HARVEY SENDS A MESSAGE TO SHORE
Henry Burns and the Warren brothers, arriving at Millstone Landing on the
evening when Jack Harvey had seen a strange vision through Haley’s
telescope, found a young man on the wharf awaiting them. He hailed them
with a hearty shout of welcome the moment the steamer came to its
landing. He was a tall, somewhat spare man, but with broad, muscular
shoulders, and a general build that told of unusual strength. He had a
mop of short, almost curly hair, under a soft felt hat, a dark, clear
complexion, brown eyes that twinkled with fun, and an expression of
geniality that won the heart of Henry Burns at first glance.
The young man nodded smilingly to the river captain, and swung himself
aboard before the steamer had its gang-plank out; and he was up the
stairs and in the cabin in a twinkling, where he grasped George Warren
and the brothers, one after another, and welcomed them heartily.
“And this is our friend, Henry Burns,” said George Warren, introducing
his comrade.
“I’m right glad to meet him, too,” responded Edward Warren. “He’s just as
welcome as you are—and that’s saying all anybody could. Well, I’d know
you youngsters anywhere. You haven’t changed much since I was up north,
four years ago—except you’ve grown some. There’s Joe—my, but he’s growing
like a corn-stalk! Don’t it almost make your bones ache, to grow so fast,
Joey?”
Edward Warren was, all the while, assisting them with their bags and
bundles of coats and luggage, and steering them across the gang-plank to
the wharf, like a drove of frisky young cattle.
“Joe wants to know if you’ve brought any of those corn fritters down with
you, Cousin Ed?” said George Warren.
“No,” laughed Edward Warren, “but there’s a stack of them up in the oven,
keeping hot, as high as your head, almost. Here, sling your stuff into
this wagon, and Jim will take it up. Anybody that wants to ride, too, can
jump aboard. But I’m going to walk. It’s only about a mile, and I’d
rather walk a night like this, anyway.”
“Well, I’ll ride up and be making the acquaintance of Mammy Stevens,”
said Joe, grinning broadly, and springing up on the seat beside the
coloured driver. The others elected to walk, with Edward Warren.
He set off at a brisk pace along the road that skirted the shore,
bordered much of its way by ponds extending some distance inland. He had
spoken of a mile walk as though it were the merest trifle, and the pace
he set for his younger companions indicated that he so regarded it. But
they were good for it, too, although he had them breathing hard by the
time they had gone half a mile; and the four made quick time of it up
from the landing.
“You chaps are pretty good walkers,” he said, laughing quietly and
slowing down a little. “Thought I’d see how city life agreed with your
wind and legs. You’re sound in both wind and limb, as we farmers say of a
good horse. We’ll take the rest of it a little easier.”
There yet lingered in the mind of Henry Burns an indignation born of the
act he had seen on the passing vessel.
“Say, Mr. Warren,” he began, as they walked along along—
“Don’t call him ‘Mr. Warren.’ Call him ‘Ed,’” interrupted George Warren.
“Yes, that’s right,” responded Edward Warren, good-naturedly.
“I saw a man knocked down on a vessel as we sailed into the harbour,”
continued Henry Burns. “Isn’t it a shame to treat men like that?”
Edward Warren paused, and clenched a big, strong fist. He raised it and
gestured like a man striking someone a blow.
“Shame!” he repeated. “It’s downright wicked, the way those dredging
captains—or a good many of them—treat the men. Why, we get them on shore
here, through the winter, half starved, and half clad, begging their way
back to Baltimore. If a man is taken sick out aboard, and isn’t fit to
work any more, why, the captain takes him ashore, to gather wood, or
something of that sort. Then he cuts and leaves him to starve or freeze,
or get back to town the best way he can. And sometimes, they don’t take
even that trouble, if they’re safe down the bay—just let a man slump
overboard—accidentally, of course,—and that’s the last seen of him.”
“Don’t his friends ever get track of him?” asked Henry Burns.
“Not often,” replied Edward Warren. “They’re almost always poor chaps,
without any friends that can do them any good; fellows that are reduced
to poverty in the cities, or men who have been dissipating and gone to
the bad. And those don’t last long with the life they lead aboard the
dredgers.”
“Well, that poor chap that I saw knocked down would have one friend if I
could help him,” exclaimed Henry Burns.
