As the sailboat drew nearer, there appeared to be a single occupant, a youth of about Harvey’s age, perhaps a year older, holding the tiller. His hat was gone and he was standing up, with hair dishevelled, glaring wildly ahead, in a confused sort of way. The boom of the sailboat was well out on the starboard side. Harvey kept theVikingon the starboard tack, and near enough to have passed quite close to the other boat.
A little too close, in fact, considering that the youth at the tiller of the oncoming boat had, indeed, completely lost his head. Suddenly, without warning, he put his tiller over so that the sailboat headed away from theVikingfor an instant. Then, as the wind got back of his sail, and the boat at the same time rolled heavily in the seas, the boom jibed with terrific force. The sailboat swung in swiftly toward the starboard beam of theViking, and the wind and sea knocked it down so that the water poured in over the side, threatening to swamp it. At the instant, Jack Harvey had thrown theVikingoff the wind to avoid a crash with the other boat. The boom of the sailboat swept around with amazing swiftness, and then, as the boat careened, threatening to founder, the end of the boom brought up with a smashing blow against theViking’sstarboard quarter, breaking off several feet of the boom and tearing the sail badly.
“THE BOOM BROUGHT UP WITH A SMASHING BLOW AGAINST THE VIKING’S STARBOARD QUARTER.”“THE BOOM BROUGHT UP WITH A SMASHING BLOW AGAINST THE VIKING’S STARBOARD QUARTER.”
“THE BOOM BROUGHT UP WITH A SMASHING BLOW AGAINST THE VIKING’S STARBOARD QUARTER.”
The sailboat, half-filled with water, fell heavily into the trough of the sea and rolled threateningly; while at every pitch the boom struck the waves as though it would break again.
TheViking, under Jack Harvey’s guidance, stood away a short distance, then came about and beat up in to the wind a rod or two above the wreck.
“Get that mainsail down as quick as ever you can!” shouted Jack Harvey to the strange youth, who had dropped the tiller, and who stood now at the rail, dancing about frantically, as though he intended to jump overboard.
“I can’t,” cried the youth, tremulously. “Oh, come aboard here quick, won’t you? I’m going to sink and drown. This boat’s going down. I don’t know how to handle her.”
“We guessed that,” remarked Henry Burns, and added, reassuringly, “Don’t lose your head now. You know where the halyards are. Go ahead and get your sail down, and we’ll stand by and help you.”
Henry Burns’s calm manner seemed to instil a spark of courage into the youth. He splashed his way up to the cabin bulkhead, where the halyards were belayed on cleats on either side, and let them run. The sail dropped a little way and then stuck. The youth turned to the other boys appealingly.
“Pull up on your peak-halyard a little,” said Jack Harvey, “and let the throat drop first a way. Then the throat won’t stick.”
The youth made another attempt and the sail came nearly down, hanging in bagging folds.
“Lucky that’s not a heavy sail nor a heavy boom,” exclaimed Jack Harvey, “or the boat would be over and sunk by this time. I think I could lift the boom inboard if I could only get aboard there.”
“Here,” cried Harvey, coiling up a light, strong line that he had darted into the cabin after, “catch this and make it fast up forward—and mind you tie a knot that will hold.”
He threw the line across, and it was clutched by the boy aboard the smaller boat. The boy carried it forward and did as Harvey had directed.
“Now,” said Harvey to Henry Burns, as he made fast the line astern, “the moment we get near enough so that I can jump aboard, you bring theVikingright on her course, with a good full, so she won’t drift back on to the wreck completely.”
He, himself, held the wheel of theVikinglong enough to allow the yacht to come into the wind a little. Thus it lost headway sufficiently so that the seas caused it to drift back, without its coming about or losing all steerageway. Then, as theVikingdrifted within reach of the smaller boat, he leaped quickly and landed safely on the deck. At the same time, or an instant later, Henry Burns threw the wheel of theVikingover so that the yacht gathered headway again and tautened the rope that connected the two boats.
Harvey, having landed on the deck of the sailboat, steadied himself by grasping the starboard stay, and took a quick, comprehensive glance over the situation. A foot and a half or so of the boom had split off from the end, and the mainsail was badly torn. The main-sheet had been snapped by the jibing of the boom, but the break in the boom was beyond the point where the sheet was fastened. The broken end of the sheet was trailing in the water. The boat could be got in hand if that were regained.
