MR. CARLETON ARRIVES
“How d’ye do, squire,” bawled Captain Sam Curtis to Squire Brackett, a
morning or two later, as the squire stopped for a moment at the door of
the captain’s shop, where he was busily engaged sewing on a sail which he
was refitting for the yacht _Surprise_, for the boys.
“Good morning, Captain Sam,” replied the squire. “You’re busy as usual, I
see.”
“Yes,” said Captain Sam, “just helping the boys out a little. Smart
chaps, those youngsters. Why, they went to work and raised that ’ere
yacht down there in the Thoroughfare, and they’re cleaning her up in
great shape; and I vow, when they get her painted and these good sails on
her, she’ll be every bit as good as new. And she was always a right smart
boat.”
The squire scowled at Captain Sam, who kept on with his work; but the
squire made no reply.
“I should er thought some of you vessel-owners that have got the rigging
handy would have dragged her out for yourselves,” continued Captain Sam.
“I had a mind to do it myself this spring, but I was too busy.”
The squire sniffed as though exasperated at something. But Captain Sam,
stitching away, with an enormous sailmaker’s needle strapped to his palm,
was apparently unmindful. No one would have thought, to look at his
serious face, that he had heard the whole history of the squire’s venture
down in the Thoroughfare, through the expedition of Harry Brackett, and
that he was indulging in a little quiet fun at the squire’s expense.
“Why, what on earth should I do with another boat?” inquired the squire.
“The one I own is one too many for me now. I’d like to sell her if I got
a good offer.”
“Would yer?” queried Captain Sam. “Well, you’ll get a good boat in her
place if you get the _Viking_. I hear you are trying to buy her.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the squire. “Who told you that?”
“Why, Jack Harvey; he was in here a little while ago. He said as how your
son, Harry, offered him fifteen hundred dollars for the boat.”
“Fifteen hundred fiddlesticks!” roared the squire. “If he’s got fifteen
hundred cents left out of his allowance, he’s got more than I think he
has. That’s a likely story. Well, you can just put it down in black and
white that I don’t pay any fifteen hundred dollars for a boat for a lot
of boys to play monkey-shines with. I’ll see about that.”
“Perhaps it’s one of Harry’s little jokes, squire,” suggested Captain
Sam. “Boys will have their fun, you know.”
Captain Sam threw his head back and gave a loud haw-haw. His recollection
of Harry Brackett’s most recent fun was of seeing that youth tearing
along the highway at night, with a dozen fishermen after him, armed with
horsewhips.
The squire’s conception of it was not so pleasant, however, and he took
his departure.
“Harry,” he said, at the dinner-table that day, “what’s this I hear about
your trying to buy that boat of Jack Harvey?”
Harry Brackett, taken somewhat by surprise, hesitated for a moment.
“Why—why—that was a sort of a joke,” he answered, finally, forcing
himself to smile, as though he thought it funny.
“A joke, eh?” retorted the squire, sharply. “Well, don’t you think you
have had joking enough to last you one spell? Here it is getting so I
can’t go down the road without folks looking at me and grinning. Haven’t
you any respect for your father’s dignity? Don’t you know I’m of some
consequence in this town?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the son, dutifully. “But I didn’t bring your name
into it. I didn’t say you wanted it.”
“Well, what did you do it for?” repeated the squire.
“Just for fun,” insisted Harry Brackett.
“May be so,” said the squire, eying his son with some suspicion; “but I’m
not so sure of that, either. Now don’t you go getting into any mischief.
You’ve had just about fun enough lately.”
“All right, sir,” answered Harry Brackett.
Nevertheless, it was not exactly all right, from the squire’s standpoint.
Not altogether above taking an unfair advantage of others, he was
naturally suspicious of everybody else; and this lack of faith in
humanity extended to his son. So he said no more, but kept his eyes open.
Chance favoured him the very day following, when young Harry Brackett,
having some work to do about the garden, threw off his jacket and
waistcoat and left them carelessly over the back of a chair in the
kitchen. The squire, passing through the room, espied a letter exposed
from an inner pocket of the waistcoat. With no compunctions, he took it
out, opened it and read it. The letter was addressed to “Mr. Harry
Brackett, Southport, Grand Island, Me.,” and read as follows:
“If you have not already made the offer for the _Viking_, don’t bother
about it; for I am planning a visit to Southport, myself. Much obliged
to you for your trouble, in any case. Please don’t mention the matter,
however.
