Elinor Wyllys Volume Ii Part 45

Many lamentations succeeded, however, upon the rapid disappearance of game from all parts of the country.

"There I have the best of it," said Mr. Stryker to his host. "In the next twenty years you may expect to find your occupation gone; but I shall at least have fishing in abundance all my days; though at times I am not quite so sure of the brook-trout."

"I don't think Jonathan will be able to exterminate all the trout in the land," said Hazlehurst, although he is a shamefully wasteful fellow; but I really think there is some danger for the oysters; if the population increases, and continues to eat them, in the same proportion they do now, I am afraid Jonathan of the next generation will devour the whole species."

"Jonathan" = the American (from "Brother Jonathan")}

>From Glen-Cove the Petrel made a reach across the Sound to Sachem's-Head, where Mr. Stryker enjoyed to perfection the luxuries of clam-soup, lobster-salad, and chowder.

Their next port was Nantucket. They happened to arrive there just before a thunder-shower, and Charlie Hubbard was much struck with the wild, desolate look of the island. He pointed out to Hazlehurst the fine variety of neutral tints to be traced in the waves, in the low sand-banks, and the dark sky forming the back-ground. Nantucket is a barren spot, indeed, all but bare of vegetation; scarcely a shrub will grow there, and even the tough beach-gra.s.s is often swept away in large tracts; while the forms of the sand-hills vary with every storm. The town itself, however, is a busy, lively little spot--one of the most nautical in feeling and character to be found on the globe. The chief interests of the inhabitants centre in the ocean; and even the very ornaments of their houses are spoils of the deep, sh.e.l.ls and fish-bones from distant lat.i.tudes, and sailor's fancy-work in various materials, all connected in some way with the sea.

Charlie made a sketch of the island, and determined to return there and paint a picture of some size. The next day, which was Sunday, they remained at Nantucket; there is a pretty little church in the town, and Charlie, Harry, and Mr. Smith attended service there; the rest of the gentlemen preferring to idle away the morning in a less praiseworthy manner.

One of young de Vaux's crew was taken sick here, and he was obliged to secure another man before leaving the island; it was easy to do so, however, as one who was waiting for a pa.s.sage to New York soon offered, and the matter was settled.

Early on Monday morning they again made sail, for Martha's Vineyard; from thence the Petrel's head was to be turned southward, and after coasting the eastern sh.o.r.e of Long-Island, they expected to return to the wharf at Broadlawn, as fast as the winds would carry them. The Vineyard, owing to a more sheltered position, bears a different aspect from the barren sands of Nantucket; parts of the island are well wooded. Choosing a pleasant bay known to their pilot, where a rude wharf had been built, the party landed and prepared to dine, and pa.s.s some hours there. They were no sooner on sh.o.r.e than Mr. Stryker made his arrangements for fishing; having secured bait, Dr. Van Horne and himself, with one of the men, took the Petrel's boat and rowed off from sh.o.r.e, changing their ground occasionally, until they had turned the point which formed the bay on one side, and were no longer in sight. De Vaux and Smith took their guns and went into the wood; Charlie brought out his sketchbook, and was soon engaged in taking some tints, in watercolours, from a heavy bank of clouds which had been slowly rising in the west for several hours. Hazlehurst was lying on the gra.s.s near him, with a spy-gla.s.s, watching a couple of sloops in the distance: turning his head accidentally towards the spot where they were commencing preparations for dinner, Harry saw one of the men, the new recruit, whom he had not yet remarked, looking at him closely. It struck Hazlehurst that he had met this man before; the sailor saw that he was observed, and after a moment's hesitation he approached, touching his hat with the common salutation of a seaman, and looking as if he wished to speak, but scarcely knew how to begin.

"Have you anything to say to me, my friend?--It strikes me I have seen your face somewhere lately."

"If you are Mr. Hazlehurst, I guess, sir, you seed me not long since," replied the man, a little embarra.s.sed.

