“Ay, surely—Feuerberg,” said Poyntz, puffing his pipe preoccupiedly.
We walked on for awhile in silence. So great was my desire that the evidence I had been arranging in my mind should be borne out by the facts, that I was almost afraid to put the matter definitely to the proof; while Poyntz, on the other hand, was evidently taken by surprise, and had not got his ideas quite settled. At length, however, I thought I would hazard one hint more.
“I’ve been thinking of that yarn you were spinning yesterday afternoon—in fact, I believe I dreamt of it last night; and I should imagine that the little yellow-haired girl, if she grew up, would have looked enough like Agatha to be her sister—or her mother, at any rate.”
“And I’ve been thinking, sir, of the accident that stopped me from finishing that there yarn ye speak of, and of the hearty thanks I owe ye for the stout heart and ready hand that saved my Peter. But thanks is easily said; and I mean more than words come to. I’d not have ye suppose as I’d give all trust and confidence to a man just because he’s done a brave act for me and mine. But as I told you once afore, and speaking out man to man, I like the looks of ye, and ever did; and seeing as how ye’ve found out a good bit of our little secret already, and seem like you’d an interest to know more of it; for that, and likewise because of another thing, as I’ve just found out myself, and it may be as important as any—well, I’ll tell ye what about Agatha there is to tell.”
At this moment, however, we passed round a clump of oak trees, and found ourselves right at the entrance of the little gorge where I had had my adventure the night before. Poyntz halted, and fixed his eyes gravely upon the scene for several moments. “Ay, the same old harbour,” said he; “it’s changed a bit now, but it brings it all back to me the last time I was here. This is the Laughing Mill, Mr. Feuerberg. And this here is the Black Oak, and here is poor Gloam’s grave, d’ye see? with the bit of gray stone a-sticking out of the end of it.”
“Why was he buried here?”
“Well, ’twas his wish; that’s all. He was crazed the last years of his life, with grieving on the death of the young girl as he’d picked up on the beach, that I was telling you of. A sad thing it was altogether. She went wrong, d’ye see, with the fellow David, the Scholar’s brother, and was drowned here along with him; but how that came to pass was never rightly known. ’Tis thought the Scholar had meant for to marry the girl himself. And so would David have married her, I doubt, if he’d known what I know.”
“About the family?”
“Ay, sir, that. Ye maybe ’ll remember the iron box as I picked up? Well, I didn’t tell anyone about it then, not even the Scholar; and soon after the night of the storm I shipped for Rio, and was away a matter of two years. When I came back I heard as how David was thick with the girl—Swanhilda they called her. Then I opened the box, not having done it before, and found papers in it telling who she was, and that folks of hers were living in Germany, having emigrated there from Denmark; and from what I could make out—for ’twas in a foreign lingo, and I was forced to borrow a lexicon to it—it seemed likely as how they was well off. Now, I had my opinion of David, that he was a worthless sort of a chap, though clever and handsome; so thinks I, I won’t tell him of this, for if so be as I do, he’ll wed the girl in the hope of money, and not for true love of her, who was worthy the love of better than he. But what I’ll do, I’ll write to those her folks in Germany, telling them as how she’s here; and when they come, then they can do for her as they find best, and it’ll be out of my hands. And so I did, but had never an answer, why I don’t know. But it never came in my mind, sir, that the fellow David would ever be so black a scoundrel as to lead the poor innocent girl wrong. How be, when he had done it, thinks I, I’ll tell him of her folks now, because now the best can happen will be that they marry, though the best is bad enough; and if I tell him, maybe he’ll make her an honest woman, as the saying is. And tell him I did, with a piece of my mind touching my thought of him, into the bargain. And he promised me as he’d go and make it right the next day—this being spoke in the town above here, whither I’d gone for to see him. And it can’t be said but what he kept his word; only he and she was drowned in the night, and crushed under that there wheel, as never has turned since, to this day.”
“What became of her baby—she had a baby?”