"No matter; I'll make a night of it," said he to himself, when he realized that it was impossible for him to beat back to Camden.
The bay is full of islands, and Little Bobtail concluded to get under the lee of one of them, and wait for better weather. He took in his jib and mainsail, and the old boat went along very well, taking in very little water. The sun went down, and it was dark before he had made a harbor. He was approaching Blank Island, where he knew a good place to anchor for the night, when he discovered a large sail-boat, drifting down the bay. Her sails were all lowered, but had not been secured, and were flapping about in the wind.
"Boat, ahoy!" shouted Little Bobtail.
No answer came to his repeated hails; and, throwing the old craft up into the wind, he awaited the approach of the abandoned boat. Placing himself In the bow, with the painter in his hand, he leaped on board of the stranger, as she drifted upon his old craft. The abandoned boat was worthy to be called a yacht. She was about thirty-two feet in length, with eleven feet beam. Two thirds of her length was decked over, with a trunk cabin, in which were transoms large enough for four berths, with a cook-room forward. She was handsomely fitted up, and Little Bobtail wondered how she happened to be adrift. He hoisted the mainsail, and in a few moments ran her into a little bay under the lee of Blank Island, where he anchored her. As she had an anchor it was evident that she had not broken away from her anchorage. Having secured the old boat at a safe distance from the yacht, the young boatman had an opportunity to examine his prize, for such it proved to be.
It was very dark, and Little Bobtail was unable to obtain a very clear idea of the craft he had picked up; but he had brought her to a secure anchorage under the lee of Blank Island, and, quite exhausted with his energetic efforts, both in boarding the yacht and in mooring the boats, he was content to rest himself for a while on the cushioned seats of the standing-room. The fresh wind which had blown all day had not permitted him to pay much attention to the dietary department, which is always an important one in a boat; and, not being over sentimental, he was positively hungry. Even the half of his sheet of gingerbread and his "hunk of cheese" remained untouched.
Little Bobtail was an ingenious youth, and when he anchored the old boat he had taken a line from her stern to the yacht, so that he couldhaul the former alongside the latter at his pleasure. By this means he was enabled to recover his provision box and jug of cold water without any difficulty. He devoured the balance of what had been intended only for his dinner, which, expanded into both dinner and supper, did not half cover the needs of the occasion. He was still hungry, but he had recovered his breath, and was in condition to make another effort, if another were required of him.
We confess that we have written very coolly and composedly of the event in Little Bobtail's experience which had just transpired, hardly attempting to describe his wonder and exhilaration; but it is not to be supposed that he was unmoved by the discovery and recovery of the abandoned yacht. He was so tremendously excited, that he had worked all the breath out of his body, and had hardly an opportunity to consider the nature and extent of his achievement till he had regained his wind, and partially filled the vacuum in his stomach, which prudent Nature abhors.
We said he was ready for another effort; but before he put forth his strength again, he indulged in a series of speculations in regard to the immediatehistory of the yacht he had picked up under such singular circumstances. He had not been into the cabin yet to obtain whatever evidence might be available in solving the problem; he had not yet had time to do so. But people speculate and construct theories even before there are any premises on which to base them.
The yacht was fine enough to be a pleasure craft, and he leaped at once to the conclusion that some gay party had landed on an island to have a good time, and, having run the yacht aground, the fresh breeze had blown her off as the tide rose. Entirely satisfied with this solution, the history of the fair craft seemed to be no longer a mystery to him. In the morning he would run her over to Camden and anchor there. The owner would soon appear; and, as he was fairly entitled to salvage, he thought he could reasonably hope to receive as much as ten dollars for his services, for the yacht might have been thrown upon the rocks and utterly smashed, if he had not picked her up. Indeed, she was not three miles from Deer Island when he discovered her, and in an hour or two more nothing could have saved her from destruction.
To Little Bobtail ten dollars was a vast sum of money, and the very first thought of obtaining it suggested, as the next one, the use to which it should be applied. That old tub of a boat in which he had been sailing all day could be bought for thirty dollars. It is true she was not much of a boat; but it would afford Little Bobtail almost as much pleasure to repair her and put a proper keel upon her, so that he could beat to windward in her, as it would to sail her. Prince, who owned her, would take ten dollars as the first payment, and in time he could earn enough with her to pay the other twenty. Altogether the dream was a brilliant one to him, and as he gazed through the gloom of the night at the old tub, his fancy kindled with the glowing future. He wished the old thing was bigger, so that he could have a cabin and a place to sleep in her, when the drunken fury of Ezekiel drove him from the cottage.
