Captain Gildrock

“ With the wind on the port-quarter, the schooner seemed to leap like a greyhound on her course. It was evident that she was an able sea-boat; for she lifted handsomely on the waves, and did not bury her bows in the water. She carried a strong weather-helm; though the power gained by the horizontal wheel made it easy to steer her, much easier than it would have been even with a long tiller.
Captain Gildrock measured the distance from Cannon's Point to Burlington, where he had directed the captain to put in, and found it was six miles to a certain spot near the breakwater. ”

“ PAGE 264.] [Pg 265]
"Your enemies, as you call them, are willing to have the truth, whatever it is, shown out; but you are not," replied Captain Gildrock. "If the officer in the cuddy don't make out a case against you, I shall not meddle with you; and you can go to Canada, or wherever else you please. Give way," he added to the two after oarsmen.
The two men pulled the boat, and the captain steered it to the spot where Dory was looking for the key. ”

“ That's one thing. The next is, shall we leave in the boat, or stay on board of her? We might as well drown as starve to death," argued Tom.
The high-school boy scratched his head, for there seemed to be some force in the late captain's argument. He was opposed to going without his dinner and supper, and he did not believe that a man as reasonable as Captain Gildrock would ask such a sacrifice of him. It occurred to him, that the gardener of the estate, or some of the stable-men, might be at home, and might be called to their assistance, if they shouted persistently for help. ”

“ The caisson was securely moored off the east end of the site by ropes leading to the shore. The boom of the derrick was "topped up" until it was perpendicular to the deck of the craft. Slings were rigged at the intersection of the three end posts with the plates, from which three lines came together at the foot of the middle post.
"Now, boys, we want three sailors," said Captain Gildrock, who attended personally to the rigging. "What they have to do may be considered dangerous in the country, though not more so than going upon the cross-trees of a ship, and I shall call for volunteers." ”

“ He knew that Captain Gildrock never encouraged any thing like knight-errantry in the students. He liked manly boys, but he did not believe that they should be any older than their years would allow.
The sails of the schooner were lowered; and the Sylph went ahead, towing her up the river. The principal spoke very kindly to Dory, but the smile still played upon his face. He hardly looked at the prisoners on deck, and seated himself on the rail. At his request, Dory gave a minute account of every thing that happened since he heard the explosion early in the morning. ”

“ When the last one was on the deck, and Dory had marched the head of the column around the standing-room, Captain Gildrock gave the word, "Attention! march!" The file was closed up, so that the students stood touching each other. All as one, they began to put their feet down on the planks in a very heavy step. All hands were intensely amused, for they had been told the situation of things on board, and were laughing as though they enjoyed the affair in which they were engaged. Tom and his fellow-rebels would have no reason to suppose they were not at anchor off Cannon's Point. ”

“ After Captain Gildrock and Dory returned, the engineer and carpenter went. The latter suggested that the prisoner in the ice-house had been forgotten.
“I shall not forget him, but he may go without his supper to-night. A little fasting will do him good. His father and mother are both dead, and his uncle is one of the richest men in the State. He told me that nothing but the sharpest discipline would do him any good. He will run away as soon as he gets a chance; and this must be prevented,” replied the captain.
Jepson and Brookbine returned in less than half an hour. ”

“ He did not like the idea of taking the boat, for Captain Gildrock was a Tartar to deal with in such matters.
"Of course it won't!" exclaimed Tom. "We can't do any other way. We should be fools to stay here and starve to death, within a quarter of a mile of the land."
Tom had made up his mind some time before, and had looked the boat over to ascertain whether or not she was available. During the summer the Goldwing had been supplied with a horizontal wheel, and the tiller could not be locked up in the cabin. ”

“ Jepson!" called the principal.
"See, the other conquering hero comes!" shouted Dory, as the machinist came into the presence of the captain.
"What is the matter, Dory?" asked the instructor.
"They are making game of me all around, and I want you to help me out with it."
"I am entirely sincere in all I have said," added Captain Gildrock. "You deserve all the praise you have received, and all you are likely to receive in the future, for your bravery and skill; though I wish you had not exposed yourself." ”

