TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:

—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.

THE PLEASANT COVE SERIES.

————————

ARTHUR BROWN,

THE YOUNG CAPTAIN.

BY

REV. ELIJAH KELLOGG,

AUTHOR OF THE ELM ISLAND STORIES—“LION BEN,” “CHARLIE BELL,”
“THE BOY-FARMERS,” “THE ARK,” “THE YOUNG SHIP-
BUILDERS,” “THE HARD-SCRABBLE.”

ILLUSTRATED.

BOSTON:

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
LEE AND SHEPARD,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Copyright, 1898, by Elijah Kellogg.

————

All Rights Reserved.

————

Arthur Brown.

Norwood Press:
Berwick & Smith, Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

PREFACE.

——————

Notwithstanding kindness is at times rewarded with ingratitude, and even positive injury, it is by no means so frequent an occurrence as persons naturally censorious, or whose minds have been soured by an unblest experience, would have us suppose.

Benefits conferred usually excite gratitude, and sometimes, when the donors have passed away are repaid, with interest, to their posterity.

The story of Arthur Brown presents a striking illustration of this principle. Lashed to a raft, perishing with cold and hunger in the edge of the surf, he is rescued by Captain Rhines, who, when a boy, poor and unable either to read or write, had been instructed and started in business by Arthur’s father, who was afterwards lost at sea. The old captain, discovering, in the person he had perilled his life to save, the only son of his benefactor, receives him with open arms, with a nobility of soul that strengthens our faith in human nature, freely bestowing both time and property to aid the son and family of his benefactor, and repay the old debt. His efforts in this direction, together with those of the young man to help himself, at a most stirring period of our country’s history, the adventures growing out of those efforts, and the consequent development of character, will, we trust, prove interesting, and not without instruction.

Some references have necessarily been made to characters of the “Elm Island Series,” the reasons for which are given in the introductory chapter, and the references so explained as to render the connection plain to the reader.

CONTENTS

ARTHUR BROWN,

THE YOUNG CAPTAIN.

——————

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

IN the series of books denominated the “Elm Island Stories” (commencing at the period when the old “Continental Congress,” which had fought the war of the revolution, was superseded by the Federal Government, and running through successive years) were introduced certain characters in whom our juvenile readers became so much interested, that they have assured us they could not abruptly surrender their acquaintance, at least not without some slight knowledge of their future prospects, especially as we were compelled to conclude our tale when most of them were on the very threshold of manhood. Desiring to gratify, and, at the same time, render them somewhat familiar with the history and progress of their native land in those snapping times included between the outbreak of the French revolution and the embargo, so prolific in gain and adventure to those possessing the enterprise, and daring to profit by them, and during which American commerce took such mighty strides, we must of necessity, at the commencement of this volume, make some slight reference to persons and places previously described. For the benefit of those who have not read the former series, we introduce a brief sketch, referring those who may desire more accurate knowledge to those books.

Our old acquaintances can pursue, with this chapter, the course we used to adopt, when compelled to read one of Buckminster’s sermons aloud to the family, after having been twice to meeting, brought home the texts and heads of the sermon, and to Sabbath school—skip, skipped all we dared to, skipped all we could.

The scene of the “Elm Island Stories” is laid in eastern Maine, when it was little better than a forest, save a rim of clearings and incipient towns along the sea-shore.

Captain Rhines, who lived on the shore at a place named from him and his ancestors Rhineville, but then a plantation unincorporated, was a noble specimen of a sea captain—shrewd, kindly, self-made, of a daring nature, controlled by clear, cool judgment.

His son Ben, possessing all the sterling qualities of his father, is a giant in strength, and in the very prime of life. Though in general of most even temper, and only by long provocations excited to wrath, yet, when thoroughly roused, he was terrible; hence his name, Lion Ben. Becoming enamoured of Sally Hadlock, who will only marry him on condition that he relinquishes the sea, he buys Elm Island, situated among the breakers, six miles from the main land, and inaccessible at some periods by reason of the surf; fertile as to soil, and covered with a heavy growth of timber. With nothing to depend upon but their hands, and obliged to mortgage the island at the outset, this resolute pair sit down among the woods to achieve independence. He is greatly assisted in all his plans and purposes by Uncle Isaac Murch, a man in middle life, who, in boyhood, was captured by the Penobscot Indians, and adopted into their tribe—a most shrewd, resolute, genial being, with very strong attachment to youth, their unfailing friend and ally in every good purpose.

While Lion Ben is cutting off the spars and raising crops to pay for the island, some plunderers from the British Provinces, seeing but one house on the island, and supposing they had but little resistance to encounter, landed and insulted Ben’s wife. She flies to her husband, who is at work near by in the woods, who encounters and nearly kills the intruders. Among them is an English orphan boy, by the name of Charlie Bell, who had shipped with them as cook, being ignorant of their character. He remains, and is adopted by Lion Ben. He turns out to be a boy of most excellent principle, of remarkable mechanical genius, and learns the trade of a ship carpenter; makes the acquaintance of Captain Rhines’s youngest boy, John, and of Fred Williams, the miller’s son.

Fred is a boy naturally smart, and inclined to mischief. By associating with a miserable wretch by the name of Pete Clash, an importation from the Provinces, and another by the name of Godsoe, a home production, he is led into evil courses. These boys, while in the woods one day, plotting mischief against Uncle Isaac, being surprised by John Rhines, and finding that he will expose them, attempt to flog him; but he is rescued by his dog Tige, who tears Pete and Fred, injuring Fred so severely that he is at the point of death, which brings him to reflection and reform.

Pete Clash, attempting to meddle with Uncle Isaac’s fish flakes, is caught by the old hunter in a wolf trap, and so threatened and frightened by him, that he leaves the place, together with Godsoe. John, Fred, and Charlie now became fast friends, and Uncle Isaac their mutual friend and adviser.

