QUARTERDECK AND FOK’SLE
STORIES OF THE SEA

BY
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
Author of Young Heroes of Our Navy, Children of Destiny, Maid Marian, Throckmorton, etc.

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON AND CHICAGO
W. A. WILDE COMPANY

Copyright, 1895.
By W. A. WILDE & CO.
All rights reserved.

CONTENTS.

A QUARTERDECK STORY. CHAPTER PAGE I. [The Capture of the Fort] 9 II. [Young Brydell’s Chums] 21 III. [Brydell’s First Failure] 33 IV. [Brydell’s Second Failure] 45 V. [Striking Out for Himself] 57 VI. [A New Life] 71 VII. [The Summer Cruise] 87 VIII. [A Question of Honor] 100 IX. [Grubb’s Honorable Discharge] 112 X. [In Command of the Squadron] 120 XI. [A Safe Return] 135 XII. [Brydell Redeems His Promise] 139 A FOK’SLE STORY. CHAPTER PAGE I. [On Board the Diomede] 151 II. [A Gallant Rescue] 163 III. [Dicky’s Patriotism] 175 IV. [An Important Errand] 185 V. [An Adventure with the Redcoats] 194 VI. [Jack Bell’s Secret] 205 VII. [General Prescott’s Capture] 214 VIII. [Dicky’s New Song] 223 IX. [Dicky Enlists] 236 X. [An Unexpected Encounter] 245 XI. [The Enemy Outwitted] 258

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE [“I was just trying to scare Grubb” (Frontispiece)] 14 [“Brydell, with Atkins, a very Smart Sailor, was at the Wheel”] 95 [“Brydell got the thumbed Bible and read to him”]117 [“‘Look out, you Young Rebel,’ called out the Sergeant”]197 [“The Yankees they have come and stolen Prescott from his Bed”]232

A QUARTERDECK STORY.

CHAPTER I.
THE CAPTURE OF THE FORT.

The friendship between Young Brydell and Grubb the marine came about in this way.

One morning in May, just after Admiral Beaumont had finished the beautiful toilet he made at precisely eight o’clock every morning, he threw wide his bedroom shutters to see if the toilet of the navy yard grounds had been made too. For the admiral was possessed by a demon of neatness and order that is apt to develop in a naval officer long used to the perfect cleanliness and discipline of a man-of-war.

The admiral was the tenderest-hearted old fellow in the world, but the strictest sort of martial law prevailed in the matter of tidiness in every part of the navy yard over which he exercised or could claim jurisdiction.

A perpetual warfare raged between him and the nursemaids at the yard. The nursemaids would let the babies roll over on the admiral’s dearly loved grass, and the sight of white dimity sunbonnets, dropped on the gravel paths, was not wholly unknown.

The admiral was a bachelor of long standing and had a wholesome awe of babies and their mammas, although he ordered the babies’ papas about without any awe of them whatever. In vain he tried to negotiate with the officers’ wives, offering as a basis that the babies be permitted a promenade around the main walks between two and four every day, the walks to be immediately rolled afterward. The officers’ wives simply laughed at him, and the babies continued to kick up the gravel, and the admiral retired completely discomfited.

As for the small boys at the yard, they harrowed the admiral’s kind soul to that degree that he gloomily declared he would have the flag half-masted and make the band play a dirge before the very next house in which a boy baby was born. Nevertheless he had been known more than once to have begged small boys off from the avenging birch switch.

To this general antagonism to small boys one exception was made—Young Brydell. He was called Young Brydell because, young as his father, the ensign, was, the boy was actually twenty years younger—being nine, and a beautiful, terrible, lovable imp. Perhaps it was because Young Brydell had no mother that the admiral and everybody else, except Aunt Emeline, winked at the mischief in which he reveled. When Young Brydell drew his first breath his mother had drawn her last—and so from the beginning a tender atmosphere of love and pity seemed to surround him.

However, the escapade in which young Brydell figured that May morning had so many elements of atrocity that the admiral at first determined to punish him just as he would any other malefactor. Grubb was the admiral’s orderly, and on this particular morning he had just knocked at the bedroom door with the letter bag, when he heard something between a roar and a shriek that caused him to dash the door open expecting to find the admiral rolling on the carpet in an epileptic fit.

“Orderly!” shouted the admiral, turning as red as a turkey cock with rage, “direct the pick and shovel squad at once to level that construction, and bring that young gentleman here to me,” pointing out the window to Young Brydell. Grubb then saw what was up.

In the middle of the great lawn, just in front of the admiral’s house, was a dirt fort, constructed with no inconsiderable skill. The turf for about twenty feet square had been ruthlessly torn up to make the glacis, and over it floated a small American flag about as big as a pocket handkerchief.

On top of the glacis stood Young Brydell with a miniature rifle pointed straight at the admiral’s window. Around him lay the bodies of:—

I. Reginald Cunliffe, the captain’s only child and a mother’s darling, who had been repeatedly told not to play with Young Brydell for fear he would get hurt. At that moment the mother’s darling was representing a wounded man and, rolling over in a new jacket was asking in feeble tones for water.

II. Jack Sawyer, the doctor’s son, who personated a dead man with intermittent returns to life to see how the thing was going.

III, IV, V. Dick, Rob, and Steve, young gentlemen belonging to the yard who obeyed Young Brydell implicitly, although at least two years older than he, and who submitted to pose as Indians slain by his victorious hand.

VI. Micky O’Toole, the washerwoman’s boy, who, although directed to fall dead at the first fire, had failed to do so and was crawling forward on all fours, with a knife between his teeth and a tomahawk in his hand to assassinate Young Brydell.

Grubb double-quicked it downstairs, but not so fast that the admiral was not right on his heels. The pick and shovel squad were just passing as Grubb called out to them:—

“The admiral says as how that there construction is to be leveled at once”—

“And that young gentleman sent immediately to me!” bawled the admiral from the doorway.

The squad started toward the middle of the lawn, where the turf had been slaughtered to make Young Brydell a holiday. The admiral, swelling with righteous wrath, remained on the steps, and Grubb, laughing in his sleeve, made a bee line for Young Brydell. Grubb walked as elegantly as any officer and was a fine, tall, handsome fellow to boot.

As the pick and shovel squad approached, Young Brydell, raising his miniature rifle, pointed it straight toward them and shrieked out an expression he had read in a book. “Up, men, and at ’em!”

But the men didn’t “up and at ’em.” They were too much engaged in watching the coming conflict between Grubb’s brawny arm and Young Brydell.

The rifle wasn’t much of an affair, but it had been known to kill a cat twenty feet away. Young Brydell, who had the face of a cherub and the alertness of a monkey, quickly brought the rifle to his shoulder and aimed it straight at the approaching Grubb.

“The admiral says,” shouted Grubb in his big baritone, “as how I’m to bring you immediately to him, and the Lord have mercy on your soul!”

Grubb, in saying this, reached forward to the rickety little flagstaff, meaning to save the flag. But Young Brydell construed it differently and thought Grubb meant to insult the national ensign.

“If you touch that flag, you’re a dead man!” shrieked he in his baby treble; and at the same moment, the toy rifle being at his shoulder, he called out to his demoralized command:—

“Ready—right—oblique—FIRE!”

And bang went the rifle in Grubb’s face!

Grubb put his hand to his ear, and when he brought it away, blood was plentiful on it. A queer look came into his eye. “By the jumping Moses, the monkey’s shot me,” said Grubb, reflectively and scarcely knowing what he was saying.

