STORM-STAYED.
Files of newspapers, already yellowed, can give the reader, who cares
for details of such events, long accounts of the famous gale that
suddenly lashed the western Atlantic to a fury of destruction in the
autumn of 188–. It swept the rocky coasts of New England with a power
that recent tempests have seldom equaled. Fishing-smacks, merchant
craft of stalwart build, and yachts, belated in their return home,
were dashed by dozens on the reefs of the Middle and Eastern States,
swallowed up by the terrific sea that ran at its highest for days
together, or, like empty soap-boxes in surf, were driven to shore. The
death-list of seamen and others, unfortunate enough to be at the gale’s
mercy or mercilessness ran well up into the hundreds. Nor was that all.
For scores of miles inland travel was interrupted by wash-outs and
cavings-in, on highways and railroads. The telegraph and mail-service
were suspended in a dozen directions. Bridges were flooded or swept
away as if by spring freshets. In the harbors and straits such tides
swelled as made the oldest inhabitants of the villages along them shake
in their shoes to hear measured and compared. For four days sheets of
rain descended about Chantico with only brief pauses, and when the
down-pouring from overhead lightened and at last ceased the wind and
ocean were things to send dread into the spirits of even cool-headed
skippers and spectators.
With every thing in the way of communicating with their friends brought
to a stand-still, paralyzed, Philip and Gerald waited on Chantico
Island, in company with the Probascos, and watched the whirling and
seething clouds and sea. Obed, however, was not able to be with them
very often after the second morning. His rheumatism awoke when he did,
and it kept the poor man much in his bed and in pain enough to put
other dilemmas out of his sympathy. Mrs. Probasco nursed him; “ran”
the house; sat for half hours with Touchtone and Gerald, chatting
cheerfully and telling long stories of her and Obed’s younger days,
when they had lived on their parents’ farms, some miles back of
Chantico. She kept a watchful eye on Gerald’s convalescence, and
generally was like Cæsar in having “to do all things at one time,” and,
like the mighty Julius, she did not complain of the situation.
The resources of the farm-house, except for Mrs. Obed’s lively talk,
were modest in such an emergency. One could not put his head out of
the door except the wind nearly blew it off. But any thing must needs
have been of a wonderfully distracting sort to beguile, for Philip
Touchtone, at least, hours that he knew must be costing their friends
great suspense or deep grief. There was a backgammon-board, with the
legend “History of England” on the back, deceiving nobody. Gerald
found amusement in another quite astonishing pastime, entitled, as to
its large and gaudy label, “The Chequered Game of Life: A Moral and
Instructive Amusement for Youth of Both Sexes. By a Friend to Them.”
“I wonder if it is meant for us?” Gerald asked when he unearthed this
ancient treasure. “I never heard of ‘youth of both sexes’ before. I
thought people had to be either boys or girls.”
Philip partly spent one morning in teaching the solemn cat sundry
tricks (much against patient pussy’s will), which afternoon showed she
had not given herself the slightest trouble to remember. With Gerald
at his elbow, to add accuracy to his notes, he “wrote up” his diary,
which had been abiding safely in his traveling-satchel. The partial
changes of linen and the convenient odds and ends that their satchels
contained were of truly unexpected value now that their trunk was in
the bottom of the sea, with the rest of the _Old Province’s_ baggage.
Mrs. Probasco took the opportunity to put their limited clothing into
thorough order.
“Next time I come away on a short voyage I think I’ll pack all the
things in my closet into a hand-bag!” Gerald exclaimed, ruefully,
taking stock of their resources.
“Or send the trunk by land?” laughed Touchtone, grimly. “I’m glad,
though, that there was nothing of downright value in the trunk that
we couldn’t replace. When we get to Knoxport we can get a wardrobe
together directly there, or wherever Mr. Marcy and your father advise.
How lucky you didn’t put that daguerreotype of your mother in!――the one
that is to be copied.”
“Yes,” answered the boy, seriously; “it was lucky. Papa would have felt
as badly as I if that had been lost. It’s the only one we like.”
