after an absence of some days, in charge of Hugh Chapin, an intimate
friend of his. He could with difficulty sit upon his horse, and was
apparently suffering severely. He stated that he had been injured by
the accidental discharge of his pistol, but that, as the ball had
only inflicted a flesh-wound in the shoulder, it would soon heal. The
explanation was plausible, and no one doubted his word.'
"'Was there any mark upon the ring by which you could identify it?'
"'On the inner-side, below the centre-stone,' I answered, 'was the
letter P, in Roman characters, and above it was some fine scroll-work,
and close observation would show the name of Susie, in minute
lettering, amidst it; any one gazing upon it in an ordinary manner
would fail to perceive it. My mother's maiden name was Susan Palmer,
and this ring was presented to her by my father previous to their
marriage. I feel sure that an inspection will prove my description to
be true, although I have not seen the jewel since I lost it except upon
your daughter's hand.'
"'I am satisfied,' said my companion; 'I have seen the initial P, as
you describe it, but as it corresponded with my Helen's family name,
I thought it intended for it. I can readily identify the larger of
the two men, and the one who inflicted the blow that nearly cost your
life, in the person of a resident of a farm-house some three miles from
us, one Hugh Chapin, a bachelor and the almost inseparable companion
of Dr. Wentworth. I have never been pleased with this intimacy, for I
have felt an aversion to this man from my first knowledge of him. As
I could give no reason for it, I have said little to Wentworth on the
subject. They came here about the same time, four years ago, and Dr.
W., displaying considerable skill in his profession, soon acquired a
good practice, and has enjoyed the confidence of the community. This
Chapin purchased the house and farm he now occupies soon after his
arrival, and has always seemed to have the command of money, although I
learn that he is but an indifferent farmer, and often absent from home
for weeks together. I employed Dr. W. in a severe illness I had some
two years ago, and after I recovered he was much at my house, and Helen
saw much of him. He proposed for her hand, and at first she seemed
inclined to reject his suit, but, thinking the match a desirable one, I
persuaded her not to do so. I have since often fancied that perhaps I
did wrong in thus using my influence, as she has since their betrothal
seemed loth to accord him the privileges of an accepted lover. His
profession has often called him away, but I now see it may have
frequently afforded an excuse for an absence in which were performed
deeds too dark even to contemplate. The sheriff of our county is a
brave, shrewd man, and I will lay the facts of this case before him,
and we will devise the best means of bringing these men to justice.
I need not point out to you the wisdom of silence; we have cunning
knaves to deal with, and must use care, so they may gain no clew to
our intentions. Knowing that you had been intrusted with three hundred
dollars to pay into my hands, I have wondered at your silence on the
subject; but your explanation has made all plain at last. It will be
difficult to dissemble in the presence of this scoundrel, Wentworth,
I know; yet for a brief time we must submit to the infliction of his
presence, and allow him to visit Helen as heretofore.'
"When we returned to the house, my heart was lighter than it had been
since my arrival at N----. I will pass over the record of the next
few days, for nothing of importance took place. The judge and myself
held frequent consultations with the sheriff in my host's office;
care being taken that these meetings should attract no attention.
The doctor was occupied with his patients, as the warm weather was
developing disease. Once only had his confederate, Hugh Chapin, made
his appearance in the village. I had seen him as he rode up the street
to the door of Dr. Wentworth's office, where dismounting, and securing
his horse, he entered. I would have given much to have been a private
spectator of their interview, but only remained book in hand in my
seat at the window. You may be sure I comprehended nothing printed
upon the page before me. Not many minutes elapsed after Chapin came
forth and rode away, ere the sheriff dropped in upon us. The moment he
made his appearance, I saw, by the twinkle in his eye, he had pleasant
intelligence to communicate. Glancing around to see that we were alone,
he cast himself into a chair, giving vent to a gratified chuckle. 'We
have them at last,' said he, 'thanks to the intelligence of the boy
the doctor employs to wait upon him, and whom I frightened and bribed
into playing the spy. A nice plot of robbery has just been concocted
by the two worthies closeted up yonder. Old Seth Jones to-day received
a payment upon the farm he sold Thompson, and will take it to Pollard
whose place he has purchased; having to travel some twenty miles of
bad road, it will be dark before he can reach his destination, and
Chapin and Wentworth are intent upon relieving him of his money; the
rocky gully between Harrison's and Thompson's is the point selected for
operations; and I, with my men, shall take care to be there in time to
have a hand in the game.'