The admiral, standing on the porch, gave a sort of gasp when the shot rang out—and every man in the pick and shovel squad stood stock still for a moment. The boys, except Micky O’Toole, all ran away immediately.

Grubb was the first to recover himself. Young Brydell had never lost his composure and was now holding the rifle at parade rest, and the rifle was exactly as high as he was.

“You come along!” suddenly cried Grubb, seizing the boy and the rifle too, and forgetting to drop the flag. It hurt Young Brydell’s dignity to be hauled off so summarily in the presence of the public, and it also hurt his shoulder, but he said not a word until he stood before Admiral Beaumont. The admiral was small and lithe and had a pair of light blue eyes that could look through a man and nail him to the wall—and these eyes were fixed upon Young Brydell in a way that would have made him flinch to the marrow of his bones, had he been a man instead of a little lad.

“BOY!” said the admiral, “I sent for you in order to reprove you for your outrageous behavior in tearing up the turf and making ruin and destruction of the government’s lawn. I find you, instead, guilty of a most terrible act—a thing much more serious than any destruction you might do to government property. But for God’s Providence you might be this moment a murderer, boy as you are—for I saw you take deliberate aim at the orderly and fire in his face!”

“Oh, no, sir!” chirped Young Brydell quite cheerfully; “I didn’t mean to shoot, you know; I was just trying to scare Grubb!”

At that, Grubb, who had been standing very rigid, with his handkerchief to his bleeding ear, suddenly smiled broadly and whispered involuntarily under his breath:—

“Skeer Grubb!”

“You see, sir,” continued Young Brydell in a tone of animated argument, “it was like this. We got up early this morning and built the fort—there were seven of us, and it didn’t take half an hour.”

“There were others responsible, then?” asked the admiral, for like everybody else he had taken it for granted that Young Brydell was bound to be the ringleader, if not the sole culprit.

Young Brydell thrust his hands into the pockets of his sailor suit, planted his feet wide apart, and reflected.

“Well, sir,” he said, “there were the others—but I started it. Cunliffe was afraid; he said he knew his mother would punish him, but I told him I’d do something worser for him than his mother would if he didn’t obey orders—because I’m captain of the company; it’s C company, sir, you know, and orders must be obeyed.”

“Go on, sir!” said the admiral sternly.

“Cunliffe was afraid, and so he did as I told him. The other fellows, except Micky O’Toole, said they were afraid of you—they say you are a regular Tartar about the grass.”

“They do—do they? Continue, I beg,” replied the admiral with a snort.

“But I told ’em,” cried Young Brydell in a triumphant voice, “that I’d fix you. I said: ‘We’ll plant the United States flag on that fort, and won’t anybody, not even the admiral himself, dare to pull it down!’”

The admiral at this coughed and began to twist his gray mustache.

“When I saw Grubb coming, sir, as I tell you, I just wanted to frighten him, but before I knew it, just by accident, sir, the rifle went off, and the first thing I knew the ball had hit Grubb’s ear. But I’m sorry for it, and when I get my ’lowance next week, I’ll give it to him. I get a silver half-dollar every Saturday, sir, from papa, but I think, sir,—I think Grubb deserved what he got for hauling down the flag, and if I’d have thought of it, I’d have peppered his legs for him, sure enough.”

There was a pause after this. The admiral’s keen old eyes looked into Young Brydell’s brown ones, and the man’s eyes had a kind of simplicity in them like a child’s, while the child’s had a determination like a man’s. Grubb still stood with a broad smile on his face, and the blood dripped upon the handkerchief he held to his ear.

“Now,” said the admiral, “will you tell me what you think I ought to do with you and your companions in mischief?”

“I think—I think you oughtn’t to do anything with the other fellows except me and Micky O’Toole, ’cause we led ’em on. Micky didn’t think about the fort first, but as soon as it was started, Micky helped me on and said he didn’t care if he did get a licking.”

“I am not concerned about Micky O’Toole,” said the admiral. “Micky, as I understand, occupies a subordinate position in your company.”

“He’s first sergeant, sir.”

“Micky, I take it, is merely your tool. Very well, sir, I shall report this whole thing to your father, and you must take the consequences. Orderly, make my compliments to Mr. Brydell, and ask him to do me the favor to come here. But stop—your ear.”

“’Tis no matter, sir,” answered Grubb, touching his cap. “I’ll call by the dispensary after I’ve done my message.”

The admiral stepped through the open hall door for his cap, and putting it on as he came out, said to Young Brydell with awful sternness: “Remain where you are until I return.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Young Brydell very respectfully.

CHAPTER II.
YOUNG BRYDELL’S CHUMS.

The pick and shovel squad were hard at work, leveling the fort, and the sight of his beloved turf so maltreated made the admiral’s heart ache. But he began to examine the fort. It was very cleverly done, and the admiral’s gray mustache worked in a half-smile as he stood and looked at it. Presently up came Young Brydell’s father, the handsomest, trimmest, young ensign imaginable, but, as Grubb expressed it, “You see trouble in his face.”

“Good morning, Mr. Brydell!” cried the admiral quite jovially. “Have you heard of the doings of your young one?”

“I have, sir,” answered Young Brydell’s young father, looking unhappy, “from the orderly here, whom I asked. Believe me, admiral, the little fellow has not a bad heart; he is only mischievous, and he has no mother”—

“He’s the finest little chap I ever saw,” cried the admiral. “He wasn’t going to shoot, really; the thing went off by accident; he wants to give the orderly all his pocket money and takes the whole blame of this performance on himself. Look at this construction—tolerably ingenious this for a youngster.” The admiral groaned slightly as he said this.

The picks and shovels were fast leveling the fort, but the lines remained still. Young Brydell’s father could not forbear laughing.

“And you’ll give him a hauling over the coals,” said the admiral, “but I positively forbid any other punishment. The little lad has no mother, and we mustn’t forget that.”

“I never forget it,” answered Young Brydell’s father. “I do my best by the child—I keep him with me all I can—but as you say—he has no mother”— The ensign stopped.

“I know all about it,” said the admiral briskly, “so come along and we’ll try and frighten the youngster.”

Mr. Brydell smiled. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir,” he said, “but we can promise to take the rifle away, if he isn’t more careful.” This is about what the lecture amounted to after all.

When it was over, and Young Brydell was marching off holding on to his father’s hand, he called out to the orderly who was coming toward them from the dispensary:—

“I say, Grubb, how funny that piece of court plaster looks on your ear.”

Grubb touched his cap in response to the ensign’s salute and answered gravely:—

“It feels a deal funnier than it looks, sir.”

“Now make an apology to the orderly,” said the ensign sternly.

“I’m sorry, Grubb, I’m awful sorry the rifle went off—’cause I’ve got a big scolding from papa and the admiral, too. But you hadn’t any business touching the flag; you know you hadn’t. Come around next Saturday morning and I’ll give you my half-dollar.”

“Thanky, sir,” answered the orderly, “but my feelin’s is too much hurt for to take money from you.”

“Well, then,” said Young Brydell promptly, “I’ll ask you to my birthday party instead. I’m going to have a birthday next week. I’ll be nine years old; and I’m to ask anybody I like, and I’ll ask you and Capps, the watchman, and some other fellows. Will that help your feelin’s?”

“Course it will, sir,” answered Grubb again; “and sailors and marines is so fond o’ one another.” Capps was a retired boatswain who was a watchman at the yard, and as Grubb said this he slightly closed his left eye.