Touchtone could see that this prolonged separation of the boy from
his father, in more than one sense, would bring them nearer to each
other than they ever had been before. “And a precious good thing,” he
soliloquized. “The best way to keep some fellows chums seems to have
somebody give them both a sound shaking now and then. Perhaps this sort
of thing for Gerald and Mr. Saxton amounts to that.” In spite of the
resolute silence of Gerald, for the sake of his friend, on the great
topic of his father’s or Mr. Marcy’s whereabouts and conclusions,
Philip (who certainly did not try to introduce it) knew that most of
the time Mr. Saxton was in Gerald’s mind.
“Do you know what I think?” he said abruptly, once, looking up from
the backgammon-board, after having thrown his dice and placed his
men abstractedly during several turns. “I don’t believe that I’ve
appreciated papa very much, nor that he has appreciated me very
much――till now.”
Obed Probasco’s hobbling entrance for supper and a new study of the
weather saved Touchtone’s answer to a statement that it struck him came
peculiarly near to the truth, and to a very common state of matters
between near relatives.
They rambled over the old farm-house, the wind roaring and the
rain dashing about the eaves and windows. Philip possesses to-day
a substantial reminder of this exploring, in the shape of a bright
copper warming-pan, one of two that had belonged to “Grandmother
Probasco,” which now hangs in restored glory in a place far from that
dusky nook it occupied for so many years. The discovery of a rat in
the wainscot of the kitchen, within convenient range of the dresser
where Mrs. Probasco was accustomed to stand her hot bread and pies,
gave occupation to all the household, including Towzer (“You _will_
call that dog Towzer when you _know_ his real name’s Jock,” frequently
remonstrated Mrs. Probasco) for a while the second afternoon. In the
evening Obed took to telling tales of a certain uncle of his who had
been “a seafaring man of oncommon eddication,” and that chronicle
whiled away the hours till bed-time, and sent them to bed sleepy into
the bargain; the history recounted being of a mild and long-winded
sort, and chiefly connected with the efforts of the nautical ancestor
to induce “a widow that lived on Cape Ann” to exchange a little piece
of ground she owned for a big fishing-smack that she didn’t want,
a wedding being part of the proposed transaction. They became, by
hearsay, quite familiar with the quaint Chantico people and their
characters and ways. For, although Mr. and Mrs. Probasco were so aloof
from the little port, several of their kith and kin lived thereabouts,
and household supplies and queer chapters of gossip came thence to
the island. Philip remembers in these after years, as one sometimes
does things heard in a dream, the anecdotes and homely annals that he
listened to (or rather half-listened to) during those days. Sometimes a
curious name that happens to be read or mentioned will bring back the
scenes of that week, and even the wearisome, hoarse noise of sea and
storm from hour to hour.
By mutual consent, all questions of how far their detention from
Chantico might affect their plans were pushed aside, unless Gerald was
out of ear-shot. And, in any case, what could they determine?
But it does not seldom occur in this conversational world that when
every subject seems exhausted people hit upon one that is to turn
out the most important. This experience of “talking against time,”
as it might be called, with the friendly Probascos gave Touchtone an
instance of the fact which he has always thought satisfactory enough.
It was Gerald Saxton who, in the evening of the last day of the gale,
unintentionally set the ball in motion by a careless remark.
Obed happened to be out of the room for the sake of his efficacious
bottle of “lineament.” They had been speaking of the island-farm――how
fertile it was, how easily cultivated by Obed and by the extra help he
employed at certain times of the year; of the commodious old dwelling
that the couple had so long occupied that it was only at the days of
rent-paying that they realized themselves still tenants and not owners.
“You see,” said Mrs. Obed, holding up her darning-needle to re-thread
it (making a very wry face in the process), “we’d ’a’ bought the island
long ago, Obed and me――though there’s a pretty steep price for it,
disadvantages considered――but there’s incumbrances as to the title;
an’, besides, when Gran’f’ther Probasco dies (that’s my gran’f’ther
over to Peanut Point)――he’s feeble, _very_ feeble――Obed an’ me’ll have
to take his farm and live there. It’s a real sightly place, an’ the
land’s splendid. But it’ll be a hard pull for us to leave the island
after spendin’ so much of our lives here.”
