Mrs. Cliff's Yacht Part 5

"I see!" said Mrs. Cliff, very much interested. "If he once got on that line of lat.i.tude and kept sailing west without turning one way or the other, he would be bound to keep on it."

"That's exactly it!" said Mr. Burke. "'Twas pretty near midnight when we started off to run along the forty-eighth parallel, but I kept my eyes on the man at the wheel and on the compa.s.s, and I let them know that that ship was under the command of an able-bodied seaman who knew what he was about, and if they skipped to one side of that line or to the other he would find it out in no time.

"I went below once to take a nap, but, as I promised the fellow at the wheel ten shillings if he would keep her head due west, and told him he would be sure to wake me up if he didn't, I felt certain we wouldn't skip the line of lat.i.tude.

"Well, that steamer, which was called the _Duke of Dorchester_, and which was a vessel of not more than a thousand tons, wasn't much of a sailer, or perhaps they was saving coal, I don't know which, and, not knowing how much coal ought to be used, I kept my mouth shut on that point; but I had the log thrown a good deal, and I found that we never quite came up to ten knots an hour, and when we took an observation at noon the next day, we saw that we hadn't quite done the hundred miles; but a little before one o'clock we did it, and then I ordered the captain to stop the engine and lay to.

"There was a brig about a mile away, and when she saw us layin' to, she put about and made for us, and when she was near enough she hailed to know if anything was the matter. She was a French brig, but Captain Dork understood her, and I told him to bid her 'Good morning,' and to tell her that nothin' was the matter, but that we were just stoppin' to rest.

I don't know what he did tell her, but she put about her helm and was off again on her own business.

"'Now,' said I to Captain Dork, 'I want you to back this steamer due east to the Island of Ushant.'

"He looked at me and began to swear. He took me for a maniac,--a wild, crazy man, and told me the best thing I could do would be to go below and turn in, and he would take me back to my friends, if I had any.

"I didn't want to tell him what I was up to, but I found I had to, and so I explained to him that I was a rich sailor takin' a lark, and the lark I wanted to take was, to sail on a parallel of lat.i.tude a hundred miles in a steamer, and then to back that steamer along that same parallel to the place where she started from. I didn't believe that there was ever a ship in the world that had done that, and bein' on a lark, I wanted to do it, and was willin' to pay for it; and if his engineers and his crew grumbled about backing the steamer for a hundred miles, he could explain to them how the matter stood, and tell them that bein' on a lark I was willin' to pay for all extra trouble I might put them to, and for any disturbances in their minds which might rise from sailin' a vessel in a way which didn't seem to be accordin' to the ordinary rules of navigation.

"Now, when Captain Dork knew that I was a rich sailor on a lark, he understood me, and he made no more objections, though he said he wouldn't have spent his money in that way; and when he told his crew and his engineers and men about the extra pay, they understood the matter, and they agreed to back her along the forty-eighth parallel just as nigh as they could until they lay to two miles west of Ushant.

"So back we went, and they kept her due east just as nigh as they could, and they seemed to take an interest in it, as if all of them wanted me to have as good a lark as I could for my money, and we didn't skip that parallel very much, although it wasn't an easy job, I can tell you, to keep her head due west and her stern due east, and steam backwards. They had to rig up the compa.s.s abaft the wheel, and do some other things that you wouldn't understand, madam, such as running a spar out to stern to take sight by."

"I declare," said Mrs. Cliff, "that sort of sailing must have astonished any ship that saw it. Did you meet any other vessels?"

"Oh yes," said Burke. "After daybreak we fell in with a good many sail and some steamers, and most of them ran close and hailed us, but there wasn't any answer to give them, except that we were returning to port and didn't want no help; but some of the skippers of the smaller crafts were so full of curiosity that they stuck to us, and when we arrived off Ushant, which wasn't until nearly dark the next day, the _Duke of Dorchester_ had a convoy of five sloops, two schooners, a brig, eight pilot boats, and four tugs."

