[Top]CHAPTERII.THE YOUNG MAN WITH A LONG NAME.“You had a narrow squeak that time,” said Dory Dornwood, as soon as he thought the victim of the disaster was in condition to do a little talking. “It is lucky you didn’t get tangled up in the rigging of your boat. She went to the bottom like a pound of carpet-tacks; and she would have carried you down in a hurry if you hadn’t let go in short metre.”“I think I am remarkably fortunate in being among the living at this moment,” replied the stranger, looking out over the stern of the Goldwing. “That was the most atrocious thing a fellow ever did.”“What was?” inquired Dory, who was not quite sure what the victim meant by the remark, or whether he alluded to him or to the man in the steam-launch.“Why, running into me like that,” protested the passenger with no little indignation in his tones.“Let me see, ‘atrocious’ means something bad or wicked, don’t it?” continued Dory.“Something very bad and very wicked,” replied the stranger, with a sickly smile, as he bestowed a patronizing glance upon his deliverer.“I thought it was something of that sort. I suppose you don’t use such big words as that before breakfast, do you?”“Why not before breakfast as well as after? It is a common word, in use every day in the week.”“I didn’t know but it might put your jaws out of joint, and spoil your appetite,” added Dory, as he glanced behind him to see what had become of the steam-launch.“My appetite is not so easily spoiled.”“I suppose you came up from Burlington?” said Dory suggestively, as though he considered an explanation on the part of the stranger to be in order at the present time.“I have just come from Burlington,” answered the victim, who appeared to be disposed to say nothing more. “Do you suppose I can get that boat again?”“I should say that the chance of getting heragain was not first-rate. She went down where the water is about two hundred and fifty feet deep; and it won’t be an easy thing to get hold of her,” replied Dory. “If you had let him run into you between Diamond Island and Porter’s Bay, where the water is not more than fifty or sixty feet deep, you could have raised her without much difficulty. I don’t believe you will ever see her again.”“That’s bad,” mused the stranger. “She did not belong to me.”“Then you are so much in. Perhaps, if she had belonged to you, you would not have let the steam-launch run into you,” added Dory, who did not quite like the way the victim was taking things; for he did not seem to remember that he had been pulled out of the water by the skipper of the Goldwing when he was in great danger of drowning.“I did not let the steam-launch run into me. The man in her did it on purpose. It was not an accident,” answered the stranger.“I heard the fellow say that he meant to sink you; and, after he said that, I thought you were a little out of your head to let him do it.”“I didn’t let him do it.”“I thought you did. If I had been at the tiller of that sloop, he wouldn’t have done it.”“Probably you are a better boatman than I am: I don’t pretend to know much about the management of a yacht,” replied the victim meekly, as he finished wiping the water from his face.“Then you ought not to be sailing a boat in a fresh breeze, such as we are having to-day. Why didn’t you put your helm down when you saw that he was going to run into you?”“Down where?” asked the victim with a vacant stare.“Down cellar!” exclaimed Dory, disgusted at the ignorance of the skipper of the sunken sloop. “No fellow ought to sail a boat if he don’t know how to put the helm down.”“A fellow can’t know every thing in the world.”“Then, I suppose you know every thing else: but how to put the helm down was the one thing you ought to have known, when that fellow was kind enough to tell you beforehand that he meant to sink you.”“Don’t be too rough on me, Mr.— I don’t know your name. I am under very great obligationsto you for the signal service you have rendered me, and I shall be glad to know you better.”“My name is Theodore Dornwood,—Dory for short. What is yours?”“Dory Dornwood!” exclaimed the victim, bestowing a look of astonishment upon the modest skipper. “I have heard of you before, and I am particularly glad to meet you.”“I should think you might be, since I picked you up in deep water. But you did not give me your name.”“My name is Bolingbroke Millweed.”“Is that all the name you have?” asked Dory, as he opened his eyes till they were as big as a pair of saucers—very small saucers. “I didn’t quite make it out, for it fairly snarled up my intellect.”“Bolingbroke Millweed,” repeated the stranger with a slight frown upon his brow. “It’s all the name I have.”“It’s name enough, I should say.”“It is hardly worth while to make fun of my name: I am not responsible for it, and it is the best I have.”“I beg your pardon, Mr.— I don’t know what your name is now, for really I did not take it in,” pleaded Dory, who was sometimes very brusk in his manner, though he did not mean to hurt anybody’s feelings. “Honestly, I did not understand you.”