Chapter XVI.
Again and again Kate Hallock reiterated the statement that only a little while before the fog came she saw two boats lying near the island.
“The boy is safe enough at the island,” said every one of the boatmen to whom Mr. Hallock applied for advice concerning the proper thing to do. Mr. Hallock himself believed that Frank was there and tried his utmost to convince Mrs. Hallock and Kate that Captain Green must have seen the fog coming in and would, without any doubt, look after the safety of Frank.
“I wish somebody would go over at low water and find out,” said Mrs. Hallock; and Harry Cornwall, hearing the words, determined to go.
“Just as soon as the fog lifts, I will go myself,” said Mr. Hallock, assuring his wife that until such time it would be unsafe for anyone to attempt it. To find one’s way across the wide stretch of sands, crossed a number of times by streams running from the salt meadows to the sea, would be wellnigh impossible.
It was low water on that night at midnight. An hour before that time, Harry Cornwall went to Mrs. Dobson’s door and told her that he was going to try to reach the island.
In vain were all of Mrs. Dobson’s efforts to intimidate him: the darkness had no power to do it; the fog was something the experience of which he could not imagine; and, as for the possible quicksands into which he might wander, he was willing to take the chances, only too happy in the thought that by striding through danger he might be able to relieve the anxiety at the Point.
With a lantern in his hand and matches to light it, if necessary; with a board under his arm, as defense against a possible descent into the mud, he set forth, followed by Mrs. Dobson’s fears, and—in the distance—by Mrs. Dobson herself and Josh.
The Lane was narrow, or the way would soon have been a damp mystery to everybody concerned.
Harry went hurriedly, wishing to get to the bar before it should be low water; and he had reached the shore and plunged along fearlessly over quite a stretch of the tide-left sands before Mrs. Dobson was a hundred yards down the Lane. He was quite certain that he had followed the bank in about a straight line for the bar, and was going on famously when he found himself in a few inches of water.
“The creek!” he said to himself, delightedly. “I’m a third of the distance already to the bar; and when I get upon that, it will be as easy as the Lane, for I shall be fenced in with the sea.” With this assurance he went boldly into the creek, finding the water somewhat higher than the stage of the tide would lead one to expect. Harry had dug clams along the border of this creek many times and felt quite familiar with it,even in a fog—only it did seem wider than usual, as well as deeper; in fact, he soon felt persuaded that he was going either up the creek or down it, instead of across; but this creek seemed as wide as it was long, and on which side lay the land it was impossible to tell.
“I’ll try every direction,” he thought, “by turns,” and he went all around the compass; but whichever way he seemed to turn, he always found himself in deeper water. He tried to light the lantern, but the matches in his pocket were already wet.
Harry was compelled to admit that he had lost his way. The situation was anything but pleasant and very far from being a safe one, unless release should come before the turn of tide. He stood still awhile and listened. Reader, were you ever lost in a fog? If not, you cannot have the slightest conception of Harry’s feeling as he stood there. If he could wait until the next train passed, up or down, its signal whistles might guide him, but then the tide would have been two hours rising.
All this time the board had been tightly clasped under Harry’s arm. “How glad I am,” he suddenly exclaimed. “At least this board will float down with the tide and I shall know which way the land lies.” He laid it on the water, intending only to let it slip for an instant from his hand, when lo! it vanished into the mist and the darkness. Harry tried his utmost to vanish in the opposite direction, but it was all of no use. He wandered about with care, only to find that the water was gaining on him with every renewed effort. Truly, Harry Cornwall was in worseplight than Frank Hallock when midnight came to the two lads.
Meanwhile, on the little island, Captain Green had been anxiously awaiting the approach of low tide, that he might make the venture to reach the mainland. He was full of solicitude regarding the whereabouts of Frank and wished to give the alarm as soon as possible.
There was a brass cannon on the island, used chiefly to acquaint Long Island Sound with the presence of the Fourth of July on the land.
Giving directions that this cannon be fired should news of Frank be received, Captain Green started, in company with one of the workmen of the mill, for the Connecticut shore. They were aided by the light of a lantern and their guide was a compass.
During this time Mrs. Dobson, unwilling to be left alone in the mysterious fog even for a minute, held Josh by the collar and slowly felt her way along the Lane fence to the beach, wishing with all her heart, as she went, “that the Lord had not made boys and men so venturesome. Poor, dear lad!” she thought, as she stumbled along from post to post. “He never will get there! He’ll be lost on the awful sands! the cruel, creeping tide will draw him down. O, Harry, Harry!” and then she was crying out to him in the thick darkness, for at last she was come to the brink of the bank leading down to the sea-sands.