“He needs it, I’ve no doubt,” said Edward Warren. “And they make the men
do their underhand work for them, too—the captains that go poaching. Why,
I took a shot at a craft, just the other night, up above Forrests,
myself. I was up to Wilkes’s place, over night, and we caught a fellow
poaching in on the beds. Gave him a close call, too. We had him between
us and the Folly for a few minutes; but he was smart and got away.”
The lights of the old farm house were gleaming by this time, and in a
moment or two they were within its hospitable walls. It was a pleasant,
old-style house, with some pillars at the front, and a broad verandah;
the main house of two stories in height, and a series of rambling
extensions, of a story and a half, extending in the rear; stables and two
barns not far away—in all, an air of comfort and prosperity, if not of
great means. The land on which the house stood overlooked the river, now
gleaming with the harbour lights of many vessels, and some small ponds
along shore.
They entered at the big front door, stepping into a wide hall that ran
the entire length of the first floor of the main part. The hall ended in
a wall in which a huge open fireplace, built of the stones taken from the
land, now gave forth a blazing welcome.
But they did not linger long before this inviting blaze, for old Mammy
Stevens had them all out in the dining-room before many minutes. This
room was equally cheery, with a hearth fire snapping and singing there,
also; and there sat young Joe, gloating in anticipation over an array of
good things, including the heaped up platter of corn fritters, with a
pitcher of syrup squatted agreeably close by.
They fell to and ate till Mammy Stevens’s face lighted up and shone like
a piece of polished ebony; and she laughed and chuckled till she was
almost white to see young Joe tuck away corn fritters and country
sausage. And all the while they were making merry and enjoying comfort
and warmth, Jack Harvey, not far away, on the bug-eye, Brandt, was
climbing into his bunk, wet from his drenching, and sore from the blow
Haley had given him.
A vessel, seen from the old farmhouse, anchored in near shore the
following afternoon, but it had no special interest in the eyes of the
newcomers, nor had it as it sailed away again when the fog had lifted.
“Cap’n,” queried Jim Adams, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing
the stem of it forward in the direction of the stranger who stood by the
foremast, “what’s happened? What have we got him for?”
Haley shrugged his shoulders and squinted one eye, significantly. “Bill’s
in trouble again,” he answered. “This fellow and a pardner tried to get
away. The pardner got it a bit hard—Bill had to put him ashore below in
St. Mary’s. This one goes, too, when we get a good chance to land him
where he’ll be a long time walking up to Baltimore. Oh, it’s all right,
so long as the two don’t get together. The pardner can’t make any more
trouble by himself.”
Jim Adams, rightly construing Haley’s remarks to mean that the “pardner”
had been badly hurt, perhaps crippled—or worse—and had been landed in
some convenient spot away from any town, resumed his pipe, and asked no
more questions. But he added, as he surveyed the muscular frame of the
man forward, “He’s a sure enough good man at the winders, I reckon. I’ll
make him earn his board and lodgin,’ if he stays.”
Jim Adams grinned, and showed his fine, white teeth.
“You’re the boy to do it,” commented Haley.
It was afternoon, and the bug-eye, Brandt, was coming up to the Patuxent
for a night’s harbour. Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, eyeing the stranger,
who remained sullenly by himself, felt a depression of spirits as they
noted the appearance of the man. His bruises and the fresh scar, and
indeed the very fact of his being there, were evidence to them of the
cause that had brought him aboard. They had become familiar enough with
the ways of the dredging fleet to know what it meant.
What the stranger thought of them, no one would ever know. But theirs was
perhaps not altogether a favourable appearance by this time. There was
less of incongruity in the dress of Tom Edwards now than when he had
begun work. Daily toil at the dredges, drenching in icy spray, the wear
and tear of the life aboard the Brandt, had wholly obliterated whatever
of newness and stylishness there had been to his clothing. He had taken
on the shabby, rough, wretched characteristics of the ordinary dredger.
His one collar had long ago been discarded. He looked the part into which
his ill fortune had cast him.
Nor had Harvey fared better. His clothes were torn and worn and
discoloured by the salt water. His face, like that of Tom Edwards, was
reddened and roughened and weather-beaten. His hands were roughened and
scarred from hard work, with the broadening and flattening at the finger
tips acquired through handling the heavy iron dredges and through
knotting ropes.
