Twice Bought, R. M. Ballantyne [ready to read books txt] 📗

“Well, you must know,” said Paul Bevan, continuing his discourse to the Rose of Oregon, “when I got to Brighton I went to the school, told ’em that your mother was just dead, and brought you straight away. I wasn’t an hour too soon, for, as I expected, your brother had given information, an’ the p’lice were on my heels in a jiffy, but I was too sharp for ’em. I went into hidin’ in London; an’ you’ve no notion, Betty, what a rare place London is to hide in! A needle what takes to wanderin’ in a haystack ain’t safer than a feller is in London, if he only knows how to go about the business.

“I lay there nigh three months, durin’ which time my own poor child Betty continued hoverin’ ’tween life an death. At last, one night when I was at the hospital sittin’ beside her, she suddenly raised her sweet face, an fixin’ her big eyes on me, said—

“‘Father, I’m goin’ home. Shall I tell mother that you’re comin’?’

“‘What d’ye mean, my darlin’?’ says I, while an awful thump came to my heart, for I saw a great change come over her.

“‘I’ll be there soon, father,’ she said, as her dear voice began to fail; ‘have you no message for mother?’

“I was so crushed that I couldn’t speak, so she went on—

“‘You’ll come—won’t you, father? an’ we’ll be so glad to welcome you to heaven. An’ so will Jesus. Remember, He is the only door, father, no name but that of Jesus—’ She stopped all of a sudden, and I saw that she had gone home.

“After that” continued Paul, hurrying on as if the memory of the event was too much for him, “havin’ nothin’ to keep me in England, I came off here to the gold-fields with you, an’ brought the will with me, intendin’, when you came of age, to tell you all about it, an’ see justice done both to you an’ to your brother, but—”

“Fath— Paul,” said Betty, checking herself, “that brown parcel you gave me long ago with such earnest directions to keep it safe, and only to open it if you were killed, is—”

“That’s the will, my dear.”

“And Edwin—does he think that I am your real daughter Betty?”

“No doubt he does, for he never heard of her bein’ dead, and he never saw you since you was quite a little thing, an’ there’s a great change on you since then—a wonderful change.”

“Yes, fath— Oh! it is so hard to lose my father,” said Betty, almost breaking down, and letting her hands fall listlessly into her lap.

“But why lose him, Betty? I did it all for the best,” said Paul, gently taking hold of one of the poor girl’s hands.

She made a slight motion to withdraw it, but checked herself and let it rest in the man’s rough but kindly grasp, while tears silently coursed down her rounded cheeks. Presently she looked up and said—

“How did Edwin find out where you had gone to?”

“That’s more than I can tell, Betty, unless it was through Truefoot, Tickle, and Badger. I wrote to them after gettin’ here, tellin’ them to look well after the property, and it would be claimed in good time, an’ I raither fear that the postmark on the letter must have let the cat out o’ the bag. Anyhow, not long after that Edwin found me out an’ you know how he has persecuted me, though you little thought he was your own brother when you were beggin’ of me not to kill him—no more did you guess that I was as little anxious to kill him as you were, though I did pretend I’d have to do it now an’ then in self-defence. Sometimes, indeed, he riled me up to sitch an extent that there wasn’t much pretence about it; but thank God! my hand has been held back.”

“Yes, thank God for that; and now I must go to him,” said Betty, rising hastily and hurrying back to the Indian village.

In a darkened tent, on a soft couch of deerskins, the dying form of Buxley, alias Stalker, lay extended. In the fierceness of his self-will he had neglected his wounds until too late to save his life. A look of stern resolution sat on his countenance—probably he had resolved to “die game,” as hardened criminals express it. His determination, on whatever ground based, was evidently not shaken by the arguments of a man who sat by his couch. It was Tom Brixton.

“What’s the use o’ preachin’ to me, young fellow?” said the robber-chief, testily. “I dare say you are pretty nigh as great a scoundrel as I am.”

“Perhaps a greater,” returned Tom. “I have no wish to enter into comparisons, but I’m quite prepared to admit that I am as bad.”