Although Mr. Burke had said that he was going to make very short work with his story, it had already occupied a good deal of time, and he was not half through with it; but Mrs. Cliff listened with the greatest interest, and the rich sailor went on with his recital of adventures.

"Now, when I had finished scoring that forty-eighth parallel backward and forward for a hundred miles, I took out my purse and I paid that captain and all the crew what I promised to give them, and then we steamed back to Brest, where I told him to drop anchor and make himself comfortable.

"I stayed on board for a day and a night just to get my fill feeling I was in command of a steamer, before I gave up a sea-faring life forever.

I threw up the rest of the week that I was ent.i.tled to and went ash.o.r.e, and my lark was over.

"I went to England and took pa.s.sage for home, and I had a first-cla.s.s state-room, and laid in a lot of good clothes before I started. I don't think I ever had greater comfort in my life than sittin' on deck, smokin' a good cigar, and watchin' the able-bodied seamen at their work.

"I hope I'm not tiring you, madam, but I'm trying to cut things as short as I can. It's often said that a sailor is all at sea when he is on sh.o.r.e, but I was a country fellow before I was a sailor, and land doings come naturally to me when I fix my mind on them.

"I'd made up my mind I was going to build my mother a house on Cape Cod, but when I got home I thought it better to buy her one already built, and that's what I did, and I stayed there with her a little while, but I didn't like it. I'd had a notion of having another house near my mother's, but I gave up that. There's too much sea about Cape Cod.

"Now, she liked it, for she's a regular sailor's mother, but I couldn't feel that I was really a rich fellow livin' ash.o.r.e until I got out of hearin' of the ocean, and out of smellin' of salt and tar, so I made up my mind that I'd go inland and settle somewhere on a place of my own, where I might have command of some sort of farm.

"I didn't know just exactly what I wanted, nor just exactly where I wanted to go, so I thought it best to look around a little and hold council with somebody or other. I couldn't hold council with my mother, because she wanted me to buy a ship and take command of her. And then I thought of Captain Horn, and goin' to ask him. But the captain is a great man--"

"Indeed he is!" exclaimed Mrs. Cliff. "We all know that!"

"But he is off on his own business," continued Burke, "and what sort of a princely concern he's got on hand I don't know. Anyway, he wouldn't want me followin' him about and botherin' him, and so I thought of everybody I could, and at last it struck me that there wasn't anybody better than you, Mrs. Cliff, to give me the points I wanted, for I always liked you, Mrs. Cliff, and I consider you a woman of good sense down to the keel. And, as I heard you were livin' in sort of a country place, I thought you'd be the very person that I could come and talk to and get points.

"I felt a hankerin', anyway, after some of the old people of the _Castor_; for, after having had all that money divided among us, it made me feel as if we belonged to the same family. I suppose that was one reason why I felt a sort of drawing to you, you know. Anyway, I knew where you lived, and I came right here, and arrived this morning. After I'd taken a room at the hotel, I asked for your house and came straight here."

"And very glad am I to see you, Mr. Burke!" said Mrs. Cliff, speaking honestly from the bottom of her heart.

She had not known Burke very well, but she had always looked upon him as a fine, manly sailor; and now that he had come to her, she was conscious of the family feeling which he had spoken of, and she was very glad to see him.

She saw that Burke was very anxious to know why she was living in a plain fashion in this unpretentious house, but she found it would be very difficult to explain the matter to him. Hers was not a straightforward tale, which she could simply sit and tell, and, moreover, although she liked Burke and thought it probable that he was a man of a very good heart, she did not believe that he was capable of advising her in the perplexities which her wealth had thrown about her.

Still, she talked to him and told him what she thought she could make him properly understand, and so, from one point to another, she went on until she had given the ex-sailor a very good idea of the state of her mind in regard to what she was doing, and what she thought she ought to do.

