_THE YOUNG MASTER OF HYSON HALL_
[Illustration: When Phil had taken hold of the sill, Chap gave him a
lift
Page 140]
_The Young Master of
Hyson Hall_
_BY_
_FRANK R. STOCKTON_
_Author of “Captain Chap,” “Rudder Grange,” etc._
_With Illustrations by_
_VIRGINIA H. DAVISSON
and
CHARLES H. STEPHENS_
[Illustration]
_PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1900_
Copyright, 1882, by JAMES ELVERSON.
Copyright, 1899, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA,
U.S.A.
_PREFATORY NOTE_
(_By the Author_)
This story was originally published in a paper for boys, under the
title of “Philip Berkeley; or, the Master’s Gun.” It has recently been
thoroughly revised, and a new title, which better expresses the import
and purposes of the story, has been given to it upon this its first
appearance in book form.
Those who may remember the story as it originally appeared will find
that the master’s gun still exercises the same subtle influence over
the fortunes of the Master of Hyson Hall as it did when it enjoyed the
honor of a place in the title.
_CONTENTS_
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--OLD BRUDEN 7
II.--IN WHICH PHILIP IS VERY MUCH AMAZED 15
III.--OLD BRUDEN MAKES A MOVE 22
IV.--IN WHICH CHAP SHOOTS A LITTLE AND PLANS A GREAT DEAL 32
V.--THE MASTER’S GUN 40
VI.--ARABIAN BLOOD 50
VII.--WHAT JOUNCER PUT HIS FOOT INTO 55
VIII.--CHAP ENTERS THE FOG 64
IX.--CHAP’S IRON HEEL 71
X.--IN WHICH A STORY IS TOLD 82
XI.--PHILIP IS BROUGHT TO A HALT 91
XII.--EMILE TOURON 99
XIII.--OLD BRUDEN FINDS HIS MASTER 110
XIV.--PHŒNIX SEES HIS DUTY AND DOES IT 119
XV.--THE FIRE ON THE THOMAS WISTAR 128
XVI.--SPATTERDOCK POINT 137
XVII.--IN WHICH A COUNCIL IS HELD 148
XVIII.--TOURON IN THE FIELD 156
XIX.--PHIL AND CHAP START ON AN EXPEDITION 167
XX.--“ZOSE ANGEL BELLS” 175
XXI.--ON SEPARATE ROADS 187
XXII.--IN WHICH THERE IS A GOOD DEAL OF FAST TRAVELLING 196
XXIII.--MR. GODFREY BERKELEY IS HEARD FROM 206
XXIV.--THE GROCER’S BUGGY ONCE MORE 219
XXV.--OLD BRUDEN MAKES AN IMPRESSION 225
XXVI.--MR. TOURON ATTENDS PERSONALLY TO HIS AFFAIRS 233
XXVII.--THE LONELY SUMACH 241
XXVIII.--THE RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY 256
XXIX.--THE ONE FELLOW WHO WAS LEFT YET 266
XXX.--THE GREAT MOMENT ARRIVES 276
_LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS_
PAGE
When Phil had taken hold of the sill, Chap gave him a
lift _Frontispiece_
Philip could not tell whether the horse’s hoofs struck
the man or not 56
He seemed intent upon pushing his antagonist backward 117
With a sickening feeling of fear he put Old Bruden back
between the mattresses 204
“You had no right to look for me, sir, whoever you may be!” 248
A column of water rose from the river, together with a mass
of mud and timbers 282
[Illustration]
_THE YOUNG MASTER OF HYSON HALL_
CHAPTER I.
OLD BRUDEN.
I may as well say at once that Old Bruden was the name of a
double-barrelled shot-gun. It had originally belonged to a man by the
name of Bruden, and by him had been traded for a cow to one of his
neighbors.
From this person it had come, by purchase, into the possession of old
Mr. Berkeley, of Hyson Hall, of whom I shall speak presently.
This double-barrelled shot-gun--which was now called by the name of its
original owner--was not, at the time our story begins, a very valuable
piece of property.
The hammer of the left-hand barrel had a hitch in it, so that it could
not always be depended upon to come down when the trigger was pulled.
There was also a tradition that a piece of this left-hand barrel had
been blown out by Mr. Bruden, who, by accident, had put a double load
into it, and that a new piece had been welded in; but, as no mark of
such gunsmithery could be found on the barrel, this story was generally
disregarded, especially by the younger persons who occasionally used
the weapon.
Hyson Hall, the residence of Godfrey Berkeley, the present owner of the
gun, was a large, square house, standing about a quarter of a mile back
from the Delaware River in Pennsylvania.
It had been built by Godfrey’s father, who was engaged, for the greater
part of his life, in the Chinese tea-trade. When he retired from
business he bought an estate of two hundred acres, on which he erected
the great house, which he called Hyson Hall.
Old Mr. Berkeley was a very peculiar man, and his house was a peculiar
house. The rooms were very large,--so spacious, indeed, and with such
high ceilings, that it was sometimes almost impossible to warm them in
winter.
The halls, stairways, and outer entrance were grand and imposing, and
in some respects it looked more like a public edifice than a private
residence. The roof was flat, and was surrounded by a parapet, at
various points upon which bells had been hung, in the Chinese fashion,
which tinkled when the wind blew hard enough, and which probably
reminded the old tea-merchant of the days and nights he had passed,
when a younger man, in the land of the yellow-skinned Celestials.
But when his son, Godfrey Berkeley, came into possession of the house,
he took down all the bells. He was an odd man himself, and could excuse
a good deal of oddity, but these bells seemed ridiculous and absurd
even to him.
