Glyddyr Requires a Pick-me-up.
“Guv’nor aboard?”
Glyddyr was seated in the cabin, restlessly smoking a cigar, and gazing through the open window at the Fort, where it stood up grey and glittering in the sunshine, and holding within it, protected by the memory of its builder, the two objects for which Parry Glyddyr longed.
He had made up his mind a dozen times over to go straight to the place and see Claude, but the recollection of that horrible night kept him back, and he gave up, to go on pacing the little saloon, talking to himself wildly.
For how, he said, could he approach Claude now—he, the destroyer of her father’s life—go and ask her to listen to him, talk to her and try to lead her into thinking that, before long, she must become his wife—tell her that it was her duty, that it was her father’s wish, when all the time it would seem to him that the mocking, angry spirit of the dead would be pervading his old home, looking at him furtively from his easy-chair, from his window and door, as he had seen him look a score of times before.
No: it was too horrible; he dared not.
Three times since Gartram’s death he had, with great effort, written kindly letters—he could not go to the Fort and speak—telling Claude that she was not to think him unfeeling for not calling upon her, but to attribute it to a delicacy upon his part—a desire not to intrude upon her at such a time; and that he was going away for a cruise, but would shortly be back, then he would call.
Three times he did set sail, and as many times did he come back into the harbour after being out for a few hours, to the disgust of the crew.
“The skipper’s mad,” they said; “drinks a deal too much, and he’ll have the ‘horrors’ if he don’t mind. He used to be able to cruise a bit, and now, if there’s a screw loose in the engine, she careens over, or there’s a cloud to wind’ard, he’s back into port, and here we are getting rusty for want of a run.”
It was always so. So soon as they were a few miles away, Glyddyr saw his rival taking advantage of his absence, and winning Claude over to his side, and with her the wealth that was to have been his.