CHAPTER XIII

THE STRAY UNIT

While Jessamy and Barbara were tasting the joys of glory and the applause of the public,--at least, a little section of it,--the "Stray Unit," as her aunt called her, was having rather a harder time than even her family suspected. It was not easy to continue in exile, fighting homesickness and longing for all she loved, and know all the while that she had but so to determine to return into the little flat, which looked to her from that distance not only like the Canaan they had jestingly called it, but like Eden itself. Perhaps, however, the knowledge that she was free to turn back from what she had undertaken helped Phyllis stand to her guns; it was not only cowardly but ignoble to relinquish a task set her by her own generosity alone.

Phyllis was so fully occupied all day that there was no time for moping; but at night, when the door to her room was closed and locked, the loneliness became almost unbearable, and the time when Tom's misguided fancy should veer straight and allow her to return looked dubiously uncertain and far off. But Phyllis had the gift of sleep common to healthy youth, and though her pillow was often wet, she slept sweetly on it, and arose refreshed to meet the new day.

Mrs. Dean was as kind as Phyllis's first letter reported her, but she was an old lady of many interests, and after her little companion was fairly installed in her household she gradually ceased to feel responsible for her entertainment. This was rather a matter for congratulation, for Phyllis was fired with ambition to accomplish something worth the doing while she was away, and welcomed the afternoons, which included two or three hours in that glorious library which was to be the center and crown of the city. Nothing less than a historical story, dealing with New York in the Dutch days, was the work the would-be young author aimed to produce, and she devoured everything relating to her subject which the obliging assistants in the library could furnish. The story, which never saw the light of day served its end in helping Phyllis through her exile, and incidentally in teaching her much that she had not known of her own city, for whose noise and cheery bustle she hungered.

One afternoon, when Mrs. Dean omitted her usual after-luncheon drive in favor of the board meeting of a society of which she was president, Phyllis slipped away early to the classic hall, where she had an appointment with Peter Stuyvesant and her beloved Dutch burghers. The first two volumes of the "Memorial History of New York" were brought for her use, and she seated herself to search for material, happy for the time in that delightful feeling of importance born of the consciousness of great plans and the business-like preparations for their fulfilment.

After nearly an hour of reading, she decided that the "Memorial History" was not what she needed just then, but the "Documentary History of New York State," and she started to her feet to get it. Phyllis at home and about domestic things was one person, and Phyllis among books was another. The latter Phyllis was a young person of the greatest impetuosity, acting first, and thinking fully five minutes afterward. It was this Phyllis who gathered up her two large volumes and started toward the desk to exchange them, without waiting for an attendant, in the greatest possible hurry, as if the slow old Dutch of two centuries ago were likely to race off before she could capture the volumes in which they were reposing.

The result of her haste was that she did not see a young man approaching from the opposite direction as slowly as she was hurrying forward. His nose was buried in a volume that looked like Browning, and he did not see the slender girl in gray, laden with her heavy books, bearing down on him like a runaway pack-pony. The collision was tremendous. Phyllis dropped both volumes of Mr. Grant Wilson's careful editing on the unoffending feet of the stranger, who uttered a loud exclamation of mingled surprise and pain, and leaped aside with a vehemence contrary to all traditions of Bates Hall. But Phyllis did worse: she sat down with marked emphasis, and without loss of a moment, on the stone pavement, her hat rolling merrily away, and her pocket-book leaping under a chair, as though it, as well as the money it was made to contain, had wings.

Some school children, reading as decorously as the Boston youngsters of the comic papers, yielded to the irresistible, and laughed aloud, even boisterously. An old gentleman of Teutonic build looked up from a black volume that suggested magic, and exclaimed: "Mein Gott im Himmel! Was für eine Backfisch ist das!" And a lady of that too certain age which is politely called uncertain, dropped several valuable starred pamphlets which she had been consulting, to hasten forward with offers of sal volatile and court-plaster, while four attendants ran from as many directions to rescue the library property which the accident had scattered broadcast.

The young man whom she had so unwarrantably assaulted helped Phyllis to her feet, the gingerly manner in which he held up his own right foot meanwhile suggesting that his instep had found the "Memorial History" a solid work in more senses than one.

