CHAPTER VIII

PICARDINO

Running downstairs I was aware of an unaccustomed music in the house. A high, vibrating voice was trilling and quavering to some twanging instrument; and breaking into the kitchen I saw a merry brown little fellow, with a ring of black stubbly beard about his lips, fingering what I afterwards learnt was a guitar, and singing with the abandonment of a bird. Without stopping his song he rolled a vivacious dark eye on me, winking with such a knowing merriment that I beamed my broadest at him, watching him with absorbed interest.

He finished his song and started speaking in a breath, chattering in a pretty musical broken English, calling for wine, and pledging the ladees of Italee, generally giving us to understand that Italy was the land for a roving eye and a merry heart, where the gerrls knew the meaning of love.

As he spoke he sipped at his wine, smacking his lips, and touching his guitar with nervous fingers; and before any one had time to take up the dialogue he was off on another song, throwing himself into it with a humorous passion that set my blood tingling in my veins. Before he had finished, my father came in, and as the song closed applauded heartily with, "Brava! Brava!"

The Italian seemed gratified, and swept him an elaborate bow; but my father held out his hand to the guitar, saying "Ah, the lovely strings; my fingers have itched for them for years."

The Italian hastily unslung the gaudy instrument from his shoulders, and handed it to my father eagerly, saying, "Ah, an arteest! He ees my brotherr. He shall say he have play on the gueetar of Picardino. He will remember me, yes? Picardino." And before my father could prevent him he had embraced him with fervour, greatly to the amusement of the host and the few early guests.

But my father wasn't in the least disconcerted, returning the embrace with unction; and freeing himself he fingered at the guitar, at first with some diffidence, but soon growing more confident, striking the chords boldly or rippling out the arpeggios.

He hesitated a moment before launching into a song, and then began on an old sea chantey:

"In Plymouth Town there lived a maid, Bless you young women; In Plymouth Town there lived a maid, Now mind what I do say; In Plymouth Town there lived a maid, And she was mistress of her trade; I'll go no more a ro--o--ving With you--fair--maid."

We must have been a good day's journey from the sea, but the company seemed to know the song and caught up the chorus:

"A ro--ving, a ro--ving, Since roving's been my ru--i--in, I'll go no more a ro--o--ving With you--fair--maid."

And this was the beginning of a merry contest, the guitar passing from the Italian to my father and back again, my father usually singing some gay sailor ditty, and Picardino some wavering high-pitched song of love. I listened delighted. Also Picardino, in his quaint English, was a wonderful chatterbox, full of stories of the road; and I found myself at times half wishing I might join him in his wanderings, and share some of his adventures of frolic and danger over the ways of France and Italy and Spain. I remember when I awoke from such dreams to reality I glanced toward my father feeling guilty of a kind of treason, and he seemed to be eyeing me darkly as though half divining my thought; till in penitence lest I had wounded him I stole up to him, and clasping his hand said, "I wouldn't, daddy; I really wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?" he asked uncomprehendingly.

"I wouldn't go with him; I wouldn't really."

My father gazed at me rather dreamily for a minute, and suddenly seeming to awake laughed and said, "Oh, that, Tommy. No, of course not; of course not." But I thought he didn't know either what he was saying or what I meant. I felt relieved.

Meanwhile Picardino was telling of a strange adventure in the north from where he had just come, as he said, followed by "terreeble voices, ach! so cru-ell, so chill, that my hair it stand upon its end, and my hearrt it knock like so"; at which he beat a rat-tat upon the table. It seemed that upon a lonely space of moor he had arrived one evening at a huge grey house, but on knocking for admittance no one had answered him. He was tired and hungry, and could see no village near where he could rest, so he had continued to knock, till slowly growing out of the hollow house he had become aware of a low and sorrowful moaning, "like one lost soul, for everr and for everr bound to a beeg wheel of pain." As he told his story his eyes started from his head, and his hair seemed to stiffen about his neck.

My father was clearly struck with the picture of the lonely house, especially when the host corroborated the story, saying he had heard rumours from travellers of a haunted mansion on the moors, some twenty or thirty miles maybe to the northward. Others, too, had heard of it, and the report wasn't encouraging to investigation, as the place seemed veiled in mystery and gloom, and no one could be found to inhabit it. The last tenant, it was said, had fled shrieking from it in the dead of night, and had died raving.

