A STORM ASHORE.[5] By James H. Connelly. (continued 2)

"Like the Van Deusts?" interrupted Silas. "Have they got so much money?"

"All I have," continued the old man without noticing the interruption, "has been gained by hard work and risk, and you have squandered viciously enough of my earnings."

"Where did the Van Deusts get their money?"

"A distant relative left them a fortune of I don't know how many thousands. But that is nothing to you. Pay attention to what I am telling you. Hereafter you will have to provide for yourself. Choose your own way to do it, but I warn you that you will find an honest way the best. I did hope to see you marry Mary Wallace. She has a little money coming to her, that I managed to get saved for her out of the wreck of her father's estate, of which she knows nothing. I thought it might as well be kept in the family. But she is a good girl and I can never again have the face to urge her to take the hand of my son until he proves to me that he is worthy of a decent man's, or woman's regard. And now, there's your way. Take it, and go."

"No hard feelin's I hope, dad," growled the young man sullenly, offering his hand.

"'Hard feelings,' no. Grief and shame, yes. Go! And the best blessing I can give you is, may God save you from the gallows."

Silas shuddered, dropped the extended hand which his father had not taken, turned to the light and blew it out. Then he took down the blankets from the window, carefully and noiselessly raised the sash, jumped out into the darkness and disappeared.

Uncle Thatcher stood for a long time at the window listening, waiting, fearing; but no unusual sound reached his ears.

The next morning he found Silas's friend from Boston already at the trying-out shed when he arrived there, although it was yet only dawn; and leading him a little to one side, put to him the direct question:

"What did you wish to arrest my son for?"

Mr. Ketchum started slightly, looked sharply at his questioner, and then as if comprehending that, however the old man's knowledge of his errand was obtained, further attempts at concealment would be useless, replied: "Burglary."

X. THE NIGHT BEFORE——

The days grew long and hot; bees came humming in at open windows; wild roses bloomed along the roadsides; the blackberries were turning from red to their riper hue; and the smell of new-mown hay was in the air. But still, though weeks had passed since Silas's disappearance in the darkness, no one but Uncle Thatcher knew aught of his son's visit, not even his lean, hard-visaged wife, who sometimes wondered "why the boy didn't write," but to whom, on that subject, he made no reply. He seemed to grow older and more careworn, day by day, but locked his pain and grief in his own breast closely. Not only did he cease from all attempts to influence Mary in his son's behalf, but even, one day, when he overheard her aunt chiding her sharply for her repulsion of Silas's suit, he said roughly:

"Let the girl alone. She is old enough to choose for herself."

Mary could not understand the change that had come over him, but was very glad of it, from whatever cause it sprang.

Dorn had been back twice from West Indian voyages and was again away. After probably two more voyages they were to be married. It was all arranged. He had picked out the schooner he intended to buy and knew her price. He had selected the place he proposed purchasing to build their home, and already—through Lem Pawlett, who acted under Ruth's directions, at Mary's instigation—knew what it would cost him; a modest sum sufficiently within his means. And he even confessed that he had already bought a lot of furniture and stored it in New Haven, in one of Mr. Merriwether's lofts. Yet in all these negotiations and preparations, Dorn had not once been seen in the vicinity of Easthampton by anybody but his betrothed. Her years of struggle with Uncle and Aunt Thatcher on the subject of Silas had inspired her with an overpowering dread of what they might say or do, if they knew that she actually contemplated the definitely conclusive step of marrying somebody else than their boy; and yielding to her earnest petitions, Dorn had consented to keep himself carefully out of sight, until such time as he was ready to come for her with a pair of fleet horses and carry her off to Sag Harbor, to make her his wife.

"But I'm sure I don't know what to make of Uncle Thatcher," said Mary to her friend Ruth, in the course of one of their little confidential evening chats in the woods, "for he is kinder to me than he ever was before, and never once speaks to me about Silas. Sometimes I even think he might not make much fuss about it if I were to marry Dorn right under his nose."

"Don't you trust him for that, Mary. There's no telling how these men will act, especially the old ones. As a rule, the quieter a man is the slyer he is, and the more he means mischief. Oh, I tell you, I've studied Lem, and—But I haven't told you what Lem is going to do. You know, I suppose, that poor Mrs. Richards has heard at last from her brother in Philadelphia, and he has sent for her to come to him and bring her children, and she's going away."

"Yes. I heard Uncle Thatcher talking about it to-day."

"Well, that will leave the Van Deust's lower farm without a tenant; though it hasn't had one, as you may say, since Richards ran away; but then the Van Deusts let her live along on it and do the best she could; and I guess that must have been Jacob's doings that she was allowed to, for I believe that old curmudgeon Peter would have turned her out when she couldn't pay the rent, if he'd had his own way about it; and I never did like his looks, anyway, for I never heard of his having a good word or a pleasant face for any woman yet; and I think when a man always looks savage when he sees a woman he—"

"Oh, Ruth! Do go a little slower! You are the wildest talker. And you do get a person so mixed up."

"And I get mixed myself sometimes, too. Where was I? Oh, I was saying that Mrs. Richards was going away, and the Van Deust's lower farm would be to let. Well, Lem is going up to the Van Deust's to-morrow morning to get the lease of it, if he can, and Squire Bodley is going to be his security; and as soon as he gets it, you must try to be ready, dear, so that we can all get married at the same time, for Lem is in an awful hurry—and maybe I don't care about waiting a great while longer myself, either."

"And neither do we," exclaimed a cheery, hearty voice at her elbow, as Dorn stepped forward and put his arm around Mary's waist.

"Oh, you, Dorn Hackett!" cried Ruth, with a little scream. "How you do frighten a person!"

"So you've been eaves-dropping, have you, sir?" said Mary, looking up archly at her lover.

"No. I was just standing here waiting, in hope of seeing you, and you girls were so busy talking that you walked right up to me."

"And how do you come to be at my elbow when I thought you were far away at sea?"

"We sailed three days ahead of time, and made a much quicker trip than usual, so that I am over a week ahead of the time Mr. Merriwether looked for me. As I was in port, of course I embraced the first opportunity, when I could leave the schooner in charge of the mate, and came to see my Mary."

"How good you are, Dorn," whispered the happy girl, pressing his hands, and with the love-light in her eyes.

"And how much I love you!" he whispered in reply.

"I guess I'd better be getting along home," suggested Ruth, stopping in the path, in readiness to turn back.

"Don't let me drive you away," replied Dorn, gallantly. "It has been a long time since we have met, and I have not yet even asked how you are."

"Oh, you see I'm quite well, and you haven't really appeared to me to be gone away at all, so far as I was concerned, for I've heard so much about you all the time."

"Now, Ruth, are you going to tell tales?" protested Mary.

"Oh, no. I'm no chatterer. Not the least bit. But I know when I'm in the road, and I know it now. Two are company and three are not. And I see signs of its getting too warm here for me. So good night, good folks. I'll leave you to make your arrangements."

"So as not to keep you waiting a great while," retorted Dorn, mischievously.

The merry little maiden blushed and laughed as she turned and ran away down the path.

"What a lucky chance that I have found you, darling!" said the young man low and tenderly, drawing his beloved closely to his side and walking slowly with her. "And it was only a chance; for of course you didn't expect me. But if I had not met you here I think I should have stormed Castle Thatcher to get sight of you. I do not believe I could have waited until another evening."

"I wonder if you were so impatient all the three long years you were away?"

"No, of course I was not, for I knew just how long a time I had to look forward to of separation from you, and made my mind up to it. A man should always be able to make his mind up to bear philosophically what he knows is inevitable. It is only when he is disappointed in what he has every reason to expect, that he has any right to growl. I've always had a great deal of sympathy with the old prophet who got so mad about the worm. He had made up his mind, no doubt, to stand like a philosopher the heat of the sun when he hadn't any shelter, though he did feel the heat mighty bad. But when he got a good shade over him, and was comfortable, it was enough to make a saint mad to have a malicious grub come along and cut down his vine."

"Yes, dear; I think you've got the story fixed up your own way, and are, maybe, not altogether sound upon its moral. But no matter now. When do you go away again?"

"We will not sail for a week or ten days, probably, so that I'll have a chance to come over and see you again, once at least, before we go. The owner wants me to wait for the completion of a cargo, and they can't be got together before about the time he expected me back, which, as I have already told you, I have forestalled by a week."

"What is the cargo that you speak of as 'they'?"

"Mules. And I hate 'em," he replied savagely.

"You hate them? Why?"

"Well, of all the satanic brutes, the mule is the worst. He has the cunning and the malice of an imp. Every minute he is awake he is either planning or executing some mischief, and he's always awake. My crew will need a barrel of arnica and an acre of sticking-plaster to cure them of the bites and kicks they'll get from those mules before they are landed in the West Indies. And I suppose we'll have to wear out a wagon-load of hoop-poles on the brutes to keep them from rolling the schooner upside down."

