THE BUD OF A ROMANCE
The little steamer _Rockhaven_ was but a speck on the southern horizon,
the fishermen that had earlier spread their wings were still in sight
that June morning, and Jess Hutton, having swept his store, sat tilted
back in an arm-chair on his piazza, smoking while he watched the white
sails to the eastward, when a tall, well-formed, and city-garbed young
man approached.
"My name's Hardy," he said, smiling as his brown eyes took in Jess and
his surroundings at a glance, "and I represent Weston & Hill and have
come to open and manage the quarry they own here. You are Mr. Hutton, I
believe?"
Jess rose and extended a brown and wrinkled hand. "That's my name," he
said, "'n' I'm glad ter see ye. But ter tell ye the truth, I never
'spected ter. It's been most a year now since yer boss landed here and
bought my ledge o' stun, and I've made up my mind he did it jist fer
fun, 'n' havin' money ter throw 'way. Hev a cheer, won't ye?" And
stepping inside he brought one out.
Winn seated himself, and glancing down at the row of small, brown houses
and sheds that fringed the harbor shore below them, and then across to
where the ledge of granite faced them, replied, "Oh, Mr. Weston is not
the man to throw away money, but it takes time to organize a company and
get ready to operate a quarry;" and pausing to draw from an inside
pocket a red pocketbook, and extracting a crisp bit of paper, he added,
"the first duty, Mr. Hutton, is to pay the balance due you, and here is
a check to cover it."
Jess eyed it curiously.
"It's good, I guess," he said as he looked it over, "but out here we
don't use checks; it's money down or no trade."
Then without more words he arose, and limping a little as he entered the
store, handed Winn a long, yellow envelope. "Here's the deed; an' the
quarry's yourn, an' ye kin begin blasting soon's ye like."
"I cannot do anything for a few days," replied Winn, "for the tools and
machinery have not yet arrived, and in the meantime I must look about
and hire some men. In this matter I must ask you to aid me, and in
fact, I must ask your help in many ways."
"I'll do what I kin," answered Jess, "an' it won't be hard ter git men.
Most on 'em here ain't doin' more'n keepin' soul an' body together
fishin' an'll jump at the chance o' airnin' fair wages quarryin'.
"Where did yer put up, if I may ask? I heerd last night a stranger had
fetched in on the steamer."
"I found lodging with a Mrs. Moore," answered Winn; "the boat's skipper
showed me where she lived; and now, if you will be good enough, I would
like to have you show me the quarry and then I will look around for men
to work it."
"Ye don't come here cac'latin' to waste much time," observed Jess,
smiling, "but as fer hirin' men, ye best let me do it."
"I should be grateful if you will," answered Winn, "I feel I must ask
you to aid me in many ways. What we want," he continued, having in mind
his instructions, "is to establish a permanent and paying industry here,
and enlist the interest of those who have means to invest. We want to
make it a sort of cooeperative business, as it were."
"I don't quite ketch yer drift," replied Jess.
"I mean," responded Winn, "that we want to make this a home industry,
and to get all those here who have means to take stock in it and share
in the profits."
Jess made no immediate answer, evidently thinking. "Wal, we'll see 'bout
that bimeby," he said finally. "It's a matter as won't do ter hurry.
Folks here are mighty keerful, 'n' none on 'em's likely ter do much
bakin' till their oven's hot. 'Sides, there ain't many as own more'n the
roof that shelters 'em, and not over well shingled, at that. Money's
skeercer'n hen's teeth here, Mr. Hardy."
"I shall be guided by your opinion," answered Winn, realizing the truth
of what Jess had said, "and we will let that matter rest for the
present. Now if you will show me the quarry, I will look it over and let
you see what can be done in the way of getting men to work it. Whatever
you do for us we shall insist on paying you for."
