Jack Harvey's Adventures: or, The Rival Campers Among the Oyster Pirates

The lights of the old farm house were gleaming by this time, and in a moment or two they were within its hospitable walls. It was a pleasant, old-style house, with some pillars at the front, and a broad verandah; the main house of two stories in height, and a series of rambling extensions, of a story and a half, extending in the rear; stables and two barns not far away – in all, an air of comfort and prosperity, if not of great means. The land on which the house stood overlooked the river, now gleaming with the harbour lights of many vessels, and some small ponds along shore.

They entered at the big front door, stepping into a wide hall that ran the entire length of the first floor of the main part. The hall ended in a wall in which a huge open fireplace, built of the stones taken from the land, now gave forth a blazing welcome.

But they did not linger long before this inviting blaze, for old Mammy Stevens had them all out in the dining-room before many minutes. This room was equally cheery, with a hearth fire snapping and singing there, also; and there sat young Joe, gloating in anticipation over an array of good things, including the heaped up platter of corn fritters, with a pitcher of syrup squatted agreeably close by.

They fell to and ate till Mammy Stevens’s face lighted up and shone like a piece of polished ebony; and she laughed and chuckled till she was almost white to see young Joe tuck away corn fritters and country sausage. And all the while they were making merry and enjoying comfort and warmth, Jack Harvey, not far away, on the bug-eye, Brandt, was climbing into his bunk, wet from his drenching, and sore from the blow Haley had given him.

A vessel, seen from the old farmhouse, anchored in near shore the following afternoon, but it had no special interest in the eyes of the newcomers, nor had it as it sailed away again when the fog had lifted.

“Cap’n,” queried Jim Adams, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem of it forward in the direction of the stranger who stood by the foremast, “what’s happened? What have we got him for?”

Haley shrugged his shoulders and squinted one eye, significantly. “Bill’s in trouble again,” he answered. “This fellow and a pardner tried to get away. The pardner got it a bit hard – Bill had to put him ashore below in St. Mary’s. This one goes, too, when we get a good chance to land him where he’ll be a long time walking up to Baltimore. Oh, it’s all right, so long as the two don’t get together. The pardner can’t make any more trouble by himself.”

Jim Adams, rightly construing Haley’s remarks to mean that the “pardner” had been badly hurt, perhaps crippled – or worse – and had been landed in some convenient spot away from any town, resumed his pipe, and asked no more questions. But he added, as he surveyed the muscular frame of the man forward, “He’s a sure enough good man at the winders, I reckon. I’ll make him earn his board and lodgin,’ if he stays.”

Jim Adams grinned, and showed his fine, white teeth.

“You’re the boy to do it,” commented Haley.

It was afternoon, and the bug-eye, Brandt, was coming up to the Patuxent for a night’s harbour. Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, eyeing the stranger, who remained sullenly by himself, felt a depression of spirits as they noted the appearance of the man. His bruises and the fresh scar, and indeed the very fact of his being there, were evidence to them of the cause that had brought him aboard. They had become familiar enough with the ways of the dredging fleet to know what it meant.

What the stranger thought of them, no one would ever know. But theirs was perhaps not altogether a favourable appearance by this time. There was less of incongruity in the dress of Tom Edwards now than when he had begun work. Daily toil at the dredges, drenching in icy spray, the wear and tear of the life aboard the Brandt, had wholly obliterated whatever of newness and stylishness there had been to his clothing. He had taken on the shabby, rough, wretched characteristics of the ordinary dredger. His one collar had long ago been discarded. He looked the part into which his ill fortune had cast him.

Nor had Harvey fared better. His clothes were torn and worn and discoloured by the salt water. His face, like that of Tom Edwards, was reddened and roughened and weather-beaten. His hands were roughened and scarred from hard work, with the broadening and flattening at the finger tips acquired through handling the heavy iron dredges and through knotting ropes.

The two friends were still depressed with the disappointment of their failure to make their escape, but they were not hopeless. They talked of it whenever they dared, and planned for another attempt when opportunity should offer.