John Rhines becomes a blacksmith, Fred works with his father in the mill. Charlie and John accumulate money by labor and ventures sent to the West Indies, and set up Fred in trade. These three boys, with another by the name of Isaac Murch, a protégé of Captain Rhines, undertake to build a vessel, and do build her, and send her to the French West Indies, calling her the Hard-scrabble, in commemoration of the desperate nature of the undertaking. She arrives at Martinique at a lucky moment, and pays for herself, and more too. They afterwards build another called the Casco, of larger dimensions, of which Isaac Murch becomes the master, surrendering the Hard-scrabble to another captain. Joe Griffin, to whom reference is made, is a friend of Lion Ben, a mighty man with an axe, a great wrestler, and kind-hearted, but a most inveterate practical joker.

Walter Griffin, a younger brother of Joe, inheriting all the grit of this rugged race, enters the store of Fred Williams as a clerk; but the Griffin blood rebels under the monotony and constraint, and he takes to the water. Peterson, the black pilot, was for many years addicted to intemperance. During that period some roguish boys got him into a store when intoxicated, poured molasses on his head, then applied flour, alternating the layers, till his head was as large as a half bushel; for many years after which he was known by the nickname of Flour, but, having become a sober and industrious man, has accumulated property, is respected by the whole community, and the nickname is forgotten.

The period at which this series commences is after the French revolution, when the star of Nelson was rising above the horizon, and Napoleon Bonaparte, a colonel of the artillery, was planting batteries at Toulon, and giving the English blockading fleet a taste of his quality.

These young men are now in possession of capital. John Rhines is living at home with his father; Fred is engaged in trade, and just married to a daughter of Captain Rhines. Charlie Bell is living on a farm in a most beautiful spot, called “Pleasant Cove,” upon which he chanced to stumble one lovely night in summer while sailing, became enraptured with and bought it, married another daughter of the captain, and settled down on it in a log house, while it was a forest, has one child, now a babe, and having built the Casco on his own shore, hopes to be able to cultivate the soil (an occupation he dearly loves), and to carry out those ideas of taste and beauty which in childhood he had gathered from the vales and ancestral homes of his native land.

CHAPTER II.

THE WRECK AND THE RESCUE.

IT was the middle of October, about ten o’clock in the forenoon; there was no rain falling, but it was blowing—O, how it was blowing!—a tearing gale from the south-west, which roared through, the tree tops, and there was a tremendous sea in the bay. But under the lee of Pleasant Point, entirely sheltered from the wind by the high land and the woods, a shooting match had just been abruptly broken off by Sol Chase (a boy of sixteen, who put up the turkeys) declaring that it was no kind of use to set up, if such marksmen as Joe Griffin and Uncle Isaac were going to shoot.

“Well, Sol, we won’t fire any more,” said Joe; “you boys may do your own shooting.”

“Let us do something we can all do,” said Charlie. “Uncle Isaac, let us play knives. I’ll blaze this pine tree for a mark.”

“Blaze a pine tree! Half of you won’t be able to hit the tree. Take the barn door.”

“We haven’t got knives,” said Ricker.

“I’ve got my hunting knife,” said Uncle Isaac; “one knife will do for the whole of us.”

“I’ve got an Indian tomahawk in the house,” said Charlie; “one that you gave me, Uncle Isaac, long ago.”

A bull’s eye was marked out on the barn door; the knife was held by the point of the blade, and flung. Uncle Isaac, when, after the first two trials, he had ascertained his distance, hit the centre of the target every time; Joe Griffin nearly as often; Charlie, Fred, and John, who had at other times practised a good deal with Uncle Isaac and each other, twice out of three times.

“It takes Walter Griffin to throw a knife. He’d hit that mark every time.”

“I wish he was here,” said Fred. “I feel, since he went to sea, as though about half of me was gone.”

As to the rest, some hit within six inches; others didn’t hit the door; and others flung the knife so that it struck flatways, or on the end of the handle.

“Now let’s throw the tomahawk,” said Charlie.

In this game none of them could approach Uncle Isaac, who flung it with a force and precision that would soon have made a breach in Charlie’s barn door; but as the rest could not fling it with any accuracy, they soon tired of it.

“I’ll put up a mark for you, Uncle Isaac,” said Joe Bradish.

He had a soft hat, bran new; put it on for the first time that day.

“What will you give me for a shot at my hat, at six hundred yards?”

“Three shillings.”

“Done.”

Bradish rolled his hat carefully up, and thrust it into a mortise in the post of a rail fence.

“I thought I was to have the whole bigness of the hat to fire at; that’s a small mark for such a long distance.”

“That’s just like him,” said Charlie; “always doing some mean, underhand trick.”

“You was to fire at the hat. There’s the hat. Now measure off the six hundred yards,” said Bradish.

“Don’t measure it that way,” said Uncle Isaac to the boys, who were about to measure in the direction that the hat was shoved into the hole.

“What difference does it make?” asked Bradish.

“’Cause it does. I’ve a right to fire in any direction I like, at six hundred yards.”

Uncle Isaac fired, and the ball, just grazing the edge of the post, went through every fold of the hat crossways, the rifle ball whirling as it went, cutting it all to pieces.

“You’ve spoilt my new hat,” said Bradish, with a rueful face, holding it up, all full of holes, like a colander.

“That’s what you get by trying to cheat: good enough for you,” was the cry.

Scarcely had the laugh subsided, when Will Griffin was seen coming on horseback at full speed, and as he drew near, he bawled out, “Uncle Isaac, Joe, Master Bell, Captain Rhines wants you to come just as quick as you can; there’s a vessel cast away—folks going to be drowned on the Brant rocks.”

When they reached the cove, they found Captain Rhines, in the Perseverance, her sails close reefed and set, hatches fastened down, and the vessel hauled in against a perpendicular ledge, while he was holding her by a rope fast to a tree.

“Jump aboard!” he cried. “There’s people on a raft, coming right in before the wind and sea, and they will go right into the breakers on the Brant rocks, except we can get them off. I happened to be looking with the glass, and saw them.”

