Flood Tide Part 41

"You mean that without courts or lawyers askin' him to, this man just wants to hand over the money?" gasped Captain Jonas.

"Yes."

"Well, I dunno who he is, but I'll say this much for him--he's an honest cuss!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the fisherman.

In spite of his earnestness Mr. Galbraith smiled.

Delight, however, had risen during the interval of silence and with nervously clasped hands had gone to Zenas Henry's side, where she now stood, her eyes large with thought.

Her uncle turned toward her.

"Well, my dear, what have you to say?" he asked.

"It is--is very kind of a stranger to be so n.o.ble, so generous," she declared gently. "He mustn't think that I do not appreciate it. But I couldn't take a cent of the money," she went on with quick decision.

"Even had it been willed to me in the first place, it would have made no difference. I don't want to be unkind or to hurt anybody's feelings. But can't you see that Madam Lee was really nothing in my life? She came in and went out of it like a phantom, and she did not begin to mean to me what she did to this old friend of hers. Just because at the close of her days it was discovered that I was of her kin, it established no bond of affection between us--nothing but a legal claim. If she had lived and we had grown dear to one another, and she had given the fortune to me out of her heart, then I should have accepted it gladly. But to have it bestowed on me merely by right of succession--I couldn't think of touching a penny of it!"

She caught her breath, and her chin rose a trifle higher.

"And besides," she continued, "I would rather just be indebted to Zenas Henry and my own family. My grandmother was unjust to my parents, unkind. Although she lived to be sorry for it and would, doubtless, have done differently when she was older, she was harsh and cruel to them. I have forgiven but I never can forget it. I don't want the Lee money. Zenas Henry and the three captains give me all I need, and I have no fears but that in the future Bob can look out for me."

There was something in the proudly poised figure, so slender and erect, so firm and self-respecting in its calm decision, that roused every hearer's admiration and drew from the New York financier an involuntary homage. Nevertheless with a fear that impulse might have prompted the girl's verdict, he felt impelled to explain:

"But you are tossing away a large sum--thousands, child! You and your people would be rich."

"We don't want to be rich!" cried Delight, with quivering nostril. "Do we, Zenas Henry?" she slipped an arm about his neck as he collapsed into his seat on the piazza rail. "We are happy just as we are! You don't want me to take the Lee money, do you?" she asked, putting her cheek against his.

"No, honey, no! You shan't be beholden to any one but me," he answered. "I hoped you'd decide as you have. 'Twould take half the pleasure out of my life if it warn't us that was to do for you. Just the same, Mr. Galbraith, we thank you kindly for bringin' the offer, an' your friend for makin' it; an' though we refuse it, 'tain't done in no unfriendly spirit."

"I understand that," nodded the financier.

Nevertheless he gazed with no small amount of awe and respect at these poor fisherfolk who could so lightly fling aside a fortune.

"Mebbe," resumed Zenas Henry, "you'll tell this friend of Madam Lee's that we've took note of his squareness."

"Oh, yes, do tell him that it was splendid of him, splendid!"

interrupted Delight.

"He's a gentleman, whoever he is," Captain Phineas added. "Tell him so from all of us."

"You might like to tell him so yourselves," returned Mr. Galbraith slowly.

"Eh?" Zenas Henry questioned. "Oh, we might write him, you mean.

That's so. Likely it would be more decent. We'd be surer of his knowin' how we felt if 'twas put down in black an' white. What's his name?"

"Robert Morton."

"Robert Morton! Robert Mor--not our--not _Bob_!"

"Yes."

He saw Delight flush, and her eyes suddenly fill with tears.

"Bob!" she whispered half-aloud. "Bob!"

Zenas Henry drew her closer.

"What does the girl want with money," he demanded, "when she's got a man like that? He's better than all the money on earth."

"But she'll get the money just the same, Zenas Henry," piped Captain Jonas. "She'll get it. Have you thought of that?"

"It will be Bob's money, not mine," returned Delight with shy dignity.