"Why, Dorn! How could they do that?"

"Easily enough. When we are loading them we have to run lines from the mast-heads to the wharf, to keep them from rolling her over there. When they are shipped, they have to be tied, head to head, along a beam running fore and aft, as close as they can well stand. By a concerted arrangement among themselves, those on one side will sway their bodies as far back as they can, and those on the opposite will sway forward. Then they will reverse the motion; and so they'll go alternately—singing with their sweet voices while they are at it—backward and forward, giving their motion to the vessel, and rolling her more and more every moment; and they would very soon have her on her beam ends if we didn't wade in among them with hoop-poles to divert them from their fun. And they are liable to play that game any minute, day or night. Oh, I've taken out one load of mules and know what to expect of them."

"Dorn, 'a man should always be able to make his mind up to bear philosophically what he knows is inevitable.'"

"Come, I give up. Let's don't talk about mules any more, little Mollie. I get mad when I think about them—even if they do pay well. But I have a pleasanter topic. Something to tell you."

"And that is?"

"That immediately upon my next return home, which will be in about six weeks, or seven, at the farthest, we will be married."

When at length Mary's lover left her that evening and she returned home, she was surprised to find Aunt Thatcher sitting on the front door step.

"Mary Wallace, I want to know where you've been all this night?" demanded the shrewish woman in a shrill key.

"I—met Ruth Lenox—and—we talked and walked," answered Mary hesitatingly, and with very natural evasion of the searching inquiry.

"And you've got the face to stand there and tell me that? Well, I expected it of you, and made an errand over to Mrs. Lenox's myself, and Ruth was at home, where a decent young girl should be at night, with Lem Pawlett sitting beside her on the porch. So I've caught you in one story, have I? Now I ask you again where you've been, and I want to hear what you've got to say for yourself. Not that I expect to believe a word you say, but I want to hear what kind of a story a young woman can make up for herself after being out all night, nobody knows where, or who with."

"Oh, aunt! I have not been out all night. It is only nine o'clock."

"It's ten minutes past nine," retorted the shrew, craning her long neck around over her shoulder to see the face of the tall clock that stood against the wall near the bureau, upon which a solitary tallow candle gave a smoky yellow light.

"Where have you been? I want to know," she demanded again. "Gallivanting around with some young man, I suppose. I shouldn't wonder if that Dorn Hackett that you were so much took up with three years ago, had come snooping around again. Has he? Eh? Why don't you answer me?"

"I—I—have nothing to say, aunt."

"Oho! you've 'nothing to say,'" sneered Aunt Thatcher, mimicking the girl. "Well, I shouldn't think you would have, after such goings on. I believe in my soul you've been with that fellow to-night. Can you look me in the face and tell me you haven't?"

No, Mary could not look her in the face, or anywhere else, and lie about it, for she was not accustomed to falsehood, so she held her peace.

"Yes, I thought so," continued the termagent, with a snarl of malicious triumph. "I thought so. And I know what will come of it. Oh, yes. But you needn't think to stay in my house when everybody comes to know of your disgrace. You can trapse after your lover, who'll be gone far enough by that time, no doubt. And what would Silas think of you if he knew of your conduct? Do you suppose my boy would ever look at a girl that get's herself talked about as you will? You shameless—"

"Shut up! There's been enough of this jaw and too much," suddenly interrupted Uncle Thatcher's rough voice, as he himself appeared in the door, looking in his night-dress of close-fitting shirt and drawers even bonier, longer, and more angular than ordinarily; like the silhouette of a skeleton almost.

"I don't care! I will speak!" snapped his vixenish wife, turning to face him.

"And ef you do I'll choke you."

"You would? You'd raise your hand to the mother of Silas?"

"Yes, and wring your blasted neck if you don't mind me when I tell you to shut up."

Whether Uncle Thatcher had ever found force necessary to maintain his authority in the household or not, was best known to him and his wife; but at all events she did not seem to regard his threat as an idle one, for with a snort of baffled rage she sprang up and rushed into the house, without uttering another word.

Mary was standing with her back toward the door, with her hands covering her face, and crying. Uncle Thatcher laid one of his big hands on her shoulder and patting it gently, as he would have soothed a horse, said to her:

"Come, little girl. Don't cry any more. I ain't a going to have you plagued out of your life about that cuss. Go to bed now. And just tell me if she tries to worry you any more."

He disappeared inside the door, and Mary, wiping her eyes, followed him, passing to her little room, but sleep was slow in coming to her hot eyes and her last waking thought was:

"Who did uncle mean by 'that cuss'? Was it Dorn or Silas?"

But at length the weary lids closed and in happy dreamland, far away from care, and fear, and strife, she wandered with her lover.

The night wore slowly on. Incoming billows of the rising tide moaned sullenly upon the sandy beach and sent a rustling hiss through the shivering reeds and rushes in marshy inlets; whippoorwills piped from the cover of the leafy wood and drowsy cocks, awaking at the midnight hour, called to each other from their barn-yard roosts. All other sounds of motion and of life were hushed, save that an owl darted in sudden fright from one of the Van Deust elms, at sight of a pale-faced man who sprang out of a back window of the old homestead and ran down the lane, looking back over his shoulder and wiping blood from his hands, as he ran.

XI. WHAT LEM PAWLETT DISCOVERED.

It was on the morning succeeding that night, that Lem Pawlett and Squire Bodley made the discovery of the murder of Jacob Van Deust, as has already been described. As the reader will remember, the neighbors assembled about the corpse of the murdered man, believed that they had grounds for suspecting Peter Van Deust of the assassination of his brother, and even discussed the advisability of his arrest. He, unconscious of the ugly rumors afloat about him, and regardless of the dark looks of those by whom he was surrounded, lay upon his face in his room, weeping as one without hope for the lifelong companion so cruelly reft from his side. He had never known, until death parted them, how dear to him was his gentle-hearted brother and how very lonely the world would be without him. And every unkind passionate word he had uttered, and every selfish thought to which the evil promptings of avarice had given birth in his heart, since that unlucky fortune came them, seemed now to rise up before him like an accusing ghost, so that the old man, burying his face in his hands, sobbed aloud:

"Oh, Jacob, Jacob! I am so sorry for it all."

Perhaps the spirit freed from that weak lump of clay in the crimson pool, might have heard the cry and, knowing the true meaning and the penitence of the sorrowing heart, have well forgiven; but a neighbor, leaning against the door-post and peering curiously in at the grief-stricken old man, turned quickly to his comrade without the threshold and exclaimed in a low excited whisper:

"Gosh! Joe. He's just as good as owned up that he did it, and says he's 'sorry for it' now, 'cause he's scared of being found out."

And then by the time this had been repeated to a half-dozen—as it was in little more than as many minutes—those who heard the story last, learned that Peter had just made to somebody a full confession of having murdered his brother. But in the very height of the excitement to which this gave rise, Lem Pawlett, who was still prying about the room, with something of an instinctive detective genius guiding his movements, made an important discovery.

Drawing aside the figured chintz curtains that hung close over the back window of the dead man's room, he noticed that a mud-wasp's nest of clay had fallen to the sill, from the place where the insect had stuck it in the angle of the sash and frame of the window, two or three feet above. Knowing how firmly the ingenious little builders of those houses are accustomed to place them, he recognized that some unusual violence must have been employed to break it loose. That it had not been intentionally knocked down was probable, else the clay would not have been left littering the window sill. That the mischief had been freshly done, was manifest. He tried the sash, and found that it could easily be lifted. Its only fastening had been a nail, thrust into a hole in the frame above the sash; but rust had corroded the nail to merely a thin rotten wire. The head of it came off in his fingers, when he felt it, and he observed that it had been broken, with what seemed a fresh fracture, just where it entered the frame. It must, he thought, have been broken by some one lifting the sash from without, as a person opening the window from the inside would have been likely to pull it out first, as a matter of convenience. He raised the sash fully, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, the first sound that had called anybody's attention to his investigations.

There, plain to be seen in the soft black wood of the old sill, were two deep dents that appeared to have been made by some flat, square-edged metal instrument, an inch wide. The one beneath that side of the sash upon which the nail was broken off, was a little the deepest. Upon the bottom of the sash, on the outer side, were two deep impressions corresponding with the dents in the sill, and seemingly made by the same instrument, which, as Lem judged, was some sort of a stout chisel, used as a lever. All the marks were fresh.

The loose earth of the little garden just beneath the window, where the drip of the eaves had kept it soft and damp, showed the treading there of feet shod in high-heeled and square-toed shoes, or boots, such as might have been made for city wear, and not at all like those worn in the country. Following those tracks, they led Lem, and the crowd now at his elbow, to a point where the weight of a person crossing the rickety old "worm" fence had broken a rotten rail; and, near by, one of the high-heeled shoes had trodden down the stem of a lily that was in its path. The fracture of the rail was fresh, and the lily, broken from its stem and lying on the humid earth, was not yet withered. But the high heel had crushed one of its snowy petals.