Seizing the end of the main-sheet that remained in the boat, and casting it loose from the cleat, Harvey found he had still the use of a rope of considerable length. Coiling this up, and hanging it over one arm, he regained the deck, over the small cabin, and took up his position on the port side of the boat. The stay on that side had been saved from carrying away only because the quarter of theVikinghad arrested the force of the boom. Having this stay, then, to hold fast to, Harvey leaned over the side, as far as he was able, passed an end of the rope about the boom, took a turn, and made it fast.
Carrying the other end aft, Harvey handed it to the youth, who stood gazing at his efforts stupidly, evidently knowing not in the least what to do.
“Now you hold on to that,” said Harvey, “and when I tell you to, you haul as hard as ever you can.”
The youth took the rope silently and sullenly.
Harvey sprang again upon the deck, caught the flying ends of the halyards and ran the mainsail up. It was slow work, for the sail was soaked with water, and the tear in it began to rip more when the strain was brought to bear. When Harvey had hoisted the sail sufficiently so that the topping-lift would have lifted the boom, he started for that; but it had parted, and was of no use.
“Well,” said Harvey, “we’ll get the boom up a little more, with the sail, no matter if it does tear. We can’t help it.”
So he took another pull at the peak-halyard. The boom lifted a little.
“That’s enough,” said Harvey. “Now haul in on that sheet lively, before the sail tears any more. Get that boom in quick!”
The youth, with no great spirit nor heartiness in his movements, did as directed, and the boom came inboard. Then Harvey once more dropped the sail.
He was brim full of life, was Jack Harvey, and now that there was something here worth doing, and necessary to be done quickly, he was eager with the spirit of it.
“Have you got anything aboard here to bail with?” he asked, hurriedly; and, without waiting for the more sluggish movements of the other, he darted forward, through the water in the cockpit, to where he had espied a pail half-submerged under the seat. With this he began bailing furiously, dipping up the pailfuls and dashing them out over the side, as though the boat were sinking and he had but one chance for life in a hundred.
Harvey was working in this way, with never a thought of his companion, when presently there came a hail from theViking. He paused and looked across the water to where Henry Burns was standing at the wheel of the larger craft, with a look of amusement on his face.
“I say, Jack,” called Henry Burns, drawling very slightly, as was his habit at times when other youths of more excitable temperament would speak quickly, “that other chap aboard there is just dying to help bail the boat. Why don’t you let him do his share of it?”
Harvey glanced back astern at his companion of the sailboat. What he saw caused an angry flush to spread over his face. But the next moment the cool effrontery of it made him laugh.
The youth whom Harvey’s surprised gaze rested upon was a rather tall, thin, sallow chap, with an expression on his face that looked like a perpetual sneer. He wore no yachting costume nor clothing of any sort fit for roughing it. Instead, he was rather flashily dressed, in clothes more often affected by men of sporting propensities than youths of any age. In a scarf of brilliant and gaudy tint he wore a large pin in the form of a horseshoe, with imitation brilliants in it. In fact, his dress and whole demeanour were of one who had a far more intimate knowledge of certain phases of life than he should. A telltale smear upon the fingers of his right hand told of the smoking habit, which accounted for his thin and sallow appearance—and which habit was now in evidence.
It was this latter that particularly angered Harvey, as he paused, perspiring, from his work.
The youth had seated himself calmly on the edge of the after-rail, with an elbow rested on one knee. In this comfortable attitude, and smoking a cigarette, he was aimlessly watching Harvey work.
Harvey glared for a moment in amazement. Then his face relaxed.
“I say!” he exclaimed, throwing down the pail, wiping his brow, and advancing aft toward the other youth, “this seems to be a sort of afternoon tea, or reception, with cigarettes provided by the host.”
“No, thanks,” he added, shortly, as the other reached a hand into his pocket and proffered a box of them. “You’re just too kind and generous for anything. But I don’t smoke them. Some of my crew used to. But I tell little Tim Reardon that that’s what keeps him from growing any. He’s at them all the time. Guess you are, too, by the looks of you.”
Harvey glanced rather contemptuously at the lean, attenuated arm that the other displayed, where he had rolled his cuffs back.
“Well, you don’t have to smoke them if you don’t want to,” said the other, surlily. “But don’t preach. I’m as old as you are. My smoking is my business.”