“We’ll do what men can do,” said Uncle Isaac. “Hadn’t we better call at the island, and get Ben? It’s right on our road.”

“That’s a good thought. Wonder I didn’t think of it.”

Ben had not noticed the raft, but he saw the schooner coming, and knew that it must be a matter of life and death that would bring men to the island in such a gale. Both he and Sally met them at the shore.

“I want you, my little boy,” cried Captain Rhines, as the schooner luffed up beside the wharf, in the still water of Elm Island harbor. “There’s a raft coming before the wind and sea, with people on it, and a signal of distress flying. It’s breaking thirty feet high on the Brant rocks, and they will soon be in that surf, unless we take them off.”

No more was said. Ben jumped aboard, and the schooner, close hauled, stood boldly out into that tremendous sea. The men all commenced to lash themselves. Charlie was forward. He had made the end of a rope fast to the foremast, and put it around his waist; but, before he could secure the other end, she shipped a sea over the bows, that filled her all full, and bore Charlie before it like a feather. In another instant it would have taken him overboard, when nothing could have saved him; but Joe caught him as he was going over the rail.

“A miss is as good as a mile,” said Captain Rhines. “She shakes off the water like a Newfoundland dog. Ben, take the axe, and knock off the waist boards, and then the sea can have a fair chance to get out as fast as it comes in.”

They were now nearing the raft, as it came rapidly down before the sea, while the crew of the schooner were endeavoring to cut athwart its path. Catching glimpses of it in moments when the raft and the schooner both chanced to be on the top of a sea at the same instant, they perceived that it was constructed of the yards and smaller spars of a vessel, with an elevation amid-ships, where an upright spar was secured by shrouds, on which an English flag was flying. On this elevation were dark objects, that Captain Rhines (at home) had made out, with his glass, to be human beings.

“If they are people, father,” said Ben, who, confident to hold himself against the sea, had gone into the bows, “they are dead; for there’s nothing moves, only as the sea moves it.”

“Perhaps not, Ben. They are lashed, chilled, and most dead, but I’ve seen men brought to that apparently had but a few more breaths to draw.”

In a few moments Ben shouted, “There’s folks there, four or six, I can’t tell which. I see one move his arm a little.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Captain Rhines. “I thought there would be some one able to take a line and make it fast, and then we might tow them clear of the breakers and into some lee, where we could get them off; but if there’s nobody to take a line, we’ve got to carry one ourselves.”

“Let the raft go by us,” said Ben, “and follow it up astern with the schooner. I’ll take a line in the canoe.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Joe; but Charlie insisted upon sharing the peril with his father. They took in all but the foresail, reefed to the smallest possible dimensions, leaving only a little of the peak, as it was difficult to make the schooner go slow enough to keep from running on to the raft and knocking her to pieces; but by luffing into the wind they managed to keep her clear till Ben and Charlie got into the canoe, and with a small line reached the raft, to which was made fast a larger one, which they hauled to them and secured.

There was no such thing as returning against that sea; they must take their chance with those they came to save. If the rope parted, or the little vessel failed to tow her charge clear of the surf, they were lost. During the interval occupied in fastening to the raft, it had made fearful progress towards the rocks, that could now be plainly seen ahead, the sea breaking on them in sheets of foam. Never was the clear judgment and resolute nature of Captain Rhines put to a severer test than now. He must carry sail enough to drive the Perseverance through the water with sufficient speed to clear the rocks. On the other hand, there was danger, if he carried too much sail, of either parting the rope, in which case Ben and Charlie, with those they went to save, would perish, or of taking the masts out of the schooner; and also danger of the seas boarding her over the stern.

It was most fortunate for the crew of the schooner, that when they grappled to the raft they were a long distance off, and well over to the edge of the breakers, consequently had to work the raft but very little to windward. Every time the little vessel rose on one of those tremendous seas, when the raft was perhaps in the hollow of another, she quivered and trembled, and it seemed as if she must be crushed bodily down beneath the sea.

“Isaac,” said the captain, who had one hand on the rope, “I think this will bear more strain. Unless we go ahead a little faster, we shall hardly clear that ragged point making out to the leeward.”

“I’m afraid, Benjamin, it will take the mast out of her.”

“So am I, but we must risk it. There’s no other way. It’s sartain death to go into that surf.”

There was one other way. A stroke of the axe upon the “taut” rope, and the schooner, freed from her encumbrance, would have gone off like a bird from the ragged reef and boiling surf, leaving their comrades to perish; but no such thought could find lodgment in the bosoms of the men on board the Perseverance.

“Give her the sail, Isaac,” said the captain; “it’s the only way.”

Beneath the increased canvas, the schooner plunged and quivered, as though every timber would part company.

They were near the breakers; the roar of the surf was terrible; every time the great wave rolled back, the black, ragged points of the rock could be seen for a moment. It was now but a couple of gunshots from them, and they were in the outer edge of the breaker. Not a word was spoken. Captain Rhines coolly eyed the surf, while he managed the helm with consummate skill. Slowly the noble little vessel drew along by the reef, but the raft was the length of the hawser farther in.

“If that sea breaks on them, they are gone,” cried Captain Rhines, as a huge wall of water, thirty feet in height, came sweeping along, its overhanging edge white with foam.

Ben and Charlie each seized one edge of the canoe, evidently hoping, that though full of water, its buoyancy might support and aid them in swimming; but the wave broke just before it reached them, lifting the raft almost on end, flooding it with spray, buried them to their necks in water, and almost tore them from the raft, to which they clung by the shrouds of the upright spar, while the canoe was swept away. So near were they to the reef, that one end of the wave broke upon the rock, and the raft was covered with kelp torn from it by the force of the sea. While they were yet in the very edge of the broken water, the foremast breaking off four or five feet above deck, went over the bows.

“Thank God!” exclaimed Captain Rhines; “had it gone three minutes sooner, we had all been lost.”