On that understanding they parted. It was Young Brydell’s proud privilege on his birthday to ask his own guests, and he had before included Capps, who was until the advent of Grubb his most intimate friend.

On this Saturday, therefore, there was a table set on the broad back piazza of the ensign’s quarters. Aunt Emeline disapproved of the whole thing, but Cunliffe’s mother, who was a kindly woman, saw that the cake was there with nine candles in it, and Young Brydell sat at the head of the table. All the members of Company C, including Micky O’Toole, first sergeant, were present, and Capps, a bronzed old seaman, and Grubb, who was almost as handsome as the ensign, Young Brydell’s father. His ear still had a red scar, but over a bowl of lemonade Grubb and Young Brydell swore eternal friendship, and the friendship lasted until the end came.

The ensign’s quarters were just back of the admiral’s great roomy house, where he dwelt in solitary magnificence; and Admiral Beaumont, sometimes finding the house lonely and silent,—as houses are where there are no women and children,—would look from his back piazza and often see a lonely little boy, too, in the ensign’s quarters. For Young Brydell was never made to go to school as regularly as the other boys, and was, unluckily, allowed his own way entirely too much—all because he had no mother.

The admiral, feeling sorry for the child and finding a kind of odd and pleasant companionship with him, would send Grubb over with the request that Master Dick be allowed to come over to luncheon, and even Aunt Emeline could not ignore that request. So Young Brydell would go off quite joyfully with Grubb and soon be seated opposite the admiral at the round table in the big dining-room. The two would then exchange reminiscences—Young Brydell pumping the admiral industriously about “When you were on the old Potomac, sir,” or “That time you were in the siege of Vera Cruz.”

Behind the admiral’s chair stood Billy Bowline, once captain of the maintop but retired because of deafness. This was a sore point to Billy, who always protested: “I kin hear everything I wants to, and I never missed a call from the day I j’ined the sarvice, and I kin hear the admiral a sight better ’n Grubb, the jirene.”[1] The admiral, though, always roared at Billy so loud that everybody in the yard could hear him bawling.

It was of course agreed that but one career was possible for Young Brydell, and that was the navy. The ensign thought so, and so did the admiral and Grubb and Billy Bowline and Capps, the watchman, who was a chum of Billy’s as well as of Young Brydell’s.

One day, though, a strange thing happened about Capps. Young Brydell, coming along from school, whistling the bugle call, saw Capps sitting in his usual place on the bench in the shade by the ordnance building. Young Brydell called out as usual:—

“Hello, Capps!”

But Capps did not move. His eyes were closed, and Young Brydell, after playfully prodding him with a slate pencil, went his way. Presently he met Cunliffe, who also saw the old sailor sitting so still upon the bench.

“Let’s have some fun with old Capps,” cried Cunliffe.

“No, you sha’n’t,” answered Young Brydell stoutly. “Capps is a friend of mine and I won’t have him teased.”

Words followed this, and it ended by Young Brydell giving his young friend a kick on the shin, by way of testifying his loyalty to his old friend. Just then Grubb came along and asked the cause of the difficulty. Young Brydell pointed to Capps. Grubb went up to him, touched him, and then came back to the two boys, looking rather strange.

“You young gentlemen go along now; I know the admiral’ll want you to go along, and I’ll tell you all about it after a while,” he said hurriedly.

The boys walked away, but from the window in Young Brydell’s room they saw Grubb and another marine take Capps up, who appeared to be quite limp, and carry him off to the dispensary, and an hour or two afterward they met Lucy, the apple-cheeked maid at the admiral’s house, with her apron to her eyes; she, too, had been a friend of the ex-boatswain.

“Mr. Capps is dead!” cried Lucy with a fresh burst of tears, “and ain’t it too dreadful?—oh, dear, oh, dear!”

The two boys each turned a little pale. This was their first knowledge of that unknown thing called Death. Next day Capps was buried. Ensign Brydell and one or two other officers walked in the old boatswain’s funeral procession. He had always said he wanted “a rale lively funeral, like as a sailor man is got a right to,” and he was gratified. The plain coffin rested on a caisson, and a squad of sailors and marines marched behind it with the band playing.

As the little procession moved slowly out of the navy yard gate in the hot sunshine, a company of seven small boys fell into line behind the last squad. It was C company, with Young Brydell at its head. The boy’s sunburned face was blistered with tears, but he was too much of a soldier to wipe them away, while marching—for he had been fond of old Capps and had felt lonely ever since Capps had died.

Nobody attempted to stop C company. They marched along in good order, their small legs being equal to the slow pace of the funeral procession. It was a long way to the sailors’ cemetery and the day was hot, but C company stood up to the work like men. Whether by design or not they were cut off from a good view of the grave when poor old Capps was let down into it, and the next moment the band struck up “Garryowen,” and to its rattling music the sailors and marines stepped out at a lively rate.

So did C company. But after ten minutes the pace was too much for it. First Cunliffe lagged behind, then one by one, even to Young Brydell, they gave out, and it was a good twenty minutes after the sailors and marines had turned in the great gate to the navy yard that C company, consisting of seven very hot and tired small boys, straggled through. But as soon as they appeared, the corporal of the guard sang out “Turn out the guard!” and the next minute the marine guard stood at “present arms” as the boys marched through.

“For it’s the honor you did poor old Capps,” said Grubb to Young Brydell.

The boy had the usual habit of asking questions, after the manner of his kind, and one day when he and Grubb had got to be very good friends, he suddenly asked:—

“Grubb, are you married?”

“I’m a widower,” said Grubb.

“So is papa,” answered Young Brydell. “The other fellows tease me and say papa will give me a stepmother some day, but I don’t believe it.”

“A stepmother’s a deal better’n no mother at all,” announced Grubb.

“And have you any children?” continued Young Brydell.

“A boy about your size, but he ain’t here.”

Young Brydell felt so surprised and also so hurt at Grubb’s want of confidence in keeping these important facts to himself that he could only stare at him. Grubb laughed rather grimly.

“You see, my wife belonged to better folks than I. Her folks said she oughtn’t to marry a jirene, as they called me. Her father was a master mechanic, and when she died, poor thing! they took the boy, saying they could do a better part by him than I could; a marine don’t git much pay, you know; and, like a fool, I give him up. Now, in some way, the boy don’t seem like my child. He’s got schooling, more ’n I ever had, and he goes to school with fellers whose fathers I waits on, and he’s ashamed o’ this here uniform I wear. So when I seen how it was, a year or two back, I kinder let the thing go. I send him half my pay every month, and it don’t pay for the clothes he wears, they dress him so fine, and it seems to me I oughtn’t to bring him here, just to associate with Micky O’Toole and the rest o’ the men’s children.”

“But I ’sociate with Micky O’Toole,” put in Young Brydell.

“That’s different. Micky knows how you are goin’ to be an officer and as how if ever he gits in the navy, ’twill be as a ’prentice boy, and Micky ain’t no sort o’ a aspiring fellow. He don’t want to be no gentleman. But my boy does. And my boy’s too good for me, that’s a fact.”

“He oughtn’t to be,” said Young Brydell stoutly. “You’re a good fellow; everybody says so, and you’re a handsome fellow, and papa says he never saw a better set-up fellow, and you’ll be promoted.”

“No, sir,” answered Grubb, shaking his head, “I ain’t eddicated. I know my business, but it takes book learnin’ to make a sergeant or even a corporal. I can read and write and cipher some, but my boy could beat me at it before he was eight years old. It seems to me like the boy was mine and yet he ain’t mine; but yonder’s the admiral comin’ and I ain’t been to the postoffice yet.” So Grubb strode off, leaving Young Brydell considerably mystified about the marine’s boy.