"Queer old fellow," mused Winn to himself two hours later, after he had
parted from Jess, "but I doubt if he buys much of this quarry stock." It
is likely that surmise would have been a positive certainty if Jess
Hutton, with horse sense as hard as this granite ledge and wits as keen
as the briars that grew on top of it, had known that the quarry he had
sold for two thousand dollars and considered it well paid for, was the
sole basis for a stock company capitalized at one million dollars. But
he did not, and neither does many another blind fool who buys
"gilt-edged" stock in gold mines, oil wells, and schemes of all sorts,
know that his investment rests on as insecure and trifling a basis; for
the world is full of sharpers who continually set traps for the unwary
and always catch them, and, although their name is legion, their dupes
are as the sands of the sea.
But of Winn Hardy, who had come to Rockhaven, as he honestly believed
and felt, to carry out a legitimate business enterprise, it must not be
thought that he for one moment understood the deep-laid schemes of J.
Malcolm Weston, for he did not. While the ratio of value between the
capitalization of the Rockhaven Granite Company and the original cost of
the quarry seemed absurd, it did not follow but that Weston & Hill might
not intend actually to put capital into it sufficient to warrant such an
issue of stock. All of which would go to show that Winn Hardy had not as
yet entirely escaped the trammels of his inherited honesty and bringing
up, which insensibly led him to judge others by himself.
And that afternoon, having nothing to do, and curious to explore this
rock-ribbed island that was like to be his home for some months, he
started out on a tour of exploration. First he followed the seldom-used
road that connects the two villages, up to Northaven, and looked that
over. There was a little green in the centre where stood the small
church, and grouped about, a dozen or two houses and two or three
stores, while back of this, and below an arm of the harbor, it narrowed
down to where the roadway crossed it. Beside this stood an old stone
mill, or what was once the walls of one, for the roof was gone. He
examined it carefully, peering into its ghostly interior and down to
where the ebb tide had left its base walls bare. To this, and to the
piles that had once held the tide gates, were clinging masses of black
mussels, with here and there a pink starfish nestled among them. Then,
following this arm of the sea until it ended, he crossed a half mile of
billowing ledges of rock between which were grass-grown and bush-choked
dingles, and came to the ocean. Then, following the coast line as well
as possible, owing to the jutting cliffs, he reached a deep inlet with
almost precipitous sides, and, turning inland, found its banks ended in
a dense thicket of spruce.
Through this wound a well-defined path, shadowy beneath the canopy of
evergreen boughs, and velvety with fallen needles. Following this a
little way, he came to an opening view of the ocean once more. The day
was wondrously fair, the blue water all about barely rippled by a gentle
breeze, while here and there and far to seaward gleamed the white sails
of coasters. Below him, where the rock-walled gorge broadened to meet
the ocean, the undulating ground swells leisurely tossed the rockweed
and brown kelpie upward, as they swept over the sloping rocks. For a few
moments he stood spellbound by the silent and solemn grandeur of the
limitless ocean view and the colossal pathway to the water's edge below
him, and then suddenly there came to his ears the faint sound of a
violin. Now low and soft, hardly above the rhythmic pulse of the sea,
and again clear and distinct, it seemed to come up out of the rocks
ahead, a strange, weird, ghostly harmony that, mingling with the whisper
of the distant wave-wash, sounded exquisitely sweet.
Breathless with astonishment now, he crept forward slowly, step by step,
until at the head of this deep chasm, and down beneath him, he heard the
well-recognized strains of "Annie Laurie" played by invisible hands.
The sun was low in the west, the sea an unruffled mirror, the coast line
a fretwork of foam fringe where the ground swells met it, and above its
murmur, trilling and quivering in the still air, came that old, old
strain:--
"And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doon and dee,"
repeated again and again, until Winn, enraptured, spellbound, moving not
a finger but listening ever, heard it no more. Then presently, as
watching and wondering still whence and from whose hand had come this
almost uncanny music, he saw, deep down amid the tangle of rocks below
him, a slight, girlish figure emerge, with a dark green bag clasped
tenderly under one arm, and slowly pick her way up the sides of the
defile and disappear toward the village.