The Windy Hill Part 9

And yet it is the _Huntress_ right enough."

The vessel came nearer and nearer, then of a sudden stopped, quivered, as though struck by a violent adverse wind. Her main topsail blew out suddenly and went streaming forth in the gale, a jib split to ribbons before their eyes, and spar after spar was carried away. She careened, as though before a hurricane, her foremast came down with a soundless smother of sail and wreckage. Further and further she tilted, and then suddenly she had vanished and there was nothing left but the March suns.h.i.+ne and the tossing, empty bay.

The crowd stood breathless, waiting for some one to speak. It was only Ben Barton who was able to find his voice.

"I've heard of such things before," he said. "The wise skippers all say it is a mirage, but the wiser sailormen say it is a message from another world. She's gone, our _Huntress_ is, and there's no wind under heaven will ever blow her home again."

Martin Hallowell had swung on his heel and was walking away down the street facing the fact, finally, that his venture was at an end. A tall man with dangling watch seals edged up to Cicely's father.

"I am satisfied at last, Reuben Hallowell, that our s.h.i.+p is lost," he said. "We did wrong to wait for war to make our fortunes, and it is high time that we went back to the lesser risks and the smaller gains of peace. Will you let me join in lading your next vessel? You are the only man among us who has known when a war ends and peace begins."

"I'm thinking there will be some tall s.h.i.+ps sailing out of this port soon," said Ben Barton, speaking low to Cicily and Alan. "It will be on a better craft than the _Huntress_ even that your brother will be officer before long. What seas we'll cruise, he and I, and what treasures we'll bring back to you, Miss Cicely. I'd go with the son of Reuben Hallowell to the ends of the earth--if only he never asks me to put to sea of a Friday!"

CHAPTER VI

JANET'S ADVENTURE

Throughout the telling of the story, Polly and Janet had been very busy sorting and putting together the little honey boxes that were to be set in larger frames and hung in the upper story of the beehives.

There was now such a great heap of them ready that the Beeman gathered them into a basket and, summoning Oliver to help him, carried them outside. He did not, immediately, go down the slope to the beehives, but set the basket on the step and sat down on the bench beside it.

"You had something to tell me," he said, "something that disturbed and excited you. I thought it might be better for you to wait a little. I should like to hear it now."

"Yes, it is clearer in my head now," Oliver agreed. "It is about my Cousin Jasper that we are visiting. I want to help him, though"--he smiled at the recollection, yet made frank confession--"that first day I was here I was so angry I almost hated him."

"If I thought that were true," responded his friend gravely, "I should have to ask you never to come here again, not only because I am fond of your cousin myself, but because I value my bees. There is an old superst.i.tion that you must not hate where bees are, for they feel it and pine away and die. I cannot have my bees destroyed."

The boy, looking up quickly at his broad, friendly smile, realized that the man believed neither the old superst.i.tion, nor that Oliver entertained any evil feelings.

"Perhaps," went on the Beeman, "the bees were in some danger that first day. You had it in mind, then, to go away for good, I think."

Oliver nodded. He wondered how he could ever have made that selfish resolution to run away.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"I had guessed it from--oh, various things. I am about the age of your Cousin Jasper, but I know more than he about people of your years from being Polly's father. I even had some idea of what was the immediate cause of your going." The boy flushed so guiltily that he went on, in kindly haste, "I am troubled about Jasper Peyton myself--yes, don't look surprised, I know him well enough to call him that. We all know one another in Medford Valley. I--I even work for him sometimes. Now tell me what you think is wrong."

Oliver, as he set forth his tale, had a feeling that not all of it was new to his listener, but he hearkened attentively to all that the boy had to say, frowning when he heard of Anthony Crawford's insistent and disagreeable visits.

"Your cousin doesn't know how to deal with a man like that," he commented. "He is too upright himself to know the mean, small, underhand ways that such a person will take to get what he wants. I know Anthony Crawford, too, and what he is trying to accomplish. It will take all of us, every one, to beat him. But we will, Oliver, I vow we will."

"What can we do, what can I do?" the boy persisted. He felt ready to accomplish great things at once. "And can't you explain to me what it is all about?"

To his great disappointment, the other shook his head.

"I feel that if your cousin does not wish to tell you himself, I ought not to," he said, "though I should like you to know. But there are two things that you can do. One is not to be impatient with your cousin when he makes tactless mistakes about--about how you are to be entertained. He depends on you and Janet for a little cheerfulness in his house."

"That isn't much to do," observed Oliver. "I hope the other is more."

"It is only this. To borrow a boat from John Ma.s.sey--can you manage a sailboat? Good, I thought you looked like the sort of boy who could--and take a cruise up and down Medford River where it skirts that level farming land in the valley. I want you to bring me word of how the dikes are holding. You may not see what bearing that has upon the matter, but I a.s.sure you it means a great deal. Anthony Crawford thinks that he is a very clever man, but he is preparing a pitfall for himself, unless I am very much mistaken. And you and I may be at hand to see him tumble into it. The only thing is to see that he doesn't harm others as well as himself."