CHAPTER III.
BRYDELL’S FIRST FAILURE.

Just six years after the May day that Young Brydell had nearly shot Grubb’s ear off, on a day as bright, he sat with a number of other young fellows about his own age around a long table, answering the questions of three professors who were examining them. Each had a great stake in this examination, as it was for an appointment to the naval academy at Annapolis.

Young Brydell had ceased to be Young Brydell then, being quite fifteen years old. He has experienced a good many changes in those six years. Much of the time his father, now a lieutenant, had been at sea, but unluckily, whether his father were at sea or on shore, Brydell was still allowed to have his own way, and a good deal more of the lieutenant’s pay than was good for a boy.

The old tenderness and sympathy still encompassed him—he had no mother. Therefore whenever Brydell found himself dissatisfied at school a complaining letter to his father would result in his going somewhere else. When his teachers represented that Brydell, although an extremely bright fellow and fond of reading, yet neglected his recitations for athletics, Brydell would write a most convincing letter to his father explaining how impossible it was for him to do more at his books when his duties as captain of the football eleven were taken into consideration, and his letters were so bright and well written that his father, as foolishly fond in his way as poor Grubb, would persuade himself that the boy would come out all right.

He had even been sent to Switzerland to school, but like the other schools this one did not suit Brydell, and six months after he was home again. Fortunately Brydell possessed certain strong traits of character that are difficult to spoil. He was perfectly truthful, brave, and had naturally a good address.

Nothing could have been prettier than the devotion between him and the lieutenant. As Brydell said: “Dear dad, fatherly respect is out of the question. When you got married at twenty, you took the chances of having a boy in the field before you were ready to quit it yourself. I’ll agree to treat you as an elder brother, but we’ve been chums too long for you to come the stern father over me.” And this would be said with such an affectionate hug that the lieutenant could only make believe to growl.

And so Brydell grew up without any of the wholesome restraints and self-denial of more fortunate boys. He was not a conceited boy, but he realized that whenever he had failed it was because he had not really exerted himself, and he had a naturally optimistic way of looking at life, which so far had not been rudely contradicted.

The determination to go into the navy had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength, and no other plan of life had ever occurred to him. He knew the difficulties of getting an appointment, but like most happy young fellows of his age and inexperience, he thought all difficulties existed for other people; his own way would be easy enough.

His father had carefully retained a legal residence in his native town, expressly for Brydell’s sake, so he could be eligible for appointment from that district. But Brydell, having concluded to try private tutors for a while,—which were changed as often as the schools were,—had lived for nearly a year and a half with his Aunt Emeline in a town outside of his own congressional district.

One morning, picking up a paper, he had read that a competitive examination would be held for an appointment to Annapolis, open to all boys who had lived twelve months in the district.

“That suits me to a dot,” cried Brydell, and from then until the day of the examination he really worked hard, never doubting for a moment his ultimate success.

Aunt Emeline, it is true, croaked like a raven, but Aunt Emeline always croaked. Brydell had already in his own mind composed the letter announcing his success to his father and another one to the admiral, who had continued to be his fast friend, and another one to Grubb, his old chum, the marine. On the morning of the examination he therefore presented himself and was duly accepted in the competition.

Next him at the table sat a handsome young fellow about his own age. Something in the boy’s fresh, regular features and lithe young figure reminded Brydell of Grubb. Of all his early friends Brydell loved the kindly marine, with his manliness and truth and bad grammar, better than any of them. Although Grubb had done his share of sea duty, he and Brydell had met many times in all those years, and always Brydell felt as if he were a little lad again.

Once, Brydell remembered, Grubb, being about going to sea again, had paid the expenses of a long journey out of his small pay to see him, and Brydell suspected that Grubb’s ticket had taken about all his spare cash, and that he had lived on hard tack and a can of smoked beef most of the way, which was hard on a big fellow like the marine.

It suddenly flashed upon Brydell that this handsome fellow might be Grubb’s son; he was about the right age. Brydell at this pricked up his ears, but in a few minutes one of the professors, happening to address the young man, called him “Mr. Esdaile.” Then he was not Grubb’s boy, and Brydell lost all interest in him, except that he wished he could write the answers off as quickly as Esdaile could. For Esdaile never paused a moment, but with the ease and rapidity of one perfectly accustomed to his subject he answered every question put him.

Not so Brydell. He was well up in history and geography, for he was a great reader. But in mathematics he stumbled woefully and made something very like a fiasco.

When at last it was over and the young fellows each took his way home, Brydell felt a sickening sense of failure. He had really worked hard in preparing for the examination, but he forgot that he had never worked in his life before. His three weeks’ spurt had seemed to him a tremendous effort that must win success, but it had not. And then came a terrible apprehension; if he had failed at this examination, and he felt perfectly sure he had, he might fail at another. He might even fail in getting the appointment from his own district, for the congressman might well hesitate to give it to a boy who could not hold his own in a preliminary examination.

This thought staggered him and almost broke his heart, for he had dwelt so long on the navy that he could not think what to do with his life if his ambition in that way should be balked. He was only kept in suspense a week or two and then the blow fell. Esdaile had got the appointment, and Brydell was at the foot of the list.

Only a proud, sensitive, and inexperienced soul could imagine the pain that Brydell suffered. It was not alone the mortification of failure; he had allowed his passion for the navy to take such possession of him, body and mind, that any serious setback to this cherished hope seemed to him an appalling misfortune.

In his tempest of disappointment he turned for the first time in his life, even in his own mind, against his father.

“It is not my fault,” he thought in sullen fury. “I am bright enough, only I never was made to work. And yet everybody talks about my advantages. Was it any advantage that I should never stay at any school more than a year, and hardly ever more than six months? Was it any advantage to me to be sent to Europe where I picked up a smattering of French and came home to find myself behind every fellow of my age I knew, except in that one thing? Was it any advantage to me to have more money than almost any boy I knew, to squander on athletics and all sorts of rubbish?”

This last reflection brought Brydell suddenly to himself. He remembered poor Grubb’s giving his boy half his pay. “And my poor old dad—poor young dad, rather—gave me, I believe, a good deal more than half his pay.”

Brydell had learned something about how money went, and he stopped, startled at the idea of how much skimping and saving his father must have done to give him the money. He fell into a passion of remorse.

“Poor dad—poor dad!” was all he could think, and “dad” was so young—barely thirty-six, and did not look a day over thirty. “I dare say,” thought poor Brydell, with the ghost of a smile, “that’s why it was he never married again. I was squandering his pay.”

Brydell was too generous a fellow to reproach his father, except to himself in his first angry mood, and knowing the lieutenant would hear about the examination anyway, he sat down and wrote his father frankly and fully, admitting his failure, and his determination, if he could get another chance, to do better. But the lieutenant was far away in the Pacific and it would be months before he could get the letter, and perhaps other long months before Brydell could get an answer.

Then he wrote the admiral in the same strain. The admiral, who happened to have shore duty then, got the letter. He was sitting on the piazza, facing the salt sea, and when he had finished reading it he brought his fist down with a thump on the arm of his chair and shouted:—

“By!”

The admiral always held that expletives were vulgar; but when much wrought up he took refuge in “By,” which might mean any and every thing.

