Kitabı oku: «Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XIII
HENRY BURNS MAKES A DISCOVERY

It was after eleven o’clock when Harvey and Tom Edwards paused to rest and consider what they should do. The night was very still and clear, and, with the approach of Christmas day, there was already a perceptible change in the temperature. It was growing milder. With that, and the relief from their long oppression, – the sensation of being once more free – they felt a great buoyancy of spirit.

“I could sit right here all night,” exclaimed Harvey, breathing deep and looking off exultantly at the river. “There’s the old Brandt– bad luck to her! You can see the masts against the water, as she swings. Whew! But we’ve had a time of it. I’d like to see Haley when he finds us gone, and his hatch missing.”

“Well, you are young and tough and you may not want a place to sleep, to-night,” replied Tom Edwards; “but I don’t mind saying that I do, and I want it soon as I can get it. I’m dead tired, and I’m dead sleepy. I wonder which one of these houses we’d better try.”

“That’s what bothers me,” answered Harvey. “Sam Black told me once that a good many of these people along shore own shares in some of the dredgers, and they’d give a sailor up, if he ran away.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Tom Edwards.

“I’m not so sure he wasn’t trying to keep me from trying to escape,” admitted Harvey. “I dare say some of these folks would be glad to see us get away. Let’s try that little house over there, through the trees.”

He pointed to a house a few rods up on a road that led from the shore, and they proceeded towards it. It was all in darkness, and, indeed, seemed almost deserted. They passed in through a half tumbling gateway, with rotting posts on either hand, and Tom Edwards knocked at the door.

There was no answer, and he knocked again. They heard some one stirring within. Presently a chamber window was thrown up, and an old woman poked her head cautiously out.

“What do you want, this time of night?” she asked.

“Madam, we want a night’s lodging,” replied Tom Edwards, removing his tarpaulin, and making as polite an appearance as his fisherman’s oil-skins would permit.

“Hey?”

“A night’s lodging, madam. We have left the vessel, and we haven’t any place to stop.”

“Oh, you be sailor men, eh – but you talk like a man as tried to sell me a sewing machine once – sort of smooth like. Well, I’m a lone woman, and I haven’t any lodgings for anyone. You’ll have to go along.”

“We can pay,” ventured Harvey.

The woman shook her head.

“I’ve heard they do beat ’em dreadful on the dredgers, oftentimes,” she said, “and I don’t know as I blame you for running off, if that’s what you’ve been doing. But you’ll have to try somewhere’s else. I guess you couldn’t pay much, by the looks of you.”

Harvey and Tom Edwards looked at each other. Tom Edwards shook his head.

“It’s no use, Jack,” he said. “She won’t let us in.” Then he turned to the window once more and made a sweeping bow, with his greasy tarpaulin in hand.

“Allow us to wish you a Merry Christmas, madam,” he said.

“Hey?”

“A Merry Christmas, I say.”

The old woman suddenly withdrew her head from the window, and they started to go away; but she reappeared and called to them.

“Here,” she said, “catch this.” And she tossed something out of the window.

A coin fell at Harvey’s feet, and he stooped and picked it up. It was a quarter of a dollar.

“If that will do you any good, you are welcome,” she said. “It’s all the Christmas I can afford to give you.”

Then she shut the window.

Harvey and Tom Edwards, amused and disappointed, passed out of the gateway and went on.

“Well, we’re a quarter better off,” laughed Harvey, untying his oil-skins and stowing the coin away in a trousers’ pocket.

“Oh, hang the quarter!” exclaimed Tom Edwards, sleepily. “I’d give ten dollars for a good night’s lodging, a bath and a shave – that is, if I had the ten,” he added. “What shall we do, Jack?”

“I know,” replied Harvey, promptly. “I’ve seen a big old farmhouse, with a lot of barns and hen-houses and cattle sheds and things, when we’ve been lying off shore, and it looked mighty comfortable and home-like. It’s down the shore a piece. Let’s go there. We won’t ask for lodgings, though. We’ll get into one of the barns, and make ourselves comfortable. They can’t find us until morning, anyway.”