Phyllis's face was crimson with mortification, and she stammered incoherent apologies as she accepted the hat her victim handed her, and smartened the disheartened ribbons as well as she could. The young man went on all fours, and fished out the truant pocket-book from beneath the chair, at the same time gathering up a handful of papers which had escaped from its outer compartment. Among them was a visiting-card; perhaps the impulse that made him glance at the card before returning it was not altogether proper, but it was excusably natural under the circumstances. As he read the name and address, the expression of mingled annoyance and pain his face had worn since the encounter gave way to surprise and amusement.

"Mrs. Dean!" he said, and his voice was cultivated and agreeable, even in the low tone necessary to library intercourse. "Let me congratulate you, ma'am; you have found the Fountain of Youth. When I last saw you, you were forty years older than you are now."

Phyllis laughed in spite of herself, but she did not see fit to reveal her identity.

"Thank you, and please try to forgive me for my awkwardness," she said instead.

"The awkwardness was entirely mine," said her victim, fibbing politely, ignoring his aching instep, like the hero and squire of dames he was. "It was unpardonable of me to dash along, with my head buried in 'The Ring and the Book,' though it really does swamp most heads. I cannot forgive myself for knocking you down."

There was a merry twinkle in the big blue eyes looking out of the decidedly handsome face, which was preternaturally grave, and, this time, Phyllis did not try not to laugh.

"Well, if you call that rushing!" she said, remembering her own pace, and how her victim had been sauntering as she steamed down on him. "You are very good, and I am as grateful as I am mortified; I can't say more."

Having had enough of study for the day, and not desiring to loiter on the scene of her discomfiture, Phyllis bowed, and passed out of the library. Her victim gazed after her, thoughtfully. "She's a pretty girl, and a nice one, I'll bet golden guineas to brass buttons," he thought. "Knows Mrs. Dean! I'll consult Rick Dean; he may know who she is." Rick Dean was Mrs. Dean's nephew. When Alan Armstrong, Phyllis's victim, consulted him as to the possible identity of the girl who "caromed on him, and went into a pocket herself like mad," as he described the disaster, in billiard terms, Rick laughed till his eyes were moist. "By Jove, it's my aunt's little companion from New York, Miss Phyllis Wyndham," he said. "She's tremendously nice--pretty, thoroughbred, and all that. They lost their money about a year ago, and she is earning her little living, while preparing to be a second George Eliot, or something. She goes to the library every chance she gets. I don't believe she thinks anything else here is worth wasting time on."

"I haven't been to see your aunt for ages, Rick; don't you think the dear old lady must feel hurt, and want me?" blandly inquired Alan, with a broad wink.

"I'll take you, but there's no use trying to know Miss Phyllis very well; she's as friendly as pie, but she doesn't care a snap about one," said Rick, with profound conviction.

"About the wrong one! She'll welcome the acquaintance of a truly charming fellow, with literary talents of his own," said Alan.

"Literary talents! Newspaper reporting!" said Rick, scornfully. "Hang your conceit, you blue-eyed Christmas-card! But I'll take you to see my aunt whenever you like, and if Miss Phyllis doesn't knock the vanity out of you, then I'm mistaken."

"She is good at knocking, I'm ready to admit that," said Alan, dodging the sofa pillow Rick aimed at him.

Two evenings later Rick came dutifully to call on his aunt, and brought with him Alan, whose solemnity of expression was a study as he made his best bow to Phyllis Wyndham. "I'm thinking of studying law, ma'am," he replied to Mrs. Dean's inquiry as to his future plans. "I want to defend my own suits when I am assaulted and battered, in case it should happen."

"No slurs, if you please," laughed Phyllis, seeing Mrs. Dean looked puzzled. "I told Mrs. Dean about my mishap in the library, and she thought it rather funny. Mrs. Dean, this is the young man I pelted with New York history."

"Is it possible! Why, he's Rick's dearest chum. I am glad you did not destroy him," said Mrs. Dean.

"We used to call Rick the 'Prince of Wales' at school, Miss Wyndham, because Rick Dean sounded so much like 'Ich dien.' That's a school-boy joke that needs considering to appreciate. Have you seen much of Rick's sisters?" asked Alan.