The bug-eye ran up into the mouth of the river, and came to anchor off the northern shore, that being the lee with the wind from the northwest. It lay about half a mile out from the Drum Point shore and about the same distance to the eastward of Solomon’s Island. There was little sign of life or habitation on the land about the light-house, save that Harvey noticed one large house which set up on the hill, overlooking the surrounding country. But the many lights on Solomon’s Island and the many small craft at their moorings close to its shore indicated that there was quite a settlement there. Later in the evening, there came out to him, once or twice, with the wind, the sounds of jigging music, as from banjos and fiddles; and once he thought he heard, faintly, the sound of a piano, played noisily.

These suggestions of freedom and of merriment, though borne to him all indistinctly, filled Harvey’s mind with the old longing to escape. He could seem to see the interior of the town hall, perhaps, whence the sounds came; the lamps about the sides of the room; the fishermen’s daughters waiting for partners for the dance; the fiddler at the end of the hall, calling off the numbers. He had seen the like away up in Samoset bay, and had taken part in the fun.

He looked down at the side of the vessel, where the black water of the bay tossed gently, and away off to shore, indistinct save where a light gleamed here and there. There was the icy sting and nip of winter in the air. The water looked forbidding. It was out of the question to think of swimming – and, besides, there was Tom Edwards whom he could not desert. But, for all that, Harvey turned in for the night with greater reluctance than ever before; and he lay for a long time, uneasy, not able to sleep.

It could not have been very late in the night, though he knew not the time, when he roused up from a light slumber. Something had awakened him. The picture he had fancied of the dance hall ashore leaped into his mind, and something seemed to impel him to turn out and take another look.

Then he thought he heard some slight sound over his head on deck. Grumbling at himself at his seeming folly, he stepped out on to the forecastle floor and went softly up the companion ladder to the deck.

He was dressed, for he had turned in with his clothes on, as usual. But the night air chilled him, and he shivered as he crept out and looked off toward the land. He turned his collar up about his throat, and stepped over to the side of the vessel.

An instant, and he was conscious of someone near. He turned just as a figure leaped out at him from the shadow of the forecastle. Harvey was quick and strong. Realizing a sudden peril – he knew not what – he darted to one side as the figure sprang toward him, and struck out at the same moment with his left arm.

He was not a second too soon. There was disclosed to him the tall, swarthy stranger they had taken aboard that afternoon. The man, his arm uplifted and holding an open knife in that hand, made a lunge at him.

The blow missed Harvey, and his own blow, aimed at random, caught the man’s shoulder and stopped his rush. At the same moment, the man recognized the boy and stood still and silent, peering at him, wondering and surprised.

Harvey, alert to the situation, thought quickly and spoke – in a half whisper.

“Don’t strike me,” he said. “If you want to escape, I’ll help you. I’m not to blame for your being here.”

The man did not reply, but he seemed to understand. Yet he was not taking all for granted. He stepped to Harvey’s side, holding the knife threateningly. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and peered into his face. Then he put a finger to Harvey’s lips and raised the knife again.

Harvey nodded. “I’ll keep quiet,” he whispered. “What are you going to do, swim?”

The man clearly did not understand what Harvey had said, but he caught at the one word.

“Swim,” he repeated, and nodded. “Swim. I swim.” And he made a sweeping gesture with one arm.

Harvey nodded his head vigorously, as if to indicate his sympathy with the attempt, and further emphasized it with a shake of his fist in the direction of the captain’s cabin. The man seemed assured. His lips parted in a half smile, which changed to an expression of anger and fierceness as he in turn shook the hand that clutched the knife in the direction of Haley’s quarters. Then he thrust the knife back into his belt.

Another thought came swiftly to Harvey then. If he could only get a message ashore by the man – that is, if the stranger should succeed in what seemed an almost hopeless attempt. But how could he make the foreigner understand? He stepped close to him, stretched out his left hand and made the motions of writing upon the palm of it. Then he pointed to himself, to the man and to the shore.

“Take a letter for me,” said Harvey. “A letter,” and he again made the motions of writing.

To his surprise and delight, the man repeated the word “letter” plainly, and himself made the motions of writing with his right fore-finger upon the palm of his left hand.

“Yes, that’s it,” said Harvey. “Take a letter ashore for me?” And he pointed again toward shore.

