.dt The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Accidental Honeymoon, by David Potter
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AN ACCIDENTAL HONEYMOON
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By DAVID POTTER
I FASTEN A BRACELET
“Fine Character Drawing”
Colored Frontispiece by Martin Justice
12mo, decorated cloth, $1.25 net.
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.hr 20%
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THE LADY OF THE SPUR
“A Story of Strong Men and Healthy Women”
Colored Frontispiece by Clarence F. Underwood
12mo, decorated cloth, $1.50
J. B. Lippincott Company
PUBLISHERS\ \ \ \ PHILADELPHIA
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.il id=i01 fn=frontis.jpg w=375px link=frontis-full.jpg
.ca ALL THAT GOLDEN AFTERNOON THEY SAILED, AND ALL THE AFTERNOON THEY TALKED\
(Page\ #135:frontis#)
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AN ACCIDENTAL HONEYMOON
By
DAVID POTTER
Author of “The Lady of the Spur,” “I Fasten a Bracelet,” etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY
GEORGE W. GAGE
AND DECORATIONS BY
EDWARD STRATTON HOLLOWAY
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[Illustration]
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PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1911
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COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1911
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
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#All that Golden Afternoon They Sailed, and all the Afternoon They Talked:i01#
#“But You’ve Been Standing in the Water all This Time! What am I Thinking of!”:i02#
#He Waved His Hat from the Gate:i03#
#Miss Yarnell Mounted the Pair of Steps from the Cabin:i04#
#“I’m Afraid You’ll Find the Cabin-Door Catch is Broken,” said Madge Yarnell in an Undertone:i05#
#“Good-Morning, Patience-on-a-Monument”:i06#
#“Betty, Allow Me to Drink Your Health in Jersey Molly Wine”:i07#
#All the Chivalry in Fessenden’s Nature Stirred at Her Words:i08#
.pm out 4
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.nf b
MR. FRANCIS CHARLES MCDONALD, OF PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY, IS THE AUTHOR OF THE POEM, “BOB
WHITE,” MADE USE OF IN THIS STORY. I BEG TO
EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR HIS PERMISSION TO
AVAIL MYSELF OF IT.
.nf-
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.h1 nobreak
AN ACCIDENTAL HONEYMOON
.sp 4
.h2 nobreak
I
.sp 2
Fessenden put the girl gently down on the
flat rock at the edge of the stream.
“There you are, little woman,” he said. “You
really ought to be careful how you go splashing
about. If you hadn’t screamed in time——”
“Did I scream?”
“Rather! Lucky you did.”
“I didn’t scream because I was afraid. I
stumbled and—and I thought I saw an eel in
that pool, ready to bite me. Eels do bite.”
“Undoubtedly—horribly!”
He stepped back with a little flourish of the
hat in his hand. “I beg your pardon,” he said.
“I took you for a child. That dress, you know,
and——”
// 010.png
“And my being in paddling.”
“I’m afraid I’ve been rather presumptuous.”
The color in her cheeks deepened a little. “Not
at all. It’s my own fault. This afternoon—just
for an hour or two—I’ve been dreaming—pretending
I wasn’t grown up. It’s so sad to be
grown up.”
His eyes sparkled with instant sympathy.
“After all, are you so very old?”
She was seventeen or thereabouts, he guessed—a
girl lately arrived at womanhood. Her hair
was arranged in a bewildering fashion, requiring
a ribbon here and there to keep its blonde
glory within bounds. Beneath the dark brows
and darker lashes blue eyes showed in sudden
flashes—like the glint of bayonets from an ambush.
The delicately rounded cheeks, just now a
little blushing, and the red-lipped mouth, made
her look absurdly young.
She had sunk to a seat upon the rock. One
foot was doubled under her, and the other, a
white vision veiled by the water, dangled uncertainly,
as if inclined to seek the retirement possessed
by its fellow. His gaze lingered on the
curve of throat and shoulder.
“If Phidias were only alive——” he said.
“Phidias?”
.il id=i02 fn=illus011.jpg w=375px link=illus011-full.jpg
.ca “BUT YOU’VE BEEN STANDING IN THE WATER ALL THIS TIME! WHAT AM I THINKING OF!”
“A Greek friend of mine, dead some years.
He would have loved to turn you into marble.”
She gave a little crowing laugh, delightful
to hear. “I’d much rather stay alive.”
“You are right. Better be a Greek goddess
alive, than one dead.”
She laughed again, “You’re—unusual.”
He bowed with another flourish. “Then, so
are you.”
Their eyes met frankly. “Thank you for coming
to my rescue,” she said. “But you’ve been
standing in the water all this time! What am
I thinking of! Come up here.”
She sprang to her feet, as if to make room
for him upon the rock, but sank back quickly.
He gave her a scrutinizing glance.
“What was that I heard?”
“I asked you to get out of that horrid water.
It must be frightfully cold.”
He shook an admonitory finger. “Bravely
done, but you can’t fool me so easily. I heard
a moan, and—and I won’t remark that you’re
crying.”
“You’d—better not.”
“You hurt yourself when you stumbled.” His
firm hand was on her shoulder.
// 014.png
“No—n-o. Well, even if I did turn my ankle,
I’m not crying. It’s very tactless of you to
notice.”
He tried to catch a glimpse of the slim leg
through the dancing water. It swung back in
vigorous embarrassment.
“The other ankle, then?”
“Ye-es.”
“I’m awfully sorry. Can’t I do something?”
“I think I’ll go home.”
“But you can’t walk.”
“I think so. Isn’t this just too tiresome? I
will walk.”
She rose to her feet at the word, but, once
there, gave a cry, and stood tottering. His arm
caught her about the waist.
“Where do you live? Near here anywhere?”
“Oh, yes; just up the lane. But it might as
well be ten miles.” Her brave laugh was half
a sob.
“Not a bit of it! Hold tight.”
She flushed and gave an astonished wriggle as
she found herself lifted and borne up the lane.
“Don’t squirm so, child,” he ordered.
“You’re carrying me!”
“Oh, no! We’re playing lawn-tennis.”
“Goodness! You fairly grabbed me.”
// 015.png
“Perhaps I ought to have asked your permission,
but if I had you might have refused it.”
She laughed. “I think I should.”
“It’s too late now,” he said contentedly. “Does
the foot hurt?”
“Not much, thank you—thank you, Mr.——”
He was obdurately silent. She tried again.
“Thank you, Mr. ——. Please, what’s your
name?”
“‘Puddin’ Tame,’” he laughed.
“‘Where do you live?’” she chanted delightedly.
“‘Down the lane.’ No, you live down the
lane.”
“It isn’t far now. Are you tired?”
“Oh, no! I’m doing very well, thank you.”
“Perhaps you’d better rest.”
“By no means. I hope you live over the hills
and far away.”
“You aren’t bashful, are you, Mr. Puddin’
Tame?”
“H’m.” He peered down at the injured ankle.
“How’s the foot?”
“A little—cold.”
“I’m afraid the wrench has interfered with the
circulation. Poor child!”
“Really, it doesn’t hurt—not much.”
// 016.png
“I see you were born to be a heroine.”
“And you’re a ‘knight comes riding by, riding
by, riding by’——”
“‘So early in the morning,’” he finished. “If
the knight were sure you thought so”—his eyes
were on her cheek—“he might claim a knight’s
reward.”
She fell abruptly silent.
The Maryland spring was well advanced, and
the path along which they moved was carpeted
with flowers. The blue bells of the wild myrtle
swung almost at their feet. Scarlet runners
rioted over the low stone wall at their hand.
The sycamores and oaks were clothed in tenderest
green. Beyond the left-hand wall, rows of peach-trees
marched away, flaunting banners of pink
and white.
Fessenden heard the tinkle of the brook, winding
in the shadow of overhanging banks. Sights and
sounds lulled him. He felt himself in harmony
with the quiet mood of the girl in his arms.
Truly this was an unexpected adventure! His
eyes rested upon the piquant face so near his
own. It possessed a refinement of outline that
was belied by the humble fashion of her gown
and by the position in which he had surprised
her. The precocious daughter of a farmer,
// 017.png
perhaps, or at best the neglected child of one of
the war-ruined “first families of the South.”
He found himself speculating upon the sort
of house he was likely to discover at the end of
the lane—perhaps a crumbling colonial mansion,
equipped with a Confederate colonel and a
faithful former slave or two.
He smiled unconsciously at the red mouth, and
was somewhat disconcerted to find the blue eyes
watching him.
“Were you making fun of me, Mr. Puddin’
Tame?”
“Word of honor, no! I was smiling to be
in harmony with the day, I fancy.”
“Maryland is lovely. You’re a Northern man,
aren’t you?”
“I freely admit it. But I’m on my way to
a house-party at Sandywood.”
“Sandywood?”
“Yes. You know it, of course?”
“Of course. It’s just over the hill from the
Landis house—our house. Sandywood is the old
Cary place.”
“I don’t know. I’m to visit a family named
Cresap.”
“It’s the same place. The Cresaps are only
occupying it for a while.”
// 018.png
“Then you know Mrs. Cresap?”
“Hum-m. Aunty Landis knows her, but I
suppose she doesn’t know us—not in the way
you mean. I live with Aunt Katey Landis at
White Cottage. Uncle Bob Landis supplies
Sandywood with eggs and butter and milk.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You’ve never been on the Eastern Shore before?”
“Never. But I’ve learned to like it already.
To rescue a girl from man-eating eels, and——”
“Girls don’t go in wading every day, even on
the Eastern Shore.”
“If they did, I’d walk over from the railroad
station straight through the year.”
“From Sandywood Station?”
“Yes. I was delayed in Baltimore on account
of meeting a friend there, so there wasn’t any one
at the station to meet me. I’m a good walker,
and——”
“And the fairies led you down the wood-road
in time to save disobedient me.”
“Disobedient?”
She nodded. “Aunty Landis told me that I
mustn’t go in wading. She said it was not becoming—that
it was very improper.”
“How unreasonable!”
// 019.png
“That’s what I thought. But I wish now I’d
obeyed her.”
“But that would have meant that the poor
knight would have ridden by without an excuse
for knowing you.”
“Alas! Well, your task is nearly done. We
must be near White Cottage.”
“Don’t say that.”
She glanced about, and then gave a wriggle
so violent that she almost slipped from his arms.
“Put me down!”
“What’s the matter?”
“We’re nearer than I thought. There’s the
big oak. The lane comes right up to the back
door. The house is on the main road, you know.
Put me down!”
“But why shouldn’t I carry you into the
house?”
“Because—oh, because Aunty Landis would be
terribly frightened! She’d think something dreadful
had happened to me. Please put me down.
I can limp along, if you’ll let me use your arm.”
He allowed her to slip slowly to the ground.
“There you are, then; but be careful.”
A sigh of relief escaped her as she tried her
weight gingerly on the injured foot.
“It’s ever so much better. I won’t even have
// 020.png
to hop.” Her face was upturned earnestly.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Puddin’ Tame.
You’ve been very kind.”
“You’re very welcome,” he returned, and, seized
by a sudden paternal tenderness, he stooped and
kissed the red-lipped mouth.
She stepped back with a sharp “Oh!” mingled
of anger and the pain of her twisted ankle. “Oh!
Why did you do that? We were having such fun,
and—and now you’ve spoiled the whole afternoon.
What a—a perfectly silly thing to do!”
He quailed before the bayonets flashing in the
blue eyes.
“I was carried away,” he said humbly.
“I hate you!”
“No, no. Don’t—please don’t do that. Of
course I was wrong—unpardonably wrong, I suppose—but
you looked so young, and—well, so
adorable, that I—— Oh, please don’t hate me!”
His gloom was so profound that, in spite of herself,
she felt her wrath begin to melt.
“If you’re sure you’re very sorry——”
“I’m in the dust,” he evaded.
“Then—all right.” She smiled a little, but
with caution—he should not be allowed to think
himself too easily restored to favor. “I frightened
you, didn’t I? And you ought to have
// 021.png
been frightened. But to show you I trust you
now, I’ll use your arm as a crutch. Come on.
Oh, what a delicious sight for poor Aunty
Landis!”
Truly enough, the spectacle brought to her
feet a motherly-looking woman who had been knitting
on the porch of White Cottage.
“Good gracious, child! What’s the matter?”
She fluttered down the steps to meet the bedraggled
adventurers. “Have you hurt yourself,
dearie? Oh, dear, dear! What is it? Have you
broken your leg?”
“I’m all right, Aunty. Don’t worry. My
ankle might be turned a little, that’s all. This
gentleman has been very kind to me, and helped
me home.”
The woman made Fessenden a spasmodic bow.
“I’m sure we’re much obliged to you, sir. Is
it your ankle, dearie? I told you not to go in
wading. The idea of such a thing, and you a
young lady!”
“Now, Aunty, please don’t scold me—not until
my foot’s fixed, at any rate.”
Although the girl’s lips quivered warningly,
Fessenden could have sworn her eyes laughed
slyly. But the older woman’s vexation was effectually
dissolved by the other’s pitiful tone.
// 022.png
“There, there! You poor silly baby! Come
right in, and I’ll put your foot in hot water and
mustard. That’ll take the soreness out.” She
passed her arm lovingly about the girl’s slender
shoulders and was leading her away without more
ado. The girl hung back.
“Aunty, I haven’t thanked him—half.”
“I’m sure the gentleman’s been very good,”
said Mrs. Landis, “but he knows your foot ought
to be soaked in hot water just as soon as can be.
There won’t be any too much time to do it before
supper, any way.”
“By all means,” agreed Fessenden. “I’m very
glad if I’ve been of service.” Mischief awoke in
his glance. “I’ve had ample reward for anything
I’ve been able to do.”
The blood crept into the girl’s cheeks, but she
was not afraid to meet his eyes.
“Good-by,” he said with evident reluctance.
“I hope your ankle will be well very soon.” The
laughing imps in her eyes suddenly emboldened
him. “May I come to-morrow evening to see
how you’re getting on?”
“Of course—if you like. We’re through supper
by half-past seven, and——”
“Supper?” he returned, and paused so pointedly
that the girl laughed outright.
.il id=i03 fn=illus023.jpg w=362px link=illus023-full.jpg
.ca HE WAVED HIS HAT FROM THE GATE
“O-oh! Would you care to come to supper
with us, really?”
“Don’t ask me unless you’re in earnest.”
“Will you come, then, at half-past six?”
“I’ll come. Thank you—immensely. Good-night.
Good-night, Mrs. Landis.”
“Good-night, good-night, Mr. Puddin’ Tame,”
called the girl as she hobbled up the steps, supported
on the older woman’s arm.
He waved his hat from the gate, and the girl
blew him a smiling kiss—to the very evident
embarrassment of Aunty Landis.
// 026.png
.sp 4
.h2
II
.sp 2
Fessenden turned to the right on the main
road. At a little distance he paused to glance
back at White Cottage.
There was nothing of the colonial manor-house
in its lines. Clearly, it had always been the home
of humble folk. He fancied that good Aunty
Landis—whose husband supplied Sandywood
“with eggs and milk and butter”—would be the
last to lay claim to gentility.
It was a little disappointing to be compelled
to abandon his dream of a Confederate colonel
and of a decayed “first family.”
“But the little girl is perfectly charming,”
he mused, and strode up the road humming:
.nf b
“Oh, she smashed all the hearts
Of the swains in them parts,
Did Mistress Biddy O’Toole.”
.nf-
The directions given him by the station-master
at Sandywood Station had been so clear that,
// 027.png
although a stranger to this part of the country,
Fessenden had found his way thus far easily
enough.
Now, as he topped the rise, his eyes fell at
once upon Sandywood House: a buff-and-white
structure, with the pillared expansiveness of a
true colonial mansion. It was set upon a knoll,
across an intervale, the wide expanse of the Chesapeake
shimmering in front of it. Ardent Marylanders
had been known to maintain that it was
fully the equal of Mount Vernon itself.
The avenue leading up toward the back of the
house from the main road wound a couple of
hundred yards through a garden of box and
lilac, then swept the pedestrian about an ell to
the steps of a demilune porch, and almost vis-à-vis
with half a dozen men and women drinking tea.
A plump, neutral-tinted woman, a trifle over-gowned,
hurried forward to greet him.
“Why, Tom Fessenden!” she exclaimed. “So
here you are at last! You bad man, you didn’t
come on the right train. Your things arrived
this morning, but when the car came back from
the station without you, I thought you’d backed
out. The next thing I was expecting was a letter
from you, saying you couldn’t come at all, you
irresponsible man!”
// 028.png
“I would have been a loser.”
“Ve-ry pretty. Really, though, we have a
jolly crowd here. All complete except for Roland
Cary. If Roland Cary hadn’t notions!”
“Is any man foolish enough to decline an invitation
from you?”
“Any man? Oh, Roland Cary’s a cousin.”
“Lucky man! Madam, may I ask if he is so
attractive that you wish he had come instead of
me?”
“I wanted—wanted him to be here with you,
silly. He—he is perfectly charming. You know,
I’m half afraid of you. You’re such a superior
old Yankee that I dare say you despise us
Marylanders, and were as late in getting here
as you dared to be.” The perennial challenge
of the Southern belle was in her tones.
Fessenden laughed. “I ran across Danton in
Baltimore. Blame it all on him.”
“Charlie Danton? Oh, isn’t he most exasperating!
Now, come up and meet everybody.