"They come here occasionally," replied Mrs. Dean for her; "but Miss Phyllis is such a busy little creature they haven't progressed far in intimacy. I want them to be much together this summer when we are at Hingham."

"Still clinging to the south shore, Mrs. Dean?" asked Alan. "Doesn't that little cold Boston, as Tom Appleton called Nahant, attract you?"

"I shall always cling to dear old Hingham while I am able to get there," replied Mrs. Dean. "I despise fashionable summer places. You would do well to visit us often this year, young man. I intend making it pleasant for this little girl, and she is well worth knowing."

"One of the most striking young ladies I ever had the pleasure of meeting," said Alan, with a deep bow; adding, as though he feared he was impertinent in jesting on such short acquaintance: "Miss Wyndham's the sort of girl that needs no recommending; she's the good wine that needs no bush."

It was a curiously open compliment, but the boyish sincerity with which it was uttered deprived it of offense. Mrs. Dean looked pleased, and glanced at Rick as if to suggest that he was missing something. She was too good a woman not to love match-making, and she had hoped that her favorite nephew and Phyllis might become something more than friends, for he had money enough for both, and Phyllis was going to be the woman of Proverbs whose price is above rubies. But so far Rick and Phyllis were not even friends; and Rick wondered to see his chum making speedy progress into favor by the simple method of frank friendliness.

The transference of Mrs. Dean's household, including Dundee, the collie, and Phyllis, to Hingham, took place in June; and a pleasant life, that made exile far easier than it had been in town, began for the "Stray Unit." Her duties as reader and amanuensis continued regularly each morning; but the house was full of young people coming and going, and though no one could take Jessamy's and Bab's place, it was natural for Phyllis to be happier for their companionship. Mrs. Dean's nieces were, on the whole, pleasant girls, and their friends frank and jolly. Only one or two looked askance at Phyllis as Mrs. Dean's companion and their social inferior; but they were obliged to veil their prejudices in deference to Mrs. Dean's affection and the boys' admiration for her.

For quiet Phyllis, to her own unbounded surprise, was turning out rather a belle. Young men may be silly, and undoubtedly do not always show supreme wisdom in the sort of girls they select for temporary amusement, but, as Rick remarked, they "generally know a good thing when they see it," and the girl who is lively, pretty, and bright, yet never forgets for a moment her maidenly ideals, is sure to have plenty of admiration of a sort to be coveted.

Phyllis was full of fun, obliging, and gay; yet in the frolic and freedom of summer-time, when the best regulated families relax much of their vigilance over their younger members, Rick and his comrades realized that, to quote Alan's expressive figure of speech, "Phyllis stayed on her own side of her fence, though she posted no notices to trespassers."

Driving parties to Nantasket, Cohasset, and along the beautiful "Jerusalem Road" made those afternoons lively which were not still more pleasantly spent on the yacht which the young Deans had brought down for the summer. Phyllis had been taken to the sea from her earliest summers, but it chanced that this one was the first in which she tasted the joys of sailing, and, as she wrote home, she "discovered that she had been born web-footed." There were long, beautiful days, in which Mrs. Dean excused her from all her duties, and a party of ten to fifteen young folk would start off in the morning, with the younger Mrs. Dean for chaperon, and sail to some definite point, fish, make their chowder on board, and come back on the afternoon tide, burned, sticky, salted by the wind and spray, but happy as robins, and sleepy with a peculiarly delicious sleepiness that made cool linen sheets inexpressibly refreshing.

Phyllis was the kind of sailor that a skipper loves--never afraid, happiest when the boat was "on her ear" and the waves breaking over the deck, but contented and cheerful in a calm, and not getting hysterical in thundershowers, and, above all, proof against seasickness, even in the long "ground swell" and the broiling sun.

One day, Rick and his sisters, three girls ranging from fifteen to nineteen, Alan Armstrong, Phyllis, Rick's mother, a young Scotchman named David Campbell, and two more of Rick's and Alan's college chums, with three girl friends of the Deans, started out on the _Saxon_ for a day's sailing. The plan was to sail down to the Lower Light, fish off the Brewsters during the turn of the tide, make a chowder of the perch and small cod caught there, and return, with a favorable breeze, just late enough to catch the young moon not yet ending its first quarter.