“Hoping I may be of service to you at some time,
“Very truly yours,
“Charles Carleton.”
“So, ho!” exclaimed the squire, softly. “Been lying to me again, has he?
I am not so surprised at that. But what did he do it for?”
The squire’s first impulse was to call Harry into the house and demand an
explanation. Then his curiosity led him to alter that determination. Who
was this Mr. Carleton? Why was he trying to buy a boat through his son?
Why didn’t he want the matter mentioned? What were the relations between
this Mr. Carleton and his son? Well, Mr. Carleton, whoever he was, was
coming to Southport. The squire would wait and see him for himself.
He did not have long to wait, either, for the very next day he met Mr.
Carleton face to face. The squire was waiting in the post-office for the
evening mail when there came in with Jeff Hackett, in whose packet he had
sailed across from Bellport, a tall, gentlemanly appearing man, dressed
in a natty yachting-suit of blue, his face chiefly characterized by a
pair of cold, penetrating blue eyes and a heavy blond moustache.
“Good evening, sir,” he said, with the easy air of a man of the world,
and, withal the least deference to the pompous individual whom he
addressed, which was not lost on a man of the squire’s vanity. “Beautiful
place, this island. You should be proud of it, sir.”
“Good evening,” replied the squire, formally, but warming a little. “Yes,
sir, we are proud of Southport.”
“True,” he continued, swelling out his waistband, “it does not afford all
the opportunities for a man of capital to exert his activities; but it
has its advantages.”
“Which I judge you have made some use of, sir,” remarked the stranger, in
an offhand, easy way, smiling.
The squire beamed affably.
“Are you going over to the harbour?” he inquired. “If so, I should be
pleased to take you over in my carriage.”
“Why, you are very kind; I should like to ride,” responded the stranger.
“I’ll just leave word to have my valises sent over, and I’ll go along
with you.”
He presently reappeared, sprang lightly into the wagon, and the squire
drove down the road.
The stranger proved most agreeable to Squire Brackett. He was an easy,
fluent talker, though, to one of finer discernment than the squire, it
might have been apparent that he was not a man of education, but rather
of quick observation and who had seen something of the world. He pleased
the squire by an apparent recognition of him as the great man of the
place, without ever saying so bluntly. He spoke of business matters as of
one who was possessed of some means, and finally, intimating that the
squire should know the name of one to whom he was showing a courtesy,
handed him his card.
To say that the squire was surprised, would be putting it mildly, for he
had not thought of Mr. Carleton arriving by other than the boat from
Mayville. Yet, so it was engraved upon the card, “Mr. Charles Carleton,”
with the address below of a Boston hotel.
The squire was, however, somewhat relieved. It flashed through his mind
now, quickly, just what it all meant. Harry had met this man at Bellport
and had been commissioned by him to purchase the boat. He had seen fit to
pose as the real purchaser to create an impression on the minds of the
other boys that he had that amount of money. As for this gentleman, Mr.
Carleton, he evidently had the means to buy as good a boat as the
_Viking_ if he chose.
“I wish you would tell me the best boarding-house in the village,” said
Mr. Carleton. “I hear the hotel is burned down.”
“Indeed it is!” cried the squire, warmly. “And a plague on the rascal
that set it, and all his kind! It’s a terrible loss to the place; and I
say it, though I opposed its being built.”
“What a shame!” responded Mr. Carleton from behind his heavy moustache.
But his eyes were coldly unsympathetic.
“There isn’t any regular out-and-out boarding-place this summer,” said
the squire; “but I guess Captain Sam Curtis will put you up. He takes a
boarder occasionally, and feeds ’em right well, too, I’m told.”
So, at length, arriving at the harbour and alighting at the house of
Captain Sam, Mr. Carleton bade the squire good evening. He went in at
once, engaged a room, cultivated the captain and his wife studiously for
a time, and was soon at home, after the manner he had of getting on
familiar terms with whomsoever he desired. A curious trait in Mr.
Carleton, too; for, at first approach to strangers, he seemed cold and
almost reserved, whom one might set down as a man of nerve, that would
not be likely to lose his head under any conditions.
If Mr. Carleton had made up his mind to put himself on friendly terms
with the youngsters of Southport, despite his natural inclinations, he
certainly knew how to go about it. Witness his appearance, the following
day, in the course of the forenoon, at the camp of Joe Hinman and the
rest of Harvey’s crew, as they were making their preparations for dinner.