“Just like the dog when he was about as big as a cockchafer, and took the whole blame of cutting up my turf, when there were six older boys aiding and abetting him. Bowline! here, sir!” and in a few minutes Billy Bowline came trotting along the hall.

“Bring me my portfolio and the ink,” said the admiral. “That little scamp of a Brydell has failed in a competitive examination for an appointment to the naval academy, and how his father could expect anything else, I can’t see, taking him to Europe, putting him at school one day and taking him away the next, and giving the boy no chance at all, simply because he was too soft-hearted to say no! And now the young fellow behaves like a man and shoulders it all. I say, Bowline, we can’t afford not to have that young fellow in the service.”

“No, sir, we can’t!” said Billy very seriously. “We’re ’bleeged to have him, sir, in the sarvice.”

“And how is it to be done, you old lunkhead?” bawled the admiral.

“Beg your parding, sir, it’s easy enough,” answered Billy stoutly. “There ain’t nothin’ in the reg’lations as prevents a admiral from axin’ the member o’ Congress from Mr. Brydell’s districk, if he’s got a ’pintment to give away; and if he rightly understands his duty to a rear-admiral on the active list, he dasn’t say no, sir.”

“William Bowline,” said the admiral solemnly, “if you weren’t the biggest ass I ever saw, I’d say you were a genius. Bring me the navy register quick.”

The admiral glanced at the register and saw there would be a vacancy in that year in Brydell’s district. He then wrote fourteen pages to the member of Congress, and sealed it with his big red seal.

“That’ll fetch it,” thought Billy proudly. “It looks like it comes from the sekertary of the navy.”

As Billy was starting off to the postoffice with the important letter, the admiral picked up Brydell’s letter and read it over, half-aloud. “Esdaile, Esdaile; that has a familiar sound,” he said.

“In course, sir,” answered Billy with a sniff. “That’s the son o’ Grubb, the jirene. You know, sir, Grubb married a woman whose folks was ashamed o’ him; and Grubb, like a great big ass, give the boy to his wife’s people arter she died, and they stuffed that young ’un up with false pride until he got ashamed to speak to Grubb; and Grubb, he was a-sendin’ the boy half his pay straight along. So then the boy’s grandfather died and left him a small fortin’ on condition that he changes his name to his mother’s, Esdaile; and the brat were willin’ enough, for he thought hisself too good to be named Grubb, and now he’s goin’ to be a officer.”

Here Billy rumpled his hair up violently to show his contempt for Grubb’s boy, and the admiral again cried:—

“By!”

There was a great running to and fro between the admiral’s house and the postoffice in those days, and the admiral and Billy both began to feel anxious about Brydell’s appointment. The day was fast approaching when the candidates must present themselves for examination at Annapolis, and at last, three days before the time, just long enough for the admiral to write to Brydell and for Brydell to get to Annapolis, the appointment came from the member of Congress.

Admiral Beaumont was so happy when he got the letter that he gave a kind of snort of pleasure, and Billy, who was standing by, eagerly watching the opening of the letters, had to go out in the backyard to chuckle. The admiral sent a dispatch and a letter to Brydell, and Billy stumped off gleefully with them, and three days afterward Brydell had presented himself at Annapolis.

CHAPTER IV.
BRYDELL’S SECOND FAILURE.

Far back in his babyhood, almost, Brydell remembered the academic buildings, the green lawns, and bright river at Annapolis, and when on a lovely May evening he walked in the great gates and passed the marine on guard, he felt so happy he could have danced and sung.

The weeks since his failure had been spent in a dull and hopeless mental lethargy. Aunt Emeline had been grimly consolatory and had tried to impress on him that he had made a lucky miss in not getting into the navy, and named at least a thousand professions and business ventures in which he could make more money. The good woman did not see in the least how it was with the boy—that he was simply born to be a sailor, and that nothing on earth could charm him then from his wish.

After that one outburst of generosity in writing to his father and the admiral, he had settled down to a sullen submission. It would be months before he could hear from his father, and until then nothing could be done. Suddenly, like the lifting of a mist by the glorious sun, came the admiral’s letter and the appointment, and within twenty-four hours Brydell was on his way to Annapolis to be examined for admission to the academy.

He had had no time to prepare for the examination, even if he could. But a boy of Brydell’s temperament does not learn prudence and caution in a day or a month, and he was as perfectly sanguine of success in the coming examinations as if he had not failed before. He could have hugged the admiral for his goodness, and had sat up half the night, when he got the treasured letter, writing his thanks to him and the member of Congress.

On this lovely May afternoon he walked with a springy step along the brick walks of the academy grounds under the giant trees, fresh in their spring livery, and as he looked at the velvet turf he smiled and thought of the admiral and the dirt fort and Grubb and that early time. It was not necessary for him to report until next morning, so he strolled along, the very happiest fifteen-year-old fellow in the world.

Presently sauntering along the sea wall and watching the reflection in the water of a steam launch filled with ladies and officers, he suddenly came directly upon his old friend Grubb, standing and talking with Esdaile, the handsome young fellow who had so far outstripped all the other candidates, himself included. Esdaile started, and then blushing a fiery red, nodded his head to Grubb and walked off.

As for Brydell, all the kindness he had ever received as a little boy from the handsome marine rushed to his mind. Grubb, as handsome as ever, although a good deal older, smiled delightedly as Brydell dashed forward, but seeing how tall the young fellow had grown, Grubb drew himself up and saluted as he said: “How d’ you do, Mr. Brydell?”

“Oh, hang the salute, Grubb! shake hands,” cried Brydell, delighted. “I’m not a cadet yet, so we needn’t stand on ceremony.” At which Grubb and he sawed the air for five minutes.

“And are you come down here for to be examined, sir?” asked Grubb, smiling broadly.

“Yes,” said Brydell, adding shamefacedly, “I had a chance in a competitive examination, but that fellow you were talking with—Esdaile—got ahead of me.”

At this it was Grubb’s turn to color. He shifted his feet and said hesitatingly:—

“Mr. Brydell, please don’t go for to tell it, sir, but Mr. Esdaile—Mr. Esdaile is my son. His grandfather’s left him some money, if he’d take the same name—Esdaile; and as the boy didn’t like the name o’ Grubb, nohow, he got his name changed by law—and I’d ruther—I’d ruther, sir, the folks here didn’t know it, bein’ as I ain’t nothin’ but a marine.”

Brydell was so taken aback for a moment that he did not know what to say, and Grubb with unwonted fluency continued:—

“I’ve sent in my application for a transfer, sir, ’cause the boy don’t want—I mean I don’t want—to be stationed here, a-doin’ guard duty while my boy is in the academy. I’ve talked it over with one o’ the officers as I’ve knowed, and who has been a good friend to me, and he says maybe it will be best all around. And I hope nobody will know that Cadet William Esdaile is the son o’ Grubb the marine.”

“You may be right in getting transferred somewhere else,” answered Brydell after a moment, “and if the officer advised you, I wouldn’t venture to say a word; but I don’t see why your boy should not want to recognize”— Here he stopped, not knowing how to keep on.

“Didn’t I tell you, sir, long years ago as how the boy was gittin’ above his father?” burst out poor Grubb, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s ashamed o’ me; he’s ashamed to be seen a-talkin’ with me, and I can give him half my pay, and I’d give him all o’ it if he needed it, but I can’t stand bein’ looked down upon by him.”