“Go ahead. I’m with you,” said Tom Edwards.

Harvey led the way, across the open country, through a series of little hills and hollows, to the eastward of where they had landed. Tom Edwards, wearied and burdened with the weight of the cumbersome oil-skins, followed doggedly, nearly falling asleep as he walked.

They came presently to the outskirts of a farm of some considerable size, fenced in, and skirted with small trees and bushes. From the shelter of these, they could look across some ploughed land, with the old stubble of corn-stalks showing, to the farmhouse and out-buildings. There were, as Harvey had noted, several of these.

“I wonder if there are any dogs,” muttered Harvey, as he surveyed the prospect. “If there are, we’re done for – unless we have better luck than we did before.”

He gave a low whistle, not to be audible far, but which might carry in the still night air to the buildings. Then they waited anxiously. There was no answering bark. They stole quickly across the open fields and came within the shadow of one of the barns. There they paused again, listening intently for any sound that might come from the house. The place was silent, save for the stirring of some cattle within the barn.

This barn was one of the larger ones, evidently built for storing hay, with a part of it used for cattle. It was nearest the farmhouse – only a few rods distant. They made the round of three sides of it, keeping close within the shadow of its walls, looking for a possible means of entrance. To their disappointment, there were no windows large enough to admit of the passage of even a boy – only some small ones, high up, that admitted light and air for the cattle.

At the farther end, however, they discovered two doors; the larger one on the ground floor, used for teams and farm wagons, and, high above that, a smaller door that opened on to the second floor, used for hoisting in hay. The smaller door they perceived to be slightly ajar – evidently through the oversight of some farm hand.

Tom Edwards pointed to the door, half-heartedly.

“Isn’t that tantalizing?” he said. “Of course, it’s the door that’s out of reach that’s open.”

“We’ll make it,” replied Harvey. “Whoever heard of a farm without a ladder of some sort?”

They found one, after a cautious hunt, lying alongside another shed. In a twinkling, they had raised it to the upper window, ascended, and were inside.

There was absolutely no way of telling where they were, save that they were in some sort of a hay-loft, with a window at the farther end, through which the stars gave scarcely any light at all. They ventured to strike one match, but it gave them only a transient, shadowy view of their surroundings; and they dared not repeat the experiment amid the dry hay.

There were cattle and perhaps other stock on the floor below, judging by the sounds. There was hay scattered all about them, and a huge mow of it on one side. There was a bucket filled with sand that Harvey discovered by bumping his shins against it. A rope went up from this to the beam above. Harvey knew the contrivance, for he had seen the like in barns at home. The rope ran through a big block fastened to a beam overhead, and passed down again from that pulley through a hole in the floor, to the room below. There it connected, he knew, with a barred door, like a large gate, that was used in summer nights, instead of the regular sliding doors, to admit of a free supply of air into the barn. The rope connected with it like a window cord, and the bucket of sand answered for the weight. This much of their surroundings was apparent. All the rest was hidden in darkness.

Tom Edwards unbuttoned his oil-skin coat, removed it, and dropped upon a little pile of hay, using the coat to cover him.

“It’s gorgeous! Jack, my boy,” he exclaimed. “It beats any bed in the Parker House in Boston. Turn in. There’s room for two, and not a cent to pay. My, but I’m tired!”

“I’m with you,” answered Harvey, “but I’ll just close that door a bit more. We haven’t got much bed-clothing.”

He stepped to the door and shut it almost tight. Then he started back, for where Tom Edwards lay. It was dark, and he could not see his way. He took a few steps, when something impelled him to stop abruptly. The next moment he discovered he was at the top of a pair of stairs leading down to the lower floor.

“Jimminy! Tom,” he cried softly, “I came near taking a flying trip that time. Here’s a pair of stairs.”

He retraced his steps a little, and stumbled against a pitchfork, that was leaning against the side of the barn.