In the lane, outside the fence, the tracks were lost.

The importance of these discoveries was at once apparent, even to the dullest of comprehension; and there was no longer a question in the minds of any but that the murder had been committed by some burglar who had entered through the window, and that old Peter was innocent. The reflection that there was in the community some one capable of such an awful deed, or that somebody from the wicked world outside had come among them to strike so terrible a blow, sent a thrill of mingled horror and fear through all present.

"Gracious alive!" exclaimed a very old man, whose hollow cheeks, sunken and bleary eyes, white hair, and tottering limbs suggested that the least possible thing of which he could be robbed was his remnant of life, "we are none of us safe in our beds with such goings on!"

"No. But the man who did this must be found and punished," responded Lem Pawlett, excitedly.

"Sake's a mercy! Who can ever find out such things? The man that did it isn't going to tell on hisself!"

"God's finger will point him out," said Squire Bodley, solemnly.

"Well, maybe so. But—I dunno," murmured the old man, whose faith in Providence seemed somewhat shaky.

Squire Bodley picked out a jury, and announced to all assembled that he would hold the inquest at his office in the village one week from that date, at six o'clock in the afternoon, at which time he hoped any person who might meanwhile become cognizant of any new facts that might have even the smallest possible bearing upon the subject to be investigated, would come before him and make them known. And—as it is always the theory among country people that a crime among them must have been perpetrated by some one from the nearest city—he exhorted all to use their utmost diligence to learn whether any suspicious strangers had lately been seen in the neighborhood.

That afternoon he despatched a message to New York, requesting the assistance of an experienced professional detective, to aid in dissipating the mystery that seemed to overhang the murder of poor old Jacob Van Deust, who, on the second day after his death, was laid away among the dust of many other Van Deusts in the village graveyard.

XII. THE INQUEST.

During the week preceding the inquest, the Van Deust murder was the constant theme of conversation through all the country-side; and when the important day arrived upon which Squire Bodley proposed to begin the official investigation into the affair, people came thronging into Easthampton from all directions; on horseback, afoot, in old-fashioned carryalls, and upon rough farm-wagons; as if every homestead within ten or fifteen miles around had been emptied for the occasion. It was not mere curiosity by which they were actuated, but an earnest and widely-spread desire to aid in the discovery and procure the punishment of the assassin; for in those days there was no community on Long Island, as there has since appeared to be, in which murder would be popularly winked at and condoned, and its perpetrators, though known, permitted to go unscathed of justice.

Squire Bodley's office was a small, one-story building, without any other partitions than a railing that shut in about one-third of it, where his table customarily stood. The sign "Lumber" over its one door, indicated that the worthy magistrate did not confine his energies to his judicial duties. There were three windows—one opposite the door and one in each end—of such a good convenient height from the ground that a man standing outside could rest his elbows on either of the sills, and witness comfortably all that transpired within. Long before the hour for the commencement of the proceedings, the space outside the railing was densely packed; the lower halves of the windows were filled with elbows and heads; and as many people as could find standing room within sight or hearing, upon wagons drawn up near the windows and door, were already perched and waiting, while many late comers wandered uneasily about, watching for some one in the front racks to give out through sheer exhaustion, and resign his advantageous place.

As a preliminary proceeding, the Squire had his sashes removed entirely from their frames, and carried away to a place of safety; but even yet the little room was oppressively hot and close. Then candles had to be brought and lighted, for although it was midsummer, when the days are long, this evening was cloudy, and but little of the dull light could penetrate through the crowded windows. So it was that it was almost seven o'clock when the Squire finally got himself seated at his table, with three candles, pen, ink and paper before him, that he might write down the evidence, and called the first witness.

That first witness was Lemuel Pawlett, who was somewhat abashed by his position, and had a little difficulty, at first, in understanding that he was required to give a circumstantial account of the finding of the body of the murdered man, and what followed thereupon.

"Why, you know all about it, Squire, as well as I do. You were with me. What's the use of telling you?"

"But I have to write down your statement, as your evidence, Lem, not simply for my own knowledge, but for others, to promote the ends of justice. Go ahead and tell your story as if you were telling it to these people here, and never mind what I know about it."

"All right, Squire;" and Lem, turning his back upon the Squire, began reciting the affair to the audience. "Him and I went up to Van Deust's a week ago to-day—"

"Who do you mean by 'him?' Who accompanied you?"

"Why, you! You yourself, Squire, you know you did!"

But at length the little difficulty of starting him aright was overcome, and then Lem went ahead, telling his story in a plain, straightforward way, and the Squire duly wrote it all down.

Two neighbors corroborated Lem's narration of the finding of the traces of the burglarious entry and the flight of the assassin.

Deacon Harkins volunteered testimony as to having overheard quarrels and interchange of threats of violence between the Van Deust brothers more than once. At this old Peter, who sat near the Squire, became greatly excited. Springing to his feet, trembling with emotion, and with his voice pitched to a high, unnatural key, he cried:

"Yes, it is true. I did threaten my brother—God forgive me!—more than once. I was mean enough, cruel enough, wicked enough to say harsh, spiteful things to wound that gentle soul; but I never meant him harm. No. The One above, who reads all hearts, knows well that I would rather my right hand withered, rather put it into the fire and burn it off than raise it against Jacob's life. We wrangled sometimes, as old men will—no, he didn't, the fault was all mine. And oh, to think that he is gone, without my being able to ask him to forgive me!"

His voice broke, and he dropped exhausted upon a chair, letting his face fall forward upon his arms, on the end of the Squire's table, where he wept bitterly.

"Arthur Wiltsey!" called the Squire.

A stout, plainly dressed, and honest looking countryman took the stand, and, having been sworn, testified:

"Last Thursday afternoon—"

"The day succeeding the discovery of the murder of Jacob Van Deust?" interrupted Squire Bodley.

"Yes, sir. The day after the murder. I was passing through the neck of woods on the lower end of my place—"

"How far is your place from the Van Deusts'?" asked the Squire.

"Why, you know, Squire, as well as I do! I bought the place off you."

"Never mind about what I know. Tell us what you know. How far is your place from the Van Deusts'?"

"About a mile and a half."

"Very well. About a mile and a half. Go on."

"When near a path that makes a short cut to the Babylon road, I found these things. They were lying among some huckleberry bushes, and the white bag was the first thing that caught my eye. Afterwards I saw the other."

As he spoke he drew from his pocket and deposited upon the Squire's table, two objects: an old worn-out sheepskin wallet, and an empty canvas bag about nine inches long by three in width, and tied around with a bit of fishing line.

"The bit of string," continued the witness, "was a few feet away from the other things; but I judged it might belong to them, and fetched it along."

"Have you ever seen these things before, Mr. Van Deust?" asked Squire Bodley.

The old man who, buried in his freshly-awakened grief and remorse, had paid no attention to what was going on until he was called by name, looked up dazedly. The Squire pushed before him the objects found by the witness. He looked at them for a few moments, silently and without moving, as if fascinated by them; then slowly reached out his trembling hands, and took them up.

"Yes," he said, with an effort, after having carefully examined them, "I recognize them. They belonged to my brother Jacob—his wallet and coin bag. And I know that the wallet, at least, was in his possession the day before he was found dead."

Absolute stillness reigned in the dense crowd from the commencement of Farmer Wiltsey's testimony until the conclusion of Peter Van Deust's identification of his brother's property; and then such a buzz of exclamations, and remarks, and conjectures broke out that the Squire was compelled to rap vigorously on his table, and call "Order!" and "Silence!" more than once before he could proceed with the business. But there was little more to be offered.

One man thought he had heard a horse galloping down the Babylon road about one o'clock on the morning of the discovery of the murder, but he did not know if anybody was on the horse, and was not even positive that it was a horse he heard; it might have been a cow. So his evidence went for nothing.

Peter Van Deust testified, very briefly, that the last time he saw his brother alive was about half-past nine o'clock on the night of his death. An old gentleman, a friend from New York—their lawyer in fact—had visited them in the afternoon on business, and had gone away a little while after supper. Then they sat up somewhat later than usual, talking over what they would do with their lower farm, which would be left without a tenant when the Richards family moved away. He had looked at the clock when he went to bed, and knew it was half-past nine. Jacob was then in his usual health and spirits, except that he complained a little of a slight cough, and it was the witness's impression that his brother, after going to bed, had called old Betsy to prepare him something to alleviate that. But he was not very sure about that, as he was almost asleep at the time, and had not thought to speak to Betsy about it since.

