IT is not to be supposed that Jack could have disappeared so suddenly and entirely as he had done without leaving behind him much talk and wonder as to what had become of him.
One day, for instance, Mr. Stetson stopped old Hezekiah in the street and began asking after Jack. “I know nought of him, Master Stetson,” said the old man. “He always was a main discontented, uneasy lad as ever I see. Time and time again have he talked to me about running away to sea—and that, whenever I would tell him ’twas time for him to be earning his own living by honest, decent work.”
“But, Mr. Tipton,” said the rector, “I do hear talk that he hath been kidnapped.”
“Mayhap he have been,” said Hezekiah; “but I know naught of him.”
“And are you not, then, going to do anything to try to find him?” cried out the good old rector. “Sure, you would leave no stone unturned to discover what hath become of your nephew.”
“What can I do, master?” said Hezekiah, almost whining. “I’m main sorry Jacky be gone, and am willing to do whatever I can for to find him again, but what can I do?”
“Why, Master Tipton,” said the rector, “that, me-seems, is your affair and not mine. I can hardly tell you how to set about doing your own duty in this thing. But sure am I you should do whatever you can to find what hath become of your poor nephew.”
It was the very general opinion that Jack Ballister had been kidnapped, and nearly every one surmised that old Hezekiah himself had had a hand in it. If any of this talk reached Hezekiah’s own ears he paid no attention to it, but went his way either unconscious of or indifferent to all that his neighbors said about him.
Then, one morning, the old America merchant received a communication from the little attorney, Burton, telling him that if he would stop at his (the attorney’s) office, betwixt the hours of three and five in the afternoon, he should receive certain news _in re_ John Ballister that might be of interest to him.
The old man came promptly at three o’clock, and found the little lawyer rustling among a litter of papers like a little gray mouse. He had a great pair of barnacle glasses perched astride his nose, and he pushed them up on his sharp bony forehead, where they gleamed like two disks of brightness as he turned around to face the old man. There was a moment or two of silence, broken at last by the old America merchant.