Boys and girls, this is Mr. Fessenden—Mrs. Randall
and Dick Randall, over there. And Pinckney—Pinck,
do get out of that chair long enough
to be polite!—my lord and master, Tom. That’s
my cousin, May Belle—May Belle Cresap—and
Harry Cleborne; and this is Miss Yarnell, the
// 029.png
celebrated Miss Madge Yarnell; and—and that’s
all. How funny! I do believe I’m the only one
of us you’ve ever met before.”
“That proves how benighted I’ve been,” he
returned. “But what can you expect of a man
who’s never been on the Eastern Shore?”
Detecting something proprietary in the manner
of the young man who hung over the back
of Miss May Belle Cresap’s chair, he abandoned
his thought of taking a seat next that languid
lady, and instead inserted himself deftly between
Pinckney Cresap and Miss Madge Yarnell.
Cresap shook hands heartily. “Glad to see
you, Fessenden. I’ve heard a lot of you from
Polly ever since she knew you in New York—before
she did me the honor to marry me. Glad
you’ve got down to see us on our native heath
at last.” He poked a rather shaky finger at the
stranded mint-leaf in the empty glass before him.
“A julep? No? You mentioned Charlie Danton
just now. You’ve heard about his high doings,
I suppose. Perhaps you’re in his confidence?”
“Not at all. He’s in mine, to the extent of
persuading me to buy a small yacht of his this
morning—sight unseen. He promised to telegraph
over this way somewhere and have it sent
around to your boat-landing—if you’ll allow me.”
// 030.png
“Of course. My man will take care of it
when it turns up. Danton’s a queer one.” He
rattled his empty glass suggestively at his wife.
“He seemed as cynical as ever,” commented
Fessenden.
“He ought to be. They say that if it were
befo’ de wah’ he’d have to meet a certain
Baltimore man on the field of honor—a married
man, you understand. Coffee and pistols for
two!”
Fessenden was willing to elude the foreshadowed
gossip. “We’re shocking Miss Yarnell, I’m
afraid.”
The girl was, indeed, sitting with averted head,
her face set rather sternly.
“Eh! Oh, I beg your pardon, Madge,” said
Cresap, with real concern.
“I hardly heard what you were saying,” she
rejoined. “I was thinking of something else.”
Her voice was unusually deep and mellow, and
Fessenden’s sensitive ear thrilled pleasurably. He
glanced toward her.
She was a decided brunette. Her eyes as they
met his had a certain defiant challenge, a challenge
at once bold and baffling. The distance between
her eyes was a trifle too great for perfect beauty,
but her complexion was transparently pale, and
// 031.png
her teeth were wonderfully white and even. The
poise of her head was almost regal, and she had
a trick of coming very close to one as she talked,
that was very disconcerting.
On the whole, Miss Yarnell was a charming
person of twenty-three or four, and he began
to have a decided appreciation of the adjective
Polly Cresap had applied to her. Moreover, the
sombre challenge in her dark eyes impelled him to
further investigation, under the clatter of teacups
and small talk about them.
“Why ‘celebrated,’ Miss Yarnell?” he began.
“Why ‘celebrated’ rather than ‘beautiful’
or ‘stunning’ or downright ‘handsome’?”
“Polly’s rather silly,” said Miss Yarnell.
“Are you dodging?”
“I never dodge. But Polly is silly—yes, she’s
unkind, although she’d be in tears if she dreamed
I thought so. She ought not to have called me
that. No, I don’t dodge, but I suppose I can
refuse to answer.”
He declined to notice the ungraciousness of
her response. “Oh, of course, but I’m certain to
learn the reason you’re ‘celebrated’ from some
one—badly garbled, too,” he laughed.
Contrary to the spirit of his badinage, she
seemed resolved to take him seriously. “That’s
// 032.png
true. I may as well tell you. I’m celebrated—‘notorious’
would be a better word—because of
that affair in Baltimore last year. I was an
idiot.”
“Hard words for yourself. I think I don’t
understand.”
“You don’t know Baltimore, then?”
“Very little. The Club is about all, and that
not more than once or twice a year.”
“The Club! If you’ve been there once this
winter, I’m afraid you’ve heard of me. I’m Madge
Yarnell, the Madge Yarnell, the girl who tore
down the flag at the cotillion.”
“O-oh!” He gave her a long stare. “It was
you.”
She winced before the contempt in his tone,
and her eyes glistened suddenly. “I’m confessing
to you,” she reminded him with a humility that
he knew instinctively was wholly unwonted. “I’m
not proud of what I did, although some of my
friends”—her glance swept over Polly Cresap—“are
still foolish enough to tease me about it.”
Compelled by his eyes and the light touch of
his hand on her arm, she rose with him, and they
sauntered together to the isolation of a pillar
on the porch-edge.
The great bay, now purpling with the first
// 033.png
hint of sunset, stretched from the foot of the
knoll to the hazy hills of the western shore.
Little red glints flashed from the surface of the
water and seemed to be reflected in the depths of
Miss Yarnell’s sombre eyes.
She stood with her hands behind her, her head
turned a little from him, but held very proudly.
A strong woman, evidently; a passionate one,
perhaps; a devoted one, if the right man were
found. Fessenden, studying her covertly, realized
that for the second time that day he had encountered
a girl who stirred in him an interest
novel and delightful.
“Tell me about it, Miss Yarnell,” he said at
last. “I’ve only heard that you refused to enter
the cotillion room so long as the Stars and Stripes
decorated the doorway, and that finally you took
down the flag with your own hands. I remember
the Evening Post had a solemn editorial on the
sinister significance of your alleged performance.
It couldn’t have been true—I realize that now
that I know you. No one could accuse you—you
of—that is——”
“Of vulgarity. Thank you for being too kind
to say it. But I’m afraid most of it’s true.”
“I can’t believe it.”
She turned a grateful glance upon him. His
// 034.png
steady, reassuring smile seemed to give her a
long-needed sense of comfort and protection. In
spite of herself, her eyes fell before his, and her
cheeks reddened a little.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” she said. “I did
it on a dare. A year ago I was unbelievably silly—I’ve
learned a great deal in a year. A man
dared me—and I did it.”
“I don’t acquit you—quite; but what an
egregious cad the man must have been!”
“No, no, don’t think that. He never dreamed
I would really dare. But I was determined to
show him I wasn’t afraid—wasn’t afraid of anything—not
even of him.”
“Of him?”
“Yes.”
“O-oh!” he said slowly. “I see. Well, were
you afraid—afterward?”
She swung her hands from behind her back and
struck them together with a sudden gesture of
anger.
“No, but I hated him. I hate him! Not that
he wasn’t game. When I turned to him with that
dear flag dangling in my hand, he swept me off
in a two-step, flag and all. But he smiled. Oh,
how he smiled!” She drew a long breath.
“D—— his smile!” Her desperate little oath
// 035.png
was only pathetic. “I can see that triumphant
twist about the corner of his mouth now, like a
crooked scar.”
“Good Lord! Charlie Danton!”
Her startled look confirmed the guess her words
denied. “No, no.”
“By Jove! don’t I know that smile? We were
in college together, you know, and I’ve made him
put on the gloves with me more than once on
account of that devilish smile. But I’ll do him
the justice to believe that he didn’t really suppose
you’d take that dare.” He interrupted himself
to laugh a little. “How seriously we’re talking!
After all, it’s no great matter if a—a rather
foolish girl did a rather foolish thing.”
She refused to be enlivened. “I had it out with
him,” she said. “And since then we haven’t seen
anything of each other. You heard what Pinckney
Cresap said just now?”
“About Danton and the possibility of a duel?”
“Yes. I’m afraid that’s partly my fault. I
sent him away, and——”
“I see. If he’s weak enough to seek consolation
in that way, he deserves to lose you.”
She smiled frankly. “You’re very, very comforting.
I’m glad I confessed to you—it’s done
me good.”
// 036.png
The clatter of the group at the tea-table
behind them had effectually muffled the sound
of their voices. Their eyes and thoughts,
too, had been so preoccupied that it was only now
they became aware of a small boy standing on
the gravelled walk in front of them. He wore
a checked shirt and patched trousers on his
diminutive person, and freckles and a disgusted
expression on his face.
“Gee Whilliken!” exclaimed this apparition,
with startling vehemence. “I been standin’ here
’most an hour, I bet, without you lookin’ at me
oncet. I’m Jimmy Jones.”
“Welcome, scion of an illustrious family!”
said Fessenden. “What is your pleasure?”
“Ah, g’wan,” returned Master Jones. “I got
a letter, that’s what. I got a letter here for——”
He broke off to scan his questioner closely.
“You’re the man, ain’t you? Tall, good-looker,
wet pants. Say, Mister, ain’t your name Puddin’
Tame?”
“‘Puddin’ Tame’?” asked Miss Yarnell,
smiling. “Is it a game you want to play, kiddy?”
“No, ma’am, ’tain’t a game. I want to see
him. Say, ain’t you Puddin’ Tame?”
“I’ve been called so,” admitted Fessenden,
// 037.png
surprised but greatly diverted. “But I’ll let you
into a secret, Jimmy: it’s not my real name.”
“Aw, who said it was? Don’t I know it’s a
nickname? Guess I heard of Puddin’ Tame before
you was born.”
“I believe your guess is incorrect, James.”
“No, ’tain’t neither. Say, here’s the letter for
you. There ain’t no answer.” He thrust an
envelope into Fessenden’s fingers, and disappeared
around the corner of the house with a derisive
whoop.
The sound served to divert the tea-drinkers
from their chatter.
“What! A billet doux already?” said Mrs.
Dick Randall. “This is rushing matters, Mr.
Fessenden. I think it’s only fair you should let
us know who she is.” A chorus of exclamations
followed, in which, however, Miss Yarnell did not
join.
“Polly,” said Cresap at last, “don’t tease
Fessenden. Rather, if your inferior half may
venture the humble suggestion, I would urge a
casual glance at his trousers. What do you see,
Little Brighteyes?”
“Goodness, Tom! They’re wet. Positively
dripping!”
// 038.png
“I lost my way coming over, and had to
wade through a brook.”
“And I never noticed it until now. And I
declare I haven’t given you a chance to get to
your room yet. Pinck, why didn’t you remind me?
Ring the bell, please. Tom, you must change
your things right away.”
Alone in his room, Fessenden read the note delivered
by the cadet of the house of Jones.
.pm letter-start
Dear Mr. Puddin’ Tame:
Shall we have it for a secret that you’re coming to
supper at our house to-morrow? We aren’t quality folk,
and maybe Mrs. Cresap wouldn’t like it. So please don’t
breathe it to a soul, but just steal away, and come.
.rj
Betty.
.pm letter-end
.sp 4
.h2
III
.sp 2
Before luncheon the next day, Fessenden had
begun to acquire some acquaintance with the members
of the Sandywood house-party—a particular
acquaintance with the celebrated Miss Yarnell.
It did not take him long to perceive that Miss
Yarnell and he had been provided for each other’s
amusement. Harry Cleborne’s fatuous devotion
to May Belle Cresap—Fessenden rather disliked
the two-part Christian name—and the good-natured
cliquishness of the four married people,
threw upon him the duty of entertaining the unattached
bachelor girl. He took up the burden
with extraordinary cheerfulness.
Pinckney Cresap watched his progress, frankly
interested. Once, indeed, he took occasion to compliment
him.
“You Northerners have some temperament, I
see. If only Roland Cary were here, my boy!”
“He would have even more, I suppose,” laughed
Fessenden. “Polly told me about him yesterday.”
// 040.png
“Eh? Oh, yes, so she was telling me. Oh, I’m
not sure about the temperament—unfortunately,
I haven’t had a chance to judge.” He chuckled.
“But there’s a charm there, that’s certain.” He
chuckled again, as if vastly amused at the recollection
of some humor of Roland Cary’s. “An
eligible parti,” he went on. “The head of the
first family of Maryland. Father and mother
both dead—brought up by a doting great-uncle.”
“Confound him! I’m quite jealous. Where is
he? Doesn’t he dare show himself?”
“Off on some philanthropic scheme, I believe.
Roland Cary has notions. But you needn’t be
jealous—you’re doing very well with Madge
Yarnell.”
Toward noon, as they were all debating whether
or not a game of tennis was worth while, a trim-looking
sloop rounded a wooded point of the bay
shore, and ran down toward the boat-landing.
“I think that’s your yacht, Fessenden,” said
Cresap. “If Danton has been keeping her up
at the Polocoke River Club, she’d be just about
due here now.”
“Let’s all go down and have a look at her.”
A hat or two had to be gotten, and by the
time they reached the landing-stage the boat was
// 041.png
already tied up. A sunburned man touched his
cap to the party.
“Mr. Charles Danton’s Will-o’-the-Wisp,” he
said. “I was to deliver her at the Cary place,
to Mr. Fessenden.”
“I’m Mr. Fessenden. She looks like a good
boat.”
“There ain’t any better of her class from
Cape May to Hatteras,” said the boatman. “It’s
a pity Mr. Danton’s got the power-boat idea in
his head.”
“Yes, he told me that was one of the reasons
he’s giving up the Will-o’-the-Wisp. He’s bought
a hundred-ton steam-yacht, I believe.”
“That’s right, sir. Well, she’s all right, and
I’m to be master of her, so I guess I hadn’t ought
to complain, but, after all, a real sailer is better,
I think, sir.”
The boat was sloop-rigged, seaworthy rather
than fast, and, for her length, very broad of
beam and astonishingly roomy. Spars and deck
were spick and span in new ash, and her sides
glistened with white paint.
“Would you like to go over her?” suggested
the boatman. “Here’s the keys to everything,
Mr. Fessenden—the rooms, and these are for the
lockers and the water-tanks.”
// 042.png
The party clambered aboard and proceeded to
explore the little craft. The women exclaimed
with surprise and delight.
“Two cabins!” said Mrs. Dick Randall. “One
at each end—do you see, Polly? And what’s this
cunning cubby-hole between the rooms?”
“That’s the galley, ma’am,” answered the
boatman. “The kitchen, you’d call it. Do you
see that little oil-stove, there? Big enough to do
what’s wanted plenty. Yes’m, she’s as well found
as any old-time Baltimore clipper, she is. A cabin
aft for the owner, and a fok’s’l room for me.
Mr. Danton used to say he had a right to make
me comfortable, if he wanted to. You know his
queer ways, maybe. We kept the stores in those
lockers. She’s got some of ’em aboard yet.”
“I should say so,” declared Polly, who had been
rummaging about. “Potted tongue and jams,
and a whole ham, and, I declare, here’s the sweetest
little coffee-tin full of coffee!”
“Mr. Danton was thinkin’ of takin’ a cruise,”
explained the boatman. “And when you bought
the Wisp, sir, he telegraphed to turn her over
right away, in case you wanted to use her while
you was here. Well, gentlemen, if you’ll excuse
me, I’ll be walkin’ over to the station to catch my
// 043.png
train back to Polocoke.” He touched his cap and
tramped away up the knoll toward the road.
“Let’s all go for a sail in her,” said May
Belle.
At the suggestion, an idea sprang full-grown
into Fessenden’s mind.
“Some other time,” he returned. “I’d rather
try her out by myself first. I want to see if she
has any mean tricks before I risk any life besides
my own. If the wind’s right, I may tack
about a bit this afternoon.”
He realized that he had explained too elaborately—Miss
Yarnell bent an intent look upon him.
As he was returning up the pathway at her side—the
others a safe distance ahead—she touched his
arm.
“Please take me with you when you go sailing
this afternoon?”
“Oh, I may not go. If I do, I think you’d
better not. You see, the Wisp may be a crank.”
“Nonsense! Besides, I’m a good sailor—swimmer
too. I shouldn’t care if we were capsized.”
“I’d care for you.”
“Please take me. I want particularly to go.”
“Really, I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t!”
“I’d rather not, at any rate.”
// 044.png
Again her intent look surprised him. “Not if
I bent ‘on bended knee’ to you?”
“Not if you begged me with bitter tears,” he
laughed.
“I thought you wouldn’t, before I asked you,”
she said broodingly. “I knew it would be of
no use.”
“You did? Why do you want so much to go?”
“If I tell you that, will you tell me why you
won’t take me?”
“I can’t promise. But what reason can there
be except that I don’t care to risk your life in a
boat I know nothing about?”
“What solicitude!” she said with sarcasm.
“‘Men were deceivers ever.’”
She gave him an enigmatic smile as they took
up their tennis rackets.
Beyond an amused wonder at the vagaries of
the modern American—or, at any rate, Maryland—girl,
this incident made little impression on
Fessenden’s mind, occupied as it was with
schemes of its own. By the time luncheon had
been over an hour or two, however, and it drew
on to the time when he might be expected to take
out the Will-o’-the-Wisp, he confidently anticipated
a renewal of Miss Yarnell’s request.
He was downright disappointed, therefore,
// 045.png
when the young woman in question announced that
she had a slight headache and thought a nap
would do her good. Polly and Mrs. Dick chorused
hearty approval, and Pinckney advised a julep.
Thus supported, Miss Yarnell mounted the
staircase from the wide hallway, not vouchsafing a
single glance at Fessenden, who lingered rather
ostentatiously about in his yachting flannels. Although
his determination—as whimsical as the girl
who had inspired it—to keep his projected visit
to White Cottage a secret forbade the presence
of Madge Yarnell upon the Wisp, he would willingly
have had another trial of wits with her.
However, this was denied him.