Drifting along before the wind and sea, they gradually came into smoother water, when Ben, flinging himself overboard, swam to the schooner. With his aid they raised the broken spar, lashed it to the stump, and contrived to spread a portion of the sail.

“Ben,” asked his father, “what have you got on the raft? Are they dead or alive?”

“There’s four of them, father; one a black man, the cook or steward, for his hands are soft, a sailor, a boy fifteen or sixteen, and a young man, I should judge about twenty, who, I think, was mate of the vessel, by his dress. They have got just the breath of life in them; starved with cold and hunger, and nothing but skin and bones. I thought that sea would have killed them, but they are alive yet.”

“God help them, but we can’t get to the island, or my cove, with this broken spar. We must run for Charlie’s.”

“Let us run under the lee of Smutty Nose,” said Ben, “get rid of this raft, and take the bodies on board, then we can go faster, else they will be dead before we get there.”

They luffed up under the island in smooth water, took Charlie on board, the dead and the living, and permitting the raft to go adrift, made all the sail they could spread for Pleasant Cove. They carried the nearly lifeless bodies into the cuddy, put them in berths, and covered them with clothes. There were flint, steel, and tinder aboard, but no wood. They took the bottom boards out of a berth and split them up to kindle, and Ben cut up the handspikes, which were white oak, and split up the windlass.

“Father,” said Charlie, “I’ll make a new and better one.”

With this supply they soon had the little place warm enough. When they reached the cove they found John Rhines there. He had been away, and arriving home just after the party set out, had kept watch of their movements. It was twelve o’clock at night when they landed. The gale was over, the clouds had disappeared, and a clear moonlight made it nearly as light as day. The wet clothing was instantly stripped from the chilled limbs of the seamen; they were put into warm blankets, and hot applications made. So affecting was the sight of these living skeletons that Mary burst into tears.

“Poor creatures! What they must have suffered!” she exclaimed. “They will die; they are as good as dead now.”

“No, they ain’t,” replied the captain, who had been putting cold water down their throats with a spoon, and found that they swallowed. “Kill a chicken, Charlie; we’ll give them some broth by and by; too much would kill them as dead as a stone. Now, Mary, a little supper or breakfast, whichever you call it, wouldn’t hurt the rest of us, after all we’ve been through this day and night.”

The rising sun was pouring its light into the windows, as with grateful hearts they sat down to eat, the captain rising every few minutes to administer a spoonful of the warm broth to his patients. The clergyman and neighbors were sent for, and funeral services performed. Then the American flag was put over the coffins, and they were borne to the grave.

“I wish we could have saved them,” said the captain; “but we will do all we can—give them Christian burial.”

Charlie and Uncle Isaac made the coffins for the two who died, and Captain Rhines and John dug their graves. On the eastern side of the cove a perpendicular cliff rose abruptly from the soil, with a little strip of green turf between it and the beach. Here they were buried. The white man had the name of “J. Watts” tattooed on his right arm; the name of the black was afterwards ascertained to be John Davis, and Charlie cut the names into the cliff—a most enduring memorial.

CHAPTER III.

A GLAD SURPRISE.

IN the course of three hours, it was evident that both of the rescued persons were reviving fast. Though unable to speak, they swallowed eagerly all that Captain Rhines thought proper to give; the expression returned to their eyes and features, and their limbs twitched with convulsive starts.

“Charlie,” said the captain, “I’ll take these people home in the schooner.”

“Leave them here, we can take care of them; and leave the schooner too. I’ll make a new mast and windlass for her.”

“It is too much for Mary, with a young child,—two invalids to take care of.”

“No, it ain’t, father; they will be all right, as soon as it will do to let them eat and drink.”

“I’ll take the young man, at any rate, and you may have the boy.”

They wrapped him in a blanket, and he was so emaciated that Charlie took him in his arms as though he had been an infant, and put him into the whale boat.

“Wife,” said the captain, the next morning, as he sat watching his charge, as he lay sleeping, after having eaten more than he had allowed him at one time before, “do you know that since this young man has come to himself a bit he looks very natural to me. I’ve seen him, or some of his folks, before.”

“It wouldn’t be at all strange if you had, for you have been a traveller all your life.”

“It beats all how familiar his features look; and the more I look at him, the more the likeness grows upon me. He’s the very image of somebody I’ve known and loved right well, but to save me, I can’t tell who. He’ll be strong enough to talk when he wakes, and I’ll know who he is, and all about it. Only see, Mary, how the color has come into his lips! they are not drawn apart as they were. See how his eyeballs are filled out, and his fingers; and his nose is not so sharp as it was. He’s doing first rate.”

As the captain had predicted, the young man, who had been within a hair’s breadth of eternity, awoke a few minutes before noon, extremely weak, but free from stupor, and in partial possession of his faculties, and inquired where he was.

“You are among friends, young man, and safe; make yourself easy. Where are you from?”

“Salem.”

“Salem! Was you born and brought up in Salem?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is your name?”

“Brown, sir.”

“What is your father’s business?”

“He was a shipmaster, but he is not living.”

“Was his name Arthur?” cried the captain, more eagerly, his face flushing, and then becoming very pale.

“Yes, sir.”

“And was he cast away in the Roanoke on Abaco, and all hands lost?”

“Just so, sir.”

“God bless you, my son,” shouted the captain, leaping from his chair, and grasping both hands of the seaman, while tears of gladness, streaming from his eyes, fell thick and fast on the pale features of his wondering guest; “your father was one of God Almighty’s noblemen; the first and best friend I ever had. All I am and all I’ve got in the world I owe to him. Didn’t you never hear him tell about Ben Rhines, the long-legged boy just out of the woods, with pine pitch sticking to him, that had to make his mark on the ship’s articles, that he learned to read and write, and made a shipmaster of?”

“O, yes, sir, a great many times.”

“Well, I’m Ben Rhines, what there is left of him. Is your mother living? and what family did your father leave?”