The man nodded. Harvey pointed to the forecastle, repeated the gesture of writing and looked at the man inquiringly. The man nodded once more. But again he drew forth the knife, put a finger to his lips and made a significant gesture. Harvey understood. He stepped forward, put out his right hand to the man, and the stranger grasped it. It was a compact he understood. Harvey stole softly down into the forecastle.

He roused Tom Edwards, who asked drowsily what was wanted.

“Tom,” said Harvey softly, “be quick. Find that little order-book with the pencil in it that you had when you came aboard. You stuck it up in the bunk somewhere, weeks ago. The man we took aboard this afternoon is going to swim for shore. Hurry, Tom, he may be gone while I’m below here.”

Tom Edwards fumbled about and produced the book – one of the few things that had been left to him in the rifling of his pockets – left to him as a thing of no value to the men who had trapped him. Harvey seized it eagerly and ran up on deck again. The man was still there.

There was no light to write by, but there was no time to be lost. Harvey tore a page from the book, took the little pencil from its leather socket, laid the paper down on top of the forecastle house and held his face close down to it. The white patch was sufficiently discernible against the wood to enable him to scrawl a few words. He wrote:

“I am trapped out aboard the bug-eye Z. B. Brandt by Capt. Haley. Send word to Benton, Maine.

“Jack Harvey.”

He folded the scrap of paper and handed it to the swarthy stranger. The man took it, held it for a moment as though deliberating, then removed the cap he wore, tucked the paper within the lining and replaced the cap on his head. He had taken off his heavy shoes, which he proceeded to tie across his back, with a line passed across one shoulder and under the other arm-pit. He had stripped off his coat and held it now in one hand, doubtfully.

He looked across to shore, shook his head as if to say that the distance was too great to encumber himself with the weight of the garment, even though tied across his shoulders. He threw it on the deck with a gesture of disappointment, and stepped to the side of the vessel.

Harvey followed, and again put out his hand. The man grasped it, and they shook hands warmly. Harvey would have given half his store of hidden money at that moment to have been able to wish him good luck in a tongue that the man could understand. But he slapped him on the shoulder, and the man understood that. He made a sweeping gesture of farewell, swung himself off noiselessly into the icy water and began swimming away, with long, powerful strokes.

Instinctively, Harvey reached down and put his hand into the water. Its coldness fairly stung him, hardened as he had become, with work at the dredges. He stood, shivering, with the cold of the night intensified by his excitement. It seemed as though no human being could live to get to shore in that water. But the man kept on.

“He must be a fish,” muttered Harvey. “I hope he sticks it out, but how can he?”

The stars twinkling coldly overhead gave little light upon the water. But the figure moving slowly away was discernible some distance. Harvey watched it until the tiny black speck where the man’s cap showed faded away and was lost to view. Harvey’s teeth was chattering. His eyes smarted and watered with the strain of peering through the darkness. He longed to call out, to know if the swimmer still lived. But he turned and crept back to his bunk, giving the news to Tom Edwards, who shivered at the very thought of it.

“Poor chap, he’ll never get to shore,” he murmured. “But he’ll die game.”

Up in the big house that overlooked the Drum Point lighthouse, in a chamber room, a young man of about thirty sat reading before a fire. A clock ticking in one corner indicated the time of night as half-past eleven. The man paused in his reading, yawned and stretched comfortably, arose and stepped to a window facing the harbour.

“What a glorious night!” he said.

He stepped back and sat down again.

A strange thing, unseen by him, had happened down at the shore toward which he had looked. Something moved, like a great fish, in the water, a rod out from the land. It sank once almost out of sight, then thrashed the water and struggled in desperately. A man, feeling the solid earth under his feet, stepped out upon the shore and staggered as though about to fall; caught himself; then fell; but arose and walked unsteadily in the direction of the light from the window.

The young man who was reading suddenly sprang up from his chair and listened. There was a muffled rapping at the door below. The man threw up the window and put his head out.

“Who’s that? What do you want?” he called.

A reply, unintelligible, came up to him. He closed the window and turned toward the door of the chamber.

“It’s the same old story,” he said, with a touch of indignation in his voice. “Some poor chap from the dredging fleet, I suppose – beaten up, half starved, and trying to get back to Baltimore.”