It suddenly flashed upon Harry's mind, that it was during the Stanley trial that he had seen this person; yes, he could not be mistaken, he was one of the witnesses for the plaintiff on that occasion. Hazlehurst gave him a keen look; the fellow faltered a little, but begged Harry to step aside for a moment, as he wished to speak alone with him. They moved to the adjoining bank, within the edge of the wood, and a conversation followed of some consequence to Hazlehurst, certainly. After a few prefatory remarks, this man offered to make important revelations, upon condition that he should be screened from justice--being considered as state's evidence--and rewarded by Harry for volunteering his services; to which Hazlehurst readily agreed.

We shall tell his story for him, rather as it appeared at a later day, than in the precise words in which it was first given at Martha's Vineyard. By his disclosures, the villany {sic} of Clapp and his client were placed beyond a doubt; and he himself was good authority, for he was Robert Stebbins, the witness who had sworn to having returned the pocket-book and the accompanying doc.u.ments to the plaintiff, as their rightful owner; he now confessed that he had perjured himself for a heavy bribe, but stood ready to turn state's evidence, and reveal all he knew of the plot. Those papers had actually been placed in his care thirteen years since by his own brother, Jonathan Stebbins, who had died of small-pox in an hospital at Ma.r.s.eilles. This brother had been a favourite companion of William Stanley's from his first voyage; they had shipped together in the Jefferson, and before sailing, Stanley had placed a package of papers and other articles, for safe-keeping, in an old chest of Stebbins's, which was left with the sailor's mother in Ma.s.sachusetts. They were wrecked in the Jefferson on the coast of Africa, as had been already reported; but they were not drowned, they both succeeded in reaching the sh.o.r.e, having lashed themselves to the same spar.

It was a desert, sandy coast, and they were almost starved after having reached the land; their only shelter was a small cave in a low ledge of rocks near the beach; they fed upon half-putrid sh.e.l.l-fish thrown upon the sands by the gale, and they drank from the pools of rain-water that had formed on the rock during the storm; for they had saved nothing from the wreck but a sealed bottle, containing their protections as American sailors, some money in an old glove, and a few other papers. William Stanley had been ill before the gale, and he had not strength to bear up against these hardships; he declined rapidly, and aware that he could not live, the young man charged his companion, if he ever returned to America, to seek his family, relate the circ.u.mstances of his death, and show the papers in the bottle--an old letter to himself, and within it the notice of his father's marriage, which he had cut from a paper, obtained from an American vessel spoken on the voyage--and also the package left on sh.o.r.e in the old chest, as these doc.u.ments would be considered testimonials of his veracity. He farther charged Stebbins to say that he asked his father's forgiveness, acknowledging that he died repenting of his past misconduct. The third day after the gale the young man expired, and Stebbins buried him in the sand near the cave. The survivor had a hard struggle for life; the rain-water had soon dried away, and he set out at night in search of a spring to relieve his thirst, still keeping in sight of the sh.o.r.e. As the morning sun rose, when all but exhausted, he discovered on the beach several objects from the wreck, which had drifted in that direction, the wind having changed after the gale. He found a keg of spirits and some half-spoiled biscuit, and by these means his life was prolonged. He made a bag of his shirt, bound a few things on his back, and buried others in the sand, to return to if necessary, and then continued to follow the sh.o.r.e northward, in search of some spring or stream. Fortunately, he soon came to a woody tract which promised water, and climbing a tree he watched the wild animals, hoping to discover where they drank; at length, following a flock of antelopes, he came suddenly upon the bank of a stream of some size; and to his unspeakable joy, saw on the opposite bank a party of white men, the first human beings he had beheld since Stanley's death; they proved to be Swedes belonging to a ship in the offing; and immediately took him into their boat. The vessel was bound to Stockholm, where she carried young Stanley's shipmate; from there he went to St. Petersburgh, where he met with the brother who related his story to Hazlehurst, and both soon after enlisted in the Russian navy.

They were sent to the Black Sea, and kept there and in the Mediterranean for five years, until the elder brother, Jonathan Stebbins, died of small-pox in a hospital at Ma.r.s.eilles, having never returned to America since the wreck of the Jefferson.