Now, really, our hero did not think half so much of the janty yacht he had captured as he did of the old tub, and we do not know that he would have taken the trouble to enter her cabin before he wanted a place to sleep, if he had notbeen hungry. Half a sheet of gingerbread and "half a hunk of cheese" for supper were altogether insufficient for a growing boy. If the party which had lost the yacht had been on a pleasure excursion, of course they had brought provisions with them; for, to the imagination of a boy of sixteen, eating is one of the chief pleasures of existence, especially on the salt water. If the excursionists had gone on shore,—as they must have done, since they were not on board,—probably they had taken their provisions with them. It was a startling thought; but then perhaps the yacht had broken adrift before they were removed from the lockers. The alternative was very pleasant to Little Bobtail, though it suggested the miserable condition of the excursionists left on the island, perhaps to pass the night there, without food. Our hero thought they could stand it better without any supper than he could, for he had had only half a dinner, and besides, everybody thinks his own misfortunes are infinitely more trying than those of other people. But we must do our young skipper the justice to add that he sympathized with the excursionists in case they had no supper.
The doors of the cabin were closed, but they were not locked. Little Bobtail threw them open, and gazed down into the darkness. He could not see anything but the faint light through the round ports in the trunk. He descended the steps, and then stumbled against some boxes. Feeling his way overhead, he placed his hand upon a lantern suspended from above.
"All right!" exclaimed he. "That lantern is the right thing in the right place. We will have some light on the subject."
He was an early riser, and made the fire in the cook-stove every morning at home, which may account for the fact that he had a quantity of matches in his pocket. He always carried them with him, for he had been blown off once before, when he had a boat full of fish, and had to go hungry all night because he could not make a fire to cook one or two of them. Besides, when he sailed with strangers or with town's people, most of them smoked, and he often found that a match was the one thing needed in a boat. On account of this wise forecast and this prudent habit, Little Bobtail had plenty of matches in his pocket; and having them, he lighted one, andcommunicated the flame to the lamp in the lantern.
Excitedly he waited the revelations which the lamp was to make to him. It was a beautiful cabin. The transoms were all cushioned, and there was a table between them. Forward was the door which opened into the cook-room. Over the table was a rack for bottles and glasses, and there was a score of lockers filled with dishes and other table ware, with charts, books, compasses, and other nautical necessaries. A handsome spy-glass hung on a pair of brackets. At the end of the transoms were several cushions, used as pillows, and some robes to cover the sleepers.
After this general survey of the interior of the cabin, Little Bobtail turned his attention to the boxes upon which he had stumbled. All the cabin floor, except a small portion aft, was covered with these boxes, of which he counted twenty. The theory he had adopted that the yacht had been used for a pleasure excursion, crumbled away as he saw these boxes, for no party would go out sailing with the cabin lumbered up in this manner. He overhauled one of the boxes, without being any the wiser, and Little Bobtail wassorely puzzled. Taking the lantern in his hand, he crawled over the boxes to the cook-room. It was very small, but it was admirably fitted up, with a tiny stove and plenty of lockers. In one corner hung a log of bacon, from which a few slices had been out at some recent period.
"That suits my case exactly," said the explorer, as he took down the bacon. "I shall treat myself to a slice of fried ham before I bother my head any more about this craft or any other."
In a locker on which the cook sat while engaged in his duties was a supply of wood; and in five minutes Little Bobtail had a good fire in the stove. A frying-pan lay by the side of the locker. Indeed, our hero could want nothing which he did not immediately find ready for use, just as though a multitude of fairies stood at his elbows to meet his every wish. In another locker he found a kid of cold potatoes, and there was an abundance of hard-tack in a keg on the transom. The slice of bacon hissed and sizzled in the pan on the stove, and the odor was delightful to the hungry boy. It was soon "done to a turn," and the fried potatoes were as brown and nice as those prepared by his mother. He might have had tea or coffee, buthe did not care for them. At his age they are not reckoned among the substantials for a good meal. Procuring a plate, knife, and fork from the cabin, he helped himself from the pan on the stove.
