The Coming Wave Part 27

"Susan," said Squire Moses, as he turned to depart, "I told you that you might stay in this house till the first of August; and so you may; but I am going to foreclose the mortgage right off, so that I can get legal possession sooner. It won't make any difference to you."

The old miser did not wait to hear any reply to this announcement; but the tears dropped from the widow's eyes as the door closed upon the hard old man. The squire and Ethan walked down to the main street, talking with every one they met about the treasure, protesting that it ought to be kept for the heirs of the rightful owner, and manufacturing public sentiment which should compel the landlord of the Sea Cliff House and his son to pursue this course. It is true that the people of Rockhaven were very much surprised to hear Squire Moses and his son preaching such a doctrine; but they were willing to accept it, for it seemed to be just and right that the heirs should have what plainly belonged to them.

Unknown to them, and not yet with the entire approbation of his father, Leopold was their ally in directing public sentiment. After dinner, the parlor of the Sea Cliff House was filled by the New Yorkers and others who desired to hear the narrative of the finding of the hidden treasure.

Leopold, in his best clothes, washed, dressed, and combed for a great occasion, appeared at the door of the parlor with Harvey Barth's diary in his hand. Stumpy, who had come over to see him in regard to the exciting topic, followed him, and took a back seat in one corner of the room. The money-digger was not a little abashed when he saw so many pairs of eyes directed towards him; but he commenced his story, and soon recovered his self-possession. He began with the wreck of the Waldo, for the New Yorkers knew little or nothing of this exciting event. He then came to the appearance of Harvey Barth at the Cliff House, and detailed all the incidents relating to the diary, the visit of Miss Sarah Liverage, and the finding of the journal when the chimney was pulled down.

Leopold stated he had read only those portions of the diary which related to the treasure; and then he read the description from the book of the burying of the gold in the thunder and lightning. He had dug the beach all over, under the instruction of the nurse; and he had been unable to find the bag even after he read the journal, until he went down to High Rock in a thunder shower. Then, for the first time, he could distinguish Coffin Rock. Thus guided, he had found the treasure.

Leopold then gave his views in regard to the ownership of the gold, and declared that he intended to keep the money in his uncle's safe till he had seen the owners of the Waldo, and they had sent to Havana. This statement to the astonishment and confusion of the money-digger, was followed by hearty applause, in which even the ladies joined. Public sentiment in the parlor earnestly indorsed his views.

"Leopold reads very well," said Mr. Hamilton; "and as we desire to rest for an hour or two, I suggest that he read the diary to us from the time the Waldo left Havana."

This suggestion was warmly applauded, and verbally seconded by half a dozen of the party. Leopold consented under this pressure, and read for a full hour, till he came to the afternoon of the day on which the brig was lost; in a word, till he came to what Harvey Barth had just written when Wallbridge came to the galley to light his pipe, as recorded in the first chapter of this story. The steward did not believe the pa.s.senger's name was Wallbridge, as written on the Waldo's papers. He did not see what he had changed his name for, and hoped he hadn't done anything wrong.

"'He gave his name as J. Wallbridge,' Leopold read from the diary; 'but that was not the name I found on the paper in his state-room, when I made up his bed on the day we sailed from Havana, though the initials were the same. Then he lent me his Bible to read one day, and this other name was written on it in forty places, wherever there was any blank paper. I wanted to borrow the Bible again, but he would not lend it to me; and I thought he remembered about his name being written in it so many times. I saw the same name stamped on a white shirt of his, which he hung up to air on deck to-day. The name was not J. Wallbridge either; it was Joel Wormbury.'"

"My father!" shouted Stumpy, springing to his feet.

CHAPTER XVI.

GOLD AND BILLS.

Stumpy was an excited young man. He had come into the parlor on the invitation of Leopold, and had very modestly coiled himself away in the most obscure corner of the room. He was very much interested in the reading of Harvey Barth's diary, and especially in regard to the mysterious pa.s.senger. When Leopold read the name of "Joel Wormbury," he could no longer contain himself. He leaped from his corner, and shouted as though he had been hailing the Rosabel half a mile off.

"My father!" repeated he; and all eyes were fixed upon him.

Stumpy was excited, not so much, we must do him the justice to say, because there was money involved in the fact, as because the name and memory of his father were dear to him.

"That man was Stumpy's father as true as the world!" said Mr.

Bennington.

