The Yacht Club; or, The Young Boat-Builder by Oliver Optic (important books to read txt) 📗
- Author: Oliver Optic
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"Who set her afire?" replied Laud, in rather hollow tones.
"You did, you miserable spindle-shanks!"
"I didn't set her afire, Don John," protested Laud.
"Yes, you did! I can prove it, and I will prove it, too."
"You are excited, Don John. You don't know what you are talking about."
"I think I do, and I'll bet you'll understand it, too, if there is any law left in the State of Maine."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean what I say, and say what I mean."
"I haven't been near the Maud."
"Yes, you have! Didn't I see you sneaking across the wharf? Didn't I see your mainsail alongside the pier? You can't humbug me. I know a[232] pint of soft soap from a pound of cheese," rattled Donald, who could talk very fast when he was both excited and enraged; and Laud's tongue was no match for his member.
"I tell you, I haven't been near the Maud."
"Don't tell me! I saw it all; I have two eyes that I wouldn't sell for two cents apiece; and I'll put you over the road at a two-forty gait."
Laud saw that it was no use to argue the point, and he held his peace, till the boat-builder had exhausted his rhetoric, and his stock of expletives.
"What did you do it for, Laud?" asked he, at last, in a comparatively quiet tone.
"I have told you a dozen times I didn't do it," replied the accused. "You talk so fast I can't get a word in edgeways."
"It's no use for you to deny it," added Don John.
"Do you think I'd burn your yacht?"
"Yes, I do; and I know you tried to do it. If I hadn't been over by the shop, you would have done it."
"I didn't do it, I repeat. Do you think I would lie about it? Do you think I have no sense of honor about me!"[233]
"Confound your honor!" sneered Donald.
"Don't insult me. When you assail my honor, you touch me in a tender place."
"In a soft place, and that's in your head."
"Be careful, Don John. I advise you not to wake a sleeping lion."
"A sleeping jackass!"
"I claim to be a gentleman, and my honor is my capital stock in life."
"You have a very small capital to work on, then."
"I warn you to be cautious, Don John. My honor is all I have to rest upon in this world."
"It's a broken reed. I wouldn't give a cent's worth of molasses candy for the honor of a fellow who would destroy the property of another, because he got mad with him."
In spite of his repeated warnings, Laud Cavendish was very forbearing, though Donald kept the boat-hook where it would be serviceable in an emergency.
"No, Don John, I did not set the Maud afire. Though you went back on me this afternoon, and served me a mean and shabby trick, I wouldn't do such a thing as burn your property."[234]
"Who went back on you?" demanded Donald.
"You did; when you could have saved me from being driven out of the garden, you took the trouble to say, you did not invite me," replied Laud, reproachfully.
"I didn't invite you; and I had no right to invite you."
"No matter for that; if you had just said that your friend, Mr. Cavendish, had come in with you it would have been all right."
"My friend, Mr. Cavendish!" repeated Donald, sarcastically. "I didn't know I had any such friend."
"I didn't expect that of you, after what I had done for you, Don John."
"Spill her on that tack! You never did anything for me."
"I took that boat off your hands, and I suppose you got a commission for selling her. Wasn't that doing something for you?"
"No!" protested Donald.
"I have always used you well, and done more for you than you know of. You wouldn't have got the job to build the Maud if it hadn't been for me. I spoke a good word for you to Mr. Rodman," whined Laud.[235]
"You!" exclaimed Donald, disgusted with this ridiculous pretension. "If you said anything to Mr. Rodman about it, I wonder he didn't give the job to somebody else."
"You think I have no influence, but you are mistaken; and if you insist on quarrelling with me, you will find out, when it is too late, what folks think of me."
"They think you are a ninny; and when they know what you did to-night, they will believe you are a knave," replied Donald. "You didn't cover your tracks so that I couldn't find them; and I can prove all I say. I didn't think you were such a rascal before."
"You won't make anything out of that sort of talk with me, Don John," said Laud, mildly. "You provoke me to throw you overboard, but I don't want to hurt you."
"I'll risk your throwing me overboard. I can take care of myself."
"I said I didn't want to hurt you, and I don't. I didn't set your boat afire; I wouldn't do such a thing."
"You can tell that to Squire Peters to-morrow."
"You don't mean to say that you will prosecute me, Don John?"[236]
"Yes; I do mean it."
"I came down from the harbor, and tacked between those two wharves," explained Laud. "I was standing off on this tack when you bunted your skiff into me. That's all I know about it."
"But I saw you on the wharf. No matter; we won't argue the case here," said Donald, as he made a movement to go into his skiff.
"Hold on, Don John. I want to talk with you a little."
"What about?"
"Two or three things. I am going off on a long cruise in a day or two. I think I shall go as far as Portland, and try to get a situation in a store there."
"I don't believe you will have a chance to go to Portland, or anywhere else, unless it's Thomaston, where the state prison is located."
"I didn't think you would be so rough on me, Don John. I didn't set your boat afire; but I can see that it may go hard with me, because I happened to be near the wharf at the time."
"You will find that isn't the worst of it," added Donald.
"What is the worst of it?"[237]
"Never mind; I'll tell Squire Peters to-morrow, when we come together."
