While Ben Benson was landing Ralph
Harrington and Lina, he lost sight of the boat which
had so effectually aroused his interest, and when he
was ready to put out again, it was lost in the inequalities
of the shore.
Ben put out into the river, bearing
towards the opposite bank at first, but meeting with
no signs of his object, he returned again, consuming
time, and thus giving considerable start to Mrs. Harrington’s
little craft.
As Ben neared the land again, he saw
a gleam of crimson garments through the evergreens
that fringed the rocky shore, and remembering the shawl
which Mabel had on, was overjoyed to know that she
had landed, and was comparatively safe from the storm,
which grew more and more assured in its signs.
With his anxieties thus appeased,
Ben rowed his boat more securely to the nearest point
that promised a safe landing, resolved to court the
recognition of his mistress, and when she was weary
of her ramble, convey her safely home again.
When he reached the desired point,
Ben could see that the crimson garments were moving
through the undergrowth with a pace more rapid than
any mere rambler would have chosen; but what surprised
him was the course pursued down the river. His
mistress, if frightened by the clouds, would doubtless
have turned homeward.
Ben stood up in his boat and waved
his tarpaulin with energy.
“Hallo Madam Mrs.
Harrington, I say, there’s thunder and war ahead,
I tell you. Don’t go too far. Don’t
go out of sight. The water’s a-getting
roughish now, and the woods won’t be safe after
the clouds burst!”
Ben sent these words through an impromptu
speaking trumpet made with one hand curved around
his mouth. He was well pleased with the effect,
for the red garments began to flutter, and he saw
that the wearer was moving rapidly down the hill towards
the point where he lay.
“That’s what I call obeying
signals at once!” said the honest fellow, seating
himself in the stern of his boat. “But she
knows as Ben Benson wouldn’t take the liberty
of hurrying her if he hadn’t a good reason for
what he’s a-doin’ not he!”
And with this complacent reflection,
Ben withdrew the tobacco from his mouth, and sent
it far into the water, remembering Mrs. Harrington’s
objections to the weed, and ready to send his life
after that, if it could afford her a moment’s
gratification.
“Ben,” said he, looking
after the tobacco as it was tossed from one wave to
another, and shaking his fist after it in virtuous
indignation, “that’s a habit as you ought
to be ashamed on, Ben Benson, a habit as no dog wouldn’t
take from you on any account, yet you’ve just
kept it up chawing and chawing from morning till night,
till she’ll catch you at it some day, and then
you’ll have done for yourself, and no mistake.
I should like to see her a-settin’ in your boat
arter that. Tobackee ’ll be the ruin of
you yit, Ben. Grog’s nothing to it.”
A light step upon the moss silenced
the boatman, but he kept his position, resolved to
be very severe with himself for his manifold sins,
this of tobacco being uppermost.
“Mr. Benson, you are kind, I am so much obliged!”
Ben started. The voice was a
pleasant one, but his rough heart sunk low with disappointment the
tones were not those of Mrs. Harrington.
“I could not possibly have reached
home on foot,” said the same sweet voice, and
a young lady sprang lightly into the boat. “I
hope the river will prove safe!”
“I was waiting for Mrs. Harrington,
marm, and mistook you for her that’s
all,” said Ben, without lifting his eyes to the
singular girl that stood close to him.
“Mrs. Harrington has gone down
the river long ago she passed that point
of land with the last sunbeam,” said the young
girl, seating herself comfortably among the cushions.
“Are you sartin of that ere?”
questioned Ben, taking up his oars hurriedly.
“Just give me her bearing, and I’ll show
you what rowing is.”
“You can’t possibly have
a better pilot than I am,” answered the lady,
laughing till a row of closely set but uneven teeth
were visible in the waning light. “In searching
for Mrs. Harrington, you will naturally take me homeward;
when she is found, I will allow myself to be set ashore.”
“The shore’s no fit place
for a young gal arter dark,” said Ben gruffly,
but pushing his boat out into the stream. “For
my part, I can’t make out what brings you up
into the hills so often. Why don’t you come
home for good and all? Miss Lina don’t
want any more vacation, I reckon.”
“Oh, my health isn’t quite
established yet, Mr. Benson,” said the girl,
looking at the boatman with a sidelong glance of her
black, almond-shaped eyes, a glance that Ben was internally
comparing to that of the rattlesnake, when he shrank
off into a hollow of the rocks.
“I shouldn’t think it
very wholesome to be out so much at night!” said
Ben.
“Oh, I live on fresh air, and
love it best when moist with dew!” answered
the girl.
“If it ain’t moist with
something stronger than dew afore long, I lose my
guess!” muttered Ben, looking upward. “If
this night don’t see a reg’lar tornado,
I’ll give up beat.”