He descended the stairs, lighted a lamp and went to the door. When the lamp-light fell upon the figure that stood before him, he started back, thunderstruck. A man, drenched to the skin, ghastly pale, shivering, almost speechless, his tangled, dripping hair falling about his eyes, stood there. He stretched forth an arm, appealingly, and almost fell.

The man with the lamp caught him with one arm and assisted him within; half dragged him out into an old-fashioned kitchen, where the man slumped all in a heap before the fire. The man of the house, setting down the lamp on a table, went to the closet and brought out a cup; filled it with coffee from a pot that set back on the stove, knelt by the stranger’s side and, rousing him up, held the cup to his lips and made him drink.

The man shivered, sat up a little and uttered the one word, “Swim.”

The other uttered an exclamation of anger.

“It’s a shame! A cruel shame to treat men so they’d rather die than lead the life they do aboard the dredgers,” he cried. “How far did you swim?”

The man shook his head, indicating he did not understand.

“Well, no matter,” said the other, compassionately. “I’ll fix you up. But you’ve just come through, and that’s all. You’re pretty near being a dead man.”

An hour later, the stranger, wrapped in warm blankets, his ragged garments drying by the fire, dozed, while the man of the house stood, watching him.

“Well, he’s all right now,” he said. “I’ll turn in and let him sleep there for the night.”

But the man suddenly moved, sat up on one elbow and then struggled into a sitting position. He fumbled at his head and said something in a foreign tongue. He gesticulated, and pointed down toward the shore.

The young man laughed.

“Well, I declare if you aren’t worrying about a cap,” he cried. “I know what you mean – lost your cap, eh? Well, you ought to thank your stars you didn’t lose your life. We’ll get the cap to-morrow, if it’s down by the shore. To-morrow, see?”

The man repeated the word “to-morrow,” and shook his head as vigorously as he could. “No to-morrow,” he repeated. And he struggled to his feet. Wrapping the blanket about him, he started doggedly toward the door.

“Well, confound you for an obstinate mule!” exclaimed the young man. “I don’t wonder you got ashore, with all that stubbornness. Go lie down again. Hang it, if you’re so worried as all that about your old cap, I’ll go look for it.”

Half angry, half amused, he took down a lantern from a hook, lighted it, and went out into the darkness. In a few minutes, he reappeared. In his hand he held a bedraggled, shabby fur cap, that bore more resemblance to a drowned cat than any article of wear.

“There’s your cap, you mule!” he exclaimed, and threw the wet object down upon the floor.

To his surprise, the man caught it up eagerly and, turning it inside out, felt within the lining. He uttered a little cry of disappointment as he drew forth a piece of wet, torn paper. He dropped it on the floor and drew out two other pieces. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked up at his rescuer, helplessly.

The young man stooped and picked up the pieces of paper.

“Aha! I see,” he said. “There was a method in your stubbornness after all. Let’s look.”

He held up the pieces of paper and turned them in his hand. He took them to the table and placed them on an earthen platter, with the torn edges joining. Then he whistled with surprise. The paper, wet and torn, still bore, blurred and barely readable, written words. He made out the message:

“I am trapped aboard the bug-eye Z. B. Brandt by Capt. Haley. Send word to Benton.

“Jack Har – ”

The remainder of the last name had been torn away. They searched for it, but it was not to be found.

“Whew!” exclaimed the young man. “Another case of shanghaiing. Well, there’s enough to work on. I’ll have to look into it, though I suppose it’s not much use. When a man gets out there, it’s hard finding him. I’ll save the paper, though, and dry it out.”

And then he added, eying the stranger with a different expression, “You’re a good sort, after all. You’re a true blue comrade to somebody. Hang it! I wish you could talk the United States language.”

CHAPTER XII

ESCAPE AT LAST

The old Warren homestead, alight with many lamps from parlour to kitchen, presented a cheery and genial aspect to whoever might be passing by along the road, on the night of December 24. The shades, half drawn in the front room, revealed the glow of a big hearth fire, reddening the light of the lamps, and adding its cheer and welcome to the general atmosphere of comfort within. From the kitchen there came the sound of banjos tinkling, and the laughter from a merry company of coloured servants, the Christmas eve guests of Jim and Mammy Stevens. The whole house, in fact, was keeping holiday.