“My mother is living in Salem. Father left three children, two girls and myself; he also took a nephew to bring up after his father died.”

“Did he leave property?”

“No, sir. He owned a large part of the Roanoke, and there was no insurance on her. My mother was left poor; father wasn’t a man to lay up money.”

“No, he had too large a heart. I’m glad of it. I’ve got enough for both, thank God! I thought I’d got enough to take me well through, and shouldn’t try to make any more,—but I will. I’ll just give my mind to making money. I’ll make lots of it. I’ll go to sea again. I’ve got a glorious use for money now. But how came you in an English ship? Among all the friends your father had, and the hundreds whom, to my certain knowledge, he helped into business, was there not one who thought enough of his obligations to do for his son?”

“Yes, sir. After father was lost, mother kept a boarding-house for masters and mates of vessels, and many of his former friends boarded with her, and set up our girls in a dry goods store. My cousin went into a grocery store. I was the youngest. When I left school I went on board a ship, belonging to a friend of father’s, as a cabin boy. He put me right along. I am only twenty-one last July, the fourteenth. The ship was sold in Liverpool; and by the captain’s good word, I got a mate’s berth in an English ship, knowing if I got across to Halifax, I could easily get home from there. The ship sprung a leak: the crew and second mate took the boats, nautical instruments, and nearly all the provisions, and left. They didn’t like the captain; he was a hard man, and there had been quarrelling all the voyage. Finally they put on their jackets (they might have kept the ship free), and told him they had as many friends in hell as he had, and left. They offered to take me with them; but I thought it my duty to stick by the captain and the ship.”

“But how came the cook, the seaman, and the boy to stick by you. Why didn’t they join the strongest party?”

“The black was a slave in Jamaica. The captain took a liking to him, bought him when he was nineteen, and gave him his liberty. He wouldn’t leave the captain. The sailor was a townie and shipmate of mine in the other ship; the boy belongs in Salem, the son of one of our neighbors, and was also with me in the other ship, and a better boy never stepped on a vessel’s deck. We three stuck together. Captain Rhines, is there any way I can get a letter to my mother, to inform her of my safety, and also of the boy’s? She knows I was on my passage in the Madras to Halifax, and that it is time for the ship to arrive there, and if the crew are picked up or get ashore they will report us as lost.”

“We have a mail now once a week. It will go day after to-morrow.”

At this period of the conversation Mrs. Rhines came into the room, when the captain, rushing at her, half smothered her with kisses.

“Why, what is the matter, Benjamin?” she exclaimed, noticing his flushed face, and the traces of tears on it.

“Matter, Molly!” bursting out afresh; “the matter is, we’ve got another boy. You know, wife, how much you have heard me tell about Mr. Brown, the mate of the first square-rigged vessel I went to sea in, that did everything, and more too, for me?”

“Indeed, Benjamin, I guess I have.”

“This is his boy, lying here on this lounge!—his only son, named for him.”

“How glad I am, Benjamin!—glad on your account, and on my own, for the sake of his mother.”

“Don’t you think, wife, when I took his father by the hand, to bid him good by, as I was about to step aboard the James Welch as first officer (through and only through his means), I said, with a full heart, ‘Mr. Brown, how can I ever repay you?’ His reply was, ‘Ben, do by other young men you may fall in with, and who are starting in the world with nobody to help them, as I have by you.’ And now a kind Providence has put it in my power to save the life of his son, so help me God, if ever a debt was paid, principal, interest, and compound interest, this shall be. Kiss him, wife.”

Mrs. Rhines kissed the wasted cheek of the young man, and assured him that she was, equally with her husband, interested in his welfare, and rejoiced to receive him as a member of their household.

“Now, Arthur,” said the captain, “you are our boy. You are just as much at home in this house as we are ourselves, and the more we can do for you the better we shall like it. John, here is your brother.”

This whole-souled declaration elicited no reply. The young man, exhausted by the long and exciting conversation, had fallen asleep.

“Poor boy! he is weak. Only see the great sores on him. See what a sight of little boils are coming out all over his arms.”

“That, wife, is soaking in salt water so long; and the sores are where the ropes he was lashed with chafed him.”

Utterly unable to keep the discovery confined to himself and family any longer, he mounted his horse, and rode full speed to tell Uncle Isaac and Charlie. When he reached Charlie’s, he found the boy (who was less accustomed to exposure) had recovered strength much more slowly than the mate. The moment he saw the captain, he wanted to know how Mr. Brown was getting along.

“You like Mr. Brown?” said the captain, after replying to his question.

“Like him, sir! You can’t help liking him. Every man on board liked him. The men wanted him to go with them in the boats; but they wouldn’t have the captain, and he thought it was his duty to stick by him.”

“Do you think you will want to go to sea any more?”

“I shall go if Mr. Brown goes. How can I get home, sir, when I get my strength again?”

“It will be some time before you will be fit to go. When that time comes, I’ll get you home.”

“Could I send a letter, when I am able to write?”

“Mr. Brown’s going to write to-morrow to his folks and yours. What is your name, my boy?”

“Edward Gates, sir. They call me Ned on board ship.”

“You are from Salem, too?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Brown and I live on the same street—King Street. His house is only four doors from mine.”

“Then you’ve always known him?”

“O, yes, sir. I went to school with him. He was one of the big boys, and I was a little one. I used to say my lessons to him when the master was busy, and sometimes he kept school when the master was sick. Sometimes, when his father’s ship was in port, he would get her yawl boat, and give us little fellows a sail.”

