Down The River Part 9

"Sakes alive! I've got money enough to pay it, if the letter is lost.

Why, Ethan's got more'n 'leven hundred dollars that belongs to me."

"All right, Miss Larrabee," replied Captain Fishley, as he took out the money, and wrote a note for the amount.

The worthy maiden of many summers put on her spectacles, signed the note, and counted the money. She was happy again, for the journey was not to be deferred. I think Ham was as glad to have her go as she was to go. I could not help watching him very closely after his father and the squire left the store, to observe how he carried himself in his course of deception and crime. I had never known him to whistle so much before, and I regarded it as the stimulus he used in keeping up his self-possession.

"What are you staring at me for, Buck Bradford?" demanded he, as I stood gazing across the counter at him.

"A cat may look at the king," I replied, stung by the harsh words, after I had cherished so many kind feelings towards him, though I forgot that I had not expressed them, since the affray on the road.

"Do I owe you anything?"

"No, you don't owe me anything."

"Yes, I do. I owe you something on last night's account, and I'm going to pay it too," he added, shaking his head at me in a threatening manner.

I did not like his style, and not wis.h.i.+ng to make a disturbance in the store, I said nothing. I walked up to the stove, where I found that my fire was not doing very well, for my interest in the letter had caused me to neglect it. I put on some more kindlings, and then knelt down on the hearth to blow up the fire with my breath. Captain Fishley and the squire had left the store, and Ham and I were alone. I heard my youngest tyrant come from behind the counter; but I did not think anything of it. While I was kneeling on the hearth, and blowing up the failing embers with all my might, Ham came up behind me, with a cowhide in his hand, taken from a lot for sale, and before I suspected any treachery on his part, or had time to defend myself, he struck me three heavy blows, each of which left a mark that remained for more than a week.

I sprang to my feet; but the wretch had leaped over the counter, and fortified himself behind it. He looked as ugly as sin itself; but I could see that he was not without a presentiment of the consequences of his rash act. I do not profess to be an angel in the quality of my temper, and I was as mad as a boy of fifteen could be. I made a spring at him, and was going over the counter in a flying leap, when he gave me a tremendous cut across the shoulder.

"Hold on there, Buck Bradford!" called he, as he pushed me back with his left hand. "We are square now."

"No, we are not," I replied, taking a cowhide from a bundle of them on a barrel. "We have a new account to settle now."

"We are just even for what you gave me last night," said he.

"Not yet," I added, leaping over the counter in another place; and, rus.h.i.+ng upon him, I brought my weapon to bear upon his shoulders.

"What are you about, you villain?" demanded Captain Fishley, returning to the store at this moment.

He seized me by the collar, and being a powerful man, he wrested the cowhide from my grasp, and before I could make any successful demonstration, he laid the weapon about my legs, till they were in no better condition than I had left Ham's the evening before.

"I'll teach you to strike my son!" said he, breathless with excitement.

"He struck me," I flouted.

"No matter if he did; you deserved it. Now go to the barn, and harness the horse."

I saw the squire coming into the store. I was overpowered; and, with my legs stinging with pain, I went to the barn.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HUNGRY RUNAWAY.

I went to the barn, but not to obey the order of Captain Fishley. I was as ugly as Ham himself, and anything more than that was needless. I went there because the barn was a sort of sanctuary to me, whither I fled when the house was too warm to hold me. I went there to nurse my wrath; to think what I should do after the new indignities which had been heaped upon me. I had not been the aggressor in the quarrel. I had been meanly insulted and a.s.saulted.

After the blows of Captain Fishley, I felt that Torrentville was no place for me and for my poor sister. The six months which were to intervene before the coming of Clarence, and the end of my misery, looked like so many years to me. If it had not been for Flora, I would not have remained another hour in the house of my tyrants. I would have fled that moment.

I could not stay long in the barn without another row, for the captain had ordered me to harness the horse; and I concluded that he and the squire were going to ride. I was just ugly enough then to disobey; in fact, to cast off all allegiance to my tyrants. I felt as though I could not lift my finger to do anything more for them till some atonement for the past had been made. I gave Darky some hay, and then left my sanctuary, without knowing where I was going.

