Arthur Brown, The Young Captain Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  A GLAD SURPRISE.

  IN the course of three hours, it was evident that both of the rescuedpersons were reviving fast. Though unable to speak, they swallowedeagerly all that Captain Rhines thought proper to give; the expressionreturned to their eyes and features, and their limbs twitched withconvulsive starts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Salem.”

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

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Brown, sir.”

  “What is your father’s business?”

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

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

  “Yes, sir.”

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

  “Just so, sir.”

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

  “O, yes, sir, a great many times.”

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

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

  “Did he leave property?”

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

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

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

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

  “The black was a slave in Jamaica. The captain took a liking to him,bought him when he was nineteen, and gave him his liberty. He wouldn’tleave the captain. The sailor was a townie and shipmate of mine in theother ship; the boy belongs in Salem, the son of one of our neighbors,and was also with me in the other ship, and a better boy never steppedon a vessel’s deck. We three stuck together. Captain Rhines, is thereany way I can get a letter to my mother, to inform her of my safety,and also of the boy’s? She knows I was on my passage in the Madras toHalifax, and that it is time for the ship to arrive there, and if thecrew are picked up or get ashore they will report us as lost.”

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

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

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

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

  “Indeed, Benjamin, I guess I have.”

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

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

  “Don’t you think, wife, when I took his father by the hand, to bid himgood by, as I was about to step aboard the James Welch as first officer(through and _only_ through his means), I said, with a full heart, ‘Mr.Brown, how can I ever repay you?’ His reply was, ‘Ben, do by otheryoung men you may fall in with, and who are starting in the world withnobody to help them, as I have by you.’ And now a kind Providence hasput it in my power to save the life of his son, so help me God, if evera debt was paid, principal, interest, and _compound_ interest, thisshall be. Kiss him, wife.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “You are from Salem, too?”

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

  “Then you’ve always known him?”

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

  After the building of the Casco, Charlie had been enabled to gratifyhis taste for cultivating the soil and improving his place. TheHard-scrabble, under the command of Seth Warren, and the Casco, underthat of Isaac Murch, had made profitable voyages. Charlie and Johnfound themselves in possession both of means and leisure. Charlie hadbuilt a large house, roomy enough to contain his men whenever he wantedto build more vessels, a barn, workshop, and other out-buildings. Hardwood stumps soon decay, white pine will last fifty years, and oak muchlonger than beech, maple or birch. The slope in front of the housepresented a most enchanting view. Directly in front of the house wasa most noble growth of forest trees, where the birch, beech, maple,and oak, in associate beauty, intermingled their huge trunks, coveredwith moss, and of such majestic height as to permit the buildings tobe seen between their stems. A footpath wound among them to the outeredge, where, between their gnarled and twisted roots, gleamed the clearwaters of Silver Spring.

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

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

  At the lower edge of an immense forest of maple and birch, from whichevery vestige of underbrush had been removed, were seen the walls ofa sap camp; while, instead of a path leading to the house, marked byspotted trees, a carriage road had been made, so that Captain Rhinescould ride back and forth in his wagon, and Parson Goodhue in hischaise—for he had arrived to that dignity. It was not, however, muchlike the vehicle bearing that appellation at the present time. Thewheels and arms were large enough for a modern team wagon; the frameof the top was made of iron; instead of leather, it was covered withpainted canvas, and on the sides were projections, like the wings of abird, to throw off the mud.

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

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

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

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

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

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