Three quarters of a century ago, when Sag Harbor was an important whaling port, and before railroads were even dreamed of on that remote part of Long Island, there were dotted along the eastern shore only a few quaint little villages, already old, with a small population scattered in their vicinity, consisting almost entirely of a hardy race, who, though professedly cultivators of the soil, in reality drew most of their subsistence from arduous and often perilous toil upon the sea. Among the curiously inscribed tombstones in the graveyards, where even then six generations were lying, were not at all unfrequent those that bore the legend "killed by a whale." Of the younger men in the community, there were few who did not aspire to go abroad as whalers, and their elders, though settled agriculturists nominally, or even petty tradesmen, had generally "been a-whaling," loved to spin yarns about their cruises, and were still more than semi-nautical in speech, manners, and industries. They naturally spoke of "the bow" of a horse, or his "port-quarter," as occasion might require; belonged to shore whaling companies; fished for the New York market to a limited extent, and perhaps did some smuggling; as shore-living people, in those days, generally seemed to think they had an inherent right to. In their little "sitting-rooms" were many curious and interesting things, brought from far distant lands, such as broad branches of fan coral, stuffed birds of brilliant plumage, strange shells and sperm whales' teeth adorned with queer rude pictures scratched upon them by sailors whose thoughts of loved ones at home had prompted them to such artistic endeavor.
Between the villages were long reaches of woodland, or perhaps it would be more correct to say thicket--broken here and there, where the sandy soil seemed to give most promise, by tilled fields. Fierce gales, through the long hard winter months, dealt cruelly with the scrubby cedars and knotty little oaks in those woods, gnarling their boughs, twisting their trunks, and stunting their growth, so that not all the genial breath of spring, nor the ardent summer's sun could quite repair the damage wrought them in the season of ice and storm. But the hardy trees stood close together, as if seeking support and consolation from each other in their hours of trial, when they creaked and ground complaint to one another; so close that their interlaced foliage kept always damp the leaf-strewn ground beneath, where the fragrant trailing arbutus bloomed in earliest spring, and the tangled whortleberry bushes later bore their clusters of bluish-purple fruit. Here and there the dwarfed forest sloped gently down to broad expanses of salt meadow, where snipe and plover found their favorite feeding grounds among the rank rushes and long grass, or the soft marshy slime, except when the full moon tides came rushing through the little inlets between the white round sand dunes on the beach and, whelming the lowland, snatched brown-leaf trophies from the very edges of the wood. On the knolls between these meadows were favorite places for the location of the homes of the earlier settlers, among whom were the Van Deusts.
The Van Deust homestead was one of the oldest dwellings on that portion of the island, and those who at this time inhabited it were the direct descendants of other Van Deusts, whose remote existence and remarkable longevity were alike attested by the quaintly graven tombstones in the ancient graveyard of the village, a mile away.
It was a rambling one-story house, built of small logs covered with boards now warped and rusty from age, but both roomy and comfortable as well as picturesque. Those by whom it was erected loved better the sea than the land, for they had not only sought out this, the most commanding site they could obtain for its location, but had turned its back upon the forest and the lane, and reared its broad porch upon the side facing the ocean. Here, in the ample shade, the two old bachelor brothers, its present occupants, inheriting as well the feeling as the property of their ancestors, loved to linger. The ceaseless roar of the waves was in their ears a wild tumultuous music, and their eyes were never weary of the ever-changing beauty and glory of the world of billows, blushing with the dawn, laughing with the noon, and frowning beneath storm and night. Three broad and rugged elm trees shaded the porch, and one gable of the house was rasped by the boughs of the nearest tree of a thickly grown and badly cared for little orchard. Bats and swallows flitted undisturbed in the summer evenings to and from the low loft of the old homestead, through its various chinks and refts; native song-birds build their nests and reared their young under the eaves, and in the swinging branches of the venerable elms; bees buzzed among the thick honeysuckle, and clematis vines that twined about the pillar of the porch, and threw their long sprays in flowery festoons between; and when the busy hum of those industrious little toilers ceased at nightfall, the crickets' cheery chirp, from among the rough stones of the old-fashioned fireplace within, took up the refrain of insect melody. Neither insect, bird, nor beast feared the two kindly old men who inhabited that home. One of the brothers loved all living things, and was at peace with all, and the other was like unto him, with the sole exception that he liked not women, nor was willing to be at peace with them. Yet he had never been married!
Peter, the elder by a couple of years, was the woman hater, and to such an extent did he carry his antipathy toward the sex, that he would tolerate no other female servant about the house than old black Betsy, who was the daughter of a couple of slaves his grandfather had owned, and who thoroughly considered herself one of the family, as indeed her indulgent masters regarded her. The three old people occupied the house alone. Brother Jacob once hinted to Peter that perhaps it might be as well to get a young woman to assist old Betsy in her work, and his so doing brought on what was more like a quarrel between him and Peter than anything that had disturbed the monotony of their uneventful lives up to that time. A compromise was finally effected, by virtue of which a neighbor was engaged to come over for a couple of hours daily to do such chores about the house as the brothers felt beyond their strength, and to bring his wife along on Tuesdays to do the week's washing and scrubbing. But on Tuesdays Peter always went a-fishing, regardless of the weather, and was gone all day, so avoiding sight of the neighbor's wife. Whatever the secret cause for his bitter and contemptuous aversion to women may have been, he kept it to himself. That they were fair to look upon, he denied not. "But," said he, "they are wrecker lights, and the truer and better a man is, the brighter they shine to lure him to the breakers. And look at yourself, Jacob," he would add, when his brother ventured to mildly expostulate against the vigor of his denunciations of the sex; whereupon Jacob would turn away with a sigh, and the discussion would be at an end.
Back of the house a narrow lane, bordered by a neglected garden and a cornfield beyond, led out to the distant highway. The Van Deust brothers were not poor, as the humble style of their home might seem to indicate; indeed they had the reputation, in all the country around, of being wealthy, and were, at least, well off. The neglect and indifference of age in its owners was the sole cause that the surroundings of the old homestead, which might easily have been made charming, presented such a picture of disorder and decay.
Up the little lane, at a very early hour one bright summer morning, two men might have been seen, driving in a light gig, approaching the Van Deust mansion. One of them was a stout, ruddy-faced gentleman, of fifty, or thereabouts, known to everybody in the county as Squire Bodley. His companion, who held the reins, was a handsome young fellow of twenty-four or twenty-five years, rustic in personal appearance and garb, with a good frank open countenance that bore a pleasing expression of intelligence and good nature.
