and soon came back with a headgear which Charles compared to a Russian
Jew’s turban, but Henry said it looked like a knight-errant’s sun-bonnet.
Then Steve, not wishing to be outdone, said it was one of Father Time’s
cast-off nightcaps. Then, having fitted it, whatever it may have been,
to Henry’s head, and pinned it fast to his coat collar,--he had first
changed coats with George, and turned his neck-tie wrong side out,--the
plotters declared that he was admirably disguised, and they set forward
in high spirits. However well Henry might plot, they were not adepts in
the art of disguising; and this strange garb, far from concealing Henry’s
features, served only to attract the attention of passers-by.
But they had not gone far when Henry pulled his Scotch cap out of his
pocket and put it forcibly on his head. Then Charles mildly suggested
that if a handkerchief were tied so as to pass over one eye, Henry might
stroll through the streets of his native city without danger of being
recognized.
“Well,” Henry said, reluctantly, “if you can tie it to give me the
appearance of a wounded soldier, go ahead; but if it makes me look like
an old woman sick with the neuralgia, I’ll--I’ll--no, you mus’n’t.”
A handkerchief had no sooner been tied over Henry’s eye so as to suit
all concerned, than it occurred to Stephen that one amendment more was
needful to make the disguise complete.
“Your ears are peculiar, Henry,” he said, “and very pretty. Now,
Marmaduke always notices people’s ears,--at least, I _guess_ he does,--so
let me pull the flaps of the sun-bonnet clear over them.”
But good-natured Henry was only human,--or perhaps if his ears were so
pretty, and somebody else had said they were, he did not wish to hide
them,--and now he turned his one blazing eye full upon the boy, and said,
almost fiercely: “Stephen, let me alone! I can barely manage to work my
way along the road, as it is! Don’t you know, Steve,” he added mildly,
“that it is hard enough for a fellow to get along in this world with all
his five senses in full play?”
“It is too bad for Henry to go all the way there and back twice in one
day,” Charles kindly observed. “Couldn’t we manage it for him to go only
once, say in the afternoon, and then wait till Marmaduke and the rest
come on?”
“No; I want to go now, with you all;” Henry said, firmly. “Suppose
that I should take a pailful of supper with me, and not go till the
afternoon--what if Marmaduke shouldn’t come, after all! Something might
happen, you know, that he could not or would not come; and then,” putting
on a comical smile, “I should have to stay in that dreadful haunted house
for who knows how long?”
“Yes, it is better for Henry to get familiar with the old ruin while we
are with him--I mean, it is better for us to go with him,” Will said.
“Then to-night, about half an hour before Marmaduke and the rest of us
start, he and Stephen will leave in advance of us, with a bundle of
disguises and lanterns; so that when we, the rescuers, arrive, the place
will be lighted and the captive clothed properly.”
“And the priest shaved,” Steve chimed in.
“Exactly,” Henry commented. “And, Steve, I can meanwhile drill you to act
the part of a priest, shaved or not shaved. Don’t fret about the extra
travelling, boys,” he added; “for if my boots dilapidate while I’m here,
I’ll add them to the pile of rubbish in ‘Nobody’s House,’ and patronize
one of your shoemakers.”
In due time the plotters arrived before the house. It was no longer the
grim wreck described to the reader at the time the boys first visited it.
No; thanks to their industry and ingenuity it was in much better repair;
and, yes, it looked very much like--like a prison?--no! very much like a
gigantic hen-coup.
“Why,” Henry cried in pleased surprise, “I wasn’t so far out of the way
after all when I ventured to write about its being fortified equal to a
fortress! But say, boys, where did you get the iron bars for the windows?”
“Irons!” Charles echoed, in ecstasy. “If _you_ take ’em for iron bars,
Marmaduke certainly will! No, Henry; no iron there; nothing but painted
laths nailed on. We had two good reasons for putting on those laths;
first, because in nailing up a crack every pane of glass left shivered
itself all to flinders, and therefore the empty window-frames had to be
hidden; and next, we put them there to make the place look like a grated
prison.”
“And they do;” declared Henry, stripping off his “disguise” and heaving a
sigh of relief.
“Yes, and they made _me_ nail on all their laths,” said Stephen, “because
I was foolish enough to say I could straddle a window-sill and whittle
out a steamboat, or do anything else. You see that top window to the
right?--Well, I was sitting there, struggling to drive an obstinate nail,
when suddenly I pitched head over heels down to the ground!”