“Why, if you were my father, I shouldn’t be in the least ashamed of you,” cried Brydell hotly. “You haven’t had the advantage we other fellows have had, but you’re one of the most honest and respectable men in the world; so says my father and Admiral Beaumont, too, and it’s a great deal better to come out and be honest and above board about these things than to be skulking and hiding them.”

“That’s true for you, Mr. Brydell,” replied Grubb, who had natural good sense and much more experience than Brydell. “That’s your natur’. But it ain’t everybody’s natur’. It ain’t my boy’s natur’; I wish it was. It’s the easiest way and the best way o’ gittin’ through life, but it takes all sorts o’ people to make up a world, and there’s lots o’ people that could no more be aboveboard than a pig can fly.”

Brydell had not lived long enough to appreciate this truth, and he parted from Grubb with a mixture of respect and contempt for him, but with unabated affection, and a most genuine disgust for Esdaile. Perhaps it was helped a little by Esdaile’s triumph over him, but Brydell had always hated a sneak, and he had very good ground for thinking the accomplished Mr. Esdaile was constitutionally a sneak.

Next day he reported and the examination began, and then came a time that in torture far exceeded the sharp disappointment and sullen despair of the last few weeks. For, after days of struggle and nights of furious though ill-directed study, again did Brydell fail, and this time he thought it was forever.

When he knew it he had but one desire on earth—to get away from the place anywhere—anywhere. But where was he to go and what was he to do that people would not find him out? He hated to go back to that dreary house with Aunt Emeline; his father was completely out of his reach,—that too kind father,—and Brydell felt sick at the idea of meeting the admiral again.

Filled with the despair of the very young,—who can see nothing beyond the narrow horizon of the present,—Brydell, sitting in his room at the hotel, dropped his head upon his arms, and wished himself dead. He did not know how long he had lain thus, only that the sun was shining brightly in the afternoon when he heard the dreadful news, and it was quite dusk when he had a strange feeling that some one was present, and there stood over him Grubb’s tall figure.

“It’s mortal bad, Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb. Brydell answered not a word, and in the silence of the twilight the only sound was the melancholy call of a night bird heard through the open window.

“Whatever are you goin’ to do now, Mr. Brydell?” asked Grubb after a while.

“I don’t know,” said Brydell in a voice that he hardly recognized as his own.

“You’d better ask the admiral, sir,” presently Grubb continued.

Brydell made no reply. Then, after a longer pause than usual, Grubb kept on:—

“You ain’t had no rale preparation, I reckon.”

“No!” cried Brydell bitterly; “sent from one school to another, as often as I wanted; allowed twice as much pocket money as any other boy in school, while my father was pinching and skimping himself to give it to me; with no home, no mother, to encourage me and nobody to govern me; of course I failed. I’ll always fail.”

“Don’t you go for to say that, Mr. Brydell, and it seems like I ain’t the only foolish father in the world. There’s others as had eddication and all sorts o’ things that don’t act no wiser nor poor old Grubb the marine.”

“Don’t say a word against my father!” cried Brydell, lifting his pale face for the first time.

“I’d be the last person in the world to say a word against the leftenant, sir, but I say as how ’twas always said of you when you was a little shaver: ‘Don’t be hard on him, he ain’t got no mother.’ Well, now it seems to me they’ve been monstrous hard on you when they thought they was bein’ easy.”

Brydell said nothing more. He knew Grubb was telling the truth.

“Well, now, sir, let me tell you something. I knows all about these app’intments. You set down and write the admiral and ask him if he’ll ask that there congressman to give you a year to prepare yourself. Tell him as how you ain’t had half a chance, and give him your word as a gentleman you’ll pass next year if they’ll let you keep the app’intment.”

“I’m ashamed to.”

“Good night, Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb. “Them as is ashamed to ask for another trial when they ain’t had a good chance, seems to me, ain’t got much sand. It looks like you warn’t willin’ to work.”

“Sit down, Grubb,” answered Brydell, beginning to consider this sound advice, and before Grubb left the room the letter was written to the admiral.

“It won’t do any good; I know it won’t,” said poor Brydell despairingly. Nevertheless he agreed to remain at Annapolis long enough to get an answer.

It would take about three days to get an answer, supposing the admiral to be able to see the congressman at once. Those days Brydell remained shut up in his room. It was a turning point with him. He retained only a dim and chaotic memory of what he felt and suffered in those three days; but at the beginning he was a boy, and when he came out of the struggle he was a man.

In the afternoon of the third day a dispatch came:—

Congressman will let this year’s appointment lapse and will hold vacancy open for you another year, upon my solemn word of honor that you will qualify yourself and pass. I rely upon you to make my promise good.

GEORGE BEAUMONT.

The day was dark and rainy, but no June morning ever seemed brighter to Brydell when he read that dispatch. The transition seemed to him like passing from death to life.

He knew he had never had a chance at preparation, and he knew he had a good mind, capable of learning what other fellows did. But, above all, he felt suddenly develop within himself a determination, a strength of purpose, a power of will that could do great things if he tried.

This new force was always a part of his character, although quickly developed by a strange succession of fierce disappointments. But impetuosity was also a part of his character, and with this new sense of manliness and responsibility came a rash determination that he would prove his sincerity by working for his living while preparing himself for that other chance a year hence.

Hot with this thought, Brydell wrote his father a brief but eager letter:—

And as I have known all the disadvantages of having too much money to spend, all taken, almost stolen from your pay, dear old man, while you are doing without everything for me, and I am determined never to cost you another dollar. I can find work easy enough,

(sanguine Brydell)

and work won’t interfere with my studying half as much as play will, and I want to do something—anything—everything—to earn the admiral’s respect and my own too. So make yourself easy, dad, about me. I’ll be at work when you get this, and you know whatever faults I’ve had I never was a milksop; and I’m going to behave myself; don’t you worry about that. So wait until next year and you won’t be ashamed of your affectionate son and chum,

RICHARD BRYDELL, Jr.

Brydell ran and posted this letter before he had time to change his mind about sending it. When it was gone he had a sudden feeling of shock, like a man just under a shower bath. But his word was passed. He had naturally the strength of mind to stick to what he said, and one of the things that had not been neglected with him was a most faithful regard for his own word. Rash his resolve might be, but not to be shirked on that account.

When Brydell realized to what he had committed himself he seemed to grow ten years older in half an hour. He felt a little afraid, but all these things were working together to make a man of him.

CHAPTER V.
STRIKING OUT FOR HIMSELF.

Next morning, bright and early, Brydell was up and dressed. He had no one to say farewell to except Grubb, but he wanted to see his humble friend and avail himself of Grubb’s excellent common sense about his future plans. For the marine had seen a good deal of the world and knew something of it from a working-man’s point of view. Grubb happened to be off duty that day, and early in the morning presented himself in Brydell’s room. Brydell told him the glorious news, and Grubb, taking off his cap and waving it three times, said in a half-whisper: “Hooray! hooray! hooray!”

“And now,” said Brydell, “I’ve got to go to work. I have about twenty-five dollars left after paying my hotel bill, and I can’t go very far on that. Besides, I’d rather stay near Annapolis. I can keep in touch with it better in some ways. I have my books, you know, and although I have only acquired a smattering from them, yet they are familiar enough to me to study by myself. And I’ve got an idea about employment.”

“What is it, sir?” asked Grubb.

“Well, you see, I’ve been great on outdoor life—riding and walking and swimming; and I believe I could stand an outdoor life better than I could being shut up in a dingy office. I hear that the farmers about here find great difficulty in getting hands, even at high wages and particularly at this season of the year. If I could get work on a farm, I could get my living too, which I couldn’t get in a city.”