"Of course it's only a form, my going to be your security," said the older man, as they jogged along, "for the Van Deusts know you as well as I do, and knew your father, Dave Pawlett, before you, and a good man he was. But still, Lem, I don't know any young fellow in all the country round about that I'd take more pleasure in serving, even in a matter of form, than you."
"Thank you, sir," replied the young man warmly, with a grateful flush upon his sun-burnt cheeks. "It's very kind of you, I'm sure, and I can't tell you how much I feel it so. You know I want the lease of that lower farm, but you don't know how almightily much I want it; and nobody does but me and—one other person, perhaps."
"Aha!" responded the Squire, with a chuckle, "I can make a guess about who the other person is. And some day you and that other person will be coming to me for a little business in my line, I reckon,—a sort of mutual life lease, eh?"
"Well, maybe so, Squire. I hope so," answered Lem, confusedly, and with a little deeper flush, "But here we are at the gate. Wait a moment, while I jibe the bow wheels and make the horse fast."
As he spoke, he jumped lightly out of the vehicle, turned the horse a little to one side, so as to make the descent of his companion more convenient, and, after hitching the reins to a fence-post, accompanied the Squire to the door of the house. There was no sound, or sign, as yet, of any of the inmates of the old homestead being astir.
"Well, they must be late risers here," soliloquized the Squire, as Lem rapped and called at the door.
At the end of a few minutes, a voice answered indistinctly from within: "Who's there? What d'ye want?" And almost immediately after, the shutters on the window of a little extension of the house, at the end farthest from the orchard, were pushed open, and the head of an aged black woman appeared with the echoing query, "Who dah? Wha' dy'e wan'?"
"It's me—Squire Bodley," responded that gentleman, answering the first inquirer.
Presently the door opened and Peter Van Deust appeared in it; a weazened, thin little man, with a fringe of gray hair surrounding a big white bald place on the top of his head, with a well-formed nose and eyes still bright enough to suggest that he had been a good-looking young fellow in his day; with lips that quivered, and long lean fingers that trembled with the weakness of old age; but, withal, a pleasant smile and a cheery ring, even yet, in his cracked old voice.
"Why, Squire!" he exclaimed, as he threw open the door, "I'm real glad to see you. And Lem! You, too? Well, this is a pleasant surprise-party for us early in the morning!"
"It's not so very early, Peter," answered the Squire. "It is almost seven o'clock."
"Is that so? Well, I declare! I wonder why Jacob isn't up. He's mostly an early riser, and as he's the boy amongst us, why we old folks—Betsy and me—rely on him to wake us up in the mornings. Old people, you know, get back to being like babies again for wanting their good sleep. But Jacob has overslept himself this morning, sure. I'll soon roust him out, though."
As he spoke he went to a closed door at one side of the central sitting-room, which was flanked by the separate apartments of the brothers, and pounding upon it with his bony knuckles, called:
"Come, Jacob, bounce out, boy! You're late! It's breakfast time, and we've got visitors. Get up!"
There was no answering sound from within. He waited a moment, then knocked again, shouting: "Hello, Jacob! Jake! I say, get up! What' the matter with you?"
Still there was no response. The three men waiting, held their breath to listen, and a vague sense of uneasiness crept over them. The songs of the blue-birds, and the chirp of the martens; the humming of the bees; the stamping of the horse hitched to the gig, and the clatter old Betsy made in opening her door, were all sharply distinct in the quiet summer morning air; but from the closed room there was no sound whatever. Peter tried the door, but it did not yield.
"He's locked his door!" exclaimed the old man, with an intonation of surprise in his voice.
"Maybe something has happened to him," suggested Lem.
"What could happen to him? He was all right last night; never better in his life. And he's younger than me. But it's queer he should have locked his door. He don't mostly." He continued rapping and shouting "Jacob, wake up!" in a more and more anxious tone.
"The key isn't in the keyhole, I guess," he muttered half to himself, fumbling at the lock with a bit of stick he picked up from the floor, "but," stooping down and trying to peer through, "I can't see anything, because it's all dark inside."
"Haven't you some other key about the house that will fit the lock?" asked the Squire.
"Yes. Mine does, I guess. But I didn't think of it at first. I'll try it."
It fitted: the bolt was thrown back, and the door pushed open. The sunshine darted in and fell, broad and clear, upon a still and ghastly thing that laid in the middle of the floor—the corpse of an old man, surrounded by a pool of blood.
Peter gave a wild cry of horror, and fell back senseless into the arms of Lem Pawlett, who was close behind him. They laid him on the old hair-cloth sofa in the sitting-room, called Betsy to attend to him, and then passed into the chamber he had opened.
Murder had been done. Jacob Van Deust's skull had been beaten in by some heavy instrument. One terrible crushing blow had mashed in his left temple, and let out his little weak old life; but, as if for very lust of killing the assassin had struck again and again, and the skull was fractured in several places. The old man, it appeared, had risen from his bed to meet his murderer, and had been struck down before he could utter a cry of alarm. The window curtains were down, so that the room was as yet only lighted from the door; but when those in front were opened, and a flood of sunlight poured in, there were no evidences apparent that there had been any struggle between the slayer and his victim, nor were there at once visible any indications that robbery, the only cause readily conceivable for the brutal murder of such an inoffensive old man, had been the purpose instigating the crime. The contents of the bureau drawers were much tumbled and disordered, but it was presumable that they were so usually, through the careless habits of the occupant of the apartment. There were no marks of blood upon anything they contained, but it was evident that the murderer had made some attempt at least to wipe his crimsoned hands upon the old man's shirt after killing him, and that was probably before he searched the bureau, if indeed he had troubled himself to ransack it at all. On one pillow of the bed they found the mark of a bloody hand. Perhaps the assassin was in such haste for plunder that he groped where the old man's head had lain before thinking of his bloody hand. Beyond that nothing appeared to them to show that robbery had been done.
But when Peter Van Deust had sufficiently recovered to be able to speak coherently, he said that his brother habitually kept, somewhere in his room, a wallet containing something over three thousand dollars, and a bag of coin; how much he did not know. These were nowhere to be found.
Lem Pawlett was hastily dispatched by the Squire, soon after the discovery of the crime, to summon some near neighbors; and as he drove rapidly along the road, shouting to every person he saw—"Jacob Van Deust has been murdered!"—it was but a very little while before a dozen or more men were assembled at the scene of the crime. They were all innocent, simple-minded folks, who had never seen a murdered man before, had even been a little skeptical that such an awful thing as murder was ever really done, except in the big cities where extreme wickedness was naturally to be expected, and were actually stunned by the shock of finding themselves in the presence of the evidences of the perpetration of such a deed. From them, of course, no aid in finding a clue to the perpetrator of the crime, or divining its real motive, could have been expected. Yet every man of them was wise in his own conceit, and among them were furtively exchanged whispers of such hideous significance that the Squire, when they reached his ears, felt himself compelled to take notice of and reply to them.