“Of course it is,” said Harvey. “I don’t care whether you smoke or not. But what I object to is your doing the smoking and letting me do the work. Your smoking is your business, and so is bailing out your own boat your business—that is, your share of it is. Now, if you want any more help from me, you just break up this smoking party and take that pail and go to bailing. I’ve got enough to keep me busy while you are doing that.”
The youth glanced angrily at Harvey, but made no reply. Harvey’s stalwart figure forbade any unpleasant retort. Sullenly, he tossed away the half-finished cigarette, slumped down once more into the cockpit, took up the pail that Harvey had dropped, and went to work.
“He looks like a real man now,” called out Henry Burns.
The youth, with eyes flashing, shot one glance at the smiling face of Henry Burns, but deigned no reply.
Harvey, without further notice of his companion, proceeded to hoist the sail a little so that he could take two reefs in it. This brought the sail down so small as to include the torn part in that tied in. The sail would, therefore, answer for the continuation of the trip.
“Say,” asked Harvey finally, “why didn’t you reef before, when it began to blow up fresh and the sea got a bit nasty? You might have saved all this.”
The youth hesitated, glanced at Harvey sheepishly, and mumbled something that sounded like he didn’t know why he hadn’t.
“Hm!” said Harvey, under his breath. “He didn’t know enough.
“Well,” he continued, after a little time, “you’re all right to start off again, if you think you can get along. That sail is down so small it won’t give you any more trouble, and there is plenty of it to keep headway on the boat; that is, if you are going on up the bay. Where are you bound for, anyway?”
“Up to Springton,” replied the other. “Straight ahead.”
“All right,” said Harvey, “you can get there if you will only be a little more careful. Don’t try to run straight for the town. Keep off either way—do you see?” And Harvey designated how the other could run in safety.
“Run on one course a way,” he said, continuing, “and then put her about and run on the other. But look out and don’t jibe her. Let her come about into the wind. Now do you think you can get along?”
“Yes,” answered the youth, shortly. He had by this time finished his bailing, and the cockpit floor was fairly free of water.
“Well, then, I’ll bid you an affectionate farewell,” said Harvey, who had taken mental note of the fact that the youth had not offered to thank him for all his trouble. “Sorry to leave you, but the best of friends must part, you know. Good day.”
“Good day,” answered the youth, without offering even to shake hands.
Harvey lost little time in regaining the deck of theViking. Henry Burns was still smiling as Harvey took the wheel from him.
“We seem to have made a very pleasant acquaintance,” he said.
“Haven’t we though!” exclaimed Harvey. “If we were only in some nice, quiet harbour, where the water wasn’t very deep, I’d just see whether that young chap can swim or not. He’d get one ducking—”
“Oh, by the way,” called Henry Burns, as the two boats were separating, “you’re entirely welcome to our assistance, you know. You needn’t write us a letter thanking us. We know your feelings are just too deep for thanks.”
“Little thanks I owe you,” snarled the other boy. “’Twas all your fault, anyway. If you had kept off, my boat wouldn’t have gone over.”
Jack Harvey sprang from his seat and shook his fist in the direction of the disappearing boat.
“Hold on there, Jack,” said Henry Burns, catching him by the arm. “Don’t get excited. Do you know the answer to what he just said? Well, there isn’t any. Just smile and wave your hand to him, as I do. He’s really funnier than Squire Brackett.”
“Oh, yes, it is funny,” answered Jack Harvey, scowling off astern. “It’s so funny it makes me sick. But perhaps you’d think it was funnier still, if you had gone at that bailing the way I did, and had looked up all of a sudden and seen that chap sitting back there at his ease, smoking. I’ll just laugh about it for the rest of the week. That’s what I will.”
Jack Harvey certainly did not appear to be laughing.
“Above all things,” he said at length, “what do you suppose he meant by saying it was our fault? That’s the last straw for me. We didn’t jibe his boat for him.”
“No,” said Henry Burns, “but he probably owns the bay, and was mad to see us sailing on it. He acted that way.”
“Well, it has cost us about an hour and a half good time,” exclaimed Harvey—“though I should not begrudge it if he hadn’t acted the way he did. We won’t win that race in to Southport, by a long shot. It’s about half-past six o’clock, and we cannot make it in less than two hours and a half, even if the wind holds.”
This latter condition expressed by Harvey was, indeed, to prove most annoying. With the dropping of the sun behind the far-distant hills, the wind perceptibly and rapidly diminished. They set their club-topsail to catch the upper airs, but the last hour was sluggish sailing. It was a few minutes to ten o’clock when theVikingrounded the bluff that guards the northeastern entrance to the snug harbour of Southport.