“Hurt yourself?” Henry inquired.
“No-o-o; but their hammer disappeared and lost itself ever since!” Steve
chuckled.
“Stephen wouldn’t consider that he was in a post of honor,” Charles
observed, “and when the hammer could not be found, he said, ‘serves you
right.’”
“I guess _you_ would have said it, too, if _you_ had had _your_ best
coat-pocket and flap torn off on a nail that YOU pretended to drive!”
Stephen wrathfully retorted.
“What? Did you have an encounter with a nail in your way down?” Henry
inquired.
“I did.”
“Steve didn’t tell us about all those losses,” Charles commented; “but he
said he was going home, and he went.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard about the coat-pocket,” the Sage observed.
“Hurrah! where did you make the acquaintance of this awful door!” Henry
exclaimed. “It--it looks like the door of a castle in the air.”
“No, Henry, it’s too strong for that,” Will corrected. “That door used
to be our raft; but we had to make a door, and there was nothing else to
make it of; so we hauled it up stream, pounced on it, and tore it all to
pieces.”
This was too true. The gallant old raft, which had served so useful a
purpose as a source of amusement, had been sacrificed by the remorseless
plotters to fill up the gap in the front doorway. But they, in their
eagerness to further their daring scheme, would not have hesitated to
destroy anything to which they could lay claim.
“It was too bad to waste a good raft on this old hen-house,” Henry
observed.
“Oh, a prison without a door would be rather too much for even
Marmaduke;” Will replied. “And the timbers of the raft are here yet, and
we can build it over again next week.”
“Henry,” said Stephen, who had quite recovered his equilibrium, “it is in
front of this door that the sentries do the patrolling, and ground their
muskets, and----and----what else do sentries do, George?”
“Will,” said Henry, grimly, as his eyes roved over the yard, or orchard,
“I guess it would need several pretty smart and nimble sentries to
prevent any one from escaping from _this_ ‘inclosure.’”
Then they opened the door and passed in. By the way, there was something
very remarkable about that door--so remarkable, in fact, that the writer,
who has had great experience in the building of playhouses (don’t look
for this word in a dictionary, O foreigner, but ask any little boy to
interpret it for you,) here pauses to note it. Though made by boys, it
not only played smoothly on its hinges, but even entered the door-case,
and admitted of being fastened!
“It must have cost you fellows a good deal to fit up this old hulk,”
Henry remarked, as the boys showed him proudly through the house.
“Cost!” Stephen exclaimed warmly. “I should think it did cost! Besides
that hammer that I lost, an old worn-out axe perished somewhere around
here, after Will had hewed a pair of new boots all to pieces while
dressing the new door. Among the five of us, we’ve worn out two suits of
clothes, and made three hats ashamed of themselves, just since we started
to tinker up this prison house. I’ve used all the salve and plaster in
our house, and the day before you came I got another cut. That reminds
me, Henry, when Will hewed his new boots he cut his big toe nearly clean
off--come here, and I’ll show you the bloody mark.”
“Never mind,” said Henry. “I’ve just noticed, Steve, that the doors and
walls and windows are thick with bloody gore.”
“Well, it’s all ours,” Stephen declared. “We’ve broken a band-box full
of old tools and things, and destroyed all our jack-knives. We have used
heaps of nails, and--and--all sorts of things. Henry, we have suffered!”
Really, in heroism and fortitude these boys equalled the ancient
Spartans; for they would have encountered any danger, undergone any
hardship, to secure the success of their plot. Yes, they toiled as if
they had a better cause in view.
The “Imposter” was next unearthed. It excited Henry’s liveliest
admiration; and Steve said, as they deposited it in its hiding-place,
“we’ll make it hot for you to-night, you old Atrocious Scoundrel, you!”
“Why, this is Mr. Atrocious Scoundrel, isn’t he, boys?” Henry said,
beaming with delight.
“Of course he is,” the rest answered promptly.
But hold! Did not the letter state that this personage was away from
home, that is from the prison? Surely, here was an oversight! Here was a
quicksand! In good truth, the plot was too much for those boys to manage,
and it had turned their brain.
_It had turned their brain._ Mark that, gentle reader, for it may help
you to understand what is to follow shortly.
A guilty look was on Jim’s face whilst the boys spoke thus, but it
escaped their notice. No, they did not suspect that there was treachery
in the camp--least of all, that Jim was the traitor.
