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Amongst the Maoris: A Book of Adventure

Chapter XXXVIII

page 342

Chapter XXXVIII.

Jack Discovers His Enemy.

It was some days after this, nothing having during the interval led to the subject, that the hermit said, all at once,

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” answered Jack.

“No more? You have acted the part of a son to me. I have sometimes wished that you were my son;—but I do not deserve a good son. My boy has never had any cause to be proud of his father if he had known everything. Poor Hope! I trust he never may.”

Jack controlled himself with some trouble: a rush of ideas came over him in a moment; but after a time he was able to say,

“Is your son's name Hope? It is a beautiful name.”

“It was his poor mother's,” answered the hermit, who appeared in a communicative mood—in fact, he was very much better. His leg gave him no pain, and he was page 343 stronger than he had been before his accident; for Jack would not admit of the starvation system which the hermit had practised before.

“Hope is an unusual name,” observed Jack Stanley, with a purpose in his remark.

“Yes; he was named, as I have said, after his poor mother, ‘Hope Bernard.”’

Jack rose quickly, and left the hut. He could not sit calmly with this man, having discovered who he was. He could not control himself.

So he had met with his father's enemy at last! and now that he had done so, all thoughts and purposes of revenge had passed away. Had they done so? Had all revengeful feelings passed away? Jack could not tell. His blood coursed rapidly through his veins; his heart beat wildly; and he could hardly follow his own thoughts.

What room was there for revenge? Was not there revenge enough in seeing that poor, haggard, self-accusing creature?—revenge inflicted by his own conscience. Apart from all higher considerations so lately learned, which forbade revenge, would Jack have added one extra pain of soul or body to the William Maitland whom he had so tenderly nursed through his accident? He could from his heart answer himself in the negative; and yet he felt that he could not return to the man's presence for a time, but wandered off into the forest to be alone for a couple of hours.

How strange that he should have been chosen as the page 344 one to help Maitland in his late difficulty! Had he devised in his own mind a sure means of heaping coals of fire upon the head of his enemy, he could not have done it more effectually; and at this thought, Jack's sensitiveness shrank from the knowledge of his own identity coming to Maitland. He could imagine how painful such an obligation as that which he had brought upon him would be to a man. He knew how galling it would have been to himself had he changed places with his enemy.

When, after the two hours of quiet wandering in the woods, Jack Stanley returned to the hut, his heart smote him, for the eyes of Maitland were fixed longingly upon the doorway, and his sad face lighted up with a gleam of pleasure when he saw Jack approach.

“What a time you have been away!” he said. “I thought you were never coming back. Did I say anything to annoy you that you left so hurriedly?”

This was a strange speech to come from the man who had so rudely ordered him out of his presence on the first occasion of their meeting.

Jack Stanley had made up his mind how to act, and taking a seat by the side of Maitland, he said,

“Tell me what induced you to leave civilized life and your position in society, and to take to such an existence as you have been leading lately?”

“I never thought to speak with confidence to any man again,” answered the hermit; “but I will tell you, if you page 345 wish it. You deserve it of me. I have been a man of fortune and influence.”

“Yes,” said Jack.

“I might have been an honest man,” resumed the other. “I have long passed for an honourable and honest man amongst my fellows; but there was always that inward consciousness which spoiled all success— destroyed all happiness. By my fraud I ruined hundreds, and no after success could drown the memory of my crime. I have striven against it for years, but retribution came upon me.”

“Did you fail?” asked Jack.

“I was never more prosperous than when I left all; but I hated the sight and the sound of the money which had been made as the interest upon my dishonesty. The cries of widows and orphans whom I had ruined seemed always ringing in my ears. Young man,” continued he, “you are still at the beginning of life—the world is all before you. Take care, for your own sake, that you walk uprightly. The sins of your youth will cleave to you throughout life, and to the last demand expiation and atonement.”

“Then was it with an idea of expiation that you banished yourself from civilized life, and half starved yourself with hunger and exposure?” asked Jack.

“It may be that the sufferings of the body will count against the sins of the soul,” said Maitland.

“How can that be?” Jack asked. “If you killed page 346 yourself in your imagined expiation—as I have no doubt you would have done before long—how could that make you any better in the sight of God? It seems to me that instead of getting better, you must have been getting worse, for, excuse me, I do not think I ever came across a more—well—eccentric person than you were.”

