"Well,now,that's a funny thing,"said the Captain."It's one of the very things.But I'm afraid you're a bit young.Yet I don't know.We might--"He broke off,suddenly lifted his finger to his lip,whispered:
"Keep your eyes open.I'll be round again,"and had vanished.
Directly after Jeremy heard Miss Jones's unwelcome voice:"Why,Jeremy,we couldn't find you anywhere.It's turning cold--tea-time --"
With a thump and a thud and a bang he fell back into the homely world.
III
Jeremy was a perfectly normal little boy,and I defy anyone to have discovered in him at this stage in his progress,those strange morbidities and irregular instincts that were to be found in such unhappy human beings as Dostoieffsky's young hero in "Podrostok,"or the unpleasant son and heir of Jude and Sue.Nevertheless,eight years old is not too early for stranger impulses and wilder dreams than most parents ever conceive of,and the fortnight that followed Jeremy's meeting with the Sea-Captain was as peculiar and fantastic a fortnight as he was ever,in all his later life,to know.
For he was haunted--really haunted in the good old solid practical meaning of the term--haunted with the haunting that pursued Sintram and many another famous hero.And he was haunted not only by the Sea-Captain,but by a thousand things that attended in that hero's company.He was haunted by a picture--whence it had come to him he did not know--of a dead-white high road,dropping over the hill into shadow,the light fading around it,black,heavy hedges on every side of it.From below the hill came the pounding of the sea,exactly as he had heard it so many many times on the hill above Rafiel,and he knew,although his eyes could not catch it,that in the valley round the head of the road was the fishing village with the lights just coming in the windows,and beyond the village the sloping shingly Cove.But he could see only the dead-white road,and upon this his eyes were always fixed as though he were expecting someone.And he could smell the sea-pinks and the grass damp with evening dew,and the cold dust of the road,and the sea-smell in the wind.And he waited,knowing that the time would come when he would be told to descend the hill,pass through the village,and step out,under the heavy grey clouds,upon the little shingly beach.He was aware then that out at sea a dark,black ship was riding,slipping a little with the tide,one light gleaming and swinging against the pale glow of the dusky horizon.The church clock struck four below the hill;he was still on the high road waiting,his eyes straining for figures.He was prepared for some journey,because he had at his feet a bundle.And he knew that he ought not to be there.He knew that something awful was about to happen and that,when it had occurred,he would be committed always to something or someone.
A little cold breeze then would rise in the hedges and against the silence that followed the chiming of the clock he could hear first the bleating of a sheep,then a sudden pounding of the sea as though the breakers responded to the sudden rising of the wind,then the hoofs of a horse,clear and hard,upon the road.At that moment the picture clouded and was dim.Had this been a dream?Was it simply a confusion of summer visits to Rafiel,stories told him by Mary,pictures in books (a fine illustrated edition of "Redgauntlet"had been a treasure to him since he was a baby),the exciting figure of the Captain,and the beginning of spring?And yet the vision was so vividly detailed that it was precisely like a remembered event.
He had always seen things in pictures;punishment meant standing in the corner counting the ships on the wallpaper;summer holidays meant the deep green meadows of Cow Farm,or a purple pool under an afternoon sun;religion meant walking up the great wide aisle of the Cathedral in creaking boots and clean underclothes,and so on.It was nothing new for him to make a picture,and to let that picture stand for a whole complex phase of life.But this?What had it to do with the Sea-Captain,aud why was it,as he knew in his heart that it was,wicked and wrong and furtive?For this had begun as a high adventurous romance.There had been nothing wrong in that first talk in the Meads,when the Captain had shown him the tatooes.The wickedness of it had developed partly with his growing longing to see the Captain again,partly with the meeting that actually followed,and partly with the sense that grew and grew as the days passed that the Captain was always watching him.
The Captain,during these weeks,seemed to be everywhere.Never was there an afternoon that Jeremy walked out with Miss Jones and his sisters that he did not appear.It was not very difficult to snatch a conversation with him.Because the beauty of the spring weather continued,the children went every day for a walk in the Meads,and on at least three separate occasions Jeremy and the Captain enjoyed quite long conversations together.These were,none of them,so good as that first one had been.The Captain was not so genial,nor so light-hearted;it seemed that he had something on his mind.