David Campbell was a new element in the party, and one dreaded by all the rest. First of all, he was but just over from the "land of bannocks," and his speech was not as intelligible as English speech might be expected to be. Then he was lame, and there were many subjects engrossing to gay young people, such as sports of all kinds, which must be avoided out of consideration for one debarred from them. And, above all, nobody had the faintest idea what he cared most about; which, added to his burry speech, made conversation formidable. But he had been committed to the elder Mrs. Dean by an old friend who had been good to her when she was in Scotland, and she had laid the strictest injunctions on her kindred to honor to their utmost the draft made upon her.

There was a strong, southwesterly breeze in starting out, and the _Saxon_ lay over in fine style, the waves curling around her bow, and occasionally shipping over the fore deck in the way that always made Phyllis long to shout with Viking happiness.

She begged the privilege of sitting up by the mast--the _Saxon_ was a sloop--and Captain Rick gladly accorded it; for Phyllis grew so radiant when her blue flannel frock was soaked, and her cheeks got so red, and her hair so curly, that it was a pleasure to look on her. All the party chattered behind her back, but she paid no attention to them till, after a time, she noted that David's long-drawn "Aye" of assent to some proposition was growing less frequent, and she turned to see if the stranger were neglected. Yes, there he sat, rather apart from the rest, a look of loneliness in his blue eyes, gazing eastward.

"This won't do," she thought, and heroically resigned her glorious perch to come aft and brave the perils of a Scotch accent so different in reality from reading Barrie, with the privilege of skipping.

"I wish we were going to sail all the way over, don't you?" she asked, seating herself beside the stranger, and bringing with her at once an atmosphere of dampness and cordiality.

"Aye," said David, somewhat startled, but smiling in spite of himself into the sweet face surrounded by its halo of curling wet hair.

"I long for England and Scotland," continued artful Phyllis. "Of course I want to see Italy and its art; but England and Scotland are home. Long ago my father's family came from England, and a little more recently my mother's ancestors came from Scotland."

"It's fine," said David, cautiously.

"I'm sure it is," cried Phyllis, with honest warmth. "My dearest friends are Scotch and English--in Scott and Thackeray, and our beloved books, you know. Are you a true Scot, and think Burns the greatest of poets?"

"Burns is a great poet," said David, cannily.

"If you are a Campbell I suppose you would throw me overboard if I quoted 'The Bonnie House o' Airlie,' would you?" asked Phyllis.

"The uprooted spray of heather," as Alan called him, looked surprised and pleased; he even ventured into a question on his own part. "How comes it you have heard that tale over here?" he asked; only he pronounced "heard" as if it were "hard," as indeed it was to his companion.

"Oh, that's owing to Barrie," she said. "I might never have paid any attention to the note to the ballad in my 'Border Ballads,' but I laughed till I cried at the story of the piper who went piping out of town in a fury because he was a Campbell and some one had sung 'The Bonnie House o' Airlie' in his presence. Do you remember, in the 'Little Minister'?"

"Aye, Barrie is humorous," assented David, with an expression so at variance with the word that Phyllis had to turn her head away to keep from laughing. Fearing he had seen her amusement, she hastily asked: "Would you like to be a writer? They say all Scotch--or Scotsmen, as you would say--love learning. What are you to be?"

"A merchant. My father sent me over here to get into a New York firm; I hate it," said David. "I was to have gone into the army."

"And have you given it up?" asked Phyllis, absent-mindedly, and could have bitten her tongue out the moment she had spoken, remembering his misfortune.

"Can a cripple enter the army?" demanded David, a dark-red color rushing up under the freckles his recent sea-voyage had deposited on his handsome face.

"Oh, you are so little lame I quite forgot you might be disqualified to serve the queen--no, the king. How can you speak of yourself as a cripple when you are so strong and vigorous?" said Phyllis, reproachfully; though the reproach was for herself.

"Would you like to be a man who could do nothing but stand in a counting-house?" asked David.

"I'd like to be a man with your breadth of shoulders and splendid vigor," said Phyllis. "Then, we Americans consider a successful merchant a very fortunate and honorable man."