“You cannot have read English history very much, or you would have recognized the first name.”“I never did read English history much: in fact, I never did much reading of any kind.”“My first name is Bolingbroke, and my surname is Millweed. The whole of it is Bolingbroke Millweed,” added the victim, mollified as he pitied the ignorance of his deliverer.“All right, Mr. Millweed: I won’t tackle the first name until I get a little better acquainted with it.”“Viscount HenrySt.John Bolingbroke, after whom I was named, was a prime minister of England, and a fine scholar; though he was charged with treason. But I did not pick out the name myself: it was my mother’s choice, but I can’t say that I approve it. I suppose I shall be called ‘Bolly’ as long as I live.”“Of course your friends can’t handle such a jaw-breaker as Bolingbroke every time they want to ask you which way the wind is. But never mind the name, Mr. Millweed. I picked you up in deep water, and that’s how you happen to be on board of the Goldwing.”“The famous Goldwing! I am extremely happy to be on board of her; though I wish our meeting had been under more favorable circumstances,” added Mr. Bolingbroke Millweed, as he poured the water out of one of his shoes.“I only said that you were on board of the Goldwing; and the question now is, what shall I do with you, for I see the steam-launch is headed this way. I should judge from his actions that the man at the wheel of her wants to see you.”“He does want to see me! I am the victim of a conspiracy!” exclaimed Mr. Millweed in tragic tones, as he sprang to his feet.“The victim of a conspiracy? Is that what you call the sinking of a sloop?”“I feel that the brave and noble Dory Dornwood will be my friend,and"—“Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackle!” interposedthe skipper of the Goldwing, borrowing an expression his uncle had quoted in his presence. “If you mean to blarney me, I shall be your enemy; and I will put you ashore on Diamond Island, without benefit of clergy.”“Excuse me: I did not mean to offend you, Mr.Dornwood,”—“Avast heaving! Don’t ‘mister’ me. Call me Dory; but don’t call me too late for dinner,” laughed the skipper.“Since I know who you are, I shall tell you my story, and explain how I happened to be sailing the sloop,and”—“I know how you were sailing her, and you sailed her to the bottom. Tell me the rest of it.”“I will tell you why that man ran into me, and why he was chasing me up the lake.”“That’s the point; but make the yarn a short one, or the steam-launch will be upon us before you get through with it. You have the floor, Mr. Millweed,” replied Dory, as he glanced at the approaching steamer.“But I don’t want to be caught by that man! It might be fatal to me. He is a conspirator; andhe is seeking to destroy my good name,” pleaded Mr. Millweed earnestly.“I don’t understand the matter. Is the man an officer?”“Not at all: he is chief clerk in a store in Burlington, and the steam-launch belongs to his employer. But he is rapidly overtaking us,” said the passenger.“Why should he be after you? What have you been doing that is wrong?” asked Dory, who had no idea of enlisting on the wrong side in anybody’s cause.“I have done nothing wrong. I will tell you all about the matter, only don’t let that man get hold of me. Upon my sacred honor, I am guilty of no crime,” continued Bolingbroke Millweed.Dory was greatly tempted. He had a reputation on Lake Champlain, won but a short time before he made his snug harbor at Beech Hill. On two occasions he had successfully kept out of the way of a steamer. He had been pursued all one day by the swiftest steam-yacht on the lake, but by his “tactics” he had kept out of her reach.If the young man had been guilty of a crime,he would do nothing for him. His passenger spoke fairly; but, if he had been doing wrong, he would not scruple to lie about it. Dory decided to keep out of the way of the steam-launch long enough to hear Bolingbroke’s story. It was an exciting game to dodge a steamer, and he desired to play it. The water in the lake had been very low all summer, and no heavy rains had yet raised it. The low-water soundings on the chart needed no corrections.The Goldwing was a schooner, and Dory had been sailing under jib and mainsail only. This was about all the sail she could comfortably carry. The skipper looked over the situation very carefully. The yacht was on the wind, headed across the lake. After the sinking of the sloop, the two men in the steamer had a long talk before they started her screw again; and she was all of half a mile astern of the Goldwing.Coming up into the wind, Dory set the mainsail; and then it was a staggering wind for the Goldwing. By a little manœuvring the skipper brought Diamond Island between his own craft and the steam-launch.The pursuer had gained on him while he wassetting the foresail. Starting his sheets, he stood off to the south-west until the steamer was abreast of the island. She could not head him off; and then he came about again, steering her due south.The skipper was ready for the explanation, and the passenger proceeded to relate it.