"It is a very remarkable affair," added Mr. Hamilton. "Such things don't often happen."

"But I haven't the slightest doubt that this Wallbridge was Joel Wormbury," replied the landlord.

"I'm sure of it," exclaimed Stumpy. "I know all about that Bible; I've seen it twenty times; and mother always used to put it into father's chest when he was going away fishing."

"I don't know about that, Stumpy," interposed Mr. Bennington, with a smile of incredulity; "I'm afraid it won't hold water."

"What's the reason it won't?" demanded Stumpy, who was entirely satisfied in regard to the ident.i.ty of the sacred volume. "I used to carry it to Sunday school sometimes; and I've seen my father's name written in forty places in it, wherever there was a page or part of a page not printed on, just as Harvey Barth says in his diary. I don't believe there is any mistake about that."

"But the writer of this journal appears to have been considerably exercised about the pa.s.senger's change of name," said Mr. Hamilton, before the landlord had an opportunity to explain why he doubted the truth of the statement in regard to the Bible. "Harvey Barth hoped Mr.

Wallbridge had not done anything wrong."

"He hadn't done anything wrong," protested Stumpy, warmly.

"Why should he change his name, then?" asked the ex-congressman. "For the fact that he did so appears to be well established."

"There was a reason for it," replied the landlord, "though as Stumpy says, Joel Wormbury had done nothing wrong. Joel was attacked by a man in liquor, and in self-defence he struck the a.s.sailant on the head with a bottle, and supposed that he had killed him. He left Rockhaven in a great hurry, in order to escape the consequences. He did not even go to his house before he left town, afraid, perhaps, of finding a constable there waiting for him. He went off in such a hurry, that I don't believe he thought to take his Bible with him."

The landlord bestowed a smiling glance upon Stumpy, satisfied that he had as completely demolished the Bible argument as though he had been a practised theologian.

"If my mother was only here, she could tell you all about that," said Stumpy.

"Do you think he went home for the Bible before he left?" asked Mr.

Bennington.

"I know he didn't."

"Where did he get the Bible, then?" asked the landlord.

"I'll tell you; and I won't say a word that I can't prove," replied Stumpy, warmly.

"You are not among enemies, or those who are at all inclined to doubt your word, young man," added Mr. Hamilton.

"I'll tell you about it, then; but I wish my mother was here, with the letters my father wrote to her."

"We are willing to believe all you say, Stumpy," said the landlord.

"You thought that what I said would not hold water, just now."

"But I explained why I thought so."

"And the doubt was certainly a reasonable one," added the merchant; "now we only wait for you to remove it."

"I will do that and I can prove all I say by my father's last letter to my mother, which is post-marked at Gloucester, Ma.s.s., in which he told all about the fight, and gave the reasons why he cleared out."

In answer to a question asked by one of the ladies, Stumpy related more fully the particulars of Joel Wormbury's departure from Rockhaven.

"About six months before my father went off for the last time, he returned to Gloucester from a fishing trip to the Georges," continued Stumpy. "He expected to go again in a few weeks; so he left his chest in Gloucester. His Bible was in that chest; but, as he found work coopering at home, he did not go again till he left after the fight. In his letter to my mother, he said he had got his chest, and that he had the Bible all right. He wrote, too, that he meant to read it more than he had ever done before, and not use it to scribble in. That was the last letter we ever got from father. We heard that he had gone out to attend to the trawls, and was lost in a fog, not being able to find his way back to the vessel. Of course we hadn't any doubt that he was dead, after we got a letter from the captain of the schooner in which my father sailed.

That's all I know about it."

"But how came he in Havana?" asked Mr. Hamilton.

"That's more than I know, sir," answered Stumpy.

"Harvey Barth could not have known anything about Joel Wormbury," added Leopold; "and he wrote his diary, it appears on the very day the Waldo was lost."

"There can be no doubt that Wallbridge and Joel Wormbury were one and the same person," said Mr. Hamilton. "The name which Harvey Barth found on the paper, the initials, on his valise, the name on the shirt, and written forty times in the Bible, fully establish the fact in my mind."

"And in mine, too," said Leopold. "Stumpy, the gold is yours, and I will give it to you whenever you are ready to take it."

"This is a go!" exclaimed Stumpy, with a broad grin on his brown face.

"We need the money bad enough; and my mother will jump up six feet when she hears the news. Somebody else won't feel good about it, I'll bet."