“I should think so,” assented Gerald. “I don’t see why that Mr.
Jennison you speak of――the one who partly owns the old place
still――don’t come over to take a look at it now and then, in the
summers. I should think he would like to.”
The face of the farmer’s wife changed.
“Mr. Jennison isn’t the sort of man to care about that,” she replied.
“He does come――sometimes. As it happens, husband kind o’ expected him
this very month, on some errand he wrote about last July. There’s a
hull roomful of his things up-stairs.”
“A roomful of his things!” ejaculated Philip, remembering the locked
door.
“Yes; when he was a young man an’ used to visit oftener, we got in the
way of keepin’ a chamber up-stairs that wasn’t no use to the family
of us, as a kind o’ store-room for him. There’s quite a good many old
articles o’ furniture an’ trunks and papers. He says they aint o’ any
use, though they belonged in the family. He asked us to let ’em stay
till he settled somewhere. He aint settled yet.”
“Doesn’t he live anywhere?”
Mrs. Probasco gave a cough. “I guess you might best say he lives
every-where. He’s a roving gentleman, by his own account.”
“Then, I suppose, he’s generally in New York, and makes that his
head-quarters,” suggested Gerald. “My father says people who live out
of New York most of the time always say that. Is he a broker?”
“I don’t know just what his business is,” returned Mrs. Probasco.
Philip surmised that interesting facts as to Mr. Jennison lurked about.
He decided not to interrupt Gerald’s thoughtless catechism. “Sometimes
his business seems to be one thing, and sometimes another,” the
farmer’s wife concluded.
“I’d like to see him.”
“I don’t think you’d be specially taken with him,” dryly returned Mrs.
Obed. “But he might happen here before you get off. He goes all over
the country in long journeys. Sometimes Mr. Clagg――that’s the lawyer
over to Chantico――don’t know his address for weeks.”
“And he’s really the last of the Jennisons, you say? What a pity he
don’t live in this old place himself, and keep it up, for the sake of
the family.”
Mrs. Probasco examined a stocking carefully.
“Yes, it’s a pity. But I don’t much think he could. Mr. Jennison isn’t
married, an’ he isn’t rich, you see, nor――”
Just then Obed’s strong voice came from the door-way where he had been
pausing. “Look here, Loreta,” he exclaimed, banteringly, “I should
think you’d feel ashamed of yourself to sit there an’ try to pull the
wool over their eyes! Where’s the use? I know you’ve a considerable
loyal feelin’ to the Jennisons, but you needn’t carry it so far. The
fact is, boys,” he continued, sitting down in his arm-chair with some
difficulty――“the fact is Loreta an’ I have come to the conclusion that
our Mr. Winthrop Jennison’s grown to be a pretty shady and suspicious
sort of character. His life an’ his business seem to be matters that
honest folks needn’t inquire into too closely. There, Loreta!”
“Now, Obed!” retorted Mrs. Probasco, in great annoyance, “you oughtn’t
to say that! You don’t know, for certain, any more than I do.”
“May be I don’t know so much. May be I know more――more even than I’ve
let on, my dear! For one thing, I haven’t ever yet given you the
particulars of what Clagg told me that last afternoon I went over to
pay the rent an’ learn if Mr. Jennison’d come from Boston.”
“Mr. Clagg? What did Mr. Clagg say, Obed?” asked the wife, her work and
the boys forgotten in her sudden anxiety. Evidently the mysterious Mr.
Jennison was a standing topic of debate between the pair. “How _could_
you keep so still about it?”
“Well, I’ll let you hear now,” Obed replied, good-naturedly, with a
wink at Philip, and in some enjoyment of the situation; “but wait.
Before I do I’m going to tell the boys here what you know already.
Then they’ll understand the rest of my story better. You see, Mr.