The two friends were still depressed with the disappointment of their
failure to make their escape, but they were not hopeless. They talked of
it whenever they dared, and planned for another attempt when opportunity
should offer.
The bug-eye ran up into the mouth of the river, and came to anchor off
the northern shore, that being the lee with the wind from the northwest.
It lay about half a mile out from the Drum Point shore and about the same
distance to the eastward of Solomon’s Island. There was little sign of
life or habitation on the land about the light-house, save that Harvey
noticed one large house which set up on the hill, overlooking the
surrounding country. But the many lights on Solomon’s Island and the many
small craft at their moorings close to its shore indicated that there was
quite a settlement there. Later in the evening, there came out to him,
once or twice, with the wind, the sounds of jigging music, as from banjos
and fiddles; and once he thought he heard, faintly, the sound of a piano,
played noisily.
These suggestions of freedom and of merriment, though borne to him all
indistinctly, filled Harvey’s mind with the old longing to escape. He
could seem to see the interior of the town hall, perhaps, whence the
sounds came; the lamps about the sides of the room; the fishermen’s
daughters waiting for partners for the dance; the fiddler at the end of
the hall, calling off the numbers. He had seen the like away up in
Samoset bay, and had taken part in the fun.
He looked down at the side of the vessel, where the black water of the
bay tossed gently, and away off to shore, indistinct save where a light
gleamed here and there. There was the icy sting and nip of winter in the
air. The water looked forbidding. It was out of the question to think of
swimming—and, besides, there was Tom Edwards whom he could not desert.
But, for all that, Harvey turned in for the night with greater reluctance
than ever before; and he lay for a long time, uneasy, not able to sleep.
It could not have been very late in the night, though he knew not the
time, when he roused up from a light slumber. Something had awakened him.
The picture he had fancied of the dance hall ashore leaped into his mind,
and something seemed to impel him to turn out and take another look.
Then he thought he heard some slight sound over his head on deck.
Grumbling at himself at his seeming folly, he stepped out on to the
forecastle floor and went softly up the companion ladder to the deck.
He was dressed, for he had turned in with his clothes on, as usual. But
the night air chilled him, and he shivered as he crept out and looked off
toward the land. He turned his collar up about his throat, and stepped
over to the side of the vessel.
An instant, and he was conscious of someone near. He turned just as a
figure leaped out at him from the shadow of the forecastle. Harvey was
quick and strong. Realizing a sudden peril—he knew not what—he darted to
one side as the figure sprang toward him, and struck out at the same
moment with his left arm.
He was not a second too soon. There was disclosed to him the tall,
swarthy stranger they had taken aboard that afternoon. The man, his arm
uplifted and holding an open knife in that hand, made a lunge at him.
The blow missed Harvey, and his own blow, aimed at random, caught the
man’s shoulder and stopped his rush. At the same moment, the man
recognized the boy and stood still and silent, peering at him, wondering
and surprised.
Harvey, alert to the situation, thought quickly and spoke—in a half
whisper.
“Don’t strike me,” he said. “If you want to escape, I’ll help you. I’m
not to blame for your being here.”
The man did not reply, but he seemed to understand. Yet he was not taking
all for granted. He stepped to Harvey’s side, holding the knife
threateningly. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and peered into his
face. Then he put a finger to Harvey’s lips and raised the knife again.
Harvey nodded. “I’ll keep quiet,” he whispered. “What are you going to
do, swim?”
The man clearly did not understand what Harvey had said, but he caught at
the one word.
“Swim,” he repeated, and nodded. “Swim. I swim.” And he made a sweeping
gesture with one arm.
Harvey nodded his head vigorously, as if to indicate his sympathy with
the attempt, and further emphasized it with a shake of his fist in the
direction of the captain’s cabin. The man seemed assured. His lips parted
in a half smile, which changed to an expression of anger and fierceness
as he in turn shook the hand that clutched the knife in the direction of
Haley’s quarters. Then he thrust the knife back into his belt.
Another thought came swiftly to Harvey then. If he could only get a
message ashore by the man—that is, if the stranger should succeed in what
seemed an almost hopeless attempt. But how could he make the foreigner
understand? He stepped close to him, stretched out his left hand and made
the motions of writing upon the palm of it. Then he pointed to himself,
to the man and to the shore.