To all this Picardino chimed in with "Yess, yess," like a bird's cheep, repeating, "So, as I tell you; yess," as though the accumulated testimony pleased him, and finishing with, "Ach, there! Eet ees a place of speereets. I not go near eet; neverr!" He shuddered till it seemed that his bones were being shaken together; then again striking on his guitar he soared into another song, and at the close he passed round his hat with a flourish, and emptying the few coppers into his hand spat upon them for luck, and invoking on us the blessing of the Virgin Mary and all the saints, danced out into the street, where we soon heard his voice thinly quavering on a high note of romantic passion.

My father and I settled to our breakfast, and that over I was told to amuse myself as well as I could for the rest of the day, but to be back before dark as we were to be off once more on our wanderings. I gave my pistol practice a miss that morning, for my first thought was to follow Picardino, and I scampered out of the _Snow Man_ in pursuit of him; but he had vanished. I enquired of him from every one I met, and was sent southward in chase of him, but coming to a forked road I was at a loss which way to follow, and there was no one in sight. Turning to the left at a venture I ran a long way before I met any one, an old tramp as it happened sitting by the wayside; but to my eager questioning he slowly doffed his cap and rubbed his head, and declared that he couldn't rightly say, not but what he might have passed, but he had been winking his forty. His head nodded even as he spoke, and I ran on. But I didn't find Picardino. I turned back eventually to search along the other road, but was equally unsuccessful. However, I soon forgot my disappointment, and went coursing my own shadow over the heathery moor.

The sun was getting low when I turned my face homewards; and sighting the village from a rise, at first, I stopped short, and then started running with all my might, for leaping up red into the evening was a burst of angry flame. Something vaguely foreboding tightened at my breast, but I kept a desperate pace, and arrived panting to find a crowd gathered about the _Snow Man_ which was wrapped in dense folds of smoke, with streaks of fire licking up from it like tongues from a black mouth.

My thought was uttered in my involuntary cry, "My father!" Some one in the crowd turned, and I heard him exclaim in surprise, "Why, here ee be," and another, "Ah, poor bairn!" in tones of pity.

I clutched the nearest villager, and again cried, "My father, where's my father?" looking wildly up into his face; but I didn't stay for his answer, for he turned his head uneasily away. I pushed past him, and squeezing through the crowd broke to the front, crying in an agony, "Daddy, dad-_dee_!"

I think I would have run headlong into the flames, for something told me without the need of words what had happened; but I was arrested by a strong arm, whose I don't know to this day, for I only struggled and bit and kicked at him, shouting through my tears, "Let me go to my daddy; let me go!"

"Steady, lad, steady," was all I heard in reply; but through my frenzy I could hear a low voice droning evenly and monotonously, "However ee coom out o' 't fust time was a miracle. An' then t' go back again! Good sort too. 'Host,' sez 'ee, 'that cooms o' me carelessness,' sez ee, 'an' here's what'll pay for 't,' ee sez; an' out comes a purse o' gold as ee might be t' lord o' t' county." I heard more of this through my shouting and struggling, though it wasn't till afterwards that I realized the meaning of what I heard. But my struggling stopped when the voice changed to, "An' all of a sudden ee sez, 'Hark!' ee sez; 'Hark there!' an' takes a grip o' me arm, so. 'Ee's calling me,' ee sez; but I couldn't hear nowt. 'Ee's there,' ee cries something dreadful, 'ee's calling me; I can hear him.' An' before I knows what's what ee's into t' fire again, here's t' bairn back again; an' ee weren't calling at all; an' him rushing in t' save him. Ah 't's sad, 't is. An' ee were a good sort...."

The first words of the story had frozen me to attention. It was all so like my father that I could see it happening before my eyes. In my confused mind one picture stood out vividly and terribly clear: my father watching the blaze, and suddenly starting at my voice from the flames calling for help; and then the dash into the fire which closed like a curtain behind him.

I threw my arms up to my face and sobbed aloud; and everything went dark....

I came to consciousness again with a dim chattering in my ears which slowly strengthened and caught at my memory. And suddenly sitting up I cried, "Picardino!"

The little fellow was at my side in a moment, soothing me with hand and voice like a hundred mothers. But something began to grow cold about my heart, and the full recollection of my state burst upon me, and I whimpered like a baby, "Daddy! I want my daddy!"