But if the appearance, viewed from the exterior, was one of brightness and Christmas warmth, it was doubly so within. The large room, that fronted on the bay and commanded a view from its windows of Drum Point lighthouse and a sweep of the river, was a comfortably furnished, old-fashioned affair; with quaint, polished furniture; mirrors that reflected the dancing fire-light; a polished oak floor that shone almost as bright as the mirrors; and, in one corner, a tall clock, that ticked away in dignified and respectable fashion, as befitting a servant that had belonged to the Warren family for a hundred years, and had descended, as a precious heirloom, from father to son.

From the upper panelling of the walls there hung, in festoons, some trailing vines, ornamented with bright berries, gathered from the woods back on the farm; and sprigs of holly also decorated the mirrors and a few portraits of one-time members of the household.

Edward Warren, stretched comfortably before the fire in a big chair, gazed about the room approvingly, and then at his younger companions.

“Well,” he exclaimed, heartily, “you’ve saved me from spending a dull Christmas, sure enough. What with the folks away, I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Say, can’t you young fellows give us a song? We don’t want to let them make all the noise out in the kitchen.”

“Go ahead on Old Black Joe, Henry,” said George Warren. “We’ll all join in.”

So Henry Burns led off on the plantation melody, and the brothers joined in with a will. Edward Warren came in with a fine bass effect, and altogether they did Old Black Joe in a way that almost made the faces in the oil paintings on the wall smile.

Then, on the second verse, the banjos in the kitchen, and a guitar that had been added to the group, took up the refrain, and all the darkey melody in that part of the house concentrated itself on the same tune. So that the old house fairly rang from one end to the other with the plantation music, and the sounds floated off on the crisp night air far and around.

In the midst of which, it was suddenly discovered by the others that young Joe had disappeared from the front room, and a hurried search was begun for the missing youth. It resulted in his discovery, in a pantry off the dining-room, gloating over the contents of the Christmas box that had been sent from home to the brothers. From this young Joe had abstracted a generous slice of nut cake, which was rapidly disappearing down his throat.

Howls of wrath from George and Arthur Warren were united with yells of dismay from Young Joe, as he was dragged from his hiding place, still holding a piece of the cake in his hand, loth even then to part with the evidence of his guilt.

“Ow, wow!” yelled George Warren. “Pilfering from to-morrow’s feast, are you, Joey? Say, what’ll we do with him, Arthur?”

“Invite him out into the kitchen and make him eat some of those raw oysters that Mammy Stevens has to stuff to-morrow’s turkey,” replied Arthur Warren, who always had some original idea in a matter of this kind.

Young Joe gave another howl of dismay, and made a bolt for a side door that led out into the yard. The mere thought of raw oysters caused him to drop the slice of cake and consider nothing but flight. The brothers and Henry Warren darted after him, but he slipped the catch of the door, opened it – and, with head down, butted all unexpectedly into a thick, short, burly man, who had been about to knock for admittance at the very moment.

The result was, that the stranger lost his balance and fell off the stoop, rolling over and over on the ground. He was unhurt, for he sprang up quickly, shook his fist at the surprised youth, and roared out in a hoarse sea voice.

“Confound you, for a clumsy, butting young lubber!” he cried, rubbing the pit of his stomach, and glaring at Young Joe. “What kind of a way is that to treat folks as comes to your door? Ain’t you got eyes? If you has ’em, why doesn’t you use ’em, and not be a ramming heads into other folks’s stomachs?”

The man, in his wrath and excitement, spoke as though there had been several Young Joes and at least a half dozen of himself, engaged in a most extraordinary encounter – all of which did not tend to abate the mirth of Young Joe and his companions, who also had caught a glimpse of the man rolling over on the lawn.

“He has a habit of doing that,” spoke up Henry Burns, in a quiet, serious tone. “We haven’t been able to break him of it ever since he was a kid. We keep him chained up most of the time, but he just got loose.”

The man, flushing redder, turned an angry eye on Henry Burns.