"Yes, thank you," replied Harold, jerking himself away, while Rupert gave expression to what we all felt and thought.
"I wish you'd go about like other people, instead of sneaking up the sides of walls." As he spoke he went to the window. "Uncle George!" he shouted at the top of his voice. An answer came from a distance. "Make haste up here, there's a man who wants to see you."
"I pity him if he is in your den," father called out merrily, after about two minutes during which time we had all been perfectly silent, Kathleen and Harold keeping a strict guard over the chest by sitting on it.
It seemed to me a fearful time before father's footstep sounded on the stairs. I almost expected to see the stranger bolt out of the window, but he did not. He stood as still as if he had been cut in marble, until the door opened, and father entered with some joke on his lips which was never uttered.
The mysterious stranger took his hat from his head, and father gazed at him for one brief second, then held out both his hands.
"FATHER GAZED AT HIM FOR ONE SECOND, THEN HELD OUT BOTH HIS HANDS."
"FATHER GAZED AT HIM FOR ONE SECOND, THEN HELD OUT
BOTH HIS HANDS."
"What! you, Joe?"
"Yes, I, George."
The words meant little enough, but the tone spoke volumes, and, to our terrible distress, the stranger dropped on the oak chest and was convulsed with sobs.
"Right about face, quick march," whispered Jack, hopping off as well as he could. "Look after the baggage."
The baggage meaning me, Rupert and Kathleen seized me with a rapidity which would have terrified me a month back; and in less time than it takes to write, we had made our retreat in disorder, and the enemy were left in possession.
"Never no more," said Jack, whom we found resting on one of the landings, "will I pass my days in that den. I shan't have nerve enough to face a cricket-ball when I get back to school. To think that the ghost, the mysterious stranger, the rescuer of my beloved brother, should be called Joe, and be on speaking terms with my uncle! After that, no more mysteries for me. I mean to live in the dining-room, and devote myself to bread and butter."
"That's all providing that father will let you," I said.
"No, it isn't. He will have to let me. I feel like the poultry in the farmer's yard, who declared 'twas hard that their nerves should be shaken, and their rest be marred by the visit of Mr. Ghost. Oh, I'll go to Brighton, if uncle likes; but pass the rest of my days in the tower-room, I won't."
A burst of laughter restored Jack's good temper, and then we all went into the dining-room and told mother about everything. I'm a good deal older now than I was then, but I have not yet got out of the way of wanting to rush off to tell mother everything. Happy are the youngsters who have such a mother as I have, and who try all their lives never to do or say anything that they would be afraid or ashamed to tell her. Let me see, I said "rush off," did I not? and I meant it; though at the time I am speaking about, I was dependent on other people's rushing instead of my own.
Mother was nearly as excited as we were about the stranger, only she seemed to know a little more about him.
"Your father had a half-brother named Joseph," she said; "his mother was a Frenchwoman, and when she died her little boy was sent by your grandfather to stay with her relations in France."
"But why has father never mentioned him?" I asked.
"There was some unhappiness about him, dear, and you know your father never speaks about anything like that. He bears it all, and says nothing. Take care, Edric! what are you going to do?"
"Take hold of me, mother."
Slowly and carefully I drew my legs round, and then, leaning on her arm, with Rupert on the other side of me I put them to the ground. Of course, it was but a poor attempt at walking, but still, it was an attempt, and mother seemed utterly amazed. Nothing ever happens just as one has expected and planned it; I had so often gone through that little scene in my mind, and yet I had not the least intention of acting it that day.
"Well done, my darling, well done! How came you to think of trying that? Why, you will walk as well as I do some day."
"It is all Kathleen's doing," I said, still standing propped up by their arms, and wondering at the peculiar feeling in my feet. "She had seen a child cured in Australia by doing a few exercises daily. She had watched very carefully, and was sure she could do me good if I would only persevere. So she has made me do them twice every day, for half an hour, for five weeks."
"But that was what the doctor ordered for you, darling; and you cried and said the woman hurt you, so we had to leave it off."
"I know, mother," I said, colouring, for I was ashamed of myself now; "but in those days I did not really feel as if I cared to move about. I would rather not walk at all than be hurt as that woman hurt me. Now, Kathleen is different; she has not hurt me once, and yet she would not let me off a minute before the half-hour."
"Mary! Mary!" said father's voice, "I want you for a moment." He pushed the door open and stood transfixed.
"What! Edric trying to walk? This is a day of surprises. Whose doing is that?"
"Kathleen's," I said, making a sign to mother that I wanted to go back to my couch again. Father came into the room and looked gravely at me.
"Do you know, laddie," he said, seriously. "I have found out that there is one thing in this world which always brings a reward, and that is unselfishness. It's your mother that's unselfish, not I. If it had not been for her, I should never have consented to have your cousins here. I hated the thought of it, and only consented to please her. Wow see the reward we have got, far beyond what I, at least, deserve; my little helpless laddie is going to try to be like other children, and my half-brother is restored to his inheritance. Come and see him, Mary; I'll tell you all about it presently, children."