"That was an anxious evening for me. I sat with Helen and her father
until after ten, and, despite the efforts we all made, the conversation
languished. I saw she felt a weight upon her that she could not cast
off. As I gazed upon her face, while she bent over some feminine
employment, I could perceive the great change that had been wrought
in her in the few weeks I had known her. She had grown thin and pale,
and a look of suffering had taken the place of one of cheerfulness. I
asked myself if it could be that I had awakened her love, and that she
had discovered this fact and allowed her betrothment to Wentworth to
eat like a canker at her heart. I felt an almost irresistible desire to
tell her how dear she was to me, and that if she returned my affection,
all would be well with us. By a powerful effort, however, I choked back
the words that trembled on my lips, and retired to my chamber, where
I alternately paced the floor and sat by the open window until near
morning. The night was intensely dark, and I could distinguish only
the outline of the trees upon the lawn. It was three o'clock, and a
faint streak of light began to illumine the eastern horizon, when I at
last heard the tramp of horses upon the bridge that crossed the stream
down the valley. I could control my impatience no longer, and, opening
my door, descended the stairs with rapid feet, but the judge fully
dressed was before me in the hall, proving that he, too, like myself,
had impatiently awaited news of the result of the sheriff's ambuscade.
We hurried down the street, and, in the dull light of the dawning day,
met a party of six men having Hugh Chapin in charge. He was securely
bound, and riding upon a horse in the midst of his captors. I noted the
absence of Wentworth at once, and felt the most bitter disappointment,
but soon learned the occasion of it. In an attempt to escape, he had
been shot through the head, and was then lying dead at a farm-house
near the scene of action.
"I can now condense into a few sentences what more I have to relate. On
being confronted with me, Chapin made a full confession of his own and
Wentworth's crime. It was he who struck me upon the head as I fired at
his companion, and, after binding up Wentworth's wound, he robbed and
then conveyed me to a lonely part of the stream and cast me in; my long
insensibility had cheated them into the belief of my death.
"Helen made no pretext of regret at the awful judgment that had
overtaken her betrothed; on the contrary, her face now wears an
expression of repose which the dullest observer could not fail to
perceive. Need I add that I had a long conversation with her last
night during which she acknowledged her affection for me, and promised
to be my wife provided her father sanctioned our wishes. The judge has
since listened to my petition with a pleased smile, and answered that
in due time we should be made happy.
"When our nuptials are performed, then will end my western trip and its
attending romance."
THE TWO GHOSTS OF NEW LONDON TURNPIKE.
THE TWO GHOSTS
OF
NEW LONDON TURNPIKE.
[Illustration]
There is a certain ancient and time-honored institution, which,
in the advancement of recent discoveries and the march of modern
improvements, seems destined soon to pass from the use, and then, in
natural sequence, from the memories of mankind. For even the highest
type of civilization is prone to ingratitude, and drops all thoughts
of its best agencies as soon as it has outlived its absolute need of
them. Towards this Lethean current, whose lazy waters glide so silently
and yet so resistlessly along the borders of the Past, gradually
undermining and crumbling away the ancient landmarks and the venerable
institutions known and loved of the former generations, the whale-ships
are already drifting.
For year by year, as they set sail with their hardy crews, every
succeeding voyage took them nearer to the court of the Ice King, the
chill of his breath grew deadlier, and the invasion of his dominions
more desperate. But, lo! when Jack Tar was almost at his wit's end,
a cry arose upon the prairie, and the disciples of commerce dropped
their harpoons and left their nets to follow the guidance of the new
revelation. Jets of oleaginous wealth sprang and spirted, and blessed
was he whose dish was right-side-up in this new rain of pecuniary
porridge. Instead of the old launchings and weighings of anchors,
came the embarkation of all sorts and sizes of solid and fancy craft
on the inviting sea of speculation, and men ran hither and thither,
outrivalling the tales of the bygone voyagers, by stories of vast
fortunes made in a day, and of shipwrecks as sad as any on the ocean.