Mrs. Dick and Polly made perfunctory petitions
to accompany him, easily waved aside. Dick
Randall himself and Cresap were too lazy even to
offer their companionship. May Belle and her follower
had taken themselves off an hour before.
Thus Fessenden found nothing to hinder his announced
plan of trying out the Wisp alone.
“I’m off,” he declared. “By the way, if I’m
not back for dinner, don’t worry, and don’t wait
dinner for me. The wind may fall and make it a
drifting match against time, you know, so don’t
think of delaying dinner, if I don’t turn up.”
Once on board the sloop, he cast off, hoisted
// 046.png
mainsail and jib, and stood away to the northward.
Although unfamiliar with the dry land of
Maryland, Fessenden was not entirely so with its
waters. Once or twice he had taken a cruise on
the fickle Chesapeake, and he was fairly well
acquainted with the character of the sailing and
the configuration of the bay.
Moreover, he had given a half-hour’s close
study to some of Cresap’s charts that morning.
He knew, therefore, that his first long reach on
the starboard tack would take him well clear of
the land. Thence he planned to come about and
sail with the wind to a little cove he had noticed
on the map. This cove lay a mile or so above
Sandywood, and was concealed therefrom by a
heavily-wooded point. He counted upon making
a landing there about six o’clock.
It was a delightful day for sailing. The breeze
was firm, but not too strong—just brisk enough
to ruffle the water with a steady purr under the
bow as the sloop slid up into the wind.
In pure enjoyment Fessenden whistled shrilly
and sang snatches of song. His trip had enough
of mystery about it to arouse all the boy in him.
The thought of his evasion of Miss Yarnell’s importunity,
too, made him laugh aloud. To be
// 047.png
sure, his merriment was a little diminished by his
recollection that she had shown no desire to
accompany him at the last. Was she merely whimsical,
he wondered, or had she acted with a motive?
He hauled the mainsail a trifle tauter, and
watched with critical eye the flattening of the
canvas. The Wisp fairly sailed herself, and
needed little attention. He burst into song:
.nf b
“And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle fre-e-e,
Away the good ship flies and leaves
Old England on her lee.”
.nf-
He stopped. The wind pushed persistently at
the flattening sail; the water purred under the
bow; the shore was already hazy behind him.
These things were as they ought to be, yet he had
become conscious that something extraordinary
had interrupted his flow of song.
His eyes, sweeping the whole horizon, came
back to the sloop, surveyed her slowly from bowsprit
to rudder-post, and rested finally on the
closed double-doors of the little cabin that faced
him across the cockpit.
At that moment a loud knocking shook the
latticed doors. Then a mellow voice spoke distinctly:
// 048.png
.nf b
“‘Behind no prison grate,’ she said,
‘That slurs the sunshine half a mile,
Live captives so uncomforted
As souls behind a smile—
God’s pity let us pray,’ she said.”
.nf-
The doors were flung open, and framed in the
hatchway appeared the upper part of the body,
the dark hair, the defiant eyes, and the faintly-smiling
mouth of the celebrated Miss Madge
Yarnell.
.il id=i04 fn=illus049.jpg w=335px link=illus049-full.jpg
.ca MISS YARNELL MOUNTED THE PAIR OF STEPS FROM THE CABIN
.sp 4
.h2
IV
.sp 2
For a moment Fessenden could only stare. Then
he gave a long whistle.
“This Maryland climate is—extraordinary!”
he remarked to the horizon.
Miss Yarnell mounted the pair of steps from
the cabin to the level of the cockpit, and seated
herself on the lockers.
“I simply had to come,” she explained.
“Marvellous impulsion!”
“I’m not welcome, then?”
“I’m afraid you’ve guessed it.”
“Obstinate—man!”
“Artful—woman!”
“You are a very chilly person. I think I’ll
begin to hate you pretty soon.”
“Really!”
“Now that I’m here, you might as well make
the best of it. Please, sir, I’ll try to be very
agreeable and entertaining, if you’ll only be kind
to me.”
// 052.png
“You’d move a heart of stone, but mine’s a
diamond. You’re always charming—I admit that
freely—but I can’t consider that in this particular
situation. No, no. ‘Off with your head; so
much for Bolingbroke.’” He braced the wheel
against his knee and began to haul in the sheet.
“You’re going back?”
“Yes.”
“To put me ashore?”
“Right, my lady.”
“Then you intend to sail off again to—to do
what you like?”
“Humanly speaking, yes.”
In spite of the heeling deck she rose abruptly,
her eyes wide and resolute.
“Mr. Fessenden, I’m going with you this afternoon,
wherever you go. If you take me back to
the landing, I won’t go on shore. You’ll have to
use force, and I warn you I’ll resist, and I’m
strong for a woman. I solemnly vow I’ll make a
dreadful scene. And I’ll scream, and I can
scream hideously!”
Her words were utterly convincing. He let go
the sheet and stared. “By Jove! you are a terror.
What in the world is all this about?”
“Never mind.”
// 053.png
“But you make me mind. Surely all this can’t
be a mere freak on your part. Or is it a joke?”
“No. I’ve a reason for my—my very unlady-like
conduct.”
“Strike out the adjective. But what’s the
reason?”
“I’d rather not tell.” She resumed her seat,
as if she thought the victory won. Her eyes dwelt
on the lines of his powerful figure, well set off by
his gray flannels. “You are a distinctly good-looking
man, but obstinate.”
“And you’re a remarkably lovely girl, but
eccentric; very—eccentric.”
“You don’t know my reasons.”
“I’ve asked for them.”
She laughed evasively. “Isn’t it about time
to come about?” she said.
“It is. But how do you know that? Are you
a witch?”
“In with the weather braces,” she commanded.
“Stand by to tack ship! Ready about! Helm’s
a-lee! Round we go, now. Make fast! All snug,
sir.”
Accompanying her rather uncertain display of
nautical language with a pull at the sheets that
proved her strength, she gave Fessenden her assistance
in bringing the Wisp before the wind.
// 054.png
Afterward there was silence between them for
a long time. The knots slipped away under the
keel of the little yacht, and she drew rapidly
in toward land. Fessenden consulted his watch.
It was half past five. He decided that it was
time to land—time to send his unwelcome visitor
away, and to keep his appointment with Betty
for supper at White Cottage.
Miss Yarnell examined the little binnacle beside
the wheel.
“Due east,” she said sombrely, “almost. If
you go back to Sandywood, Mr. Fessenden, remember,
I’ve given you fair warning.”
“Fear not, mademoiselle. Far be it from me
to force you to try your screaming powers on
me! I shudder at the thought. No, no. Do
you see that cape two or three points south of
east? Piney Point, it’s called. That’s the place
I’m aiming for. Are you content?”
“Perfectly content.”
She met his puzzled frown with a faint smile.
“You beat the Dutch,” he declared in an injured
tone.
It was just six o’clock when the Wisp grounded
gently on the sandy beach of Piney Cove. The
westering sun flung red bands across the pine
woods, here growing almost to the water’s edge.
// 055.png
Fessenden led a line ashore and made it fast to
a convenient tree. “Now, Miss Yarnell,” he
smiled, “the voyage is over. I’ll really have to
ask you to leave me—with my thanks for a delightful
afternoon, after all. If you follow the
bay shore, you’ll be at Sandywood in half an
hour, I fancy.”
She had joined him as he stood on the beach.
“Thank you,” she said gravely, “but I’m going
with you.”
“Really, this is rather—rather——”
“Impossible,” she supplied. “Yes, I’ll agree
to anything you like to say of me, but, Mr. Fessenden,
it’s very important for me to go with
you—to your appointment.”
He stared, bewildered not only by her audacity,
but by her apparent knowledge of his plans.
“Do you deny that you have an appointment
with some one near here?” she demanded.
“I don’t deny it. But what if I have? This
is too ridiculous! I don’t know how you know
where I’m bound, but—I don’t want to be rude,
Miss Yarnell—but even if you do know, I don’t
see how it matters to you.”
“It does matter to me,” she said, sudden passion
in her voice. “It matters terribly.”
// 056.png
Her suppressed excitement, her entire seriousness,
could no longer be doubted.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “I think you
must be making some mistake.”
“No, no. I don’t know exactly where you’re
going, I admit, but I know who it is you’re going
to see.”
He felt a baffling sense of amazement over an
impossible situation. “Who is it, then?” he
demanded.
“Please, please don’t let us mention names.
But I know. Mr. Fessenden, I recognized the
envelope that boy brought up yesterday.”
“The envelope? O-oh! You did?”
“Yes. I’ve seen that style of envelope too often
not to know it. Now do you understand why I
want to go with you?—why I must go?”
“I’m as much at sea as ever. Why?”
She flushed vividly. “If you really can’t
guess, I—I can’t tell you.”
He stared at her helplessly, then tossed both
hands in a gesture of despair. “I give it up.
I give you up, in fact. You fairly make my
head spin! It’s getting late, Miss Yarnell. I
think you’ll find a path behind the grove.”
“I’m not going to Sandywood.”
// 057.png
“Then I’ll leave you in possession of the yacht.
Good-night.”
He took off his cap smilingly, and, turning,
walked rapidly inland. He had not gone half a
dozen yards when he heard a light footstep behind
him, and wheeled to find her at his very heels.
“I’m going with you.”
“You’ll dog me across country?” he asked
incredulously.
She flushed painfully, but stood her ground.
“I’m going with you,” she repeated.
“Oh, Lord!” he groaned. For a moment he
eyed her rather malevolently. “Come back to the
sloop, then. We’ll talk it over.”
She followed obediently as he clambered over
the low rail of the Wisp.
“I don’t know what to make of you,” he complained.
“I hardly know what to make of myself.”
“If I had more time, I might be able to get at
things.”
“You’d better simply take me with you.”
“Hum-m,” he said contemplatively.
They were standing side by side on the floor of
the cockpit. He waved his hand toward the bay.
“All this beautiful scenery ought to be good for
your malady—whatever that may be. Look at
// 058.png
that sunset, Miss Yarnell. Why, hello! What’s
that? Dead into the sun! Can’t you see it?”
She peered beneath the arch of her hand to
mark the point. At that moment her elbows were
gripped as if by a giant. She felt herself lifted,
then thrust firmly, although gently, downward
into the little cabin.
It was all done in an instant. Fessenden
slammed the double-doors deftly upon his prisoner
and dropped the catch into the slot.
“Good-night,” he called reassuringly. He
leaped ashore and hurried inland.
// 059.png
.sp 4
.h2
V
.sp 2
Fessenden was well aware that the frail catch
that held the doors of the Wisp’s cabin would not
long hold prisoner so vigorous a young woman as
Madge Yarnell. He guessed that in ten minutes
she would be wending her disconsolate way toward
Sandywood. But ten minutes would be enough—he
gave himself no further concern about her.
He followed a cow-path beyond the pine grove,
crossed a meadow or two, and struck the road
not far above White Cottage.
A quail called in a field of early wheat, and
was answered from a thicket of elderberry near
at hand—a charmingly intimate colloquy. Fessenden
was serenely conscious that it was good to
be only twenty-eight, and on his way to dine, or
sup, with an artless girl.
In ten minutes he was halting at the gate of
White Cottage. Although it was only the dusk
of the day, the window shades were down, and
// 060.png
the lighted lamps within sent a glow across the
wide porch. The door stood invitingly open.
As he clicked the gate behind him, he felt as
if he were about to enter another world than the
one he had left at Sandywood—the enchanted
world of boyhood.
At the thought, he pursed his lips and sent the
rounded notes of the quail through the evening
haze.
He had not time to repeat them before a slender
figure, appearing as if by magic, extended him a
warm little hand.
“Bob White!” she said gaily. “I’m very
glad to see you. I was in the hammock under the
hickory there. That gives me a new name for
you—I was tired of Puddin’ Tame.” Her lips
echoed the whistle.
.if h
.il fn=music060.jpg w=383px
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: musical notes of bird song: Bob White.]
.if-
“I’m glad you’ve come, Mr. Bob White.”
“Did you dream for a moment I wouldn’t?”
“I was a little afraid you might forget your
promise. No, what I was really afraid of was
that you wouldn’t find a chance to steal away.
You did steal away, didn’t you, ve-ry quietly?”
// 061.png
“I did. I sailed away, at any rate, and I
didn’t tell a soul where I was bound.”
“I knew you were a reliable man.”
“How is the sprained ankle? You don’t seem
to be noticeably crippled.”
“Of course not. That’s all well now—I’ve been
resting in the hammock all day. But come into
the house. Supper is ready, and Aunty Landis
has the most delicious chocolate, with whipped
cream.”
She tripped ahead of him up the pathway and
into the house, calling: “Aunty Landis! Uncle
Landis! Here he is. Here’s Mr. Bob White.
He’s ready for supper, I’m sure.”
The long-suffering good wife met him in the
living-room. “Good-evening, Mr.—ah——”
“My name is——”
“Bob White,” interrupted the girl. “Please
let it be Bob White. That must be your name.
Don’t you like it?”
“Very much.”
“Then that’s what we’ll call him, please, Aunty
Landis. Yesterday you were Puddin’ Tame, to-day
you’re Bob White, and all the time you’re
really somebody else. I’ll have the fun of meeting
a new man any moment I like.”
Mrs. Landis received this remark with a look
// 062.png
as nearly approaching to sternness as she was
capable of. “Betty, you must behave. Remember,
you ain’t as much of a baby as the gentleman
maybe takes you for.”
The girl fell silent, and seated herself upon a
chintz-covered sofa. Fessenden scanned her more
closely than the dusk outside had permitted him
to do.
Her hair was gathered in a shining braid that
hung quite to her waist, a girlish and charming
fashion. Her blue eyes watched him demurely
from beneath a broad, low forehead. The sailor
suit of yesterday had given place to a simple
white frock—Fessenden noticed that it came fairly
to her ankles, now discreetly slippered and stockinged.
At the moment of seating themselves at table,
they were joined by Uncle Landis, a middle-aged
farmer whose preternaturally-shining face and
plastered hair, not to mention a silence unbroken
throughout the meal, gave plain proof of recent
rigorous social instruction on the part of his help-meet.
The memory of that supper has always been
a delight to Fessenden. The omelet was all golden
foam; the puffed potatoes a white-and-brown
cloud. The spiced cantaloupe and brandied
// 063.png
peaches reminded him of the wonderful concoctions
his Grandmother Winthrop had made—she
who would never allow any one but herself to
wash the glass and silver.
The hot Maryland beaten biscuits were crusty
to the smoking hearts of them, withstanding his
teeth’s assault just long enough to make their
crumbling to fragments the more delicious. The
chocolate, in blue china cups not too small, was
served as the Spaniards serve it and as it ought
to be served—of the consistency of molasses
candy when poured into the pan.
And then came the creamy rice pudding for
dessert, whereupon Fessenden won Mrs. Landis
forever by asking for the receipt and gravely
jotting it down in his notebook, in spite of Betty’s
laughing eyes.
Betty’s talk flashed and sparkled to his sallies.
She showed a self-possession remarkable in a
farmer’s daughter who was encountering a man
of the world for what must have been the first
time in her life, as he fancied. Once or twice he
felt that she had led him on to talk of himself
and to expand his own ideas to a degree unusual
in him.
“Betty, you’re a witch,” he declared at last.
“I’ve been clattering away here like a watchman’s
// 064.png
rattle. You can’t be interested in all this stuff
about my cart-tail speeches for honest city government.”
“But I am interested, decidedly. I like to
hear about men that do something—they’re a
novelty.” Her frank smile warmed him. “I
know there are enough worthless men in the world
to make the useful ones count all the more.
‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands
to do.’ That’s as true in Maryland as anywhere.”
“You’re a worldly-wise small person.”
“Oh, I read and think a little, Mr. Bob White.”
She nodded her head at him until the blonde braid
danced.
After supper Uncle Landis abruptly vanished.
Aunty Landis lingered in the dining-room on the
plea of clearing off the supper things—in point
of fact, Fessenden saw her no more that night.
Betty led the way to a couple of steamer-chairs
at a corner of the porch.
The breeze had freshened a little, and he tucked
her knitted scarf about her shoulders with a care
not altogether fatherly.
“Thank you, Bob White. You’re very kind.”
“Who wouldn’t be kind to you, Betty? Look
there! Over the top of the hill. Even the stars
are peeping out to see if you’re comfortable.”
// 065.png
She gave her little crowing laugh. “What a
poet! I always think of Emerson’s verse about
the stars. Do you remember it?
.nf b
“Over our heads are the maple buds,
And over the maple buds is the moon;
And over the moon are the starry studs
That drop from the angel’s shoon.”
.nf-
“Where did you learn Emerson?”
“I had a teacher who liked him.”
“Did any one ever tell you that you talk as a
prima donna ought to talk, but never does—‘soft,
gentle, and low’?”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Certainly. Perhaps you sing.”
“I’ll get my guitar.”
She flashed into the house and back again. The
starlight enabled him to see her indistinctly as she
tightened the keys of a small guitar.
“I like this song,” she explained. “It was
written by Fessenden, you know.”
“By whom?”
“Thomas Fessenden, the Fessenden, the man
who——”
“Oh, of course.”
To hear himself thus referred to, to hear one
of his own casual songs launched from the lips
of a country girl in the splendor of a Maryland
// 066.png
night, was a novel experience even for Fessenden.
