The Yacht Club; or, The Young Boat-Builder by Oliver Optic (important books to read txt) 📗

reason you can't?" asked the captain, with a sneer on his lips.

"I have to meet the yacht club here."

Captain Shivernock cursed the yacht club with decided unction, and insisted that Donald should convey him in his boat to the place where the Juno was at anchor.[89]

"I have to measure the yachts when they come, sir."

"Measure—" but the place the captain suggested was not capable of measurement. "I'll pay you well for going."

"I should not ask any pay if I could go," added Donald, glancing up the bay to see if the fleet was under way.

"I say I will pay you well, and you will be a fool if you don't go with me."

"The yachts haven't started yet, and perhaps I shall have time to get back before they arrive."

"I don't care whether you get back or not; I want you to go."

"I will go, sir, and run the risk," replied Donald, as he led the way down to the boat.

Shoving her off, he helped the captain into her, and hoisted the sail.

"What boat's that over there?" demanded Captain Shivernock, as he pointed at the craft sailed by Laud Cavendish, which was still standing on towards Searsport.

Donald told him who was in her.

"Don't go near her," said he, sternly. "I always want a good mile between me and that puppy."[90]

"He is bound to Camden, and won't get there for a week at that rate," added Donald.

"Don't care if he don't," growled the passenger.

"I don't know that I do, either," added the skipper. "Laud wants to buy a boat, and perhaps you can sell him yours, if you are tired of her."

"Shut up!"

Donald did "shut up," and decided not to make any more talk with the captain, only to give him civil answers. Ordinarily he would as soon have thought of wrestling with a Bengal tiger as of carrying on a conversation with such a porcupine as his passenger, who scrupled not to insult man or boy without the slightest provocation. In a few moments the skipper tacked, having weathered the Head, and stood into the little bay west of it.

"Don John," said Captain Shivernock, sharply, fixing his gaze upon the skipper.

"Sir?"

The captain took his wallet from his pocket. It was well filled with greenbacks, from which he took several ten-dollar bills—five or six of them, at least.[91]

"I will pay you," said he.

"I don't ask any pay for this, sir. I am willing to do you a favor for nothing."

"Hold your tongue, you fool! A favor?" sneered the eccentric. "Do you think I would ask a little monkey like you to do me a favor?"

"I won't call it a favor, sir."

"Better not. There! take that," and Captain Shivernock shoved the bills he had taken from his wallet into Donald's hand.

"No, sir! I can't take all that, if I do anything," protested the skipper, amazed at the generosity of his passenger. The captain, with a sudden spring, grasped a short boat-hook which lay between the rail and the wash-board.

"Put that money into your pocket, or I'll smash your head; and you won't be the first man I've killed, either," said the violent passenger.

Donald did not find the money hard to take on its own merits, and he considerately obeyed the savage order. His pride, which revolted at the idea of being paid for a slight service rendered to a neighbor, was effectually conquered. He put the money in his pocket; but as soon as[92] the captain laid down the boat-hook, he took it out to count it, and found there was fifty dollars. He deposited it carefully in his wallet.

"You don't mean to pay me all that money for this little job?" said he.

"Do you think I don't know what I mean?" snarled the passenger.

"I suppose you do, sir."

"You suppose I do!" sneered the cynic. "You know I do."

"Fifty dollars is a great deal of money for such a little job."

"That's none of your business. Don John, you've got a tongue in your head!" said Captain Shivernock, pointing his finger at the skipper, and glowering upon him as though he was charging him with some heinous crime.

"I am aware of it, sir," replied Donald.

"Do you know what a tongue is for?" demanded the captain.

"It is of great assistance to one in talking."

"Don't equivocate, you sick monkey. Do you know what a tongue is for?"

"Yes, sir."

"What's a tongue for?"[93]

"To talk with, and—"

"That's enough! I thought you would say so. You are an ignorant whelp."

"Isn't the tongue to talk with?"

"No!" roared the passenger.

"What is it for, then?" asked Donald, who did not know whether to be alarmed or amused at the manner of his violent companion.

"It's to keep still with, you canting little monkey! And that's what I want you to do with your tongue," replied Captain Shivernock.

"I don't think I understand you, sir."

"I don't think you do. How could you, when I haven't told you what I mean. Listen to me." The eccentric paused, and fixed his gaze earnestly upon the skipper.

"Have you seen me this morning?" demanded he.

"Of course I have."

"No, you haven't!"

"I really thought I had."

"Thought's a fool, and you're another! You haven't seen me. If anybody in Belfast asks you if you have seen me, tell 'em you haven't."

"If the tongue isn't to talk with, it isn't to tell a lie with," added Donald.[94]

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the captain; "you've got me there."

He produced his wallet again, and took a ten-dollar bill from the roll it contained, which he tendered to Donald.

"What's that for?" asked the skipper.

"Put it in your pocket, or I'll mash your empty skull!"

Donald placed it with the other bills in his wallet, more than ever amazed at the conduct of his singular passenger.

"I never allow anyone to get ahead of me without paying for my own stupidity. Do you go to Sunday School, and church, and missionary meetings?" asked the captain, with a sneer.

"I do, sir."

"I thought so. You are a sick monkey. You don't let your tongue tell a lie."

"No, sir; I don't mean to tell a lie, if I can help it, and I generally can."

