The Yacht Club Part 10

"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 s.h.i.+rts for little n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 been on the island this morning--is that the idea, Captain s.h.i.+vernock?" 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 pa.s.senger.

The Juno was afloat, but she could not have been so many minutes, when Donald came alongside 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 s.h.i.+vernock 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+vernock 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?"

"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 s.h.i.+vernock, 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 ash.o.r.e. 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 pa.s.senger. 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.

CHAPTER VI.

DONALD GETS THE JOB.

Whether Captain s.h.i.+vernock 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 s.h.i.+vernock 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 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 owners.h.i.+p 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 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 of waiting till the tide floated the Juno. This appeared to be also a whim of the strange man. People in the city used to say it was no use to ask the reason for anything that Captain s.h.i.+vernock did. His motive in giving Donald sixty dollars and his boat, which would sell readily for three hundred dollars, and had cost over five hundred, was utterly unaccountable.

Donald was determined not to do anything wrong, and if the captain had committed any evil deed, he fully intended to expose him; but he meant to keep still until he learned that the evil deed had been done. The money in his pocket, and that for which the Juno could be sold, would be capital enough to enable him to carry on the business of boat-building.

But he was determined to see Captain s.h.i.+vernock that very day in regard to the boat. Perhaps the strange man would give him a job to build a centre-board yacht, for he wanted one.

"Hallo! Juno, ahoy!" shouted Laud Cavendish.

Donald threw the boat up into the wind, under the stern of Laud's craft.

"I thought you were going down to Camden," said he. "You won't get there to-day at this rate."

"I forgot some things I wanted, and ran up to Searsport after them. But what are you doing in the Juno, Don John?"

"She's going to be sold, Laud," replied Donald, dodging the direct question. "Didn't you say you wanted to buy a boat?"

"I said so; and I want to buy one badly. I'm going to spend my summer on the water. What does the captain ask for her?"

"I don't know what the price is, but I'll let you know on Monday," added Donald, as he filled away again, for the yacht fleet was now in sight.

"Hold on a minute, Don John; I want to talk with you about her."

"I can't stop now. I have to go up to the Head and measure the yachts."

"Don't say a word to anybody about my buying her," added Laud.

He was soon out of hearing of Laud's voice. He wondered if the swell really wished to buy such a boat as the Juno, and could pay three hundred dollars for her. His father was not a rich man, and he was out of business himself. And he wanted Donald to keep still too. What motive had he for wis.h.i.+ng his proposition to be kept in the dark? His object was not apparent, and Donald was obliged to give up the conundrum, though he had some painful doubts on the subject. As he thought of the matter, he turned to observe the position of the two boats to the southward of him. Directly ahead of Laud's craft was an island which he could not weather, and he was obliged to tack. He could not lay his course, and he had to take a short and then a long stretch, and he was now standing across the bay on the short leg. Captain s.h.i.+vernock had run over towards the Northport sh.o.r.e, and Donald thought they could not well avoid coming within hailing distance of each other. But the Juno pa.s.sed beyond the north-west point of the island, and he could no longer see them. He concluded, however, that the captain would not let Laud, or any one else, see him afloat that day. He was a very strange man.

Donald ran the Juno around the point, and anch.o.r.ed her under the lee of Turtle Head. The fleet was still a couple of miles distant, and after he had lowered and secured the mainsail, he had nothing to do but examine the fine craft which had so strangely come into his possession. He went into the cuddy forward, and overhauled everything there, till he was fully qualified to set forth the merits of her accommodations to a purchaser. The survey was calculated to kindle his own enthusiasm, for Donald was as fond of boating as any young man in the club. The idea of keeping the Juno for his own use occurred to him, but he resisted the temptation, and determined not even to think of such an extravagant plan.

The yacht fleet was now approaching, the Skylark gallantly leading the way, and the Christabel, with a reef in her mainsail, bringing up the rear. The Sea Foam did not seem to hold her own with the Skylark, as she had done before, but she was the second to drop her anchor under the lee of Turtle Head.

"I cam glad to see you, Don John," said Commodore Montague, as he discovered Donald in the Juno. "I was afraid you were not coming, and I went up to the shop to look for you. But how came you in that boat?"

"She is for sale," replied Donald, as the tender of the Skylark came alongside the Juno, and he stepped into it. "Do you know of anybody that wants to buy her?"

"I know three or four who want boats, but I am not sure the Juno would suit either of them," replied the commodore.