Raynor

“ A wild idea crossed his mind of flashing out by wireless an account of his plight and the captain’s drunkenness.
The next instant it dawned upon him that he was powerless. He was a prisoner, bound hand and foot like a criminal. And where was Raynor? Dead, beyond the possibility of a doubt. He could not have lived more than a few moments in that icy sea. Jack groaned aloud in anguish as he strained and writhed at his bonds. His plight was quite forgotten in his anxiety over Raynor’s fate. ”

“ Believe me, dearest, he has more dignity and seriousness (of the kind, I mean, which is not inconsistent with a manner sometimes playful and always charming) than any of the men that you and I ever met. And young Raynor—you knew Raynor at Monterey—tells me that the men all like him, and that he is treated with something like deference everywhere. There is a mystery, too—something about his connection with the Blavatsky people in Northern India. Raynor either would not or could not tell me the particulars. ”

“ Most lovable was Frank Raynor; but he would be almost sure to be his own enemy as he went through life. You could not help liking him; every one did that—with the exception of Mr. Blase Pellet across the road. Frank's hair was golden brown, curling slightly, and worn rather long. His face, like his uncle's, was close-shaved, excepting that he too wore whiskers, which were of the same colour as the hair.
"What a number of men are standing about!" exclaimed Dr. Raynor, looking over the blind. "More even than usual on a Monday morning. One might think they were not at work." ”

“ Storm sail was set, just sufficient to give the craft steerage way.
“Bother it all,” muttered Raynor, “it seems that luck is always against us. Here I had everything planned for an ideal escape and now I doubt if it wouldn’t be suicidal to venture forth in such a sea.”
The schooner rushed up a wall of water and then coasted hissingly down the other side. Her lights shone out bravely like red and green jewels on either side of her bow. But it seemed that momentarily they would be drowned out.
Raynor clawed his way along the bucking, plunging deck, to the door of the galley. ”

“ Frank Raynor admired beauty wherever he saw it, and he especially admired that of Rosaline.
"I am going in to find my father; to induce him to come back with me," she said. "My mother is anxious about him; and anxiety is not good for her, you know, Mr. Frank."
"Anxiety is very bad for her," returned Frank. "Is she worse to-day?"
"Not worse, sir; only worried. Father heard the Seven Whistlers last night; and I think that is rather disturbing her."
Frank Raynor broke into a laugh. "It amuses me beyond everything, Rose—those Whistlers. I never heard of them in all my life until this morning." ”

“ Raynor. "The sounds you heard may not have been the Seven Whistlers at all."
Bell shook his head, His manner and voice this morning were more subdued than usual. "I can't be mistaken in them. No man can be who has once heard them, Dr. Raynor."
"Is it this that has turned your face so grey?" questioned Frank, alluding to the pallor noticed by his uncle; but which the elder and experienced man had refrained from remarking upon. ”

“ For any one falling into it there could be no hope: escape from death was impossible.
Frank Raynor passed it without so much as a thought. Keeping on his way, he came by-and-by to a cluster of miners' dwellings, called Bleak Row, lying on the Plain, away to the right. Not many of them: the miners for the most part lived on the other side the village, near the mines. Out of one of the best of these small houses, there chanced to come a girl, just as he was approaching it; and they met face to face. It was Rosaline Bell.
Never a more beautiful girl in the world than she. ”

“ A most fallacious hope, as he was soon to find, for Major Raynor had taken the news up to her with open mouth.
She was sitting on the low sofa in her dressing-room that evening at dusk, when Charles went in. The firelight played on her face, showing its look of utter weariness, and the traces of tears.
"What's the matter, mother?" he asked, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. "Are you ill?"
"Not ill, Charley," she answered. "Only tired and—and out of sorts."
"What has tired you? Last night, I suppose. But you have been resting all day." ”

“ But Major Raynor, sanguine as ever was his nephew, did not lose faith in its existence. It would come to light some time he felt certain; and of this he never ceased to assure Frank. Embarrassments decidedly increased upon the major, chiefly arising from the want of ready cash; for the greater portion of that was sure to be forestalled before it came in. Still, a man who enjoys from two to three thousand a-year cannot be so very badly off: money comes to the fore somehow: and on the whole Major Raynor led an easy, indolent, and self-satisfied life. ”