After the building of the Casco, Charlie had been enabled to gratify his taste for cultivating the soil and improving his place. The Hard-scrabble, under the command of Seth Warren, and the Casco, under that of Isaac Murch, had made profitable voyages. Charlie and John found themselves in possession both of means and leisure. Charlie had built a large house, roomy enough to contain his men whenever he wanted to build more vessels, a barn, workshop, and other out-buildings. Hard wood stumps soon decay, white pine will last fifty years, and oak much longer than beech, maple or birch. The slope in front of the house presented a most enchanting view. Directly in front of the house was a most noble growth of forest trees, where the birch, beech, maple, and oak, in associate beauty, intermingled their huge trunks, covered with moss, and of such majestic height as to permit the buildings to be seen between their stems. A footpath wound among them to the outer edge, where, between their gnarled and twisted roots, gleamed the clear waters of Silver Spring.

Almost any summer or autumn morning, about nine o’clock, you might see a gray squirrel sitting on one of the great tree roots, viewing himself in the transparent water, washing his face, and making his toilet by its aid. Scattered all along on the surface of the slope margining the beach were clumps and single trees, of peculiar beauty and vast size, which Charlie, by abstaining from the use of fire, had spared; thus preserving what it would have required seventy years, and a large outlay, to have obtained by planting.

Neither the mill nor the shop could be seen, except in one direction; that is, when you were directly in front, they were so embosomed in foliage, Charlie having left the growth around them, for he was in possession of ideas of taste and beauty, of which neither Captain Rhines, Uncle Isaac, or John had the least conception. It was a pleasant sight, as you sailed away in the summer, to obtain indistinct glimpses of the water between the tree trunks as it poured off the dam, listen to the click of the saw, and catch through the leaves the gleams of the carpenters’ axes; while far beyond, as the land gradually rose, large fields of corn and grain, with their vivid green, presented a most singular and beautiful contrast to the black limbs and barkless trunks of the girdled trees among which they lay, their hollow trunks—some standing upright, others fallen—affording a most excellent roost for the crows, who paid their respects to Charlie’s corn when it was in the blade.

At the lower edge of an immense forest of maple and birch, from which every vestige of underbrush had been removed, were seen the walls of a sap camp; while, instead of a path leading to the house, marked by spotted trees, a carriage road had been made, so that Captain Rhines could ride back and forth in his wagon, and Parson Goodhue in his chaise—for he had arrived to that dignity. It was not, however, much like the vehicle bearing that appellation at the present time. The wheels and arms were large enough for a modern team wagon; the frame of the top was made of iron; instead of leather, it was covered with painted canvas, and on the sides were projections, like the wings of a bird, to throw off the mud.

Charlie and Joe cut a footpath through the forest, between their farms, and put logs across the gullies and sloughs, so that they could go back and forth conveniently.

Two other notable events occurred this year. You know Uncle Isaac was not a whit like most elderly people, any more than chalk is like cheese. There was nothing stereotyped about him. He made a cider mill, to replace his white oak beam and wooden maul. When he went to Thomaston to see General Knox’s mills, he saw a cider press, in which the cheese was pressed with wooden screws. The apples, also, instead of being pounded to pieces in a trough, with a wooden maul, were ground between nuts, made with grooves and projections fitting into each other, and turned by a horse. Uncle Isaac took the pitch of the thread of the screws, and when he came home made press and mill.

Ben also, that fall, brought over to his father and Charlie a bushel of apples apiece, which he had raised from his young orchard.

“What do you think now about making cider on Elm Island?”

Charlie said, “I think, when you get ready, there will be a mill for you;” and told him what Uncle Isaac had done.

Uncle Isaac didn’t stop here. He made his wife and Sally Rhines a cheese-press, with screws. The way they pressed cheese before this was, to put a lever under the sill of the house, place the cheese under it, and then put rocks on the other end of the lever. At Ben’s suggestion, he also made a press to press hay. Before this, they carried it loose on board vessels, and couldn’t take any great amount, although, in Massachusetts, presses had come in use, and Ben had seen them.

CHAPTER IV.

CAPTAIN RHINES MANIFESTS HIS GRATITUDE.

NED and the mate now began to mend rapidly. In the enjoyment of abundant food and rest, inhaling the bracing air of autumn, and with all the fruit they chose to eat, their sunken cheeks filled out, the flesh covered their limbs, their muscles assumed their wonted vigor, and they rapidly regained all that buoyancy which pertains to youth and high health. Mrs. Rhines, Hannah Murch, and Mrs. Ben Rhines made them clothes. And thus arrayed, as the evenings were now getting of considerable length, they went around on social visits, with Charlie and John, among the neighbors, and over to Elm Island; made friends, and won good opinions every day.

Captain Rhines, instead of manifesting any disposition to take them to Salem in the Perseverance, as he had promised at their arrival, said not a word about it. Instead he seemed very earnest in laying plans, and inventing amusements to make them contented where they were. One day it was a gunning excursion by water; again hunting in the woods. At another time he wanted them to help him about some harvesting, which they were more than willing to do, and seemed never so happy as when they were doing something for their benefactor.

The captain’s line of conduct was a sore puzzle to John and Charlie, and indeed to all the family. The Perseverance must have a new mast and windlass before she could go to Salem. But although Charlie had made both, the captain would not let him put them in.

One day Charlie, John, and Ben were together on the island, and this fruitful subject of conjecture came up.

“Ben,” said John, “what do you suppose the reason is father don’t take Ned and Mr. Brown home? He said, when they were first picked up, that he would take them to Salem in the Perseverance as soon as they were fit to go. They are all right now, and want to see their folks.”

“He seems,” said Charlie, “to have forgotten all about it. I don’t believe he wants to take them, for I’ve had the mast and windlass made these three weeks, and he won’t let me put them in.”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Ben. “Father ain’t like most old folks. He likes to have young people around him. Mother says he talks hours and hours with Brown. Perhaps he don’t like to lose their company. If you want to know, Charlie, why don’t you and John ask him?”

“I don’t like to.”

“Well, get Uncle Isaac to. He will ask in a moment; indeed, if there’s a special reason, I’ll warrant he knows it now.”

