Captain Forrester

“ A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP At ten o’clock sharp the next morning the girls saw the Captain’s dory round the curve of the bay shore from Fair Havens, and make for the Knob. Nancy waved her hand to them, her face shaded by a pink sunbonnet. The girls were already in the water, paddling around in their new swimming suits, and splashing one another. Ted, Kate, and Polly, could just manage to keep their chins above water, and float, but the rest kept at waist-deep limits. ”

“ The Captain put his head a bit on one side, and trailed the tasseled end of the whip between the colt’s ears. Then he shook his head.
“You’d better not. That’s the safest way. If you want a good sail outside the harbor, I’ll take you for one on a top master, forty foot long, yes, I will. Billy Clewen, the station keeper, has one, and we’ll sail clear out to Tarker’s Light. How’s that?”
“Beautiful,” the girls cried, and Polly added, “Don’t you forget, now.”
“Father never forgets anything,” Mrs. ”

“ It isn’t the prize so much, it’s the honor of the thing, and the sport.”
“I know, Polly, that’s perfectly right,” rejoined Kate, approvingly. “What if no one ever entered a race for fear they might not win; there’d be no racing at all.”
“Well, if you intend entering, I shall too,” said Sue. “For I know that the Patsy D. can outsail anything on this bay if she once ‘gets a’going,’ as the Captain says. The trouble is, she won’t ‘get a’going’ until she has a mind to. I can’t seem to make her grab hold of a breeze and pull.” ”

“ The name of the yacht Dorothy and Bess Vaughan sail is the Nixie. You don’t want to get too near to that. Crullers, have you named yours? It’s the smallest one in the lot, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Her name is the Yum-Yum. The sail is like a junk boat’s,” Crullers announced, thoughtfully; “or a bat’s wing.”
“Tom says the boys fitted it out that way, just for a novelty. It’s broad, and deep, and wide, and positively unsinkable.”
“I’ve got two life preservers, and three ring buoys in the lockers,” Crullers said. “Tom and the Captain put them in there so I’d feel perfectly safe and easy.” ”

“ There’s a reef out there that at low tide would rip up a keel like a submarine mine hitting a Russian man-o’-war. And any sort of a west gale would blow you straight out on it.”
“But there aren’t any gales,” said Sue.
“Not yet, but wait a bit. We’ll be into August shortly, and then, I tell you, look out. There’s some quick fellows come a’racing out of the sou’west that would take your heads off.”
“I wish we could get out into the open sea, though, before we go home, Captain Carey,” said Polly, wistfully. “We’re only shore sailors. ”

“ The boys wish me to add that the Captain will show you about everything, and that he and Tom have the yachts down at their landing. I hope you will go, and spend a happy vacation.
“Lovingly always,
“Aunt Milly.” “Who’s the Captain?” asked Kate.
Polly shook her head, and laid the letter on the table. “I don’t know any more about it than you girls do, but I want to go. Grandfather is willing to act as consort, he says. You know, a consort is the ship that trots along to look after other ships. That means he will stay up at the hotel near the telegraph office, and have regular meals. ”

“ It seemed the easiest and most natural thing in the world to lean over and catch hold of the pigtails. Polly never thought of doing anything else, but as she did so, and Crullers caught hold of the Tidy Jane and was helped and pulled over into its cockpit, a great, swelling cheer went up from the decks of the Portland, and the captain swung off his cap in salute to the little Commodore of the Yacht Club, as she tumbled her drenched mate on the locker, and went back to steering. ”

“ I’ve had her out when the seas would skip clean over her, and half fill the cockpit, and she’d tilt till she’d lift her centerboard out of the water. Yes, ma’am. And what did I do? Just patted her down easy, and let her drift off a bit to leeward till the wind spilled out of her sail, and when she came about again, she’d right herself like a lady and walk on.”
Polly nodded comprehendingly.
“I know how she acts,” she said. “And that’s just the way I feel about her, too, Captain Carey, as if she were alive, and could almost understand what I say to her.” ”

