Again and again Kate Hallock reiterated the statement that only a little
while before the fog came she saw two boats lying near the island.
“The boy is safe enough at the island,” said every one of the boatmen to
whom Mr. Hallock applied for advice concerning the proper thing to do.
Mr. Hallock himself believed that Frank was there and tried his utmost
to convince Mrs. Hallock and Kate that Captain Green must have seen the
fog coming in and would, without any doubt, look after the safety of
Frank.
“I wish somebody would go over at low water and find out,” said Mrs.
Hallock; and Harry Cornwall, hearing the words, determined to go.
“Just as soon as the fog lifts, I will go myself,” said Mr. Hallock,
assuring his wife that until such time it would be unsafe for anyone to
attempt it. To find one’s way across the wide stretch of sands, crossed
a number of times by streams running from the salt meadows to the sea,
would be wellnigh impossible.
It was low water on that night at midnight. An hour before that time,
Harry Cornwall went to Mrs. Dobson’s door and told her that he was going
to try to reach the island.
In vain were all of Mrs. Dobson’s efforts to intimidate him: the
darkness had no power to do it; the fog was something the experience of
which he could not imagine; and, as for the possible quicksands into
which he might wander, he was willing to take the chances, only too
happy in the thought that by striding through danger he might be able to
relieve the anxiety at the Point.
With a lantern in his hand and matches to light it, if necessary; with a
board under his arm, as defense against a possible descent into the mud,
he set forth, followed by Mrs. Dobson’s fears, and—in the distance—by
Mrs. Dobson herself and Josh.
The Lane was narrow, or the way would soon have been a damp mystery to
everybody concerned.
Harry went hurriedly, wishing to get to the bar before it should be low
water; and he had reached the shore and plunged along fearlessly over
quite a stretch of the tide-left sands before Mrs. Dobson was a hundred
yards down the Lane. He was quite certain that he had followed the bank
in about a straight line for the bar, and was going on famously when he
found himself in a few inches of water.
“The creek!” he said to himself, delightedly. “I’m a third of the
distance already to the bar; and when I get upon that, it will be as
easy as the Lane, for I shall be fenced in with the sea.” With this
assurance he went boldly into the creek, finding the water somewhat
higher than the stage of the tide would lead one to expect. Harry had
dug clams along the border of this creek many times and felt quite
familiar with it, even in a fog—only it did seem wider than usual, as
well as deeper; in fact, he soon felt persuaded that he was going either
up the creek or down it, instead of across; but this creek seemed as
wide as it was long, and on which side lay the land it was impossible to
tell.
“I’ll try every direction,” he thought, “by turns,” and he went all
around the compass; but whichever way he seemed to turn, he always found
himself in deeper water. He tried to light the lantern, but the matches
in his pocket were already wet.
Harry was compelled to admit that he had lost his way. The situation was
anything but pleasant and very far from being a safe one, unless release
should come before the turn of tide. He stood still awhile and listened.
Reader, were you ever lost in a fog? If not, you cannot have the
slightest conception of Harry’s feeling as he stood there. If he could
wait until the next train passed, up or down, its signal whistles might
guide him, but then the tide would have been two hours rising.
All this time the board had been tightly clasped under Harry’s arm. “How
glad I am,” he suddenly exclaimed. “At least this board will float down
with the tide and I shall know which way the land lies.” He laid it on
the water, intending only to let it slip for an instant from his hand,
when lo! it vanished into the mist and the darkness. Harry tried his
utmost to vanish in the opposite direction, but it was all of no use. He
wandered about with care, only to find that the water was gaining on him
with every renewed effort. Truly, Harry Cornwall was in worse plight
than Frank Hallock when midnight came to the two lads.
Meanwhile, on the little island, Captain Green had been anxiously
awaiting the approach of low tide, that he might make the venture to
reach the mainland. He was full of solicitude regarding the whereabouts
of Frank and wished to give the alarm as soon as possible.
There was a brass cannon on the island, used chiefly to acquaint Long
Island Sound with the presence of the Fourth of July on the land.
Giving directions that this cannon be fired should news of Frank be
received, Captain Green started, in company with one of the workmen of
the mill, for the Connecticut shore. They were aided by the light of a
lantern and their guide was a compass.
During this time Mrs. Dobson, unwilling to be left alone in the
mysterious fog even for a minute, held Josh by the collar and slowly
felt her way along the Lane fence to the beach, wishing with all her
heart, as she went, “that the Lord had not made boys and men so
venturesome. Poor, dear lad!” she thought, as she stumbled along from
post to post. “He never will get there! He’ll be lost on the awful
sands! the cruel, creeping tide will draw him down. O, Harry, Harry!”
and then she was crying out to him in the thick darkness, for at last
she was come to the brink of the bank leading down to the sea-sands.