“There’s no show for that warm supper to-night, I’m afraid,” said Harvey, as they turned the bluff and stood slowly into the harbour.
The immediate answer to this remark was an “Ahoy, there, on board theViking!” from across the water. The next moment, the familiar canoe shot into sight and Tom Harris and Bob White were quickly on deck.
“We beat you fellows by a few minutes,” said Tom Harris, laughing at Harvey.
“Look out for Jack,” said Henry Burns, with a wink at the other two. “He has been having so much fun that he doesn’t want any more. And, besides, he’s starving—and so am I; and we might eat little boys up if they plague us.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Tom, observing that Harvey was half-scowling as he smiled at Henry Burns’s sally.
“Oh, we have been entertaining a friend up the bay,” answered Henry Burns, “and he didn’t appreciate what Jack did for him. Seriously now, I don’t blame Jack for being furious.” And Henry Burns gave a graphic account of the adventure.
When he had finished, both Tom Harris and Bob White gave vent to whistles of surprise.
“Say,” exclaimed Bob White, “you couldn’t guess who that young chap is, if you tried a hundred years.”
“Why, do you know him, then?” cried Jack Harvey.
“Yes, and you will know him, too, before the summer is over,” replied Bob White. “That’s Harry Brackett, Squire Brackett’s son.”
“Didn’t know he had any,” exclaimed Harvey.
“Neither did we till this summer,” said Bob White. “He dropped in on us one day, early, and wanted to borrow some money. That was up in Benton. He said he must have it, to get right back to Southport; and Tom’s father let him have a little. But we saw him several days after that driving about the streets with a hired rig. So that’s where the money went, and I think Mr. Harris will never see the money again. He’s been off to school for two years, so he says; but if he has learned anything except how to smoke, he doesn’t show it.
“But, never mind that now,” added Bob. “Let’s get theVikingin to anchorage and made snug, for you know there’s something waiting for you over to the camp.”
“What! You don’t mean you have kept supper waiting for us all this time?” cried Henry Burns, joyfully.
“Oh, but you are a pair of bricks!” exclaimed Harvey, as Bob White nodded an affirmative. “I can smell that fish chowder that Bob makes clear out here.”
A few minutes later, the four boys, weighting the canoe down almost to the gunwales, were gliding in it across the water to a point of land fronting the harbour, where, through the darkness, the vague outlines of a tent were to be discerned. Soon the canoe grazed along a shelf of ledge, upon which they stepped. Tom Harris sprang up the bank and vanished inside the tent. Then the light of a lantern shone out, illuminating the canvas, and Tom Harris, as host, stood in the doorway, holding aside the flap for them to enter.
Inside the tent, which had a floor of matched boards, freighted down from up the river for the purpose, it was comfortable and cosy. Along either side, a bunk was set up, made of spruce poles, with boards nailed across, and hay mattresses spread over these. There were two roughly made chairs, which, with the bunks, provided sufficient seats for all. At the farther end of the tent, on a box, beside another big wooden box that served for a locker, was an oil-stove, which was now lighted and upon which there rested an enormous stew-pan.
The cover being removed from this, there issued forth an aroma of fish chowder that brought a broad grin even to the face of Jack Harvey.
“Hooray!” he yelled, grasping Bob White about the waist, giving him a bearlike embrace, and releasing him only to bestow an appreciative blow upon his broad back. “It’s the real thing. It’s one of Bob’s best. It is a year since I had one, but I remember it like an old friend.”
“You get the first helping, for the compliment,” said Bob White, ladle in hand.
“And only to think,” said Henry Burns, some moments later, as he leaned back comfortably, spoon in hand, “that that was Squire Brackett’s son we helped out of the scrape. He certainly has the squire’s pleasing manner, hasn’t he, Jack?”
“Henry,” replied Jack Harvey, solemnly, “don’t you mention that young Brackett again to me to-night. If you do, I’ll put sail on theVikingand go out after him.”
“Then I won’t say another word,” exclaimed Henry Burns. “For my part, I hope never to set eyes on him again.”
Unfortunately, that wish was not to be gratified.
“But say,” inquired Henry Burns, in a somewhat disappointed tone, as they were about to begin, “where are the fellows? It doesn’t seem natural to me to arrive at Southport and not have them on hand. Didn’t you tell them we were coming?”