"Don't go to law about it, Don John; for though I didn't do it, I don't want to be hauled up for it. Even a suspicion is sometimes damaging to the honor of a gentleman."
"You had better come down from that high horse, and own up that you set the Maud afire."
"Will you agree not to prosecute, if I do?" asked Laud.
Donald, after his anger subsided, thought more about the "white cross of Denmark" than he did about the fire; for the latter had done him no damage, while the former might injure his character which he valued more than his property.
"I will agree not to prosecute, if you will answer all my questions," he replied; but I confess that it was an error on the part of the young man.
Donald fastened the painter of his skiff at the stern, and took a seat in the standing-room of the Juno.
"I will tell you all I know, if you will keep me out of the courts," added Laud, promptly.
"Why did you set the Maud afire?"
"Because I was mad, and meant to get even[238] with you for what you did at Rodman's this afternoon. You might do me a great service, Don John, if you would. I like Nellie Patterdale; I mean, I'm in love with her. I don't believe I can live without her."
"I'll bet you'll have to," interposed Donald, indignantly.
"You don't know what it is to love, Don John."
"I don't want to know yet awhile; and I think you had better live on a different sort of grub. What a stupid idea, for a fellow like you to think of such a girl as Nellie Patterdale!"
"Is it any worse for me to think of her, than it is for you to do so?" asked Laud.
"I never thought of her in any such way as that. We went to school together, and have always been good friends; that's all."
"That's enough," sighed Laud. "I actually suffer for her sake. If the quest were hopeless," Laud read novels—"I think I should drown myself."
"You had better do it right off, then," added Donald.
"You can pity me, Don John, for I am miserable. Day and night I think only of her. My[239] feelings have made me almost crazy, and I hardly knew what I was about when I applied the incendiary torch to the Maud."
"I thought it was a card of friction matches."
"The world will laugh and jeer at me for loving one above my station; but love makes us equals."
"Perhaps it does when the love is on both sides," added the practical boat-builder.
"But I think I am fitted to adorn a higher station than that in which I was born."
"If so, you will rise like a stick of timber forced under the water; but it strikes me that you have begun in the wrong way to figure for a rise."
"But I wish to rise only for Nellie's sake. You can help me, Don John; you can take me into her presence, where I can have the opportunity to win her affection."
"I guess not, Laud. Shall I tell you what she said to me this afternoon?"
"Tell me all."
"She said you were an impudent puppy, and she was sorry I invited you."
"Did she say that?" asked Laud, looking up to the cold, pale moon.
"She did; and I was obliged to tell her that I didn't invite you."[240]
"Perhaps I have been a fool," mused the lover.
"There's no doubt of it. Nellie Patterdale dislikes, and even despises you. I have heard her say as much, in so many words. That ought to comfort you, and convince you that it is no use to fish any longer in those waters."
"Possibly you are right; but it is only because she does not know me. If she only knew me better—"
"She would dislike and despise you still more," said Donald, sharply. "If she only knew that you set the Maud afire, she would love you as a homeless dog likes the brickbats that are thrown at him."
"You will not tell her that, Don John?"
"I will not tell her, or any one else, if you behave yourself. Now I want to ask some more questions."
"Go on, Don John."
"Where did you get the money you paid for the Juno?" demanded Donald, with energy.
"Where did I get it?" repeated Laud, evidently startled by the question, so vigorously put. "I told you where I got it."
"Tell me again."[241]
"Captain Shivernock gave it to me."
"What for?"
"I can't tell you that."
"Why not?"
"Because it is a matter between the captain and me."
"I don't care if it is. You said you would answer all my questions, if I would not prosecute."
"Questions about the Maud," explained Laud. "I have told you the secret of my love—"
"Hang the secret of your love!" exclaimed Donald, disgusted with that topic. "I meant all questions."
"But I cannot betray the secrets of Captain Shivernock. My honor—"
"Stick your honor up chimney!" interrupted Donald. "If you go back on the agreement, I shall take the fire before Squire Peters. The question I asked was, why Captain Shivernock gave you four or five hundred dollars?"
"I wish I could answer you, Don John; but I do not feel at liberty to do so just now. I will see the captain, and perhaps I may honorably give you the information you seek."[242]
"You needn't mince the matter with me. I know all about it now; but I want it from you."
"All about what?" asked Laud.
"You needn't look green about it. Do you remember the Saturday when I told you the Juno was for sale?"
"I do, very distinctly," answered Laud. "You were in the Juno at the time."
"I was; we parted company, and you stood over towards the Northport shore."
"Just so."
"Over there you met Captain Shivernock."
"I didn't say I did."
"But I say you did," persisted Donald. "For some reason best known to himself, the captain did not want any one to know he was on Long Island that night."
Laud listened with intense interest.
"Do you know what his reason was, Don John?"
"No, I don't. You saw his boat, and overhauled him near the shore."
"Well?"
"You overhauled him near the shore, and he gave you a pile of money not to say that you had seen him."[243]
"It is you who says all this, and not I," added Laud, with more spirit than he had before exhibited. "My honor is not touched."
"I wish you wouldn't say anything more about your honor. It is like a mustard seed
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