“No, Jack, you need have no fear of me; as far as I am concerned, you may go free for the rest of your life; if you have wronged any one else, you will have to settle that with your own conscience. All I ask of you is to tell me the history of my early life, and what you know regarding my father and mother.”
“Thank ye, Master Geoffrey,” returned Jack, humbly. “I don’t deserve that ye should be so considerate. I’ve had to skulk and hide for more’n twenty years, and though there ain’t much in the world that I care to live for, yet a feller don’t exactly like the idee of bein’ put out of it afore his time. I’ll tell ye all I know about yerself and your folks, and welcome.”
“Come over to yonder log and let us sit down,” Geoffrey said, indicating a fallen tree, but he was very white, and felt weak and trembling as he moved toward it.
At last he believed the mystery of his life was to be revealed.
“I came here to work in the mines about a year afore Captain Dale—that’s your dad—bought his claim,” Jack began, after they were seated. “He bought out old Waters all of a sudden, and, about a fortnight after, he brought the prettiest little woman I ever set eyes on to live in that house yonder——”
“His wife?” eagerly queried Geoffrey.
“Of course, lad—leastwise he said she was, and she was called Mrs. Dale; and if ever a man set his life by a woman, the captain was that one. He dressed her like a doll, and wouldn’t let her do a thing except make little fancy knickknacks, and was forever pettin’ and makin’ of her as if she was a child. Wal, they kep’ two maids—at least after a while—one in the kitchen and one to wait on Mrs. Dale, who was kind of ailin’. Margery Brown was the waitin’ maid, and she and me had been keepin’ company for quite a while, and it was agreed between us that we’d marry afore long and try our luck together in California, for I’d scraped together a snug little sum and was tired of mines. But after she went to the cap’s house she began to put me off—she grew so fond of his wife that she wouldn’t hear a word about marryin’ and leavin’ her. At the end of a year ye were born—a cute little nine-pounder ye was, too, and a prouder man ye never see than the captain was after ye came. But it didn’t last long, for yer mother began to fail afore ye were a month old, and in another week or two she was dead.
“It just broke the captain’s heart. He seemed half crazed, didn’t pay any heed to his business, and finally said he couldn’t stay here where everything kept his mind stirred up with the past. He told Margery he was goin’ to break up, only he didn’t know what he should do with you, for he hadn’t any place or any folks to take you to.
“I thought my time to speak up had come then, and I told Margery she must take me then or never, and if the captain were willin’ we’d take the baby along with us, until he could do better by it. This pleased her, and she said she’d speak to the master about it. He was glad enough to let ye come with us, for he knew my girl loved ye and would take better care of ye than any stranger. He said he’d pay well for it until ye were old enough to go to school, when he’d take you to some good one to begin yer edication.
“Well, Margery and I were married, and went to California to live on a small farm I’d leased, just out of Frisco, which I worked part of the time and let out the rest, at odd jobs, to get a little ready money. The cap shipped all his fine furniture off somewhere to be sold, shut up the house yonder, and left for parts unknown, though for the first two years he came every six months to see how his boy was gettin’ on. After that he didn’t come so often, though he sent money regular.