Denis Dent. E. W. Hornung
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your parents tell you?"
"I never had none, mister."
And Mr. Doherty grinned again.
"You don't remember, them?"
"That's what I mean. They were—I don't mind tellin' you, mister, though I'd rather bite my tongue out than tell another soul on the place"—and little Jim came sidling from his seat at the foot of the bed to an easy distance from Denis's ear, a dead secret in his astute young face. "But you'll think no worse of a cove," he went on, whispering, "and you won't split either; so it's a bit of a relief to tell you—they was both old hands."
"Old hands?"
"Lags!"
Now Denis understood. "Of course I don't think the less of you," he said, gently; "we are what we make ourselves, at any rate there's no credit in anything else we may be. I, for instance——"
But Denis had strength enough left to control his tongue, and his parents' memory was too sacred for association with that of transported felons, however little there might be to chose between their sons.
"It might be worse," the lad went on, with an elderly air the more pathetic for its unconscious humour: "they was married at Parramatta factory, and my mother let me know it when I was as high as this bed; it's the one thing I recollect her by, keepin' on tellin' me that; but 'im I never see as I remember. Parramatta factory," he continued, lifting his shrewd eyes once more, "was the place where they kep' the women prisoners, up on the Sydney side in the convict days; you could go and take your pick as long as you married her." The boy's stare grew into a contemplative grin, and Denis prepared for a familiarity. "There'll be need for you to go there," said Mr. Doherty.
Denis was not offended; either he was too stricken to be readily ruffled, or the young monkey had a way with him. He only rolled his head on the pillow, and questioned whether such an establishment existed still.
"It doesn't," rejoined Jim; "but even if it did, eh? You're all right, you see, so you can go on shaking your head till you loosen it! I seen, whether or no, last night when you couldn't."
"I don't want to know what you saw," cried Denis, vehemently enough; and lay quite agitated between the sheets.
"I suppose," the imp pursued, with a precocious union of tact and tenacity, "you'll go and get married straight away, and never let us see or hear from you again."
Denis set his teeth, not because the boy jarred, but at the gulf between this fancy picture and the possibilities of the case as it now stood. It was characteristic of him that for the first time they seemed impossibilities. He had saved her life, and now they were alone in the world, he and she: how could he trade on such things, how avoid the suspicion of trying to trade on them? If only another had saved her! If only others had been saved!
"Don't speak of it," he groaned. "I am far too poor."
"Too poor, are you?"
The boy had brightened.
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