“Tom,” he laughed, “where are you, anyway? This is the easiest place to get lost in I ever saw.”

Before Tom Edwards had opportunity to reply, Harvey had taken a few more steps in the darkness. Then Tom Edwards heard him utter a startled, frightened, half-smothered cry. There was a queer, scraping sound, and a heavy thud somewhere on the floor below.

Tom Edwards sprang to his feet, in alarm.

“Jack,” he cried, “what’s the matter? What’s happened?”

There was no answer. He groped his way across the floor.

“Jack,” he called again, anxiously, “where are you? What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

He peered into the darkness, and listened. Then he heard the frightened whinny of a horse, followed by a clatter of hoofs on the barn floor. Tom Edwards made his way in the darkness to the top of the stairs.

“Jack, Jack,” he called.

To his inexpressible relief, the voice of Harvey came up to him; then the vague figure of Harvey, himself, ascending the stairway. He was limping, but taking two stairs at a jump.

Tom Edwards seized him by an arm as he arrived at the top.

“Good gracious, my boy, what happened?” he asked.

Harvey gasped.

“I’m more scared than hurt, I guess,” he said, panting for breath. “Cracky! How I did go. Dropped down one of the chutes that they feed the hay down into the stalls through. It was all over in a minute. I thought I was going clear to China, and then I struck and landed in a manger. Scared? You bet! But the horse in that stall was scared worse than I was. He gave a snort and jumped to his feet, broke his halter and cleared out of that stall quicker than scat. There he goes about the stable, making a racket to wake the whole farm. I’ve done it, I expect. Say, Tom, we’ve got to hide, and hide quick.”

“Where’ll we go – down the ladder and make a run for it?” asked Tom Edwards.

“I can’t do it,” answered Harvey. “I’ve got a bad ankle. I know what. Where’s that pitchfork?”

He groped his way cautiously to the side of the barn, and had the good fortune to put his hand on the handle of the fork.

“Lie down there again, Tom,” he said. “I’ll heap the hay over you. Here, take my coat, too. I’ll cover you, and then I’ll go up the rope. I can climb, if I can’t run.”

Tom Edwards, confused by the sudden turn of affairs, obeyed instructions. Harvey hurriedly pitched a quantity of the loose hay over the form of his friend, pressed it down until Tom Edwards begged for mercy, vowing he should smother, then tossed the pitchfork aside. Grasping the rope, Harvey went rapidly up, hand-over-hand, until he could seize the beam. He drew himself up, caught one leg over the beam and swung himself astride of it. Then he stretched himself out at length upon the beam, holding to the block for safety. It was an easy accomplishment for him. He had done a similar feat in the gymnasium at home a hundred times; and the fear of discovery now lent him strength which made little account of the extra weight of clothing that encumbered him. It was dusty and uncomfortable on the great beam, but he could stick.

Sometime after midnight, Henry Burns and young Joe Warren, asleep in that corner room of the old Warren house that was nearest the big barn, awoke suddenly. Of one accord, the two sat bolt upright in bed and wondered if the house were tumbling down about their heads. Then they realized that the noise was outside the house – a most extraordinary racket, as of a stampede of cattle, or a horse galloping through a covered bridge at full speed. They sprang out of bed and ran to the window.

Henry Burns laughed.

“It’s all right, Joey,” he said. “It isn’t an earthquake nor a cyclone. I thought we were all going in a heap for a moment, though. It’s out in the barn – one of the horses got loose, I guess.”

They heard sounds of stirring in the room opposite, and presently Edward Warren called out to them.

“Don’t be scared, boys,” he said. “It’s old Billy, got loose, somehow. Funny, too, I hitched him all right last night. What on earth is the matter with him? He’s scared at something, sure. I reckon it isn’t thieves, for they don’t steal horses around here. I’ll have a look pretty quick, though. There’s something wrong.”

“Come on, Joe,” said Henry Burns. “Let’s see what’s the matter.”