"The old men have been all the time quarrelling for two months past," said one to another.
"Yes," replied he who was addressed. "I've heard 'em myself, cussing each other over the fortune that was left them."
"Sam Folsom," added a third, "told me that he'd heard that Peter had threatened to knock Jake's head off more than once."
"Oh! I've heard that myself," chimed in another. "And I did hear that they'd had a regular fight and Jake got the best of it."
"It's awful that two old men like them, on the edge of the grave, as you may say, and brothers at that, should quarrel about money."
"And one for to go and kill the other."
At this point the Squire, who had overheard much of the preceding conversation, interposed: "How do you know," he demanded abruptly, turning on the last speaker, "who killed him?"
"Well, I dunno exactly, of course," whined the fellow, hesitatingly, "but it looks mighty like it."
"Ah! And that pimpled nose of yours, Rufe Stevens, looks mightily like you were a hard drinker; but you are ready to take your Bible oath it's nothing but bad humors in your blood."
There were a few suppressed chuckles at the Squire's retort from those in the vicinity—for men will laugh even at the smallest things, and in the very presence of the King of Terrors—and Rufe moved away, muttering indistinctly. But the Squire's interference and well-intended reproof had only a momentary effect in diverting the attention of the neighbors from the evil bent of suspicion their minds had taken; and they continued exchanging, and possibly augmenting, the rumors they had heard of differences between the Van Deust brothers, until the sentiment was general among them that Peter Van Deust should be at once arrested for the murder of his brother.
That the reader may be properly informed of certain antecedent events which, as will hereafter be seen, were intimately connected with, and indeed leading directly to the murder of Jacob Van Deust, it will be necessary for us to make a brief retrogression in our narrative and to introduce various other members of that little seaside community who bore their several important parts in the eventful drama of real life here in progress of recital.
Near the close of a day in earliest spring, when the sun, that had not yet sufficient power to melt the lingering patches of snow that still laid here and there among the thickets and on northern slopes, was throwing its last red rays upon the lowering, leaden-tinted masses of the western sky, two young girls wandered, with their arms about each other's waists, in the shadows of the woods not far distant from the village of Easthampton. One of them, somewhat above the medium height of women, possessed a slender and graceful figure, and a face that, seen under the large, crimson-lined hood of the cloak with which her head was covered, appeared almost pure Grecian in its regularity of feature and delicacy of outline. Her complexion was pale, but the clear roseate flush of her cheeks, and the brilliancy of youth and health sparkling in her eyes, demonstrated sufficiently that that pallidity was simply the added charm with which kindly nature at times enhances the loveliness of the most beautiful brunettes. The sentiment expressed by her countenance was serious and earnest, but not sad, for a faint smile, like the blossoming of some sweet hope, rested upon her small red lips. Her companion, who seemed to be of about the same age—not more than eighteen or nineteen years—was of a different mould; possibly less beautiful, but hardly less bewitching. She was somewhat shorter of stature and rounder of form, with a face in which vivacity and determination were happily blended. Her laughing lips were red and full, a merry mischievous light danced in her blue eyes, and her hood thrown back upon her neck, left bare a round head covered with a wavy wealth of brown hair.
"Now, Mary," said the brown-haired maid, bending forward and looking up archly in the face of her friend, "let us drop this nonsense of pretending to look for trailing arbutus, when you know, just as well as I do, that it will be a week, if not two, before there will be a sprig of it in bloom; and I know, just as well as you do, that you called me out for this walk to tell me something about Dorn Hackett, and for nothing else. Isn't that so, now?"
"Yes, you sharp little thing. You have guessed rightly, as usual. I have received another letter from Dorn."
"A letter from Dorn? The first for over a year, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, dear, it must seem almost like getting one from a stranger."
"Whalers have so few chances to write home."
"He has been gone a great while, hasn't he?"
"It seems so to me, I confess. And three years really is a long time, isn't it?"
"Dear me, yes. I wouldn't let Lem go away from me that way. Who knows but what he might marry somebody else while he was gone? Have you never been afraid that Dorn would?"
"Oh, no, Ruth. Never. He loves me too well for that, I know."
"And you felt just as sure of that when you did not hear from him for nearly two years?"
"Yes," replied Mary, with a little hesitation, however: "for I know the girl whose lover goes a-whaling must have patience; and I have heard Uncle Thatcher tell a good deal about the countries to which the whalers go, and I hardly think—"
"That he would be likely to meet anybody there who would be able to cut you out. Well, there's some comfort in that reflection, anyway. But the letter! What does he say for himself?"
"That he is coming home, Ruth; coming home at last. He is on the way now. A fast sailing packet-ship brought the letter on ahead, and he supposed that he would arrive a couple of weeks after I received it."
"And when he comes you'll get married?"
"I—hope so," replied Mary, in a little lower tone and with tears gathering in her eyes. "But you know we are poor; and besides, Uncle Thatcher—"
"That, for Uncle Thatcher," exclaimed little Ruth, snapping her fingers defiantly. "What has he to say about whom you shall marry? That is a matter which concerns nobody but you and Dorn."
"My mother, when she was dying in the big city, leaving me all alone, put me in his charge, you know."
"Well, what of it? It would be as much as I'd do to let my father and mother interfere with my marrying any nice young man I liked, and I don't believe parents can transfer that right—if it is a right—to anybody. Uncle Thatcher, indeed!" she ejaculated scornfully, with a toss of her little resolute round head. "What does he want you to do, anyway? To live and die an old maid, to please him?"
"No, I have been ashamed to tell anybody heretofore—even you, Ruth—but he wants me to marry Cousin Silas."
"That ugly, good-for-nothing cub of his?"
"Yes; Silas asked me to once, and when I refused him, said that I was only a pauper living on his father's charity, and threatened to tell such stories about me that nobody else would have me. He hurt and frightened me terribly, and Dorn found me in the woods crying about it. In the fullness of my heart I told him all. I couldn't keep it to myself when he asked me why I cried. And do you know what he did? He went right off and gave Silas such an awful pounding that he was laid up for two weeks."
"Good! I like Dorn Hackett better than I ever did before. That's just what I should expect of Lem in such a case."