Back of the house, and half a mile from it, was a narrow but deep stream, which flowed into the creek. This branch ran through a dense swamp--the only one I knew of in that part of the state. In the early spring its surface was overflowed with water. It was covered with a thick growth of trees, and the place was as dismal, dark, and disagreeable as anything that can be imagined.

Hardly any one ever visited the swamp except myself. At this season of the year it was not possible to pa.s.s through it, except in a boat. I was rather fond of exploring out-of-the-way places, and this deep and dark mora.s.s had early attracted my attention. The year before I had made a small raft, and threaded its gloomy recesses with Sim Gwynn, a stupid crony of mine, and, like myself, an orphan, living out and working for his daily bread.

When I left the barn, I wandered towards the swamp. I was thinking only of the indignities which had been heaped upon me. I meant to keep out of the way till dinner-time. At the foot of the slope, as I descended to the low land, I came across the raft on which Sim and I had voyaged through the avenues of the dismal swamp the preceding year. It was in a dilapidated condition; and, after adjusting the boards upon the logs, I pushed off, and poled the clumsy craft into the depths of the thicket.

The place was in harmony with my thoughts.

I continued on my purposeless voyage till I reached the swollen branch of the creek. Piled up at a bend of the stream was a heap of logs, planks, boards, and other fugitive lumber which had come down from the saw-mills, miles up in the country. I seated myself on this heap of lumber, to think of the present and the future. I noticed that one end of a log had been driven ash.o.r.e by the current, and had caught between two trees. All the rest of the boards, planks, and timbers had rested upon this one, and being driven in by the current at the bend, had been entrapped and held by it.

This fact made me think of myself. My refusal to black Ham's boots the day before had been the first log, and all my troubles seemed to be piling themselves up upon it. I thought then, and I think now, that I had been abused. I was treated like a dog, ordered about like a servant, and made to do three times as much work as had been agreed with my guardian. I felt that it was right to resist. There was no one to fight my battle, and that of my poor sister, but myself. I am well aware that I took upon myself a great responsibility in deciding this question.

Perhaps, without the counsel of my brother, I should not have dared to proceed as I did. Bad as the consequences threatened to be, I did not regret that I had permitted the log to drift ash.o.r.e.

Again that pine stick seemed like some great vice, sin, or error, which, having thrown itself up from the current of life, soon gathers many other vices, sins, and errors around or upon it. As this log had caught a score of others, so one false step leads to more. The first gla.s.s of liquor, the first step in crime, the first unclean word, were typified in this stick.

I was not much of a philosopher or moralist then, but it seemed to me that the entire heap ought to be cleared away; that the whole course of the river might be choked by it in time, if the obstruction was not removed. By detaching that first log, all the rest would be cast loose, and carried away by the stream--just as I had known old Cameron to become an honest, Christian man by cutting away the log of intemperance.

I was about to use my setting-pole for the purpose of detaching the obstacle, when I happened to think that the lumber might be saved--just as the zeal of Paul, in persecuting the Christians, was the same zeal that did so much to build up the true church.

Why should I trouble myself to save the lumber? It would cost a deal of hard labor, and Captain Fishley would be the only gainer. I decided at once not to waste my time for his benefit, and was on the point of detaching the mischievous stick which had seduced all the others, when I heard a voice calling my name. I was rather startled at first, thinking it might be one of my tyrants in search of me.

"Buck!" shouted the voice again; and I was satisfied it was not that of either of my oppressors. I could not see through the dense thicket of the swamp; but another repet.i.tion of the call a.s.sured me it came from Sim Gwynn, my fellow-navigator in the swamp.

"Come here, Buck--will you?" said he, when I had answered his summons.

"I'm coming, Sim!" I shouted.

I plied the pole vigorously, and soon propelled the raft to the place where he stood.

"I saw you come down here, Buck; and I waited for you a while," said he, stepping upon the raft at my invitation.

"Why didn't you sing out before, then?"

"I thought you'd be coming back," he replied, with more embarra.s.sment in his manner than the circ.u.mstances seemed to warrant.

"Where do you want to go, Sim?" I asked, as I pushed off again.

"Anywhere; it don't make any difference to me now where I go," he answered, shaking his head.

"Why, what is the matter? Are you not at work now?"

"Not to-day. I've been waiting to see you, Buck."

"What for?"

"I left off work yesterday."