the gun wasn't of any use to me I threw it away and started to find my friends and the boat we came on. By and by my leg began to hurt, I suppose from walking so much and a tumble I got by catching my foot in the root of a tree. I sat down to rest awhile and when I got up it hurt so badly that I thought it was all up with me. You know it was night, and somehow I had gone astray in the infernal pine woods. The wound was bleeding, and I sat down again intending to wait till morning. By and by I heard a dog bark so near that I climbed to my feet again and made by way to this house. McCaffry and his wife were asleep and it took a good deal of banging and shouting for me to wake them. But when they found out what was the matter they took me in, and my own father and mother could not have been kinder."

"What did they do fur yer fut?"

"The good woman not only washed the wound, but, by the light of the lamp which her husband held, picked out every one of the shot that had been buried there and were making the trouble. Then she bathed the hurt again and wrapped it about with the clean linen, as you see for yourself. All that remains is for me to keep quiet for a few days and nature will do the rest."

"Wouldn't it be well if I got a docther fur ye?"

Noxon looked up in the face of the Irish youth, who tried to keep a grave countenance.

"I think not," replied the sufferer.

There was a world of significance in the words, and both understood.

Strange that these two who had never met before except as the bitterest of enemies should talk now as comrades. Mike kept pinching his clothing and turning every side to the blaze, thus drying the garments quite rapidly. He was so interested in the story of Noxon that he grew careless.

"I think I see smoke coming from behind you," finally said the sitter.

Mike reached back to investigate and with a gasp snatched back his fingers.

"I'm afire! Is there a well outside that I can dive into the same?"

"Turn around; I can help you," said Noxon, laughing, dropping his foot and sitting forward.

Together they quenched the twist of blaze which if left alone would have played the mischief with Mike's garments.

"I'm thinking this is a little different, Mr. Noxon, from last night."

"It is, and I hope it will always stay that way."

Mike was astonished and looked questioningly at the fellow.

"Phwat might ye be maaning?" he asked, lowering his voice.

Noxon tried to speak, but his voice broke. He snatched out his handkerchief from the side pocket of his coat and pressed it to his eyes. Then his breast heaved and he broke into sobbing.

The heart of Mike melted at the sight. He had never dreamed of anything like this. Enmity and resentment gave way to an anguish of sympathy for the fellow. He longed to say something comforting, but could not think of a word, and remained mute. Very soon the youth regained his self-control. Dropping his handkerchief in his lap, and with eyes streaming, he exclaimed from the very depths of his despair:

"Oh, why didn't that man aim better and kill me! I'm not fit to live! I'm the worst villain unhanged! I am lost--damned, and a curse to those who love me!"

Mike pulled himself together sufficiently to reply:

"I don't think ye're quite all them things. Cheer up! cheer up, old fellow!"

Noxon did not speak, but slowly swayed his head from side to side, like one from whom all hope had departed. Mike drew a chair beside him, and as tenderly as a mother lifted the white hand from where it lay on the handkerchief, and held it in his own warm grasp.

"Noxy, me bye, Mike Murphy is yer frind through thick and thin--don't ye forget _that_--and I'm going to see ye through this if I have to break a thrace in trying."

"_You!_" repeated the despairing one, looking up in Mike's honest blue eyes. "No one can save a wretch like me. I'm not worth saving!"

"Ye forget there's One to whom the same is aisy, me bye. Ye feel down in the mouth jest now, as Jonah did respicting the whale, but bimeby this fog will clear away and the sun will shine forth again. I've been in some purty bad scrapes mesilf and He niver desarted me. Why, it ain't two hours, since He raiched out His hand, grabbed me by the neck and saved me from drowning. I tell ye, Noxy, that He won't fail ye."

"But you never did what I have done."

The Irish youth bent his head as if recalling his past life.

"I can't say that I did, but I'm the meanest scamp that iver lived--barring yersilf," he added, with the old twinkle in his eyes. "Come, now, be a man and we'll have ye out of this scrape as quick as I jumped awhile ago whin I awoke to the fact that me trousers was afire."

Noxon actually smiled at the recollection.

"You call yourself a scamp. Why, you are an angel compared with me--so is everybody! Kit Woodford and Graff Miller are a thousand times better than I."


CHAPTER XXVII

AN UNWELCOME CALLER

With rare wisdom Mike now gave an abrupt turn to the conversation. Lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he asked:

"Does Mrs. McCaffry know anything of this?"

"If so, she hasn't given me any reason to suspect it," replied Noxon, brightening up and seizing the straw held out to him. "I told her I had met with an accident, and neither she nor her husband asked a question. Their big hearts had no room for any feeling other than of pity for the one who is not deserving of a particle of it."

"She told me her husband works in Beartown. He wint there airly this morning; he'll hear of the throuble at the post office and the beefeater, as ye call him, will let everybody know he winged the robber as he was running off. Did ye spake any caution to the man before he lift this morning?"

"By good luck I thought of that. I asked him to make no mention of my being at his house and he promised me he would not."

"Arrah, now, but that's good, as me dad says whin he tips up the jug. All that ye have to do is to sit here and let Mrs. McCaffry nurse that game leg till ye're able to thravel."

"Ah, if that was _all_! But I have a father and mother whose hearts I am breaking. I have two younger brothers and a sweet sister. What of _them_!" demanded Noxon