“ Raynor felt badly shaken by his discovery. It was not pleasant to contemplate sharing an island with a man who might prove a dangerous enemy. However, there was no help for it, The Polly Ann was sinking and the island was his only refuge.
He looked about him. Back of the beach the island shores sloped upward abruptly, shutting out any view of the interior. Gnarled shrubs and bushes grew among the rocks. They were twisted into all sorts of grotesque shapes by the rigors of the Arctic winds. From the beach he could see the hull of the ill-fated Polly Ann. ”

“ On one side of the table sat the major; a tall and very portly man, with a bald head and a white moustache, looking every day of his nine and-sixty years. He had been getting on for fifty when he married his young wife; who was not quite eight-and-thirty yet: a delicate, fragile-looking woman, with a small fair face and gentle voice, mild blue eyes, a pink colour, and thin light brown hair quietly braided back from it. Mrs. Raynor looked what she was: a gentle, yielding, amiable, helpless woman ”

“ Raynor observes no game laws; like Death (which he would inflict if slander were fatal) he has all seasons for his own. But I like him, for we knew each other at Redhorse when we were young. He was known in those days as "Giggles," and I—O Irene, can you ever forgive me?—I was called "Gunny." God knows why; perhaps in allusion to the material of my pinafores; perhaps because the name is in alliteration with "Giggles," for Gig and I were inseparable playmates, and the miners may have thought it a delicate civility to recognize some kind of relationship between us. ”

“ He was not a rich man, as bankers go, never having been an equal partner in the firm; drawing from it in fact only a small share. His death was somewhat sudden, and occurred during one of his sojourns at Eagles' Nest. Mrs. Atkinson, his widow; not less portly than of yore, and still very much of an invalid; summoned her two brothers to attend the funeral: Major Raynor from Bath, Dr. Raynor from Trennach. The major went up at once: Dr. Raynor sent a refusal; his excuse, no idle one, being that he could not leave his patients. ”

“ At these times the business of the shop, both as to drugs and books, was transacted by a young native of Falmouth; one Blase Pellet, who had served his apprenticeship in it and remained on as assistant.
The doctor's name was Raynor. He wrote himself Hugh Raynor, M.D., Member of the Royal College of Physicians. That he, a man of fair ability in his profession and a gentleman as well, should be contented to live in this obscure place, in all the drudgery of a general practitioner and apothecary, may seem a matter of surprise—but his history shall be given further on. ”

“ A nice way of spending one's life!"
"Young men will be young men, sir—though they are but lads," spoke Jetty, deprecatingly.
"Yes; young men will be young men: some of them, at any rate," came the mocking retort. "But in all my days I never saw a young man who appeared more likely to go straight down to ruin than Charles Raynor."
CHAPTER V. SIR PHILIP'S MISSION
Major Raynor sat in his favourite seat on the lawn at Eagles' Nest, at drowsy peace with himself and with the world. ”

“ Raynor admiringly, "what a distinguished looking man!" She had time to say no more, for Ailsa, with a face like a rose, had gone to meet the newcomer—who quickened his steps at sight of her and was now well within earshot—and was greeting him as a woman greets but one man ever.
"My dear," said Mrs. Raynor to Lady Katharine, in a carefully lowered tone, "if I know anything, you [Pg 83] will be parting with that dear girl's companionship for good and all before the summer is over. Look at the man's eyes: they are positively devouring her. ”

“ There are some women really not capable of forethought, and Mrs. Raynor was one of them. As to doing anything to advance their own interest, by cultivating Mrs. Atkinson's favour, both were too single-minded for such an act; it may be said too strictly honourable.
It was with them, his uncle and aunt, that Frank Raynor had spent his holidays when a boy, and all his after-intervals of leisure. They were just as fond of Frank as they were of their own children: he was ever welcome. The major sometimes called him "my son Frank," when speaking of him to strangers ”