Before his death, however, he left all his effects and William Stanley's papers to his brother. This man, Robert Stebbins, seemed to have paid very little attention to the doc.u.ments; it was by mere chance that he preserved the old letter, and the marriage notice within it, for he confessed that he had torn up the protection, once when he wanted a bit of paper: he had never known William Stanley himself, the inquiries about the young man had ceased before he returned to America, and he had attached no importance whatever to these papers. He had left them where they had first been placed, in the old sea-chest at his mother's house, near New Bedford, while he led the usual wandering life of a sailor. He told Harry that he had at last quite forgotten this package, until he accidentally fell in with a man calling himself William Stanley, at a low tavern, only some five or six years since, and, to his amazement, heard him declare he had been wrecked in the Jefferson.

{"protection" = a paper testifying to the American citizenship of a seaman, carried to protect him against being forced into the British Navy as an Englishman. Stebbins' survival reflects descriptions of a shipwreck on the Atlantic coast of North Africa in James Fenimore Cooper's "Homeward Bound" (1838)}

"The fellow was half-drunk," said Stebbins; "but I knew his yarn was a lie all the time, for I had sailed with him in another ship, at the time my brother Jonathan was wrecked in the Jefferson. He shipped then under the name of Benson, but I knew his real name was Edward Hopgood--"

"Edward Hopgood!" exclaimed Harry, pa.s.sing his hand over his forehead--" surely I have heard that name before. Wait a moment,"

he added, to Stebbins; while he endeavoured to recollect why that name, singular in itself, had a familiar sound to him. At length his eye brightened, the whole matter became more clear; he recollected when a mere child, a year or two before Mr. Stanley's death, while staying at Greatwood during a vacation, to have heard of the bad conduct of a young man named Edward Hopgood, a lawyer's clerk in the adjoining village, who had committed forgery and then run away. The circ.u.mstances had occurred while Harry was at Greatwood, and had been so much talked of in a quiet, country neighbourhood, as to make a decided impression on himself, child as he was. Harry also remembered to have heard Mr.

Stanley tell Mr. Wyllys that this Hopgood was very distantly related to himself, through the mother, who had made a very bad connexion; adding, that this lad had been at Greatwood, and would have been a.s.sisted by himself, had he not behaved very badly, and done so much to injure his own son that he had been forbidden the house. Harry farther remembered, that Clapp had belonged to the same office from which this Hopgood had run away. There was, however, one point which he did not understand; he thought he had since heard that this Hopgood had turned actor, and died long since of yellow-fever, at New Orleans. Still, he felt convinced that there was a good foundation for Stebbins's story, and he hoped soon to unravel the whole plot, from the clue thus placed in his hands.

"Go on," said Harry, after this pause. "You say this man, whom you knew to be Hopgood, called himself William Stanley. What became of him?"

"It is the same chap that hoisted your colours, Mr. Hazlehurst; him that the jury gave the verdict to in Philadelphia."

"Yes; I knew it must be the same individual before you spoke,"

said Harry, with a view to keep his informant accurate. "But how did you know that his name was Hopgood? for you say he had shipped under another."

"I knew it because he had told me so himself. He told me how he had run away from a lawyer's office in Pennsylvany, gone to New Orleans and turned play-actor a while, then shammed dead, and had his name printed in the papers among them that died of yellow-fever. He told me all that in his first voyage, when we were shipmates, and that was just the time that my brother Jonathan was wrecked in the Jefferson."

"When you afterwards heard him say he was William Stanley, did you tell him you knew his real name?"

"Yes; I told him I knew he lied; for my brother had buried Stanley with his own hands, and that I had his papers at home.

Then he told me, he was only laughing at the green-horns."

"Did you mention to any one at the time that you knew this man was not William Stanley?"

"No, sir, for I didn't speak to him until we were alone; and we parted company next morning, for I went to sea."

"When did you next see Hopgood?"

"Well, I didn't fall in with him again for a long while, until this last spring. When I came home from a voyage to China in the Mandarin, last May, I went to my mother's, near New Bedford, and then I found a chap had been to see her in the winter, and persuaded her to give him all the papers in the old chest, that had belonged to William Stanley, making out he was one of the young man's relations. It was that lawyer Clapp; and Hopgood had put him on the track of them 'ere papers."

"What were the doc.u.ments in your chest?"

"Most of what they had to show came from me: to be sure, Hopgood had got some letters and papers, written to himself of late years under the name of William Stanley; but all they had before the wreck of the Jefferson came from me."

"Were there any books among the articles in your possession?"