At her cry of “Harry! Harry!” Josh made one bounding leap for freedom, which he gained with a glad bark and was off, leaving Mrs. Dobson alone. Into the mist leaped Josh, easily following Harry, untilhe lost scent at the water’s edge. Then he stopped and uttered a few barks, just enough to reach the hearing of Harry and to gladden his heart more than I can tell.
Harry whistled, and in plunged the dog, getting to his friend in a marvelously short time and uttering his thankfulness at having found him by a perfect jubilation of sound, that made the old fog-banks, landward and seaward, echo and reecho his joy.
Captain Green and his companion had come to the land-end of the bar, where they also heard the bark.
“Sure’s I live,” said the mill-man, “that was Josh Dobson’s bark! I wonder what in the world he’s out on the coast for this night.”
“Somebody’s out there, lost, trying to cross, you may be sure,” replied Captain Green, and he sent a cheery call as far into the night as his voice would carry it, and all the time he was keeping close to the sea’s edge, by the dim, misty light of his lantern, anxious not to lose the water-line for an instant.
They shouted singly as they went, and they shouted together, and at length Harry, floundering still under Josh’s guidance, heard the call and responded. With the regularity of a fog-bell’s toll came the call and answer, until at last Harry caught the lantern’s glimmering light, and shortly after saw two forms, like giants, stretching out of the misty darkness.
The joy of being found and safe was quickly obscured by the news of Frank’s loss, which Captain Green and he together bore to Hallock Point, having left Mrs. Dobson safe at home on the way with Joshto guard her—although I’m quite sure no eye would have suspected that the brown house was in the Lane that night.
The dawn came at last, but the fog was not gone. It seemed denser than ever; boats went down the harbor and outside, but came back only too soon, to say that it was of no use, nothing could be done,—clear weather could alone solve the mystery.
If the day was long on the shore, it was yet longer to the lad in the boat. He rowed aimlessly; as dinner time came he looked at the fish, a few of which lay in the boat, and wondered if he could eat raw fish. He varied his rowing with sitting afloat and shouting. He shouted and shouted, until he had changed the monotony by calling “Father,” and “Mother,” and “Kate,” and “Harry,” and every name of boy or man it seemed to him that he had ever known; and not one, of all the number, would give answer to his great beseeching.
As the day when on the cold increased, and the great sea beneath him rolled in a sullen swell that grew with the cold. At length Frank knew that another night was gathering on the face of the waters. All the hope that with so many sails on the Sound, one must come out of the mist, somewhere, to meet him, died out.
Poor Frank! he burst into a passion of tears. He felt forgotten, neglected. It seemed to him that somebody might at least have tried to find him. If it had been Kate now, and he had been on shore, why, he would have had boats, as thick as berries, out looking for her.
Frank’s tears made him colder than ever. He took up a fish for the first time and looked at it. With fast numbing fingers he scraped with his knife a few scales and cut a bit of the fish, but he could not eat it, or the deepening swells sickened him, and he cast it into the sea.
It is useless to follow Frank through the night. He prayed with all his heart, feeling that no one but God could come to his aid. He made solemn promises to his Maker; at last he said that he would trust Him whether he lived and was saved, or whether he died alone in the boat. Frank meant to do just what he had promised. The mist was drenching him now more than ever; he tried to row, but his hands refused to hold the oars and one oar fell from his grasp into the sea. With a despairing clutch he tried to recover it, but it floated off on the swell and he could not get the boat around to the rescue; so it went off, as the great world had done, with all its light and warmth and food. Why, that pretty room of his own in the house at Hallock Point seemed, as he thought of it, like the loveliest place on earth, and oh! to hear Kate say “Dear Bub!” once more, what joy that would be. How Frank remembered the loving touch of his mother, tucking him into bed long ago. Frank seemed to remember every sweet and pleasant thing that ever had happened to him, and with equal power he recalled all his own bitter selfishness, and saw it, for the very first time, in its true light.
But how cold it was growing, and the billows were heaving the little boat up and down in a helpless kindof toss that was pitiful to think of. The second night and nobody to find him!
Frank was too cold to care much more. He shivered and cried again and tucked himself into a little roll down in the boat, and soon grew to be unconscious of all that was passing. All night the tiny boat went up and down on the sea. At midnight the fog lifted and the stars shone down, but Frank had suffered too much to know it. At day-dawn a gale began to blow and still the little cold bundle of boy lay in theCloverand knew not that the day had come, nor the gale, nor that a schooner had seen what was supposed to be a boat adrift and was bearing down to pick it up.