Touchtone,” he began, “Mr. Winthrop Jennison grew up without father or
mother, an’ he was first sent to one boarding-school, then to another,
by his uncle, for whom he was named――who owned this place till he
died. Mr. Winthrop was a wild kind of a boy, from the first. I guess
he wasn’t so downright bad, but he was wild, an’ easy led into bad
scrapes. There was two or three we heard of, before his eddication an’
his law studies was done. Then his uncle, that was his guardian, died;
an’ Mr. Winthrop was sent to Europe. He’d used to come here quite often
in the summers before that. Wife an’ I thought a good deal o’ him, an’
wanted to keep up his interest in the place. But in France and Germany
he altered a good deal, an’ spent most of his money, an’ when he got
back to New York he hadn’t much. He couldn’t well sell this place, or
he wouldn’t, so he always said. At any rate, that wouldn’t have been o’
much use. At last, Mr. Clagg found out he gambled bad, an’ that he’d
got into a set of men in the city that was shady enough to turn him
into a real blackguard if he didn’t look out! Mr. Clagg talked a lot to
him an’ straightened out his money-matters for him, and then he come
away from New York and started into practicin’ law in Boston.”
Touchtone listened with interest quite as much as Gerald, to whom this
was an exciting sketch from real life, which, as later he would find,
alas! has so many like it. But the next paragraph of Mr. Winthrop
Jennison’s discreditable history made Philip’s attention suddenly
sharp, and a flush of color came into his face.
“We heard these things an’ lots more about him, better or worse, mostly
worse. Wife and I wondered at ’em and was sorry. But whenever he come
over here, no matter what he might be further inside, Mr. Winthrop was
always a perfect gentleman, not a bit dissipated-lookin’, exceptin’
his bein’ generally very pale; and we rather liked his visits. He
seemed pretty well tired out when he was here. He’d shut himself up in
his room, or take a boat an’ go fishin’. Wife an’ I think he’s stuck
so to the place as a kind of a refuge an’ restin’-place for him when
things don’t suit him. He’s a nice-lookin’, pleasant-spoken man, of, I
dare say, forty, only he don’t look his age. Well, after he’d been in
Boston a while he broke loose again with a hull set of his worst chums.
The papers said there was a forgery he and they was all mixed up in
together. And when he come here, the same summer that Mr. Clagg knew
about, then we found out that he’d got as many as a half dozen names
and two or three post-office addresses.
“But there was worse to come. One afternoon, in September, he and some
o’ the evilest-faced and best-dressed fellows I ever see come to the
island from off a yacht. They all sat down there by the Point talkin’
and wranglin’ till sundown. Then Mr. Jennison went off with them in the
boat, only comin’ up here a minute to say how-d’-do to Loreta here.
Loreta was more afraid of him than glad to see him, for all the soft
spot in her heart.”
“I wasn’t afraid of him, Obed, but I wasn’t glad to see him,” protested
Mrs. Probasco. “I was sure that no man could keep that kind o’ company
and seem on such good terms with ’em, and be any longer a credit to
his stock.”
“A credit to his stock!” mocked Obed. “That’s your usual mild way o’
puttin’ it. She’ll take the man’s part, more or less, till she dies,
boys, mark my words! Well, the very week after he and his party landed
here, that afternoon, there came a big noise about a robbery of a bank
in New York, that all the papers was full of; an’ the parties that
managed it planned the hull affair in a yacht they’d hired, an’ they’d
expected to get off safe in it when the thing was over. ’Twas a little
before your day, Mr. Philip――the Suburban Bank robbery at a place close
to New York――”
The Suburban Bank robbery! Touchtone caught his breath excitedly.
Gerald nearly betrayed his friend by his unguarded look at Philip. But
it was dark now, and the storm was boisterous. Obed pursued his tale,
unobserving and quite forgetful of any names that he might have read
long ago. “Mr. Clagg said that the description given durin’ the trial
of those bank-scamps fitted some of Mr. Jennison’s friends ashore that
day to a T. I’d taken some good looks at ’em from behind my salt
haystacks. Well, after that, wife, here, she kind o’ give up about Mr.