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“You had a narrow squeak that time,” said Dory Dornwood, as soon as he thought the victim of the disaster was in condition to do a little talking. “It is lucky you didn’t get tangled up in the rigging of your boat. She went to the bottom like a pound of carpet-tacks; and she would have carried you down in a hurry if you hadn’t let go in short metre.”
“I think I am remarkably fortunate in being among the living at this moment,” replied the stranger, looking out over the stern of the Goldwing. “That was the most atrocious thing a fellow ever did.”
“What was?” inquired Dory, who was not quite sure what the victim meant by the remark, or whether he alluded to him or to the man in the steam-launch.
“Why, running into me like that,” protested the passenger with no little indignation in his tones.
“Let me see, ‘atrocious’ means something bad or wicked, don’t it?” continued Dory.
“Something very bad and very wicked,” replied the stranger, with a sickly smile, as he bestowed a patronizing glance upon his deliverer.
“I thought it was something of that sort. I suppose you don’t use such big words as that before breakfast, do you?”
“Why not before breakfast as well as after? It is a common word, in use every day in the week.”
“I didn’t know but it might put your jaws out of joint, and spoil your appetite,” added Dory, as he glanced behind him to see what had become of the steam-launch.
“My appetite is not so easily spoiled.”
“I suppose you came up from Burlington?” said Dory suggestively, as though he considered an explanation on the part of the stranger to be in order at the present time.
“I have just come from Burlington,” answered the victim, who appeared to be disposed to say nothing more. “Do you suppose I can get that boat again?”
“I should say that the chance of getting heragain was not first-rate. She went down where the water is about two hundred and fifty feet deep; and it won’t be an easy thing to get hold of her,” replied Dory. “If you had let him run into you between Diamond Island and Porter’s Bay, where the water is not more than fifty or sixty feet deep, you could have raised her without much difficulty. I don’t believe you will ever see her again.”
“That’s bad,” mused the stranger. “She did not belong to me.”
“Then you are so much in. Perhaps, if she had belonged to you, you would not have let the steam-launch run into you,” added Dory, who did not quite like the way the victim was taking things; for he did not seem to remember that he had been pulled out of the water by the skipper of the Goldwing when he was in great danger of drowning.
“I did not let the steam-launch run into me. The man in her did it on purpose. It was not an accident,” answered the stranger.
“I heard the fellow say that he meant to sink you; and, after he said that, I thought you were a little out of your head to let him do it.”
“I didn’t let him do it.”
“I thought you did. If I had been at the tiller of that sloop, he wouldn’t have done it.”
“Probably you are a better boatman than I am: I don’t pretend to know much about the management of a yacht,” replied the victim meekly, as he finished wiping the water from his face.
“Then you ought not to be sailing a boat in a fresh breeze, such as we are having to-day. Why didn’t you put your helm down when you saw that he was going to run into you?”
“Down where?” asked the victim with a vacant stare.
“Down cellar!” exclaimed Dory, disgusted at the ignorance of the skipper of the sunken sloop. “No fellow ought to sail a boat if he don’t know how to put the helm down.”
“A fellow can’t know every thing in the world.”
“Then, I suppose you know every thing else: but how to put the helm down was the one thing you ought to have known, when that fellow was kind enough to tell you beforehand that he meant to sink you.”
“Don’t be too rough on me, Mr.— I don’t know your name. I am under very great obligationsto you for the signal service you have rendered me, and I shall be glad to know you better.”
“My name is Theodore Dornwood,—Dory for short. What is yours?”
“Dory Dornwood!” exclaimed the victim, bestowing a look of astonishment upon the modest skipper. “I have heard of you before, and I am particularly glad to meet you.”
“I should think you might be, since I picked you up in deep water. But you did not give me your name.”
“My name is Bolingbroke Millweed.”
“Is that all the name you have?” asked Dory, as he opened his eyes till they were as big as a pair of saucers—very small saucers. “I didn’t quite make it out, for it fairly snarled up my intellect.”
“Bolingbroke Millweed,” repeated the stranger with a slight frown upon his brow. “It’s all the name I have.”
“It’s name enough, I should say.”
“It is hardly worth while to make fun of my name: I am not responsible for it, and it is the best I have.”
“I beg your pardon, Mr.— I don’t know what your name is now, for really I did not take it in,” pleaded Dory, who was sometimes very brusk in his manner, though he did not mean to hurt anybody’s feelings. “Honestly, I did not understand you.”
“You cannot have read English history very much, or you would have recognized the first name.”