Then Henry donned his various “disguises,” and the little band of little
plotters set out for the village. But Henry had not taken fifteen steps
when he stumbled headlong over a submerged wheel-barrow (submerged in
dense grass and rank weeds, gentle reader) and fell heavily.
“What the mischief!” he ejaculated. “Is this a demoralized sentinel, or a
trap set by the hobgoblins?”
“It’s a wheel-barrow, Henry,” Will explained, “that belongs to this
place.”
“Oh it _belongs_ here, does it?” Henry asked, struggling to rise.
“Yes, it’s a _fixture_, Henry, a _fixture_;” piped up Steve, who had
stumbled upon this word in a time-worn document a few days before.
Then Henry essayed to trundle it out of the way; but its wheel howled so
piteously for grease that he desisted, saying in disgust, “Why this is as
rusty and as worthless as an heir-loom.”
“Oh, we mostly turn it upside down and straighten nails on it,” Steve
said, deprecatingly.
“Now,” said Henry, as they strode on, “when you rescuers come, I shall
be just behind the front door, and Stephen will be in another room or
up-stairs.”
“All right,” replied one of them.
As they were proceeding towards home, Will suddenly espied Marmaduke
walking leisurely up the river. Although they had prepared for such
a contingency they did not expect it. Did they put faith in their
“disguise,” and advance calmly to meet him? Not for one moment! Instantly
the greatest consternation prevailed, and they stopped and stared at each
other in blank hopelessness.
“Oh, this is awful!” groaned Charles. “Our--plot--”
“Is ruined!” Steve gasped.
“O dear!” sighed Will. “Henry, do--do you suppose--”
Marmaduke continued to advance, and presently he hailed them.
Then Will lost all control of himself, and cried wildly: “Oh, Henry, we
must run for it!”
“Yes, Henry; unblind your eye, and _run_!” Steve counselled.
The Sage, who had just hit upon a stratagem to get out of the difficulty,
endeavored to restore order. But he was too late, as usual; and so,
seeing that the boys were bent on flight, he had sufficient presence of
mind to shout: “Split, boys, split; so that when Marma--”
But Henry had already torn off the handkerchief, and he and the other
demoralized plotters were flying as though pursued by a regiment of
light-armed Bélître Scélérats.
When Will and his relative gained the security of their own chamber, the
latter said frankly: “Well, there is a lot of nice fellows here, and I
like them well.”
“Yes,” said Will, “but you haven’t seen Marmaduke yet!”
“Will, I never ran away from anybody before--and this fellow is only a
harmless and innocent schoolboy!”
_Chapter XXXV._
MARMADUKE GRASPS THE SITUATION.
Early in the afternoon, according to agreement, the boys betook
themselves to the banks of the stream. Here Marmaduke was to be
entrapped. Henry, with his peculiar “disguises” still about him was
securely hidden in a tree, from which he would be able to see and hear
the whole performance.
Charles had spent the noon in making himself tolerably familiar with
the letter, which he now had in a bottle in his pocket. The others were
gathered round the tree which was Henry’s hiding-place. Stephen was not
with them, he having gone to look for the victim and induce him to come
to the river.
Just as the plotters were beginning to fear that Marmaduke would not
come, after all, he and Stephen appeared, striding along towards them.
They were then all excitement, knowing that if their plot succeeded it
would be now or never. Charles quietly moved a few rods farther up the
river, and concealed himself behind a convenient bush.
At this the enraptured reader is heard to mutter that along that
extraordinary river all the bushes seem to grow just where they will be
most convenient.
“Hello, Marmaduke! how are you?” Will asked, in friendly tones.
“Hello, then! Boys, I’m vexed; how is it that you shun me, and run away
like shooting stars whenever you see me?”
“Well, old fellow, let us make up friends, and have no more hard
feelings,” Stephen said cheerfully.
Marmaduke did not know why there should ever have been any “hard
feelings;” but, not wishing to press the matter, he heaved a sigh of
relief, heartily said “all right,” and sat down among them.
Then they were at a loss to know what to talk about. But finally Will hit
upon the topic of mowing-machines, and then each one was called upon to
give his views. Then the conversation flagged, and for full five minutes
there was silence, during which Marmaduke tranquilly pared his nails,
while the plotters looked at each other in growing uneasiness. Where
could Charley be? Why didn’t he fling the bottled letter into the river?
“Boys, what are your plans for the holidays?” Marmaduke suddenly
inquired.
At that instant a faint splash, the bottle striking the water, was heard
by Jim.