At her cry of “Harry! Harry!” Josh made one bounding leap for freedom,
which he gained with a glad bark and was off, leaving Mrs. Dobson alone.
Into the mist leaped Josh, easily following Harry, until he lost scent
at the water’s edge. Then he stopped and uttered a few barks, just
enough to reach the hearing of Harry and to gladden his heart more than
I can tell.
Harry whistled, and in plunged the dog, getting to his friend in a
marvelously short time and uttering his thankfulness at having found him
by a perfect jubilation of sound, that made the old fog-banks, landward
and seaward, echo and reecho his joy.
Captain Green and his companion had come to the land-end of the bar,
where they also heard the bark.
“Sure’s I live,” said the mill-man, “that was Josh Dobson’s bark! I
wonder what in the world he’s out on the coast for this night.”
“Somebody’s out there, lost, trying to cross, you may be sure,” replied
Captain Green, and he sent a cheery call as far into the night as his
voice would carry it, and all the time he was keeping close to the sea’s
edge, by the dim, misty light of his lantern, anxious not to lose the
water-line for an instant.
They shouted singly as they went, and they shouted together, and at
length Harry, floundering still under Josh’s guidance, heard the call
and responded. With the regularity of a fog-bell’s toll came the call
and answer, until at last Harry caught the lantern’s glimmering light,
and shortly after saw two forms, like giants, stretching out of the
misty darkness.
The joy of being found and safe was quickly obscured by the news of
Frank’s loss, which Captain Green and he together bore to Hallock Point,
having left Mrs. Dobson safe at home on the way with Josh to guard
her—although I’m quite sure no eye would have suspected that the brown
house was in the Lane that night.
The dawn came at last, but the fog was not gone. It seemed denser than
ever; boats went down the harbor and outside, but came back only too
soon, to say that it was of no use, nothing could be done,—clear weather
could alone solve the mystery.
If the day was long on the shore, it was yet longer to the lad in the
boat. He rowed aimlessly; as dinner time came he looked at the fish, a
few of which lay in the boat, and wondered if he could eat raw fish. He
varied his rowing with sitting afloat and shouting. He shouted and
shouted, until he had changed the monotony by calling “Father,” and
“Mother,” and “Kate,” and “Harry,” and every name of boy or man it
seemed to him that he had ever known; and not one, of all the number,
would give answer to his great beseeching.
As the day when on the cold increased, and the great sea beneath him
rolled in a sullen swell that grew with the cold. At length Frank knew
that another night was gathering on the face of the waters. All the hope
that with so many sails on the Sound, one must come out of the mist,
somewhere, to meet him, died out.
Poor Frank! he burst into a passion of tears. He felt forgotten,
neglected. It seemed to him that somebody might at least have tried to
find him. If it had been Kate now, and he had been on shore, why, he
would have had boats, as thick as berries, out looking for her.
Frank’s tears made him colder than ever. He took up a fish for the first
time and looked at it. With fast numbing fingers he scraped with his
knife a few scales and cut a bit of the fish, but he could not eat it,
or the deepening swells sickened him, and he cast it into the sea.
It is useless to follow Frank through the night. He prayed with all his
heart, feeling that no one but God could come to his aid. He made solemn
promises to his Maker; at last he said that he would trust Him whether
he lived and was saved, or whether he died alone in the boat. Frank
meant to do just what he had promised. The mist was drenching him now
more than ever; he tried to row, but his hands refused to hold the oars
and one oar fell from his grasp into the sea. With a despairing clutch
he tried to recover it, but it floated off on the swell and he could not
get the boat around to the rescue; so it went off, as the great world
had done, with all its light and warmth and food. Why, that pretty room
of his own in the house at Hallock Point seemed, as he thought of it,
like the loveliest place on earth, and oh! to hear Kate say “Dear Bub!”
once more, what joy that would be. How Frank remembered the loving touch
of his mother, tucking him into bed long ago. Frank seemed to remember
every sweet and pleasant thing that ever had happened to him, and with
equal power he recalled all his own bitter selfishness, and saw it, for
the very first time, in its true light.
But how cold it was growing, and the billows were heaving the little
boat up and down in a helpless kind of toss that was pitiful to think
of. The second night and nobody to find him!
Frank was too cold to care much more. He shivered and cried again and
tucked himself into a little roll down in the boat, and soon grew to be
unconscious of all that was passing. All night the tiny boat went up and
down on the sea. At midnight the fog lifted and the stars shone down,
but Frank had suffered too much to know it. At day-dawn a gale began to
blow and still the little cold bundle of boy lay in the _Clover_ and
knew not that the day had come, nor the gale, nor that a schooner had
seen what was supposed to be a boat adrift and was bearing down to pick
it up.