“ While they lay around in the warn sand, the Captain took Nancy and gave a regular life-saving drill to show them what to do in case of danger.
“First aid to the injured class,” Polly called it, and it was a good name.
“Don’t scream and get excited. That’s the first and last rule I want to give you,” he told them, emphatically. “What would you think of a boat crew of life-savers whooping at the top of their lungs when they were going out at a call? If you do happen to fall overboard, or you see one of the others in trouble, don’t run and call for help. ”

“ Mrs. Carey replied heartily. “For they seem to be as warm-hearted and well-mannered a lot of girls as I ever did see, and the Captain, your father, agrees with me.”
“They’re not like those Vaughan girls from the hotel,” Tom said, stopping his whistling long enough to join in the conversation. “They had that knockabout of theirs out on the bay to-day, and when I sent out a hail at them they never even waved a hand. Some folks haven’t any more sociability than a mosquito.”
“They waved to Polly, Tom,” Nancy said ”

“ Polly told her. “You hoist your sail, and let it wobble before you let the boom swing about, and catch the wind into the sail right. Makes me think of a story the Captain told about one of the summer cottagers last year, who went out with Tom and him one day. There was a big sea on, and when a puff of wind caught her, the Captain called out, ‘Let go that jib, let go that jib’. ”

“ Tom told them, pointing his whip at a little house next the white church that occupied the north end of the green. “So was Pa, and his Pa too, but now my Aunt Cynthy Bardwell lives there. She’s got the finest rose garden in Eastport, and all the summer folks come down here to buy her roses. She’s Pa’s only sister, and her husband was a captain too, sailed a schooner up to the Gulf every year for over forty years, and fell off the dock down here one day loading ties.”
“Doing what, Tom?” asked Polly, anxiously, as they stopped. ”

“ Forrester was the younger and the fleeter of the two. Weeks of life in the mephitic atmosphere of the underworld, indeed, had slackened his muscles and lowered his nervous energy; his wind came short; but at this perilous crisis he seemed to regain all the athletic vigour which had served him so well on the football field in years gone by. When the priest dashed into the outer cavern, Forrester was only a few yards in the rear. ”

“ Then there were worldly maxims, that would have done credit to Captain Barabbas Whitefeather, such as, “Pay no cash. It’s a bad principle. Get every thing on credit.” The most unique passages were, however, those in which the Frenchman explained to his English agent how the trade-protection societies were to be managed, hoodwinked, or bribed. In the interests of trade I must, however, conceal this part of the swindle.
It now appeared to me that, by gathering up all the items of fact, and uniting the written with the oral evidence, my case against Downey and Grabble was complete. ”

“ On about the hottest afternoon of that summer I had the yacht take me down the Sound to a point on the Connecticut shore within sight of Dawn Hill, but seven miles farther from New York. I landed at the private pier of Howard Forrester, the only brother of Anita's mother. As I stepped upon the pier I saw a fine-looking old man in the pavilion overhanging the water. He was dressed all in white except a sky-blue tie that harmonized with the color of his eyes. He was neither fat nor lean, and his smooth skin was protesting ruddily against the age proclaimed by his wool-white hair. ”

“ We don’t use them unless there’s a ship in danger at night. It’s to let the crew know they have been seen and help will be sent. There’s a spring you tap, and a percussion cap explodes that sets fire to the red light. Last spring, along the first of April, we got the tail end of a gale that had traveled all along the coast, and still had spunk enough to run a schooner on the reef yonder. We saw her beating her way down about sunset. Lumber boat she was, bound for Boston. I says then to Billy Clewen over at the Light that she’d never get by the Point. ”

“ Then followed a bewildering jumble of Hindustani and a language of which Forrester was ignorant. Taking a cup, Forrester hastened to the stream, filled it with water, and, returning, bathed the stranger's burning brow. The raving ceased. After a brief silence the weak voice again spoke coherently, though the speaker, as the words showed, did not realise his position.
"Don't wait for me. In the hills--four days; nights are better; you won't meet men by night. But march day and night; there's no time to lose, I tell you." ”