"That's what I call first rate!" exclaimed he, when he had duly tested the bacon and the potatoes. "I shall be ready to hire out as a cook after this. That's tip-top bacon, and I respect the pig that left this leg I see to me."
Little Bobtail glanced up at the leg of bacon in the corner, and thought he had made a good pun; but it was fearfully old and stale to be printed in a book, and we do so only out of deference to his feelings. No right-minded and highly moral person will make puns; and our hero is only excusable on the ground that he was alone, and did not force it upon other people. He ate all he wanted; nay, more—all he could. He devoured the entire slice he had cooked, leaving none for a lunch, in case he wanted one, when he had not time to cook. He was entirely satisfied, and that is saying a great deal of a boy of sixteen, growing, and sailing on the salt water, too. He could not eat any more, or he would; and, being too full for utterance, he made no more speeches tohimself. Doubtless he had endangered the peace of his dreams by overloading his stomach at that hour in the evening, for by this time it was ten o'clock; but it so happened that he had time to digest his supper before he put himself in the way of dreaming.
Having satisfied his hunger, he felt entirely satisfied with himself, and especially with the person or persons who had fitted out the yacht in the commissary department. Taking his lantern, he crawled over the boxes to the after part of the cabin, where there was space enough for him to sit comfortably. He looked at the boxes, and wondered what was in them. We do not know that he had more curiosity than boys in general; but he felt that a knowledge of their contents might enable him to establish another theory in regard to the previous history of the yacht. He had seen a shingling hatchet in the cook-room, used for splitting up the kindling wood. He went for it, and, with no great difficulty, opened one of the boxes. It was filled with bottles, packed in straw, and each one enclosed in a curious case made of the same material. He slipped one of the bottles out of its casing. It was labeled "James Hennessy & Co.—Cognac." The name of the firm, so well known to old topers and moderate drinkers, afforded him no light; but he knew that "Cognac" meant brandy.
"Oho! aha!" said Little Bobtail, knowingly; "I smell a mice now. This boat wasn't used for a pleasure party."
He had heard about those mysterious custom-house inspectors and detectives, who poke their noses into grocery stores, cellars, and all the sly places where contraband goods were supposed to be concealed. Promptly he arrived at the conclusion that the brandy in the yacht had come "thus far into the bowels of the land" without paying its respects to the custom-house, or any of the heavy duties which go to support the army and navy, and a host of beneficent institutions which make our country "the land of the free and the home of the brave," and the collection of which affords a multitude of officials an opportunity to steal. But Little Bobtail did not trouble himself to discuss any of the vexed questions about free trade and tariff, or even to weigh carefully the immorality of smuggling.
Our hero did not believe in brandy, abstractlyor concretely. It was liquor, and liquor had been a curse to his home, a curse to his mother, and a curse to himself; and he was tempted to take the boxes on deck, open them, and spill the contents of the bottles into the sea. Possibly—not probably—he would have done so, if he had not been afraid the liquor would destroy the fish, or drive them away to prohibition waters. The problem of the yacht had become intricate, and he was puzzled to determine what to do with her. If he had been properly instructed in regard to the duty of the citizens to his government, and properly inspired to discharge this duty, he would have sailed the yacht and her cargo over to Camden, and delivered her to the deputy collector in charge of the port. He knew what smuggling meant; but his views were very indefinite. According to the fishermen, and most of the traders, to whose conversation on this subject he had listened, smuggling was hardly to be regarded as a sin, or, if a sin, it was one of the most trivial character.
It is a melancholy truth, becoming more and more familiar to us every year, that cheating the government is hardly considered a crime; that respectablemen, as the world measures them, and even members of the church, defraud the revenues of the government without compunction.