And so, in place of dingy casks and creaking cordage and watery perils,
there sprang up the reign of pipes and drills, and for the laden ships,
black and oozy with their slippery cargo, we began to have long trains
of bright blue tanks speeding over all our western railways; and the
whaling vessels, with their smooth, tapering sides, and blowsy crews,
and complicated mysteries of rigging, seem already like forsaken hulks,
hopelessly stranded upon the shores of antiquity.
But all this belongs to the Present, and any such prophecy uttered in
the days with which our story has to do would have been regarded as the
wildest of ravings. For then the whale-ship was a reality and a power,
the terror of all mothers of wayward boys, and the general resort of
reckless runaways and prodigals. The thought that it could ever be
superseded by any undiscovered agency had not yet made its way into the
heads of even the sage prognosticators who studied the prophets and the
apocalypse, and were able to dispose of all the beasts and dragons,
and to assign them appropriate places in the future, with the utmost
certainty and satisfaction.
It is certain that no such forebodings startled the complacency of two
young men who sat, in the gathering twilight of a mild spring evening,
on a fragment of drift-wood in a little cove of New London harbor, with
the waves sweeping up almost to their feet, and the western sky still
flushed with the departing glory of sunset.
They were a stout, bronzed, muscular couple, loosely clad in the common
sailor-suits of the period, and both with the shrewd, resolute cast of
countenance that distinguished the irrepressible Yankee then no less
than now. The darker of the two was the more attractive, for he had
the jolly twinkling eye, and gayly infectious air that goes with the
high animal temperament, and always carries a bracing tonic with it
like the sea-breeze. Wherever John Avery came, all the evil spirits of
dulness and mopes and blues, that conspire so fearfully for the misery
of mankind, had to give way, and one burst of his spontaneous merriment
would exorcise the whole uncanny troop. John was a born sailor, with
all the dashing frankness, and generous, hearty temper characteristic
of the class, and not deficient in the faculty for getting into scrapes
that is also an invariable endowment of his prototypes.
The other was a less open face, sharper in its outlines, and with
more angles than curves. Had it been less kindly, it might have been
the face of a rascal, and yet an artist could easily have idealized
it into that of a hero. For all these variations and contrasts of
characteristic expression, that have such influence among us, are,
after all, wonderfully slight affairs, and a few touches either way,
upon the vast majority of faces, would give a seraph or a demon at the
shortest notice. The bright, plump countenance of Jack was an open
book, known and read of all men, while that of his cousin Philo was a
study far more perplexing, and in the end less satisfactory. But the
conversation of the two was sufficiently plain.
"Sails on Thursday, does she, Phil?" said the cheerful voice of John
as his practised eye sought out a certain ship from among the crowd of
vessels in the harbor.
"All hands aboard at nine o'clock's the order," replied Philo, taking
off his cap, and turning his face to the wind.
"And the Sally Ann don't sail till Saturday. I say Phil, old fellow, I
wish we were going together," cried John with one of his bursts.
"It's better as 'tis," said Philo, thoughtfully. "There's a better
chance for one of us to come back, you know, than if we were in the
same ship."
"'_Come back._' Why, of course we shall come back,--that is, I
hope so, both of us. That wasn't what I meant. I'd like you for a
shipmate,--that's all," was the eager response.
"Yes,--I understand," answered Philo. "We shan't both come home, _of
course_; but there's hopes for both of us, and a pretty strong chance
for one of us at least."
And then a seriousness fell upon the cousins, and for many minutes they
sat and watched the tide creeping up to them like the lapping, hungry
tongue of some slow monster, thinking such thoughts as will sometimes
come unbidden to the heart of youth, and become more and more intrusive
and importunate as we grow older.
