was burst open, and in rushed Bill Sturdy and Charlie, our young hero,
who had just returned to Boston, and were passing on their way up from
the wharf at which the vessel was lying.
"Mr. Randall!" exclaimed Charlie, in surprised recognition.
Randall strove to escape through the opened door, but Sturdy, seizing
him in his powerful grasp, cried, "Not so fast, my hearty! You've been
up to some mischief, and if I don't see justice done you, may I never
see salt water again!"
XXXVI.
HOW CHARLIE COMES INTO HIS FORTUNE.
Probably there were no two persons then living whom Randall at that
moment cared less about seeing than Bill Sturdy and our hero. Though
astonished beyond expression to see them there, his position was
too critical to allow him to waste time in giving expression to his
surprise.
"Let me go, you scoundrel!" he exclaimed, making a desperate effort to
elude Bill's grasp.
He might as well have striven to tear himself from the grasp of a lion.
"Not so fast, Mr. Randall," said Bill Sturdy.
"You mutinous scoundrel!" hissed the mate.
"You forget," said his captor, coolly, "that we are not now on the
quarter-deck. Here I am your equal, Mr. Randall, and perhaps you may
find me a little ahead."
"Let me go, if you know what is best for yourself," ejaculated Randall,
almost foaming at the mouth.
"If you know what is best for yourself," said Bill composedly, "I would
advise you to be quiet."
"And now," he continued, tightening his grasp a little, "just let me
know what mischief you have been up to?"
"I am not responsible to you," said Randall haughtily.
"Responsible or not, you must give an account of yourself."
"If you will let me go, I will make it worth your while."
"Do you think I am mean enough to accept a bribe?" exclaimed Sturdy,
with honest indignation. "Let me know what you have been doing."
"This old man!" said Randall, curbing his pride, "foolishly thought I
meant to rob him, and shrieked for assistance."
"Is that all?" asked Bill, keenly glancing at the box of gold. "Things
look as if you were going to rob him in reality."
"I am not in the habit of thieving," said Randall, haughtily.
At this moment the miser, who had been insensible, began to show signs
of returning consciousness.
"Go and get some water, Charlie," said Bill. "The old man looks as if
he might come to with a little help."
There was a pail half full of water standing near by. Charlie sprinkled
Peter's face, and a moment after he gasped and opened his eyes. He cast
a frightened glance from face to face till his eyes rested on Randall,
when he shuddered, and cried feebly, "Take him away, take him away! He
will rob me."
"Not while I am here to prevent him," returned Bill, in a tone of
assurance.
"You are friends, then?" said the miser, anxiously.
"Of course we are. Did this man attempt to rob you?"
"Take care not to make any false accusations, old man," said Randall,
menacingly.
"Speak the truth without fear," said Bill Sturdy; "I'll bear you out in
it. He can't do you any harm."
"He demanded a thousand dollars from me," said the old man, "and when I
would not give it to him he was going to help himself."
"What do you say to that, Mr. Randall?" asked Sturdy.
"I say this," said the mate, turning a malignant glance upon the miser,
"that it was a regular bargain--a matter of business. This man owed me
the money--he knows best what for, and refused to pay it."
"I did not," said Peter, hastily, "he had already been paid in full."
"Take care, Peter, or I may tell what it was for."
"I defy you," said the miser in a quavering tone of defiance. "You are
a bad man."
"Perhaps you don't know who this boy is?" said Randall.
"Who is he?" asked Peter, doubtfully.
"He is one who has reason to consider you his enemy," said Randall,
"even more than myself."
At this unexpected statement Bill Sturdy and Charlie looked at each
other in surprise.
"Do you know this old man, then, Charlie?" asked Sturdy, at length.
"Yes," said our hero; "it is Mr. Manson, of whom my mother used to hire
a room."
"The landlord?"
"Yes."
"And what harm has he ever done to you?"
"I don't know," said Charlie, shaking his head, "unless," and an
anxious look came over his face, "he has distressed her for rent since
I have been gone."
"Is that so?" demanded the sailor, sternly.
"No, no!" said Peter Manson, hastily. "She left my tenement a good many
months ago."
"And where is she now?" asked Charlie, eagerly--for, having just
landed, he knew nothing of his mother's whereabouts.
"Then you have not seen her?" asked Randall, with the sudden thought
that he might make better terms for himself by selling his knowledge on
the subject.