We are sorry to acknowledge that Little Bobtail did not think of such a thing as handing over the yacht and her contraband cargo—as he was fully satisfied it was—to the custom-house officials. He had not been educated up to a point which compelled him to do so. His conscience was not sensitive on this point above the average of the town's people. He was afraid, if he did so, that the government would coolly ignore him because he was a boy, and he should lose his ten dollars. Perhaps he thought he could make better terms with the smugglers than he could with the honorable and high-minded deputy-collector. While he was thinking of the matter, the moon rose in the clear sky, and shed a welcome light over the bay. It occurred to him that those who had lost the yacht might be in search of her. They might blunder upon him in the morning, and, being reckless smugglers, might even kill him to prevent his bearing testimony against them. He did not like the idea of meeting any such men alone. He preferred that the interview should take place in Camdenharbor. The wind was still fresh, and in the yacht he could beat over to Camden in three or four hours; but he thought the breeze was hauling to the southward, which would give him a slant so that he could run over without tacking.
Moved by these considerations, he hoisted the mainsail of the yacht, which required all his strength and skill. He then weighed the anchor of the old tub, and carried her painter to the larger craft. He had a hard pull at the anchor of the yacht, but he got it up after a while, and stowed it securely forward. Rushing to the helm, he hauled in the sheet, and taking the wind on the quarter, he stood to the northward, in order to pass around the island. The yacht worked beautifully, even without her jib. Hauling in the sheet when she was clear of the island, he laid her up to the wind as close as she would go. In a short time he got the bearings of the lights, and found that he could let out his sheet a little. The yacht seemed to fly under the fresh breeze, and Little Bobtail watched her motions with perfect delight. After a while he discovered the light on Negro Island, and it was all plain sailing to him.
If the yacht went so fast with only her main-sail,what would she not do with her jib also? The young skipper was determined to test the question, and, lashing the helm, he hoisted her headsail. Trimming the sail by the sheets which led aft, the yacht increased her speed, and tossed the water over her boughs at a fearful rate; but Little Bobtail had closed the fore scuttle, and he let it toss. It was wild excitement to him, and he enjoyed it to the utmost. In two hours he was approaching the Spindles off the Point, where he deemed it prudent to take in the jib; but the wind was not so fresh in shore, and he went up the harbor quite leisurely. He had time to think again; and a disagreeable consideration was forced upon him, as he heard the clock of the Baptist Church strike one.
He was in Camden harbor; he must come to anchor; and the next morning everybody would wonder what boat the stranger was. The boatmen and bummers about town would board her, and want to know what those boxes contained. Little Bobtail was worried; but it was high tide, and he anchored close up to the rocks in front of the cottage. He was not willing to "face the music" the next day, and he was determined toget rid of the boxes, even if he threw them overboard. Landing in the old boat, he went up to the cottage. Ezekiel was in a drunken sleep in his chamber. Nothing could wake him, as he knew from former experience, when he was in this condition. He went up stairs to his own chamber. The cottage was a one-story building, with two rooms finished in the middle of the roof. On each side of these chambers there was a space for old rubbish, which no one ever explored. The young skipper decided, after a careful examination of the premises, to store the boxes in these spaces. To will was to do with him, and he went to work at once.
In a couple of hours he had conveyed the twenty boxes from the boat, and packed them away in these lumber-holes, and covered them with old traps, so that even his mother would not suspect their presence in the house. Having done all this, he sailed the yacht out into the deep water near the Portland Pier, where he anchored her. Tired out after the long day and the long night, he stretched himself on one of the transoms, and went to sleep.
Little Bobtail slept as soundly on the transom of the yacht as Ezekiel Taylor did in the cottage; and, as he did not retire till after three in the morning, he did not turn out till nine. He had worked all day and nearly all night, and he was very tired. While he was slumbering soundly in the cabin, many an eye was directed from the shore, and from the boats and vessels in the harbor, at the trim and janty yacht which had come in during the night. She was not there the evening before, and she was there now. Scores of boatmen asked what she was and where she came from; but no one could answer. No one had seen her before, and all were confident that she did not belong anywhere in the bay. The gossips concluded that she was a yacht from Boston or Portland, with a party on board; and, as she hadcome in during the night, they supposed her crew were making up for lost time in the matter of sleep. Those who were out in boats, though they sailed around the stranger and examined her carefully, were considerate enough not to go on board of her, and thus waken the tired sleepers.
So Little Bobtail was permitted to finish his nap in peace. The clock on the Baptist Church was striking nine when he woke. He leaped upon the cabin floor with a start when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the round port-holes in the trunk. He had no toilet to make, for he had turned in without removing even his shoes; and, putting on his cap, he was ready for business at once, though he did wash his face and hands, and comb his hair, when a wash-basin at the forward part of the cabin suggested these operations to him. He had an opportunity to see the yacht now by daylight, and his previous impressions of her were more than confirmed. She was even trimmer and more janty than he had supposed.