These boys were offshoots of a sturdy Puritan stock, and the pluck
and backbone of their ancestry suffered no degeneracy in them. John
had been an orphan from infancy, and had grown up in an atmosphere
of loving kindness and tender mercy under the auspices of his Aunt
Betsy,--Philo's mother. She it was, who, in view of his orphanage,
had winked at his boyish misdemeanors, indulged his naturally gay
disposition in every way that her strict and somewhat barren orthodoxy
allowed, and when his sea-going propensities could no longer be
controlled by the mild influences of her molasses gingerbread and sweet
cider, she had made him a liberal outfit of flannel shirts and blue
mixed hose, and, tucking a Bible into the corner of his chest, bade him
God-speed on his first voyage.
It was with some surprise that she saw him come back from a three
months' cruise, with no more serious damage than a scar across his
forehead; but still she felt reproached at the sight of it, and on
Jack's next start rectified her previous neglect, by sending Philo
along with him in the capacity of mentor and protector,--an office
which she, in the devotion of her heart, would most joyfully have
undertaken herself if the art and practice of navigation could have
been adapted so as to admit of the services of an elderly lady. But
becoming convinced of the utter impracticability of this plan, she
wisely settled herself down to be comfortable with tea-drinking and
knitting-work, with great confidence in Philo's sobriety and force of
character, as applied to preserve her darling Jack from harm; for Aunt
Betsy, like many other excellent people, was not free from favoritism,
and her adopted son was the child of her affections, while Philo had
the secondary place, and was expected to consider it his highest
happiness to fiddle for Jack's dancing, and otherwise to hold the
candle in a general way for the benefit and pleasure of that superior
being. Had Jack been less jolly and generous, or Philo less amiable and
forbearing, this maternal arrangement would have been a fruitful source
of jealousy and contention; but the two natures were so fortunately
balanced that even the one-sided weight of Aunt Betsy's partiality
worked no such derangement of the family peace, as might have been
supposed. The boys had made three short voyages together, and were now
about shipping for their first long absence in different vessels only
because Philo's superior education and business aptitude qualified him
for the position of supercargo, which had been offered him on board the
Skylark.
Philo was already developing the great Yankee trait of penny-catching,
for even then he had saved quite a pretty sum out of the very moderate
pay of a foremast man in those times, and this, in addition to his
patrimonial inheritance of a few hundred dollars, made a nice nest-egg
for the fortune that he hoped to realize in late life. Jack, too, had
his property interest, for he had just come to man's estate in the
eye of the law, and his little property, carefully hoarded, and with
its due interest had been, only the day previous, paid into his hands
in good gold, accompanied by much sound advice and the warmest good
wishes from his benignant guardian, 'Squire Tupper, who, thanks to
Aunt Betsy's interposition had found him the most dutiful and least
troublesome of wards.
Philo renewed the conversation by inquiring whether Jack had thought
of any particular mode of investment, and stating his own intention
of purchasing an interest in the Skylark, if on his return it should
appear advisable. But the former topic appeared to push itself uneasily
uppermost, and he soon came abruptly back to it,--
"I shall do that thing if I live to see home again; and, if anything
should happen that I don't, I want my money to go to you, Jack, except
half the income, and that I want to have settled on mother as long as
she lives."
"You'd better say all the income, and the principal too, for that
matter, Phil," cried the hearty Jack, with a little break in his voice
at the last words.
"No," replied the cousin, soberly. "There's enough besides to keep the
old lady comfortable as long as she lives, and more would only worry
her. If she gets something to show that I didn't forget her, it'll be
better than if she had it all to take care of; and she'll be just as
well suited to have it go to you."
"But think of my getting what Aunt Betsy ought to have," remonstrated
Jack, sturdily.
"It's best," said Philo.
"And to hear you talk as if you was bound straight for Davy Jones'
locker," pursued Jack.
"I shan't go any straighter for talking about it, as I know of,"
answered Philo, looking steadily towards the dim horizon as if his fate
lay somewhere between the water and the sky.