Squire Bodley hesitated as to whether he should press any inquiry about the friend from New York, and cast an inquiring look at a stranger who sat near him. But the stranger, who seemed to understand perfectly what he would have asked, made a slight negative sign. Still the Squire was not satisfied and, leaning over to him, whispered:

"That New Yorker must have been there nearer the time of the murder than anybody else outside the family; most likely knew the old man had money in the house, and just where it was kept; may have laid around until all was quiet, and then gone back to—"

"It's quite possible he did," interrupted the stranger, in a tone audible only to the Squire, "and I'm not losing sight of it; but it won't do to bring out too much on the inquest. He might get wind of the suspicion against him and skip. Never show your hand if you want to win."

"All right," assented the Squire, doubtfully, "if you say so."

"Oh, yes, it's all right. Keep it shady, and I promise you the man from New York will be turned up in good time."

Peter Van Deust's evidence was closed.

Black Betsy was the last witness. She said that on the night of the murder, at about half-past ten o'clock, Jacob called her up to prepare him something for his cough. She was lying down at the time, but not asleep, as rheumatism mostly troubled her a good deal in the early part of the night, and went to him as soon as he called. Having made for him a cough mixture of honey, vinegar, and rum, she gave it to him; he bade her good-night, and she went back to bed. Being asked how she knew it was half-past ten when he called her, she said that she knew it by the line of the full moonshine on her floor, and was positive that she could not have been more than ten minutes wrong at farthest. After returning to her bed the rheumatism kept her awake about an hour, she supposed, or maybe an hour and a half. Then she dropped asleep, and did not awake until called up by Squire Bodley and Mr. Pawlett. Her hearing, she affirmed, was very good, and she was sure that from the time she gave Jacob his medicine until she went to sleep there were no unusual noises about the house.

XIII. A STAB IN THE DARK.

Squire Bodley adjourned the inquest for another week, in the hope that there might be discovered in the interim some further evidence, and his sweltering office was quickly cleared of jury, witnesses, and auditors, all save one man, the stranger to whom he had whispered while Peter Van Deust was on the stand. That person, a ruddy, smooth-faced man of medium height, and probably forty or forty-five years of age, with nothing distinctive about his appearance except, perhaps, a pair of very keen gray eyes, was the detective who had been sent from New York to apply his sagacity to ferreting out, if possible, the robber and assassin of Jacob Van Deust.

"Well, Mr. Turner," said the Squire, lighting his one remaining candle by the flickering flame of the last surviving of the three that had melted and guttered down to the sockets of the candlesticks, "I guess this will be light enough for us to see to talk a little by. What do you think of the case?"

"It isn't so blind as some I've had hold of, and cleared up, too; but it is dark enough, nevertheless. All I can see that we may say we think we know is, that the old man was killed, probably after 11:30 or 12 o'clock at night, by a burglar who got into his window by means of a jimmy and who, after killing him and robbing the premises, escaped by the Babylon road, most likely."

"I neglected to bring it out when he was on the stand, but Peter has told me that some other articles besides the money are missing; a set of garnet jewellery belonging to his mother that Jacob always kept in his room; an old silver watch and a heavy square onyx seal, with a foul anchor cut on one side of it. None of them of any great value."

"It's just as well you didn't mention them; just as well or better. Such things, if looked for quietly, and nothing said about them, are sometimes valuable clues. And it is well you didn't ask about the lawyer from New York. All these are things we will have to look into quietly. There's nothing like doing things quietly. The great trouble about inquests, generally is, that they bring out the very things which put criminals on their guard, and so make the detective's work all the harder—sometimes even baffle him altogether."

"Squire, are you busy?" demanded a sharp nasal voice.

The two men looking up, and shading the candlelight from their eyes with their hands, saw standing in the door a tall, thin, scraggy-looking woman, wearing a sun-bonnet.

"No, not particularly. Walk in, Mrs. Thatcher, walk in. What can I do for you?" replied the Squire.

The woman came forward with shuffling, hesitating steps; paused, made a furtive attempt to poke up out of sight the wisp of unkempt sandy hair, dangling in its accustomed place on the back of her neck; and finally answered, with a doubtful look at the stranger:

"Well, I had something to tell you, private-like, about that murder."

"Indeed! Well, you can speak right out before this gentleman. He is helping me to inquire into it. But why, if you have anything to tell, did you not come up to the inquest?"

"I didn't care to speak before so many folks; and I thought it would be better to tell you quietly."

"And what is it you have to tell me?"

"I expect, Squire, I know who killed Jake Van Deust."

"The deuce you do!" exclaimed the detective, bouncing in his seat.

"Yes, sir; I was told what the Squire said a week ago to-day about suspicious strangers in the neighborhood, and I thought to myself, I know of one, and I ought to tell him."

"Well?"

"Well, it's a young man who used to live in this neighborhood, but who disappeared—ran away, I guess, for some reason best known to himself—about three years ago or a little better. He's been back lately, hiding around in the woods and meeting a foolish girl—"

"Aha!" interrupted the detective, with a chuckle, and rubbing his hands; "if there's a girl in the case, we'll have him, sure."

"Yes, sir, a foolish girl, who don't know the sin and the shame of what she's a-doing. And as far as I can find out, he has kept himself out of sight of everybody but her. But he was about the neighborhood late on the night that Jake Van Deust was killed—that I'm sure of; and met the girl that night—I know he did."

"And who is the girl?"

"My niece, Mary Wallace, sir. The more's the pity!"

"And the young man?"

"His name is Dorman Hackett."

Squire Bodley gave a gasp of surprise. He remembered Dorn Hackett as a strong, handsome orphan lad who had grown up almost to manhood in the neighborhood; a young fellow with a fine, frank, courageous face, and of whom he had never before heard an evil word; but he remembered, too, now that he came to think of it, that he had not seen the young fellow for a long time; and sighed to think that even the best boys sometimes grow up to be very wicked men when exposed to the temptations of vicious life in the great cities, and it was possible that Dorn Hackett, like many others, "had gone to the bad."

"You say that this young man has been away for three years?" asked the detective.

"He hasn't dared to let anybody here, except that girl, see his face for that long."

"And of course you know nothing of where he has been, and what he has been doing all that time?"

"No; how should I? Loafing around New York, I dare say. Such characters mostly goes there."

"Around New York, eh? If he's a New York thief, I'll be sure to know him. If we only knew what he's been doing."

"What would a fellow be likely to be doing who has no trade, and no money, and no home, and no respectable friends, and nobody to see to him?" snapped Aunt Thatcher.

"He might have told your niece."

"If he did, she wouldn't be likely to tell me. It's as much as I could do to find out that he was sneaking around here in the woods, late on the night Jake Van Deust was killed."

"She met him that night, did she?"

"Yes, she did."

"What kind of a looking person in this Hackett?"

"A big, ugly, red-headed fellow, with a face like a bull-dog."

Squire Bodley smiled gently to himself, thinking how such a description would be apt to assist the detective. He had penetration enough to discern that there was some animus in the woman's mind stronger than a mere desire to aid the ends of justice; but said nothing about it at the time, feeling a little timid about seeming to interfere in the work of the professional detective.

When Mr. Turner and the squire had both thanked Mrs. Thatcher for her "valuable information," she took her departure, and the two men were left alone to discuss the course to be pursued. Squire Bodley had a very good opinion of Mary Wallace; and if he had had his own way would have directly questioned her about her lover; but against that course the detective strenuously protested. Direct ways are never the chosen methods of the professional fishers of men.

"By no means," said he. "Let the girl know that her lover is suspected and she will be sure to get word to him somehow and he'll be off. Not a word about it to anybody. Leave me to work it out my own way, and my name isn't Richard Turner if I don't soon lay my hand on the shoulder of Dorman Hackett."

XIV. A JOLLY, JOLLY SHIPMATE.

"The Whaler's Haven" was in those days a place of no small pretensions and of no mean fame among the sailormen of New London, which was then quite an important shipping town, especially for the whaling interest.

Railroad tracks now cover the ground it then occupied, and the cutting away of the bluff in that vicinity, to give place for some heavy industries that require to be near the water and the iron road, has completely changed the appearance of all the surroundings, even, of that once favorite resort of the marine element of the population of the town, so that not one trace of it remains, save in memory. But it is not of the present we have to treat, or the many changes—some of them very sad ones—that have been wrought in the maritime interests of our coast. Our story dates back to a time when a big American flag floated above a long and wide two-story frame building where those railroad tracks now lie; a building that was further adorned, as to its peak, by a carved and painted wooden statue of the goddess of liberty, that seemed to have been the figurehead of some vessel; and as to its front, by a very widely-spread and gayly-gilded American eagle, holding in its beak, over the door, a huge and brilliantly red scroll, upon the flaming convolutions of which, in brightest blue, one might read the legend "The Whaler's Haven."