For a short time Ben plied his oars,
casting anxious glances down the shore, hoping to
find Mrs. Harrington and her boat safe in some inlet
or cove, waiting for them.
“In course,” said Ben,
muttering as usual to himself. “In course,
she’d know, as I was sure to come. What
on the Lord’s arth is Ben Benson good for, but
to follow arter and tend on her? The king of all
the Sandwich Islands couldn’t have a higher
business than that, let alone a poor feller of a boatman,
as has circumwented his sea voyages down to a pair
of oars and a passenger that’s not over agreeable.”
“Whom are you talking to, Mr.
Benson?” inquired the young lady, wasting a
smile on the moody boatman, though the threatening
sky made her somewhat anxious about her own safety.
“To an individual as calls hisself
Ben Benson. He’s a feller as bears with
my faults better than anybody else, as I knows on,
and one as is rather particular about being intruded
on, when he’s holding a private conversation
with hisself. That’s the individual, Miss
Agnes, as I was a holding a council with.”
“And you would a little rather
have no interruption is that it?”
said the lady. “Well, well, I can be silent,
you shall see that!”
“Doubtful!” muttered Ben,
using his oars with fresh vigor.
The girl he called Agnes, folded her
cloak about her and settled down among the cushions,
casting wistful glances at the sky. “Look,”
she said at last, pointing upward, “those small
lead-colored clouds, how darkly they drift together!
Did you ever see a flock of pigeons flying over the
western woods, Mr. Benson?”
“Knew she wouldn’t do
it,” muttered Ben, with his eyes bent on the
clouds.
“See, see!” cried the
girl. “The sky is black I have
seen the same thing!”
“But them was nothing but innocent
birds a flying after something to eat,” said
Ben. “These ere clouds, Miss Agnes, has
got a good many unroofed housen’, and shipwrecks,
and trees broken in two, and torn up by the roots,
in ’em, to say nothing of this ere boat as may
be upsot any minute.”
The girl turned pale; her black eyes
shone with sudden fear.
“Do you think there is really any danger, Mr.
Benson?”
“Danger? Of course there’s
danger! What did I follow arter that little boat
for, if there wasn’t no danger?”
“Perhaps perhaps,”
said Agnes tremulously, “it would be safer on
shore. The walk will not be much now. What
do you say to running ashore?”
“There’ll be a howling
among the rocks afore you get round the first point,
that ’ud take your breath; besides, when the
winds begin to rush there’ll be a crashing down
of trees, and broken limbs will be flying thick enough.
No, no unsartain as the river is, you’d
better keep still. I don’t want your death
on my conscience, any how.”
“But can you swim if we should
capsize?” questioned Agnes, growing pale and
cold.
“Swim, can Ben Benson swim?”
cried the boatman with a hoarse laugh. “Well,
I should think that he can swim a trifle.”
The girl fixed her black eyes upon
him. They were large and bright with terror.
“Fast, pull fast,” she
said, “let me help you is there anything
in which I can help you? How slow the boat goes pull,
pull!”
“We are agin the wind, and it’s
getting strongish,” answered Ben.
“What can we do?” cried
out the girl clasping her hands. “Hear how
it howls how the trees begin to moan!
Is not the storm at its height now?”
“You’ll see by and by,”
said Ben, bowing his moist forehead down to the sleeve
of his jacket, and wiping away the perspiration that
was now falling from it like rain.
“Oh, what will become of us?” shrieked
the girl.
“What has become of her?”
echoed Ben, casting sharp despairing glances toward
the shore, which was now darkened, and in a turmoil.
“There is my home there,
there, on the side hill. A light is just struck
in the window. Set me on shore oh,
Mr. Benson, do set me on shore!”
“Not till I find her,”
answered Ben, resolutely, “you would get in,
so make the best of it.”
The girl grew white as death.
“Let me ashore, or it will be
my death I am sick with terror,” she
pleaded.
Ben did not appear to listen.
He was looking wildly down the stream, right and left,
with despair in his glances.
“Where is she? What can
have become of her?” he cried out at last, sinking
forward on his oars, and allowing the boat to struggle
for herself against the wind.
“At home, no doubt,” answered
the girl, struck with a selfish thought, in which
there was hope of safety.
“How! What?” exclaimed Ben fiercely,
“at home!”
“No doubt she left her boat
in some cove and went home along the shore,”
persisted the girl. “She would be sure to
put in somewhere!”
Ben’s face lighted up, and his eyes glowed with
hope.
“It may be of course
it is. She went back long ago, no doubt on it,”
he exclaimed, joyfully. “Why Ben Benson,
what a precious old fool you was not to think of that.
Miss Agnes, I’ll set you ashore now anywhere
you’ll pint out, if the boat lives through it.”
“Now, now!” cried the
girl, breathless with terror, “strike for land
anywhere I know the shore. Only put
me on dry land again it’s all I ask.”