The Fatal Cord Part 30

On gaining an offing sufficient to give the occupants of the boat a view commanding the whole expanse, only one vessel was in sight. This was a graceful little schooner, of about thirty tons burden, which lay at anchor on a part of the river called the Flats, situate on the eastern side of the stream; she was in a position south-east of Otter Point, directly in front of Hungerford's Creek, and about a mile and a half from Point Patience. An easy row of three-quarters of an hour over the crystal-like waters, which were but slightly stirred by a slight wind, brought the boat from the Spout alongside of this schooner.

A vessel so small required no steps to ascend her sides, and the occupants of the row-boat soon leaped upon the deck. They were there met by a young man about five feet and a half in height, with blue eyes, light flaxen hair, and cheeks which, originally fair, were somewhat tanned by exposure to sun, wind, and weather. He was dressed in roundabout and pantaloons of light blue cloth, pumps, and light straw hat.

"How are you, John? how are you, Harry?" he exclaimed, shaking hands with Coe and Marston, with much appearance of cordiality. "I am very glad to see you. I hope that you are not offended with the _ruse_ which I used to bring you to see me for a short time? I feared that, if you knew who it was, you would not take the trouble to come to see me."

Both of the young men a.s.sured him that a _ruse_ was not at all necessary; it was nearly preventing them from coming, and that, had they only known at once that it was their old school-friend, George Dempster, who wanted to see them, there would have been no hesitation on their part in coming to visit him.

John Coe was much surprised at finding George Dempster--who had been his cla.s.smate at Princeton, and who was the oldest son of a planter in good circ.u.mstances on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Maryland--occupying the position of skipper of a small bay-craft; politeness, however, prevented him from making any allusion to what seemed to him so singular.

Captain Dempster--to give him the t.i.tle generally bestowed in courtesy upon the commander of the smallest trading craft, on the Chesapeake Bay, at least--invited his old friends to come at once into his cabin.

Here a mahogany table was handsomely set out, being spread with a fine linen diaper cloth, and being covered with a porcelain breakfast-set.

Cushioned mahogany seats for four surrounded the table.

The steward--or he who in a vessel so small generally performs the duties of both that officer and of cook--had apparently already received his orders, for scarcely had the captain, his mate, and his two friends entered the cabin, when breakfast was placed on the table. Fragrant coffee, light rolls, fresh b.u.t.ter, ham and eggs, fried crocuses and soft crabs, formed the repast.

"You may think it strange, my friends," said Captain Dempster, while the party of four were partaking of the meal, for which the bracing morning air and their early ride and row had given my hero and Captain Marston keen appet.i.tes, "that you find me in this position. The matter is easily explained, however. It is due to a compromise, agreed to by my father and myself, between my extreme views in favour of a life on the ocean and his extreme views in favour of a life for me on the land.

Thus I can indulge, to a limited extent, my preference for a seafaring life, and he can enjoy what he honours me by calling the pleasure of seeing me frequently. I confess that I would much prefer a life on the open sea; but one must not be disobedient to an affectionate and generally indulgent father."

While the three friends--Mr Bowsprit had left the table, as soon as his appet.i.te was satisfied, to attend to duties upon deck--sat over their claret, talking of "old days," as, even when young, we fondly call them, hours sped on. In the meantime the anchor had been secured on board, the sails hoisted, and the vessel had laid her course down the river, impelled by a light wind from the west. Point Patience was soon rounded, and in two hours and a half or three hours from the time of leaving her anchorage, the schooner had pa.s.sed down the lowest reach of Clearwater, and had rounded to at the extreme end of Drum Point, to take on board the lad who had been sent to deliver the horses and notes of John Alvan Coe and Captain Marston to their respective homes. The boy made excellent speed, and was waiting at the place of rendezvous when the schooner was still some miles from the Point.

"Why, Dempster," said young Coe, seeing that they had pa.s.sed Drum Point Harbour, "you are not going out upon the bay, are you?"

"I have to take off a load of cord-wood," was the answer, "from the sh.o.r.e near the old Eltonhead Manor House, this side of Cove Point. We shall there be but little farther from your home than here at Drum Point; and I want to see all that I can of both of you. But think, Coe, of my carrying a load of fire-wood to Baltimore!

"'To what base uses we may come, Horatio.'"

"But how are Marston and myself to get home this evening?" asked John.