"That was the time Silas was reported to be so sick, just before Dorn went away. He never dared to talk about me as he said he would, I guess, but as soon as he got well went right off to New York. Uncle Thatcher blamed Dorn for hurting Silas, and has hated the thought of him ever since. And oh, Ruth! you don't know what I've had to suffer from Aunt Thatcher!"
"Now you just take my advice and put your back right up at her; and as soon as Dorn comes home, you two go right off and get married, and if Uncle Thatcher tries to interfere, have Dorn pound him, too—worse than he did Silas."
Mary smiled through her tears and replied: "Dorn says he has done well and talks about buying a share in a coasting schooner—and a house—and—furniture—and I think he said something about getting married right away."
In sympathetic exuberance of joy the two girls embraced and kissed each other, Ruth exclaiming:
"And we'll get married on the same day, won't we? And in spite of Uncle Thatcher, or anybody else, Mary Wallace will be Mrs. Dorman Hackett, and Ruth Lenox will be Mrs. Lemuel Pawlett. But I wish Lem's name didn't rhyme with 'pullet' and 'gullet.'"
The two charming young friends were so busy with their theme that not until they were close before him, in the little bridle path through which they wandered, did they notice the presence of a third person: a smoothly-shaven, little, elderly gentleman, primly dressed in black and wearing a band of crape upon his tall silk hat. He was upon horseback, sitting silent and motionless. He had seen the girls slowly strolling toward him, waited until they almost collided with his horse's nose and had executed a little concerted scream of surprise, and then addressed them in a slow, measured and precise manner, saying:
"I am endeavoring to find the residence, or residences, of two persons known as Peter and Jacob Van Deust, supposed to be brothers, who, according to my present information and belief, reside somewhere in this vicinity. Can either of you young ladies direct me definitely upon my way, and if able, will you be so kind as to do so?"
"Follow the path you are on," answered Ruth, "until you enter the main road; turn to your right about a quarter of a mile, then go up a lane that you will see on your left—the first that has an elm tree on each side of its entrance—and it will lead you straight up to the Van Deust homestead."
"I am very much obliged to you for your apparent courtesy and the seeming accuracy of the details of your information," responded the little gentleman, with grave deliberation, bending almost to the horse's mane as he spoke. Then straightening himself, and shaking the reins, he urged his steed into a gentle trot and soon disappeared in the gathering evening shades at a bend of the path.
"'Supposed to be brothers'—indeed!" exclaimed Ruth, when he was out of sight. "I'm sure their faces will afford him sufficient 'information and belief' on that score when he sees them."
The Van Deust brothers sat smoking their pipes in the twilight on the wide porch of the old homestead overlooking the sea.
"I met Thatcher to-day when I was over at the village," said the younger brother, Jacob, "and he wanted to put the ten acre lot in corn on shares."
"Well," responded Peter, "I suppose he might as well have it as anybody. Somebody will have to work it. We are getting too old, Jacob, for ploughing and such-like hard toil ourselves, and a third will be all we'll want. What did you tell him?"
"I didn't give him any definite answer. I wish somebody else would offer to take the lot. I don't like that Thatcher."
"Why?"
"He is a hard, severe-looking old fellow, and I'm sure he treats that pretty niece of his badly."
"Oh! He does, eh? And now, Jacob, what the mischief is that to you? And what has it to do with his putting the ten-acre lot in corn on shares?"
"I've seen her crying."
"Bah! Girls are always crying. They like it. They do it for practice."
"Peter, you'd kick a boy for throwing stones at a wild bird, wouldn't you?"
"That's another matter. Birds are birds, and they're God's creatures; but women are the devil's creatures, and you'll never see Peter Van Deust trouble himself to lift his foot to a boy that throws stones at them. If the girl don't like the treatment her uncle gives her, I suppose she can find some fellow fool enough to marry her. 'Most any of 'em can do that."
"Peter, you shouldn't talk that way. A poor girl has her feelings about marrying where her liking goes, just as much as a man has."
"Yah!" snarled Peter, contemptuously, vigorously puffing his pipe, and for some minutes both men were silent. The younger of the two sank into a reverie, and awoke from it with a start, when his brother resumed the conversation, saying:
"I tell you what it is, Jacob. You were spooney on Mary Wallace's mother forty years ago, and I'm blessed if I think you have got over it yet. She threw you overboard then, not for a better looking man—for you were a fine, trim, sailor-built young fellow in those days—but for a richer one. She thought—"
"No, no, Peter! No, no! Don't say that! Don't say that! She didn't want to marry Wallace. I know she didn't. But her father and mother compelled her to it. She loved me best, I know she did. But you are right in saying I haven't got over it, Peter. I never shall. I'll love her just the same still, if I meet her in heaven. And when I see Mary's sweet young face, the love that is in my heart for her mother's memory cries out like a voice from the grave of all my hopes and joys, and I can hardly keep from taking poor Lottie's child in my arms and weeping over her."
"Which, if you were to do, she would think you were crazy, and right she would be," commented Peter, snarlingly.
"Hello!" sounded shortly, in a sharp wiry voice, from the little lane at the back of the house.
Peter, rising from his bench and going to the end of the porch, replied with a sailor-like "Aye, aye, sir," to the hail of the stranger, who was none other than the little elderly gentleman already encountered by Ruth and Mary in the woods. Without dismounting, the visitor asked, in a slow and cautious manner,
"Am I justified in presuming that I am upon the premises of the parties known as Peter and Jacob Van Deust?"
"This is where we live," replied Peter, a little puzzled by the stranger's manner.
"Pardon me, sir, but your reply is not an answer to my question. Am I to understand that you are one of the said parties?"
"I'm Peter, and this is Jacob," responded the elder brother, pointing with the stem of his pipe at the younger. "But come alongside before you get off any more of that lingo."
Methodically and carefully the rider dismounted, fastened his nag to the fence, and pushing open the little gate, stepped upon the low porch-floor, where, after an elaborate bow to each of the brothers separately, he continued:
"Assuming your affirmation to be correct and capable of substantiation by documentary evidence, and believing that you are, as you represent yourselves—or, rather, as one of you has represented—Peter and Jacob Van Deust, permit me, gentlemen, to have the pleasure of offering you my congratulations."
So saying, he raised his tall hat with old-time courtesy, repeated his bows to the brothers severally, and replaced his beaver with such exactitude that not a hair of his nicely-brushed wig was disarranged.
"Congratulations upon what? Upon being Peter and Jacob Van Deust?" demanded Peter, who began to look upon his visitor as a probably harmless lunatic.
"Naturally, sir. For reasons which you shall presently apprehend. Have you, or have you had, sir, to your knowledge, an uncle named Dietrich Van Deust?"