“Take a letter for me,” said Harvey. “A letter,” and he again made the
motions of writing.
To his surprise and delight, the man repeated the word “letter” plainly,
and himself made the motions of writing with his right fore-finger upon
the palm of his left hand.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Harvey. “Take a letter ashore for me?” And he
pointed again toward shore.
The man nodded. Harvey pointed to the forecastle, repeated the gesture of
writing and looked at the man inquiringly. The man nodded once more. But
again he drew forth the knife, put a finger to his lips and made a
significant gesture. Harvey understood. He stepped forward, put out his
right hand to the man, and the stranger grasped it. It was a compact he
understood. Harvey stole softly down into the forecastle.
He roused Tom Edwards, who asked drowsily what was wanted.
“Tom,” said Harvey softly, “be quick. Find that little order-book with
the pencil in it that you had when you came aboard. You stuck it up in
the bunk somewhere, weeks ago. The man we took aboard this afternoon is
going to swim for shore. Hurry, Tom, he may be gone while I’m below
here.”
Tom Edwards fumbled about and produced the book—one of the few things
that had been left to him in the rifling of his pockets—left to him as a
thing of no value to the men who had trapped him. Harvey seized it
eagerly and ran up on deck again. The man was still there.
There was no light to write by, but there was no time to be lost. Harvey
tore a page from the book, took the little pencil from its leather
socket, laid the paper down on top of the forecastle house and held his
face close down to it. The white patch was sufficiently discernible
against the wood to enable him to scrawl a few words. He wrote:
“I am trapped out aboard the bug-eye Z. B. Brandt by Capt. Haley. Send
word to Benton, Maine.
“Jack Harvey.”
He folded the scrap of paper and handed it to the swarthy stranger. The
man took it, held it for a moment as though deliberating, then removed
the cap he wore, tucked the paper within the lining and replaced the cap
on his head. He had taken off his heavy shoes, which he proceeded to tie
across his back, with a line passed across one shoulder and under the
other arm-pit. He had stripped off his coat and held it now in one hand,
doubtfully.
He looked across to shore, shook his head as if to say that the distance
was too great to encumber himself with the weight of the garment, even
though tied across his shoulders. He threw it on the deck with a gesture
of disappointment, and stepped to the side of the vessel.
Harvey followed, and again put out his hand. The man grasped it, and they
shook hands warmly. Harvey would have given half his store of hidden
money at that moment to have been able to wish him good luck in a tongue
that the man could understand. But he slapped him on the shoulder, and
the man understood that. He made a sweeping gesture of farewell, swung
himself off noiselessly into the icy water and began swimming away, with
long, powerful strokes.
Instinctively, Harvey reached down and put his hand into the water. Its
coldness fairly stung him, hardened as he had become, with work at the
dredges. He stood, shivering, with the cold of the night intensified by
his excitement. It seemed as though no human being could live to get to
shore in that water. But the man kept on.
“He must be a fish,” muttered Harvey. “I hope he sticks it out, but how
can he?”
The stars twinkling coldly overhead gave little light upon the water. But
the figure moving slowly away was discernible some distance. Harvey
watched it until the tiny black speck where the man’s cap showed faded
away and was lost to view. Harvey’s teeth was chattering. His eyes
smarted and watered with the strain of peering through the darkness. He
longed to call out, to know if the swimmer still lived. But he turned and
crept back to his bunk, giving the news to Tom Edwards, who shivered at
the very thought of it.
“Poor chap, he’ll never get to shore,” he murmured. “But he’ll die game.”
Up in the big house that overlooked the Drum Point lighthouse, in a
chamber room, a young man of about thirty sat reading before a fire. A
clock ticking in one corner indicated the time of night as half-past
eleven. The man paused in his reading, yawned and stretched comfortably,
arose and stepped to a window facing the harbour.
“What a glorious night!” he said.
He stepped back and sat down again.
A strange thing, unseen by him, had happened down at the shore toward
which he had looked. Something moved, like a great fish, in the water, a
rod out from the land. It sank once almost out of sight, then thrashed
the water and struggled in desperately. A man, feeling the solid earth
under his feet, stepped out upon the shore and staggered as though about
to fall; caught himself; then fell; but arose and walked unsteadily in
the direction of the light from the window.