"Oh! as to that matter," was the answer, "I can borrow horses from Mr Chew, whose house is but a few miles from Eltonhead; and the boy Tom, who took your horses home this morning, can go with you, and bring back the animals. But I hope that you will not return until the morning.

Let me spend at least one evening with you."

"What do you say, Marston?" asked John, who was enjoying the society of his friends very much. "I have not seen that lonely old Eltonhead house since I was a schoolboy, and I should like to see it again, especially if we could visit it 'by the glimpses of the moon' to-night, since it has now, and has had for some time, I believe, the reputation of being haunted. I hardly think that they would feel uneasy at home on account of my continued absence, as I merely said in my note that I was going to visit a friend on board of his vessel."

"If you are agreed, let us stay," replied Marston. "I should like to revisit the old house myself, especially as you say, to

"'Visit it by the pale moonlight.'"

"And, if you gentlemen desire it," said Captain Dempster, "I will have some hammocks swung this evening in the old manor house. We will pa.s.s the night there, and will thus--to take a liberty with Sir Walter Scott's verse--dare

"'To brave the witches in their den, The spirits in their hall.'"

This proposition being very agreeable to both Coe and Marston, they consented to continue as Captain Dempster's guests until the morning.

The three young men remained upon deck to enjoy the glorious day and the beautiful and rapidly shifting scenes presented to their view, as the schooner skirted, within a few hundred yards of the beach, the northern sh.o.r.e of Patuxent Roads--a sheet of water which is, in fact (as I have before mentioned, I think), a gulf or widening of the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Clearwater river. While the three friends were gaily chatting, inspired by the cheering influence of their surroundings, Mr Bowsprit walked up to the commander of the craft.

"Captain Dempster," he said, "I think those sailors in the hold and forecastle will be getting into a state of mutiny soon, if we don't let them come out upon deck. They say that their quarters are too close."

"Tell them," replied the skipper, "they can come up as soon as they please; we are now fairly out of the Clearwater--at least, out of sight of Drum Point Harbour."

The sheet of water called Patuxent Roads is by some considered to be a part of the Clearwater river.

"These men of whom Mr Brown speaks," continued Captain Dempster, addressing his two friends, "are some newly-discharged United States seamen, whom I am taking to Baltimore. I had a load of freight to carry from Baltimore to Portsmouth. At the latter place these men applied to me for pa.s.sage to the former city. I told them that I had freight to take from Portsmouth to Benedict, and then a load of wood to carry to Baltimore. As they did not care much for the delay, I bargained to take them to Baltimore, and to charge them only for what their board while on the schooner might be worth, on condition that they would help us to load and to unload. I did not wish so many men to be seen on board of my craft while in the river, since such an incident would probably subject me to the delay of a search by the revenue officer, who, having but very little to do, naturally wishes to make the most of his office."

About thirty rough, sunburnt and weather-beaten men now came upon the deck. Among them was almost every variety of dress which nautical fashions then allowed; but the cloth roundabouts and tarpaulin hats prevailed. They kept away from the after-part of the deck, gathering in groups amidships and towards the bow. They seemed to be in fine spirits, as frequent bursts of somewhat subdued laughter came from the different groups. Little did young Coe think that he was the subject of their merriment.

It was scarcely half an hour after these men came upon deck when the schooner anch.o.r.ed about fifty yards from the beach, at a point where long ranks of pine and oak cord-wood were ranged along the edge of the cliff, which was here but from twenty to twenty-five feet high. A large flatboat, oblong in shape, and of the kind commonly called "scow," was lying on rollers far up on the beach and close under the cliff.

As soon as the anchor was dropped overboard and the sails lowered and secured, the row-boat--which had been hanging from the davits at the stern of the schooner since the lad had been taken aboard at Drum Point--was forthwith let down into the water. It had to make three trips from the schooner to the sh.o.r.e before the unusually large number of hands were all landed. Then the scow was at once pushed into the water. Some of the seamen soon ascended the cliff by a small ravine near at hand; and the work of throwing down the wood to the beach, pitching it to the water's edge, and piling it into the scow was at once commenced.

Our hero and his two friends pa.s.sed the rest of the day, to all appearances, very pleasantly together; there was so much to say to each other of what young people call, queerly enough, "old times," so much that each had to tell to the others of what had occurred to himself since their last meeting. About an hour after the schooner came to anchor they took their dinner--which comprised "all the luxuries of the season"--in the elegant little cabin. Mr Bowsprit was present at this meal, and added to the enjoyment of it by his unique and pleasant sallies. This joyous individual was with them only at dinner; his duty required him to attend to the loading of the vessel. The dinner of the hands, by the way, was sent ash.o.r.e to them, and eaten under the shade of the trees upon the cliff.