“Lord, bless the boy!” cried Grubb in great disgust. “The leftenant’s son, a-talkin’ about bein’ a hired man! Did ever anybody hear the likes o’ that for a gentleman?”

“I know I am a gentleman, Grubb, and that’s why it is I’m not afraid of work,” answered Brydell, who could not help laughing at Grubb’s look.

After Brydell had talked with him half an hour, though, the marine’s ideas changed. Brydell, who had been thinking hard on the subject all night, reminded him of how many young fellows walked the streets of towns, asking for employment, while in the country employment was waiting for twice as many men as could be found. “And besides,” said Brydell with a slight blush, “in the city I might be all the time running up against people I know, and if they were civil to me I’d probably lose the time with them I would have in the evenings for study, and if they didn’t notice me it would make me feel pretty bad; while in the country I wouldn’t be likely to meet a soul I ever knew. It always seemed to me, too, as if a country life was healthier for a young fellow.”

“It is a sight healthier in every way,” remarked Grubb with energy.

“And then I can get work right away in the country, and who knows when I could get it in town?”

“Mr. Brydell,” said Grubb, “the admiral allers said, when you were a little shaver, as you’d turn right side up, and I do believe he know’d what he was talking about.”

“The admiral’s the best friend I have in the world except you,” cried Brydell; “I believe if you were an admiral, you’d do just as much for me as Admiral Beaumont.”

“Right you are, Mr. Brydell. I ain’t nothin’ but a poor marine, without any book learnin’, but whenever I sees that motto of the corps, ‘Semper fidelis’ which means ‘Ever faithful,’ I think to myself, Grubb, my man, that means you ain’t never goin’ back on another feller; and, come to think of it, it do seem ridicklous that the leftenant’s son should be a-workin’ like a hired hand. But I’ve noticed, sir, as how you’ll put two horses to haulin’ bricks. If one o’ ’em is a scrub, and t’ other one has a strain o’ good blood in him, you’ll find the scrub all petered out by the time his work is done. But the horse with the good blood’ll haul all day, and be as frisky as a kitten when you take him out; for blood do tell, Mr. Brydell.”

Grubb said this with a sigh, and Brydell thought the poor fellow had his own son in mind.

Brydell did not care to say good-by to the few people he knew at Annapolis, so he started out on a round, leaving his cards marked “P.P.C.” at each acquaintance’s house and not waiting to see if they were at home. He could not help laughing as he did this. He imagined he saw himself at work in the fields in his shirt sleeves, and thought it would be a good while before he needed any more visiting cards.

A natural tinge of boyish adventure made him feel as if he would like to start out on foot to seek his fortune, so next morning, having packed up his belongings and left them in Grubb’s care, Brydell set out with his stick and a small bundle and twenty-five dollars in his pocket.

It was a lovely day, cool for the season, and as Brydell stepped out at a lively pace, the world did not by any means look black to him. When he looked back six months it seemed to him six years. In that time he had had one of those plunges into real life which turns a boy into a man in an inconceivably short time. He had had a pretty complete experience of what life meant, and he had set himself to work out his own salvation in earnest.

He thought he would walk about twelve miles before stopping, wishing to be at least that far from Annapolis. But the beauty of the day, the greenness and freshness of the country, led him on and on until it was nearly fifteen miles.

Then the weather suddenly changed. The sky became overcast, the wind sprung up, and the first thing Brydell knew he was caught in a drenching rain. He had a rain coat with him and he put it on, meanwhile keeping his bundle well protected. He was still following the main road and he determined to stop and ask for shelter at the first house he saw. And how that spring shower changed his views of life!

He realized he was wet and hungry, that he was alone, and far from all his friends, and all at once he began to feel very young. He pushed on rapidly, and in a little while saw across the rolling country a large and comfortable farmhouse. He made straight for it and in a little while he knocked at the open door.

A little girl in a white dimity sunbonnet came to the door. She was about ten years old and remarkably pretty. She did not show the least bit of shyness and asked Brydell in hospitably. Before he had time to answer, her father and mother appeared—handsome country people, looking, as they were, thoroughly prosperous.

Brydell, whose manners were naturally graceful and polished, introduced himself and asked the privilege of remaining until the shower was over, and with a secret determination to ask for work later on. The farmer’s address was not nearly so elegant as the young fellow’s who cherished the ambition of becoming his hired man. He said:—

“My name’s Laurison. Come in and sit down. If you’ve got any dry clothes in that bundle, my wife’ll show you a room where you can change ’em.”

Brydell looked at Mrs. Laurison and his heart went out to her instantly. She was not like the officers’ wives he had known, educated and traveled women; but she had a quiet dignity and a self-possession that was equally good in its way. And she had the softest, kindest eyes in the world, and her voice was so gentle when she invited Brydell upstairs to change his clothes that he almost loved her from the start. In a little while Brydell appeared with dry shoes and stockings and another pair of trowsers.

The farmer, being compelled to stay indoors, was not indisposed to talk with the young stranger, and Brydell had quite a gift of making himself agreeable. They sat talking in a large, airy, old-fashioned hall, with a dry rubbed floor; and the little girl Minna was so pleased with her new acquaintance that she came and perched herself on the arm of his chair and gazed fearlessly into his eyes with the grave scrutiny of an innocent girl.

Brydell knew much about country life, and talked so knowingly about cows and pigs and horses that even Mr. Laurison grew fluent, and Brydell imagined it would be easy enough to get work there, and he quickly determined to ask for it.

“Do you have any trouble getting farm labor?” he asked.

“Heaps of trouble,” answered Mr. Laurison with emphasis. “The negroes all go off about this time of the year for berry-picking, just when harvest is coming on and the corn needs weeding the worst you ever saw. I’ve got two men I can count on that stay with me the year round, but I ought to have four on a farm of this size.”

Here was Brydell’s chance.

“I’m looking for work,” he said diffidently—“Farm work, I mean.”

“You!” shouted Mr. Laurison. “Why, you never did any work in your life. Look at them hands!”

“Pretty brown, I think they are,” answered Brydell complacently, examining his own hands.

“Yes,” said Mr. Laurison; “but they’re brown with the playin’ of tennis and football and such. Any fool can see by your hands you ain’t done any work.”

“But I want to do some work.”

“For what?”

“For money, for a living.”

“Ain’t you got any friends or family?”

“I have a father. He’s in the navy and away off in the Pacific. I haven’t any friend that can help me.”

“And has your father thrown you off?”

“Oh, no; but I want to earn my living, and it’s easier to get work in the country than in town, and besides I know more about the country.”

Mr. Laurison’s manner underwent an instant change. He paused a little while and then said:—

“I ain’t got any work for you;” and after another pause: “I think it’s clearin’ up.”

Brydell rose at once. He felt that in a moment the attitude of his host was one of suspicion; but Mrs. Laurison’s kind gaze never changed in the least, and little Minna came closer to him and caught his hand.

“Are you going away?” she asked.

“I must,” said Brydell gently, but feeling as if he would choke. Mr. Laurison got up very promptly.

“I’ll show you a short cut to the main road,” he said.

The sun was now down and the purple twilight was upon them. The trees and grass were wet and a faint gray haze rose from the meadows at the back of the house. It had never dawned upon Brydell that he would be invited to take the road at such an hour, and he felt a strange sinking of the heart.