“Well, you boys certainly have it nice and comfortable down here,” he
said, cheerily, advancing to where Joe Hinman was stirring a bed of
coals, ready for the fry-pan, while two of the boys were finishing the
cleaning of a mess of fish down by the water’s edge. “I’ve done this sort
of thing myself, and I declare I believe I’d like a week of it now better
than living at a hotel or a boarding-house. Good camp you’ve got there.
“That makes me hungrier than I’ve been for a long time,” he added, as Joe
proceeded to cut several slivers of fat pork and put them into the
fry-pan, where they sizzled appetizingly.
“Better stop and take dinner with us,” suggested Joe. “We’ve got plenty
to eat, such as it is. We’ll give you some of the best fish you ever
tasted, and a good cup of coffee, and a mess of fritters.”
“Fine!” exclaimed Mr. Carleton. “You’re lads after my own heart. I’ll
watch you do the work and then I’ll help you eat up the food.” And Mr.
Carleton, smiling, seated himself on the ground, with his back against a
tree, lighted a cigar, and watched operations comfortably.
He proved very good company, too, at dinner. For he had a fund of stories
to amuse the campers; and he was heartily interested in their own
exploits—and particularly in their account of recent adventures down in
the Thoroughfare, where Harry Brackett and his companions had been
defeated.
“Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” he exclaimed, enthusiastically, as
they were finishing their camp-fire meal, “I’m in for some fun, just as
much as you are. If you will go ahead and dig some clams this afternoon,
I’ll go up to the store and order a lot of fruit and nuts and that sort
of stuff, and anything else that I see that looks good.
“I saw some chickens hanging up there, too, that will do to broil. I’ll
get enough for a crowd. You tell the fellows up above in that camp
there,—you know them, I suppose,—well, you get them and anybody else you
like. And we’ll build a big fire down here this evening and have the time
of our lives.”
“Hooray!” cried young Tim Reardon. “Joe Warren and the others would like
to come in on that. How about two more, besides—two fellows that own that
yacht, the _Viking_?”
“Just the thing,” replied Mr. Carleton. “As many as you like.”
There was no more work on the _Surprise_ for the rest of that day. A man
who was willing to buy good things for the boys with that recklessness
didn’t come to town every day, nor once in a summer.
“He says his name is Carleton,” explained young Tim to Henry Burns and
Jack Harvey, some time later. “He says he’s in for a good time, and I
guess he is by the looks of things.”
“We know him,” replied Harvey. “He’s an old friend of ours, eh, Henry?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Henry Burns; “he was the _Viking’s_ first invited—no,
uninvited—guest.”
Mr. Carleton was as good as his word, and more. The canoe, manned by Tom
and Bob, went down alongshore that afternoon loaded with a conglomerate
mixture of oranges, bananas, bottled soda, pies, other sweet stuff, and
extra dishes from the campers’ stores. And Mr. Carleton, arriving on the
scene in the course of the afternoon, brought a lot more. He paid for
everything.
“My!” exclaimed young Joe, eying the stuff as the Warren boys put in an
appearance about five o’clock. “I hope he stays all summer, don’t you,
Arthur?”
“Hello, I’m glad to meet you once more,” cried Mr. Carleton, heartily,
advancing to greet Henry Burns and Harvey as their dory landed at the
shore. “I thought I might get down this way. How’s that fine boat of
yours?”
“Fine as ever,” answered Harvey.
“Good! I’ll go out for a sail with you to-morrow,” cried Mr. Carleton,
clapping a hand on Harvey’s shoulder. “Say the word, and I’ll have the
soda and ginger ale and a new pail for some lemonade. We’ve got to make
the time pass somehow, eh?”
“Suits me all right,” assented Harvey. “What do you say, Henry?”
“Bully!” said Henry Burns.
The fire of driftwood, which was plentiful everywhere along the shores of
Grand Island, roared up cheerily against the evening sky. When it had
burned for an hour or more, Jack Harvey deftly raked an enormous bed of
the coals out from it, on which to set fry-pans and broilers and
coffee-pot, still keeping the great fire going at a little distance, for
the sake of its cheer.
They feasted, then, by the light of blazing timbers and junks of logs,
borne down from the river, as only hungry campers can. Young Joe ceased
laughing uproariously at Mr. Carleton’s stories only when his sixth
banana and fourth piece of pie precluded loud utterance. And when it was
over, and they went their several ways by woods and alongshore, they
voted Mr. Carleton a generous provider.