"Yes. It was Uncle Dietrich who went away to the Indies when we were boys, wasn't it, Peter?" said the younger brother.
"Yes, and settled somewhere there; I forget where. Batavia, I think, was the name of the place; but I ain't sure, for it is an age since I heard from him."
"Your remembrance is correct, nevertheless, sir," responded the stranger. "It was in Batavia that he took up his residence, and in Batavia that he died, at an advanced age, an old bachelor, possessed of large wealth, as I have been given to understand; and I offer my congratulations to you, gentlemen, for the reason that you are his fortunate heirs to the extent of one hundred thousand dollars."
The mere mention of that stupendous sum, as it seemed to them, fairly, stunned the two simple-minded old men who received this intelligence.
"Oh, Peter! It can't be there's so much money," gasped Jacob.
"Let me turn it over in my mind. Take a seat, sir," said Peter, pushing forward a stool for the visitor, reseating himself on his bench and slowly rubbing his forehead. Jacob went out to put away the little gentleman's horse, and while he was gone Peter relighted his pipe and smoked in silence. When the younger brother returned, the visitor resumed the conversation.
"My name," said he, "is Pelatiah Holden, and my profession that of counsellor-at-law. Here is my card," presenting one to each of the Van Deusts, and then continuing: "Four months and fourteen days since, I received from the firm of Van Gulden & Dropp, of Amsterdam, Holland, information to the effect that a client of theirs named William Van Deust was joint heir in the estate of Dietrich Van Deust, deceased, of Batavia; and they desired me, in order to facilitate the partition of the estate, to discover two other heirs, nephews of the deceased Dietrich Van Deust, named respectively Peter and Jacob Van Deust, sons of Jan Van Deust.
"That was father's name," interpolated Jacob in an undertone.
"As I have been already informed, sir, and do not doubt your ability to establish by legal proof," replied Mr. Holden, bowing gravely to him and going on with his narration. "Since that time, until three weeks ago, I have been seeking you, and it has only been during four days past that I have been satisfied that your claim to be the sons of Jan Van Deust, and nephews of Dietrich—and consequently inheritors under the will of the latter—could be legally established. Hence the apparent delay. But you will perceive, gentlemen, from my explanation, that I have notified you of the gratifying fact of the bequest, at the earliest practicable and proper moment."
Peter nodded silently, not having yet completed, seemingly, the serious task of "turning it over in his mind." But Jacob effusively stammered:
"Oh, we were not in any hurry, sir."
The lawyer resumed, speaking with the deliberate precision of one who reads an indictment: "Under the terms of the will, you are to enjoy this inheritance jointly while you both live, and expend it all, if you please, but by mutual consent. And should any of it remain at the time of the demise of either of you, it must descend to the survivor, untrammelled by any right of bequest on the part of the first decedent. And no contract, bargain, agreement, stipulation, or understanding whatever between you, concerning its disposal shall be made, by which the one surviving may be bound, or influenced in its administration; and to the fact that he is in no wise so bound, the survivor must make oath when entering into sole possession, else the sum so remaining must lapse to residuary legatees belonging to a remote branch of your family in Holland. What your uncle's intentions may have been in framing his will in this unusual manner, I do not pretend to say; nor is it, indeed, my province to inquire; but the facts are—as I know from an attested copy of the will in my possession—as I have had the honor of presenting them to you. And now, gentlemen, permit me to renew my congratulations and express the hope that you may long be joint possessors of this handsome inheritance."
So sung pretty Mary Wallace, as, sitting at the foot of a little tree, her favorite haunt and old time trysting-place in the woods, she abandoned herself to happy anticipations of her lover's return. Each hour might bring him now. Her bonnet was thrown aside and her black curls rippled down loosely over her shoulders. Her head was thrown back into the palms of her hands interlocked behind it, and her beautiful face, thus upraised, beamed with innocent gladness. And she sang, as the birds sing, from sheer happiness.
"He's in the offing now," sang a full, rich, manly voice, joining hers in the last line of her song, and with a little inarticulate cry of surprise and joy she sprang to her feet, to be the next moment enfolded in the strong arms of her sailor lover, back from the sea.
Dorn Hackett was a fine-looking young fellow, of a size worthy of a woman's liking, with a handsome, expressive face, hazel eyes, brown hair, broad and well-balanced head, square shoulders, deep chest, and such powerful arms as might have served for the model of a Hercules.
"Why, darling, you are crying!" he exclaimed, as with gentle force he raised her face from his breast and looked into her eyes.
"Ah, Dorn, they are happy tears. Do you not know that a woman weeps when her heart is full, just because it is full, whether it be filled with joy or sorrow?"
"Well, you shall never cry for sorrow again, if I can prevent it."
"Then you will never again leave me for so long a time. Oh, Dorn, it seemed as if you never would come back; and my heart ached so with longing for you. You don't know how unhappy I have been sometimes, while you were away."
"Why? Has that rascal Silas been making you any more trouble?" demanded the young man, his eyes blazing, and his hands involuntarily clenching in sudden anger.
"No, no, Dorn. He went away very soon after you did, and has not returned since."
"Then that uncle of yours, I suppose—"
"He has been no worse than before; rather better, perhaps as Silas was not here to be urged upon me and you were gone—none but I knew where—and, as he no doubt hoped, never to come back. But I begin to think, sir, that you didn't love me at all as much as you professed, or you would have felt something of the loneliness that I suffered and understand better why I was unhappy."
"Darling, I—"
"What a foolish girl I have been! Crying my eyes out for one who was no doubt very merry without me and well contented."
"Ah! You only say that to make me tell you again how much I love you, little Mollie. I've felt lonely enough, sometimes, it is true; but never enough to cry about it, I must confess; and I rather think the fellow is soft-headed as well as soft-hearted who pipes his eye and gets down in the mouth when he can say to himself that every day that passes, and every new exertion he makes, brings him nearer to the girl he loves. Why, instead of getting blue with thoughts of my far-away little Mollie, they gave me courage, and strength, and happiness. They warmed me as I lay along the yard furling sail in the icy gale; they made short the long hours of the night when I took my trick at the wheel; they nerved my arm when I struck for the life of a whale."
"I find myself beginning to believe again that you really did love me."
"Love you? Why, I couldn't live without loving you."
"And you never thought that while you were so long away I might learn to love somebody else?"
"No. Never even dreamed of such a thing," he replied simply.
"Ah! Now I know you loved me, for only perfect love, knowing but its own fullness and truth, is so trustful. And you were right, dear Dorn. I could love no one but you."
