"Kitty's father has no more than enough to live on, even in the sparing
way in which we live about here. He is a kind of bailiff or steward of
manor rights here, and they are not much, and it is but a poor little
office. He was better off once, and Kitty must never marry to mere
drudgery and hard living."
The captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the young
fisherman.
"I am as certain that my father had no knowledge that any one was wronged
as to this money, or that any restitution ought to be made, as I am
certain that the sun now shines. But, after this solemn warning from my
brother's grave in the sea, that the money is Stolen Money," said Young
Raybrock, forcing himself to the utterance of the words, "can I doubt it?
Can I touch it?"
"About not doubting, I ain't so sure," observed the captain; "but about
not touching--no--I don't think you can."
"See then," said Young Raybrock, "why I am so grieved. Think of Kitty.
Think what I have got to tell her!"
His heart quite failed him again when he had come round to that, and he
once more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor. But not for long; he
soon began again, in a quietly resolute tone.
"However! Enough of that! You spoke some brave words to me just now,
Captain Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain. I have got to do
something. What I have got to do, before all other things, is to trace
out the meaning of this paper, for the sake of the Good Name that has no
one else to put it right. And still for the sake of the Good Name, and
my father's memory, not a word of this writing must be breathed to my
mother, or to Kitty, or to any human creature. You agree in this?"
"I don't know what they'll think of us below," said the captain, "but for
certain I can't oppose it. Now, as to tracing. How will you do?"
They both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again carefully
puzzled out the whole of the writing.
"I make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, 'Inquire
among the old men living there, for'--some one. Most like, you'll go to
this village named here?" said the captain, musing, with his finger on
the name.
"Yes! And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and--to be sure!--comes from
Lanrean."
"Does he?" said the captain quietly. "As I ain't acquainted with him,
who may _he_ be?"
"Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty's father."
"Ay, ay!" cried the captain. "Now you speak! Tregarthen knows this
village of Lanrean, then?"
"Beyond all doubt he does. I have often heard him mention it, as being
his native place. He knows it well."
"Stop half a moment," said the captain. "We want a name here. You could
ask Tregarthen (or if you couldn't I could) what names of old men he
remembers in his time in those diggings? Hey?"
"I can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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