He was ready again, was Mr. Carleton, the following afternoon, with the
promised luxuries, alongside the _Viking_; and he was as much a boy as
any of them when he and the owners of the yacht and Tom and Bob set out
on a sail up the bay.
The wind was fresh and fair from the southward, the bay furrowed
everywhere with billows breaking white, with just enough sea running to
make it good sport. The _Viking_, with sheets well off, made a fine run
to Springton, and bowled into that harbour with the spray flying.
They cast anchor and went up into the old town, which was quite a little
settlement clustered on a steep bank overhanging the harbour, and which
boasted of a fine summer hotel and several smaller ones. And when it got
to be late afternoon, Mr. Carleton wouldn’t hear of their departing; but
they should all stay to supper at the hotel. If the wind died down with
the sun, why, they could stay all night. What did it matter, when they
were out for a good time?
So they ate supper in style in the big hotel dining-room, and came forth
from there an hour later to see the waters calm and the wind fallen.
“Never mind, we’ll sleep aboard the _Viking_,” said Henry Burns. “There’s
room enough, though we have taken out some of the mattresses so as to put
in the fishing-truck.”
But Mr. Carleton would not hear of this. Not for a moment. He liked
roughing it, to be sure, as well as any of them. But they were his guests
now for the night. They must remain right there at the hotel, and he
would see about the rooms. And they should breakfast at the hotel and
then sail back the next day at their ease.
They were not unwilling. It was an unusual sort of a lark, but so long as
Mr. Carleton was enjoying it and was ready to pay the bills, they were
satisfied.
So they sat on the veranda for several hours, enjoying the music of the
orchestra in the parlour and watching the dancing through the windows.
Then, when Mr. Carleton had bade them good night and had gone up to his
room, they followed shortly, Tom and Bob occupying one room together and
Harvey and Henry Burns, likewise, one adjoining.
“Jack,” said Henry Burns, suddenly, pausing in the act of divesting
himself of his blue yachting-shirt, “hang it! but I’ve forgotten to lock
the cabin.”
“Oh, let it go,” said Harvey, who was already in bed and was drowsy with
the sea air and good feeding.
“No, I don’t like to,” said Henry Burns. “There’s a lot of boats lying
close by; and you know how easy it is for one of those fishermen to slip
aboard, and sail out at four o’clock in the morning, with one of our new
lines and that compass that cost more than we could afford to pay just
now; and there’s a lot of things that we couldn’t afford to lose just at
this time. No, I’m going to run down and lock up.”
“It’s a good half-mile,” muttered Harvey. “Better take the chance and let
it go.”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t say so if you had forgotten it,” said Henry Burns.
“I’m to blame. And if you don’t see me again, why, you’ll know I’ve
stayed aboard.”
Henry Burns said this last half in fun, as he departed. As for Harvey, it
mattered naught to him whether Henry Burns returned or stayed away. He
was asleep before his comrade had closed the hotel door behind him.
If it had chanced that Mr. Carleton, too, being a man of shrewd
observation, had noticed the omission on the part of Henry Burns, who was
the last one overboard, to slip the padlock that made the hatch and doors
of the companionway fast, he had not seen fit to mention the fact.
Instead, he had been most talkative as they rowed away, pointing out
various objects of interest up in the town.
And now that the yachtsmen had retired for the night and Mr. Carleton had
withdrawn to his room, it is just barely possible that he may have
recalled that fact. At all events, he did not make ready to retire, but
sat for a half-hour smoking. Then he arose, turned down the light, and
went quietly down the stairs.
It was about eleven o’clock, and the hotel was beginning to grow quiet.
Few guests remained in the parlour, and most of the lights were out about
the hotel and the grounds. Down in the town, as Mr. Carleton strolled
leisurely along the streets, there were few persons stirring. Yachtsmen
aboard their craft in the harbour had ceased bawling out across the water
to one another, and no songs issued forth from any cabin. Only the
harbour lights for the most part gleamed from the little fleet.
The yacht _Viking_ lay some half-mile down below the village, toward the
entrance to the harbour, and was hidden now from Mr. Carleton’s view by a
little strip of land that made out in one place, and on which some
tumble-down sheds stood leaning toward the water.
Mr. Carleton went down confidently to the shore; but when he had arrived
at the place where they had drawn the dory out, he met with a surprise,
for there was no dory there.
He looked about him, thinking he might have happened upon the wrong
place; but there could be no mistaking it. There were the same sheds,
with nets hung out, and the same boats in different stages of repair that
he had observed with a careful eye when they had come ashore.
