第77章

He not infrequently arrived at astute enough conclusions concerning things.He had arrived at one now.Shut out even from the tame drama of village life, Tummas, born with an abnormal desire for action and a feverish curiosity, had hungered and thirsted for the story in any form whatsoever.He caught at fragments of happenings, and colored and dissected them for the satisfying of unfed cravings.The vanished man had been the one touch of pictorial form and color in his ten years of existence.Young and handsome and of the gentry, unfavored by the owner of the wealth which some day would be his own possession, stopping "gentry-way" at a cottage door to speak good-naturedly to a pale young mother, handing over the magnificence of a whole sovereign to be saved for a new-born child, going away to vaguely understood disgrace, leaving his own country to hide himself in distant lands, meeting death amid snow and ice and surrounded by gold-mines, leaving his empty place to be filled by a boot-black newsboy--true there was enough to lie and think over and to try to follow with the help of maps and excited questions.

"I wish I could ha' seen him," said Tummas."I'd awmost gi' my sovereign to get a look at that picture in th' gallery at Temple Barholm.""What picture?" Tembarom asked."Is there a picture of him there?""There is na one o' him, but there's one o' a lad as deed two hundred year' ago as they say wur th' spit an' image on him when he wur a lad hissen.One o' th' owd servants towd mother it wur theer."This was a natural stimulus to interest and curiosity.

"Which one is it? Jinks! I'd like to see it myself.Do you know which one it is? There's hundreds of them.""No, I dunnot know," was Tummas's dispirited answer, "an' neither does mother.Th' woman as knew left when owd Temple Barholm deed.""Tummas," broke in Mrs.Hibblethwaite from the other end of the room, to which she had returned after taking Miss Alicia out to complain about the copper in the "wash-'us'--" "Tummas, tha'st been talkin'

like a magpie.Tha'rt a lot too bold an' ready wi' tha tongue.Th'

gentry's noan comin' to see thee if tha clacks th' heads off theer showthers.""I'm afraid he always does talk more than is good for him," said Miss Alicia."He looks quite feverish.""He has been talking to me about Jem Temple Barholm," explained Tembarom."We've had a regular chin together.He thinks a heap of poor Jem."Miss Alicia looked startled, and Mrs.Hibblethwaite was plainly flustered tremendously.She quite lost her temper.

"Eh," she exclaimed, "tha wants tha young yed knocked off, Tummas Hibblethwaite.He's fair daft about th' young gentleman as--as was killed.He axes questions mony a day till I'd give him th' stick if he wasna a cripple.He moithers me to death.""I'll bring you some of those New York papers to look at," Tembarom said to the boy as he went away.

He walked back through the village to Temple Barholm, holding Miss Alicia's elbow in light, affectionate guidance and support, a little to her embarrassment and also a little to her delight.Until he had taken her into the dining-room the night before she had never seen such a thing done.There was no over- familiarity in the action.It merely seemed somehow to suggest liking and a wish to take care of her.

"That little fellow in the village," he said after a silence in which it occurred to her that he seemed thoughtful, "what a little freak he is! He's got an idea that there's a picture in the gallery that's said to look like Jem Temple Barholm when he was a boy.Have you ever heard anything about it? He says a servant told his mother it was there.""Yes, there is one," Miss Alicia answered."I sometimes go and look at it.But it makes me feel very sad.It is the handsome boy who was a page in the court of Charles II.He died in his teens.His name was Miles Hugo Charles James.Jem could see the likeness himself.

Sometimes for a little joke I used to call him Miles Hugo.""I believe I remember him," said Tembarom."I believe I asked Palford his name.I must go and have a look at him again.He hadn't much better luck than the fellow that looked like him, dying as young as that."