He realized with amusement that his identity was
wholly unknown to Betty, that capricious young
person not having allowed him as yet to mention
his own name.
She sang, her eyes laughing upon him as her
lips rounded to the whistle of the quail in the
refrain.
.nf b
“At morn when first the rosy gleam
Of rising sun proclaimed the day,
There reached me, through my last sweet dream,
This oft-repeated lay:
(Too sweet for cry,
Too brief for song,
’Twas borne along
The reddening sky)
Bob White!
Daylight, Bob White!
Daylight!”
“At eve, when first the fading glow
Of setting sun foretold the night,
The tender call came, soft and low,
Across the dying light:
(Too sweet for cry,
Too brief for song,
’Twas but a long
Contented sigh)
Bob White!
Good-night, Bob White!
Good-night!”
.nf-
// 067.png
Fessenden applauded softly, and his young
hostess smiled appreciation.
“Tell me about yourself, Bob White,” she said.
“Are you ‘tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor’?”
“Betty, perhaps you can tell me something.
I got away to you without letting any one at
Sandywood know, by going for a sail in my
sloop.”
“A ve-ry good idea.”
“Don’t be too sure. After I’d gotten well off,
one of the house-party—a girl—coolly appeared
from the cabin. She’d been bound to come with
me, you see.”
“Why?”
“That’s the problem. She was very mysterious,
and persistent, no name! When we landed in
Piney Cove, she insisted upon following me.”
“Goodness me!”
“We had the most extraordinary time—I fastened
her in the cabin by main force. I don’t
understand it at all. She said she knew I was
coming to meet you, and seemed very much
wrought up about it. Hold on! She didn’t mention
your name, but she said she knew who it was
I had my appointment with.”
“How could she guess?”
“We happened to be standing together when
// 068.png
your little friend, Jimmy Jones, brought your
note. She said this afternoon that she recognized
the style of the envelope.”
Betty’s guitar slipped from her lap to the floor.
“Bob White, Bob White!” she exclaimed.
“What’s her name?”
“Didn’t I say? She’s a Miss Yarnell—Miss
Madge Yarnell, from Baltimore. Do you know
anything about her?”
The girl stooped to rescue the guitar. Her
warm cheek touched his as he, too, groped for it,
and both recoiled a little consciously—Fessenden
in amusement at his own confusion.
“Do you know about Miss Yarnell?” he repeated.
“I’ve heard her name. A girl—the woman who
gave me that song—knows who she is. Isn’t she
the girl who tore down the flag?”
“Yes, that’s the one. Can you imagine why
she pursued me so? Do you suppose she really
recognized your writing paper? And even if she
did, what is it to her?”
She twanged a careless chord or two. “Oh,
perhaps she was vexed because you didn’t stay at
the house-party,” she suggested; “because you
preferred White Cottage to Sandywood.”
After a while he struck a match and looked at
// 069.png
his watch. “Nine o’clock. I must be going. If
I stay much longer, the Cresaps will be sending
out their launch to tow me home. You know, I’m
supposed to be becalmed out in the bay. I hate to
go. I’ve had a bully time.”
“Really?”
“Perfect. Betty, look here! I’m staying at
Sandywood only until Tuesday, and to-day’s
Friday. H-i-n-t!”
She rose and made him an adorable curtsy.
“Bob White, Esquire, I respectfully invite you
to come to my picnic to-morrow.”
“Will there be a picnic, really?”
“Yes—for you and me.”
“Great! I’ll come, and humbly thank you.”
“Then you must be at the foot of the lane
by the brook at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.
And it’s another secret, remember. Do you think
you can get away?”
“I will get away. Perhaps I can invent a
business letter that will call me to Baltimore.”
She clapped her hands. “Oh, I’ll attend to
that. You know Jimmy Jones is really the Sandywood
Station telegraph boy, and he’ll do anything
for me.”
“I don’t doubt it. There’s at least one other
person in the same happy condition.”
// 070.png
“Haven’t you a friend in Baltimore who might
possibly send you a telegram—somebody so real
you could just show it to the Cresaps, and they’d
believe it? What fun!”
He chuckled. “This is a real conspiracy. The
only friend the Cresaps and I have in common is
Danton.”
“Who?”
“Charles Danton. D-a-n-t-o-n.”
“I’ll remember.”
“All right. At ten o’clock to-morrow, at the
foot of the lane. You’ll meet me there, honest
Injun, Betty?”
“Honest Injun! Hope I may die!”
She had followed him to the edge of the porch
and stood looking down at him as he lingered
a couple of steps below.
“Good-night, Betty.”
Her hand slipped into his outstretched palm.
“Good-night, Bob White.”
“I’ve had a lovely time.”
“So have I.”
He had not released her hand, and now she
leaned toward him until the great braid of her
hair fell across her breast.
“Bob White, I’m rather sorry I was so—so
// 071.png
violent yesterday, when you were carrying me
and—and did what you did.”
She was so close to him that he felt her hair
brush his forehead. The blood was pounding in
his ears, and his throat was parched. He lifted
his left hand slowly to her neck to draw her
lips to his. Then, all at once, he steadied himself.
“Oh, you little witch!” he said. “I swear I
don’t know whether you’re an innocent or a
demon. No, no, Betty! The next time I kiss
you, you must ask me outright, not merely look
at me! Do you ask me?”
She snatched her hand away. “Certainly not.
Never!”
“Good-night, then.”
“Good-night, Bob White.”
She stood motionless until he was lost in the
darkness, then whistled softly:
.if h
.il fn=music071.jpg w=379px
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: musical notes of bird song: Bob White.]
.if-
She waited until the call was answered from the
slope of the hill; then, laughing rather wistfully,
she sought Aunty Landis.
// 072.png
.sp 4
.h2
VI
.sp 2
Fessenden joined the others at Sandywood
while they were still lingering over coffee in the
library. His belated appearance, casual and unconcerned
as he endeavored to make it seem, was
greeted with a storm of badinage.
“Oh, my prophetic soul! You were becalmed
sure enough.”
“Does the poor boy want a bite to eat?”
“We were just organizing a relief expedition
for you, old man.”
“What a lonely time you must have had of
it, Mr. Fessenden!” This last thrust was from
no less a person than Miss Yarnell. He gave
her a broad smile in return.
He allowed the others to believe what they would,
explaining only that he had been compelled to
leave the Will-o’-the-Wisp in Piney Cove. Cresap
promised to send his man up to bring her back
to the landing-stage.
.il id=i05 fn=illus073.jpg w=362px link=illus073-full.jpg
.ca “I’M AFRAID YOU’LL FIND THE CABIN-DOOR CATCH IS BROKEN,” SAID MADGE YARNELL IN AN UNDERTONE
“I’m afraid you’ll find the cabin-door catch is
broken,” said Madge Yarnell in an undertone, as
she halted near Fessenden on her way to bed.
“If I hadn’t been sure you’d smashed through
easily enough, I should have come back to the
sloop and sailed away with you.”
“With me?”
“Certainly—made you captive like an old buccaneer.
Willy-nilly, I should have clapped you
under hatches, and sailed for the Spanish Main.”
Her brooding eyes dwelt long upon him.
“That’s very interesting.” She struck her hands
softly together. “It’s worth thinking about.
Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Fessenden.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re only a man.”
In the morning, although he was not down for
breakfast until nine o’clock, he was ahead of any
of the others. One of the servants handed him
a telegram. He read it with amusement over
Betty’s cleverness.
.pm letter-start
.nf l
Thomas Fessenden,
Sandywood, Polocoke County, Maryland.
.nf-
Meet me Club one o’clock. Important personal matter.
Want your advice. Don’t fail me.
.rj
Charles Danton.
.pm letter-end
He requested the butler to turn over the telegram
to Mr. and Mrs. Cresap, and to explain
// 076.png
to them that he would be back at Sandywood before
dinner. On the plea that he vastly preferred
a walk, he managed to evade the man’s suggestion
that the car be brought round to take him to
Sandywood Station.
Precisely at ten o’clock he was cooling his
heels on the stone wall at the foot of the lane.
In that shaded hollow the sun had not yet
pierced to dry the dew from the wild myrtle.
Now and then the clambering creepers rustled
where a field-mouse ran shyly through them. An
oriole flashed from a sycamore, like an orange
tossed deftly skyward. Spring was a living presence—Fessenden
was stirred by its exuberance as
he had not been these ten years.
By and by a rattle of wheels came to his ears.
Presently a serene gray mare hove in sight, escorting,
rather than pulling, a low-swung landau
with an ancient calash-top. So capacious
was the hood that at first he could descry no
one in its depths. Then the mare came to a condescending
halt, and a laughing face leaned into
view.
.il id=i06 fn=illus077.jpg w=361px link=illus077-full.jpg
.ca “GOOD-MORNING, PATIENCE-ON-A-MONUMENT”
“Good-morning, Patience-on-a-Monument.”
“Good-morning, Grief. Grief, that’s the fluffiest
hat I ever saw.”
“Have you been waiting long?”
“Hours and hours.”
“Then, come, get in. We’re going driving
‘over the hills and far away.’”
She clucked to her steed, and the old mare,
disdainfully obedient, conveyed them straight
through the brook—the water rising to the hub—and
up the windings of a wood-road beyond.
“The first thing a man wants to know on a
picnic,” affirmed Betty sagely, “is whether or not
there’s enough to eat. There isn’t, but there
will be.”
“I rest content. Betty, who taught you to
dress like that?”
“Do you like me—my clothes, I mean?”
“I like both, profoundly.”
She was all in white—fluffy hat, linen shirt-waist,
duck skirt, and low shoes. Her hair was
done into some sort of knot on her neck—Fessenden
was rather weak at deciphering a girl’s
coiffure. Her eyes shone wonderfully clear, and
her smiles were frequent but uncertain, as if she
bubbled with jokes too ethereal to share even with
him.
“Betty,” he said, “do you mind my remarking
that you look adorable to-day?”
“Only to-day?”
// 080.png
“Always, you witch! Betty, don’t tell me that
any mere district school made half of you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it sounds a bit impertinent of me, but
your voice—your talk—your dress! And, above
all, you have the air—ah——”
“Of a lady, Mr. Critic?”
“Exactly. One doesn’t expect to find l’air distingué
in a farmer’s daughter.”
“A farmer’s niece.”
“Of course. Perhaps that makes all the difference.
Do you mind my asking who your
mother was, Betty?”
“My mother was related to the first families
of Maryland.”
He could hardly forbear a smile at the pride
manifest in her tone. “I see. She has a right
to be proud of her daughter.”
“Really? Bob White, that’s the very nicest
thing you could say to me if you’d tried a hundred
years. Mother died when I was quite a little
girl.”
Fessenden was silent. For a while, the girl
guided the gray mare from wood-road to rambling
lane, from lane to turnpike, and from turnpike
back to lane. As they rounded a low hill,
// 081.png
Fessenden felt the salt breath of the bay upon his
face.
“Where are we bound?” he asked.
“To Jim George’s. It’s a sort of inn—a very
rustic inn. He cooks delicious things. People
come here for dinners from as far as Baltimore,
but I think it’s too early in the season yet for
anybody to be here but us.”
“I hope so with all my heart.”
They ascended a sandy track through a little
forest of pine, and emerged upon an open space.
At the foot of a bluff the bay stretched to the
horizon. On the forest side stood a log-cabin,
amplified on all sides by a veranda of unbarked
pine.
From this structure promptly hobbled a white-haired
darky.
“Mawnin’, lady. Mawnin’, gemman, sah. A
day o’ glory fo’ the time o’ year. Yas, sah, yas,
ma’am, a real day o’ glory. Won’t you ’light
down, ma’am?”
“Of course we will, Jim George, and we want
some of your best shad.”
“Ah d’clar to gracious! Is that yo’all, Miss
Betty? Good Lan’! it’s been a coon’s age since
I seen yo’ purty face round hyah. It does me
proud to see a——”
// 082.png
“Shad and corn-pone, Jim George,” she interrupted.
“I want you to show this gentleman
we can still cook in the South.”
“Ah’ll show him. Ah’ll show him, Miss Betty.
Rufe! Rufe! Come hyah and take Miss Betty’s
hoss.”
A boy led the mare away, and Fessenden and
the girl established themselves in a hammock under
a solitary oak at the bluff’s edge.
He drew a long breath of the salt air and
smiled at his companion. “This is Paradise, and
not even a serpent to mar it.”
In an incredibly short time Jim George appeared,
bearing a tray piled high with eatables,
and proceeded to spread the cloth on a table under
the oak.
“Miss Betty,” he said, “and, gemman, sah,
there’s a shad-roe as is a shad-roe. Jes’ yo’ eat
it with all the buttah yo’ kin spread on it. This
hyah co’n-pone needs a spoon for it. Them baked
’taters growed theirselfs right hyah in the patch
behint the house. They’s as sweet as honey. And
hyah’s some milk. Yo’ ’member Jersey Molly,
Miss Betty? Yas’m, this is her milk. None o’
yo’ pastorilized stuff neither—this is jes’ plain
milk.”
“Betty,” said Fessenden, when Jim George had
left them to themselves, “allow me to drink your
health in Jersey Molly wine.”
.il id=i07 fn=illus083.jpg w=351px link=illus083-full.jpg
.ca “BETTY, ALLOW ME TO DRINK YOUR HEALTH IN JERSEY MOLLY WINE”
She touched her tumbler laughingly to his.
“Skoal! Bob White, do you know it was only
the day before yesterday you picked me out of
the brook?”
“I was just thinking of that. At any rate,
we’re better acquainted than people ordinarily are
in months.”
“In three days?”
“Certainly,” he maintained.
“You’re a very funny man.”
“I’m perfectly serious.”
“I was wondering why you should care to come
on a picnic with me. I’m only a country girl,
after all, and you—you’re different.”
“I care to come because you are you, and that’s
plenty reason enough.”
“Hum-m.”
“Can you say as much?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Cruel child!”
“I didn’t say no—I only said I wasn’t sure.”
The afternoon slipped away, and at last they
ordered their equipage for the homeward drive.
Old Jim George bowed them off.
“Good-by, Miss Betty. Good-by, gemman,
// 086.png
sah. Ah hope yo’ bofe come hyah agin right soon—yas,
indeedy, and I hope yo’ come togedder,
too. Yah ha!” He screened his mouth behind
his hand and added in a stage whisper: “Miss
Betty, that’s a mighty fine gemman yo’s got,
he is so, mighty fine.”
They pursued the even tenor of their way homeward.
The early butterflies flicked the gray
mare’s nose. Blackbirds pilfered a meal from
the plowed fields beside the road. Once a thrush—to
Betty’s infinite delight—perched on the
dashboard and sang a hasty trill.
“Spring is lovely,” declared Betty.
“Lovely,” agreed Fessenden with enthusiasm,
and did not feel guilty of a commonplace.
Into the calm of their content came the clatter
of distant hoofs.
“There’s some one riding down that crossroad
there,” said Betty. “A woman. Is she waving
at us, do you think?”
They peered out from the calash-top, and
made out a horsewoman galloping down a side-path
toward them. Her whip was going on her
horse’s flank, and now and then she brandished it
as if to signal the two in the landau.
Betty pulled up. “Let’s see what she wants.”
In another moment the horsewoman was near
// 087.png
enough to bring an exclamation of recognition
from Fessenden. “Hello! I believe it’s Miss
Yarnell.”
“Miss Yarnell?”
“The girl who said she recognized the envelope
you sent me the other day. Perhaps she wants
to ask the way home.”
Miss Yarnell rode out of the crossroad full
tilt, and only checked her sorrel when his nose
was within a foot of the gray mare’s. Fessenden
viewed this characteristic impetuosity with
curiosity, which changed to amazement when his
eyes fell upon her face. Her eyes were blazing,
and her teeth were clenched.
She did not wait to be interrogated, but faced
the calash-top.
“I’ve been looking for you!” she cried. “Come
out here where we can talk.” Her tones were
not loud, but her voice was choked with passion,
and she lifted her riding-whip as she spoke.
“Come out! I want to have a talk with you.”
The response was more prompt than she could
have anticipated. Before she could carry out
her evident purpose of forcing her uneasy horse
to the very dashboard, Fessenden slipped from the
landau, ducked under the mare’s head, and, seizing
the sorrel by the bit, forced him back.
// 088.png
“What’s up, Miss Yarnell?” he said, with stern
jocularity. “You mustn’t ride into people’s laps,
you know.”
“Oh, I don’t want you,” she said. “I want
her.” Again the silver-mounted whip was brandished
toward the calash-top.
Betty’s piquant face emerged from its depths.
“Are you looking for me?” she asked very
sweetly.
Miss Yarnell’s arm fell. She stared at the childish
face—at the wide-opened blue eyes and slender
figure.
“O-oh!” Her voice was tremulous, all hint
of violence gone from it. “You! I thought it
was—I thought it was some one else.”
“At any rate, it isn’t proper to threaten one
with a whip,” said Betty gravely.
“I—I know it. There!” Her arm swung up,
and the whip spun a flashing arc through the air
before falling into a field of ripening wheat.
“The hateful thing!” She faced the girl again.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been acting like a fool. I beg
your pardon—and yours too, Mr. Fessenden.”
She checked the horse she had already started
to wheel, and appealed to Betty. “I must ask
you. I came after you because I thought you
// 089.png
were—were some one else. I thought so because
of that envelope Thursday.”
“A Baltimore friend of mine happens to have
lent me a box of her notepaper.” There was impatience
in Betty’s explanation.