“ These last felt strongly his superiority to the other very ordinary young men, enjoyed his conversation greatly, and were perhaps the least bit afraid of him.
Raynor’s fondness for and influence with children were altogether remarkable. Early in the voyage, a tiny trot of four had tripped and fallen sharply on the deck at his feet. As he lifted her ever so tenderly in his arms and stroked the poor little hurt knee, the child looked up at him through her tears and asked: ‘Is you weally sorry?’ ‘Yes, indeed—I am, Nellie.’ ‘Then me’s better,’ came the little sobbing answer ”

“ Last year, in May, a young friend of ours—poor boy, he was almost a son to me—Jack Raynor, left England for Australia. We are large shipbrokers in the City, Mr. Conway, and Raynor was a clerk in my firm. He went to Australia on special business for the firm. Just before his departure my daughter Sibyl, my only child, promised to become his wife, and it was arranged that the marriage should take place when he returned. I am a rich man, and meant to start the young pair comfortably in life. We heard from Raynor from time to time. ”

“ It is unreasonable to keep Major Raynor so long out of his own."
Frank smiled. "He would be very glad if she did give it up, I dare say; but I don't know about the justice of it. Elderly people, as a rule, cling to their homes. I once knew an old lady who was unexpectedly called upon to give up the home in which she had lived for very many years, and it killed her. Before the day for turning out came, she was dead."
"At any rate, Mr. Raynor, you will not be kept out of it so long when it comes to your turn," remarked Mrs. St. Clare: "for I suppose the major is very nearly as old as Mrs. ”

“ Nor did he fear that he had lost all opportunity for pursuing the subject of Harry Raynor's acquaintance with Margot. The mere fact that that young man had the contents of the little silver box upon his person might easily cause an apprehensive inquiry regarding the risk of carrying them about where they might be dropped, and so brought to his father's attention; and from that inquiry it would be simple work getting back to the subject itself without exciting any suspicion regarding his keen interest in it. He therefore allowed young Raynor to lead him from the room. ”

“ He held up a shapeless-looking garment of white sail cloth that he had made, and at the same time cautiously turned up the flame of a lantern that stood in a corner so that Raynor could see.
“I don’t believe we can get away to-night in a small boat,” declared Raynor as he daubed on the phosphorescent solution under Noddy’s directions.
“Why not?” asked the Bowery lad.
“It’s too rough. Feel how the schooner is pitching. It’ll make the small boat dance about worse.” ”

“ He ought to have launched a boat an hour ago.”
“Hold on, hold on,” said Raynor, laying a hand on the excited lad’s shoulder; “we couldn’t do anything in this sea, anyhow. The old man’s all right.—Ah! Look! What did I tell you!”
From the signal halliards above the bridge deck, a signal had just been broken out. The bits of bunting flared out brightly against the leaden sky.
“We will stand by you,” was the message young Raynor, who knew something of the International Code, spelled out.
CHAPTER IX.
A TALK ON WIRELESS. “Good for him!” cried Jack, surprised into what was almost a cheer. ”

“ Clare's mind of the impression—he perceived not the chill that the avowal evidently threw upon her. That it should affect her cordiality to him he could never have feared. A more worldly man, or one of a selfish nature, would have seen in a moment that his not being heir to Eagles' Nest rendered him a less eligible parti for Margaret; but Frank Raynor, in worldliness, as in selfishness, was singularly deficient. And he left The Mount when tea was over, quite unconscious that anything had occurred to diminish the favour in which he was held by its mistress. ”

“ If I properly understand Miss Raynor's character, her mother knows that you are here; and if she is willing to have you visit her, under the circumstances, she will make a sign. In fact, I now think that she will make some sort of sign, by which you can see how the land lies. Perhaps Mrs. Raynor is on your side; but I am afraid that if you should visit the house where Miss Raynor is, it would set her mother against you. I imagine she is a woman who would not like that sort of thing."
"Walkirk," said I, "your reasoning is very good; but this is not a time to reason,—it is a time to act ”