But Young Joe was not eager. He yawned and returned to bed. Henry Burns dressed and hurried out into the hall. A few moments later, Edward Warren, carrying a lantern, and George and Arthur Warren and Henry Burns made their way out of the back door and entered the barn at the door facing the house.

As they threw open the sliding door and entered, with the lighted lantern, the whinny of a horse greeted them. Then old Billy, recognizing his master’s voice, came ambling up and thrust his nose into Edward Warren’s hand.

Edward Warren gave an exclamation of surprise.

“That’s queer,” he said. “Look at that halter. If he hasn’t broken it short off. I never knew him to do that before. What’s the matter, Billy – had bad dreams?”

“You don’t think anybody has broken into the barn?” suggested George Warren, peering into the dancing shadows cast by the lantern.

“Oh, no,” replied Edward Warren. “I never knew that to happen here. This door was fastened, and so is the one at the farther end.” He held the lantern aloft and threw the light across the barn. “That’s fastened up tight,” he said.

“Come on, Billy,” continued Edward Warren, “I’ll hitch you up again. Confound you, old scamp, what do you mean by acting this way?”

The horse, led by his master, followed quietly; but at the entrance to the stall he stopped and danced about, trembling. It was with difficulty that he was dragged to the manger and hitched up.

“That’s queer, sure enough,” said Edward Warren. “There’s something about that manger he acts afraid of. I’ll just step up-stairs, pitch him down a feed of hay, and quiet him.”

He took the lantern and ascended to the floor above, leaving the boys in darkness.

Jack Harvey, stretched at length on the beam, heard the footsteps, with alarm. Peering down, he caught the gleam of the lantern. He clung rigidly on his perch, till every bone and muscle in his body seemed to be aching. He saw the man hunt for his pitchfork, heard him remark impatiently when he did not see it in its place against the wall; saw him pick it up from another part of the loft, on the floor. Then, to his dismay, he saw the man turn toward the pile of hay that he had thrown over Tom Edwards.

But the man stopped, gathered up a fork-full from the floor and thrust it down the chute.

“That will be enough to quiet the old boy,” he muttered, and departed down the stairs. Harvey felt a shiver of relief run through him.

“Lucky I closed that door,” he muttered. “If he’d gone to that and seen the ladder, we’d have been done for.”

A few minutes later, the little party from the house had shut and locked the barn door again and returned to their beds. Harvey, stiff in every joint, managed to slide down the rope into the arms of Tom Edwards. A moment more, and they were both snug in the hay, exhausted but thankful.

Sleep soon overtook them, and they rested till the morning light came in through the window. Then they aroused and scurried down the ladder, setting off on as brisk a run as Harvey could manage with his lame ankle, across the fields to the woods, without stopping to remove the ladder.

“That was a close call, Tom,” gasped Harvey, as they rested a half hour later. “Supposing they had caught us? We’d be in the town lock-up, like as not.”

Later that morning, a group of boys stood with Edward Warren, gazing at the ladder raised to the upper barn door.

“And only to think there was somebody in there all the time,” said Henry Burns. “Too bad you didn’t catch them, Mr. Warren. What do you suppose they wanted?”

“Tramps,” replied Edward Warren, “and old Billy didn’t like ’em.”

Christmas day came in warm and genial. It was a wonderful day for winter, even in Maryland. The party went into the woods and fields in the morning, and returned with game for Mammy Stevens to roast. The Christmas dinner followed. Young Joe dragged himself from the dinner table, fairly groaning with his cargo of good things. The others were hardly better off. They stood together on the Warren verandah.

“Well, what shall it be?” inquired Edward Warren. “Anything you chaps say, you know. Got enough gunning?”

They demurred.

“Couldn’t walk half a mile after that dinner,” said George Warren.

Even Henry Burns declared himself unequal to so much activity, though he was ever the last to tire or balk at exertion, being slight and wiry and surprisingly strong.

“How about a sail?” ventured Edward Warren.

To his surprise, a shout of approval answered him.

“Oh, I forgot you chaps were sailors,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d venture it on a winter day. You sail up in your bay, summers, don’t you?”