The experience of the preceding night seemed to him very like a dream. He went on deck, and examined with a critical eye the standing and running rigging, than which nothing could beneater or better. The old tub in which he had been blown off the day before was anchored near her, with a slack line from her stern to the yacht, as he had left her. The dingy old craft looked so mean and insignificant compared with the yacht, that the contrast put him almost out of conceit with the brilliant plan he had considered to purchase the former. He was rather doubtful whether he should be willing to invest the ten dollars—if he should obtain it—in such an enterprise.
Just then it occurred to him that he did not even know the name of the yacht. He walked out on the foot-rope at the end of the main boom, in order to see if it was painted on the stern. There it was—Skylark; only this, and nothing more. The port from which she hailed was not there. Skylark was a very good name, though it was not particularly appropriate for a thing that was to sail on the water, and not in the air. But "skylarking" was a term applied to frolicking, to rude play; and in this sense "Skylark" was entirely proper. On the whole, he did not object to the name, and would not if the owner had appeared at that moment and made him a present of her. He was entirely satisfied both with theyacht and her name; and, having completed his survey by daylight, he again pondered the subject of smuggling in a general way, and then in its relations to the incidents of the previous night. No higher views, no better resolutions, came to him. The contraband cargo was safe under the eaves of the cottage, where no one would be likely to find it; though he could not help thinking what a disaster it would be if Ezekiel should happen to discover those boxes, which doubtless contained liquor enough to keep him drunk for a whole year.
Turning away from the great moral question which confronted him, Little Bobtail began to feel—distinctly to feel, rather than to think—that it was about breakfast time. He went forward and removed the scuttle from over the cook-room. Jumping down into the little apartment, he made a fire in the stove, and put on the tea-kettle. While it was warming up, he went on deck again, for he heard the dip of a pair of oars near the yacht.
"Hullo, Monkey!" he shouted, as he recognized the occupant of a dilapidated old dory, who was taking a leisurely survey of the trim yacht.
"Hullo, Bob! Is that you?" replied the person in the boat, who was a boy of about the age of Little Bobtail, though not half so handsome.
Robert had called him "Monkey," and it was not difficult to determine where he had obtained his sobriquet, for, looking at the youth, Darwinism seemed to be made easy, without distorting either facts or logic. In his case, no long ages appeared to have elapsed between the monkey and the man, and the transition seemed to have been easy and natural. In a word, he looked like a monkey in the face, while no one could possibly have suspected that he was one. Above his mouth his face abruptly receded, so that the end of his nose was not far from plumb with his lips. In the middle of his forehead the hair seemed to grow down to the bridge of his nose. A stranger, who was not of a melancholy turn of mind, could hardly have refrained from laughing when looking at him for the first time. But Bobtail did not laugh, for Monkey was a friend, and a brother, in the generic sense.
"Come on board, Monkey," added Little Bobtail.
"What boat's this?" asked the representativeof Darwinism, as he leaped upon the deck with the painter of the dory in his hand.
"The Skylark," replied Bobtail.
As the new arrival stepped upon the deck of the yacht, he was not unlike the traditional monkey of the circus, for his dress was almost as fantastic as his face. His father, who was a fisherman, had been lost at sea, and his mother was a poor woman, with neither energy nor gumption, who occupied a miserable shanty about a mile from the village, in which hardly a mean dwelling could be found. The woman was believed to be a little "daft," for she always hid herself when any of the town's people appeared near her shanty. She had a garden, in which she raised potatoes and corn, and kept a pig and a cow; and these furnished her subsistence, with the trifle which her son earned by odd jobs. The woman's name was Nancy Monk, and her boy's was Peter Monk, though certainly the surname was not needed to suggest the nickname by which he was universally called.
Of course Peter Monk's unfortunate affinity to the ape subjected him to no little annoyance from the sneers and insults of other boys,whose sense of decency was below their sense of the ludicrous.