At the time our story begins, the present owner of the property had not
lived very long at Hyson Hall. It had been but three years since his
father died, and during that time Godfrey Berkeley, then forty years
old and a bachelor, devoted himself, as well as he knew how, to the
management and improvement of the estate. He had been very much of a
traveller ever since he was a boy, and he did not understand a great
deal about farming or gardening, or the care of cows and beehives.
A wide pasture-field sloped up from the river to the bottom of the
lawn, and there was an old-fashioned garden and some arable land behind
the house; and Mr. Berkeley took a good deal of interest in looking
after the operations of his small farm.
Some of his neighbors, however, said that he was spending a great deal
more money than he would ever get back again, and laughed a good deal
at his notions about poultry-raising and improved fertilizers.
Nothing of this kind, however, disturbed the easy-going Godfrey.
Sometimes he laughed at his mistakes, and sometimes he growled at them,
but he asked for no advice, and took very little that was offered to
him.
It is not likely, however, that Mr. Berkeley would have been satisfied
at Hyson Hall had it not been for the company of Philip Berkeley, his
only brother’s orphan son.
Philip was a boy about fifteen years old. He and his Uncle Godfrey were
great friends, and there could be no doubt about Philip’s enjoyment
of the life at Hyson Hall. During the greater part of the year he
went to school in Boontown, a small town about three miles distant,
riding there and back on a horse his uncle gave him; and during the
long summer vacation there was plenty of rowing and fishing, and
rambles with a gun through the Green Swamp, a wide extent of marshy
forest-land, about a mile from the house.
There were neighbors not very far away, and some of these neighbors had
boys; and so, sometimes with a companion or two of his own age, and
sometimes with his uncle, Philip’s days passed pleasantly enough.
Godfrey Berkeley had some very positive ideas about what a boy ought
to do and ought to learn, but there was nothing of undue strictness or
severity in his treatment of his nephew, whom he looked upon as his
adopted son.
One pleasant evening in July, Godfrey Berkeley was stretched out upon a
cane-seated lounge in the great hall, quietly smoking his after-supper
pipe, when Philip came hurriedly tramping in.
“Uncle,” he said, “won’t you lend me Old Bruden to-morrow? Chap Webster
and I want to go up the creek, and, if this weather lasts, perhaps
we’ll camp out for a night, if you’ll let us have the little tent.”
Now, Philip had a gun of his own, but it was a small gun and a
single-barrelled one; and as Chapman Webster, his best-loved friend,
always carried a double-barrelled gun when they went out on their
expeditions, Philip on such occasions generally borrowed Old Bruden.
To be sure, he seldom used the left-hand barrel, but it was always
there if he needed it and chose to take the chances of the hammer
coming down.
It might have been supposed that Mr. Godfrey Berkeley, who in former
years had done so much travelling and hunting, would have had a better
fowling-piece than Old Bruden; but as he now often wandered all day
with a gun upon his shoulder without firing a single shot, Old Bruden
would have served him very well, even if neither hammer ever came down.
Philip’s requests were generally very reasonable, and his uncle seldom
refused them, but this evening Mr. Berkeley seemed disturbed by the
boy’s words.
For a few moments he said nothing, and then he took his pipe from his
mouth and sat up.
“It seems curious, Phil,” he said, “that you should want Old Bruden
to-morrow, and should be thinking of camping out. It’s really
remarkable; you haven’t done such a thing for ever so long!”
“That’s because the weather hasn’t been good enough,” said Philip, “or
else Chap Webster couldn’t go. But if you are going to use Old Bruden
yourself, uncle, of course I don’t want it.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” said Mr. Berkeley, laughing a little. “But I
do not want you to take the gun to-morrow, especially on any long
expedition.”
“Is anything the matter with it?” asked Phil, his eyes wide open. “Has
it cracked anywhere?”
“I don’t know, indeed,” said Mr. Berkeley, “for it is so long since I
fired Old Bruden that I can say very little about it. But I want you to
understand, my boy,” he said, more seriously, “that you should never
use a gun unless you know for yourself that it is in good condition.
You ought to be able to tell me whether or not there is anything the
matter with Old Bruden.”
“Oh, I always look it over before I take it out,” said Phil. “But I
thought you might just have found out something about the gun.”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Berkeley. “As far as I know, Old Bruden is
exactly the same clumsy shot-gun that it was when I first bought it.
But I don’t want you to go off with it to-morrow on any expedition with
Chap Webster. I can’t give you my reasons for this now, but you shall
know all about it to-morrow. That satisfies you, don’t it, my boy?”
“Oh, yes,” said Phil, trying to smile a little, though not feeling a
bit like it.
His uncle’s discipline, whenever it was exercised at all, was of a
military nature. He commanded, and Phil obeyed. The boy had learned to
take a pride in that kind of soldierly obedience, about which his uncle
talked so often, and it seldom bore very hard upon him.
He and Mr. Berkeley were generally of the same way of thinking, but
to-night his disappointment was very hard to bear.
Several days before he had planned this expedition with Chap Webster.
They had had high anticipations in regard to it, and Phil did not
suppose for a moment that his uncle would offer any objection to their
plans. But he had objected, and there was an end to the whole affair.
Philip walked to the front door and gazed out over the moonlighted
landscape.
“It will be a splendid day to-morrow,” he said to himself, “and as dry
as a chip to-night, but all that amounts to nothing.”
And he turned on his heel and went into the house.
[Illustration]