“I should say we did,” answered George Warren. “Jack Harvey and Henry here own a fine yacht together. Jack Harvey’s gone to Europe this winter. And we fellows have a craft of our own, too. We keep them going lively in summer. We’d just like to try that canoe of yours, Ed. Do you mean it?”

“Why, certainly,” said Edward Warren. “She’s all ready; nothing to do but get sail on, and go. I keep her moored in the cove, to run over to Drum Point occasionally in, and to Solomon’s Island. It’s a fine afternoon for a sail, if you get some oil-skins on. They keep the cold wind out.”

Edward Warren had made the proposal half in fun; but the opportunity for a sail on a Christmas day such as this was not to be lost by the Warren brothers and Henry Burns, who were, indeed, enthusiastic yachtsmen. The novelty of a sail in winter, too, appealed to them. They lost no time in equipping themselves with oil-skins and heavy jackets, provided by Edward Warren, and soon the entire party was down by the shore.

“She’s no fancy yacht,” said Edward Warren, pointing to the canoe drawn in to the bank and moored with a line carried up and hitched to a tree, “but she can go some. She’s won many a touch-and-go race up and down this river with different fleets of tong-men, if she hasn’t got any silver cups to show for it.”

The canoe, a craft of about twenty feet in length and narrow, after the type of canoe common to Chesapeake Bay and its rivers, and carrying two leg-o’-mutton sails and a jib, was not exactly a handsome boat, to be sure. It was built of planking and finished up rather roughly, for use in oystering; but it had, for all that, lines that denoted speed, and the boys were eager to be off in it. They scrambled aboard, got up sails on the slender, raking masts, and, with Edward Warren at the tiller, darted across the river.

It was remarkable, in the eyes of the youths accustomed to a type of craft altogether different, how the narrow, crank looking canoe stood up so stiffly, withstood the wind flaws and sailed so well. Some tongmen came down the river presently, and Edward Warren joined their little fleet, stood along with them, and drew ahead of them all. It was evident, as he had said, that he had a fast canoe.

“How would she behave out in the bay?” asked Henry Burns.

“Fine as a ship,” answered Edward Warren. “The men around here cross the bay in them in pretty rough weather. We’ll go out and take a few seas, and let you see how cleverly she rides.”

They headed out toward the mouth of the river, passed beyond the lighthouse, into the open waters of the bay. It was not rough, but there was some sea running. The canoe weathered it all surprisingly. They followed up the shore of the bay for a mile or two.

Time passed quickly, and it was late in the afternoon when they left the light on their starboard hand in running back again. Edward Warren looked at his crew and laughed.

“You stood it well,” he said. “But you’re a frozen looking lot, for all that. Winter’s a chilly time for yachting, at its best. I tell you what we’ll do. Do you see that house up on the hill? My old friend, Will Adams, lives there all alone. He’ll be pleased enough to see us. We’ll just stand in and land and make him a call, get some coffee and thaw out by his fire before we run home.”

He turned the canoe in and ran up to a little landing not far from the Drum Point lighthouse; they disembarked and walked briskly up the hill. A young man of about thirty, standing in the doorway of the big house they were approaching, hailed them as they drew near.

“Hello, Ed,” he called cheerily, “I saw you out on the river. Got a crew with you, eh? Pretty cold yachting for a raw crew, isn’t it? Come in, I’m glad to see you. There’s a good fire going. Cousins, you say, and Henry Burns – all from Maine. I’m glad to meet you all. Take off your duds. You’ll stay to supper with me, you know. It’s a dull life I lead here, and I’m glad to have company.”

There was no doubt of the heartiness and sincerity of his welcome. There was cordiality in his voice, and a genial smile on his face. He was a large, powerfully built man, hearty and free in all his actions and words. The boys threw off their outer garments, and gathered about the open fire in the sitting-room.

Edward Warren was for getting home before dark, but Will Adams wouldn’t hear of it. He started the two servants on an early supper, and his guests sat down to table with him, an hour later, enjoying the best that his house afforded.

