To-morrow | Page 4

for any sort of likely information. And the barber would go on to describe with sar- donic gusto, how that stranger in mourning had been seen exploring the country, in carts, on foot, taking everybody into his confidence, visiting all the inns and alehouses for miles around, stopping people on the road with his questions, looking into the very ditches almost; first in the greatest excite- ment, then with a plodding sort of perseverance, growing slower and slower; and he could not even tell you plainly how his son looked. The sailor was supposed to be one of two that had left a tim- ber ship, and to have been seen dangling after some girl; but the old man described a boy of fourteen or so--"a clever-looking, high-spirited boy." And when people only smiled at this he would rub his forehead in a confused sort of way before he slunk off, looking offended. He found nobody, of course; not a trace of anybody--never heard of anything worth belief, at any rate; but he had not been able somehow to tear himself away from Cole- brook.
"It was the shock of this disappointment, per- haps, coming soon after the loss of his wife, that had driven him crazy on that point," the barber suggested, with an air of great psychological in- sight. After a time the old man abandoned the ac- tive search. His son had evidently gone away; but he settled himself to wait. His son had been once at least in Colebrook in preference to his na- tive place. There must have been some reason for it, he seemed to think, some very powerful induce- ment, that would bring him back to Colebrook again.
"Ha, ha, ha! Why, of course, Colebrook. Where else? That's the only place in the United Kingdom for your long-lost sons. So he sold up his old home in Colchester, and down he comes here. Well, it's a craze, like any other. Wouldn't catch me going crazy over any of my youngsters clear- ing out. I've got eight of them at home." The barber was showing off his strength of mind in the midst of a laughter that shook the tap-room.
Strange, though, that sort of thing, he would confess, with the frankness of a superior intelli- gence, seemed to be catching. His establishment, for instance, was near the harbour, and whenever a sailorman came in for a hair-cut or a shave--if it was a strange face he couldn't help thinking di- rectly, "Suppose he's the son of old Hagberd!" He laughed at himself for it. It was a strong craze. He could remember the time when the whole town was full of it. But he had his hopes of the old chap yet. He would cure him by a course of judicious chaffing. He was watching the progress of the treatment. Next week--next month--next year! When the old skipper had put off the date of that return till next year, he would be well on his way to not saying any more about it. In other matters he was quite rational, so this, too, was bound to come. Such was the barber's firm opin- ion.
Nobody had ever contradicted him; his own hair had gone grey since that time, and Captain Hag- berd's beard had turned quite white, and had ac- quired a majestic flow over the No. 1 canvas suit, which he had made for himself secretly with tarred twine, and had assumed suddenly, coming out in it one fine morning, whereas the evening before he had been seen going home in his mourning of broadcloth. It caused a sensation in the High Street--shopkeepers coming to their doors, people in the houses snatching up their hats to run out-- a stir at which he seemed strangely surprised at first, and then scared; but his only answer to the wondering questions was that startled and evasive, "For the present."
That sensation had been forgotten, long ago; and Captain Hagberd himself, if not forgotten, had come to be disregarded--the penalty of daili- ness--as the sun itself is disregarded unless it makes its power felt heavily. Captain Hagberd's movements showed no infirmity: he walked stiffly in his suit of canvas, a quaint and remarkable fig- ure; only his eyes wandered more furtively perhaps than of yore. His manner abroad had lost its ex- citable watchfulness; it had become puzzled and diffident, as though he had suspected that there was somewhere about him something slightly com- promising, some embarrassing oddity; and yet had remained unable to discover what on earth this something wrong could be.
He was unwilling now to talk with the townsfolk. He had earned for himself the reputation of an awful skinflint, of a miser in the matter of living. He mumbled regretfully in the shops, bought in- ferior scraps