“ It was surely a motor boat, but not the bright-railed, mahogany-trimmed one from the Hippocampus. This was white, with a high, pointed prow, a cabin, and a cockpit similar to Nancy’s knockabout. But there the resemblance ended. The mast had been removed, and a small gasoline engine provided the power.
“I can see the name on the prow,” called Ted presently. “It’s the Natica.”
“Natica means a sea snail,” Ruth explained, with absent-minded reversion to lessons, but Polly dropped her shells helter-skelter into the hammock, and rose.
“I know who it is, girls,” she cried. “That’s our smuggler!” ”

“ Captain Forrest signalised his courage in this engagement; but he displayed equal courage and still more uncommon conduct and sagacity in a subsequent adventure near the western coast of Hispaniola. Having received intelligence that there was a considerable French fleet at Port au Prince, a harbour on that coast, ready to sail for Europe, he proceeded from Jamaica to cruise between Hispaniola and the little island Goave. He disguised his ship with tarpaulins, hoisted Dutch colours, and, in order to avoid discovery, allowed several small vessels to pass without giving them chase. ”

“ The prizes taken on this occasion were very dearly purchased, no less than 70 of the British being killed and wounded, including among the latter Captain Forrest, who in his own official letter says:
“Our loss is severe indeed, as might be expected from the nature of the force, and the extreme obstinacy with which the enemy defended their charge; the crew of one gun-boat being to a man killed or dangerously wounded. ”

“ There lay at that time, at the Cape, a French squadron of four ships of the line and three stout frigates, which the French commodore, piqued at seeing the coast insulted by Forrest's little squadron, reinforced with several store-ships, which he mounted with cannon and supplied with seamen from the merchant vessels and with soldiers from the garrison. Thus prepared, he weighed anchor and stood out for sea. When Forrest perceived the approach of the French ships, he called his two captains. "Gentlemen," said he, "you know our own strength and see that of the enemy. ”

“ Frank smiled at his recollections of the major of artillery whose clothes he had commandeered, and of the boastful Abdi gurgling in the sea. At the same time, struck by a peculiar intentness in the captain's manner, he asked himself, "What is he driving at, I wonder?"
"Yes, of course there are two sides to everything," the captain went on. "Sometimes the bright side is eclipsed by the dark--according to the state of one's liver, perhaps. Your liver doesn't trouble you much, I fancy." ”

“ The answer was hearty, but Forrest caught the consternation in the tone. He knew that it took less courage for this crippled sailor to brave the sawyer than face a woman; and he understood, when Mason stopped at the corner outside to light his pipe, it was a subterfuge to gain time.
The Captain's house, like the cabins, stood in an enclosure filled with slabs and sawdust and covered with rough planking. The board walk, which led from the store to the cookhouse and mills, branched to this building, and, raised on higher piling, extended on around the headland to an old abandoned hotel. ”

“ Even at that distance it appeared as if the larger yacht had the best chance.
“I’m sure they could crowd on more sail,” Dorothy said, helplessly. “Why don’t they do it? Tom says there’s always room for another reef some place on a sloop.”
“That’s just what’s happening this minute,” Kate said. “The Thistle has every inch on she can carry, and there’s still over a mile to go.”
“Polly, if that old New York boat should win, I shall lie down on the sand, and simply, simply—” Isabel hesitated for lack of an apt expression, but Ted filled it in for her calmly. ”

“ There were six gendarmes, a sergeant at their head, Boggy in their rear, and two Englishmen in the rear of the British consul’s Frenchman.
As we passed along the quay, we observed, not far from the Anglo-American Hotel, and with steam up, ready for her departure, a vessel bound for a distant Atlantic port.
“He is going away by dat ship, is he?” chuckled the Frenchman. “See, here he comes,” the lively man continued to exclaim.
He was quite right. There, at a few yards’ distance, was Mr. Abraham Driver, merchant, dealer, and chapman, late of Liverpool, an absconded bankrupt. ”