“Oh, Mr Poole,” said his landlady, compassionately, when he had begun to recover from the first vehemence of his grief, “I fear there’s something dreadfully wrong.”
Jacob shook his head.
“All lost—all ruined,” he replied. Yet even now his heart yearned towards his miserable master. He would not expose him to Mrs Jones; she at least should know nothing of his own loss.
“Mrs Jones,” he said, holding out his hand, “I must say good-bye. I fear my poor master’s got into very bad hands. I don’t rightly know what’s become of him; but where there’s life there’s hope, and I trust he isn’t past that. If you and I meet again, may it be a happier meeting. Be so good as to hand me my—my—bag I left in your charge,” he added, with quivering voice.
“I’m so sorry,” said the good woman, when she had fetched the bag. “I wish I could do anything to comfort you. I’m sure I’m truly sorry for the poor young gentleman. It’s a thousand pities he’s thrown himself away, for a nicer or freer-spoken gentleman never was, when he was in his proper senses. There, Mr Poole, there’s your bag. You see it’s just as you gave it me. No one has seen it or touched it but myself.”
“Thank you, Mrs Jones. It’s all right; farewell, and the Lord be with us both.”
He turned from the door utterly broken down in spirit. Whither should he go? What should he do? Should he really abandon his master to his fate? He could not. Should he delay posting the letter? No; and yet he felt a difficulty about it; for Frank had stated in his letter to himself that he had told his mother of the robbery, and that Jacob must be repaid his loss. But who was to say what was the worth of the nuggets? He had never ascertained their value. He felt that he could not face his master’s father; that he could not himself put a value upon what he had lost. His master had saved his life, and he would set that against the pilfered gold, and would forgive what had been done against himself. So having ascertained that it was only too true that his bag contained but two or three little pieces of the precious metal, he cast the rest of its contents into the sea, and determined to start afresh in life, as if the sorrowful part of his past history never had been. But first he posted Frank’s letter, with one of his own, in which he stated where he had lodged in Liverpool, that so his master’s parents might have every opportunity of endeavouring to trace their unhappy son. His own letter was as follows:—
“Madam,—Mr Frank Oldfield, your son, has bid me send you the letter from him which comes with this. Mr Frank is my master. You have no doubt heard him say something in his letters from Australia about Jacob Poole. Well, I am Jacob Poole. And we came to England together, my master and me; and my master has took, I am sorry to say it, to drinking again since he came back. I wanted him to go home at once, but he has kept putting it off, and he has got into the hands of some gamblers as has stripped him of all his brass; and he has taken, too, some nuggets of mine, which I got at the diggings, but he didn’t mean to keep them, only to borrow them, and pay me back. But, poor young gentleman, he has been quite ruinated by these cheating chaps as has got hold of him. So I don’t want anybody to think anything more about me or my nuggets—I should not like any fuss to be made about them—I had rather the whole thing was kept snug. I shall go and get work somewhere or other; and, thank the Lord for it, I am young and strong. So, dear madam, don’t think any more about me or my nuggets; for Mr Frank saved my life when he might have lost his own, so he is welcome to the nuggets, and more into the bargain. I am sorry that Mr Frank has gone off; so I cannot tell you where to find him. I have tried, but it isn’t any use. We—that is, my master and me—was lodging with Mrs Jones, as I’ve written at the top of the letter. I can tell you no more about where to find him. So no more at present from your very humble servant, Jacob Poole.”
“Mr Frank has written to me not to post his letter for a month, but I don’t think it is right to keep it from you, so I send it at once.”
Such was Jacob’s letter, when cleared of mistakes in spelling and expression.
Frank’s letter to his mother was in these words:—