"Well, my pet," continued Dorn, after the natural ceremonial of due recognition of such a sweet avowal—the form and manner of which youthful readers may readily figure to themselves, and older ones perhaps find suggested by memory—"we'll not have much longer to wait now. Our cruise was a good one, and when the shares are figured up and paid off, I'll have a handsome little sum coming to me. Then an owner in New Haven, Mr. Merriwether, wants me to take immediate command of a schooner trading between that port and the West Indies, and has offered me such a pretty share of the profits that I have agreed to make a few trips for him. Then I shall have enough to build a cage for my bird, and to buy, not simply a share in a schooner, but a whole schooner—all by myself, I hope, and we will be made folks for life."
"Oh! You're going away again, Dorn?"
"Yes, but only for short voyages of a month or so at a time, and I'll be over to see my little Mollie every time I'm in home port; and in the fall, if not before, we'll be married. No more long voyages for me."
"I'm so glad to hear you say that, dear; and I can wait patiently, even happily, when I may see you sometimes." And, possibly for happiness still, the girl began crying softly again.
"Come, come, little Mollie," said her sailor lover, consoling her with a kiss, "there's no occasion to rig the pumps in such fair weather as this."
Mary smiled through her tears, and dried her eyes.
"Now," he continued, "let me hear your voice, darling. Tell me something."
"Tell me again if you still love me."
For answer she put her arm around his neck, drew his face down to hers, and kissed him. What words could have been so complete and eloquent an assurance as that chaste and tender caress?
"My own dear little wife," he exclaimed, embracing her passionately.
"Don't call me 'wife' until I am one," she said, with assumed earnestness, "for I'm told it's unlucky."
"Well, maybe it may be," he answered slowly and doubtingly. "There's no denying that there is something in luck. Every sailorman knows there are unlucky things, such as sailing on a Friday, and drowning a cat, and lots more, and that may be so. Well, I won't take any chances on it. But I've thought of you for eleven hundred days and nights as my little wife, and the words sprang naturally to my lips. Still I'll try not to call you so any more until we are married."
"And to prevent any harm from your indiscretion I suppose I must use the counter-charm."
"And that is—?"
"To call you," and winding her arms again about his neck she whispered in his ear, "my big husband."
And then, of course, there were more suitable ceremonials, endearments and caresses, and mutual protestations of undying affection, such as young people so circumstanced have always made, make yet, and doubtless will make to the end of time.
How very short the time seemed to the lovers from the moment of their meeting until by a glance at the stars, the true sailor's clock, Dorn saw that it was near the hour for him to leave Elysium and hasten to join a shipmate, who was waiting for him in a light sail-boat off Napeague Inlet, to take him back to New London and the stern realities of life. And so, after a final settlement as to the probable time of his return from his first West Indian voyage; and a little more previsionary talk about the happiness of which they were so well assured the enjoyment in the coming autumn; and consequently more love-making and caressing, all of which could have no interest for anybody but themselves, the lovers parted.
There was no difficulty whatever in establishing the identity of the Van Deust brothers, and no obstacles were interposed to prevent their entering into possession of their fortune as speedily as the forms of law and the time requisite for communication with Holland would permit; for in those days it had not yet become a branch of the legal business to stir up vexatious will contests, based upon the fictitious claims of presumptive heirs, in order that lawyers might fleece the real inheritors. Even before the money arrived from Holland Peter wanted a few thousand dollars of it in the house as a tangible evidence of the reality of their wealth; and Mr. Holden very cheerfully humored his whim by making him an advance of the required amount. The old man had no idea of investing the money, or buying anything with it; but he loved to run his fingers through the glittering coins from time to time and listen to the mellifluous music of their chinking; to count, and recount, and pile the yellow discs, and think what he could do with them if he had a mind to. The unhappy fact was that this sudden acquisition of wealth had developed a really miserly disposition in the elder brother. As is very common, especially among those who only acquire large fortunes late in life, possession begat in him a longing to possess. He even felt it an injury that he had been all those years without that money, the existence even of which he had not known, and for which, now that he clutched it, he really had not the slightest use. He had never been one at whom the tongue of scandal might have wagged the reproach of prodigality, even in his youth; but his jealously careful economy was greater now than it had ever before been.
Jacob proposed one day that they should purchase two black broadcloth suits and crape-bound hats, to be worn as mourning for Uncle Dietrich; but was completely discomfited by the look of pained surprise with which Peter regarded him, and the tone in which he replied:
"Now, Jacob, would you go to making ducks and drakes of our little money in that way, and at your time of life?"
No, Jacob resigned his idea of a tribute to Uncle Dietrich's memory, and penitently declared he really had no notion of becoming a spendthrift; and thereafter he uncomplainingly and unquestioningly left his elder brother to the sole administration of their joint wealth.
When the bulk of their inheritance arrived and was placed in the hands of Mr. Holden for investment on bond and mortgage in New York, that it might yield more dollars to covetous Peter's longings, then the old man's troubles indeed began. When he heard of a fire, he trembled to think that perhaps it was property mortgaged to the Van Deust Fund that was burned. When he read of a bankruptcy he shuddered for fear that the delinquent might have been indebted to the Van Deust Fund. When he had no bad news, then his anxiety was even greater, for at times he was capable of thinking it possible that worthy little Mr. Holden might have run away with the Van Deust Fund bodily. All this made him a very uneasy and unhappy old man. Jacob's kinder and more trustful nature gave place to none of those anxieties, and Peter resented his seeming indifference to the Van Deust Fund.
"Jacob," said he, one day, "we might live to see the Fund doubled."
"Well, Peter, if it were, what more good would it do us?"
The elder brother felt almost sick with disgust at that unambitious reply, and said that he felt so.
Thus it was that Peter's temper, never a remarkably sweet one, became so sour that meek old Jacob grew to look upon him with actual dread and would shun him, or sit looking askance and timidly at him, when they smoked together on the porch in the evenings, in the habit but not the content of former days. And, seeing this, a new suspicion entered Peter's soul to plague him.
"I suppose," said he, one day, with a grim smile, "that you think because I'm the oldest, I'll die first."
"Now, now, Peter, my dear Peter! I assure you I never had such a thought," protested horrified Jacob.
"Oh, it's only natural you should. I don't blame you. But I'm good for a good many years yet, Jacob; a good many years yet."
"I trust and fervently hope and pray, brother Peter, that you may be good for very many years to come." And the tender-hearted old man's voice trembled, and his eyes were moist as he spoke. "Why," said he, "to think of your dying, Peter, gives me a—a—a—"
"No, no, Peter, not at all that. No. A cold shudder, I meant; but you startled me so I couldn't think of the word. After all the many years we have lived together, all by ourselves, with no other companions and hardly any other friends than each other! Why, Peter, if I were to lose you, I'd want to die myself, right off."