Though Peter was, in the main, a good-natured fellow, there was a point of endurance beyond which he was not proof against the coarse jeers of his companions; and more than once Little Bobtail had been his protector when borne under by the force of numbers; for our hero had a hard fist as well as a kind heart. So Monkey was his friend for life, not so much because Bobtail had fought his battles, as because he treated him well, and made more of him than any one else did.
"Never heard of the Skylark before," said the visitor. "Where does she come from?"
"I don't know."
"Who owns her?"
"I don't know."
"Where does she belong?"
"I don't know."
"O, you don't?" grinned Monkey, exhibiting another affinity to the origin of the race.
"No, I don't."
"Where are the folks that belong to her?"
"I don't know."
"What you doing on board of her, Bob?"
"I'm looking out for her till somebody comes who has a better right to do so."
"How come she here?"
"I brought her here."
"Where from?"
"Blank Island."
"Nobody lives there."
"I know it."
And Little Bobtail smiled at the perplexity of the visitor.
"Well, then, how come she over there, where nobody don't live?"
"I picked her up adrift."
"O, you did—did you?"
"I did. But come below; I want to get my breakfast," added Bobtail, as he led the way down into the cabin.
Monkey stared, and exclaimed as he viewed the comfortable, and even luxurious, furnishings of the yacht. He asked a thousand questions which Bobtail could not answer, and a thousand more which he did answer.
"Have you been to breakfast, Monkey?" asked Bobtail, as he seated himself before the stove inthe cook-room, while the guest remained at the door in the cabin.
"Yes, I had something," replied Monkey, glancing at the leg of bacon.
The host knew very well that Monkey did not live much better at home than the pigs in the sty of the first-class farmer; that he was always a hungry waif, who could make a meal at any time. He resolved to give his visitor a treat on the present occasion; and he anticipated his own breakfast with double pleasure when he thought of the satisfaction which the meal would give his companion.
"Monkey, will you take Prince's boat over to her moorings for me? Somebody may want her," said he, as he put the coffee-pot on the stove, and took down the leg of bacon.
"To be sure I will, Bob. I'll do anything for you."
"I wish you would; and then come back and have some breakfast with me."
Monkey grinned, and even chattered, as he hastened to execute his errand. By the time he returned, Bobtail had set the table in the cabin; for, as he had company, he decided to take themeal in state. He had fried all the rest of the kid of potatoes, and two large slices of ham. He made the coffee, and mixed up a pitcher of condensed milk.
"Sit down, Monkey," said Little Bobtail, as he wiped the perspiration from his brow, for the cook-room was a hot place, even with the scuttle open.
"Yes," replied Monkey, showing all the teeth in his head, for when the mouths were given out he had been supplied with a very liberal share.
The host helped him to a big piece of ham and a great heap of fried potatoes. The guest was not very elegant in his manners; but what he lacked in refinement he made up in zeal. Fingers seemed to come handier to him than a fork, or, rather, a "slit spoon," as he called it. He did not often make two parts of a slice of potato, and his mouthfuls of ham were big enough to bait a large cod. Fortunately there was enough to fill him up.
"Somebody's looking for you, Bob, up in the village," said Monkey, when he began to be gorged, which, however, was not till both the slices of ham were nearly consumed.
"For me?" asked Little Bobtail.
"Squire Gilfilian asked me if I'd seen you; and I told him I hadn't. He was askin' everybody for you. Some on 'em said you wan't to home; and the old man said he hadn't seen you sence yesterday mornin'."
"Who wants me?"
"I don't know; but the squire wanted to see you powerful bad," grinned Monkey.
"All right. I'll go up and see him by and by," said Bobtail, as he left the table.
With the assistance of his new ally he washed the dishes, cleaned up the stove and cooking utensils, and swept out the cabin. Everything was put into the neatest condition. When this was done, the decks were washed down, the sails stowed more trimly than the skipper could do it in the dark, all the running rigging hauled taut, and the ends coiled away, so that the yacht was in man-of-war style. He found a padlock, with a key in it, to fasten the cabin door; and having put the tiller below, so that no one could sail the Skylark in his absence, he secured the door, and went on shore with Monkey. He stopped at the cottage to see if his mother had returned from Rockport, but neither she nor Ezekiel was there.