"No," said Charlie. "Is she well? Tell me, I entreat you, if you know."
"I do know," said Randall, composedly, "both where she is and how she
has fared."
"Tell me quick."
"That depend upon circumstances. While I am held in custody I have
little inducement to do you a favor."
"Sturdy will release you, won't you, Sturdy. Only tell me where my
mother is, that I may go to her at once."
"Why," said Bill, cautiously, "I don't know, exactly. He may be trying
a game, and giving us information won't be worth anything."
"You can keep me here till you have sent to ascertain if I have told
you the truth."
"No, no," said Peter Manson, terrified at the prospect, "don't let him
stay here. He would rob me."
"Rob you," sneered Randall; "it looks well in you whose money has been
dishonestly gained, to charge me with theft."
"He--you won't mind what he says, gentlemen," said Peter Manson,
trembling. "He only says it to spite me."
"To spite you! Yes, you old hunks, I will spite you, and that with a
vengeance! Hark you, Sturdy, I have kept this old man's secret long
enough, and though I hate you, and that boy there, I believe I hate him
worse. If I will reveal to this boy a secret which will insure to him
a property of from twenty to thirty thousand dollars, will you agree to
let me go, and give me a thousand dollars?"
"Can you do it?" demanded Sturdy, in surprise.
"I can."
"Well, it ain't for me to say, but if I were Charlie here I would close
with your terms."
"Don't you believe him," said Peter, terrified. "He is only making a
fool of you. He can't do what he says."
Charlie was not a little astonished at the turn affairs had taken.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Bill, "if there might be something in this,
as long as the old man seems so afraid the secret will be let out."
"You will find that I have told you the truth," said Randall; "tell me
quickly yes or no. If you decline, you will lose more than I shall."
"Then," said Charlie, "I will accept your terms so far as I am
concerned."
"And I'll bear witness to it," said Bill, "if you will carry out your
part of the agreement."
"That I will do to your satisfaction. The first thing to be explained
is, that in carrying this boy to sea I was only acting as the agent of
another."
"And that other!"
"Was Peter Manson--the man you see before you."
"It is false," said the miser, turning ghastly pale.
"Moreover," said Randall, "I was well paid for the service. I received
a thousand dollars."
"Oh, oh!" cried the old man, swaying backward and forward--"a thousand
dollars in bright gold, and I so poor."
"You see he admits it," said Randall.
"And what did he want Charlie carried away for?"
"Reason enough for that. He feared the boy might learn that it was his
wealth which he has been hoarding up."
"Mine!" exclaimed Charlie, in unbounded surprise.
"Did you never hear your mother speak of a certain Peter Thornton, who
by purloining and making off with twenty thousand dollars caused your
grandfather to fail?"
"Yes, often."
"_That man is Peter Thornton!_" said Randall, pointing with his finger
to the miser.
The latter half rose from his seat, and then, as if he had received a
mortal wound sank to the floor.
"You require no other confirmation of my words," said the mate.
"Why my lad, you will be a rich man," said Bill Sturdy, his face
beaming with satisfaction.
"How glad mother will be!" exclaimed Charlie. "Where is she, Mr.
Randall? I want so much to see her."
The mate gave Charlie briefly the information he required, and added,
"You will probably need my assistance to establish your claim to the
property of which yonder old man has so long deprived you. I shall hold
myself at your service, trusting to your honor to pay me the thousand
dollars agreed upon."
"You shall not trust in vain, Mr. Randall," said Charlie, promptly.
"Place me in possession of what is rightfully mine, and you shall have
no reason to complain."
"Very well, I shall stop at the Tremont House for the present.
There you or your lawyer will find me. I advise you to employ legal
assistance."
"I will do so, and thank you for the suggestion. As soon as I have seen
my mother I shall proceed to business."
Randall withdrew, but was quickly followed by Charlie and his friend.
"Where are you going, my lad?" asked the sailor.
"You needn't ask, Bill,--to see my best friend, my mother. It is for
her sake that I welcome this fortune. She shall never want any more
while I have money. We will have a nice little home, where you shall be
welcome, Bill, always and all the time."
Bill pressed the hand of our young hero in his own rough palm, and
there was a suspicious moisture about his eyes, but he said nothing.
XXXVII.
REUNITED AT LAST.
Mrs. Codman was sitting in a little room opening out from the
breakfast-room, which had been appropriated as a sort of study by Bert
and herself.