He thanked Mrs. Laurison for her kindness to him. She said no word to detain him, but Brydell felt she was sorry to see him go. He then turned to shake hands with little Minna. The child suddenly tiptoed and threw her arms around his neck, saying,—

“Won’t you come back to-morrow?”

“Some day, perhaps,” answered Brydell hurriedly, and feeling a sob rising in his throat at the childish words. The woman and the little girl had confidence in him. He said good-by to them both, thanked Mrs. Laurison again, and followed her husband out, and along a path bordered with alders, to the main road half a mile off.

Neither spoke a word. When they reached a stile, beyond which the white line of the sandy road glimmered faintly in the half-light, the farmer turned to him:—

“Young man,” he said, “if you’ve done anything wrong,—and I can’t help suspecting you have,—’tain’t too late for you to mend. You’re young yet, and you’ve got a whole lifetime to make up for it in.”

Brydell had realized that the farmer suspected him, but hearing it put into words was a shock that altogether unnerved him.

“Why do you suspect me?” he asked in a voice he hardly recognized as his own.

“Because I can’t help suspecting an educated young feller with his father in the navy, who tramps about, asking for work on a farm.”

In all of his grief and anxiety and despair about his failing in his examinations, and when he thought the desire of his heart was thwarted, Brydell had never shed a tear. But when this new horror came upon him, he did what he had not done since he was a little boy—he broke into a passion of sobbing and crying. The farmer looked at him compassionately.

“You’re sorry for what you’ve done,” he said, “and that’s a good sign.”

“I’m not sorry, for I haven’t done anything,” burst out Brydell. “I am as honest as you are and as respectable. How do you think you’d feel if anybody accused you of being crooked? I’ve told you the truth. I got an appointment at the Naval Academy and I failed, and the congressman who gave it to me said he would hold it over for a year if I would work hard and promise to pass, and I wrote my father I meant to work for that and for my living, too, and I’m going to do it. That’s all.”

Mr. Laurison hesitated for a moment. He had the wisdom of guileless people, which is sometimes better than that of worldly people, and he saw that Brydell was telling the truth, and he said so.

“And you can come back to the house with me and spend the night, and we’ll talk about work to-morrow,” he said.

“No,” said Brydell stoutly, “I won’t spend the night in the house of a man that takes me for a crook.”

“I like your pluck, but you’re a fool all the same,” was Mr. Laurison’s answer, accompanied by a friendly shove, “so come along back with me.”

Brydell had meant to show great spirit, but he was not proof against kindness, and he turned and walked rather sullenly back to the house. Mrs. Laurison and Minna were still standing on the porch. The lamps were lighted in the hall and dining-room, and the house had a hospitable and inviting look. The two figures appeared out of the dusk.

“Wife,” said Mr. Laurison, “I’ve brought this young feller back. He’s all right. He just failed in his examination to get into the Naval Academy, and like a wrong-headed boy he wrote his father he’d work for his own living until he could get in the academy,—he’ll have another chance next year,—and then, like a man, he determined to live up to what he said. So we’ll just keep him to-night, and maybe we can find something for him to do to-morrow.”

Mrs. Laurison said only three words—“I am glad”—but Brydell knew they came straight from her tender heart. Little Minna began to jump about, singing, “I’m so glad! I’m so glad!”

“You’ll find I can work,” said Brydell with rather a wan smile. “I’ve worked in the hot sun a good many hours at cricket and football and tennis and polo, and I daresay I can drive a plow or weed corn or hoe potatoes just about as well.”

“It ain’t half such hard work,” replied the farmer with a smile.

The evening passed quickly. There was a wheezy piano in the parlor, and Brydell, who played a little and could sing some college songs, pleased his hosts very much with a performance that would not have been so highly appreciated elsewhere.

At nine o’clock he was shown to a comfortable room, not the best bedroom, as he found out, and turning in fell asleep in five minutes, well pleased with his first day’s battle with the world.

CHAPTER VI.
A NEW LIFE.

Next morning, by sunrise, Brydell was up and dressed and outdoors. The two negro men on the place were feeding the stock under Mr. Laurison’s directions, while a negro woman milked the cows.

Brydell looked about and saw that the vegetable garden was well weeded, but there was a long straight walk down the garden, with flower beds on each side of it, that were full of weeds. There were clumps of lilac, both white and purple, great masses of the syringa, making the morning air heavy with its sweet perfume, and snowball bushes blooming profusely. Some early roses were out and a few gaudy peonies still lingered.

Both beds and walk were choked with grass and all manner of vagrant growth.

“If I had a garden hoe and rake, I could weed those flower beds,” said Brydell to Mr. Laurison as they met in the backyard.

“I wish to goodness you would,” answered Mr. Laurison. “My wife has nearly broken her heart over those flower beds. I’ve had to keep the hands to work so steady that I actually haven’t had a chance to get at the flowers; and she ain’t strong enough to do it herself, and it’s just been a trial to her.”

Brydell had been taught to weed flowers under that stern martinet, Aunt Emeline, and when an hour afterward Mrs. Laurison and Minna appeared, one whole square was as neatly weeded as possible, the refuse piled up in a wheelbarrow, and the garden looked like a different place.

Mrs. Laurison was delighted.

“You couldn’t have done anything that pleased me better, and a young fellow that’s kind and considerate to women and children is apt to be a good one. If Mr. Laurison keeps you, I’ve made up my mind to let you have the little bedroom you slept in last night, instead of staying with the hired men in the barn, because I see you are a gentleman’s son, and your mother”—

“I haven’t any mother,” said Brydell, his eyes filling with tears at Mrs. Laurison’s kind tones.

“Then there’s the more reason for being good to you,” she said.

Little Minna immediately dragged him off to see her garden, which was the disorderly patch which usually satisfied children, and then they all went in to breakfast.

After breakfast Mr. Laurison and Brydell had a business talk. Mr. Laurison agreed to keep him a month on trial and to pay him ten dollars besides his board. If he was satisfactory, he could keep the place indefinitely.

Brydell never was so thankful and so relieved in his life, except when he got that dispatch from Admiral Beaumont.

How much better was this wholesome country life than that dreary search for employment in a city! And he had a good room to sleep in, instead of a box on the top floor in a city boarding-house, and country milk and butter and vegetables to eat—Brydell had an astonishing appetite—and his work, although hard, was nothing like as hard as being perched upon an office stool ten hours a day.

He had to buy himself some working clothes, but, as one result of his training as a gentleman, Brydell never appeared at the table without being neatly dressed. This worked a much-needed reform in Mr. Laurison, who before Brydell came had no scruples about appearing at the dinner table in his shirt sleeves. But he could not afford to be less well dressed than his young hired hand and he began to take more pains with his daily toilet.

This pleased Mrs. Laurison very much, who like most women attached importance to the refinements of life, and who felt hurt to think that though her husband put on his coat when they had guests to dinner, he left it off when they were alone.

At the end of the month Mr. Laurison said nothing about Brydell’s leaving and was secretly rather afraid that Brydell had got tired of his job. But not so; Brydell had a great fund of sound sense, after all the nonsense had been knocked out of him, and he knew he was in good luck to have such a means of livelihood.

As soon as he felt any certainty about his position, he wrote a number of letters—to his father, to Admiral Beaumont, to his Aunt Emeline, and to Grubb the marine, who had got transferred to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

He got very prompt answers from the three of his correspondents who could communicate with him. His Aunt Emeline wrote, saying if he wouldn’t come back, she couldn’t help it—but there was nothing urgent in her invitation. Brydell smiled rather bitterly as he laid the letter down.