Jennison. You felt terrible bad, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” Loreta assented, soberly, “though we couldn’t never make
up our minds that he was actually any nearer mixed up in the thing.
You’d ought to say that,” she added.
“You’ve said it for me,” Obed returned. “That’s enough.”
His regret and shame at such disgrace to the blood of the Jennisons was
as strong as his wife’s, slightly as he expressed it. He continued his
story rapidly:
“Well, the very week the bank was broken into he arrived here one
mornin’ suddenly, an’ he stayed here a couple o’ days. We remembered
that later, in the trial; an’ from here he went off to Canada. Next
thing Mr. Clagg knew he’d given up all his law business, whatever it
amounted to, an’ was doing something, or nothing, in New York again. We
scarcely saw him after that. He’s come less and less often, as wife may
have told you――once a year, once in two years. He was last over here in
the spring. An’ now I come to what Clagg was a-letting on to me the
other day, Loreta.”
“I hope, I hope, Obed, that it’s nothing worse than what’s come
already?” interrupted Mrs. Probasco.
In spite of any new and unexpected interest in Obed’s account of the
black sheep of the Jennison line, Philip felt a touch of sympathy for
her kindly grief.
“No, it aint so bad. Yet, it’s a trifle wuss, in one way,” Obed
answered, philosophically. “There’s more ways o’ earnin’ a dishonest
livin’ than there is for an honest one, I sometimes think. But give me,
please, a square an’ fair villain! Clagg says that last year there was
a bad case, a most amazin’ one, of blackmail in New York. Do you know
what that is, wife? These boys do, I reckon. Well, this was a special,
scandalous thing, so Mr. Clagg thinks; an attempt on the part of a
couple of rascals to put a family secret into all the newspapers unless
the two old ladies they threatened would pay ’em well on to twenty-five
thousand dollars to keep quiet. They didn’t succeed. The police took
the matter up. The rogues were frightened an’ got out of town as quick
as they could, and they haint been heard of since. Clagg says he knows
to a certainty that Winthrop Jennison was one of ’em! So that’s his
last piece of wickedness, and he’s sunk low enough for that!”
“Clagg may be wrong,” replied Mrs. Probasco, sadly.
“Clagg isn’t often wrong, and this time he’s certain of what he
believes,” replied Probasco, solemnly. “Now you can understand why I
feel less than I ever did before like shuttin’ that rascal out from
under this roof, whether his grandfathers owned it or not. Now you know
why, as I told Mr. Clagg, I’d like him to take away himself an’ every
belongin’ he’s got under it. I’m through with him. A blackguard and
coward, besides all the rest of his wickedness! If he does turn up here
in the course of the next few days or weeks I sha’n’t tell him just
that; but I’m going to remind him that this island’s mine, if I pay my
rent, an’ henceforth he can stay away. What do you think about that,
Loreta?”
“I――I reckon you’re about right, Obed,” responded Loreta, meekly.
Apparently she realized there was no use a-wasting interest in so
worthless and unsafe a direction.
“A great story, isn’t it, Mr. Philip?” Probasco demanded, as his wife
rose to set supper on, but stood looking out of the window sadly.
“Yes――yes――a pretty bad one,” assented Touchtone.
He was about to add in as cool and indifferent a tone as he could
command, “I wish you could just describe this Mr. Jennison a little
more closely for me. Is he light or dark?” He cut short the question
unuttered. Gerald was present. But, lo and behold! Mrs. Loreta nearly
spoiled his generous precaution. She turned from the window abruptly.
“I’ve got a photograph of Mr. Jennison. Would you care to see it?”
“A photograph!” replied Gerald, “yes; ever so much! I’d be glad to see
what such a bad man looks like.”
“Like a very good-looking man,” returned Mrs. Probasco from behind the
supper-table. “I’ll get it just as soon as I pour this milk out.”
The light shone on Philip’s face. Gerald was looking at the cat rubbing
herself against Towzer. Philip quickly shook his head at Mrs. Probasco
and laid his finger on his lips. She nodded, surprised, but obedient.