Topsy, the kitten, who had not yet attained the sobriety and demureness
of old cat-hood, was running round after her tail.
"Oh, dear," sighed Bert, who was puzzling over a lesson in geography,
"I can't study any to-day."
"Why not?" asked Mrs. Codman.
"Oh, I feel so restless."
"That isn't very unusual, is it?" asked her governess, with a smile.
"I feel more so than usual. Something is going to happen, I know."
"Something does happen every day, doesn't there?"
"Well, you know what I mean; something out of the way. I shouldn't
wonder if Charlie got home to-day."
"Heaven grant he may!" exclaimed his mother, fervently.
By a strange coincidence--and coincidences do sometimes happen in real
life, though not quite so often, perhaps, as in stories,--Mrs. Codman
had hardly given utterance to her wish when the bell rang.
Bert jumped from her seat.
"It is he, I know it is!" she exclaimed. "Do let me go to the door."
"You are very fanciful to-day, Bert," said Mrs. Codman. But she did not
forbid her going. Bert's earnestness had given birth to a wild hope on
her part, that it might be as she had fancied.
Before the loitering servant had a chance to reach the door, Bert had
already opened it.
Bill Sturdy and Charlie stood on the steps, Charlie looking handsome
and manly, with an eager look on his bright face. Sturdy, it must be
owned, looked and felt a little awkward, not being accustomed to call
as a visitor at houses as elegant as Mr. Bowman's.
"Oh! this is Charlie, isn't it?" exclaimed Bert, with childish delight,
instinctively putting out her hand.
"What, do you know me?" asked Charlie, pleased with this cordial
reception, but astonished at being recognized.
"Oh, yes."
"Is my mother here?"
"Yes; I will go and call her. But won't you come in?"
"I would rather you would call her," said Charlie, bashfully.
Bert danced back into the little study.
"I was right, Mrs. Codman," said she, triumphantly, "It is Charlie."
"Has he come?" asked the mother, precipitately, letting fall, as she
rose, the astonished kitten, who had clambered into her lap. "Oh, where
is he?"
"At the door."
Mrs. Codman waited for no more, but hastened to the door, and, in a
moment, the mother was face to face with her lost boy. Of the delight
of that meeting, of the numberless questions which each had to ask,
with what fond pride the mother noted the increased manliness of
Charlie, I cannot speak in detail. Both hearts were full to overflowing
with love and gratitude.
Meanwhile Bert was endeavoring, in her way, to entertain Bill Sturdy,
who, though no man was braver or more self-reliant among his comrades,
felt abashed in the presence of Bert, whom he looked upon as made of
finer clay than himself. And, indeed, the beauty and sprightliness of
the child made her look like a charming picture, and even Charlie's
eyes could not help straying to her, from time to time, while he was
talking with his mother.
Bill was perched upon an elegant chair, scarcely daring to rest his
whole weight upon it, for fear it might give way under him, swinging
his hat awkwardly in his hand.
"You are Bill Sturdy, are you not?" said Bert, determined to become
better acquainted.
"How do you know that is my name?" asked Bill, half fancying she must
have learned it in some supernatural way.
"Oh, Charlie wrote about you in his letter."
"Did his mother get a letter from him, then?"
"Yes; it was from some place with a hard name. I never can remember
those geography names."
"Was it Rio Janeiro?"
"Yes; that was it. What an awful time he must have had! Do you like
going to sea?"
"Yes, miss; I feel more at home on the sea than on the land."
"You do! Well, that's funny. I know I should be sea-sick, and that must
be horrid."
"Well, it doesn't feel very pleasant," said Bill, with a smile.
"Oh, Mr. Sturdy, did you ever see a whale?"
"Yes, miss, plenty of them."
"I suppose you never came near being swallowed by one--like Jonah, you
know?"
"No, miss; I don't think I should like that."
"What lots of adventures you must have had! You must stay to dinner,
and afterwards you can tell me of some."
"I don't think I could, thank you, miss, all the same," said Bill,
alarmed at the suggestion. "Not but I'd be glad to spin you a yarn some
time."
Just then Charlie bethought himself of his companion.
"Mother," said he, "you must let me introduce to you my good friend,
Bill Sturdy. You don't know how kind he has been to me."
"I am quite ready to believe it," said Mrs. Codman, holding out her
hand quickly.
Bill took it shyly in his.
"I thank you most heartily for all you have done for my dear boy," said
she.