“Didn’t have a chance,” replied Bob. “We went up to the cottage, but there wasn’t anybody there. Then we met Billy Cook, and he said he saw all three of them away up the island this afternoon.”
Henry Burns went to the door of the tent and looked over the point of land, up the sweep of the cove.
“They have come back,” he exclaimed. “There’s a light in the cottage. Come on, let’s hurry up and eat, and get over there.”
But at that very moment the light went out.
“Hello!” he said. “There they go, off to bed. Guess they must be tired. Too bad, for I simply cannot stand it, not to go over to the cottage to-night—just to look at the cottage, if nothing more. And I am afraid if I do, I may make a little noise, accidentally, and wake one of them up.”
Henry Burns said this most sympathizingly; but there was a twinkle in the corners of his eyes.
“Come on, Henry,” cried Harvey, “you are missing the greatest chowder you ever saw.”
“Looks as though I might miss a good deal of it, by the way you are stowing it aboard,” replied Henry Burns, reëntering the tent and observing the manner in which Harvey was attacking his dish, while Tom and Bob looked on admiringly.
“Never mind, Henry,” said Bob. “There’s enough. And, besides, Harvey is a delicate little chap. He needs nourishing food and plenty of it.”
Harvey squared his broad shoulders and smiled.
“I’m beginning to get good-natured once more,” he said.
The campers’ quarters were certainly comfortable enough to make most any one feel good-natured. The tent was roomy; the stove warmed it gratefully against the night air, which still had some chill in it; the warm supper tasted good after the long, hard day’s sailing; and Tom and Bob were genial hosts.
Outside, the waves, fallen from their boisterousness of the afternoon to gentle murmurings, were rippling in with a pleasing sound against the point of land whereon the camp stood. The breeze was soft, though lacking the mildness of the later summer, and the night was clear and starlit.
It had passed the half-hour after ten o’clock when the boys had finished eating. They arose and went out in front of the tent.
“It is all dark over yonder at the Warren cottage,” said Tom. “What do you think—had we better go over? The fellows are surely asleep.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Henry Burns. “Why, they would never forgive me if I didn’t go over the first night I arrived here. We can just go over and leave our cards at the front door. Of course we don’t have to wake them up if they are asleep.”
“Oh, of course not,” exclaimed Harvey. “But just wait a moment, and I’ll go out aboard and bring in that fog-horn and that dinner-bell.”
“We’ll get them in the canoe, Jack,” said Bob. He and Harvey departed, and returned shortly, bringing with them a fog-horn that was not by any means a toy affair, but for serious use, to give warning in the fog to oncoming steamers; likewise, a gigantic dinner-bell, used for the same purpose aboard theViking.
“We haven’t anything in camp fit to make much of a noise with,” said Tom, almost apologetically. “We keep our tent anchored in a fog, you know.”
“Who said anything about making a noise?” inquired Henry Burns, innocently; and then added, “Never mind, there’s stuff enough up at the cottage.”
They proceeded without more delay up through the little clump of spruce-trees which shaded the camp on the side toward the village, and struck into the road that led through the sleeping town. Sleepy by day, even, the little village of Southport, which numbered only about a score of houses, clustered about the harbour, was seized with still greater drowsiness early of nights. Its inhabitants, early to rise, were likewise early to bed; and the place, before the summer visitors arrived, was wont to fall sound asleep by nine o’clock.
It was very still, therefore, as the boys went on up the main street. Presently they turned off on a road to the right that led along the shore of the cove, and back of which was a line of summer cottages, now for the most part unopened for the season.
“There’s Captain Sam’s,” remarked Henry Burns, as they passed a little frame cottage just before they had come to the turn of the road. “I’d like to give him one salute for old time’s sake. He’s the jolliest man in Southport.”
“He is not at home,” said Tom. “We asked about him to-day, when we got in. He started up the bay this afternoon. Queer you did not see him out there somewhere.”
“Why, we saw one or two boats off in the distance at the time of the collision,” said Harvey; “but we were pretty much occupied just about that time, eh, Henry? I didn’t notice what boats they were.”
They were approaching the Warren cottage by this time, and their conversation ceased. The cottage was the last in the row that skirted the cove, somewhat apart from all the others, occupying a piece of high ground that overlooked the cove and the bay, and affording a view away beyond to the off-lying islands. This view was obtained through a thin grove of spruces, with which the island abounded, and which made a picturesque foreground.