"You walk in the strait and narrow way which leads to the meeting-house. I don't. All right! Broad is the way! But one thing is certain, Don John, you haven't seen me to-day."

"But I have," persisted Donald.[95]

"I say you have not; don't contradict me, if you want to take that head of yours home with you. Nobody will ask whether you have seen me or not; so that if a lie is likely to choke you, keep still with your tongue."

"I am not to say that I have seen you on the island?" queried Donald.

"You are not," replied the captain, with an echoing expletive.

"Why not, sir?"

"None of your business! Do as you are told, and spend the money I gave you for gingerbread and fast horses."

"But when my mother sees this money she will want to know where I got it."

"If you tell her or anybody else, I'll hammer your head till it isn't thicker than a piece of sheet-iron. Don't let her see the money. Hire a fast horse, and go to ride next Sunday."

"I don't go to ride on Sunday."

"I suppose not. Give it to the missionaries to buy red flannel shirts for little niggers in the West Indies, if you like. I don't care what you do with it."

"You don't wish anybody to know you have[96] been on the island this morning—is that the idea, Captain Shivernock?" asked Donald, not a little alarmed at the position in which his companion was placing him.

"That's the idea, Don John."

"I don't see why—"

"You are not to see why," interrupted the captain, fiercely. "That's my business, not yours. Will you do as I tell you?"

"If there is any trouble—"

"There isn't any trouble. Do you think I've killed somebody?—No. Do you think I've robbed somebody?—No. Do you think I've set somebody's house on fire?—No. Do you think I've stolen somebody's chickens?—No. Nothing of the sort. I want to know whether you can keep your tongue still. Let us see. There's the Juno."

"Somebody will see your boat, and know that you have been here—"

"That's my business, not yours. Don't bother your head with what don't concern you," growled the passenger.

The Juno was afloat, but she could not have been so many minutes, when Donald came along[97]side of her. It was now about half tide on the flood, and she must have grounded at about half tide on the ebb. This fact indicated that Captain Shivernock had left her at four o'clock in the morning. The owner of the Juno stepped into her, and Donald hoisted the sail for him. The boat was cat-rigged, and about twenty-four feet long. She was a fine craft, with a small cabin forward, furnished with every convenience the limited space would permit. The captain seated himself in the standing-room, and began to heap maledictions upon the boat.

"I never will sail in her again," said he. "I will burn her, and get a centre-board boat."

"What will you take for her, sir?" asked Donald.

"Do you want her, Don John?" demanded the captain.

"I couldn't afford to keep her; but I will sell her for you."

"Sell—" it is no matter what; but Captain Shivernock suddenly leaped back into Donald's boat, and her skipper wondered what he intended to do next. "She is yours, Don John!" he exclaimed.

"To sell for you?"[98]

"No! Sell her, if you like, but put the money in your own pocket. I will sail up in your boat, and you may go to Jerusalem in the Juno, if you like. I will never get into her again," added the captain, spitefully.

"But, Captain Shivernock, you surely don't mean to give me this boat."

"Do you think I don't know what I mean?" roared the strange man, after a long string of expletives. "She is yours, now; not mine. I'll give you a bill of sale as soon as I go ashore. Not another word, or I'll pound your head. Don't tell anybody I gave her to you, or that you have seen me. If you do there will be a job for a coffin-maker."

The captain shoved off the boat, and laid her course across the bay, evidently to avoid Laud Cavendish, whose craft was a mile distant; for he had probably put in at Searsport. Donald weighed the anchor of the Juno, and sailed for Turtle Head, hardly knowing whether he was himself or somebody else, so amazed was he at the strange conduct of his late passenger. He could not begin to comprehend it, and he did not have to strain his logic very much in coming to the conclusion that the captain was insane.[99]

CHAPTER VI. DONALD GETS THE JOB.

Whether Captain Shivernock was sane or insane, Donald Ramsay was in possession of the Juno. Of course he did not consider himself the proprietor of the craft, if he did of the sixty dollars he had in his pocket. She had the wind over her port quarter, and the boat tore through the water as if she intended to show her new skipper what she could do. But Donald paid little attention to the speed of the Juno, for his attention was wholly absorbed by the remarkable events of the morning. Captain Shivernock had given him sixty dollars in payment nominally for the slight service rendered him. But then, the strange man had given a poor laborer a hundred dollars for stopping his horse, when the animal leisurely walked towards home from the store where the owner had left him. Again, he had given a[100] negro sailor a fifty-dollar bill for sculling him across the river. He had rewarded a small boy with a ten-dollar bill for bringing him a despatch from the telegraph office. When the woman who went to his house to do the washing was taken sick, and was not able to work for three months, he regularly called at her rooms every Monday morning and gave her ten dollars, which was three times as much as she ever earned in the same time.

Remembering these instances of the captain's bounty, Donald had no doubt about the ownership of the sixty dollars in his pocket. The money was his own; but how had he earned it? Was he paid to keep his tongue still, or simply for the service performed? If for his silence, what had the captain done which made him desire to conceal the fact that he had been to the island? The strange man had explicitly denied having killed, robbed, or stolen from anybody. All the skipper could make of it was, that his desire for silence was only a whim of the captain, and he was entirely willing to accommodate him. If there had been any mischief done on the island, he should hear of it; and in that[101] event he would take counsel of some one older and wiser than himself. Then he tried to satisfy himself as to why the captain had walked at least three miles to Turtle Head, instead