"Anybody that wasn't a brute would have done as much, ma'am."
"Then I am afraid there are a great many brutes in the world."
Charlie stopped to dinner, but Bill could not be prevailed upon to
do so. "You see, my boy," he explained to Charlie, "it don't come
nat'ral; I shouldn't know how to behave. So I'll just go back to my
boardinghouse, and you'll find me there after dinner."
XXXVIII.
REACHING PORT.
Will the reader imagine a year to have passed?
During the time several things have happened.
In the first place, Mr. Bowman has invited Charlie to become a member
of his family.
In the second place, charmed by the beauty and grace, as well as the
more valuable qualities of Mrs. Codman, with whom he has had a good
chance of becoming acquainted during her residence in his family, he
has invited her to become his wife. Mrs. Codman was taken by surprise,
but found this proposition not altogether unwelcome. She had become
attached to Bert, who added her persuasions to those of her father, and
at length her governess promised to assume to her a nearer relation.
Through the testimony of Randall, the identity of Peter Manson with
Peter Thornton was fully established, and the law decided that the
miser's wealth must go to Charlie and his mother. It was found to
exceed the estimate which had been made of it, verging close upon forty
thousand dollars. Including interest for twenty years, all this, and
more of right, belonged to those who had so long been defrauded of it.
Mrs. Codman could not help pitying the miserable and disconsolate old
man, pinched with privation, which had enfeebled him, and made him old
before his time. She continued to allow him the use of the old building
which he had occupied so many years, and allowed him a certain sum
payable on the first of every month, to provide for his wants.
The sudden loss of the gold which he had been hoarding up so long did
not kill Peter Manson, but it affected his intellect. The habit of
avarice never left him. He saved up nine tenths of his allowance, and
starved himself on the remainder. Attempts were made to remedy this by
bringing him supplies of fuel and provisions, but these he economized
as before. One day, when Charlie looked in to see how he was getting
along, he beheld a sight which made him start back in affright.
The old man lay stretched out upon the floor cold and dead, with
a few gold pieces firmly clutched in his grasp. He had received a
sudden summons while engaged in counting over the little gold he had
accumulated from his allowance.
So ended the wasted life of Peter Manson, the miser.
From him we turn to others who have figured in these pages.
Randall received the thousand dollars which had been promised as
the reward of his disclosure. It appeared as if prosperity, rather
than retribution, was to attend him. He succeeded in obtaining the
command of a fine ship, with an excellent salary, and sailed with
fair prospects. But his tyrannical habits had not deserted him. His
unjustifiable abuse aroused the deadly anger of one of the crew, a man
of excitable temper, who, before he could be withheld, plunged a knife
into his heart one day, just after punishment, killing him instantly.
As for Captain Brace, he, too, demands a word. Brief mention will
suffice. In a fit of ungovernable rage he burst a blood-vessel, and he,
too, died instantly, without a moment's preparation, in which to repent
of the many wrongs he had committed.
From the sad fate of these miserable men we turn gladly to brighter
scenes.
Mrs. Codman, now Mrs. Bowman, has had no cause to regret her second
choice. Her husband commands her respect and esteem, and makes her very
happy. Charlie is now at an excellent school. After he has completed a
liberal course of instruction, he will enter the counting-room of his
step-father, where, as we cannot doubt, an honorable and useful career
awaits him.
As for Bill Sturdy,--honest, brave, stout-hearted Bill Sturdy,--he
could not be persuaded to abandon the sea, but now sails as captain of
a vessel belonging to Mr. Bowman. He is unboundedly popular with his
crew, whom he treats as comrades in whose welfare he is interested.
Whenever he is in port, Captain Sturdy dines once with Mr. Bowman. He
feels more at his ease now than when he was only a forecastle hand, but
he will always be modest and unassuming. He is a prime favorite with
Bert, and always brings her home something when he returns from foreign
parts.
It is not ours to read the future; but I should not be surprised, when
Charlie grows to manhood, if we should find Bert's early choice of him
as her husband prophetic.
So we bid farewell to Charlie Codman. His trials and struggles have
come early in life, but now his bark has drifted into smoother waters.
The sky above him is cloudless. His character has been strengthened by
his combat with adversity. Let us hope that his manhood may redeem the
promise of his youth, and be graced by all the noblest attributes of
humanity.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Charlie Codman's Cruise, by Horatio Alger