“O-oh, I see! But—please!—that telegram
from Charlie to him”—she indicated Fessenden.
“I supposed—some one—had sent that—to put
me off the track.”
“It wasn’t sent from White Cottage.”
“Then it was real?”
“I know nothing about it,” returned the girl
icily.
Miss Yarnell wheeled her horse. “It was real!
And I’ve been wasting time—wasting time!”
Going helter-skelter, she was out of sight before
Fessenden had time to resume his seat in the
carriage.
“Whew!” he said, as they resumed their jog-trot
pace. “She is a queer fish! But, Betty, why
tell a tarradiddle, even to get rid of her?”
“I didn’t.”
“I mean about the telegram you sent me.”
“I didn’t send you one.”
“What! One came—signed by Charles Danton,
too, just as we arranged last night.”
“I had nothing to do with it. After you went
// 090.png
away, I remembered that I didn’t know your real
name, and I was afraid a telegram for ‘Bob
White, Esquire,’ left in the servants’ hands, would
go wrong. So I didn’t send it. I wondered how
you’d get away to meet me, but I knew you
would contrive some excuse.”
In his mind’s eye, he saw the address of the
telegram, “Thomas Fessenden,” yet it was true
that his identity was unknown to his companion—through
her own caprice, to be sure.
He gave a long whistle. “Then that wire really
was from Danton. By Jove! if he wanted my
advice about anything, he ought to have let me
know in time. Confound him, it’s too late now!
It serves him right.”
He turned to look for sympathy in Betty’s
eyes, only to find there a light that baffled him.
“Are you angry with me about anything?”
“I’m not sure whether I am or not. Men are
so—so bad, and so presumptuous.”
“Good heavens! Have I done anything?”
But in spite of all he could do to solve this new
Betty, she set him down at the foot of the lane
a very perplexed young man.
// 091.png
.sp 4
.h2
VII
.sp 2
At Sandywood, Fessenden was little surprised
to learn that Miss Yarnell had been summoned
home to Baltimore—on account of sickness in her
family.
“I think she must have gotten a telegram at
the station,” said Polly Cresap. “She’d been out
riding, and when she came in she was in quite a
flutter, and told us she had to go home immediately.
I really didn’t understand just who was
sick. We’re to send her things after her. You
didn’t see her at Sandywood Station, did you,
Tom? She must have taken the same train you
came in on.”
“No,” returned Fessenden, truthfully enough.
“She’s rather a headlong sort, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I suppose so. But, poor girl, she has a
good deal on her mind! You know, before this
disgraceful affair of Charlie Danton’s with——”
“Polly!” said her husband warningly.
// 092.png
“I don’t care, Pinck. You know everybody says
so.”
“But nobody knows anything, my dear.”
“At any rate,” she rattled on, “before this
affair, Madge was quite fond of Charlie Danton,
and now I believe she’s eating her heart out.”
“Remember, Fessenden has just been up to
Baltimore to meet Danton,” cautioned Cresap.
“How do you know it wasn’t about this very thing?”
“Oh, goodness, Tom! Am I rushing in where
angels fear to tread?”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “Danton didn’t
mention the matter at all.”
“Besides, Polly,” said Cresap, “no girl eats
her heart out nowadays. That sort of thing dates
back to hoop-skirts and all that. Madge Yarnell
can take care of herself, I’ll wager.”
The next day was Sunday, and for Fessenden
the morning dragged rather wearily. But after
luncheon he had the inspiration to suggest a sail
in the Will-o’-the-Wisp. May Belle and Cleborne
announced that they had already arranged to go
for a walk together, but the others avowed their
willingness to sail.
The wind was fresh, and Mrs. Dick Randall sat
beside Fessenden at the wheel, and met the flying
spray merrily. Dick himself flirted with Polly
// 093.png
Cresap under the protection of the jibsail forward.
Cresap drowsed accommodatingly at full
length in the lee gangway.
“Harry Cleborne and May Belle think two are
company,” said Mrs. Dick.
“Are they engaged?”
“Oh, I imagine there’s only an understanding.”
“Do you think that sort of arrangement is
dignified?”
“What a funny way to put it! No, I don’t
think so, now that you put it that way. Madge
Yarnell, now—Charlie Danton and she had only
an understanding—everybody took it for granted
they’d be married some day—and look how it’s
turned out.”
“But I understood their falling-out was due
to outside influence—wasn’t it?”
“Partly, of course. But a regular engagement
would have had more dignity about it, just as you
say, and they would have had to be more careful.”
“No doubt.”
“Now, there’s Roland Cary—” went on Mrs.
Dick.
“The handsome cousin Polly spoke of the other
day?”
“Yes. There’s a dignified person for you.
// 094.png
Hum-m! Dignified in some ways, but a perfect
dee-vil in others.”
“He must be a very interesting sort. I’d
like to meet him.”
“Oh, he—he is interesting. But I’m worried
about Madge and Charlie Danton’s case.”
“I agree with Cresap—Miss Yarnell will follow
her own course, whatever that may be.”
“I suppose so.”
The bracing air and the dancing yacht, if not
the conversation, held Fessenden’s interest for an
hour or two. As he headed toward home, the glory
of the day put a happy idea into his head. He
would return Betty’s picnic of yesterday by a
day’s sail on the Wisp. Somehow he would manage
to elude his Sandywood responsibilities again.
Darkness always fell long before dinner was
served at Sandywood. Therefore, Fessenden,
going for a stroll in the wilderness of a garden,
ostensibly to indulge in an ante-prandial cigar,
found in the dusk no difficulty in extending his
walk to White Cottage.
A boyish sense of romance always took possession
of him when he approached Betty’s vicinity.
A knock at the cottage door, and a direct inquiry
for her, would have been too commonplace. No
workaday method of communication would suffice
// 095.png
under a sky shot with stars and in an air a-tingle
with spring.
Lights shone in a couple of rooms in the
upper part of the house, while the lower story
was in darkness. Apparently, the farmer’s family
was already preparing to retire for the night.
Fessenden scouted about the place, smiling to
himself at the absurdity of his own action.
There was nothing to indicate which room was
Betty’s, and at a venture he tossed a handful of
gravel against the panes of the corner room—then
another.
Betty’s head and shoulders were the response,
framed in the glow of the lamp gleaming through
the white curtain behind her. The face, delicately
oval, and the slender throat, seemed wrought of
gold.
“‘So shines a good deed in a naughty world,’”
said Fessenden aloud.
“Who’s there?” she called.
“It’s I.”
“Oh, you!”
“Yes. Can you came down a minute?”
“No.”
“Please come down, Betty. I want to see you
about something.”
“No-o, I can’t. Is it anything important?”
// 096.png
“Immensely important. You aren’t vexed with
me still, are you?”
“Of course not. And, Bob White, I didn’t
tell you yesterday, but I did appreciate it very
much.”
“Good!—but what?”
“The way you jumped out of the carriage and
seized her horse, when she was so belligerent. It
was very capable in you.”
“If it weren’t dark down here, you could see
me blushing. Come down and see.”
“No. Bob White, you haven’t come around
here like a Romeo to—to say good-by, have you?”
“Heaven forbid, Betty! I want to ask you to
go on a picnic with me to-morrow, in my sailboat.”
“Oh, goody! Hum-m! I don’t know. For
how long?”
“All day. We can sail down to Rincoteague
Island and back.”
“Who’s to go?”
“Only you and I, of course.”
“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be quite—well,
quite—”
“Oh, I see. Then your aunt is invited, too, of
course—but reluctantly.”
// 097.png
“We’ll come,” she said, with decision. “Shall
we bring the luncheon?”
“No. The sloop has a lot of stuff on board
now. Besides, there used to be a hotel on Rincoteague—such
as it was. I’ll have the Wisp
in Piney Cove at nine to-morrow. We must start
early, you know.”
“We’ll be there. Thank you very much.”
“Betty, do come out a minute—long enough
to shake hands. I haven’t seen you all day.”
“You funny man!” she said. “If I weren’t—a
farmer’s girl, I should think you were flirting.”
He was unable to muster an instant reply. A
shade, snapped sharply down, cut the fair hair
and laughing face from his view.
There was nothing left for him to do but to
make his way back to Sandywood, which he did
very thoughtfully.
After dinner the men grouped themselves in
easy chairs at a corner of the porch, to enjoy
their cigarettes. Harry Cleborne drew his chair
to Fessenden’s.
“Will you try one of my home-growns, Mr.
Fessenden?” he proffered. “That tobacco was
raised on my own plantation.”
// 098.png
Fessenden accepted a cigar, suddenly conscious
that Cleborne’s unwonted attentions must have
an ulterior motive.
“Thank you. You’re a Marylander, then?”
“Virginian,” returned the other. “My home’s
in old Albemarle. I’ve seen a good deal of Maryland
the last year or two, though.” His eyes
strayed toward the white gowns of the women.
“Maryland has its attractions,” said Fessenden.
“Yes, that’s so—even for you?”
“Oh, yes, for me, too.”
Cleborne folded his arms, crossed one leg over
the other, and blew a long cloud of smoke. “Look
here, Mr. Fessenden,” he said, “that’s what I
want to speak to you about—Maryland attractions.”
He spoke with evident embarrassment.
“May Belle—Miss Cresap—and I saw you yesterday,
sitting on the wall at the end of the
lane to White Cottage.”
“Hum! You did?”
“Yes. We were out for an early morning
walk. Of course, then, we know you didn’t go to
Baltimore—not on the morning train, at any
rate.”
“Well?”
// 099.png
Impatience showed in Fessenden’s tone, and the
other went on quickly: “We were out for a
stroll again this evening, and—you may think it’s
none of my business, but we saw her. She was
at the window as we passed the house.”
“You seem to be fond of walking.”
“It was entirely an accident both times. But
it won’t do, Mr. Fessenden.”
“May I ask what won’t do?”
“I don’t want to be impertinent, sir—you’re
an older man than I—but, of course, it’s easy
enough to guess that you’ve been going over to
White Cottage because she’s there. Isn’t that
so?”
“Certainly it’s so. But is there any harm in
that?”
“There may not be any harm yet, but won’t
there be?”
“This is ridiculous. Betty isn’t much more
than a child—a very charming one, I admit.”
“Who?” demanded Cleborne, “Betty?”
“Betty Landis, man. Aren’t you talking about
her?”
“Never heard of her,” returned the other
shortly. “I’m talking about you know whom,
Mr. Fessenden. I’m sorry I spoke. I wanted
// 100.png
to give you a friendly hint that you should let
another man look after his—his own himself. I
don’t care to be laughed at in this way.”
“What the devil do you mean?”
Cleborne pushed back his chair savagely. “I’m
through,” he snapped.
As good as his word, he stalked off to join
May Belle.
// 101.png
.sp 4
.h2
VIII
.sp 2
Dawn was reddening the leaves of the oak outside
the window when Fessenden awoke. From the
great bay below the house came the ruffle of water—the
wind was freshening. But it was not the
mutter along the shore, nor the tang of the salt
air, that had aroused him.
What could that idiot, Cleborne, have been
driving at in his talk of Betty? No, Cleborne
had declared he had never heard of her. Then
whom could his dark hints be about? Was the
Virginian a subtle joker, acting at the instigation
of Polly or Mrs. Dick? It was not unlikely.
And did Madge Yarnell’s peculiar conduct have
any connection with the matter?
While he was still puzzling over Cleborne’s
words, he fell asleep, and when he awoke again,
at a more reasonable hour, his mind instantly became
too full of plans for the day’s excursion
with Betty to hold any conflicting thoughts.
// 102.png
At eight o’clock he ate his eggs, toast, and
coffee, solving the problem of presenting a sufficient
excuse for his proposed day’s absence by
the simple process of not attempting it.
At the last moment, the freshening wind suggested
the probable need of ample protection from
the weather. Accordingly, he carried a double
armful of steamer-rugs and rain-coats from the
house to the Wisp.
In five minutes he was standing for Piney Cove.
It took him half an hour or more to reach it,
for the wind, blowing steadily from the northwest,
held him back. He was rewarded by finding Betty
and Aunty Landis awaiting him on the beach.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Landis. Hail, Dryad of
the Pines!”
“Hail, Old Man of the Sea!”
Her eyes were as clear as twin pools; her lips
were smiling, ready as always to laugh with him
or at him, as opportunity might offer. She held
her head with that defiant tilt of the chin that was
to him one of her always-remembered characteristics.
The sunlight flashed from the bay to the
shining braid of her hair.
Her white sailor suit was set off by two daring
bands of color—a scarlet handkerchief at her
throat, and a scarlet sash about her waist. That
// 103.png
most effective head-dress, a man-o’-war’s-man’s
white hat, crowned her head. Fessenden’s eyes
dwelt upon her with such frank delight that she
blushed a little as Mrs. Landis followed her on
board the Wisp.
The course was set southeast for Rincoteague
Island. After a dubious phrase or two about the
weather, Aunty Landis ensconced herself just
within the opened doors of the little cabin. Here
she produced an infinite number of gigantic stockings
(male) from a work-bag, and proceeded to
darn them.
“I hope both you and your aunt are good
sailors,” said Fessenden. “It promises to be a
bit rough before we get back.”
“Oh, yes. I hope it does blow. To be wet and
cold, and to see the water boiling up ready to
drown us—that would be living!”
“You strange child! You have a philosophy
all your own. Did you know that?”
She nodded sagely. “Of course. I hate people
who haven’t. That’s one reason I like you.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to hear you confess
that there’s more reasons than one. I like you
because—because you seem to me to be all golden.
Perhaps the sun dazzles me.”
// 104.png
“Perhaps,” she smiled.
“You and the day are golden, but remember
the song in Cymbeline:
.nf b
“Golden lads and girls all must
As chimney sweepers come to dust.”
.nf-
“Golden lads and girls,” she repeated softly.
“Oh, they can never come to dust while there
are days like this to sail and sail!”
Her arms, extended yearningly, as if she would
have plucked the secret of youth from the tossing
bay, fell to her side. “I wish we could sail forever—never
to go back to the sad land.”
He thrilled. “So do I. Let’s do it—you and
I together.”
“And Aunty Landis?”
“I’m not so sure about Aunty Landis. The
stockings might give out, you know.”
They had left Piney Cove not long after nine.
With the strong northwester behind them, they
made such progress that before two o’clock they
were in sight of their destination.
Rincoteague Island lies on the very border-line
between ocean and bay. On the eastern side, it
is crowned by a straggling forest of pine and oak,
and looks almost boldly toward the near waters
of the Atlantic. A small hotel, and rows of
// 105.png
bath-houses, mark it as a “resort”—a resort sustained
by the excursion steamer that makes daily trips
thereto from the towns of the mainland.
Although aware that the Wisp had been making
extraordinary speed, it was not until Fessenden
bore up direct for Rincoteague that he
realized how the wind was freshening. He had
put his helm down a little carelessly, and instantly
a cupful of water took him in the back. He
glanced astern, to find quite a sea racing after.
“Positively it’s roughing up,” he said. “Will
you be afraid to face a head sea going home,
Betty?”
“No, indeed; not with such a sailor as you,
Bob White.”
“Good! The sloop could live through a hurricane,
‘so let the wild winds blow-ow-ow.’”
They stood in for Rincoteague pier. The excursion
steamer had just disgorged its passengers
there, and the sight of the horde convinced the
party on the Wisp that the inevitable fish-and-oyster
dinner at the hotel was not likely to prove
a thing of beauty. Accordingly, Betty took the
wheel and skilfully put the sloop alongside a
smaller pier—rather rotted and insecure, to be
sure—on the lee or ocean side of the island.
// 106.png
While Fessenden was making the Wisp fast,
Mrs. Landis and Betty explored the larder, with
highly satisfactory results. Potted slices of
chicken, strawberry jam, boxed crackers, pickles,
and aerated waters of several sorts, furnished
“eatin’ stuff enough for anybody,” as Mrs. Landis
avowed. She herself had thought to bring half
a dozen wooden picnic plates and a complement
of knives, forks, and spoons.
“Did you stock the Wisp for a polar expedition,
Bob White?” asked Betty.
“Oh, all this stuff was left in her by the man
I bought her from. I suppose it would have been
more trouble to move the stores than they were
worth. Have you everything you want? Then
‘all ashore that’s going ashore!’”
They ate their luncheon in a sheltered hollow at
the lower end of the islet. A projecting clay
bank, a huge stranded log, and an overhanging
holly-tree made almost a cave of it. Aunty
Landis was a highly satisfactory chaperon. After
luncheon, when she was not darning, she was
perusing a pamphlet of Sunday School lessons.
And when this was finished, she brought a leather-bound
memorandum-book from the bottomless
work-bag, and entered upon an intricate calculation
of household accounts.
// 107.png
Fessenden chatted with Betty. He had not
yet begun to analyze the reasons for the pleasure
he felt in her company, or hardly to understand
that the farmer’s daughter who could hold a man
of his experience by her side for the better part
of three days must possess extraordinary charm.
“Now we are in the pirates’ den,” said Betty,
“and that log is a treasure-chest full of—of
what?”
“Of doubloons and pieces of eight. I’m the
pirate chief, and you are my captured bride.”
“Oh, goodness!”
“Do you know, I made a remark something
like that to Miss Yarnell the other day, and she
took it quite seriously?”
“Was she afraid of the pirate chief?”