When Frank knew anything more, he was lying on a captain’s bed, in a
captain’s cabin, with strange faces looking on; and there was a cup of
hot soup at his lips, and somebody was urging him to “drink it.”
Very kindly, when Frank could tell his name and home, the schooner _Blue
Bell_ put into harbor at New Haven, to land him there.
“You’d better telegraph home, my boy, the instant you get on shore,”
said the Captain to him. “It won’t be a moment too soon to relieve their
minds.”
“I suppose, Captain,” said Frank, thanking him with a deal of boyish
gratitude for having been so good as to save him, and go ten miles out
of his way to land him—“I suppose, Captain, by the time you’ve sailed
home to Maine, you’ll find three or four reams of paper done up into
thanking letters, waiting for you.”
“All right,” said the captain of the _Blue Bell_.
Frank thought it would be so much nicer to witness all the pleasure and
surprise his appearance in the village would occasion—to go right in on
the first train and meet everybody. Of course! What was the use in
sending a telegram? And then suddenly Frank remembered how long the
minutes must seem at home; and the first real self-sacrifice that he was
conscious of for the good of others, was in hastening with all speed to
the nearest telegraph office, and sending to his father this message:
“I’m all right at New Haven.”
“FRANK HALLOCK.”
You may be certain that the young man who received that message did not
keep it many seconds lying in the office. No; he didn’t even wait to
write it out, but appeared on the platform of the little station with
shining visage, and announced “Frank Hallock’s all right in New Haven!”
“I’ll carry it!” cried half a dozen volunteer messengers; but while he
hastened back to put it into proper form, three lads started on a run
for Hallock Point.
Such a race as it was, to be sure! for everything was clear and bright
now, and a steam-tug had steamed up at the town wharf, all ready to
start, with orders to cruise up and down until the boy was found; and on
board the tug were Mr. Hallock and Harry Cornwall; and many a man
interested in the recovery of his neighbor’s lost boy was only too glad
to lend his presence and sympathy to the occasion.
Flying went the six feet down the highway, reaching the stone gateway
leading into the grounds at the very instant Kate Hallock and her
mother, in the phaeton, were putting Neptune to his utmost speed to try
and reach the wharf before the tug should start.
“Hurrah!” cried three cloth caps—no, three boy voices (the caps were
taking a circle around the heads and got a little mixed); but Kate, in
her hurry, could not stop and cried, “Take care!” as the nearest lad
almost pitched into Neptune’s fore feet.
“Stop, stop! he’s all right!” fairly yelled the lads, turning and
running after the ladies.
“What do they say?” gasped Kate.
Neptune felt an awful pull at his mouth, and stood still.
“Why, Frank’s found!” gasped one.
“Found!” groaned Mrs. Hallock.
“He’s to New Haven!” panted No. 2, dashing his cap on his head, and
thinking “They don’t act very glad, after all.”
“I say he’s all right!” ejaculated No. 3, “and he’s telegraphed it to
say so. The man told us so and he’s a-going to send it down.”
“Frank’s alive and safe!” repeated Kate, bursting into tears.
“Thank you, boys! Come and see me this afternoon—will you?” said Mrs.
Hallock, and gathering the lines in her hands, without waiting to hear
their answer, she drove rapidly on, anxious to spread the glad tidings
on board the tug.
Never in all his life had Neptune been so urged before to hurry over the
well-known road to the town wharf. He went flying down the hill and out
upon the wharf, Kate’s handkerchief waving as they went. But what did it
mean, that instead of the tug starting, everybody on board was hurrying
to get off? It meant that the good news had arrived a moment earlier.
Neptune was duly turned around by the head on the narrow landing-place,
and permitted to pursue his way more leisurely to the railroad station,
to await the arrival of the next train from New Haven.
When it came up to the little station, a stranger would have
thought—well, there is no telling what he would have thought; for the
platform was solid with men and boys, while here and there, amid the
number, peeped out a gladly tearful face of woman or little girl. In the
phaeton, behind the station, Mrs. Hallock waited until, held by the
grasp of his father’s hand upon his arm, Frank came around to smile and
kiss and say how glad he was to be safe again.
“Mother, I think it’s done Frank good,” said Kate, aware in some
mysterious manner that a change had come to her brother, even before he
had told out the half of his story of the fog, and the cold, and the
hunger, and the goodness of everybody on the _Blue Bell_.
O, that was the true Thanksgiving Day at the house on the Point. Mrs.
Dobson was there for dinner, and Harry Cornwall; and Josh Dobson was
remembered, for the part he acted, by all the turkey-bones a reasonable
dog could eat; and everybody was just as happy as happy could be, and
not one disagreeable word was spoken by anybody from the moment Frank
was found until the last good night was said.