"Well, then," shouted the impulsive Jack, "if it must be so, I'm glad
I can match you at the other end of the same rope. You're as likely to
come home as I am, and, if I'm never heard from, all I've got shall go
to you."
"Then we'd better make our wills in form, if that's your wish," said
Philo, rising from the log.
"We'll make all fast to-morrow," remarked Jack, cheerfully; "though it
makes one feel queer to be doing such business at our age."
"It can't hurt anything; and we're no more likely to meet with bad luck
for having things in ship-shape," replied Philo, as they walked up
towards the little town, whose twinkling lights winked like fireflies
out of the darkness.
"Let's do it to-night, and have it over," exclaimed Jack, who found
an unpleasant creeping sensation gaining upon him as he dwelt on the
subject.
"Well," said Philo.
The cousins turned into the main street of the village, now a busy
mart of business, but in those days broad and grassy, with a row of
respectable gambrel-roofed houses, each with its liberal garden at
the side. Pre-eminent in respectability was the abode of 'Squire
Tupper, with its large, clean yard, small, patchwork-looking windows,
and ponderous brass knocker, which disclosed the terrific head of
some nondescript animal in most menacing attitude. Upon this brazen
effigy Jack sounded a vigorous rap, since 'Squire Tupper was the prime
magnate and authority of the small town, in all matters requiring legal
adjustment; and any well-instructed resident would as soon have thought
of having a funeral without the minister as of making a will without
the advice of the 'squire.
The summons was answered by a pretty blonde girl, dressed in the nicest
of blue stuff gowns, the whitest of muslin tuckers, and with her
pretty feet displayed to advantage by fine clocked stockings and neat
morocco shoes. All these little matters and her dainty air gave her the
appearance of a petted kitten, or, rather, of some small, ornamental
image, made of cream candy, and kept in a Chinese doll-house.
She turned rosy at sight of Jack, who came instantly out of his solemn
mood, and, in the frank, saucy way habitual to him, swung his arm
around the neat waist, and, spite of some tiny remonstrances and vain
struggles, planted a big sailor kiss right in the centre of the demure
mouth. All this was natural enough; for, besides being the 'squire's
ward and connected in that sort of cousinhood which extends to the
forty-ninth degree of consanguinity, Jack had now regularly "kept
company" with Molly for several months, and all his Sunday nights on
shore were piously devoted to "settin' up" with her in the prim, sanded
best parlor, where it is not to be supposed that he abstained totally
from such "refreshment" as Mr. Sam Weller was accustomed to indulge
when opportunity offered.
But his demonstrativeness served to discompose Molly's ladyhood on this
occasion; and the presence of Philo with his business-like face added
so much scandal that she disengaged herself as quickly as possible from
Jack's audacious grasp, and, with such dignity as a white kitten might
assume in the presence of two intrusive pups, ushered them into the
family "keepin'-room," and withdrew, as if she wished it understood
that she washed her hands of them and their kind from that time forth.
But Jack slipped out after her, and probably made peace; for they
returned together,--he very brisk and shining, and she blushing like
Aurora.
Philo, however, meant business, and said as much in plain terms, that
set Miss Molly into a perfect maze of conjecture as she went to call
the 'squire. Her only solution of the mystery was that Jack had now
come for the momentous _pop_, toward which events had been tending;
and that Philo had accompanied him in the character of second. She
felt a little piqued that she had not been able to bring him to the
point herself; but then it was certainly very straightforward in him
to come right to her father in that way; and so the little lady rushed
out to the wood-pile in a perfect flutter of delicious perplexity, and
imparted the fact that the two young men had called _on business_, with
such decided emphasis that the 'squire immediately took the cue, and
prepared himself to be especially benignant and paternal.
Relieved of Molly's inspiring presence, Jack felt all the solemnity
of the affair returning upon him, and, as is usual with these strong,
mercurial natures, it loomed before him more and more grim and ghastly,
till, by the time that the 'squire made his appearance, he had become
almost persuaded that his last hour was really approaching. This state
of mind imparted to his countenance an expression of such touching
melancholy as made the old gentleman take him for the most despairing
of lovers, and wrought upon his sympathies amazingly.