“She eyed me in that brooding, blazing way
of hers—you remember how she looked when she
tried to ride over us on the road the other day?”
“Remember!”
“Exactly. She eyed me in that fashion, then
thanked me for the suggestion.”
“What did she mean?”
“I haven’t the least idea. Betty, what do you
know about her?”
The girl put her hand suddenly on his arm.
“What was that? A drop of water? I do
// 108.png
believe it’s going to rain. And hear the surf! It’s
fairly roaring. It must be blowing hard. I
wonder if the yacht is all right.”
The thought brought them to their feet, and
out of their sheltered hollow. They found a
changed world.
While they ate, clouds had been gathering
west and north, and now seemed to fill the whole
space from bay to sky. A mile or two beyond
the island, a white line advancing over the churning
waters gave promise of a furious squall.
Worst of all, the wind had risen until, even on
their leeward side of the island, the swell was
momentarily growing heavier.
“By George!” said Fessenden. “It looks as
if we were in for it. Betty, we’d better have a
look at the Wisp. That rotten old wharf!”
“I’ll race you to it!” she cried.
He overtook her in half a dozen strides, and
throwing his arm about her shoulders, fairly swept
her along with himself. She came no higher than
his shoulders as she ran. Her eyes laughed up
at him, and her shining hair brushed his lips.
Aunty Landis was left hopelessly in the rear.
At the old pier, the waves, running far in beneath
the flooring, were breaking against the
ancient piles, while the structure complained in
// 109.png
every joint. The Wisp, tied stem and stern to
a string-piece, was plunging furiously.
“She seems to be all right,” said Fessenden,
“but I think I’ll put an extra half-hitch in each
of those lines.” He still steadied Betty against
the wind as he spoke. “It wouldn’t be pleasant
to be forced to go home in that excursion boat.”
Releasing his companion, reluctantly enough,
he made his way out on the wharf. She promptly
followed.
“Go back, child. The wind will blow you
away.”
“I’m—all—right,” she gasped as he bent over
the stern-line. “The rain will be here in a minute,
and we’ll need the rain-coats.” She sprang aboard
gaily.
“Come back!” he ordered. “I don’t believe
it’s safe, Betty.”
“Only a minute,” she called. She waved a
careless hand and dived into the cabin.
At that instant, a wave struck the Wisp on the
inboard quarter and heaved her strongly outward.
The stern-line held staunchly, but under the tremendous
strain the string-piece gave way like the
rotted punk it was, not a foot in front of
Fessenden.
// 110.png
“Betty!” he roared. “Betty!”
His cry stirred the heart of the girl within the
cabin, and brought her instantly onto the floor
of the cockpit. Before she could realize the
danger of the situation, the worst had occurred.
He was already kneeling at the forward line,
heaving hand over hand to haul the bow of the
Wisp alongside. The sloop was almost within
reach when another wave struck her. The line was
snatched from his fingers, and the yacht, flung to
the full length of the rope, carried away the
string-piece as before. The Wisp was adrift!
As the timber sank under his feet, Fessenden
clutched at a wharf stanchion. By a miracle, he
saved himself from going overboard.
As if recoiling from the freedom so suddenly
won, the Wisp took a slight sheer toward the
pier. The tide, running like a mill-race, swept
her broadside past Fessenden.
“Betty!”
The girl, her body lithe and alert, had been
steadying herself by the safety-rail of the cabin
roof. Her face had whitened at the sight of
Fessenden’s peril, but it was only now, in response
to his hoarse shout, that a sound escaped her.
“Bob White!” she cried, her arms suddenly
// 111.png
extended in piteous appeal. “Oh, Bob White!”
The watery space between the wharf and the
sloop was hopelessly wide, but, uttering an inarticulate
and despairing oath, he took two running
steps and leaped.
He struck fair on his feet on the very rail of
the Wisp, stood tottering, fought wildly for his
balance—and then Betty’s firm little hand plucked
him safely inboard.
“Thank you, Bob White,” she said.
There was no time to return even a smile in
answer. He gripped the wheel and gave the sloop
a sheer with the hope of beaching her outright.
But wind and wave caught her.
“Close the hatch!” he roared.
As it happened, the forward hatch-cover was
already in place. Betty snapped to the sliding
storm-door of the cabin barely in time. A sea
swept the Wisp from end to end, flattening Betty
against the side of the cabin, and nearly swamping
the yacht at a blow.
Fessenden was glad to escape by putting the
craft dead before the wind. Bare-poled as she
was, the Wisp fled southeastward like a frightened
thing. The rain, the clouds, and the night
overtook them together.
With a thrill, Fessenden felt a long, regular
// 112.png
swell suddenly begin to lift the battling yacht.
There was still enough of daylight to permit him
a sight of Betty’s pale little face.
“Betty,” he said, “don’t be frightened, but I’m
afraid we’re clear of the Capes. This feels like
the Atlantic.”
She made a staggering rush and reached the
lockers. There she sat down beside him as he
struggled with the wheel. The spray flew clear
over them again and again.
She laid her wet cheek an instant against his
arm. “The ocean?” she said. “I hope you
won’t be seasick, Bob White. I know I won’t.”
“You’re a trump,” he said.
// 113.png
.sp 4
.h2
IX
.sp 2
Now and then the sloop yawed alarmingly as
they ran before the wind.
“This won’t do,” said Fessenden. “I must
get some sail on to steady her. Do you think
you’re strong enough to hold the wheel, Betty?”
She gripped the spokes, her hands beneath his.
The quiet strength of his clasp comforted her
mind no less than her body,—in a moment she
nodded confidently.
Leaving the helm in her charge, Fessenden
literally crawled forward. Ordinarily, the jib was
handled by means of the sheet led aft through
a couple of small blocks to the helmsman, so that
one man could both sail and steer without moving
from his place. Now, however, the fierceness of
the wind impelled Fessenden to extra precautions
in his endeavor to make sail.
He took care to wrap the sheet twice about a
cleat before hoisting away, but as soon as the jib
// 114.png
rose above the low gunwale, the wind tore it from
the lower bolt-ropes, and it blew straight out,
held only by the bowsprit halliard.
He would have attempted to recover the ironed-out
sail by reaching for it with a boat-hook—a
foolhardy undertaking at any time—but
Betty, divining his intention as he showed black
against the whitening crest of the waves, screamed
so shrilly that he desisted. There was nothing
left for him to do but to make his way back to
the wheel.
“Child,” he said, “you’re wet through, and I’m
afraid we’ve a wetter time before us. There’s
no use in your staying out here to get soaked
every other minute. Go in the cabin, out of
harm’s way.”
“But you’re being soaked, too.”
“I’m a man.”
“I’ll stay with you.”
“No, you won’t. I can’t think of letting you
do that. Watch your chance and get inside there.
Slide the hatch-cover to, sharp, before any water
gets in.”
Rather to his surprise, she yielded, and dexterously
slipped into the cabin. Although her
presence had been more comfort to him than he
realized until she was gone, he bent his whole
// 115.png
attention to keeping the Wisp from broaching to,
which would have meant the end.
The worst of the rain-squall had passed, but
the night was as black as a wolf’s mouth. The
wind blowing half a gale, piled up the waves
behind the Wisp to a height that might well have
proved a menace to a craft three times her size.
Thanks to her tight-closed hatches and her sea-worthiness,
she shed water like a petrel, yet the
towering swell of the Atlantic might crush her
at any moment. If they fell an instant into the
trough of the sea, they were lost.
Fessenden contemplated the possibility of constructing
a sea-anchor. But whatever might
have been possible for an experienced seaman, his
nautical knowledge was too limited for him to
undertake the work.
And even if he could make and successfully
launch a sea-anchor, the most dangerous part of
the task would follow—that long and terrible
moment it would take for the sloop to swing round,
head on to the sea. The waves might roll her
over and over before he could even clasp Betty
in his arms. The risk was too great. He breathed
an inward prayer, and held the Wisp resolutely
before the wind.
He had three dangers to face—the ever-present
// 116.png
terror of being overtaken by the following sea,
the likelihood of being dashed against a hidden
coast in the black night, and the chance of being
run down by some merchantman or man-o’-war,
threshing through the dark.
Suddenly the cabin hatch snapped open and
shut again.
“Betty!”
“I’m going to stay with you.”
“Go back.”
“No. See, I’m wrapped up splendidly. And
here are oilskins for you.”
Indeed, a quaint figure she made of it, in a
rain-coat miles too big for her slender body, and
a sou’wester hat, somewhere discovered, fairly engulfing
her little head.
For the first time that night, he laughed boyishly.
“You dear child! You mustn’t stay,
though.”
“Put these on, Bob White. Perhaps you’ll
get dry underneath.”
Still keeping a controlling hand on the wheel,
he managed with Betty’s help to encase himself in
the fisherman’s oilskins she had found.
“Now, then,” he said, “you must go in.”
For answer, she seated herself beside him. “No,
I want to stay here. I’m afraid to be alone in
// 117.png
there—with you out here, and the dreadful black
water all about.”
“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”
“I’m going to stay.”
“You can’t, Betty. I order you to go in.”
“I won’t go.”
“Betty,” he cried in despair, “it will be better
for me if you’re out of the way. Don’t you
see?”
“No-o, I don’t.”
“You’ll be safer.”
“You know I won’t. You’re only trying to
make me comfortable, while you are left out here
in the cold and wet. Let me stay. If—if we
must be drowned, I want to be near you, Bob
White—please.”
There was no resisting this appeal. A thrill
of pity went through him as he looked down at
the slight form crouching under the all-too-low
gunwale. She should not die if he could prevent
it.
“Can you see the compass?” he asked. “How
are we heading?”
She rubbed a little of the brine from the binnacle-glass.
“Yes; now I see it. North is where
that mark is, isn’t it? Oh, I know—southwest
by south.”
// 118.png
“What? Look again.”
“That’s right. Sou’west by sou’.”
“Then the wind is shifting to the northeast.
Betty, we’re headed for Cape Hatteras.”
The dread name apparently produced no alarm
in the girl’s mind. “I’ve always wanted to be
in a storm off Hatteras.”
“Well, you’re likely to have your wish before
morning, if this gale keeps up.”
“If we reach Cape Hatteras in the dark like
this—abruptly—what will happen?”
“I fancy we’ll hurt Cape Hatteras’s feelings.”
“Oh!”
After a silence, he felt her hand touch his arm
as if she needed comfort.
“Poor little girl,” he said. “Don’t worry. I
won’t let anything hurt you.”
“I know. I’m—all right,”
“There’s plenty of ocean about Hatteras,” he
went on, rather to reassure her than because of
his belief in what he said. “We may not get
near the land. Even if we do, Pamlico Sound is
just behind it—there’s only a sort of stretched-out
island between the sound and the ocean. We
might slip right through an inlet into the Sunny
South.”
“It isn’t—very likely, is it?”
// 119.png
“It’s quite possible,” he maintained.
Presently, to his delight as well as to his surprise,
he heard a little crowing laugh.
“What is it?”
“Aunty Landis! Goodness! I never thought
of her until this minute. What will she do?”
“Go home on the excursion steamer, of course.
But she’ll have to stay all night at the hotel. The
steamer isn’t likely to risk crossing the bay during
this blow.”
“You don’t suppose she’ll think we’re drowned?
She may be in a terrible fright over us.”
“Oh, I hope not.”
Hour after hour wore on, and still the storm
drove them southward. All night Fessenden, in
a way that was afterward a marvel to himself,
fought a ceaseless battle with the sea and wind.
His hands were numb and his feet were like ice,
but he stood staunchly to his task.
In spite of his urgings, renewed from time to
time, Betty crouched beside him all night long.
She too was cold, colder even than he, for she
could not warm herself by action. Still she held
her post. Perhaps she knew that her presence
there was an inspiration to him as real as the
sight of the flag to the fighting soldier.
Toward morning the clouds broke overhead.
// 120.png
The stars began to shine through. Then, to the
relief of the Wisp’s crew, the wind began to fall,
and about dawn the waves had ceased to be
formidable.
“Betty,” said Fessenden joyfully, “I really
believe we’ve pulled through.”
“Hurrah!”
While she held the wheel, he managed to lay
hold of the now flapping jib, and to set it after
a fashion. This greatly steadied the sloop.
Then, at last, Betty consented to listen to his
persuasions to turn in in the cabin.
“We’re pretty well out of danger now,” he
declared, “Go in and rest, Betty. Take off those
dripping clothes—”
“Only steaming, please.”
“Amendment accepted! But take them off and
go to bed. I’m afraid you’ll be sick—and then
what should I do?”
“Will you promise to wake me in an hour?
You are the tired one. I’ve loafed all night.”
“I’ll wake you when I think it’s time to turn
the wheel over to you. I promise you that.”
“I’ll go to bed, then.”
“Good! And, Betty, light that oil range and
dry your clothes by it. Now, off with you,
quick!”
// 121.png
It was full daylight, although the sun was not
yet visible. For the first time in many hours
their faces were plain to each other’s view. Both
were pale with the long night’s exposure, but both
were smiling.
Betty lingered in the act of closing the cabin-hatch
upon herself. “You’ll be sure to wake me
soon?”
“Yes.”
“What a night we’ve had!”
“Rather lively, wasn’t it? I assure, I’m glad
to see you this morning.”
“I’m glad to see you. Oh, very glad!”
She closed the hatch gently behind her. No
sound of a sliding bolt followed—she trusted him
too innocently to lock the door against him.
For a while he heard her moving about, then
all was quiet. He pictured her tired little body
cuddled under the blankets while a grateful
warmth crept over her. He smiled to the gray
sea at the thought.
The wind and sea diminished rapidly. The sun
rose out of the waste to the east, and the last
of the foul weather fled before it. In an hour
or so he ventured to hoist the mainsail. The sloop
bore it well, and under it made swift progress
// 122.png
toward the southwest. Sooner or later, he knew
he must sight land in that direction.
Indeed, it was not yet ten o’clock when a remote
gray line took shape off the starboard bow.
He could not repress a shout of joy:
“Land! Land ho! Land!”
In a moment the cabin-hatch was opened wide
enough to let a sleepy voice be heard. “Did
you call me, Bob White?”
“I didn’t mean to wake you, child, but land’s
in sight.”
“Land? Oh, that’s good! But I must have
been sleeping for hours. You oughtn’t to have
let me be so selfish.”
“Not at all. You can do your trick at the
wheel whenever you’re ready, and I’ll turn in a
while.”
“I’ll be out in ten minutes—no, twenty, for
I’m going to get breakfast for you.”
“Breakfast!”
“Certainly. Do you think you can drink a
cup of hot coffee?”
“Jupiter Pluvius! Hot coffee? Alas, I must
be mad.”
“You’ll see,” she laughed. “In twenty
minutes.”
Indeed, it was not long before she again
// 123.png
appeared. “I’ve just come to say good-morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“De-li-ciously. I can only stay a minute—breakfast
is cooking. You poor man, you’re
still in your wet clothes, while I’m as dry as
toast.”
Her garments, down to her very shoes, spread
since dawn on the racks above the range, were
dry and even smoothed. Only the scarlet sash and
handkerchief were missing—the salt water had
ruined them.
The braid of shining hair no longer hung down
her back, but now encircled her head in heavy
coils, a new and charming arrangement. He was
vaguely conscious that it made her look strangely
mature, and endowed her with a mysterious
dignity.
“I haven’t been really wet for some time,”
he assured her. “If you’ll take charge, I’ll have
a look at the chart in the locker here. Perhaps
we can tell where we are.”
“I’m not at all sure,” he announced after a
brief study, “but I think we aren’t so far down
as Hatteras—the wind fell away very rapidly
toward the last. That may be the North Carolina
coast, though—Currituck Island, perhaps.
// 124.png
You know the sounds run Currituck, Albemarle,
and Pamlico.”
“I know the coffee must be boiled and the
ham broiled by this time. Take the wheel and
let the cook attend to her duties.”
She flatly refused to touch any breakfast until
he had eaten his fill and waited upon him in spite
of his protests. Never had broiled ham, hard
crackers, and marmalade tasted so good. And
the strong, hot coffee warmed his very soul.
“You wonder!” he said, as he presented the
tin cup for more. “Where did you get this
gorgeous dinner-set?”
“I found it among the pots and pans in the
galley. There’s quite an assortment your predecessor
left.”
“Oh, that coffee! You miracle of a child!”
Her eyes sparkled as she watched him swallow
a second cup. “What do you think of the cook?”
“I think the cook’s an angel.”
“Have you finished? Then to bed with you.”
“I’m off. Just hold the Wisp to the course
she’s on. Call me when you can make out the land
distinctly.”
He patted her benevolently upon the shoulder
and started forward. “Well, here goes the weary
sea-boy to his slumbers.”
// 125.png
She waved her hand as he descended the forecastle
ladder.
In a little while he slid back the overhead hatch
a foot or so and looked out. He was invisible
to the fair helmswoman, but the coils of her hair
shone just above the top of the cabin roof.
“I’m almost asleep,” he called. “Good-night,
Betty dear.”
He held his breath. Would the intimacy
wrought of the night’s peril and companionship
avail? An answer, low and very gentle, went with
him to his dreams.
“Good-night, Bob White—dear.”
// 126.png
.sp 4
.h2
X
.sp 2
When he awoke, it seemed to him that he had
slept a scant half-hour, but his watch, which had
come unscathed through the wettings of the
night, showed that mid-afternoon had come.