“Well, then, you’ve as much need as I have to seek salvation for yourself.”

“Indeed I have, and it is because I have sought it and obtained it,” said Tom, earnestly, “that I am anxious to point out the way to you. I’ve come through much the same experiences, no doubt, as you have. I have been a scouter of my mother’s teachings, a thief, and, in heart if not in act, a murderer. No one could be more urgently in need of salvation from sin than I, and I used to think that I was so bad that my case was hopeless, until God opened my eyes to see that Jesus came to save His people from their sins. That is what you need, is it not?”

“Ay, but it is too late,” said Stalker, bitterly.

“The crucified thief did not find it too late,” returned Tom, “and it was the eleventh hour with him.”

Stalker made no reply, but the stern, hard expression of his face did not change one iota until he heard a female voice outside asking if he were asleep. Then the features relaxed; the frown passed like a summer cloud before the sun, and, with half-open lips and a look of glad, almost childish expectancy, he gazed at the curtain-door of the tent.

“Mother’s voice!” he murmured, apparently in utter forgetfulness of Tom Brixton’s presence.

Next moment the curtain was raised, and Betty, entering quickly, advanced to the side of the couch. Tom rose, as if about to leave.

“Don’t go, Mr Brixton,” said the girl, “I wish you to hear us.”

“My brother!” she continued, turning to the invalid, and grasping his hand, for the first time, as she sat down beside him.

“If you were not so young I’d swear you were my mother,” exclaimed Stalker, with a slight look of surprise at the changed manner of his nurse. “Ha! I wish that I were indeed your brother.”

“But you are my brother, Edwin Buxley,” cried the girl with intense earnestness, “my dear and only brother, whom God will save through Jesus Christ?”

“What do you mean, Betty?” asked Stalker, with an anxious and puzzled look.

“I mean that I am not Betty Bevan. Paul Bevan has told me so—told me that I am Betty Buxley, and your sister!”

The dying man’s chest heaved with labouring breath, for his wasted strength was scarcely sufficient to bear this shock of surprise.

“I would not believe it,” he said, with some difficulty, “even though Paul Bevan were to swear to it, were it not for the wonderful likeness both in look and tone.” He pressed her hand fervently, and added, “Yes, dear Betty. I do believe that you are my very sister.”

Tom Brixton, from an instinctive feeling of delicacy, left the tent, while the Rose of Oregon related to her brother the story of her life with Paul Bevan, and then followed it up with the story of God’s love to man in Jesus Christ.

Tom hurried to Bevan’s tent to have the unexpected and surprising news confirmed, and Paul told him a good deal, but was very careful to make no allusion to Betty’s “fortin.”

“Now, Mister Brixton,” said Paul, somewhat sternly, when he had finished, “there must be no more shilly-shallyin’ wi’ Betty’s feelin’s. You’re fond o’ her, an’ she’s fond o’ you. In them circumstances a man is bound to wed—all the more that the poor thing has lost her nat’ral protector, so to speak, for I’m afraid she’ll no longer look upon me as a father.”

There was a touch of pathos in Paul’s tone as he concluded, which checked the rising indignation in Brixton’s breast.

“But you forget, Paul, that Gashford and his men are here, and will probably endeavour to lay hold of me. I can scarce look on myself as other than an outlaw.”

“Pooh! lay hold of you!” exclaimed Paul, with contempt; “d’ye think Gashford or any one else will dare to touch you with Mahoghany Drake an’ Mister Fred an’ Flinders an’ me, and Unaco with all his Injins at your back? Besides, let me tell you that Gashford seems a changed man. I’ve had a talk wi’ him about you, an’ he said he was done persecutin’ of you—that you had made restitootion when you left all the goold on the river’s bank for him to pick up, and that as nobody else in partikler wanted to hang you, you’d nothin’ to fear.”

“Well, that does change the aspect of affairs,” said Tom, “and it may be that you are right in your advice about Betty. I have twice tried to get away from her and have failed. Perhaps it may be right now to do as you suggest, though after all the time seems not very suitable; but, as you truly observe,