"Humph. Not you. I know what you'd want to do a heap more. And I don't blame you. Oh, no. It's natural for you. But I know."
"Know what?"
"I know what you'd do with the Fund if I was out of the way."
"Then you know much more, Peter, than I should know, even if I had it in my hands, to do what I pleased with this blessed minute."
"Why, you'd be a special Providence for the women. That's what you'd be, you soft old noodle. You'd give it away to the young ones that wanted to marry, like Mary Wallace; to the middle-aged ones who were sorry they had married, like Mrs. Richards. Oh, you don't think I've noticed and understood your hinting 'how poor she was,' and 'how hard she must find it to get along with her five small children and deserted by her worthless husband;' and I've no doubt, if the truth were known, he had some good reasons for leaving her. And you'd give it to the old ones, just because they were old women. You'd give a lot of it to Mary Wallace, for her mother's sake, I've no doubt. Oh, yes. Beautiful ideas you'd have, and fine things you'd do with the Fund if I was out of the road."
"If I should do all that you have said, brother, I think the Fund would be doing a great deal more good than it does now."
"Aha! There! You admit it! I knew it! But you needn't think you'll ever get the chance. I'll live to bury you yet."
By this time he had worked himself up into a veritable passion; his lean old fingers trembled with the agitation of his wrath, and his perverted senses were deaf and blind to the loving kindness of Jacob's meek and gentle response, "And I hope, Peter, that you may."
"You don't. You're a hypocrite," he retorted, furiously. Jacob looked at him sadly, shook his head, and after lighting his pipe in silence, strolled away for his evening smoke to the woods, where he was wont to retire when Peter made the house too warm for him.
But the crushed worm, proverbially at least, eventually turns; and one day the younger brother, badgered beyond endurance by those oft-repeated taunts and reproaches, which were always accompanied by cruel raspings of the old wound in his heart, faced his tormentor and replied:
"Well," he said, "take it by and large, and I think if I should do all that you have said with the money I'd make a better use of it than you'd be likely to."
"What do you know about what I'd do with it?"
"No more than you know what I would; but I've got just as good a right to guess as you have."
"Well, what do you 'guess'?" retorted Peter, with a sneering wicked grin.
"Why, I imagine that as long as you lived you would hang on to every penny of it, like an old miser as you are, and when Death loosed the greedy clutch of your avaricious fingers from it, it would be discovered that you had left it all to found a home for worn-out, dried-up, useless, ill-natured old animals such as we are, creatures who have outlived all love but that of self, and deserve no other; men who, like you, have no without a blush for what they are, and a sigh for what they might have been."
"Jacob, you're a chuckle-headed ass."
"Peter, you're a soulless old curmudgeon, and a brute."
"Don't you talk to me like that. For two cents I'd knock your head off."
"For a money consideration I've no doubt you'd try it; but I'll bet you a thousand dollars you can't knock one side of it off."
"You'll bet a thousand dollars! I'd like to know where you'd get 'em."
"Right in the house. Half the money that's there belongs to me. It all belongs to me just as much as to you."
"Oh, indeed! And you'd like to knock me in the head and get possession of it, wouldn't you?"
"No. But I'd like to jam some sense into your thick skull, and bleed out some of the meanness and selfishness that fills your heart."
"Faw de Lo'd's sake. Is you boys a qwa'lin'?" demanded old black Betsy, coming up on the porch; and they slunk away ashamed before her.
But when Jacob had once "read the Declaration of Independence," as he styled his self-assertion against Peter's domineering disposition, he soon fell into the habit of repeating the precedent, and as Peter did not willingly or easily relinquish his sovereignty—the prerogative of seniority in his opinion—they had many a wordy wrangle, and not infrequently uttered to each other such threats as might well have seemed ominous if overheard by strangers. And they were overheard, and their quarrels were repeated and magnified in circulation from mouth to mouth; so that it was not long before it became matter of common notoriety in the community that the two old men had actually had knock-down fights; and once, when Peter was laid up with the rheumatism, and Jacob was nursing him most tenderly and assiduously—notwithstanding the invalid's temper was just then even worse than usual—it was popularly believed that the elder brother had been almost killed by the younger in a bloody combat, and there were those who even talked of "speaking to the squire about it." But the brothers never did come to blows, and the only immediate result of their quarrels was a formal division between them of the money on hand in the house, after which it was allowed to lie in two parts, as useless as it before was in one. Jacob indeed had some idea of giving his share to Mary Wallace, but could not exactly make up his mind upon what pretence or with what excuse to offer it, and feared to offend her.
One day he sat on a little mossy bank by the roadside when she passed him, coming from the woods with a bunch of wild flowers in her hands and going toward her uncle's house. She was close to him, but did not see him. Her thoughts were upon her absent lover, and in the exaltation of her happiness she was oblivious to all about her but her own joy. The old man's eyes were upon her, however, reading her secret in her countenance transfigured by love and hope. Ah! how her look brought back her mother's face to his remembrance.
"Little she would care," he said softly to himself, "for the money now. She has love; and that is better than gold."
But when approaching her home, Mary controlled her countenance and was quite demure. The happy ones do well to hide their felicity, lest the envy it would beget should make the world intolerable. And about Uncle Thatcher's house there was an atmosphere that made very easy the repression of joyous emotion. It was a square frame dwelling, two stories high, in a bare sandy yard surrounded on three sides by a rickety fence of rails and on the forth—the front—by palings, with a gate in the middle of them. There were no shutters on the windows, that looked like great staring dead eyes, sometimes with a blaze of fury in them when the sun, low in the west, glared upon them; and there was no porch, but only a big stone for a step at the door. There were no vines trailing against the walls; no flowers in the yard, but only weeds in the fence corners; and no trees. Everything that might have adorned or softened the expression of the place was lacking. The birds always flew swiftly by it and never stopped there to sing.
At one end of this cheerless home was a crumbling well-curb, to which came often, to draw water, a tall, gaunt, sallow and slatternly woman, who continually wore a sun-bonnet and had her sleeves rolled up on her lean sinewy arms. A tangled wisp of unkempt sandy hair never failed to dangle below the curtain of the sun-bonnet on the back of her neck. That woman was Aunt Thatcher.