STORY TWO, CHAPTER SIX.

AT THE OLD MANOR HOUSE.

A prisoner, didst thou say? O, gracious heaven!

Have mercy on my parents and my friends, And for uncertainty let them not too long suffer!

Oh speedily set me free!--_Anon_.

*Cyrus*. Who art thou, fair and gentle princess?

*Myranda*. Knight, I am, alas! unfortunate; but yet I wish thee well, and fain would do thee service.

_Romance of Sir Cyrus_.

I will not do it, lady; speak no more.

_The Tempted_.

About half an hour after the dinner was concluded, the three young friends were taken ash.o.r.e in the jolly-boat. Leaving the beach, they pursued a path through a dense forest for about half a mile, when they came into a small opening in the woods, in the centre of which stood the old brick building known as Eltonhead Manor House, surrounded by its out-houses, all of brick. The opening in which this old-time mansion stood had evidently been in former days much more extensive, for among the small pine-trees covering the ground in the part of the forest nearest to the old house, the earth still distinctly bore the impress of corn-rows the marks of former cultivation of that species of grain first obtained from the red man.

Desolation marked the spot. The yard and garden walls were broken down in many places; the gate at the end of the short avenue had fallen and now lay in ruins. The shade trees in the yard and avenue needed pruning; scions from their roots had sprang up in all directions. Even at this early season weeds spread over the yard and garden, and closed the gateways; yet the building itself was in comparatively good preservation.

It was not by any means such a mansion as in Great Britain would be suggested to the mind by the t.i.tle of manor house. It was built of bricks imported from England, and the walls were of such thickness that, though time had, in pa.s.sing over them, stamped his impress upon them in weather-stains and moss and lichen, they stood, apparently, as firm as when first erected. The house, was two stories high; on the floor of the first storey, a wide hall pa.s.sing through the centre of the buildings with two very large rooms on each side of it. The second storey, and the attic to some extent, corresponded to the first; a broad staircase led upwards from the hall on the ground floor. Some pieces of old and almost worn-out furniture remained in the building, one or two heavy old tables, and a dozen or so huge and very old-fashioned oaken chairs. In one of the rooms downstairs were two or three rude settees or benches, left by some tenant who had used the premises since they had been deserted by their proper occupants.

During the afternoon Captain Dempster and his guests rambled through the woods and along the bay sh.o.r.e. When they had concluded their ramble and returned to the old manor house, the shades of twilight were gathering.

They found that three hammocks, intended for their night's rest, had been swung in one of the large rooms of the second storey, and in another room on the same floor, a plentiful and well-lighted board was spread for supper. On a chair beside the supper table was an open hamper of champagne, beside which was a pack of playing cards. The intention of Captain Dempster was declared by himself to be to pa.s.s the evening at whist, admitting Mr Brown, _alias_ Billy Bowsprit, to complete the necessary party of four; the game to be enlivened by an occasional gla.s.s of wine. No game of whist was played that evening, however. John Coe, after he had finished his supper and taken one or two gla.s.ses of champagne, was obliged to plead overwhelming drowsiness, which he attributed to the interesting character and unusual excitement of the day.

Although early in going to bed, yet it was late in the morning when the young man awoke. On looking around him he found that the other hammocks in the room were vacant.

Springing out of bed he hurried to the door; it was locked. The windows were all down. On throwing open the sash of one of them and looking out, he saw a man with a musket on his shoulder, who was promenading to and fro in the yard below, and keeping an eye on the windows of his room. It seemed, then, that he was guarded as if a prisoner. He called out to the man who was apparently keeping watch in the court below.

"What do you want?" asked the guard.

"Where are Captain Dempster and Captain Marston?" exclaimed John.

"I don't know of whom you are talking," answered the guard. "I only know that Captain Vance and Lieutenant Seacome took supper with you last night, after which you got drunk, and had to be put to bed; and that Captain Vance--my captain--said that you were on no account to leave the house. That is all I know about the matter, sir."

"I was not drunk," said young Coe. "I took but two gla.s.ses of wine after supper. There must be some mistake somewhere. The gentlemen with whom I supped last night are two of my oldest friends. I never dreamed that they were capable, nor can I yet believe that they are, of treachery towards me."