The cottage itself was roomy and comfortable, with a broad piazza extending around the front and one side. Upon this piazza the boys now stepped, quietly—“so as not to disturb the sleepers,” Henry Burns put in.
“Well, Henry, what’s up? You are master of ceremonies, you know,” said Tom.
“Why, we want to wake them very gently at first,” replied Henry Burns. “You know it is not good for any one to be frightened out of his sleep. They might not grow any more; and it might take away young Joe’s appetite—No, it would take more than that to do it,” he added.
They stepped around cautiously to the front door. As they had surmised, the peacefulness of Southport made locks and keys a matter more of form than usage, and the Warren boys had not turned the key in the lock. They entered softly.
“Hark! what’s that?” whispered Bob.
They paused on tiptoe. A subdued, choky roar, or growl, was borne down the front stairway from above.
“You ought to know that sound by this time,” said Henry Burns. “It’s young Joe, snoring. Don’t you remember how the other boys used to declare he would make the boat leak, by jarring it with that racket, when we had to sleep aboard last summer? Why, he used to have black and blue spots up and down his legs, where George and Arthur kicked him awake, so they could go to sleep.”
The sound was, indeed, prodigious for one boy to make.
“We may as well have some light on the subject,” said Henry Burns, striking a match and lighting the hanging-lamp in the sitting-room. It shed a soft glow over the place and revealed a room prettily furnished; the hardwood floor reflecting from its polished surface the rays from the lamp; a generous fireplace in one corner; and, more to the purpose at present, some big easy chairs, in which the boys made themselves at home.
But first a peep into the Warren kitchen pantry rewarded Bob with a mighty iron serving-tray, and Tom with a pair of tin pot-covers, which, grasped by their handles and clashed together, would serve famously as cymbals.
“Now,” said Henry Burns, when they were all assembled and comfortably seated, “you remember how we used to imitate the village band when it practised nights in the loft over the old fish-house? Well, I’ll be the cornet; Tom, you’re the bass horn—”
“He is when his voice doesn’t break,” remarked Bob, slyly.
“That’s all right,” replied Henry Burns. “Every musician strikes a false note once in awhile, you know.” And he continued, “You are the slide-trombone, Jack; and you, Bob, come in with that shrieking whistle through your fingers for the flute.”
“Great!” exclaimed Bob. “What shall we try?”
“Oh, we’ll give them ‘Old Black Joe’ for a starter,” said Henry Burns, “just out of compliment to young black Joe up-stairs.”
Presently, there arose through the stillness of the house, and was wafted up the stairway, an unmelodious, mournful discord, that may perhaps have borne some grotesque resemblance to the old song they had chosen, but was, indeed, a most atrocious and melancholy rendering of it.
Then they paused to listen.
There was no answering sound from above, save that the snoring of young Joe was no longer deep and regular, but broken and short and sharp, like snorts of protest.
“Repeat!” ordered Henry Burns to his grinning band.
Again the combined assault on “Old Black Joe” began.
Then they paused again.
The snoring of young Joe was broken off abruptly, with one particularly loud outburst on his part. There was, also, the creaking of a bed in another room, and a sound as of some one sitting bolt upright.
“Here, you Joe! Quit that! What on earth are you doing?” called out the voice of George Warren, in tones which denoted that he had awakened from slumber, but not to full consciousness of what had waked him, except that it was some weird sound.
Then another voice, more sleepily than the other: “What’s the matter, George? Keep quiet, and let a fellow go to sleep.”
“Why, it’s that young Joe’s infernal nonsense, I suppose,” exclaimed the elder brother. “Now, that will be enough of that, Joe. It isn’t funny, you know.”
“That’s it! always blaming me for something,” came the answer from the youngest boy’s room. “You fellows are dreaming—gracious, no! I hear a voice down-stairs.”
It was the voice of Henry Burns saying solemnly, “Repeat.”
“Old Black Joe,” out of time, out of tune, turned inside out and scarcely recognizable, again arose to the ears of the now fully aroused Warren brothers.
There was the sound of some one leaping out of bed upon the bare chamber floor.
“Now you get back into bed there, Joe!” came the voice of George Warren, peremptorily. “Let those idiots, Tom and Bob, amuse themselves till they get tired, if they think it’s funny. We are not going to get up to-night, and that’s all there is about it. Say, you fellows go on now, and let us alone. We’re tired, and we are not going to get up.”