Smash on the floor fell the large yellow bowl she carried. Obed and
Gerald and Philip started. Gerald ran around the table to see what the
calamity amounted to.
“’Taint of the least consequence,” she said; “not a bit. I aint often
so unhandy. Just hand me that broom there, an’ we’ll get the pieces
together.”
Philip gave her a grateful and amused look at her clever device, and,
passing near her, said, “Don’t talk any more about that story. Don’t
let him see the picture! I’ll explain later.”
Mrs. Probasco not only heeded his words, but found a chance to put them
into Obed’s ear. Obed looked at Touchtone curiously, as he took the
hurried hint.
“Odd!” he thought to himself. “Dare say he don’t like the little boy to
get such a story clearer in his mind. It aint such a pleasant one.”
Supper passed off, the Jennison topic avoided. They had an ever-ready
substitute for it in the weather. The storm was at last ceasing. The
rain was less, the wind shifting. Next morning might be fairly clear.
Obed’s rheumatism, however, made it unlikely that they could leave
so soon. The farmer was as anxious as they, generous-hearted fellow!
but no risks must be run. They were too many miles from the coast. The
morning would decide for them.
Gerald was disappointed of the photograph after supper. Mrs. Probasco
absented herself some time from the room to try and lay her hands on
it, “wherever she’d put it last,” but returned without it. Philip
thanked her again by an expressive look. She was a discreet woman.
Gerald was decoyed away to bed. He was wakeful and tried to engage
Philip in a murmured discussion of Obed’s story, and the possibility
of there being any thing of private importance to Touchtone in it. But
that Touchtone could not at once determine this he soon perceived; and
inferring that not much could be properly expected of it the boy ceased
talking and fell asleep.
Philip walked into the other room. He was a good deal more excited than
he seemed.
“May I see that photograph you spoke of now, Mrs. Probasco?” he asked.
“I’ve had a very special reason for keeping it from Gerald. I’m so
much obliged to you both for helping me.”
Mrs. Probasco opened the book in which she had slipped it.
“There it is. He left it in the house by accident, last spring.”
She eyed Philip sharply. He bent over it in the candle-light. It was an
imperial photograph from a leading New York studio. It is probable that
there never was taken a more unmistakable and perfectly satisfactory
likeness of the calm, handsome countenance of――Mr. “John A. Belmont.”
Philip was prepared for this certainty. But what was best to be done?
Gerald and he, storm-stayed and sheltered under the roof of their enemy
and persecutor――liable to be found there by him! They must indeed hurry
from this house at the earliest instant. If only Philip had not been
so reserved with Mr. and Mrs. Probasco as to the strange and dramatic
interference of Belmont in their plans. If he had but given them so
much as a hint at the adventure, then there would not now be so much
to disclose and explain! Nevertheless, he felt sure he had acted
prudently. Many courses occurred to him as he looked at the photograph
with his host and hostess on either side of him.
“Have you ever seen him, Mr. Touchtone, down to New York, do you
think?” asked Obed, certainly little expecting an affirmative reply.
Philip laid down the picture and turned to the couple, resolved.
“Yes, I have. I began to think so when you were finishing your story,
and that’s why I wanted it broken off and this picture kept back. I am
sorry to say it, but that man there is an enemy of mine and of Gerald
Saxton, or, perhaps, of Gerald’s father. He has given us, unexpectedly,
a great deal of trouble since Gerald and I left the Ossokosee. He would
be glad, I am sure, to do more if he possibly gets the chance. We met
him first as a Mr. Hilliard; and last, he told me to call him Mr. John
A. Belmont, of New York. I――I――am a good deal afraid of him.”
Obed and Loreta Probasco stared at Touchtone, and then at each other,
in astonishment too deep for more than the shortest of their favorite
exclamations.
“I can tell you the whole story presently. You will see. Gerald has
known but very little about it; I don’t intend he shall know much more.