“What seems more singular to me,” said Charlie, “is, that after telling how much he thought of Arthur’s father and mother, how much he was willing to do for his children, even to cut the last piece of bread in two, that he don’t do something—build him a vessel. I have got out board and ceiling plank at the mill, and deck plank all sawed out. It would be a capital time now to get a frame and set her up this fall, let her season through the winter, finish her in the summer, and rig her before cold weather.”

“Benjamin,” said Uncle Isaac (as they shot into a thickly wooded cove to rest their backs, on their way home from a fowling excursion), laying his paddle across the float, and leaning both elbows on it, “why don’t you take these boys home? they want to go.”

“Do they want to go?”

“To be sure. Isn’t it natural they should want to see their parents and friends, after being at death’s door?”

“But their parents know they are comfortable, and they hear from each other every week.”

“That isn’t like seeing them. There’s another thing; the boys want to build a vessel for this young man, and so does Ben.”

“Ben wants to, does he?”

“Yes.”

“Hum.”

“He seems to be a nice, steady, well-informed young man.”

“Is that the way it strikes you, Isaac?”

“Yes.”

“The fact is, Isaac,” beginning to pick the leaves of a beech limb, which hung over the float, and chew them up, “I am ready and willing, and count it a privilege to do all I can for this boy, and his father’s family; but whether building a vessel, and putting him in her, is the best way to do it, I am not clear.”

While they were engaged in this conversation, the boat had drifted under the limbs of a birch, that had never regained its upright position after being bent down by the ice and snow of the previous winter.

“What have you got that’s good in that red box, Isaac?”

“I’ve got a chicken, boiled eggs, bread, butter, cheese, and doughnuts,” he replied, placing the box on the middle thwart of the boat, and removing the cover.

“There’s something to wash it down,” said the captain, unrolling a jug, carefully wrapped in the folds of his long jacket. “That’s some of the coffee I brought home in the Ark; it’s warm, too. We might as well eat now as any time, for by the tide it can’t be far from noon.”

Uncle Isaac twisted one of the long, slender limbs of the birch into a string, and making it fast to a thole-pin hole, it held the boat stationary, while the two friends, sitting face to face in the warm sunshine, gossipped and ate; and having eaten nothing since three o’clock that morning, evidently enjoyed the repast, the warm sunshine, and the sheltered nook, so highly as to wish to prolong the pleasure, and ate very deliberately, till the meal was brought to an abrupt termination by the entire consumption of the contents of both box and jug.

“We were speaking, Isaac,” said the captain, “about this young man, and about building him a vessel. If I was able to build him one, fit her for sea, load her, and say to him, ‘Here, my boy, take her, and do the best you can for yourself and me;’ and then if he made a ‘funger,’ pocket the loss, I would lay the keel to-morrow. But in doing that, I must be concerned with others, and risk other people’s money. Here are Ben, Fred, John, and Charlie, all ready to strike, only waiting for me to say the word; and Mr. Welch would take hold in a moment if I should say to him, ‘Here is a young man, who I think capable, wants a vessel built.’ Now, how do I know he is capable of taking charge of a vessel and managing business in these squally times, with the English and French pitching into our commerce, and pirates to boot? A master of a vessel must have grit and cool judgment—qualities that don’t always nor often go together. He’s very young, has been only one voyage and part of another as mate; of course has had but little experience. Some men make first-rate mates, but poor masters; others poor mates, but excellent masters. Then, if he should make a losing voyage of it, I should feel very bad, and the rest (though they did not say it) might feel that they had been brought into difficulties, and lost money through me.”

“He is as old, and has had as much experience as Isaac had when he became master. You was keen enough for putting him ahead; far more than I was, though he is my own nephew, and has done splendidly. This young man has had the best of schooling, and ten times the privileges Isaac ever had.”

“Schooling! privileges!” cried the captain; “I wouldn’t give that (snapping his fingers) for the schooling and privileges. What do they amount to, if the man hasn’t got Indian suet,—hasn’t got the articles in him? They help, but they can’t put anything into a man. I knew Isaac from the egg. I watched him as he grew up. There’s a great deal in the blood. I knew the breed he came of, both sides. He sailed with me. I taught him, and knew him through and through,—knew he had the root of the matter in him. But in regard to this young man, I know only the father. If he takes after his father in mind, as he does in looks, he will be all right. But he may look like the father, and take after the mother. I don’t know anything about her or her people.”

“You mean to help him, don’t you?”

“Reckon I do, if my life is spared. But I could help him without building him a vessel, or involving other folks. I might give him a couple of thousand dollars in cash, and let him help himself; or say to him, ‘Arthur, go to Salem; see if some of your father’s friends, and the people you’ve sailed for, won’t build you a vessel. I’ll take an eighth or a fourth.’ I can help the mother,—that will be my own concern, and nobody’s business,—and I shan’t involve others, and risk their hard earnings.”

“But he’s been here some time. You’ve had him in your house all the time, with opportunities for talking with him, and making up your mind. What do you think?”

“I think well of him. I like him all round, think him capable, and, to tell the truth, that is what I’ve been backing and filling for so long, and keeping the boys back. I wanted time to make up my mind, and have you and the neighbors see and get acquainted with him, and find what you all thought of him.”

“As far as my opinion is worth anything, I shouldn’t hesitate a moment. There’s one little thing just settles the matter in my mind.”

“What is that, Isaac?”

“Why, his sticking by that captain. Here is a crew of men, the sweepings of Liverpool; they take the boats, compass, and other instruments, and shove off,—they’ve had trouble with the captain, and are down on him, and mean to have their revenge,—leaving him to shift for himself; the mate they like, and offer to take him with them—even coax him to go; they have provision, water, and instruments, and are not overloaded. In the boats, there’s no great risk; to remain, is almost certain death. He is under no particular obligations to the captain, who is an Englishman and a stranger, yet he sticks by him, because he thinks it his duty. If that ain’t pluck, principle, and Christianity,—if that ain’t real manhood, I wonder where you’d find it! There’s not one man in a hundred—no, not in a thousand—would or could have done it. And, Benjamin, ‘twill take a great deal to make me believe that a man who has got all that in him hasn’t all the other qualities that go to make up a man.”