“I was certainly discourteous to you in the extreme,” replied the hermit, “but I knew no other way. You are a very good young man to put yourself to all this trouble about me; but I am getting capable of looking after myself now, and you must shortly leave me.”

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” answered Jack, bluntly. “You are not fit to be left so far as your health goes, and I am sure you are quite unfit to be left to your own judgment in other things.” Jack took Maitland's hand in his, and said, blushing the while as he spoke for the first time on such sacred topics, “You have spoken of expiation and atonement for your sins. Do not you remember who expiated all our sins upon His cross once and for ever, and who is the only atonement God will receive?”

“I know what you mean,” answered the hermit, “but I have not led such a life that I can dare claim any part in Christ's atonement.”

“Do you mean that your life has not been sufficiently bad to need forgiveness, or that you can make a better atonement for yourself?” said Jack, gently.

Maitland was silent: at length he said,

page 347

“We will not talk any more of this matter now, but you have given me something to think of. I looked upon the breaking of my leg as a judgment from God at first; but I think it must have been quite otherwise, since it brought you in contact with me. You are a very strange boy, and your face and voice remind me of some one: they seem to bring back old times. I have never asked your name.”

“Hullo! the potatoes are boiling over: they will all be gone if I do not look out,” exclaimed Jack, rushing to the fire without heeding the hermit's question, apparently.

But he did not wish to answer that question, and he feared that it might be repeated, and he unable to escape from it so easily; so from that moment he cast in his mind how he could soonest return to the settlement.

His desire to return was increased by discovering that the hermit's provisions were getting very low. It was positively necessary to procure fresh supplies of tea and sugar and flour; so after everything was ready for retiring for the night, Jack returned to the side of Maitland and said,

“I want to know if you could manage to get about at all if I made a crutch for you. I am afraid I must leave you for a few days, as—”

“I see; yes, I see,” said Maitland. “You are naturally weary of being shut up in this hole with me: who would not be? I only wonder that you did not leave me long before.”

page 348

“My dear sir, do not talk nonsense,” said Jack, who felt himself obliged to take the upper hand with his patient in order to make him behave properly. “If I had wished to leave you, I should, as you say, have gone long ago; now you are just beginning to be agreeable company, so that I have less need to regret being shut up with you.”

Maitland gave a grim smile at the idea of his being agreeable company.

“The fact is,” resumed Jack, “that we have no flour left, very few potatoes or anything else, and I must go to the nearest settlement and get some, or get help to carry you there.”

“I shall not go,” said Maitland.

“I think you will,” Jack answered; “but if you determine upon remaining here, where I shall certainly not remain longer than necessary with you, you must have something to eat. I wish to find out if you can get about at all with the help of a crutch. I will, before I leave you, arrange everything, so as to give you as little exertion as possible; but you will have to light your own fire, and I am not sure if we have pots enough to hold sufficient water till I return—that is my chief difficulty.”

“What does it matter?” said Maitland. “If I cannot get enough to eat and drink, I can go without, I suppose; I don't know why I take the trouble of eating. I might as well die, and there would be an end of it.”

“But, you see, there would not be an end of it,” said page 349 Jack. “While I am away I will not have you go back to starving yourself as you used to do: promise me you will not, as a man of honour.”

Jack was sorry immediately after he had spoken that he had made use of the expression. Maitland's face flushed deep crimson, and he gave no answer for a time. When he spoke it was in a constrained voice.

“I owe it to you,” said he, “at least so long as you take an interest in my welfare, not to go against your wishes. If you will take my promise, you have it.”

Next day Jack made various attempts at manufacturing a crutch, and with Maitland's help he succeeded at length. Then Maitland tried to walk with it, and found he could do so a little, though Jack doubted if he could manage, under distressed circumstances, to hobble down so far as the bank of the river. The rest of the day was taken up in collecting and stacking within reach a quantity of wood for fuel, and in shooting ducks and other birds for provision. Then, late in the evening, Jack carried up water sufficient to fill everything available, even his own little tea-kettle, which he left behind. He piled up the fire the last thing, placing the lights close by, that Maitland might easily reach them; and then, thinking that he would have thus the advantage of many hours during which his patient would be sleeping, and would require nothing, he walked noiselessly away.

He left behind him his knapsack, because Maitland wanted it for a pillow; and his blanket, because Maitland page 350 would require it for a covering; and took nothing whatever with him but the gun he carried over his shoulder.

And this was the man upon whom he had sworn to be avenged!