The young man who was reading suddenly sprang up from his chair and
listened. There was a muffled rapping at the door below. The man threw up
the window and put his head out.
“Who’s that? What do you want?” he called.
A reply, unintelligible, came up to him. He closed the window and turned
toward the door of the chamber.
“It’s the same old story,” he said, with a touch of indignation in his
voice. “Some poor chap from the dredging fleet, I suppose—beaten up, half
starved, and trying to get back to Baltimore.”
He descended the stairs, lighted a lamp and went to the door. When the
lamp-light fell upon the figure that stood before him, he started back,
thunderstruck. A man, drenched to the skin, ghastly pale, shivering,
almost speechless, his tangled, dripping hair falling about his eyes,
stood there. He stretched forth an arm, appealingly, and almost fell.
The man with the lamp caught him with one arm and assisted him within;
half dragged him out into an old-fashioned kitchen, where the man slumped
all in a heap before the fire. The man of the house, setting down the
lamp on a table, went to the closet and brought out a cup; filled it with
coffee from a pot that set back on the stove, knelt by the stranger’s
side and, rousing him up, held the cup to his lips and made him drink.
The man shivered, sat up a little and uttered the one word, “Swim.”
The other uttered an exclamation of anger.
“It’s a shame! A cruel shame to treat men so they’d rather die than lead
the life they do aboard the dredgers,” he cried. “How far did you swim?”
The man shook his head, indicating he did not understand.
“Well, no matter,” said the other, compassionately. “I’ll fix you up. But
you’ve just come through, and that’s all. You’re pretty near being a dead
man.”
An hour later, the stranger, wrapped in warm blankets, his ragged
garments drying by the fire, dozed, while the man of the house stood,
watching him.
“Well, he’s all right now,” he said. “I’ll turn in and let him sleep
there for the night.”
But the man suddenly moved, sat up on one elbow and then struggled into a
sitting position. He fumbled at his head and said something in a foreign
tongue. He gesticulated, and pointed down toward the shore.
The young man laughed.
“Well, I declare if you aren’t worrying about a cap,” he cried. “I know
what you mean—lost your cap, eh? Well, you ought to thank your stars you
didn’t lose your life. We’ll get the cap to-morrow, if it’s down by the
shore. To-morrow, see?”
The man repeated the word “to-morrow,” and shook his head as vigorously
as he could. “No to-morrow,” he repeated. And he struggled to his feet.
Wrapping the blanket about him, he started doggedly toward the door.
“Well, confound you for an obstinate mule!” exclaimed the young man. “I
don’t wonder you got ashore, with all that stubbornness. Go lie down
again. Hang it, if you’re so worried as all that about your old cap, I’ll
go look for it.”
Half angry, half amused, he took down a lantern from a hook, lighted it,
and went out into the darkness. In a few minutes, he reappeared. In his
hand he held a bedraggled, shabby fur cap, that bore more resemblance to
a drowned cat than any article of wear.
“There’s your cap, you mule!” he exclaimed, and threw the wet object down
upon the floor.
To his surprise, the man caught it up eagerly and, turning it inside out,
felt within the lining. He uttered a little cry of disappointment as he
drew forth a piece of wet, torn paper. He dropped it on the floor and
drew out two other pieces. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked up
at his rescuer, helplessly.
The young man stooped and picked up the pieces of paper.
“Aha! I see,” he said. “There was a method in your stubbornness after
all. Let’s look.”
He held up the pieces of paper and turned them in his hand. He took them
to the table and placed them on an earthen platter, with the torn edges
joining. Then he whistled with surprise. The paper, wet and torn, still
bore, blurred and barely readable, written words. He made out the
message:
“I am trapped aboard the bug-eye Z. B. Brandt by Capt. Haley. Send word
to Benton.
“Jack Har—”
The remainder of the last name had been torn away. They searched for it,
but it was not to be found.
“Whew!” exclaimed the young man. “Another case of shanghaiing. Well,
there’s enough to work on. I’ll have to look into it, though I suppose
it’s not much use. When a man gets out there, it’s hard finding him. I’ll
save the paper, though, and dry it out.”
And then he added, eying the stranger with a different expression,
“You’re a good sort, after all. You’re a true blue comrade to somebody.
Hang it! I wish you could talk the United States language.”