By day, there was little, except its size, to distinguish the Haven, to the eye of the casual observer, from several other establishments of kindred character in the vicinity; but at night, in the figurative language of Jonathan Schoolcraft, its proprietor, "the eagle screamed." Then, until hours that were at once late and early—late for revel and early for labor—the fiddle squeaked out jigs and reels; the thumps and shuffles of dancing feet made the walls vibrate and the windows jingle; glasses clinked merrily; noisy laughter, cheers, and sometimes—but not often—sounds of quarrel, broke upon the night. It was Schoolcraft's boast "that a sailor never was robbed in this house;" and, truth to tell, he made the claim good, farther than most men do who keep such establishments and make like affirmations. Over the little bar, near the front door was a sign in letters so prominent that they might have been regarded as a sort of painted shout, commanding patrons of the house: "Have your fun in a decent way;" and Jonathan was never weary of repeating that counsel to his guests. He would not let a sailor in his house get too drunk—that is, too drunk to be able to find his money, when the liquor was to be paid for—and he was sternly opposed to fights in the Haven; for, as he said, "they break the peace, and break heads, and sometimes break glasses, which is worst of all."

One sultry evening in July, when it was too hot to dance and almost too warm to drink rum, a cloud of dullness seemed to settle down upon the Whaler's Haven. Jonathan himself went out for a walk, to get cool; the barkeeper languidly leaned over the bar and yawned; only four or five sailors—boarders in the Haven when on shore—lounged between the door and the bar, "swapping yarns" concerning their seagoing experiences, and all feeling so depressed and spiritless, through the heat, that they almost stuck to the truth in their narrations; and two or three of them were talking of going to bed, when a stranger, who was evidently not a sailor, entered, called for a drink, and invited all present to join him. A stranger who was not a sailor was always the object of a little suspicion in the Haven; still none present cared about offending one who introduced himself so courteously, and the waiting sailors took their rum just as naturally as if liking, and not simply complaisance, gave it its relish. Then one of them returned the stranger's treat and soon another; and another, so that in a little while the heat was forgotten, tongues began to wag freely, the yarns became much more spirited, and the impression gained ground that the stranger was a right good fellow.

And so it was that, without his ever being able to tell exactly how it came about, Billy Prangle, a stout old sailor, found himself in almost confidential conversation with the pleasant stranger—a smooth-shaven, gray-eyed, ruddy man of forty or forty-five years—upon the subject of his friend and ex-shipmate, Dorn Hackett.

"A nobler, braver lad never signed articles," said he, "nor a better sailorman. We messed together for three years; and take him by and large, alow and aloft, I make bold to say that of the sixteen men in the fo'cas'le,—and all good men, too, mind you—he was the best."

"I'm delighted to hear you speak so highly of him," replied the stranger, with apparent heartiness, "How long is it since you sailed with him?"

"Only a little better than four months ago. We came off the cruise together, fishing in the North Pacific."

"Fishing? I thought you said he was in a whaling vessel?"

"Well, so I did, my hearty. We calls whales fishes. When we speak of taking a whale we always says taking a fish."

"Ah, excuse me. I didn't understand. And where is your friend now?"

At this moment one of the old sailors called him aside and said to him in an undertone:

"Mind your eye, Billy. I've been a listenin' to you and that lubber that doesn't know a whale's a fish, and it looks squally to me. As I make him out, he's been a leadin' you on to talk about Dorn Hackett, and maybe it ain't for Dorn's good he means it."

"If I thought he meant the boy any harm he'd get his nose rove foul in the shake of a fluke."

"Well, just keep your weather eye skinned on him."

"But, shipmate, it's as good as saying that Dorn may be in some sort of a scrape to be afraid to talk about him."

"And so he may; and small blame to him, either, bein' a likely young fellow as he is. Shore is a mighty dangersome place for a good-looking young fellow like him."

"Right you are, shipmate," assented Billy, solemnly shaking hands before returning to his conversation with the stranger. From that time he did watch carefully; and having a little natural cunning of his own, managed to evade the numerous and artfully-put inquiries with which he was plied, and still to draw the stranger on, with hope of information, until he satisfied himself that his comrade's warning was not uncalled for.

While this was going on the drinks were call on freely, and the stranger unconsciously was falling a victim to the fiery potency of the rum—a beverage to which he was not accustomed. He had tried to evade anything more than a mere show of drinking it, but believed that this was looked upon with such suspicion by all about him, that it was better for him to drink and trust to the hardness of his head to carry the liquor off safely. Little he knew how much he lacked of being a match for that tough old tar, Billy Prangle, in the consumption of that seductive but treacherous fluid. Gradually he lost his customary caution; and finding himself baffled in all his attempts to "pump" the old sailor, conceived that it would be a good idea to offer Billy a hundred dollars if he would conduct him to and point out Dorn Hackett. "That sum," he thought to himself, "would tempt a man like him to do almost anything to gain it." So he made the proffer. Billy heard the proposition gravely, and even feigned to view it favorably; but manifested a great deal of curiosity as to why his ex-shipmate was in such demand.

The stranger felt that he had gone too far for any reticence to be of service, now, and that perhaps a confidence might make him more secure of this valuable ally; so he replied: "I'll tell you; but mind you're not to say a word about it to any living soul until we have captured him."

"Would I be likely to throw away a chance to make a hundred dollars?" exclaimed Billy.

That answer, critically considered, could hardly have been deemed a promise; but the stranger took it for one, and continued in a confidential tone:

"He's wanted for murder and robbery."

"Murder and robbery! Dorn Hackett?"

"Yes, the murder and robbery of an old man near Easthampton, Long Island, where he has been going to see his sweetheart, a girl named Mary Wallace."

"And you tell me that Dorn Hackett is suspected of a thing like that?"

"Yes, indeed, he is. He was in the neighborhood on the night of the murder, and everything points to him; and I bet my head—"

"That you are a lying, landlubberly—" broke out Billy Prangle, in a torrent of quite unreportable expletives, the unregenerate lingo of the fo'cas'le; and before the stranger recovered from his astonishment, the indignant tar had commenced to make good that threat with reference to his nose.

Mr. Turner—for the stranger, now rolling on the floor with Billy, was no other than that experienced professional detective—was a sturdy fellow, well able, ordinarily, to take care of himself, and made as good a fight as he could; but even had he been entirely sober he would hardly have been able to cope with this sinewy son of the sea who smote him so suddenly. While they struggled on the floor, Billy's friends looked on with placid interest; interfering not, nor questioning, and seemingly cheerfully confident of the result. The barkeeper—Schoolcraft being away—seemed to enjoy the excitement, and leaned over the bar to get a better view, while he shouted encouragingly: "Go in, Billy! Wade in, old man!"

And Billy followed the advice so well that it was not long until the detective cried "enough," and was allowed to get up; when Billy led him to the door and dismissed him with a parting kick.

Self-reproachfully, and much humbled in spirit by his defeat, Richard Turner left the Haven. But it was not in his nature to give up a chase for one defeat. If he had not genius, he at least had that which is sometimes almost as good—persistence. He did not even waste time in thinking about the whipping and the kicking he had received, but he did reflect that it was something singular that a poor old chap like that sailor should have thrown a chance away whereby he might have gained one hundred dollars so easily—merely by selling a friend, perhaps to the gallows. Would he, Richard Turner, have been so stupid? "Hardly," he said to himself. But he had to accept facts as he found them, however strange they might seem, and the two most prominent ones claiming his attention were: first, that he had made a blunder; second, that he must work all the more rapidly to forestall the possible chances of his indiscretion leading to the escape of the man he hunted. Fortunately, the whipping had sobered him completely; and having repaired as well as he could the damages he had sustained in person and raiment, he continued until late at night, in other sailor's haunts, his pursuit of information, but took care to give a wide berth to the "Whaler's Haven." Before daylight he left the place in a fast sloop and with a fair wind, bound for New Haven. There fickle fortune made him amends for her unkind humor at New London, and facts that seemed to go far toward establishing Dorn Hackett's guilt came readily to his knowledge. The most important were these:

On the afternoon preceding the murder of Jacob Van Deust the young man went over to Long Island on Mr. Hollis's sloop. Nobody but himself knew why he went. The men on the sloop expected him to return to New Haven with them that night, but he did not do so. They left the Long Island shore about the hour that it was supposed the murder was perpetrated and, presumably, before he could have run from Van Deusts' to the cove where the sloop laid. When he re-appeared in New Haven the next morning his clothing was dabbled with blood; and his hands, though he had evidently tried to wash them, still showed sanguinary stains. He said that the blood was his own; that he had a severe fall while running through the woods on Long Island. That he had fallen seemed probable, since he had a bad cut on his head and one ankle was lame; but that the blood was all his own, at least admitted of question. Why he had been running through the woods he did not say; but it was natural to suppose that he had been trying to reach the sloop and get to New Haven as quickly as possible, to make ground for claiming an alibi in case he should be suspected of the murder.

The other significant discoveries that the detective made, and what he did in New Haven, will be noted in their proper place. Suffice it here to say, that the agent of justice felt that he had reason to congratulate himself upon a triumph.

Billy Prangle, when he had kicked out the tempter, lost no time in fully imparting to his comrades the excellent cause he had for his suddenly violent conduct, and was heartily censured by all for not hammering the stranger twice as much.