"I'll be your daddee," said Picardino. "Ach, we'll soon be merree again." He prattled of the delights of the road, trying to comfort me, but I felt miserably desolate, and lay down and sobbed. He left me after a while, and presently returned with some hot soup. At first I waved it away, but the savoury smell was too much for me, and I was soon greedily devouring the appetizing stuff. And then I think I must have cried myself to sleep.

It was dark when I awoke, and I was strangely alert. I didn't know where I was, but in a room below there was an indistinct murmur of voices. But what caught my ear was a low, clear whistling from the darkness outside, and I sprang to the window and strained my eyes into the night; for the tune was my old favorite:

"Dance to your daddy, My little laddy; Dance to your daddy, My little man."

There was a pause, and I took up the melody:

"You shall have a fish, You shall have a fin; You shall have a haddock, When the ship comes in."

I paused in my turn, and closer on the air came the ending of the tune:

"You shall have a feather, You shall have a fan. Dance to your daddy, My little man."

My heart was thumping wildly, and forgetting all my training in caution I rushed out of the room, clothed as I was in my shirt only, and down the stairs, and broke into a lighted room full of people, crying, "Daddy, dad-_dee_!"

I made for the door, but Picardino caught me by the arm. "How? What?" he said sharply.

Then my caution returned to me. I looked foolishly round and rubbed my eyes as though I had been dreaming, and beginning to whimper I said, "I want my daddy."

Picardino was at once all mother to me, and was leading me from the room when the street door opened and a man entered. I just glanced at him, but he wasn't my father; so I crept out of the room and up the stairs. But I wasn't half-way up before I heard a terrible scream, and the sounds of a scuffle. I stopped to listen, but the whistling was still in my ears, and that claimed my first attention. I ran up to my room and tugged on my clothes--Picardino must have undressed me--and then peering out of the window I gave a low whistle. There was a faint answer; and I looked down the wall to see if I could escape, my heart beating with I know not what wild expectation. I could see the ground beneath me, not a very deep drop, and the earth was soft, being dug up into a flower-bed under the window. I was soon hanging to the sill; and swinging myself away from the wall was on the ground on all fours. I sprang up and looked about me. Again I whistled, and the answer came, but not from where I expected it. I turned and crept forward, and heard a low whisper, "Heest! Heer, heer." But it was the voice of Picardino, and his hand just touched me.

I shrank back, at a loss to understand, but my amazement was cut short by a great figure springing out of the dark, and I heard a faint cry, and footsteps crashing away through the night. At last all was silent again, and I was alone.

I stood still wondering what it could all mean. Then the door of the house opened; or the inn, I should say, for it must have been an inn; and dark figures appeared against the sudden light talking excitedly. I slunk into the shadow, thinking it best to make my escape from such a place, not knowing what dangers might be lurking for me there. And then I felt a warm hand in my own, and my father's voice was whispering "Shhh!"

For a moment I stood fixed to earth, my blood in a whirl; then turning I flung my arms about my father, and buried my face against him to stifle the sound of my glad sobbing; for I was unstrung by the agony and excitement of the past few hours, and the revulsion of feeling was too much for my self-control.

But I soon mastered myself sufficiently to creep quietly away, holding my father tight by the hand, fearing lest somehow he might escape me again.

The night was warm, for the summer weather wasn't over, though the year was advancing; and we lay beneath the heather. And there my father told me something of the story, while the burning inn still reddened under the sky.

"You see, I'm dead now," he said. "I died in the fire."

"Daddy!" I exclaimed in terror, clutching him; for I was a superstitious child, and it would have seemed no very strange thing for me to be talking to my father's ghost.

He laughed: "Not dead to you, Tommy."

And then I understood.

"But to Shadow-of-Fear?" I said.

"You've got it," he answered; and explained how rushing back through the fire to our room he had climbed out of the window which opened on a back-yard, no one seeing him, and had hidden himself in the heather. His plan was to have found me, and together we would have fled away, every one supposing we had perished in the flames. But somehow he had missed me, and later seeing me with Picardino he had stalked us, hoping somehow to steal me back, but fearing that his ruse had failed.

But one question worried me. "Did you really burn it on purpose?" I asked.

"Ah!" was all he replied.

And I fell asleep, too tired and confused to solve the hundred mysteries which were beating in my mind. Who fired the inn? And why? And how was it Picardino had returned and carried me away? And why had he vanished so suddenly?