Oliver had one more question to ask.

"I want to know your last name, and Polly's," he said. "I can't think how you knew mine and I had quite forgotten to wonder about yours until Janet reminded me that I had never heard it. I have no name for you but the Beeman."

"If you want a longer name for Polly, you can call her Polly Marshall," his friend answered, "but as for me I rather like being called the Beeman. We will keep to that t.i.tle a little longer if you are willing. And now it is high time that I gave some attention to my bees."

Oliver had no difficulty, later in the day, in borrowing the sailboat from John Ma.s.sey, although he was obliged to give the vague message, "that man who keeps bees up the hill said you would lend her to me."

"Sure, I will," replied John Ma.s.sey heartily. "Just be careful you don't go aground on the bars. The river is shallow for this time of year, though it can be pretty fierce when the floods are up."

Oliver shook out the shabby sail, set the rudder for a long tack downstream, and was off. The breeze was coming in gentle puffs, so that the boat moved slowly through the water, the ripples making a sleepy whisper under the bow and the tiller, now and then, jerking lazily under his hand. One side of the stream was marshy so that he pushed into tall gra.s.s and cat-tails and startled an indignant kingfisher who was dozing on a dead tree. The bird went skimming off, a flash of blue and white that he followed as he came about.

On the other side, the current ran close beside the high banks of earth that protected the fields within. The channel was scoured deep and the restless stream was cutting into the dikes, was.h.i.+ng long black scars just above the water line.

"That oughtn't to be," p.r.o.nounced Oliver, and was glad to see that, farther downstream, the carving away of the earth had been stopped by patches of broken stone. For at least a mile, however, at the bend of the river, the banks were crumbling and neglected.

He could look up and see, first the farms of the low-lying land, the treetops and pointed silos just showing above the dike, then the hillside, with the wavering white line of the road, then that strange, shabby dwelling of yellow stone almost hidden in its cl.u.s.ter of trees.

Above it showed Cousin Jasper's house, very big and red, set upon the slope almost at the top of the ridge. On the other side of the stream there were fewer dwellings, the wooded slope rising to the more open green of the orchard and then to the gra.s.sy declivity of the Windy Hill. As he neared the bridge he pa.s.sed a long gray stone house with its gardens a glowing ma.s.s of color that came down to the water's very edge. This, he remembered, was the abode of Cousin Eleanor, and he laughed at himself as, even at this safe distance, he steered his course very cautiously along the opposite bank.

At the bridge he was obliged to turn, and run before the wind to make his way upstream again. He lay stretched out comfortably along the rail, paying little attention to the boat and thinking of many things.

There was Cousin Jasper--how Oliver had misjudged him that day he thought of running away. His cousin had been tactless and stubborn, but the Cousin Eleanor affair had been well meant, after all.

"I'll never meet her, though. I won't give in," he declared, almost aloud, and realized, in a breath, that his persistence and Cousin Jasper's were both cut from the same piece.

"I'm sorry for him and I'll help him," he told himself, "and perhaps he will learn something about boys after a while."

And there was Anthony Crawford! He flushed again as he thought of the man's gleeful delight when he had caught him looking over the wall.

What power could he have, and what was the disgrace of which he had spoken? The Beeman was almost as mysterious as the others also; he had certainly managed to evade the question when Oliver had asked his name.

"The only one that there isn't a mystery about is Polly," he declared as he came to John Ma.s.sey's little landing and rounded with a sweep to the boat's mooring.

Meanwhile Janet, who had been left to her own devices, had stumbled into an adventure of her own. She had made ready to go with her brother, but Cousin Jasper had called her to look at some new roses and had delayed her so long that the impatient Oliver had finally gone without her. When Cousin Jasper had returned to the house, she wandered rather disconsolately up and down the hedged paths and, finally coming to the big gate, she stood looking out. The road stretched away invitingly across the hillsides, the sleepy stillness of the afternoon was broken only by the occasional drone of a motor and by the grinding wheels of a big hay wagon that labored along the highway in the dust.

She walked out along the road, thinking that she would find a vantage point to look down to the river and see how Oliver was faring. The way presently crossed an open ridge whence she could see the smooth stream and the sail creeping slowly out from the green sh.o.r.e. For some time she stood watching its progress, wis.h.i.+ng vainly that she might have gone, until she became suddenly aware that some one was staring at her. Turning, she saw that a child with very yellow hair and very round blue eyes was sitting between two alder bushes on the edge of a ditch, gazing at her intently.

"What are you doing?" she asked, astonished, for the youngster, a square little boy of four or five years old, seemed far too small to be on the road alone.

"I was wis.h.i.+ng I could go home," he answered.

There was a slight quivering of his chin as he spoke, as though the problem was rather a desperate one, but he was determined not to cry.

"I was wis.h.i.+ng on that hay wagon when it went by," he explained sedately. "I shut my eyes so I wouldn't see it again and break the luck, and when I opened them, you were there."

He climbed over the ditch and came to her side to tuck his hand confidently into hers. There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that she would take him home.

"Can you show me where you live?" she asked as they went along together.