The Wisp rose and fell very gently, and he
thought with satisfaction that the sea must be
entirely calm.
In the tiny bath-room of the forecastle, he
revelled in a fresh-water bath. As he passed the
looking-glass, he surveyed his face ruefully. In
vain to lament his looming beard! A diligent
search failed to reveal the razor he had hoped
Danton’s boatman might have left.
It was only when fully dressed and engaged
in smoothing down his hair as best he could that
he became aware of a strange thing. There was
no sound of rippling water under the Wisp’s bow.
And then he realized that the gentle motion of
the sloop could not be caused by the rise and fall
// 127.png
of the Atlantic swell—a swell majestic even at
its calmest. The Wisp was not under way, but
was at anchor in quiet waters!
He ran up the ladder, shouting: “Betty! Betty!
What’s up?”
For his pains, he bumped his head on the half-closed
hatch-cover, and for answer to his call
heard—nothing. With another cry of “Betty!”
he leaped upon deck.
There was no Betty. In a quiet inlet the Wisp
was lying alongside a float connected by a plank
to a pebbly beach. A tongue of land separated
the harbor from the outer ocean. At a little distance
on this sandy tract appeared a straggling
group of houses, and anchored near the Wisp was
a steam yacht, a pretty craft all white and gold.
All this he took in at a glance. A second disclosed
a note pinned to the hatch-cover. He had
it open in short order.
.pm letter-start
Boatswain Bob:
I couldn’t bear to wake you. A man who helped me
make fast the Wisp says this is Currituck Sound, and the
city (?) is Kitty Hawk. I’ve gone to get some things.
Be sure your clothes are dry.
.rj
Nancy Lee, A.B.
.pm letter-end
Kitty Hawk was on the chart—of so much he
was certain—and he guessed that it contained a
// 128.png
shop to supply its needs. He determined to purchase
some sadly needed apparel for himself. In
the shop, too, he would be certain to find Betty.
Still a little languid from his experiences of the
night, he strolled leisurely along the sandy path.
The day was clear and pleasantly warm. On his
left the sun glinted upon the now kindly sea, and
on his right the seagulls shrieked and fought
above the waters of the sound. And presently
he would see Betty.
He entered the village. The few people he met
greeted him with a stare of frank curiosity, a
stare generally followed by a friendly nod.
As he had anticipated, he soon came upon a
building bearing a sign:
.sp 1
.nf c
BAZAAR. DRYGOODS AND GROCERIES.
POST-OFFICE.
.nf-
.sp 1
In front of it a wooden bench extending along
the sidewalk, and three or four lank loungers
thereupon, furnished irrefutable proof that the
centre of Kitty Hawk’s business activities was at
hand.
He remembered that he had not had a sight
of Betty for five hours, and he pushed open the
door of the “Bazaar” eager to see again the
roguish mouth.
// 129.png
To his disappointment, she was not in the shop.
However, the proprietor, a sandy-haired native
inclining to corpulency, was prompt to supply his
needs, nor was he backward in answering Fessenden’s
question as to whether or not he had seen a
young woman in a white sailor-suit.
“You-all are off the sloop ’at come in jest aftah
the big yacht, I reckon. Yes, suh, yoah wife’s
jest been heah.”
“My wife!”
He could have bitten his tongue off the next
instant, for the man gave him a sharp, not to
say suspicious, look.
“Yes. The young lady’s yoah wife, I reckon,
suh. Her and you-all come togethah, didn’t yo’?”
“Yes—no—that is—” stammered Fessenden.
The shopkeeper stopped in the act of wrapping
the assortment of haberdashery and razors Fessenden
had picked out.
“It ain’t my way to quawl with good money,”
he said, “but I’m a professin’ Baptist, and I’m
obliged to say if yo’ two folks have come sailin’
round these parts ’ithout bein’ lawfully married—well”—he
sighed regretfully—“then, suh, you-all
can’t buy nothin’ in my stoah.”
But by this time Fessenden had recovered his
// 130.png
wits. “No, no, man,” he said. “You don’t understand.
She’s my daughter.”
“Oh, yoah daughtah? Then it’s all right, of
co’se. Yes, suh, I can see now she does favah
you-all a heap.” Although desirous of being convinced,
his suspicions still lingered. “But you-all
are a pretty young-lookin’ fathah, that’s a fact,
suh.”
“Forty isn’t very young,” returned Fessenden
mendaciously. “Which way did you say she
went?”
“Why, she met some of yoah friends from the
big yacht. They was in aftah theyah mail.
They-all went out togethah. Yoah friends beat
you-all consid’abul, didn’t they?”
His friends on the big yacht? What was the
fellow talking about? Fessenden repressed a half-uttered
question. No need to reawaken the man’s
slumbering suspicions as to the character of himself
and Betty! He settled his bill, and left the
“Bazaar,” bundle in hand.
The shopkeeper’s talk had stirred him profoundly.
Betty? Good Lord! For the first time
he saw how others might look upon their enforced
cruise together. She was almost a child, true;
but was she near enough to childhood to be beyond
the breath of scandal? This was a devilish mess!
// 131.png
He could not bear to think of himself in such
a light. Far less could he patiently endure that
through any fault of his—yet his fault was only
his presence—her name should be blackened. What
could he do? His feet lagged as he pondered,
his head hanging.
He knew that Aunty Landis must have borne
the news of their disaster to Sandywood. What
would thoughtless Polly Cresap say when she
learned that he and the farmer’s pretty daughter
were not drowned after all? And impertinent
Harry Cleborne? How would Madge Yarnell
judge him? With brooding scorn, perhaps. As
for Charlie Danton—Fessenden could picture all-too-clearly
his bitter smile, the scar-line twitching
the corner of his mouth. By God! he would
suffer no sneer from Danton.
He wondered if any of the villagers had conveyed
to Betty, even by a look, the suspicions that accursed
shopkeeper had thrust upon him! He
would find her at once. His presence might act as
some sort of shield for her.
Conscious that some one blocked his way, he
glanced up sharply. Charlie Danton stood before
him—Danton, not sneering, not even smiling, but
watching him very gravely.
// 132.png
.sp 4
.h2
XI
.sp 2
So near had Danton been to Fessenden’s
thoughts that he was able instantly to connect
the Baltimorean’s presence with the shopkeeper’s
talk of the people from the steam yacht. He was
the first to speak.
“Where’s Betty?”
“She’s with my wife—on the West Wind.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes. I was married two days ago.”
“Danton! You—married? You’re joking, old
man.”
“Not in the least. I was married last Sunday—to
Madge Yarnell.”
“Madge Yarnell! What!”
“Is Mrs. Charles Danton,” said the other.
Fessenden was too dumfounded to do aught but
stare. His friend slipped an arm through his and
turned him about.
“There’s room for us on the bench there. Let’s
// 133.png
talk it over. Madge and Betty are doing the same
down in the sand-hills now.”
Fessenden yielded without a word, and they
seated themselves on the bench.
Danton was a man under thirty years. He was
slight and pale, and had much of the abrupt
manner of that ancestor who had come to Baltimore
in the train of Jerome Bonaparte, and who,
like his master, had found a wife there.
“You’re really married?” said Fessenden. “By
Jove! I can’t get over it. To Madge Yarnell,
too. Then what in the world has become of—of—ah—”
“Of a certain other lady?” appended his
friend with perfect coolness. “I don’t blame you
for wondering about her. But never mind now.
I want to tell you about my wedding. It was
unique in the history of the Chesapeake, I promise
you.” His laugh had a ring of heartiness that
surprised his listener. “Tom,” he went on, “I’ll
be frank with you. I’ve been in more than one
crooked path in my time, but I’m through with
that sort of thing. Thank Heaven!”
The other’s amazement found expression. “I
swear I don’t know you. What’s come over you?”
“Love,” said Danton simply. “Madge’s love,
and all that it means. She says she has told you
// 134.png
of that tearing down the flag matter last year.
That proved to me and to her that I owned her—I’d
known for a long time that she owned me,
you understand—but after that affair she sent
me away, and I, in revenge, went after—I
was a cad, I know. Well, I hope I’ll never be
again.”
“About your wedding, old man?”
“I’m coming to that—and I’ll skip the long
story between. Last Saturday, after Madge met
you and Betty on the road, she galloped to Sandywood
Station, and sent me a reply to the wire I’d
sent you.”
“A bit cool, that.”
“I’ve got it my pocket now. Here!” He
read the bluish slip, smiling faintly the while.
.pm letter-start
.nf l
Charles Danton
The Club, Baltimore.
.nf-
Impossible to come, but understand. She promises to
be West Wind eight o’clock Sunday night, ready.
.pm letter-end
“Hum! What did that mean?”
“It meant that I thought I understood. I
thought that you had discovered the—the Other
Lady, in the farmhouse where she was hiding
from me. I believed she’d told you to tell me she
was ready—at last. I’d had the Wisp stored for
that very reason, you know, and then shifted to the
// 135.png
West Wind because it was larger and more seaworthy,
in case she wanted to go right across to
Gibraltar.”
“Was it as near a thing as that?”
“No matter now. The result of the telegram
was that I was at Polocoke landing and aboard the
West Wind by eight o’clock Sunday night. I
give you my word I never dreamed of a trick—who
would?”
“I don’t see——”
“You will in a moment. My skipper, Williams,
met me as I came aboard. ‘She’s below, sir,’ he
said, ‘and gave orders we were to put to sea just
as soon as you turned up.’ Faithful soul! He
didn’t know he’d been tricked either—doesn’t know
it yet, for that matter. He’d run away with the
Queen of India if he thought I wanted it done.
‘Right,’ I told him. ‘Shove off, and go full speed
as soon as you’re clear.’ With that, I dived down
into the main cabin. She wasn’t there, and I
looked into my stateroom. I couldn’t see her
there either, so I stepped to the inner stateroom—the
two connect, you understand—where I thought
she must be.”
He smiled soberly at Fessenden’s interested face.
“Tom,” he said, “every word I’m telling you is
for your soul’s good. It’s all the truth, but it’s
// 136.png
a parable, too—for you. Well, as I reached the
doorway between the two rooms, somebody seized
both my elbows from behind. By George! She’s
as strong as a man.”
“What! Not——”
“Yes, Madge.”
“Great Scott! I begin to have a glimmer.”
“I had just time to see that it was Madge
before she pushed me inside—into the inner room—and
slammed the door behind me. It locked
with a spring.”
“She was outside?”
“Yes, in my room. I was inside that.”
“I understand.”
“Precisely. I fancy I don’t need to tell you
much more. I was a prisoner in my own yacht,
and that yacht headed full speed down the bay,
my men acting upon what they thought were my
own orders. A lovely girl was in my room. I
was as much separated from her as if I were in
the moon, but my own crew couldn’t know that,
and neither could the world.”
“She’s a heroine.”
“She is—the most adorable in the world! She
talked to me through the closed door. What she
said—well, that’s only for her and me. I saw at
// 137.png
last what a mad fool I’d been. Then—then she
threw herself on my mercy.”
“You seem to have played the man.”
“She’d make a man of a snake! I saw myself
in my true light at last; and I understood her at
last. God bless her!”
“Amen!”
“We ran on down to Old Point Comfort, and
the chaplain at the fort married us that same
night.”
The two men shook hands.
“After we left Old Point,” went on Danton,
“we cruised about a bit, got mussed up by the
storm, and ran in here. And then you—you and
Betty appeared.”
His emphasis brought a penetrating look from
Fessenden.
“You said you were telling me a parable. You
don’t mean—surely you can’t—Betty!”
“I do.”
“Do you dare to think——”
“I don’t think anything. What I say is that
my case furnishes a parallel to yours.”
“Speak out, man! What! You mean you
think I ought to marry her?”
“Well, then—yes.”
“Good God! Marry Betty!”
// 138.png
“Yes.”
Fessenden rose abruptly to his feet and walked
away a few paces. He stared unseeingly across
the stretch of sand to the sea beyond.
A hundred images of Betty flitted before his
mind’s eye—images graceful and smiling, sad and
gay, merry and serious, always infinitely winsome.
Her voice sounded in his ear—teasing, angry,
kind—always low-toned and charming.
He faced Danton. “Marry her? I’ve been
wanting to do that very thing since the first
minute I saw her—only, I didn’t know it.”
His friend’s face shone with relief and
pleasure. He broke into a boyish laugh.
“Great!” he said. “You’re the right sort,
Tom. I knew it, and I told Madge so.”
Fessenden could not respond to the other’s
mood. “All very well. But what will Betty
say?”
“Ask her.”
“I intend to. But is she old enough—is she
in a position—to understand?”
“I tell you, yes.”
“And I tell you I’m very doubtful. A mere
child, a country girl, ignorant of the world,
ignorant, perhaps, of what marriage means! It’s
// 139.png
a hard position for me, and it may be worse—it
may be horrible—for her.”
“Ask her,” repeated Danton. “Look there!”
He levelled his walking-stick. “Do you see the
dunes there—the second hill? Somewhere beyond
that you’ll find Madge and Betty.”
Without another word, Fessenden pulled his cap
over his eyes and strode off.
He skirted the first hillock, and on its farther
side came abruptly upon Madge Danton. She
gave him a warm hand. Her eyes had lost their
defiant look; rather, it seemed to him, they included
the world in their gentle glance.
“You’ll find her beyond the next hill,” she
said.
“You’ve talked to her—as Danton talked to
me?”
“Yes. She understands—her position. I know
I don’t need to warn you to be—careful.”
“No, no.”
He did not find Betty beyond the next hill,
nor the next. But, hastening down the hollow
ways, he almost stumbled over her at last—on a
sunny slope above the sea.
She looked up at him, her eyes as clear as
crystal. “Hello, Boatswain Bob!”
The greeting steadied him immeasurably. He
// 140.png
knew that not so much what he should say in
the next few minutes, as how he should say it,
might determine the course of their lives. He
longed with all his strength to be given a divine
tact and a divine gift of speech.
He threw himself on the sand at a respectful
distance. “Hello, Nancy Lee!”
Thanks to Kitty Hawk’s “Bazaar,” a scarlet
ribbon again shone at Betty’s throat. Her hair
was as he had last seen it—coiled superbly about
her head. Again he felt the air of dignity and
aloofness of which the coiled hair seemed the
symbol.
Fessenden’s eyes, quiet and tender, met her own,
his glance as clear as hers.
“Betty,” he said, very simply, “we’ve been
through a lot together, and I want you to marry
me. Will you? Don’t think I’m asking you because
of any chivalrous fancy. I want you because
I love you, and for nothing else in the
world.” His own words fired him. “Dearest,
I’ve loved you since the first minute I saw you.
You know that—in the bottom of your heart, you
know that’s true.”
Her eyes, which at first had met his unwaveringly,
quailed a little. The red crept slowly into
her cheeks.
.il id=i08 fn=illus141.jpg w=365px link=illus141-full.jpg
.ca ALL THE CHIVALRY IN FESSENDEN’S NATURE STIRRED AT HER WORDS
“I’m only a—a country girl,” she said. “And
you’re the famous Mr. Thomas Fessenden. I
didn’t know your real name until Madge told
me, you know.”
“Will you marry me, Betty?”
She eyed him soberly. “Madge said I must
say yes, if you asked me.”
“You poor child! Don’t mind what she says.
I want you to love me, if you can.”
“I like you thoroughly, Bob White.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all—I’m sorry,” she answered gravely.
“To marry a man, and not to love him, would be—horrible.”
All the chivalry in Fessenden’s nature stirred
at her words. His clenched hands sank to the
wrists in the soft sand, and his voice shook a
little as he answered:
“Not if—if we marry, and still remain only—friends.”
Her glance searched his soul. “O-oh! Can
you—mean what you say?”
“I give you my word of honor. Do you remember
that night—good heavens! was it only
last Friday?—that night I had supper at your
house, and what I told you when you looked as if
// 144.png
you were willing to say good-night in a certain
way?”
“I remember.”
“Well, I’ll stick by that.”
She rose to her feet.
“You haven’t answered me yet,” he protested.
Her face flushed exquisitely. “There’s a
church in Kitty Hawk,” she said. “And I believe
a minister comes over from the mainland once
a month. Madge says he is due—to-morrow.”
// 145.png
.sp 4
.h2
XII
.sp 2
They were married in the little Kitty Hawk
church at noon the next day.
Before the hour of the wedding came, certain
matters had been attended to. Letters had
been written in time to catch the launch which
would return with the minister from Kitty Hawk
to the mainland. The clothing stock of the
“Bazaar” had been materially reduced by the
demands both Betty and Fessenden had made
upon it. The Wisp had been loaded with everything
in the way of food, water, and utensils, that
could be needed for a fortnight’s cruise.
“Why bother with the sloop?” Danton had
demanded. “There’s plenty of room on the West
Wind. We can all go honeymooning together,
eh, Madge? Over to Bermuda, if you like.”
To Fessenden’s infinite relief, Betty had declined
this well-meant offer. “No, thank you,”
she had said, blushing a little. “After to-night,
// 146.png
I’ll go back to the dear little Wisp—where I’ll
belong, you know. Bob White is going to take
me down through the sounds, and then back
through the Dismal Swamp, home.”
Madge and Danton, supplemented by the entire
crew of the West Wind, were the witnesses at the
wedding.
It seemed to Fessenden that Betty’s eyes were
bluer than the sea that broke on the inlet bar,
and the light in them more mysterious and wonderful.
She looked a fair and innocent child.