Walking towards the village, he wondered what Squire Gilfilian could want of him. He began to be a little troubled about the letter again, for, in the excitement of his cruise over to Blank Island, he hardly thought of the disagreeable circumstances connected with it. He found the squire in his office, with a stranger, a flashy-looking and ill-visaged fellow.
"I hear you want to see me," said Little Bobtail.
"I do," replied the lawyer, sternly and decidedly. "Come in here;" and he led the way to his private office in the rear. "Now, boy, I want to know what you did with that letter."
"I told you before what I did with it. I put it on your desk," answered Bobtail, promptly; and it is not strange that his brown cheek flushed a little, but it was with indignation, not guilt.
"So you told me before; but I don't believe it," added the squire, with a terrible frown, and in a very loud tone, doubtless involuntarily resorting to one of the tricks of his trade to intimidate the youth.
"Do you think I would lie about a letter?" demanded Bobtail, warmly.
"Do you know what was in that letter?"
"How should I know?"
"Because you opened it," sharply retorted the lawyer, as though he intended to overwhelm a contumacious and guilty witness.
"I didn't open it," protested the boy, stoutly. "I put it on your desk; and that's all I know about it."
"It is easier for you to say that than it is for me to believe it."
"I can't help it, if you don't believe me. I have told the truth. I had a letter for you, and another for Captain Chinks. I gave him his here in your office, and chucked yours on your desk. That's the whole truth, and all I know about the letters. If Captain Chinks was here he would tell you the same thing, for he said you was busy in here, and told me to put the letter on the desk; and that's just what I did, and just all I did."
"Captain Chinks isn't here, and has been gone a week."
"He'll come back some time, I suppose."
"I don't know whether he will or not. He's mixed up with a smuggling case, and he may not deem it prudent to come back."
"Whether he does or not, I never saw the letter after I put it on your desk."
The lawyer bit his lips. There was nothing in the tones or the manner of the youth to excite suspicion, and Little Bobtail's reputation for honesty was first class. A year before, he had found the wallet of a stranger, which he might have kept, but had taken great pains to find the owner. In fact, everybody that knew him knew that he was honest.
"Now, Little Bobtail, you stand very well in the village," continued Squire Gilfilian, with a smile, as he suddenly changed his tactics.
"I always mean to keep myself straight, sir," added Bobtail.
"Of course you do. But the best of us are sometimes tempted to do wrong. If you have been led away, and—"
"I haven't been led away, sir."
"You may have made a mistake. If you opened that letter by accident or otherwise—"
"I didn't open it by accident or otherwise. I didn't open it at all," interposed the boy, with energy.
"Hear what I have to say, Little Bobtail. Thebest of folks are sometimes led away. Even ministers of the gospel once in a great while do a wicked deed."
"I don't care if they do; I haven't opened your letter."
"But I'm only supposing a case."
"Well, sir, you needn't suppose I opened that letter, for I didn't."
"Suppose you had opened it—"
"I didn't."
"It is only an hypothesis."
"I don't care if it is; I didn't open the letter," persisted Bobtail, who had not the least idea what an hypothesis was.
"If somebody else, then, had opened that letter, and taken out the money. He might have been sorely tempted; he might have opened it by accident," said the squire, in soft, oily tones.
"Somebody elsemight, but Ididn't."
"If he don't feel bad about it now, he will, as sure as he lives, for the truth will come out. Don't you think so?"
"I do think so."
"It will ruin his reputation, send him to the state prison, and spoil his prospects forever. Now,don't you think it would be better for him to give up the money, if I should say to him that I wouldn't mention the matter?"
"I think he had better give it up, whether you mention it or not," answered Bobtail, more calmly.
"Then don't you thinkyouhad better give it up?"
"I tell you again, I didn't open the letter, and haven't seen the money," protested Bobtail, violently.
"You had better think it over."
"I don't want to think it over."
"You will have to go to jail if you don't."
"I can go to jail, but I can't give up what I haven't got, nor own up to what I didn't do."
"The letter which you brought to my office that morning contained five hundred dollars in one bill. It was my advance fee for defending the Buckingham Bank robbers. Their friends raised the money; but only a rogue would have sent it in cash. The letter is gone. It was last in your hands. Now you had better think it all over, and you may stay here and do so, while I talk with the gentleman in the other room." And the squire opened the door.
