CHAPTER XXIV

“A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY.”

There were plenty of old friends in Fardale who were ready and willing to take Bernard Burrage in and do all in their power for him, but Alvin Brander was on hand with a comfortable sleigh to bear Inza’s father from the station when the next train came in over the line from the place of the wreck.

Inza accompanied her father, of course. Frank Merriwell, Roy Swift, and Walter Burrage, the latter with his left arm in a sling, were also on the train, but they decided to stop at the hotel.

Of course, they were heroes to the villagers, who had thousands of questions to ask about the wreck. Not a few of the injured had belonged in Fardale, or were known there, and one among the four killed outright had once lived in the little village. It was a mighty sensation for a town of that size.

Frank was remembered and recognized by many. Some recognized Swift. But no one seemed to know Walter Burrage, who registered at the hotel under a fictitious name.

Mr. Burrage, strange to say, had received very few bodily injuries in the catastrophe; but mentally he had been given a terrible shock, and his condition was regarded as critical. The following morning, however, the inquiring and solicitous villagers learned that he seemed somewhat better.

Walter Burrage tried to avoid Swift, but this he found rather difficult, for the young soldier refused to be dodged. And so, biding his time, Swift caught Walter alone in his room after the latter had visited his father and Inza that morning. The young man in uniform walked right into the room, with an air of easy assurance that was a trifle annoying.

“Good morning, Burrage,” he said loudly.

“If you don’t mind, it will please me for you to call me by the name I have registered under—Burton,” said Walter, in a low tone. “You know I do not care about being recognized here, and I depend on this beard to serve as a disguise.”

“Rather careless of you, to say the least,” declared Swift. “But I’m perfectly willing to call you any old thing you like. It doesn’t matter to me, and I’m your friend, you know.”

“I hope you are.”

“Oh, I am—your particular friend. How is your arm this morning, old man?”

“Well, you may be sure it doesn’t feel pleasant.”

“Sorry. But you were lucky to get off so easy.”

“That’s right,” agreed Walter.

“You have a way of bumping into hard luck, you know,” said Swift, taking a seat and lighting a cigar before offering one to his companion. “Have a smoke?”

Walter declined.

“That little affair which obliterated you from the map of the United States was very unfortunate,” pursued the soldier, without guarding his voice in the least.

“What are you trying to do, man?” demanded Walter, a flush in his cheeks and his eyes flashing. “Are you determined to tell these people here who I am?”

“Not at all. Just carelessness of me. But it would be a bad thing if it got out, wouldn’t it? You’d be nabbed and have to stand trial. They’d be sure to convict you, and you’d get ten or twenty years. I say, Walt, old chum, you’re running a deuce of a risk coming here.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I know it well enough. But I’ve been hungry for a sight of the old places and of my father, sister, and friends. You don’t know what it is, Swift, to be an outcast, a man without a country. I don’t suppose I’d felt half so bad if I’d thought I might come back any time without fear of anything; but the knowledge of what was hanging over my head the moment I placed my foot on the soil of the United States made me wild to see the land in which I was born, my native land, the land I love!”

“Don’t believe I’d felt that way in your place. I’d felt that I didn’t care a rap for a country where I had been treated in such a shabby manner.”

“Did you ever read Edward Everett Hale’s wonderful story, ‘The Man Without a Country’?”

“Naw! I don’t read stories. They’re such rot!”

“Some are; some are not. The one I speak of seems to me the greatest story ever written, for I am much like the poor wretch in that story. He railed against his native land, cursed it, expressed a wish to never set foot on its shores again. As he was an officer in the regular army, this was regarded as treason. He was tried and condemned to eternal banishment from the United States. He had said that he wished never again to hear the name of his country, and in the decree of his punishment it was directed that never again should he hear it.

“He was sent to sea on a vessel of the American Navy. From the time the shores of the United States vanished from his view until his death, he never saw it more. He was transferred from ship to ship, so that always he was kept in foreign waters. Orders were that no one should ever speak to him of the United States. Further than that, no book, newspaper, or printed matter of any sort bearing any information or telling anything about the United States was permitted to reach his hands.

“He never received a letter from a single friend in his native land. He was in every way ‘a man without a country.’ What was the result? Soon his feelings began to change. He longed to know something about the land of his birth. What was taking place there? It was all unavailing for him to try to find out. His questions remained unanswered, and finally he ceased to ask them. But always in his eyes there was a look of such unspeakable longing as to touch the heart of every one who saw him.