"What?—Dorn Hackett guilty of murder and robbery?"

They who had known him for years; sailed with him; messed with him; faced death by his side in the tempest and the perilous chase of the monsters of the deep, knew how absurd such a charge must be. Every man of them had belonged to the same crew with Dorn for three years, and there was not one of them who did not groan to think that he had not had Billy's chance at the stranger. In consultation among them, it was unanimously resolved that it was plainly their duty to take the matter in hand.

"Jerry Slate has got a fast little sloop," said Billy Prangle, "that I can borrow to take me over to Napeague. I'll go there and see that girl of Dorn's that he spoke of—Mary Wallace, he called her. Here, you barkeep', log that on a bit of paper for me, so that I won't let it go adrift. You, Sam, go down by Wainright's packet in the morning to New Haven, which it was the last place I heard of Dorn hailing from, and see that you find him and tell him all about it."

Thus the jolly tars arranged it among themselves to serve their friend as best they could. And so it was that, on the afternoon of the succeeding day, a weather-beaten old sailor—Billy Prangle himself—after various inquiries in the neighborhood, "ranged alongside" of Uncle Thatcher's house, asking for "a gal by the name of Mary Wallace."

"What do you want?" demanded Aunt Thatcher, who happened to "answer his hail."

"Be you Mary Wallace?" asked Billy, with an affectation of profound astonishment.

"No, I ain't. But I'm her aunt, and you can tell me your business."

"Right you are, old gal, I can; but I'll see you furder, first," replied the unabashed veteran, who had already been told by some neighbor that she was a "snorter."

"What do you mean, you impudent fellow?"

"I always does my business with the principals, mum."

Mrs. Thatcher slammed the door in his face and retired. But half an hour afterward, when she happened to be out in the yard, she saw that the sailor had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the stone step at the door, and literally laid siege to the house. She reflected that Uncle Thatcher would soon be home to his supper; and in view of the strange way he had acted of late, did not know how he might take it into his head to look upon her treatment of the visitor. Tartar as she was, she had a wholesome respect for him when he chose to assert himself, and deemed it most prudent to avoid an encounter.

With an ill-grace she went to Mary, who was sewing in her room, and said snarlingly:

"There's an old vagabond at the door who wants to see you."

Mary went out and found Billy calmly puffing his pipe and waiting. He looked up at the sound of the opening of the door, and seeing the tall handsome girl who stood there, sprang to his feet, with a beaming smile and outstretched hand, saying:

"Ah! You're the right one. I thought I'd fetch you."

Mary gave him her hand, smilingly asking:

"Did you wish to see me, sir?"

"Yes; the mate has been out here trying to rig the pump on me, but it wouldn't draw. What I'm here for concerns nobody but you and Dorn. Come out to the gate, for she's a listening beside that window. I just see the curtain shake."

Mary started at mention of her lover's name by this stranger, and unhesitatingly accompanied him as he requested; while Aunt Thatcher, who was indeed listening by the window, could almost have torn her sun-bonnet strings with vexation and rage when they passed beyond range of her hearing.

Billy, like many other maladroits, flattered himself that he had no little skill in conducting a delicate mission, and thought it was rather a neat way of sparing the girl's feelings to affect to be very busy refilling his pipe, without looking at her, as he put the blunt question:

"Be you Dorn Hackett's sweetheart?"

Mary blushed and stammered, not knowing what to reply.

"'Cause," continued Billy, "he's maybe in some trouble."

Trouble! Trouble for Dorn! That thought swept away in an instant her timidity and maiden bashfulness, and anxiously she replied:

"Yes, yes; he is very dear to me. What is it? What has happened to him? Tell me quickly!"

"Don't get excited. It ain't no great matter. But they are looking for him to arrest him."

"Arrest Dorn? For what?"

"Murder and robbery."

Mary gave a little cry and would have fallen, had not Billy caught her; and holding her against the fence, awkwardly enough, but firmly, adjured her:

"Steady, steady! Brace up! Hold hard!"

In a few moments she regained sufficient control over herself to listen while the old sailor related to her, with characteristic circumstantiality of detail, all the events of the preceding evening leading up to his visit to her. She did not for an instant imagine that Dorn could possibly have been guilty of such crimes, but the mere idea of his being suspected of them so horrified her as almost to deprive her of the power of reasoning. How could he have fallen under suspicion? How could it come to be known that he was in the neighborhood on that fatal night? There was but one person, she believed, besides herself who knew of his visit, and that was Ruth Lenox. Ah, yes! There was her aunt, who suspected it at least, and who had questioned her so sharply about him. Ruth Lenox would never have breathed such a foul calumny against Dorn. But her aunt? "Yes, it would be just like her," thought Mary.

Billy had no further information to impart, no advice to give, and no consolations to offer. The latter would have been especially out of his line. It seemed to him enough to give a person warning to look out for him or herself, as the case might be; which, he reasoned, would be all he would require under any circumstances; and so, having discharged his errand to the best of his ability in the manner we have seen, he relighted his pipe and "got under way," with a clear conscience as to having done his duty by a shipmate.

XV. AND THE TROUBLE BEGINS.

Ruth Lenox was, just at this time, on a brief visit to the house of a married brother, who lived near Babylon; so that Mary was not able to consult with her only confidante until the second day after Billy Prangle's visit. Who could tell the agony of mind she felt during that time as the leaden hours dragged slowly by? It seemed to her fearful and excited imagination as if at any moment she was liable to hear of her lover's capture and imprisonment, and she was powerless to do aught to save him. One hope only suggested itself to her mind: that he might have sailed away from New Haven before his pursuers could reach him, and that by the time of his return from the West Indies the real murderer might be discovered, and the foul suspicion against Dorn entirely dissipated. But she was not left to cherish in peace even that small germ of comfort, for Aunt Thatcher, with the astuteness and malice of a feminine fiend—and if there is a distinction of sex among the devils, the female ones must surely be far the worst—divined that the sailor who visited Mary had come from Dorn, or in his interest, and embittered every hour of the poor girl's life by the wagging of her venomous tongue. As soon as Billy had gone away she demanded to know what his business was; and receiving no reply—for Mary felt that she would rather have died than give her aunt the satisfaction of knowing the hideous intelligence he brought—proceeded to treat the subject in her own lively fashion.

"Oho! So you don't want to tell! Well, I don't wonder at it. I'd be ashamed, too, if I was in your place. But I can guess without your telling me. It's some word from Dorn Hackett, I'll be bound. Wants you to go and take up with him while he's in port, maybe. If you do, you needn't think to come back here with your disgrace. I s'pose he thinks he's got a heap of money now. Did he let you know how much he got by killing old Jake Van Deust?"

"Oh, aunt!" exclaimed Mary. "You know that is a wicked falsehood! You know Dorn never would have done such a thing!"

"Don't tell me I lie, you impudent, deceitful, good-for-nothing hussy! Don't you dare to talk back to me! I know what I know! Oh, I'll have the satisfaction of seeing him hanged yet!"

Mary burst into tears and left the house. That bit of dialogue was a sample of what the heart-sick miserable girl had to endure constantly when Uncle Thatcher was not present. When he was by, the vixen did not dare to torment her victim, and Mary might have had a stop put to the woman's malignant attacks had she appealed to him; but from that extreme measure she revolted.

When Ruth returned home Mary hastened to her with her load of troubles, and was not disappointed in her expectation of sympathy and consolation.

"Don't you be afraid, dear," said little Ruth, in a very confident and protecting tone. "It will be all right. You'll see that it will. I'll make Lem fix it."

"Lem?"

"Yes. He shall go and find out who did kill Mr. Van Deust, and then I'm sure there can't be any more talk about Dorn. And I know, just as well as anything, that it was all started by that spiteful, wicked old aunt of yours. Lem told me, the night before I went away, that he saw her go into the Squire's office the evening of the inquest, after everybody else was gone but a strange man, and she stayed a long time; and I'd just risk my neck on it that that was the time she put him up to the notion of Dorn doing it. And I think he might have had more sense—a man like him, who has known him from he was a boy, and no stranger to what she is. But don't be afraid, dear. I'll start Lem right out to catch the real murderer, and I'll tell him I won't marry him until he finds him; and that'll bring him to his senses, I guess, for he's getting in an awful hurry about it."

Ruth was very earnest and emphatic, and her friend understood and was comforted by her, although it was not always easy to comprehend the breathless torrent of words that the energetic little maid poured forth, with reckless disregard alike of punctuation and of pronouns, when she became excited, as she now was.

Lem was very reluctant to undertake the task that Ruth sought to impose upon him.

"It ain't my business," he protested, "and I don't know anything about it. I wouldn't even know how to begin. How would I look going around the country asking people, 'who killed Jake Van Deust?' And I swon I don't know any other way to tackle the job. Squire Bodley told me he's got a real sharp fellow from New York at work—a chap that makes a business of catching thieves and murderers, and knows all about it. And I might do no end of mischief if I went to meddling."