“It’s just what his father would have done. Well, Isaac, I’ll take them to Salem. I’m acquainted there; have an old shipmate that knew his father. I’ll see the captain he’s been mate with, and if they speak well of him, we’ll go ahead.”

“John,” said his father, on his return home, “clap the saddle on the horse, ride over to Charlie’s, and tell him he may get the schooner ready as soon as he likes; and tell Fred to get his fish and potash ready, for I’m going to Salem, and will take a freight to Boston, and bring back any goods he wants.”

Captain Folger was sitting in his store just before noon, frequently looking at his watch, for the demands of appetite were pressing,—he had set up a ship-chandler’s store, after having spent the greater part of life at sea,—when Captain Rhines entered, and most agreeably surprised him.

“Why, Captain Ben!” exclaimed the old seaman, grasping his friend by the hand, “what good wind has blown you hither?”

“I had business in Boston, and so called in here. It’s long since we’ve met. I hardly thought you’d know me so readily.”

“Know you! Old shipmates don’t forget each other.”

“So you’ve left off going to sea, and turned storekeeper!”

“Yes; it’s the most natural thing an old shipmaster can do to turn ship-chandler, and have vessels and rigging to look after. I couldn’t be contented ashore in any other business. I own some navigation, and have that to look after. My shop is a loafing place for the old captains, and we fight our battles over again, spin our yarns, plan voyages, and keep each other’s spirits up. We heard about your going to Cuba on a raft, and it was agreed on all hands it was the smartest thing ever done in these parts, or anywhere. You ran a confounded risk, but they say you made your Jack out of it.”

“Yes, I made something.”

“You knew Captain Brown, Arthur, who was lost on Abaco?”

“Knew him! I guess I did. He was the means of putting me into business.”

“He was the means of putting a great many into business.”

“Do you know his son?”

“What, young Arthur?”

“Yes.”

“To be sure. We’ve been much worried about him. The vessel he was in foundered, but he has been picked up, so his mother tells me.”

“I picked him up, and brought him here not two hours ago. What kind of a young man is he?”

“As fine a one as ever the sun shone upon; he is thought a great deal of here, both upon his father’s account and his own.”

“Is there business in him, or only goodness?”

“Both; as much of one as the other.”

“Do you know Captain Bates, who he was mate with?”

“Yes.”

“Will you introduce me to him?”

“Yes; he’ll be in here about two o’clock, with half a dozen more old web feet, that you know, or who have heard of you, and we’ll have a jolly time of it. But come,” looking at his watch, “it is grub time; go up to the house; you belong to me while you are here.”

“I will dine with you; but I made an engagement with young Brown to meet me here at five o’clock, and I am to take tea with him.”

Captain Rhines met Captain Bates at three o’clock, who, in reply to his questions in relation to young Brown, replied, “If you’ve got a frigate, give it to him.” When Arthur came, according to appointment, Ned Gates came with him.

“Captain Rhines,” said Ned, “father and mother want you to come to our house, and stop with us while you are here.”

“He’s going to stay with us,” said Arthur.

“No, he ain’t,” said Captain Folger; “he belongs to me. He can go to supper with Arthur, and he can dine to-morrow with you, Ned; but we are old shipmates, and the rest of the time he belongs to me.”

Captain Rhines, while at Mrs. Brown’s, proposed that the whole family should go down and live with him. But Mrs. Brown, who was a capable, energetic woman, many years younger than her husband, would by no means consent. She told him, in reply, that her daughters were doing well in their store; that though her husband left her no money, he had left the house clear of debt. That his nephew was learning a trade, and she was doing well keeping boarders, and could not consent, by any means, to live upon him, as she could not be happy in so doing; but as he had announced his intentions of helping Arthur to a vessel, she should feel under the greatest obligations.

Before leaving, he compelled her to accept a check upon Mr. Welch for two thousand dollars, made the girls a present of five hundred more, and a hundred to George Ferguson, the nephew, without which, he declared, he could not sleep nights.

Having accomplished this, he felt quite satisfied and happy; and began to talk with Arthur in relation to the intended vessel.

“What kind of a vessel do you want, Arthur, and what trade do you want to go into?”

“I should prefer, sir, always with submission to your better judgment, a sharp vessel, that will outsail the English cruisers, run the gantlet, and carry provisions and supplies to France. There will be risk, but I have an idea there will be corresponding profit.”

“That’s the talk, my boy,” cried the captain, delighted with a proposal so congenial to his own hardy and enterprising nature. “I only wish I was young enough to go into it myself. Now, if there’s a man in these United States that can build a clipper that will show a clean pair of heels to anything that swims, that man is Charles Bell.”

It was just after dinner, of a pleasant afternoon, Charlie and his wife were seated in the sun, in the barn-door, husking corn, the sharp click of a horse’s feet that overreached was heard.

“That’s father,” said Mary. “I know the click of the mare’s shoes.”

“Charlie!” shouted the captain, never stopping, till the mare’s feet struck the heap of corn in the floor, sending the kernels in Mary’s face, “grind your broad-axe. Arthur Brown wants a vessel that will show her heels to the English frigates, run the blockade, and make the sweat stand on a dolphin’s nose to keep up.”

“I am thankful,” cried Charlie, delighted, “that after so long a time I am to build something that is not a box.”

“You can’t find a better model than the Hard-scrabble.”

“Than the Hard-scrabble?”

“No; she sails well when she is light, and with a free wind in ballast, Isaac says there’s nothing will catch her. Just give her more depth, so she can hold on, and put the sail on her, and I tell you she would streak it. You must have breadth to carry sail.”

“Well, I’ll do the best I can.”

CHAPTER V.

“WE WERE PUT INTO THIS WORLD TO HELP ONE ANOTHER.”

IT was about eight o’clock Saturday night. Captain Rhines had sailed that morning for Boston.