“In the last vessel to which he was transferred he remained a very long time. When he died it was found he had made himself an American flag, which hung where it would be constantly before his eyes in his stateroom. He had drawn as well as he could a map of the United States, that he might remember how broad and grand was the land he had cursed. But since his banishment vast tracts of the West had been added to the country he had lost, so the map really showed that grand land as only about one-fourth as large as it really was.

“Of these changes he knew nothing. Mighty events had taken place, but of them all he remained in absolute ignorance. But his love for his lost country had grown with the years till no man ever loved it more, and each night as he knelt before that hand-made flag, the glorious stars and stripes, he prayed with all his heart and soul for the welfare of the land he would see no more. In his dying moments the weight of his terrible punishment was lifted from him, for one who was with him told him of the stupendous changes that had taken place, of the mighty advances the United States had made in every way, and his eyes filled with joyous tears, while he lifted his thin old hands in thanksgiving to God. And at last he died and was buried at sea, without ever again seeing the shores of the land he had cursed, the land he had grown to love with all his soul. What do you think of that story, Swift?”

“Bah! A ridiculous yarn, devised by the brain of a man who was looking for notoriety.”

“Nothing of the sort! It appealed to me as no other story ever did.”

“Circumstances made it appeal to you. But the ‘hero’ of the yarn was a fool! Think I’d love a country that did such a thing to me? Well, I’d die cursing it!”

“Then something tells me that, even though you wear the uniform of your country now, you have little real love for it in your heart.”

“Oh, I’m not a fool, Burrage! I’m a soldier in the regular army, and haven’t I a chance to see how this country uses her subjects? I think I have! There are lots of poor devils out in those islands who love the States even less than I do.”

Walter’s dislike for the fellow was increasing rapidly.

“I don’t believe it!” he cried. “If it is true, they should swap places with me. How gladly I’d do that! I’d rejoice to take the uniform of a common soldier if I might fight beneath the flag I love. I have felt that I, too, am a man without a country. It is a terrible feeling, Swift! One gets to hankering for the sight of Yankeeland till it seems that he’ll go daffy!”

“Oh, if I’d been treated as you have, I’d go to England and become a naturalized citizen.”

“Which is proof enough that you have no real love for your own land in your heart. That is something I’ll never do. Some day the whole affair in which I took part may be cleared up, and I may be able to come home without sneaking back in disguise. Then how gladly I shall come!”

“All right! We’re not all alike. You’ve been to see your father this morning?”

“Yes.”

“How is he?”

“Far better than I expected.”

“He was not hurt in the accident?”

“Not much, although he was badly shaken up.”

“And your sister?”

“She’s quite well.”

“By Jove! I thought she was done for when I saw Merriwell creep out with her! That gave me a terrible jolt! Do you know, Burrage, you have a confoundedly handsome sister?”

“Yes, I know Inza is a beautiful girl,” confessed Walter, though he did not like the manner in which Swift had spoken.

“She’s a peach!” the soldier declared. “I’m dead smashed on her, my boy!”

“Better not be.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think she likes you very well.”

Swift flushed a little, but forced a laugh.

“That’s because I expressed my mind concerning that fellow Merriwell. I didn’t know I was touching her so hard. But for the unpleasantness of the situation, I’d stood by my statements. I never liked him. See here, is Inza in love with that duffer?”

Walter shrugged his shoulders.

“Better not let him hear you speak of him like that. I don’t know whether she is in love with him or not.”

“Well, he’s smashed on her.”

“How do you know?”

“Oh, didn’t I hear him talking to her when he knelt beside her after escaping from the wreck. She had not recovered, and he thought she was dead. He gave himself away then.”

“Well, if Frank Merriwell is in love with my sister, I am very glad.”

“But marriage does not always follow love,” said Swift, in a mean, insinuating way.

Walter Burrage whirled on the fellow, his face dark with anger.

“Don’t make any nasty talk like that!” he exclaimed. “I have only one arm, but I won’t stand for it, Swift!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything!” the soldier protested. “But I was led to understand that Merriwell and Inza are not engaged.”

“I do not know whether they are or not. If I did, I might not tell you, for I regard it as none of your business.”

Then Walter walked out of the room and left Swift there.