He answered the minister’s questions, and even
signed the marriage certificate, in a sort of daze,
a daze from which he roused himself only after
they had eaten the wedding breakfast on the
West Wind, and having boarded the Wisp, were
waving farewell to the others across the water.
Betty serenely assumed command. “I’ll take
the wheel, Boatswain Bob,” she said, “and you
get up sail.”
He cast off from the float, and set jib, flying
jib, and mainsail in a trice. As the sloop gathered
headway, the helmswoman stood under the
stern of the larger yacht.
“Good-by, good-by, children,” called Danton
patronizingly.
// 147.png
“Bon voyage, children,” chorused Madge.
“Be sure to love each other.”
“Good-by, old married people,” retorted
Fessenden.
The Wisp stood wing-and-wing down the
sound. Fessenden lounged at his ease beside the
charming captain.
“Betty,” he said, “has it yet occurred to you
that you are really my wife?”
She gave him a swift, half-frightened glance.
“No-o. I haven’t really had much time to think
about it, you know.”
“Just now it came over me in a sort of wave.
If you don’t object, I’ll call you ‘dear’ occasionally,
simply to assure myself it’s true.”
“Whenever you like,” she returned politely.
“Dear!”
“Oh! That’s rather—pronounced, isn’t it?”
“Very well pronounced. Very pleasant to
pronounce, in fact.”
She sat down trustfully beside him, a guiding
hand on the wheel. “Do you know, Bob White,
I’ve often thought it would be delightful to sail
like this with a ra-ther good-looking—comrade?”
“Am I the man, may I ask?”
“You are.”
“Thank you—dear. And do you know that
// 148.png
for the last two or three days I’ve been thinking
I’d give my hope of salvation to sail like this with
Betty Landis?”
She gave him another quick glance. “With
whom?”
“I mean with Betty Fessenden, of course.”
“O-oh!”
“I’m dreaming now of sailing on and on with
her. The other night I dreamed that she put
‘dear’ after my name, and that if we could only
sail and sail long enough she might do it again.”
His half-closed lids hid the warmth in his eyes,
but his voice shook with the passion he struggled
to control. She shrank a little.
“You needn’t,” he said. “Please don’t. You
can trust me absolutely. I—I was merely dreaming,
you know.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Bob White—dear.
Trust you? My presence here shows that I do—you
know that.” Her fingers touched his hair so
fleetingly that he hardly dared believe she had
meant it for a caress.
Presently she relinquished the wheel to him and
took his place among the cushions.
He noticed how round her throat was, and
how deliciously white. The rose-tipped chin and
red mouth held him fascinated, until the glint
// 149.png
of bayonets in the eyes warned him to control
his glances.
“You’re the most adorable skipper I ever saw,”
he declared.
“I’ve a confession to make, Boatswain.”
“Confess then, Nancy Lee.”
“My ankle wasn’t hurt that day in the brook.
I didn’t really stumble.”
“What!”
She nodded contritely. “No. I did it on purpose.
Wasn’t it perfectly shameless?”
“I’ve had a far-away feeling that you made
a miraculous recovery from that strain. But
why did you pretend?”
“Just as a game. I wanted to see what the—the
good-looking stranger would do.”
“You found out.”
“Goodness, yes, didn’t I!” They laughed together
at the thought.
“Madge and Charlie Danton,” she went on—“do
you think they’re really in love? I mean,
do you think their love will last?”
“Don’t you?”
“Ye-es, I do. She has just enough esprit de
diable to hold him. It is ‘infinite variety’ that
pleases him, I fancy, and Madge is twenty women
in one.”
// 150.png
“You’re a philosopher. By the way, where
did you learn French? Do they teach that in the
‘little red-roofed schoolhouse’ in Maryland?”
“Haven’t I told you about my teacher? And
I went to a very good school in Baltimore, if
you please.”
“That reminds me that I know hardly anything
about my own wife—only that her name
was Betty Landis. You once told me that your
mother was well-connected, Betty. Who was
she?”
The mainsail sheet, which she had been carelessly
handling, at that moment slipped through
her fingers, and the boom went flying out. He
was barely able to keep the sloop from jibing.
“Be careful, child,” he warned. “Take a
turn or two around that cleat there.”
“Bob White,” she said, when affairs were
again in order, “I’ve been thinking—of what you
must be giving up in marrying me. I don’t mean
only your bachelor freedom, although I know
that’s precious to a man. But you are giving
up—everything.”
“I’m lucky to get the chance.”
“Perhaps I’ve spoiled your career.”
“Nonsense!”
“It may not be nonsense. You are a man of
// 151.png
a different world from the country one you found
me in. It was only an hour ago we were married,
but I can see already that I was perfectly mad
and unutterably selfish to let you sacrifice yourself
for me. A braver girl—a better girl—wouldn’t
have cared what silly society might say.
I was wicked to marry you!”
“Tut! tut!”
“I’m perfectly serious—miserably serious.”
“Then I’ll be serious, too. I admit that you
and I ought to be different, but we aren’t. I
don’t know why it should be so, dear, but we both
‘belong.’ We’re the same sort. You must feel
it as well as I.”
All that golden afternoon they sailed, and all
the afternoon they talked. Her mind played with
a hundred fancies, grave and gay, and Fessenden
heard her with delight, and with ever-renewed
wonder. She seemed to him a sort of Admirable
Crichton, possessing heaven-sent intuition of all
that was rare and charming and useful.
At dusk they lowered all sail, let go the anchor,
and made the sloop secure for the night.
Then, with his respectful help, Betty cooked
the dinner, and served it on a camp-table in the
cockpit.
That dinner was Olympian. A sirloin steak,
// 152.png
deliciously broiled—“I intend to give you a
man’s dinner,” she had declared; French fried
potatoes, as hot as the flames they came hissing
from; coffee, as clear as amber; and fresh tea-biscuits
which one was allowed to dip in Kitty
Hawk honey.
When the dinner things had been cleared away,
they sat under the stars and watched the lights
twinkle here and there from lonely cabins along-shore.
Now and then Betty’s fingers strayed
over the guitar she had borrowed from the West
Wind. The light breeze sighed an answer through
the cypress and tamarack trees of the swampy
cape near-by.
Betty pointed dreamily shoreward. “The
‘swampers’ down here are a wild lot. During the
war my uncle was attacked by them—on the way
down to his district.”
“His district?”
“He commanded the Eastern Military District
of North Carolina, you know, and—and—”
She broke off abruptly. “Oh, dear! My foot’s
asleep—terribly! Will you put a cushion under
it for me?”
“One minute,” he said. “I don’t quite make
this out. If your uncle commanded a military
district here during the war, he must have been
// 153.png
a Federal general, a man of distinction, yet
you—”
“My foot’s asleep, and prickles dreadfully.”
“Just a moment.” She could feel the growing
fixedness of his glance. “I—remember—this sort
of thing has happened before. On the island—Rincoteague—when
I asked you what you knew
about Madge Yarnell, you suddenly discovered
that it was raining. This morning, too, something
was said about your mother, and somehow
the sail got adrift at that very moment. You
had hold of it. And just now your foot falls
asleep in the nick of time. Betty, I don’t like
this sort of thing! I’ve had enough confidence
in you to marry you—to marry you very much
in the dark. Isn’t it fair you should have confidence
in me, a little?”
She was listening with half-averted face and a
smile that baffled him.
As he watched her, a score of confusing recollections
rushed through his mind like fiery phantoms:
Madge Yarnell’s recognition of the envelope
received from White Cottage; her determined
effort to accompany him thither the next day; her
theatric assault upon them, whip in hand, on the
road from Jim George’s—even yet he found it
// 154.png
hard to believe that they had narrowly escaped a
tragedy!
Harry Cleborne, Fessenden had then imagined,
had warned him against his pursuit of an innocent
country girl, and had puzzled him by obscure
reference to another man, and on top of this had
denied all knowledge of Betty Landis.
He recalled a hundred reticences and reservations
on the part of Betty, natural enough at
the time, but now possessed of a disturbing significance.
Her knowledge of the world; her voice
and bearing; the words she had let slip of her
mother, of her Baltimore friends and school, of
her uncle, the Union general! What did these
things mean?
Light began to break upon him. Madge had
not pressed upon them that day because she had
discovered only him where she had expected to
find Danton. Cleborne had really babbled of
Danton and the Other Lady. Danton himself, in
their talk on the beach at Kitty Hawk, had said
that the Other had been in seclusion—hiding from
his pursuit of her—in a farmhouse on the Eastern
Shore.
He towered over Betty in sudden fury. “What!
What is all this? Who are you? Who are you,
I say?”
// 155.png
The smile died from the girl’s lips, and she
shrank before his white face and fierce eyes.
Shame and rage so choked him that his words
were almost incoherent, but they were the more
terrible for that. She cowered away from him to
the very limits of the gunwale.
“Oh, please!” she said. “Don’t! Don’t! Oh,
please!”
The tenderness he had lately felt for her came
over him in a wave as he looked down at the
shrinking figure.
“I—I beg your pardon,” he said. “I lost my
head. Don’t be afraid—it’s all over now. I beg
your pardon.”
Without another word or look he turned and
sought his room in the forecastle.
Half an hour later, as he lay staring into
the darkness, he heard a muffled beat, as of a
drum. Betty was playing her guitar in her room.
Gradually the drum-beat increased and quickened
until it grew into a continuous roll, a throbbing
cadence that thrilled through and through
him. The roar of the wind and the mutter of the
sea were in the shattering roll of the drum.
At the very height of its clamor—while he
strove in vain to catch its meaning—it passed abruptly
into silence. He was left staring into the dark.
// 156.png
.sp 4
.h2
XIII
.sp 2
Toward midnight, the girl lying wakeful in
the after cabin heard a tap at the door.
“Betty, are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be frightened, but I think there may
be a little excitement out here pretty soon.”
“What is it?”
“Some of the ‘swampers’ up to a bit of thieving,
I fancy.”
“I’ll be out in a moment, Bob White.”
She found him, clad only in shirt and trousers,
leaning against the side of the cabin, and staring
shoreward. She divined his frank smile, and
smiled in return.
“Thieves?” she asked in a whisper.
“I’m almost sure of it,” he answered in the
same tone. “I heard a boat bump against the
side of the Wisp a few minutes ago. I think they
were drifting down with the tide to reconnoitre,
// 157.png
and were swept in closer than they had expected
to be.”
“Have you a pistol?”
“On the locker there. Lucky Danton lent me
one of his. You aren’t afraid?”
“Not—with you.”
“I dare say they won’t come back. Listen
now! See if you can make out anything to starboard.
I’ll watch on this side.”
The night was very dark. The stars were obscured
by light clouds, nor was there a moon
visible. Their eyes could penetrate the darkness
little farther than the rails where a whitish mist
hid the surface of the water.
Betty gazed intently. A sidelong glance
showed her Fessenden kneeling on the locker opposite
her, his half-bared arms folded on his chest.
His powerful form gave her a comforting sense of
protection. She stared again to starboard.
From the mist two great hands gripped the
rail of the sloop! Then a face—the face of a
negro—rose into view, a knife gripped in his
teeth. So impossible, so barbaric, did the apparition
seem, that for a long breath Betty stared
spell-bound.
Then her scream whirled Fessenden about. He
crossed the cockpit at a bound, and struck
// 158.png
savagely at the negro’s jaw. The latter ducked
with the skill of a trained boxer. Throwing up a
hand, he caught the other by the throat, dragging
him forward.
Fessenden struck again, grappled with his antagonist,
tottered, and plunged headforemost over
the rail upon him. Both went down struggling
wildly.
Betty snatched up the revolver, hardly knowing
what she did, and stared down upon the boiling
water.
Fessenden’s ghastly face, his groping fingers,
his throat from which stood up the handle of
the recking knife! The possibility of these things
strained her mind to the breaking point. A horror
of what the loss of him would mean to her drew
a piercing cry:
“Bob White! Oh, Bob White!”
As if summoned by the sound, the two men
rose into view—a yard apart. Betty fired on
the instant. The shot went wild, but the negro,
for the first time aware that firearms were at hand,
dived deep. They saw him but once again, his
head a black spot in the mist as he swam frenziedly
for his drifting punt.
Her shaking hands helped Fessenden over the
rail.
// 159.png
“You—that dreadful knife!—you aren’t
hurt?”
“I knocked that out of his mouth the first
thing. A couple of teeth along with it! But the
fellow can swim like an alligator—he would have
drowned me at his leisure, if you hadn’t fired.
Thank you, child.” He patted her shoulder.
“The row must have been rather rough on you.”
“It doesn’t matter—so long as you’re safe.”
“It’s all right. Well, that ‘swamper’ won’t
bother us any more to-night, I’ll swear—so I’ll
get out of these wet togs. Lucky they’re the
flannels I borrowed from Danton.”
She reached both hands to his dripping
shoulders. “Tom! Tom! I want to talk to
you.” She was laughing, yet half in tears. “Oh,
it’s ridiculous—it’s pitiful to think we are husband
and wife, and—and you don’t even know
my real name.”
He stared down at her. A slow tremor shook
him. “Then you admit—that I don’t?”
“I know you don’t, you—you silly boy! Go
and change your clothes. Then come back and
talk to me. Come soon!”
In a wonderfully short time he rejoined her.
Only his damp hair showed his late struggle with
// 160.png
the robber, but his very quietness betrayed his
emotion.
She was awaiting him on the cushioned locker,
a lighted reading-lamp beside her.
“Sit down here,” she said. “Close! You
needn’t be afraid of me. I—oh, I’ve a hundred
things to say to you!”
“Good. It was thoughtful of you to bring out
that lamp. I can see your face better while you
talk.”
“And I yours—you dear boy.”
“Betty! Be careful what you say. I’ve got
myself pretty well in hand, but I can’t stand much
of that sort of thing.”
She laughed deliriously. “I brought the lamp
to let you read something.” She produced an
official-looking document. “Look at this. Do
you know what it is?”
He peered at it. “No-o. Yes, of course. It’s
our marriage certificate, isn’t it?”
“It is. Mr. Thomas Fessenden, do you realize
that you signed that document some twelve hours
ago and didn’t even read the name just above
your own?”
“Above mine? That must be your name,
Betty!”
“Of course, silly boy. But you haven’t yet
// 161.png
seen it. You were so excited that you may have
married an Abiatha Prudence or a Mary Ann, for
all you know.”
He gave her a penetrating glance, then snatched
up the lamp and held it so that its rays fell full
upon the certificate.
Just above his own signature was another in
a feminine hand: “Roland Elizabeth Cary.”
He repeated it stupidly, “Roland Elizabeth
Cary.”
She nodded, blushing hotly.
“You?”
“Yes—please.”
“Not Landis?”
“She was my old nurse. I’ve always called
her Aunty Landis.”
“Roland Cary that they all talked about! Not
a man, but you?”
“Are you awfully disappointed? I was named
after my great-uncle, General Roland Cary.”
“Great Scott! Polly Cresap said Roland Cary
was charming. Mrs. Dick Randall told me that
he—no, that Roland Cary was a ‘dee-vil.’ Cresap
quite raved over—over Roland Cary. I’ve been
as blind as an owl!”
“It was wicked of me to fool you so long, but
// 162.png
it was such a joke. All my cousins always call
me Roland Cary, as if it were my only name.”
“Then you’re Elizabeth Cary—the Miss Cary
of Baltimore that people made such a fuss about
when you came out last year—‘the’ Cary of
‘the’ Carys?”
“I suppose I am.”
“I hope you’ll give me credit for never believing
that you were an ordinary person.”
“Yes, I do.”
“But why did you do it—masquerade in the
Landis farmhouse? I remember somebody said
‘Roland Cary’ had ‘notions.’”
“I did it to be near a friend—to have a chance
to shelter a friend without attracting notice. A
woman—the Other—the one that Charlie
Danton—”
“O-oh! It must have been she Cleborne saw
at the window—and I thought he was warning me
about you!”
“I kept her out of harm’s way—really in hiding.
I didn’t know how it would all end, but it
did end perfectly.”
“You mean that Madge Yarnell ran away with
Charlie Danton, and solved the problem?”
“Not only that. The very night before our
elopement—yours and mine—she received a letter,
// 163.png
a dear letter, from her husband. They’d been on
the point of making it up for weeks. You see,
nothing impossible had occurred.”
“I see.”
He had put down the lamp so suddenly that
the light had flickered out. The mist was gone,
and the velvety blackness stretched unbroken from
shore to shore. Far down the sound, the red rim
of the moon was rising from the water.
“Child,” he said, “for a young woman of
your position you have married in a very reckless
and off-hand way.”
“I knew you were—real. I knew I could trust
you.”
He gave a short laugh. “Thank you. But
if we’re going up and down this weary world in—in
this fashion, forever, I think I’ll soon begin
to wish that the ‘swamper’ had put his knife
into my heart.”
She caught him tenderly by the chin. “Oh,
Bob White! If you had never come back to me—out
of that black water!”
He trembled from head to foot. “Betty!”
“I know—I know. Dear—will you kiss me?”
“For God’s sake, Betty! You don’t know
what you’re saying. After all, we’re husband
and wife—a kiss between you and me can’t be
// 164.png
play any longer. It means—it must mean—everything.”
She leaned toward him, her eyes exquisitely
tender.
“I know, dear,” she said. “Must I ask you
again? Will—will you kiss me?”
.sp 2
.ce
The End.