There was another person in the front room now, who had entered during this interview. In spite of the suspicion of the attorney, this person was Captain Chinks, who was promptly summoned to the private office, and the conference renewed.
The ill-visaged person in the front room was probably a bank robber himself, though he was not yet implicated in the Buckingham affair. He was a friend of the robbers who had been arrested, and had employed Squire Gilfilian—who was as eloquent in speech as he was skilful in the intricacies of the law—to defend his unfortunate friends. The lawyer would not do so without a fee in advance; and the five hundred dollars had been sent in the letter which had so strangely disappeared. Either the sender knew no better than to trust so large a sum in the mail, or his criminal associations made him diffident about applying for a check or draft.
Hearing nothing from the lawyer, he had written again, stating that he had sent the money at the time agreed upon. The squire had expected the letter, and intended immediately to start for the county town in the jail of which the robbers wereconfined, in order to examine his case. In reply to the second letter, he telegraphed to his correspondent in Portland that he had not received the first; and then the robbers' agent had come himself. There he was in the front room.
"I'm very glad to see you, Captain Chinks," said Squire Gilfilian, as he conducted the gentleman of doubtful reputation into his private office.
"Is my case likely to come up soon?" asked the captain.
"No, I don't think it will ever come up," answered the lawyer.
"Well, you have changed your tune since I was here before," added Captain Chinks, with a satisfied smile. "Then everything was going to be proved against me; now, nothing."
"I have sifted down all the evidence the government has; and you needn't trouble yourself any more about that matter."
"I suppose an innocent man never need fear," said the captain.
Squire Gilfilian looked at the gentleman of doubtful reputation, opened his eyes with a jerk, and a faint smile played about the corners of his mouth. But professionally he dealt with evidence and questions of law, rather than with truth itself. He did not ask what was true, only what could be proved.
Little Bobtail listened attentively to this conversation, though he had very little interest in it. But he could not help indorsing, in his own mind, the remark of Captain Chinks, that the innocent never need fear. He was under suspicion himself; but he was not afraid.
"Ah, Bobtail! are you a witness for the prosecution?" said the captain, appearing now to see the youth for the first time.
"No, sir. I'm the defendant myself," replied Bobtail, pleasantly; for the arrival of the captain seemed to settle all his trouble. "I am in stays just now, caught in going about, and there I hang. If you will just give me a pull on the lee side, I shall go about handsomely."
"Certainly, my lad. If you miss stay in this law business, there's always a lee shore to drift on to, and no room to wear round."
"Captain Chinks," interposed the lawyer, who did not so clearly comprehend the nautical view of the case, "I lost a letter the day you went away."
"And Bobtail found it," suggested the captain.
"Not exactly. I never received it."
"Then I don't see how you lost it."
"Little Bobtail and the post-master agree perfectly on one point—that two letters were given him, one to carry to you and the other to me, on the day you went away."
"And I perfectly agree with Little Bobtail and the post-master. He gave me my letter in your front office, only two minutes after you told me that I was certain to be arrested in less than twenty-four hours for being concerned in that smuggling case, when it was as plain as the nose on a man's face that I had nothing whatever to do with it. He gave me that letter, and that letter called me on business down to Mount Desert. You see, squire, when a man is innocent—"
"Exactly so," interposed Squire Gilfilian. "We will grant that you are entirely innocent. But the smuggling case is not before the court just now. We were speaking of the letters. We will grantthat Bobtail delivered your letter to you all right. Do you happen to know anything about the other letter?"
The squire glanced at Little Bobtail, to discover any evidences of guilt or confusion in his face. Certainly he was deeply interested, and even anxious; but, being young and inexperienced, he had an undoubting confidence in the ultimate triumph of truth and innocence.
"I do happen to know all about it," replied Captain Chinks, after he also had glanced at the boy.
"Well, what do you know about it?" demanded the lawyer, rather impatiently, as the captain paused, and looked again at the alleged culprit.
"Bobtail gave me my letter, and I opened it at once, for I was expecting that letter, and had asked for it at the post-office, for it was getting rather late for the steamer, and I had some business in Rockland. I was expecting to meet a man down to Bar Harbor."
"We will grant that your letter was all right, captain. We were speaking of the other letter."
"I thought we were speaking of both of them," laughed the captain.