“There it is!” he blurted out.
The plotters knew what he meant, though the dupe certainly did not.
Nevertheless, it seemed to them that such blunders must be put down; and
accordingly they bent their brows, and cast such annihilating glances at
the offender that he quailed, and felt decidedly “chilly.”
Will arose and said, “Let us stroll up a little way.”
All cheerfully agreed to this proposal, though Marmaduke probably
thought that by “stroll” Will meant a tramp of perhaps three or four
miles. They had taken only a few steps when all except Marmaduke saw the
bottle floating lazily along. The question was, how should they draw his
attention to it without arousing suspicion?
Stephen was equal to the emergency. Stooping, he picked up a smooth
stone, gave it a legerdemain fling, and it shot forward, performing all
sorts of whimsical gyrations. As Stephen had foreseen, all the boys,
Marmaduke included, observed every movement of the stone from the instant
it left his hand. Then he repeated his trick with a second stone, and lo!
the second stone fetched up very close to the bottle! In order to keep up
appearances and carry out the deceit, he was about to cut a geometrical
curve with still another stone, when Marmaduke exclaimed, “Boys, what is
that floating down stream! It looks like a bottle.”
Crafty Stephen! His ruse was entirely successful.
“It _is_ a bottle!” Jim cried, in _intense_ excitement. “A bottle! A
floating bottle! Isn’t that very strange, boys?”
“Yes, it’s rather curious, but it isn’t a natural phenomenon, so don’t
make so much stir about it,” Will said, fearing that Jim might overdo the
matter. “I’ll strip off my clothes and swim after it, boys, unless some
of you would like to take a plunge into the water.”
“Let us go out on our raft; that would be the proper way to get it!”
declared ceremonious Marmaduke, not knowing that the raft had been turned
to better account. “Come; the raft isn’t much farther up; let us get it
out, and we can soon overtake the bottle.”
Ah, plotters! your troubles were beginning already!
“Pshaw!” cried Stephen, in seeming disgust. “It would be a loss of
time to go up stream to sail after a wayfaring bottle like that. But
we must get it, of course.----Now, hello, who is this fellow whistling
and paddling on a home-made punt across over from the other shore down
towards us? ’Pon my word, it’s Charley, without his clothes on! No;
they’re strapped over his shoulders. Well, this is funnier than Jim’s
wonderful bottle!”
Stephen’s astonishment was not feigned, for the boys had not planned
how Charles was to rejoin them after setting the bottle afloat, and his
sudden appearance in this guise was a great surprise to them all.
On Marmaduke’s arrival, Charles had paddled across the river on a stout
plank, launching the bottled letter on his way, and drifted down by the
opposite bank till abreast of the boys. Then, having turned his rude
canoe, he struck out for them boldly; and the inference was that the boy,
being on the right bank of the river and seeing his comrades on the left
bank, had hit upon this semi-savage means to join them. Thus Marmaduke
never suspected that there was any connection between Charley and the
floating bottle.
But Jim felt insulted at Stephen’s last words, and he muttered sullenly:
“_’Taint_ my bottle! _I_ never put it there!”
“You look like an alligator, Charley;” Marmaduke hallooed. “Where do you
come from?”
“Oh, I’ve been prowling around,” Charles shouted back.
“There’s an old bottle about opposite us,” Stephen yelled; “heave ahead
and bring it here; we want to see what it means.”
“The raft would be the best to get it,” Marmaduke murmured.
Ah! if he could have known that the plank bestridden by Charley was the
foundation timber of their late raft!
“You see that our plot is working!” Stephen mumbled in the Sage’s ear.
“He will believe it all!”
Charles directed his barge to the mysterious bottle, seized it, and then
worked his way to his companions on the bank. While he unstrapped and
huddled on his clothes the bottle was passed from one to another.
Marmaduke, who had hitherto taken only a languid interest in the matter,
exclaimed feverishly, on seeing that the bottle held a paper, “Give it to
me! It’s mine, because I saw it first!”
In a trice he had the paper out, and was endeavoring to make out
its contents. As these have already been given, it would be only a
wanton waste of time and foolscap for the reader to reperuse them with
Marmaduke. It might afford a hard-hearted reader considerable amusement
to hear his absurd interpretations, but it is both unwise and immoral
to laugh at the mistakes and the ignorance of others. It is sufficient,
therefore, to say that the great difference between Henry’s style and the
style of teacher Meadows’ Method bewildered the young student.