CHAPTER XXIII

FAME COMES TO THE DREAMER OF DREAMS

Richard Galbraith returned thoughtfully over the Harbor Road not sorry at the turn affairs had taken. The honorable and magnanimous thing had been done with the Lee fortune, and it had been firmly and proudly refused. Now it could go unreservedly to Robert Morton for whom the financier had a particular regard and in whose wisdom to make a sensible use of it he felt every confidence. The money would not only place the young man in a position to marry without delay, but indirectly its benefits would reach the two individuals that Madam Lee would most earnestly have desired to help. Nor did the capitalist's regard for Delight, which had steadily been growing, decrease when viewed from this new angle. The Lees were a proud race and the girl came justly by the attribute. He was not sure, now that he reflected on the matter, but that he himself would have scorned the legacy in the same high-handed fas.h.i.+on. Nevertheless he had not expected this termination of the interview, had not expected it at all. His recently acquired relatives were proving themselves interesting persons. Who would have dreamed that a penniless fisherman's daughter would have tossed the Lee ducats back into his face?

He laughed to himself when he thought of the paradox. He had always admired spirit in a woman.

The car rolled on, flas.h.i.+ng past swamps of swaying iris bedded deep in the salt marsh-gra.s.s, past tangles of fragrant honeysuckle and garlands of clinging clematis, and presently shot out into the sunny stretch of road that like a white ribbon bound the blue waters of the bay. When it reached the bluff where the sand mounted into green-capped dunes, patched in their hollows with shadows of violet, it slowed down and came to a stop before Willie Spence's weathered cottage.

The old inventor and Bob were seated idly on the workshop steps. No longer did the vibrant hammer and purring plane blend their metallic notes with the music of the surf. Their work was done, and until he was "kitched with a new idee" Willie had nothing to do but smoke beneath the shade of the grapevine and rambler rose and watch the vast reach of water to the line where it melted into the blue of the sky.

Since his interview with Mr. Galbraith, Robert Morton had had all he could do to keep from Willie the a.s.surance that Janoah's accusations were false and that instead of misfortune good luck was winging its way toward the low gray house on the bay. Bob was a generous fellow and it added tenfold to his present happiness to know that joy was also coming to one toward whom he cherished an abiding affection. The secret, however, was Mr. Galbraith's, and until the New Yorker saw fit to impart it he must maintain silence. Therefore, with smiles wreathing his face and the wonderful story locked tightly in his possession, he tried to be patient until the final revelation should be made.

And now with the approach of the capitalist he knew that at last the great moment had arrived. The dream of years was to come true and the darling of Willie's brain, his greatest and most ambitious idea, was to be made a potent factor in the broad universe. So perfectly did he understand the quaint, half-shrinking inventor that he knew well no money, no fame, no praise could mean to him what this recognition would. Persons were to use the thing he had thought out,--to use it neither because of friends.h.i.+p nor interest, but because it was a practical, indispensable article which no mind had previously given to the world. In the days and weeks Bob had spent in the Spence cottage it was impossible not to read all this and more in the sensitive, hungering nature of the man who had worked beside him. Love and parenthood in its smaller and more specific sense had pa.s.sed Willie Spence by, but in their place there had sprung into life a broader altruism and a larger creative impulse. The children his mind begot were as much of his blood and marrow as if they had actually been born of his own flesh; and to have one of them go victoriously forth into that moving current that reached so far beyond his own humble door would be like sending a child into battle. It transformed the father to one of the elect.

Surely, thought Robert Morton, great and unexpected issues had centered about his visit to Wilton. When confronted by the present unfoldings, who would have the temerity to boast that one's destinies were matters of chance?

"Well," called Mr. Galbraith as he came up the walk, "you two people look comfortable. Is there room on that doorstep for one more?"

"Certainly, sir! Certainly!" Willie replied. "But wouldn't you rather we heaved a box or something out of the shop for you to set on? You'll find these steps a good way down, I'm afraid."

"Not a bit of it," the New Yorker answered, dropping into the welcome shade of the trellis. "You have deserted the shop, I see. Does that mean your work is done?"

"Done an' delivered," smiled Willie. "We've discharged our cargo an'

ain't took nothin' else aboard yet. We're just kinder ridin' at anchor."

"How did your friend, Mr. Brewster, like your handiwork?"

In spite of his native modesty Willie's bronzed face lighted with pride.

"Say, you'd oughter seen him!" exclaimed he, forgetting everything else in his pleasure. "He was struck clean abeam! He never suspected nothin' about it an' the surprise took him broadside. An' it works!"

continued the little man with enthusiasm. "Yes, siree! It works!