“Too dictatorial, altogether,” commented Henry Burns, softly. “Give them the full band now, good and lively.”
So saying, he seized the huge dinner-bell; Harvey took up the great fog-horn; Tom and Bob, the pot-covers and serving-tray, respectively. A hideous din, that was the combined blast of the deep horn, the clanging reverberation of the tray beaten upon by Bob’s stout fist, the bellowing of the dinner-bell and the clash of cymbals, roared and stormed through the walls of the Warren cottage, as though bedlam had broken loose. The rafters fairly groaned with it.
Down the stairway appeared a pair of bare legs. Then the form and face of young Joe came into view. He stared for a moment wildly at the occupants of the Warren easy chairs, and the next moment let out a whoop of delight.
“Oh, hooray!” he yelled. “Come on, George. Come on, Arthur. Hurry up! Oh, my! but it’s Henry Burns.”
A small avalanche of bare feet and bare legs poured down the stairs, belonging in all to Joe, Arthur, and George Warren. Three sturdy figures, clad in their night-clothes, leaped into the room, whooping and yelling, and descended in one concerted swoop upon the luckless Henry Burns. That young gentleman went down on the floor, where he afforded a seat for two of the Warren boys, while young Joe, with pretended fury, proceeded to pummel him, good-naturedly.
The three remaining boys were quickly added to the heap, dragging the Warrens from off their fallen leader; and the turmoil and confusion that raged about the Warren sitting-room for a moment might have meant the wreck and ruin of a city home, adorned with bric-à-brac, but resulted in no more serious damage than a collection of bruises on the shins and elbows of the participants.
Out of the confusion of arms and legs, however, each individual boy at length withdrew his own, more or less damaged.
“You’re a lot of villains!” exclaimed George Warren. “Wasn’t I sound asleep, though? But, oh! perhaps we are not glad to see you.”
“I tell you what we will do,” cried young Joe. “We will hurry up and dress and go out in the kitchen and cook up a big omelette—”
The roar that greeted young Joe’s words drowned out the rest of the sentence.
“Isn’t he a wonder, though!” exclaimed George Warren. “Why, he had his supper only three hours and a half ago, and here he is talking about eating.”
“I don’t care about anything to eat,” declared young Joe. “I thought the other fellows would like something.”
“He’s so thoughtful,” said Arthur.
Young Joe looked longingly toward the kitchen.
“Well, we are not going to keep you awake,” said Henry Burns at length, after they had talked over the day’s adventures. “We thought you would like to have us call. We’ll be round in the morning, though.”
But the Warrens wouldn’t hear of their going. There were beds enough in the roomy old house for all, as the rest of the family had not arrived. So up the stairs they scrambled. Twenty minutes later, the fact that young Joe was sleeping soundly was audibly in evidence.
“He can’t keep me awake, though,” exclaimed Harvey. “I have had enough for one day to make me sleep, haven’t you, Henry?”
But Henry Burns was asleep already.
The next afternoon, as the crowd of boys sat about the Warren sitting-room, talking and planning, the tall figure of a man strode briskly up the road leading to the cottage. He was dressed in a suit of black, somewhat pretentious for the island population, with a white shirt-front in evidence, and on his head he wore a large, broad-brimmed soft hat. In his hand he carried a cane, which he swung with short, snappy strokes, as a man might who was out of temper.
George Warren, from a window, observed his approach.
“Hello!” he exclaimed. “Here comes the squire. Doesn’t look especially pleasant, either. I wonder what’s up.”
That something or other was “up” was apparent in the squire’s manner and expression, as he walked hastily across the piazza and hammered on the door with the head of his cane.
“Good morning, Captain Ken—” began young Joe.
But he got no further. “Here, you stop that!” cried the squire, advancing into the room and raising his cane threateningly. “Don’t you ever call me ‘Captain Kendrick’ again as long as you live. It’s no use for you to say you mistake me for him, for you don’t.”
Young Joe disappeared.
“Confound that Joe!” said Arthur. “He always says the wrong thing.”
Captain Kendrick was the squire’s bitterest enemy; and it was a constant thorn in the squire’s side that they really did resemble each other slightly.
“Good morning, squire,” said George Warren, politely. “Won’t you have a seat?”