"Now don't talk to me that way, Lem Pawlett. I won't have it. You've got a heap more sense than you give yourself credit for, and more than most people would think, to look at you, I must say. Wasn't it you that found the marks on the window, and tracked the murderer out to the lane? Of course it was. None of them gawks standing around saw anything until you showed it to them. And as for that smart chap from New York—why, he's the very one that went and bleated out his business to a lot of sailors in New London,—Dorn's friends all of them,—and they thrashed him, and served him right, too. And that's how we come to know about his being after Dorn, which, if he had any sense, he wouldn't be. And you've got to find some way to clear Dorn for Mary's sake, or I'll never forgive you, and I won't marry you until Dorn and Mary can stand up with us, and—so there, now."

Lem started home that evening, after his interview with Ruth, in a very despondent mood, and at a much earlier hour than usual, almost inclined to rebel against her authority, yet feeling that he must eventually succumb to her will. As he strolled moodily down the village street, wondering "what on earth" he should do, and thinking, as he subsequently confessed, that perhaps it might be as well to amuse Ruth by letting her imagine him very busy in Dorn's affairs, while he simply left matters to take their own course, confiding in Dorn coming out all right somehow, at last, his attention was attracted to the presence of an unwonted number of persons in the principal store, and the prevalence among them of some unusual excitement. Entering to learn what was going on he was just in time to hear the mail-rider, who had arrived but a little before, conclude a sentence with the words "and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."

"Who's in jail?" Lem demanded, with a sinking at the heart, for he well knew that no idle putting off would do for Ruth if her friend's lover were really locked up.

"Dorn Hackett," replied the mail-rider, proud of his news, and glad to have the opportunity of repetition to a new auditor,—"for the murder and robbery of Jacob Van Deust."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lem.

"It's so, I tell you. They caught him in New Haven last night. If they'd missed him until to-day, he'd have been off for the West Indies; but a New York officer, who got on his track in New London, caught him. And they say he fought like a tiger. Both the officer's eyes are blacked; but one of 'em is a little staler color than the other, and I guess he must have been in two musses lately. Anyhow, he had two New Haven constables to help him to put handcuffs on Dorn, and then they brought him over in a sloop; and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."

"Him that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. The Lord wouldn't let him escape," snuffled Deacon Harkins from his perch on the sugar barrel.

"That's what comes of young men leaving their homes where they were brought up, and going off to the big cities to make their fortunes and get into evil ways," sagely observed the store-keeper, reflectively, chipping off a bit of cheese for himself.

"Yes." "That's so." "Just what a body might have expected," murmured several voices.

"How do they know he did it?" asked Lem, in an aggressive tone, resenting the willing acceptance of Dorn's probable guilt, which was manifestly the disposition of the group about him.

"Ain't he arrested? What more d'ye want?" retorted Deacon Harkins.

"Oh! That's reason enough for you, is it? That's the sort of a Christian you are! Condemn a man before he's tried! Hang him on suspicion! As if the law never got hold of the wrong person! Well, I don't believe Dorn Hackett was the chap that ever would have done such a deed, and I don't care if he was arrested a hundred times, I'd bet my life no jury but a jury of Deacon Harkins's would ever find him guilty."

"There goes another young man I don't never expect any good of," remarked Deacon Harkins, in a self-satisfied tone, as though his condemnation quite settled the here and the hereafter of Lem Pawlett, as that young man, having "said his say," strode out angrily, and went on his way.

But Lem heard him not, and would have cared little if he had, for just then his mind was busy with a new and firm resolve.

"I'll do it," he muttered to himself, "to spite that consarned old deacon, who never was known to have a good word for anybody, as much as to please Ruth! I'll save Dorn Hackett; by the great horn spoon, I will!"

XVI. LEM OPENS THE CAMPAIGN.

Dorn Hackett sat moodily upon his low bed in a little cell of Sag Harbor jail. His elbows rested upon his knees, and his aching brow was supported by his palms pressed against his temples. He might, had he wished to do so, have caught a glimpse of sunshine through the narrow window high up in the wall; might have seen the green branches of the venerable elm that, swayed by the wind, swept its foliage from time to time across that little space of sky; might have heard the blithe carols of the song-birds that flitted among the old tree's boughs, and even perched and sang upon the stone window ledge; but he had no heart to look anywhere but on the ground; no thought for aught but his own misery and shame. It seemed to him a terrible thing that he should be locked in a jail. What would Mary say when she learned of it, as she inevitably must? Ah! She would not believe that he could be guilty, certainly not; but the shame of him would break her heart.

His life had hitherto been one singularly free from reproach, and of the many things to which even passably good men become accustomed and hardened, by contact with the world, he was almost as innocent as his sweetheart herself. He had not gone off to a big city to make his fortune and fall into evil ways, as the Easthampton storekeeper had said. Out of the three years and some months since he quitted the village, he had spent, altogether, but a few weeks on shore. He had been out at sea, doing bravely and well the manly work to which he had dedicated himself, and from even the ruder and, to some natures, demoralizing influences by which he was there surrounded, he had been protected by the purifying charm of his ever-faithful love. A retrospective view of his whole life brought to his memory no thought of regret or shame for aught that he had done, no remembrance of anything he would have wished to hide from the knowledge of her he loved best, and in whose regard he had most desire to stand well.

But there was one thing that, were it to do over again, he would not have repeated. He would not have knocked down the officer who came to arrest him, as he did in his first natural heat of indignation at hearing himself charged with being an assassin and a thief. No, he would not do that over again, for after he was ironed he had heard men say that he did it in a desperate hope of escape, and that he would not have done it if he had not been guilty. And yet it seemed to him the most natural thing for an innocent man to do under the circumstances. Could he have imagined that such a construction would be put upon it? And now what had he to look forward to? He knew nothing, absolutely, of the murder, of the inquest, or of the grounds upon which he was suspected, save that he had a vague remembrance of hearing it said, amid the excitement attendant upon his arrest, that he had been in the vicinity of where Mr. Van Deust was murdered, on the night that the old man was killed. Yes, that was probably true; and how could he prove, or even state, the innocent purpose of his presence there. Could he ask Mary to come into court and testify to their love-meeting in the woods? No. Not even to save his life.

His reflections were broken by the sound of footsteps in the corridor without, and the sound of the jailor's voice saying:

"This is his cell."

The prisoner looked up and met the frank, kindly face and outstretched hand of Lem Pawlett.

"Well, Dorn, old fellow, I'm mightily sorry to see you here," he said cordially, as the jailor walked away, leaving him standing in front of the grated iron door of the cell, through which his hand was thrust to grasp that of Mary's lover.

"Does—do they know of it?" stammered Dorn.

"Does Mary, you mean. Well, yes, I guess she does. Uncle Thatcher was at the store last night when the mail-rider brought the news, and he has most probably mentioned it at home. But, Lord bless you man! she don't think anything of it. Cheer up. Don't get down in the mouth. She won't believe a word against you, you may be sure. And it don't come on her like a shock, as it were, because she has been expecting it."

"She expected it?"

"Yes. She has known for two or three days that they were after you, but had no way of getting any word to you."

"But how did they come to be after me?"

"That was Aunt Thatcher's doings, I believe; but I'll tell you all about it, as far as I know."

Thereupon the good fellow proceeded to give as full and correct an account, as his information enabled, of the facts already better known to the reader, beginning his narrative with the discovery of the murder and concluding it with an expression of his determination of the night before, to "try to straighten out the tangle."

"God bless you, old fellow," responded Dorn, with tears of gratitude in his eyes. "I can't tell you how it warms my heart to have one friend stand by me in a time like this. But little did I ever think, when we were boys playing together, that you would ever have to do such a thing for me."

"That's all right, Dorn. Don't say any more about it. I'll be glad if I can do anything, and so will Ruth and Mary. And now, let's see what is to be done. The first thing is for you to tell me, as clearly and exactly as you can, every incident you can remember of where you were and what you did that night."

"Everything is as clear in my mind as the occurrences of yesterday. Let me begin at the beginning. I reached New Haven in the forenoon of that day, and, having made a much quicker voyage than was expected, found that I would have several days at my disposal. Of course my first thought was of going to see Mary. I left the schooner in charge of the mate, to see to the taking out of her cargo while I was gone, and got a man named Hollis to bring me over to Napeague in a little fishing smack. He had to come, any way, to get a couple of pipes of rum that had rolled off a trader's deck one night. I left him at the beach, telling him that if I did not meet him there at half past nine o'clock that evening he need not wait for me, as I might have to remain over a day, or even two; for you know, as Mary would not be expecting me, I did not know whether I should meet her at the usual place that evening or not, and I couldn't go to her uncle's to see her."

"No. I know all about that."

