“Well, well, you shall come back and see her; I don’t want you to lose any of your friends. Only, mind, I must be first; I’m beginning to have a devil of a jealousy in me, child, of all these friends of yours who seem so fond of you. Is there any one else?”
“Yes; there’s Brian.”
The old lady stiffened a little. “Well, it won’t break his heart, at all events. Any one else?”
“Yes, one more; Mr. Theed.”
“And who the devil’s Mr. Theed?” she asked, wrinkling her brow.
“Oh, he’s a shoemaker—quite a nice shoemaker, I do assure you; he has dreams, and visions, and things. The captain likes him immensely, and ’Linda worships him. I think that’s all.”
“And enough, too,” she ejaculated. “Lord, what a family! The strangest collection I should think anybody could have got together! Comethup, I’m beginning to think you’re a very remarkable child. Well, how long do you want to say ‘Good-bye’ to these people? Of course we must stay here for a day or two—until after the funeral. Suppose we say a week; will that be long enough?”
Comethup caught gladly at the suggestion, and so the matter was settled. His aunt informed him that she had taken a room for him at the inn, and that he was to sleep there during the remainder of his stay in the old town. She gave him perfect freedom during the day, making the sole stipulation that he must dine with her at seven o’clock every evening; he could leave her immediately after breakfast, but he must never fail to put in an appearance at dinner. Having said this, she quite abruptly dismissed him, and he left her pacing up and down the room, with her stick lightly tapping the floor before her as she walked.
That strange week passed all too swiftly. There was so much to be crowded into it; so many delightful places—never so delightful as now—crowded with childish memories which had to be visited, and to which silent farewells had to be given. Not all the importance which his new dignity gave to him could quite swallow up the sorrow he felt in tearing himself away from the only place he had ever known. He wished, ungratefully enough sometimes, that he might wake suddenly and find that it had all been a dream, and that his aunt had never really come into his life, save in a dream; wished passionately that he might keep the people and the things about him just as they had ever been. Knowing nothing of that inevitable and seemingly cruel shifting about of the pawn in the great game of life, he resented it miserably and wondered why it should be necessary.
He saw the captain every day. Like an older child than himself, the captain planned to make the week seem longer than it really was; spun out the hours, arranged excursions to their old haunts, and tried valiantly to set aside the thought that their parting was near at hand. Once, indeed, when they were together on the old sandy waste outside the town he started a lesson, new and subtle, in military operations, but broke down in the middle and sat brooding, with his chin resting on his hands. They walked home silently, hand in hand, afterward, and the captain’s voice was husky when Comethup left him at the gate of his cottage garden.