in the officers' training corps, I applied for a commission, and they sent me up to a medical board. One doctor asked me some catchy questions, and, being quite inexperienced, I fell into the trap. The consequence was I didn't pass."
"You didn't learn much about yourself from him?"
"Not much! It was he who got the information. But when he'd finished he offered me a scrap of advice – I'd better see a private doctor at once."
"Did you?"
Dick chuckled.
"Instead, I went up to London and tried to join one of the special battalions. I was wiser this time, and told their medical examiner nothing I could help. I thought I'd made a good impression; but at last he looked at me pretty hard. 'I admire your keenness, but you won't do,' he said. I told him I was a bit off color, but I'd play golf all day and drink nothing but soda-water, and then come back to him in a month. 'It would be of no use; I'd go to Harley Street now,' he said."
"I hope you did," Andrew remarked with a frown.
Dick lighted a cigarette.
"Yes; I went. I'll spare you technicalities; for that matter, I've forgotten them; but, after all, I didn't get much of a shock. It seems my heart's gone a bit rocky."
"Go on," said Andrew.
"Well, if I give up everything I like and live like an ascetic, I may get over the trouble, though I think the fellow doubted it. On the other hand, I may get worse and drop off suddenly."
"Unless you steady down."
"Yes; he hinted something of the kind."
Andrew said nothing for a few moments. He was fond of his cousin; and, besides, he had promised Dick's father to look after the boy. He felt that he had been neglectful; and he wished now that he had more tact. He had a duty ahead of him, and he did not know how to discharge it.
"The proper course is obvious," he began somewhat awkwardly. "Suppose you come down the Galloway coast with Whitney and me? It's early for the black geese, but there are ducks about."
Dick smiled.
"Unfortunately, I'm not keen on sailing; and I must say that living on board a small, damp boat gets monotonous. Now, if you would land me where one could get a game of cards in the evening, or – "
"Where they had a bar?"
"Precisely. A bar with a fetching girl in it."
"It wouldn't work," said Andrew firmly. "I remember what happened when I landed you at Douglas – and a poaching escapade with some Creetown quarrymen on the same cruise. You have a talent for getting into trouble. Well, if you won't come with me, I'll have to make Appleyard my headquarters for a time."
"I hope you will," Dick replied with feeling. "Has it ever struck you that Appleyard might be yours?"
Andrew's face grew stern.
"Appleyard belongs to you and, what's more, you belong to it. It's your duty to pull yourself together and take care of the estate, to marry and bring up your children to be a credit to your name. Instead, you're dragging it in the dirt, making shabby betting men and turf sharpers your friends, and, I'm half afraid, getting into speculative money-lenders' hands."
Dick winced and Andrew saw that his random shot had scored.
"If you're in difficulties, I might raise a hundred pounds or so," he went on. "If, as I suspect, that isn't half enough, we'll go and see Mackellar before you get in too deep."
Mackellar was the acting executor of Dick's father's will.
"I'll think over it," Dick answered; and there was something that puzzled Andrew in his expression.
"Very well. Did you tell Staffer what the doctor said?"
"I wasn't quite as frank with him as I've been with you; one isn't proud of being a lame duck. Still, I imagine he has a pretty accurate notion of how things are with me."
"Then he ought to pull you up; he has the power."
"That's doubtful. I don't think you're quite fair to Staffer. I might have got a stepfather of a very different kind."
"It might have been better if you had," Andrew dryly rejoined.
Dick flushed.
"I wish you'd leave Staffer alone; I won't have him run down."
"I didn't mean to run him down," Andrew said.
"Well, perhaps you didn't consciously. You'd try to conquer your prejudices, but you're antagonistic."
Andrew gave Dick a shrewd glance.
"I wonder how Staffer feels about me?" he ventured.
"You're not likely to find out," Dick answered with a laugh. "I suppose he has his failings, but he never gives himself away."
When Andrew went to his room that night he sat beside his window for a long time, with a thoughtful frown. The task he had undertaken would not be an easy one.
CHAPTER V
SWEETHEART ABBEY
Soon after their arrival Whitney and Andrew drove back to the boat, which was moored in the mouth of a stream at some distance from Appleyard. It was a bright morning and they sat smoking in the cockpit when they had shaken some of the canvas and laid their sea clothes and blankets out to dry.
Behind the white beach, a strip of marish heath led back to the broad belt of cultivated land, with neat farmsteads scattered about; in front, the narrow channel, in which the shallow-bodied boat lay nearly upright, wound seaward through a great stretch of sand. The open sea was not visible, but three or four miles away a glistening streak that seemed to be in motion caught the light. In the middle distance a green lagoon and two ribands of water were rapidly widening. Flocks of black and white oyster-catchers fluttered about the banks of the channels, and long rows of salmon nets ran back along the shore.
"This is a curious place to navigate," Whitney remarked. "You were right in insisting on shallow draught and a centerboard."
"The shoals are not the worst," Andrew replied. "The tide runs up these gutters very fast, and, as a rule, you can't take out an anchor if you get aground."
"But that's the first thing one generally does."
"It's dangerous here. If the anchor held until she floated on the flood tide, the strain on the cable would probably pull her down. If it didn't hold, which is much more likely, it would check her while she drove across the bank, sheering athwart the stream, in danger of rolling over. The safest plan is to keep all sail set and try to make for deep water as soon as she floats."
Whitney glanced at the nearest channel. A small white ridge, perhaps six inches high, stretched from bank to bank, moving forward about as fast as one could walk, and as the wave passed on the riband of water changed into a lake. He thought it would not be pleasant to meet the advancing tide at some distance from the land.
On looking round, Whitney saw a man walking toward them across the bank. The fellow was old and his brown face was deeply lined. He wore a yellow oilskin cap, an old blue jersey, and rubber waders that reached to his thighs. Clambering on board, he