“I never did read English history much: in fact, I never did much reading of any kind.”
“My first name is Bolingbroke, and my surname is Millweed. The whole of it is Bolingbroke Millweed,” added the victim, mollified as he pitied the ignorance of his deliverer.
“All right, Mr. Millweed: I won’t tackle the first name until I get a little better acquainted with it.”
“Viscount HenrySt.John Bolingbroke, after whom I was named, was a prime minister of England, and a fine scholar; though he was charged with treason. But I did not pick out the name myself: it was my mother’s choice, but I can’t say that I approve it. I suppose I shall be called ‘Bolly’ as long as I live.”
“Of course your friends can’t handle such a jaw-breaker as Bolingbroke every time they want to ask you which way the wind is. But never mind the name, Mr. Millweed. I picked you up in deep water, and that’s how you happen to be on board of the Goldwing.”
“The famous Goldwing! I am extremely happy to be on board of her; though I wish our meeting had been under more favorable circumstances,” added Mr. Bolingbroke Millweed, as he poured the water out of one of his shoes.
“I only said that you were on board of the Goldwing; and the question now is, what shall I do with you, for I see the steam-launch is headed this way. I should judge from his actions that the man at the wheel of her wants to see you.”
“He does want to see me! I am the victim of a conspiracy!” exclaimed Mr. Millweed in tragic tones, as he sprang to his feet.
“The victim of a conspiracy? Is that what you call the sinking of a sloop?”
“I feel that the brave and noble Dory Dornwood will be my friend,and"—
“Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackle!” interposedthe skipper of the Goldwing, borrowing an expression his uncle had quoted in his presence. “If you mean to blarney me, I shall be your enemy; and I will put you ashore on Diamond Island, without benefit of clergy.”
“Excuse me: I did not mean to offend you, Mr.Dornwood,”—
“Avast heaving! Don’t ‘mister’ me. Call me Dory; but don’t call me too late for dinner,” laughed the skipper.
“Since I know who you are, I shall tell you my story, and explain how I happened to be sailing the sloop,and”—
“I know how you were sailing her, and you sailed her to the bottom. Tell me the rest of it.”
“I will tell you why that man ran into me, and why he was chasing me up the lake.”
“That’s the point; but make the yarn a short one, or the steam-launch will be upon us before you get through with it. You have the floor, Mr. Millweed,” replied Dory, as he glanced at the approaching steamer.
“But I don’t want to be caught by that man! It might be fatal to me. He is a conspirator; andhe is seeking to destroy my good name,” pleaded Mr. Millweed earnestly.
“I don’t understand the matter. Is the man an officer?”
“Not at all: he is chief clerk in a store in Burlington, and the steam-launch belongs to his employer. But he is rapidly overtaking us,” said the passenger.
“Why should he be after you? What have you been doing that is wrong?” asked Dory, who had no idea of enlisting on the wrong side in anybody’s cause.
“I have done nothing wrong. I will tell you all about the matter, only don’t let that man get hold of me. Upon my sacred honor, I am guilty of no crime,” continued Bolingbroke Millweed.
Dory was greatly tempted. He had a reputation on Lake Champlain, won but a short time before he made his snug harbor at Beech Hill. On two occasions he had successfully kept out of the way of a steamer. He had been pursued all one day by the swiftest steam-yacht on the lake, but by his “tactics” he had kept out of her reach.
If the young man had been guilty of a crime,he would do nothing for him. His passenger spoke fairly; but, if he had been doing wrong, he would not scruple to lie about it. Dory decided to keep out of the way of the steam-launch long enough to hear Bolingbroke’s story. It was an exciting game to dodge a steamer, and he desired to play it. The water in the lake had been very low all summer, and no heavy rains had yet raised it. The low-water soundings on the chart needed no corrections.
The Goldwing was a schooner, and Dory had been sailing under jib and mainsail only. This was about all the sail she could comfortably carry. The skipper looked over the situation very carefully. The yacht was on the wind, headed across the lake. After the sinking of the sloop, the two men in the steamer had a long talk before they started her screw again; and she was all of half a mile astern of the Goldwing.
Coming up into the wind, Dory set the mainsail; and then it was a staggering wind for the Goldwing. By a little manœuvring the skipper brought Diamond Island between his own craft and the steam-launch.
The pursuer had gained on him while he wassetting the foresail. Starting his sheets, he stood off to the south-west until the steamer was abreast of the island. She could not head him off; and then he came about again, steering her due south.
The skipper was ready for the explanation, and the passenger proceeded to relate it.