Behind the house, and separated from it by a stable-yard, knee-deep in time of rain, with muck and foul green water, stood an old barn, from which was diffused a dull but quite perceptible odor of animal decomposition, arising out of a great pile of crude whalebone, or "ballein", and some barrels of whale oil. Uncle Thatcher was captain of a shore whaling company, and in his barn those articles were generally stored until they could be sent to market. The "ballein" needed to be kept some time, for cleaning, scraping, and splitting before it could be sold.
As Mary reached the gate, she stood still for a few minutes, contemplating the scene of thriftlessness and apparent poverty before her; a picture for which, as she well knew, no good reason existed in fact, for Uncle Thatcher was by no means a poor man. As captain of the whaling crew, his annual gains were considerable. Then he owned a fishing smack and a large share in a big coasting schooner that plied from Sag Harbor, both of which paid him well. But better than either of those to him was an industry, the nature and importance of which Mary little understood, although she suspected something of its mysteries. At certain times each month Uncle Thatcher and one particular neighbor used to go fishing in a stout whaleboat rigged with a sail, on moonlit nights, and upon those occasions they were almost always lucky enough to find one or two casks of rum—doubtless washed overboard from some vessel homeward-bound to New Haven from the West Indies. (It was wonderful how many casks of rum were thus lost overboard in those days, just off Napeague Inlet.) Or, by the accidental use of a grapnel, they would chance to fish up some bottles of valuable "bay-oil" from the bottom. Uncle Thatcher used to bury that treasure-trove in the sand, back of his barn, and it always mysteriously disappeared at night, when nobody was watching it. Yet he never seemed to take those losses to heart, but would find and bury more rum and bay oil, in the same place, to be lost in just the same way. "Smuggling, eh?" Well, yes. But they didn't call it that. They spoke of it as "finding and saving things."
While Mary stood at the gate, Uncle Thatcher himself sat upon the stone door-step, sharpening with a whetstone the edge of a "blubber-spade"—a sort of huge long-handled chisel, used to cut a whale's blubber from his carcass and into strips. He was a tall man, wirily and powerfully built, past middle-age, but still bearing well his years. His gray eyes were overhung by exceedingly bushy iron-gray brows; his nose was large and beak-shaped; his lips, thin and straight; his ears wide and thick; and his hands big and bony, with thick fingers, flat at the ends and having great joints.
Looking up from his work, he demanded of the young girl, in a tone of querulous surprise, "Where on earth have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you to turn the grindstone."
"I'm ready to do it now, uncle," responded Mary, evading a reply to his question by the prompt proffer of her services.
"Oh, I don't need you now. Your aunt turned it."
He gave a few rubs of the whetstone on the shining blade, in an absent-minded way, and then laying the long spade across his knees, and looking sharply at Mary, said slowly, as if carefully choosing his words:
"You don't get used to our way of living out here on the beach, do you, Mary? You'd rather be back in the city, where you lived when you were a little girl, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, no, uncle. My memories of the city do not make me wish to return to it. Papa and mamma died there, and after we lost papa we had to live in a very poor part of the city, where the tall houses hid the sunshine, and the air was always bad, and there was so much misery, and dirt, and sickness all about us. Oh, I loathed it as a child, and it makes me almost sick to think of it now. No, I do not wish to go back to the city. I like best the bright sunlight and the pure ocean breezes. I love even the storms."
"But if you could live in a nice place in the city?"
"No. I think I would be afraid to go back there now." While talking she had advanced from the gate, and now stood near her uncle.
"Sit down here beside me, Mary. I want to talk to you a little," said he.
She obeyed, trembling slightly, for she felt a vague presentiment that he proposed pressing a subject that she dreaded. But he was slow to begin, seemed to hesitate, and relapsed into thought while he pared his already stubby nails upon the sharp edge of the blubber-spade. At length, he "made out his bearings" and opened the attack.
"You know," he said, "that Silas has been a little wild, perhaps, in days gone by, as a young man of spirit is most likely to be; but I hope you have no hard feelings against him on account of his foolishness that time. You know he was only a boy, then; and he was, as you may say, carried away with you, and all struck of a heap when you gave him the mitten so plainly. Maybe he deserved all he got that time, and I guess it done him good; so we'll call that square and let by-gones be by-gones. Is that your idea?"
"Yes, uncle," answered Mary timidly, in a low voice.
"Give us your hand on it."
With a little smile the girl extended her hand, which Uncle Thatcher took very seriously, and treated to a solemn pump-handle-like shake.
"And now here's the point," he went on, still holding her fingers; "Silas is going to settle down and be steady. He wrote to me about three months ago, from Boston, and said he'd got work there as a ship-carpenter, and had quit his wild ways, and wasn't going to call on me for any more money. Well, he has kept his own word about the money, and by that I judge he's all right, earning an honest living, and doing as he said. But he likes living in the city better than down here on the beach. And now do you know what would do more than anything else to keep him steady?"
Mary shook her head. She had an idea of what he meant, but did not wish to encourage him in the direction he was tending.
"A good wife would," said Uncle Thatcher very decidedly.
"Then I hope he will succeed in finding one in Boston," replied the girl, with purposeful evasion of the direct attack.
"That's not my idea. I don't want him to marry a Boston girl. I've got my eye on a girl who I know is all that a good wife should be, the very one that Silas ought to have. You know who I mean. It's you, Mary."
"A girl should never marry a man she doesn't love, uncle, and I don't love Silas."
He bit his lips, was silent for a moment, and then resumed: "You're only a girl, yet, and can't rightly be expected to know your own mind; and besides, it's three years since you have seen Silas. You don't know how you might feel towards him if you were to see him again now."
She shook her head, for she thought she did know very well, as she mentally put Silas and Dorn in contrast, but did not answer.
"I hope," he continued, viewing her with a little growing suspicion, "that you've got over that childish notion you had once about that young Hackett chap. He's gone, the Lord knows where, and I'll be bound, never thinks of you any more. Now, if you marry Silas, I can give you a good start in life. I'm not poor, and if you and Silas prefer to live in the city, why I'll furnish a house for you there nicely, and start him in some business, and—"
"Oh, no, no, uncle! Please do not talk any more about it. I can't marry Silas. Indeed, I can't."
Uncle Thatcher's face crimsoned with anger, but he restrained himself, and said: "Ah, I suppose you still think that young Hackett will come back of the same mind that he went away. Aha! Not he! Those young sailor chaps have a wife in every port. And he'd better not come snooping around here, if he does come back, or I'll—"
Suddenly breaking off his speech, he sprang to his feet, clutched his hat from the ground, and started off for the beach, running at the top of his speed. His quick eye had seen, afar off upon the bluff overlooking the sea, a man on horseback, who waved, with excited gestures, a small red flag.