But, as to the main point, if Mr. Jennison should find us here, I don’t
know what might happen. He must not find us. We are in a queer pickle,
without any worse troubles. His landing here before we can get away,
or his learning that Gerald and I have spent this time in the house
with you, would make our fix far worse, I know. We must get to Chantico
and Knoxport to-morrow, if the weather will let us even try it. And if
this Mr. Belmont――Jennison, I mean――comes here before you hear from me,
you must not let him know we were with you or in this neighborhood.
After we once meet Gerald’s people it can’t make any difference. More
still, after that, it may be, I’d like to have a chance to talk to him
myself, bad as he is. But, for the present, he must not hear our names
breathed.”
“Well, this _is_ sudden!” Obed ejaculated. “But――”
“Hush,” exclaimed Mrs. Probasco, going softly to the hall. “I thought I
heard Gerald speaking. No, he’s all right,” she returned, quickly.
“I was goin’ to say that wife an’ me had best know more about this
right away, Mr. Touchtone,” said Obed, slowly. “It’s pretty queer. If
we’re to do you any good, or, rather, not hurt your plans, you _might_
post us a little further.”
“Exactly,” Philip replied. “You shall know whatever I can tell you as
quickly as I can tell it.”
So, for two hours, while Gerald was in dreamland, the “posting”
continued. Philip told his story, but not that part of his family
history that was hard to narrate to new friends. He answered frankly
the many questions that their sympathy prompted. Once clear in their
minds, neither Obed nor Mrs. Probasco doubted the story’s truth.
“You needn’t say more, to-night at least, Mr. Touchtone,” said Obed, at
last; “we’ve heard enough――haint we, Loreta? Your story an’ mine run
about as close as stories could――more’s the pity. The weather’s likely
to be rough to-morrow, an’ my rheumatics may keep me from getting
across till next day. I shall be terrible sorry if I’m not better.
I wish I wasn’t alone. I’m pretty sure you’re fairly safe from the
chance of Jennison’s coming to the farm this week; but I aint fully
sure.”
“Well, if he does we can hide you both snug as a bug in a rug,”
declared Mrs. Loreta, stoutly.
“Precisely,” continued Obed. “Anyway, inside of forty-eight hours
you’ll be in Knoxport an’ getting word to your friends――an’ from ’em, I
hope. Make your mind easy.”
“Yes, we’ll help you all we can to straighten every thing out right,”
said his wife. “Nothing will happen to you here but we’ll know about it
an’ be ready to go through it with you and that dear boy there that’s
left in your charge. The good Lord bless him and you!”
The conversation ended. Philip went to bed, but not to sleep for a good
hour or so. He speculated and planned. The Probascos talked together in
their room assiduously enough.
The next day the sky was, to say the least, threatening, and the
sea terrifically rough for small craft. Probasco’s rheumatism was
worse――one shoulder quite crippled. Philip was not used to navigation
of the kind called for. Another day’s delay seemed unwise and
unendurable, though he gave up every thing at last. But toward evening
it was decided that the next morning, if the weather was even a trifle
improved, he and Gerald should leave, with Obed’s help, or without,
there being one or two obliging fishermen in Chantico who would bring
back the cat-boat.
Accordingly, the next morning saw the two embarking, alone. Obed could
not budge. Philip promised to exercise every kind of care, and he would
communicate with Obed, by way of Chantico, within a few days. They bid
these true, if new, friends good-bye. Philip shook Obed’s rough hand as
the farmer lay in bed suffering severely, and any thing but patient at
so untimely a set-back.
“I――I’d rather have lost a small fortune than that things should come
this way,” he declared; “an’ I’ll be in as much of a fever as Loreta
till we get word from you. I’m sure I wish you could stay a month.”
A rough and not particularly direct passage brought them safely to
Chantico about noon. It was a bright, cold day. A stage-coach ran
to Knoxport. They had exactly time to catch this. By the middle of
the afternoon they were trundling along the main business street of
Knoxport. They were set down at the door of the Kossuth House, the
largest of the few inns the town possessed.
“At last! Here at last, Gerald,” exclaimed Touchtone, in deep relief,
as they hurried into the office.