"Vera likely; but it's no the career for me," said David, getting more Scotch in the vehemence of his feelings. "Consider, if you were to fall overboard the day, I'd have to sit here, while some of these smart youngsters went after you--I, who could swim with the best of them when I was a lad."

"But I promise not to fall overboard," said Phyllis, gently; "and if I did, and you were disqualified from fishing me out, would that prove you unmanly? Surely there is more need of saving people on dry land, so to speak; it's the other sort of strength, not physical strength, that is most needed. Any one would turn to you for help if she had fallen overboard, in a figurative, not literal sense; there is something so reliable in all of you Scotch. You're a wee bit strange to us all at first, but you will like us when you know us; and if I were you, I should forget the trifling misfortune to your foot--it is such a very little thing. Try to be at home; we Americans are rather kindly, 'not a bad sort,' as your English neighbors would say."

David Campbell looked into Phyllis's smiling eyes, honest and clear as one of his Highland lakes; her sympathy, unspoken, had penetrated his Scotch reserve finding him lonely, and he had spoken to her as he would not have spoken to his own sister. Now gratitude, and a kindling sense that she had uttered the truth, and that fine opportunities for his strong brain and will were left him, lame though he was, sent a thrill over him, and made his voice vibrate as he said: "One of them is. You've been kind enough; you're not like our notions of the reckless American girl. I am certain to like you--Americans." There was a touch of roguery in his tiny pause. "And if ever you want a friend, and I can be of use to you, on dry land, as you say, count on David Campbell, and you will find one Scotsman reliable, I'm hoping."

"Thank you, I will remember, and I'm sure I shall," said Phyllis, heartily; and they shook hands on the bargain.

"That was fine of you, Miss Phyllis," said Alan Armstrong that night, as the _Saxon_ crept up the bay, sails free of the light easterly breeze, and the young moon shedding a short track on the ocean. "You were mighty good to our friend from the Tweed-side. I couldn't help hearing what you said to him; I was surprised that he spoke out that way, but it was lucky he did, for he must have been feeling lonely to have done it, and probably thought we were guying him. You handled him like an angel, and hasn't he been different ever since? Only look at him now!"

Sure enough, David was chatting with Rick and Annie Dean, giving them bits of Scottish lore and Scottish songs, not minding that they did not always understand the speech, which was correct English in form, but very much like the New England country roads with the raised places across them at intervals, which the natives call "thank-you-marms," and which are so very bumpy that smooth driving is impossible.

"Yes, he has decided to trust us, hasn't he?" said Phyllis. "He is a fine fellow, and I am glad he is beginning to feel at home. It must be dreadful to get among a lot of hard-hearted young folks, who see only the funny side of a new-comer's peculiarities."

"Do you know, you smooth out all the wrinkles where-ever you go?" asked Alan. "The Heather is not the only blossom that would be proud to be worn as a friend in your buttonhole."

"And it shall not be the only blossom I gladly claim," smiled Phyllis. "The 'Stray Unit,' as they call me at home, is in a fair way to be spoiled, and you are all making her a happy unit, in spite of her longing to see the nicest family a girl ever had."

"I bet anything you like they are all ciphers by comparison," said Alan, with profound conviction; "and that you were the unit that made them a numeral."

Phyllis laughed, and shook her head. "Wait till I go home, and you all come to see me," she said. "Barbara is the brightest, most attractive, dear little scamp you ever knew; and Jessamy--Jessamy is too beautiful to be real, and all pure gold. If you knew them, you would see who was the cipher, if ciphers there are."

The _Saxon_ made her mooring in Hingham harbor rather later than usual, for the breeze was very light; but no day on the yacht was ever too long for Phyllis.

David Campbell took a pair of oars, and he and Rick raced to the wharf the two small boats in which the _Saxon's_ passengers were landed. Phyllis was glad that the big young Scotsman's strong arms out-pulled slender Rick, with his university training, and that David won the race. It had been a beautiful day, and the little "Stray Unit" went happily to bed, glad in her own pleasure, glad at having made another happy. But she did not know that her sympathy and tactful kindness had won her a friend who was to be a gain to her entire life.