When Mrs. Cliff had finished speaking, Burke thrust his hands into his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling of the room, the walls, and the floor. He wanted to say something, but he was not prepared to do so. His mind, still nautical, desired to take an observation and determine the lat.i.tude and longitude of Mrs. Cliff, but the skies were very much overcast.

At this moment w.i.l.l.y Croup knocked at the parlor door, and when Mrs.

Cliff went to her, she asked if the gentleman was going to stay to dinner.

Mrs. Cliff was surprised. She had no idea it was so late, but she went back to Mr. Burke and urged him to stay to dinner. He consented instantly, declaring that this was the first time that anybody, not his mother, had asked him to dinner since he came into his fortune.

When Mrs. Cliff had excused herself to give some directions about the meal, Burke walked about the parlor, carefully examining everything in it. When he had finished his survey, he sat down and shook his head.

"The trouble with her is," he said to himself, "that she's so dreadfully afraid of running ash.o.r.e that she will never reach any port, that's what's the matter!"

When Mrs. Cliff returned, she asked her visitor if he would like to see her house, and she showed him over it with great satisfaction, for she had filled every room with all the handsome and appropriate things she could get into it. Burke noticed everything, and spoke with approbation of many things, but as he walked behind his hostess, he kept shaking his head.

He went down to dinner, and was introduced to w.i.l.l.y Croup, who had been ordered to go and dress herself that she might appear at the meal. He shook hands with her very cordially, and then looked all around the little dining-room, taking in every feature of its furnishing and adornment. When he had finished, he would have been glad to shake his head again, but this would have been observed.

When the dinner came on, however, Mr. Burke had no desire to shake his head. It was what might have been called a family dinner, but there was such a variety, such an abundance, everything was so admirably cooked, and the elderberry wine, which was produced in his honor, was so much more rich and fragrant to his taste than the wines he had had at hotels, that Mr. Burke was delighted.

Now he felt that in forming an opinion as to Mrs. Cliff's manner of living he had some grounds to stand upon. "What she wants," thought he, "is all the solid, sensible comfort her money can give her, and where she knows what she wants, she gets it; but the trouble seems to be that in most things she doesn't know what she wants!"

When Mr. Burke that afternoon walked back to the hotel, wrapped in his fur-trimmed coat and carefully puffing a fine Havana cigar, he had entirely forgotten his own plans and purposes in life, and was engrossed in those of Mrs. Cliff.

CHAPTER VII

MR. BURKE ACCEPTS A RESPONSIBILITY

w.i.l.l.y Croup was very much pleased with Mr. Burke, and she was glad that she had allowed herself to be persuaded to sit at table with such a fine gentleman.

He treated her with extreme graciousness of manner, and it was quite plain to her that if he recognized her in her silk gown as the person who, in a calico dress, had opened the front door for him, he had determined to make her feel that he had not noticed the coincidence.

He was a good deal younger than she was, but w.i.l.l.y's childlike disposition had projected itself into her maturer years, and in some respects there was a greater sympathy, quickly perceived by both, between her and Mr. Burke than yet existed between him and Mrs. Cliff.

After some of the amusing anecdotes which he told, the visitor looked first towards w.i.l.l.y to see how she appreciated them; but it must not be supposed that he was not extremely attentive and deferential to his hostess.

If w.i.l.l.y had known what a brave, gallant, and daring sailor he was, she would have made a hero of him; but Mrs. Cliff had never said much about Burke, and w.i.l.l.y simply admired him as the best specimen of the urbane man of the world with whom she had yet met.

The two women talked a good deal about their visitor that evening, and Mrs. Cliff said that she hoped he was not going to leave town very soon, for it was possible that she might be of help to him if he wanted to settle down in that part of the country.

The next morning, soon after breakfast, when w.i.l.l.y opened the front gate of the yard and stepped out upon the street with a small covered basket in her hand, she had gone but a very little distance when she met Mr.

Burke, with his furs, his cane, and his silk hat. The latter was lifted very high as its owner saluted Miss Croup.