“I don’t have much company, nowadays,” he explained, as he sat offering them his hospitality in the cheery dining-room. “I lead rather a lonely life, in fact. About the only strangers that come to my door are a few poor fellows from off the dredgers – got clear by hook or crook, and coming begging, rousing me up at all hours of the night, asking a night’s shelter or a dollar to get up the bay with.”

Henry Burns listened eagerly.

“Are there many that get away when they’re beaten?” he asked.

Will Adams paused a moment, while his face darkened.

“There’s some that get away,” he answered, “who never come farther ashore than just beyond the reach of the tide. Down on that shore yonder there’s eight of the poor chaps buried. They were washed ashore, and we found them. Some of them had the marks that showed they had been knocked overboard – beaten – abused shamefully. That’s the way some of them escape.

“Others do get away, with never a cent in their pockets, half starved and half clad. I help a few of them along.

“Sometimes in the still summer nights, I hear a man crying for mercy out aboard a dredger. I know what’s happening to him – tied up to the mast and getting a lashing. Sometimes an entire vessel’s crew is beaten up, by the captains and mates of four or five vessels that work together. Hard life? Well, it’s about the hardest I know of.

“You wouldn’t think a man would swim ashore on a winter night, half a mile or more, in water you could hardly bear your hand in? Well, I’ve known them to do that. Had one come the other night. He was nearly dead when he got here – say, that was the queerest of all. He brought a note ashore, in his cap, and lost the cap down by the shore; and I had to go out with a lantern and find the cap for him, to keep him from going back, half dead as he was. I’m going to give that note to the authorities. I’ll show it to you, if you’ve any curiosity.”

Will Adams arose and went to a desk, took therefrom a sheet of paper on which he had pasted three other torn pieces, and handed it to Edward Warren. The latter took it, ran his eye over it hastily, then sat up and read it again slowly.

“Well, that’s queer,” he exclaimed. “What does that say? ‘Send word to Benton,’ – Benton! Why, that’s where these youngsters come from. What is this – a joke? Look at that, Henry. Come around here, George. It’s a joke, or it’s the oddest thing that ever happened.”

Henry Burns took the sheet and deciphered the message. He held it for a moment, as though he could not believe what he read. Then he handed it to George Warren and said, calmly and deliberately, “It’s from Jack Harvey, George. He hasn’t gone to Europe. He’s out on that man Haley’s dredger.”

One unacquainted with Henry Burns might have thought, by his voice and his deliberation, that he was strangely unmoved at his astounding discovery. George Warren, who had known him for years, knew by that same unusual deliberation, by the set look of his face, and by his eyes, that something extraordinary had aroused him.

George Warren gave one glance at the paper, and uttered a cry that rang through the rooms: —

“Jack Harvey! Carried off on a dredger, Arthur. What do you think of that? Why, he’s our friend, Mr. Adams. He’s from Benton, where we live. We’ve got to hunt for him? What’ll we do?”

“Haley, Haley,” repeated Edward Warren, “where have I seen him? Why, of course, that fellow that came for the potatoes. You fellows remember him. His vessel was off shore. Will, I think we can get that fellow to-night. What do you say?”

“No, you can’t – not to-night,” said Henry Burns, in a tone of deep disappointment; “I saw him get under weigh from Solomon’s Island just as we came back into the river, not more than two hours ago. He’s gone down the bay somewhere. I know the craft. I took notice of it this morning, on account of that trouble at the house the night before, when Joe ran into him.”

“George,” he added, “don’t things happen queer, though? Jack out aboard a dredger – and we close by, all the time he’s been off there. And we thought he was in Europe! And to think that he’s been trapped by the very man we fell in with – that brute, Haley.”

Henry Burns turned to Edward Warren and Will Adams. “What can you do?” he asked. “We’ve got to get Jack off quick. How are we going to do it?”

“Well, sit down here,” answered Will Adams. “We’ll talk it over.”