“No, I won’t!” said Squire Brackett, shortly. “I don’t need any seat to say what I want to say. I want to talk with those two young scamps over there.”
Squire Brackett pointed angrily toward Jack Harvey and Henry Burns.
“What can we do for you, squire?” inquired Henry Burns, quietly.
“Do for me!” repeated the squire, his voice rising higher. “You have done enough for me already, I should say. What do you mean by running down my sailboat in the bay yesterday? Hadn’t you done enough to annoy me already, without smashing into theSeagulland tearing a brand-new sail and ripping things up generally?
“What can you do for me, indeed! Well, I’ll tell you what you can do: you can pay me forty dollars for a new sail; and you can pay for a new boom to replace the broken one. And there’s some rigging that was carried away. That is all I think of now.”
The squire paused for breath.
“Yes, I guess that is about all,” remarked Henry Burns.
But Jack Harvey was on his feet and facing the angry squire. “See here,” he began, “do you mean to say that that young chap we helped out of his scrape blames us for the wreck? Just bring him—”
“Hold on, Jack,” said Henry Burns. “Take it easy. We were not to blame, so let’s not get into a quarrel with the squire. Perhaps he has not heard just how it did happen.”
“Haven’t I?” roared the squire. “That’s impudence added to injury. Didn’t my son, Harry, tell me all about it—how you ran him down; how you steered in on to him when he was trying his best to keep clear of you? Haven’t I heard of it, indeed! I have heard all I want to about it. Now, there is only one thing left for you two young men to do, and that is to settle for the damages. That is all I want of you—and no impudence.
“It won’t do you any good to try to lie out of it,” he added, as he started for the door. “I’ve got no time to waste listening to denials. You can just come down to Dakin’s store and settle to-day or to-morrow, or there will be a lawsuit begun against both of you, or whoever is responsible for you. I guess my son Harry’s word is good as a dozen of yours. He’s told me all about it. Good morning to you.”
The squire swung himself angrily out of the door and strode away down the road, flipping off the grass-tops with his cane.
Harvey and Henry Burns sat back in their chairs in amazement.
“And to think that I helped that young cub bail out his boat!” groaned Jack Harvey.
Henry Burns snickered.
“It’s no joke, Jack,” he said. “But I can’t help thinking of that young Brackett, sitting up there on the rail and watching you work.
“It is a bad scrape, too,” he added, more seriously. “It does mean a real lawsuit. The squire is in the mood for it; and, the worst of it, there weren’t any witnesses. It is his word against ours. It’s a bad start for the summer, and no mistake.”
A half-hour later, a procession of sober-faced boys strolled down into the village. Villagers, who had always liked Henry Burns, and had come to like Jack Harvey since he had atoned for many past pranks by gallantry at the end of the last season, greeted the new arrivals cordially.
“See you boys got into a leetle trouble with the squire,” remarked one of them. “Well, that’s too bad. He’s a hard man when it comes to money matters. What’s that? You say young Brackett was the one to blame? Pshaw! Well, I do declare. Hm!”
Down in Rob Dakin’s grocery store there was the usual gathering of the villagers and fishermen, lounging about, with elbows on counters, half-astride sugar and cracker barrels, and a few of the more early comers occupying the choice seats about the sheet-iron stove. This inevitable centre of attraction, having done its duty faithfully throughout the winter, was, of course, now cold and not an object of especial beauty; but it still possessed that magnetic quality that pertains to a stove in a country store, to draw all loungers about it, and make it the common meeting-place.
There was Billy Cook, from over across the cove, who was always barefoot, although a man of forty. There was Dave Benson, from the other side of the island, who had deposited a molasses-jug on the floor in a corner, and who now stood, apparently extracting some nourishment, and at least comfort, from a straw held between his teeth. There was Old Slade, from over on the bluff opposite, slyly cutting a sliver of salt fish from one in the bale upon which he sat. Also a half-dozen or more others.
To this assembled group of his townsfolk, the squire, accompanied now by his hopeful son, Harry, was holding forth, as the party of boys entered the door.
“Here they be now, squire,” remarked Dave Benson. “Hello, boys! Ketchin’ any lobsters lately?”
“Yes, here they are, and here they shall pay!” cried the squire, turning upon them.
Jack Harvey advanced toward young Brackett.
“Do you dare say we ran you down?” he inquired, angrily.
“Yes, you did,” answered young Brackett, sullenly, and sidling up close to his father.