IN WHICH PHIL PROFITS BY CIRCUMSTANCES, AND WEIGHS ANCHOR IN THE
MARIAN.
More than once in my eventful career I have realized that neither
success nor defeat is what it appears to be. While Mr. Ben Waterford
was congratulating himself upon the victory he had apparently achieved,
and I was mourning over the defeat involved in my catastrophe, neither
of us had foreseen the end. Miss Collingsby appeared to be the greatest
sufferer; and the scream with which she announced my defeat was only
the echo of my own feelings. As the battle was really her own, rather
than mine, of course my misfortune was the greater catastrophe to her.
I lay upon my back on the ground, just as I had tumbled over the bow of
the tender. But I did not lie there any great length of time--perhaps
not the hundredth part of a second. But there are times when one can
think of a great deal in the hundredth part of a second; and I am sure
my thoughts were very busy during that infinitesimal period. My
reflections were not selfish, and it did not occur to me that Mr.
Whippleton was escaping from me and from the wrath to come--only that
my fair cousin would be at the mercy of my conqueror.
This was the pungent regret of the moment; and it seemed to me that I
ought not to stay conquered. I had left my coat on board of the yacht
in order to be able to swim if occasion should require; and I voted
unanimously that the occasion did require that I should take a muddy
bath in the service of the young lady. My first care was to get up. In
doing so, I felt the painter of the boat under me. It seemed to have
been left there when the tender was pushed into the water to suggest my
next step. It did suggest it, and I hastened to profit by the
advantage.
As I began to get up, Mr. Ben Waterford began to push off the boat; and
I had just time to seize the rope before it was dragged into the water.
I picked it up, and promptly checked the operations of the angry
skipper. I checked them rather suddenly. Mr. Waterford was at the stern
of the boat; and as he raised his oar to give it another push, I
gathered up all my strength, and made a desperate twitch at the rope.
As every one knows who has had anything to do with them, boats are
wretchedly unsteady to a person in a standing position. Even an old
sailor may find it impossible to maintain his perpendicularity when the
boat is unexpectedly moved. Philosophically, the inertia of the man
should be gradually overcome, and suddenly overcoming the inertia of
the boat, as practice and the formula have both demonstrated, does not
overcome that of the man. If he be not prepared for the change from
rest to motion, he is in very great danger of being thrown down, and if
near the water, of being thrown into it.
[Illustration: THE TABLES TURNED--PHIL THE VICTOR. Page 221.]
The body of Mr. Ben Waterford was not proof against the law of nature.
It followed the rule deduced by practical men from the phenomena of
every-day experience, and the formula laid down by those learned in
physics. When I twitched the rope, I suddenly and violently overcame
the inertia of the tender. Though without any malice on my part, the
inertia of Mr. Ben Waterford was not overcome at the same time. His
tendency was to remain at rest, and the consequence was, that I pulled
the boat out from under him. Furthermore, as there was water where the
boat had been when I pulled, because two bodies cannot occupy the same
space at the same time, the body of Mr. Waterford went into the
water--the muddy, dirty water of the lagoon--stirred up by the oar with
which he had pushed off the tender.
Divested of the language of science, the fact was, that Mr. Ben
Waterford had tumbled over backward into the creek. In substance, he
had repeated the experiment at the stern of the boat which I had tried
at the bow, only he had fallen into the water, and I had fallen upon
the land. In spite of preferences for the water, I must acknowledge
that the land is a pleasanter element to fall upon than the water,
especially if the water is dirty, for a gentleman instinctively abhors
filth.
I protest that I had not intended to pitch Mr. Ben Waterford into the
lagoon. Although I was familiar with the law of physics applicable to
his case, I could not foresee what measure of resistance he would offer
to the action of the formula, or what degree of caution he would use.
Without any premeditation on my part,--for I solemnly declare that I
only intended to prevent him from pushing off the tender,--it was an
accomplished fact that Mr. Ben Waterford was floundering in the muddy
water of the lagoon, while the tender was absolutely in my possession.
I could not quarrel with fate, destiny, good fortune, or whatever it
was that had turned the tide in my favor at the very moment of defeat;
and I made haste to profit by the circumstances as I found them. I ran
along the bank of the creek, dragging the boat after me; and by the
time the unhappy skipper had elevated his head above the surface of the
foul pool, now rendered doubly foul by his own movements upon the soft
bottom, I had the tender a couple of rods from him. He was in no danger
of drowning; for while I should say that he was sunk half way up to his
knees in the mud, the tiny wavelets rippled against the gold vest chain
to which his watch was attached. In other words, the water was not
quite up to his armpits. I do not know whether Mr. Waterford was able
to swim or not: I never saw him swim, and he did not swim on this
momentous occasion. He simply stood up in the water, rubbing the muddy
fluid out of his eyes. He had not yet sufficiently recovered from the
shock of his fall, and the muddy blindness which surrounded him, to
realize the nature of the situation.