"Well, I was fortunate enough to meet her, walking with Ruth, and naturally remained with her as long as I could. It was nine o'clock, as near as I could judge by the rise of the moon, when we parted, and I set out for the beach to meet Hollis. I was a little afraid of being late, and took a short cut through the woods that I thought I knew just as well as when we used to go huckleberrying in them when we were boys. But there had been at least one change that I knew nothing of—a new road."

"Ah, yes. The new one across from Amagansett."

"I suppose so. Whatever it is, I found it very suddenly. I was running at the time, along a little path that I knew well, and all at once went plunging down, head foremost, nine or ten feet into a cut. It's a wonder—and, as I then thought, a mercy—that I didn't break my neck. Lately I've had my doubts as to whether it wouldn't have been better for me if I had."

"Stow that, and pay out your yarn."

"When I could collect my scattered senses, I found that I had cut two ugly gashes in my head, upon sharp pointed roots or stubs of some sort, and had sprained my left ankle so that it was exceedingly painful for me to attempt to walk. While I sat there, thinking what I should do, a little elderly gentleman, on horseback, came along upon the new road into which I had fallen. I told him I was hurt, and he very kindly assisted me, first to fix up my head—giving me his handkerchief to use with my own for the purpose,—and then to get over to the beach. Hollis was gone. The accident had delayed me far beyond my time, and he, of course, supposed that I was not coming. When I got my ankle in the cool sea-water it felt better, but still I could not walk any distance on it. Just then a small smack came along, with an old man and a boy in it—strangers to me—probably out on some smuggling errand, and I offered the old man ten dollars to take me over to New Haven, which he accepted gladly. The kind little gentleman helped me into the boat and bade me good-night, saying that he had yet to ride to Sag Harbor. We had very little wind, and it was daylight when the old man landed me in New Haven. I had lost a good deal of blood from the cuts on my head, and felt half sick and drowsy from it, so that I slept nearly all the time I was in the boat. And that's all I can tell you about that night."

"Well, man alive, that's enough. All we've got to do is to find the little gentleman and the old man to prove that you left the island before eleven o'clock, for it was after that hour that Jacob Van Deust was murdered. That will show clearly enough that whoever did kill him, at all events, you didn't; and that's all we care about just at present."

"Ah! If I had the slightest idea of who they were. But I never thought to ask their names, and indeed didn't take much notice of anything; for, as I said, I was dizzy, and half-sick, and drowsy, with the loss of blood; so that even if they had told me who they were, I don't know that I should have been able to remember. If the old man was, as I suppose, a smuggler, he would hardly be likely to willingly expose himself to inconvenient questioning in court. Old men are cautious about taking such chances, especially for people who are nothing to them."

"Can you give me a description of the little gentleman on horseback? or tell me anything about him that might lead to his identification?"

"No. Only I remember he said he was a stranger, and knew nobody in the neighborhood except the Van Deusts. The way he came to mention that was in talking of taking me somewhere."

"Well, as he mentioned the Van Deusts, old Peter doubtless knows who he is. Ah! Come to think about it, he said at the inquest that his lawyer from New York had called on him that evening. Why, it's all plain sailing now. I'll go to the old man right away and ask him, and he'll tell me who his lawyer is, and I'll go and see him, and we'll have you out in a jiffy."

"Lem, I can't tell you how I appreciate your kindness and the trouble you are taking in my behalf."

"Don't try to. It's all right, I tell you. You'd do the same for me; I know you would. And I rather think I begin to like the job, knowing how it will spite that old cuss, Deacon Harkins."

The remainder of the young men's chat at the cell door had no especial significance or bearing upon the progress of the events of our story, and may as well, therefore, be omitted. Suffice it to say, that when they separated, Dorn felt infinitely more hopeful and cheerful than he had before since his arrest, and Lem had far greater confidence in the result of his novel undertaking of detective work. Of course Lem carried away with him many loving messages to Mary, which were, in due time, faithfully delivered through Ruth.

It was too late that evening when the young man reached his home for him to call upon Peter Van Deust, but he went up to the homestead under the elms the next morning, at as early an hour as he dared hoped to find anybody astir. He found the lonely old man, already seated upon the long bench on the porch, in his accustomed place, with his pipe in his mouth, and his gaze turned toward the sea; but the pipe had gone out unnoticed, and the eyes saw nothing of the glory of the dawn upon the ocean, for they were blinded by tears that unconsciously filled them. Lem stood silently looking at him for some moments, hesitating to speak, and hoping to be noticed; but the old man did not seem to know that he was not alone, until Lem's voice, bidding him "Good-morning," awoke him with a start from his reverie. Then the start, with which he had been recalled, extended itself in a long fit of nervous trembling, and it was with a weak and quavering voice that he responded to his visitor's salutation. It was painful to see how the unhappy man had broken down in the little time that had passed since the death of his brother. It seemed to have added at least ten years to his age.

"I suppose, Mr. Van Deust, that you have heard of Dorn Hackett's arrest," began the young man, after a failure to find any other way than a direct plunge to arrive at his subject.

"Yes, yes, I was told of it yesterday. Dorn Hackett? Dorn Hackett? They say he used to live around here, but I don't remember him. I suppose I used to know him, though. And he was raised in the neighborhood? It seems strange that any one who was raised near him, and knew him, could ever have had the heart to kill Jacob, don't it?"

"But, Mr. Van Deust, maybe he didn't do it at all."

"Somebody did it; somebody climbed into his window and murdered him for the sake of a little money. Beat in his skull and cut short his little remnant of life, just to get a few dollars. Oh! it was a cruel thing to do, to kill that poor, harmless, gentle, good old man. I wish we had never heard of that cursed fortune. Jacob would be alive to-day, if we hadn't."

His agitation while he spoke was extreme. He trembled like a leaf in the wind; tears ran down his withered cheeks; his voice was broken by sobs, and at length his emotion so obstructed his utterance that Lem could not understand him as he went rambling on about his brother's untimely end. After a little time, during which Lem silently waited for him to regain a little calm, his mood seemed to change to one of suspicion and fear for himself.

"I suppose they'll come to kill me next," he exclaimed. "They'll think there's more money; but there isn't—there isn't a dollar in the house. I'll never have a dollar in the house again; and I'll get a dog, a savage big dog, and I'll load the gun. Oh, I've got a gun, though it hasn't been loaded in forty years."

"Mr. Van Deust, a little elderly gentleman on horseback was in this neighborhood the night your brother was murdered, and he said he knew you. Who was he?"

"Why, he's my lawyer, the man who brought us the intelligence of—But what do you want to know for? What right have you to come here asking me questions about my private affairs—about my lawyer? Do you think he brings money here? No, he don't! he don't! there isn't a dollar in the house. It's none of your business! Go away from here. I won't answer any more of your questions. I was a fool to tell you so much! Begone! begone! Betsy! Betsy! Help! help!"

The old man's excitement seemed to have crazed him, temporarily, at least. He continued raving, and Lem, finding it impossible to get in a word of explanation, went away, no little disgusted with the rebuff he had encountered at the very commencement of his task of hunting up an alibi for Dorn. Returning to Sag Harbor, he succeeded in finding the man who had hired a horse to the little elderly gentleman on several occasions, but could learn nothing from him beyond that fact. The gentleman, according to the man's statement, always arrived by boat from New York, got the horse, rode away, came back, paid, and disappeared, probably by boat again. And that was all that the owner of the horse knew about him.

Then Lem went to New York, saying to himself that he "would ask every little elderly lawyer in New York if he was the man," before he would give up the pursuit. Little did the unsophisticated young fellow, who had never before been away from home, imagine the magnitude of the job he had cut out for himself.

XVII. LOVE THAT IS NOT ASHAMED.

The closing of the inquest upon the body of Jacob Van Deust was a mere formality. It was generally understood that there was within reach, if not in actual possession, some evidence that would go far to connect Dorn Hackett with the crime, and Squire Bodley even hinted as much in a few remarks that he made to the jury; but it was deemed injudicious to make it known at this juncture, and the jury, by the Squire's direction, returned a verdict of "death by violence at the hands of some person unknown."

Mary Wallace, ignorant of the slow, serpentine, and deadly ways of the thing men amuse themselves by calling "justice," when the finding of the jury was told to her that night found it difficult to understand why Dorn should be kept in jail, when there seemed to be no evidence which the coroner's jury has found sufficient to connect him with the crime.

"Uncle," said she, timidly approaching grim Mr. Thatcher, as he sat on the stone door-step, surrounded by a litter of fine shavings that he had scraped from a whale-lance handle that he was finishing by the last light of day, "why is it that, if the jury gave their verdict that the murder was done by some unknown person, they don't let Mr. Hackett out of jail?"

"Did you ever see a cat playing with a live mouse that she had caught?"

"Yes, uncle."

"How she lets it go a little way off, making it think it is going to escape, and then pounces on it again? How she pretends she isn't paying any attention to it, and has no notion of hurting it, and then suddenly tears it to pieces?"