He went along the beach for a little distance, to where a lamp gleamed in
one of the sheds, and knocked at the door.
“Some one seems to have taken our tender,” he said to a man that opened
to his knock. “Do you know where I can borrow one or hire one for an hour
so I can go out aboard? My yacht lies down there below that point.
Anything you say for pay, you know.”
“I’ve got a skiff you’re welcome to use, if you only fetch it back before
morning,” replied the man, good-naturedly. “I don’t want pay for it,
though. Just drag it up out of the reach of the tide when you come in.”
He pointed to the boat, and Mr. Carleton, dragging it into the water,
stepped in and sculled away.
He was alert enough now, and he worked the little boat with a skilled
stroke and a practised arm. There were a pair of oars aboard, but it
sufficed him to use the scull-hole at the stern, with a single oar, which
gave him the advantage of being able to look ahead. He put his strength
into it, and the skiff worked its way rapidly through the fleet of
yachts. The evening was warm, and Mr. Carleton threw off jacket and
waistcoat and unbuttoned his collar. He was a strong, athletic figure as
he stood up to his work, peering eagerly ahead.
Something gave him a sudden start, however, just as he cleared the point
that had lain between him and the _Viking_. Watching out for a glimpse of
the yacht, there seemed to be—or was it a trick of the eyes, or some
reflection from across the water—there seemed to be a momentary flash of
light from the cabin windows. Just a gleam, or an apparent gleam, and
then all was dark.
Mr. Carleton had stopped abruptly, straining his eyes at the yacht ahead.
“Strange,” he muttered softly, resuming his sculling and watching the
yacht more eagerly, “I could have sworn that was a light in the cabin. If
’twas a light, though, it must have been in one of the other boats.”
He proceeded vigorously on his way.
At this very moment, however, there came another surprise to Mr.
Carleton, greater than the other.
Henry Burns, going down to the shore and sculling out to the _Viking_,
had found the cabin unlocked, as he had recalled; but everything was
safe. It was comfortable aboard the yacht, and he decided to remain,
planning to go ashore early in the morning in time for breakfast at the
hotel. He sat up for some little time, however, and it was, indeed, his
cabin light that Mr. Carleton had seen, the moment before he had
extinguished it, to turn in for the night.
Mr. Carleton, sculling on now cautiously toward the _Viking_, suddenly
heard a noise aboard the yacht. He paused again, then seated himself
quickly at the stern of the skiff, as a boyish figure emerged from the
companionway of the _Viking_ and came out on deck. It was Henry Burns,
taking one last look at the anchor-line, and a general look around,
before he went off to sleep.
There was nothing within sight to excite Henry Burns’s interest.
Everything was all right aboard the _Viking_. There were the few lights
still left, up in the village streets. There were a few yachts anchored
at a little distance. There was the dark shore-line, with its tumbling
sheds huddled together here and there. And, also, there was the lone
figure of a man, seated at the stern of a small skiff, sculling slowly
down past, some distance away. It was all clear and serene in Henry
Burns’s eyes, and he went below, rolled in on his berth, and went to
sleep.
The lone figure that Henry Burns had seen in the skiff had ceased
sculling now. He seemed to have no destination in view. The oar was drawn
aboard and the skiff drifted with the tide. What the man in the skiff was
thinking of—what he contemplated—no one could know but he.
But he resumed his sculling, very softly and slowly, after the lapse of a
full half-hour. Noiselessly he described a circle about the yacht,
drawing in nearer and nearer. Then he paused irresolutely, once more, and
waited. Only he could know what would happen next. Perhaps he, too, was
racked with uncertainty and irresolution. For once he seized the oar and
worked the skiff up to within twenty feet of the gently swinging yacht.
Then he paused again and waited.
Henry Burns’s sleep might, perchance, have been troubled could he have
dreamed of the man now, waiting and watching just off the starboard bow
of the _Viking_, while he slept within. But no dreams disturbed his sound
slumbers.
Nor did aught else disturb them. For, presently, there came out from
shore another boat, a rowboat with three men in it. They were laughing
and joking about something that had happened ashore.
Mr. Carleton, resuming his oar, sculled gently away from the _Viking_,
worked his way back again through the fleet of yachts whence he had come,
drew the skiff out of water where he had embarked, dragged it up on the
beach, and cast it from him roughly. Then he strode away up the bank to
the hotel, muttering under his breath, and looking back out over the
water once or twice as he ascended the hill, like a man that has suffered
an unexpected defeat.