At a safe distance from his convulsive clutch, I jumped into the
tender, and paddled rapidly to the yacht. I gave Mr. Waterford a wide
berth, and left him trying to obtain a better vision of the
surroundings. I leaped upon the deck of the Marian, and fastened the
painter of the tender at the taffrail. Miss Collingsby spoke to me, but
I heeded not what she said, and sprang forward as fast as I could move
my steps. I hauled up the anchor, but without waiting to wash off the
mud, or stow the cable, I hastened to the helm. Letting out the sheet,
I "wore ship," and in half a minute the Marian was standing out of the
lagoon.
"Stop! What are you about!" shouted Mr. Ben Waterford, who was paddling
through the mud towards the shore.
I made no reply to him, for I had nothing to say. Between running away
from him and permitting him to run away with Miss Collingsby, I was
compelled to choose the less of the two evils. My mission was to save
the young lady, and I intended to do so. I had made a faithful use of
the opportunity presented to me; and after attempting to leave me in
that desolate place, I thought it was not unreasonable for Mr.
Waterford to "try it on" himself, even if the yacht did belong to him.
I was not disposed to weigh all the nice questions which the situation
presented. It was clearly my duty to assist Miss Collingsby, and I was
disposed to do it without consulting the comfort and convenience of Mr.
Waterford, who meditated the mischief against her.
The defeated skipper continued to shout at me in the most furious
manner, threatening me with all the terrors of the law and his own
wrath. I was willing to refer the whole subject to Mr. Collingsby after
we returned to Chicago; and I regarded him as an all-sufficient
defender against both the law and the wrath of Mr. Waterford. I saw him
make his way to the shore, shake the mud and water from his garments,
and then hasten to a point of land which projected out into the lake at
the mouth of the creek. But he might as well have hastened towards the
other end of the lake, for long before he could reach it, I had passed
the point, and was out in the open lake.
I was out of hailing distance of the unhappy skipper when he reached
the point, though I could still see his violent gestures. Miss
Collingsby sat in the standing-room, watching her late persecutor with
anxious interest. Perhaps she feared he might, by some foul mischance,
undo what I had done; that he might annihilate the waste of waters
before him, and step between her and me. I had no such fears. There
were no boats or vessels near us, and I was satisfied that Mr.
Waterford would be obliged to walk several miles to a station on the
railroad which passed through the swamp and over the lagoon.
I was so well satisfied with the good fortune that grew out of my
catastrophe, that I soon neglected to think of Mr. Ben Waterford. I
left him to enjoy his own reflections; and I hoped one of them would
be, that villany could not long prosper even in this world. I wished
that he might recall, if he had ever heard of it, the Scotch poet's
proverb, that
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain
For promised joy."
This bit of romance was not likely to end in a marriage, thanks to the
returning or awaked sense of Miss Collingsby.
I ceased to think of my discomfited skipper, and turned my thoughts to
Mr. Charles Whippleton, to whom I devoted my whole attention. The
Florina had passed out of the creek in the midst of the encounter
between Waterford and myself; and the junior partner of our firm must
have seen me when I was pitched over the bow of the tender. Whether he
had been able to see the issue of the battle or not, I did not know,
for his yacht passed beyond the point before it was terminated. The
Florina was headed to the eastward, and I judged that she was about a
mile ahead of me when I tripped the anchor of the Marian. I intended to
chase him even into the adjoining lakes, if he led me so far. I meant
to recover Mrs. Whippleton's treasure, if it took me all summer, and
used up all the money I had in the world.
Marian Collingsby looked very sad and anxious. Her chest heaved with
emotion as she realized how serious was the movement upon which we had
entered. I was confident that, if she ever reached the shelter of her
father's roof, she would never be imprudent again; that she would have
more regard for her father's solid judgment than for her own fanciful
preferences.
"You don't know how frightened I was, Philip," said she, when I took my
place at the helm.
"I don't wonder. I was frightened myself; but it was more for you than
for me," I replied, as I let out the main sheet.
"But what a terrible fight you had with him!" exclaimed she, with
something like a shudder.
"O, that was nothing!" I replied, laughing, in order to encourage her.
"Nothing! Why, he struck at you with the oar!"
"And I struck at him with the boat-hook. I have been in a worse fight
than that."
"You have!"
"Yes; I have been where the bullets flew thick and fast."
"You!"
"I was in a battle with the Indians; and I once had the happiness to
rescue a young lady from the savages; so I think this is a very mild
kind of fighting."
"What a hero you have been!"
"Not much of a hero; but I don't like to see anything go wrong with a
young lady. I never saw a young lady till I was twelve years old, and I
find myself very kindly disposed towards all of them--strange as it may
seem."
Miss Collingsby tried to smile, but she did not feel able to do so.