When Frank knew anything more, he was lying on a captain’s bed, in a captain’s cabin, with strange faces looking on; and there was a cup of hot soup at his lips, and somebody was urging him to “drink it.”
Very kindly, when Frank could tell his name and home, the schoonerBlue Bellput into harbor at New Haven, to land him there.
“You’d better telegraph home, my boy, the instant you get on shore,” said the Captain to him. “It won’t be a moment too soon to relieve their minds.”
“I suppose, Captain,” said Frank, thanking him with a deal of boyish gratitude for having been so good as to save him, and go ten miles out of his way to land him—“I suppose, Captain, by the time you’ve sailed home to Maine, you’ll find three or four reams of paper done up into thanking letters, waiting for you.”
“All right,” said the captain of theBlue Bell.
Frank thought it would be so much nicer to witness all the pleasure and surprise his appearance in the village would occasion—to go right in on the first train and meet everybody. Of course! What was the use in sending a telegram? And then suddenly Frank remembered how long the minutes must seem at home; and the first real self-sacrifice that he was conscious of for the good of others, was in hastening with all speed to the nearest telegraph office, and sending to his father this message:
“I’m all right at New Haven.”
“Frank Hallock.”
“Frank Hallock.”
“Frank Hallock.”
“Frank Hallock.”
You may be certain that the young man who received that message did not keep it many seconds lying in the office. No; he didn’t even wait to write it out, but appeared on the platform of the little station with shining visage, and announced “Frank Hallock’s all right in New Haven!”
“I’ll carry it!” cried half a dozen volunteer messengers; but while he hastened back to put it into proper form, three lads started on a run for Hallock Point.
Such a race as it was, to be sure! for everything was clear and bright now, and a steam-tug had steamed up at the town wharf, all ready to start, with orders to cruise up and down until the boy was found; and on board the tug were Mr. Hallock and Harry Cornwall; and many a man interested in the recovery of his neighbor’s lost boy was only too glad to lend his presence and sympathy to the occasion.
Flying went the six feet down the highway, reaching the stone gateway leading into the grounds at the very instant Kate Hallock and her mother, in the phaeton, were putting Neptune to his utmost speed to try and reach the wharf before the tug should start.
“Hurrah!” cried three cloth caps—no, three boy voices (the caps were taking a circle around the heads and got a little mixed); but Kate, in her hurry, could not stop and cried, “Take care!” as the nearest lad almost pitched into Neptune’s fore feet.
“Stop, stop! he’s all right!” fairly yelled the lads, turning and running after the ladies.
“What do they say?” gasped Kate.
Neptune felt an awful pull at his mouth, and stood still.
“Why, Frank’s found!” gasped one.
“Found!” groaned Mrs. Hallock.
“He’s to New Haven!” panted No. 2, dashing his cap on his head, and thinking “They don’t act very glad, after all.”
“I say he’s all right!” ejaculated No. 3, “and he’s telegraphed it to say so. The man told us so and he’s a-going to send it down.”
“Frank’s alive and safe!” repeated Kate, bursting into tears.
“Thank you, boys! Come and see me this afternoon—will you?” said Mrs. Hallock, and gathering the lines in her hands, without waiting to hear their answer, she drove rapidly on, anxious to spread the glad tidings on board the tug.
Never in all his life had Neptune been so urged before to hurry over the well-known road to the townwharf. He went flying down the hill and out upon the wharf, Kate’s handkerchief waving as they went. But what did it mean, that instead of the tug starting, everybody on board was hurrying to get off? It meant that the good news had arrived a moment earlier. Neptune was duly turned around by the head on the narrow landing-place, and permitted to pursue his way more leisurely to the railroad station, to await the arrival of the next train from New Haven.
When it came up to the little station, a stranger would have thought—well, there is no telling what he would have thought; for the platform was solid with men and boys, while here and there, amid the number, peeped out a gladly tearful face of woman or little girl. In the phaeton, behind the station, Mrs. Hallock waited until, held by the grasp of his father’s hand upon his arm, Frank came around to smile and kiss and say how glad he was to be safe again.
“Mother, I think it’s done Frank good,” said Kate, aware in some mysterious manner that a change had come to her brother, even before he had told out the half of his story of the fog, and the cold, and the hunger, and the goodness of everybody on theBlue Bell.
O, that was the true Thanksgiving Day at the house on the Point. Mrs. Dobson was there for dinner, and Harry Cornwall; and Josh Dobson was remembered, for the part he acted, by all the turkey-bones a reasonable dog could eat; and everybody was just as happy as happy could be, and not one disagreeable word was spoken by anybody from the moment Frank was found until the last good night was said.