"No, sir; nothing but the pocket-book."

"Are you quite sure? Was there not one book with William Stanley's name in it?"

"Not one; that 'ere book they had in court didn't come from me; how they got it I don't know," replied Stebbins positively; who, it seemed, knew nothing of the volume of the Spectator.

"Where did you next meet Hopgood?"

"Well, I was mad when I found he had got them papers; but the lawyer had left a message with my mother, saying if I came home, she was to tell me I'd hear something to my advantage by applying to him. So I went after him to the place where he lives; and sure enough there was Hopgood, and he and Clapp as thick as can be together. I guess they'd have liked it better if I had never showed myself again: but they got round me, and told me how it was all settled, and if I would only lend a hand, and keep quiet about Hopgood, and speak for them once in a while, they would enter into an agreement to give me enough to make a skipper of me at once. Them 'ere lawyers they can make black look like white--and so I agreed to it at last."

Hazlehurst strongly suspected that less persuasion had been necessary than the man wished him to believe.

"Did they tell you all their plan?"

"Pretty much all; they said it was easy to make people believe Hopgood was William Stanley, for he looked so much like the young man, that he had been asked if that wasn't his name. He said it was that first gave him the notion of pa.s.sing off for William Stanley--that, and knowing all about the family, and the young man himself. He said Stanley had no near relations who would be likely to remember him; there was only one old gentleman they was afraid of, but they calculated they knew enough to puzzle him too. Hopgood had been practising after Stanley's handwriting; he was pretty good at that trade when he was a shaver," said Stebbins, with a look which showed he knew the story of the forgery. "He was bred a lawyer, and them 'ere lawyers are good at all sorts of tricks. Clapp and him had made out a story from my papers and what they know'd before, and got it all ready in a letter; they agreed that from the time of the wreck, they had better keep pretty straight to Hopgood's real life; and so they did."

"They seem to have laid all their plans before you."

"Well, they couldn't help it, for they wanted me to tell them all I heard from my brother; but I told 'em to speak first. They made out that Hopgood had a right to the property; for they said that old Mr. Stanley had no family to leave it to, that you was a stranger, and that Hopgood was a relation."

"This Hopgood, who first helped to corrupt William Stanley, even if he had actually been a near relation, would have been the last human being to whom Mr. Stanley would have left his property,"

said Harry, coolly. "But go on with your story; why did they not show the pocket-book before the trial?"

"They settled it so, because they thought it would look better before the jury."

"Why did you change your own mind so soon after the trial? You should have come to me before."

"Hopgood and I had a quarrel only three days ago, when he was drunk; he swore they could have done without me, and I swore I'd be revenged. Then that fellow, Clapp, wouldn't pay me on the spot according to agreement, as soon as they had gained the cause. I had kept my part, and he hadn't lifted a finger yet for me; nor he wouldn't if he could help it, for all he had given me his word. I know him from more than one thing that came out; he is one of your fellows who sham gentlemen, with a fine coat to his back; but I wouldn't trust him with a sixpence out of sight; no, nor out of arm's length," and Stebbins went on, swearing roundly at Clapp and Hopgood, until Harry interrupted him.

"I know them 'ere lawyers, they think they can cheat Jack any day; but I won't trust him an hour longer! I know your real gentleman from your tricky sham at a minute's warning, though their coats be both cut off the same piece of broadcloth. I haven't served under Uncle Sam's officers for nothing. Now I'll trust you, Mr. Hazlehurst, as long as it suits you; I'd no more have talked to Clapp without having his name down in black and white, as I have to you, than I'd be shot."

"The agreement I have made shall be strictly kept," replied Harry, coldly. "Had you come to me before the trial, you would have had the same reward, without the crime of perjury."

"Well, that 'ere perjury made me feel uncomfortable; and what with having sworn vengeance on Clapp and Hopgood, I made up my mind to go straight back to Philadelphy, and turn state's evidence. I was waiting for a chance to get to New York when I saw you on the wharf at Nantucket, and I knew you in a minute."

The conversation was here interrupted by a call from the beach, which attracted Harry's attention, after having been so much engrossed during the disclosures of Stebbins, as to be quite regardless of what was going on about him. It was de Vaux who had called--he now approached.