Charles waited impatiently to read for him, while the rest moved down
the river and took up their stand under the old tree in which Henry was
ensconced.
Marmaduke and Charles soon followed, and presently the latter ventured to
say, “Perhaps I could help you, Marmaduke.”
“No you couldn’t; it’s French, and I understand French just as well as
you do,” was the ungracious answer.
“Oh, is it? Well, perhaps if we should put our heads together we might
be able to decipher it; for,” he added, truthfully enough, “I’ve taken a
great interest in French lately, and studied it tremendously. But, say,
how did French get into that bottle?”
“Let me alone; I understand French;” Marmaduke growled, becoming more and
more bewildered. But at last, after ten minutes’ unceasing study of the
letter, he turned so dizzy that he was fain to give it up in despair.
“Here, read it, if you can,” he said, handing it to Charles. “All I can
make out is that it speaks of nobles, and steamboats, and castles, and
anchors, and priests, and sailors, and an English king’s yacht, and
America, and pumpers, and--and--castles, and--and General Somebody--.”
Charles had made himself tolerably familiar with the letter, but he could
not yet read it very readily. However, his memory served him well, and he
managed to get the main points. But after all the time and learning Henry
had squandered on the letter, it was too bad that it should be “murdered”
thus. Marmaduke listened eagerly, too much absorbed to wonder how it
was that Charles could read so much better than he. As for the other
auditors, to all appearance they were at first more startled than even
Marmaduke.
“Well, boys,” said he, as Charles folded the letter, and wriggled
uneasily in his damp clothes, “well, boys, you jeered at me about the
bones, but at last we have stumbled upon romance! Here is something
mysterious!
“Boys, let us solve the mystery! If we were only gallant knights of old,
what glorious deeds we should perform!”
The speaker strutted up and down as pompously as a schoolboy can, while
the plotters exchanged villainous winks, and glanced eloquently at the
boy in the tree.
“Read that again!” was the command, and Charles dutifully obeyed, the
dupe listening as eagerly as at first. The others made no remarks, but
endeavoured to look grave and horror-stricken, while the master-plotter
overhead was highly entertained.
“Oh, the monstrous villain! How durst he steal away a French noble’s
daughter?” Marmaduke exclaimed vehemently. “And she, the heroine, how
bravely she endures her lot! What a heroine!”
“Well, what shall we do about it?” Will asked, anxious that Marmaduke
himself should propose going to the rescue. Foolish plotters! they
supposed he would strike in with their views without any demur!
“Why, we must send it to our Government; it is a fit subject for our
new President to deal with. There will be negotiations about it between
France and America; we shall become known all over the world as the
finders of the letter; and finally the illustrious prisoner will be
delivered with great pomp. Yes, boys, we must write to Washington
immediately.”
The plotters were appalled. Marmaduke was rather too romantic. He viewed
the matter too solemnly.
There was silence for a few moments, and then Charles said quietly, as
though it made little difference to him what steps Marmaduke might take,
“I hardly think that would be the best way, Marmaduke, because, as you
say, there would be negotiations between the two countries, and the
imprisoned lady might remain a hopeless captive a long time before the
business could be settled and herself set free. We are too chivalrous to
let her pine away in solitude; and besides, by rescuing her ourselves our
renown would be increased millions!”
These words, (especially the last dozen of them), so sonorous, so
eloquent, so logical, had a telling effect on Marmaduke.
“You are right!” he exclaimed. “Yes, my brave companions, we will to the
rescue! We may revive the days of chivalry! Now, who will dare to go with
me?”
Then those wicked plotters laboured to suppress a burst of laughter, and
declared that they would all “dare” to accompany him on his hazardous
expedition.
Henry in the tree looked on in wonder. “What sort of a boy was this! He
talks like a sixty-year-older!” he muttered; “well, I didn’t expect him
to bring on the heroics till he met me as ‘Sauterelle,’ O dear! this limb
isn’t so comfortable as it used to be.”
“Oh, what a glorious day this will be for us!” the enraptured one
continued. “The emperor will dub us all knights! I must have that letter,
Charley; but read it again first.”
Charley did so, but the letter was growing decidedly monotonous to him.
“Boys,” said Marmaduke musingly, “it seems to me that there are hardly
interjections enough in it--no expressive ones at all, and, you know, a
good Frenchman never says _anything_ without several strong interjections
and expletives.”
“If she was a French soldier, that would be quite right,” Charles
admitted carefully. “But, she is the daughter of a noble duke.”