“ He makes such a row, that his mother has to cook something for him, even if the fires are all out."
"He seems to be a perfect tyrant in the house," added the principal with a smile, as he realized that the boy had been spoiled by his parents.
"That's just what he is. If he don't get what he wants, he makes such a row that he wakes all the children, and we have trouble half the night."
"He will not come home to-night, unless you wish to have him do so," said Captain Gildrock, coming nearer to his point. ”

“ Captain Gildrock went on shore, and disappeared at once. Some of the first-class students did not like it very well to have a second-class fellow put in as captain over them; but they were too well disciplined to find any fault.
"Of course Dory will have to show him how to do it," said Bob Swanton.
"The captain can ask the advice of anyone he likes, but he can do as he pleases," added Corny Minkfield, rather smartly. ”

“ Dory ran the steamer into a bay next to the point; and, when she was within a quarter of a mile of the shore, he rang to stop her.
“Back her, Dory,” said the captain, who did not wish to go too near the shore. “That will do: let go the anchor.”
“Now, my lads, we are going to learn to handle boats before we sail any more,” said Captain Gildrock. “It is often as important to be able to handle a boat properly, as it is to be able to sail the ship. ”

“ In fact, Captain Spickles, as his companions on board of the La Motte called him, was determined to "take him down" a little. The visitor, after what Matt had said to him about the discipline of the institution, regarded him with a sort of instinctive 20hatred. He did not like any one who disciplined young men. Principals, professors, schoolmasters, were monsters, ogres, tyrants, whose only mission in the world was to tease, torture, and torment young fellows like himself.
Captain Gildrock looked at him with a puzzled expression on his dignified face ”

“ There is food: you can eat it or let it alone. You can stay in this place a day, a week, a month, or a year: the time depends upon yourself,” said the captain, as he withdrew from the brig.
He closed the door, and secured it with the great lock. He also fastened the door in the plank partition, so that no student could get within six feet of the strong-room.
“That fellow will think better of it in a few days, perhaps by to-morrow,” said Captain Gildrock, as they left the dormitory.
“For a boy, he is the hardest customer I ever had to deal with,” replied Brookbine. ”

“ You must have an appetite after the labors of the night, most of which you have spent in your berth," continued Captain Gildrock. "March to the house by twos, and open ranks in the middle to receive our distinguished guests on this occasion."
The students doubled up, and marched ashore. In the middle of the column, in single file, the three rebels were placed. Tom did not know what to make of it. If the principal or Bates had taken him by the collar, and pitched him on the deck, he could have comprehended it. ”

“ Possibly they had tapped another keg of beer, but nothing indicated that they were aware of the state of things on deck.
"I am not going to blame or condemn you for what you have done, Dory; but I wish you had 276come home when Mr. Brookbine did," said Captain Gildrock, with the smile somewhat intensified, when his nephew had finished his narrative, and the two vessels were just going into Beechwater. "And I should have liked it still better if you had kept entirely away from the robbers. You have endangered your life, and frightened your mother almost out of her wits." ”

“ I am satisfied," replied the son of toil. "But I thought you were going up to Sandy Point."
"So we are; but the direct course would be [Pg 124] about southwest, and that would put us into the trough of the sea and keep us rolling the gunwale under all the time," replied Dick. "The principal don't allow the fellows to be reckless. There comes the Sylph out of the river, and Captain Gildrock is on board of her. If he should see me letting the barge wallow about in the trough of the sea, when there is no need of it, he would give me fits." ”

“ The barges were not mere fancy craft, built for speed, and for nothing else. Considering their great size they were very light, but they were [Pg 24] strongly built. They were constructed after a beautiful model, yet at the same time they were good sea boats, able and safe. As the students were liable to be caught on the other side of the lake in rough weather, Captain Gildrock considered staunch boats as necessary on Lake Champlain as on the ocean. The short, choppy sea of the fresh-water lakes is more trying to any kind of a craft than the long waves of the Atlantic. ”

“ The two boys began to bow as they were introduced, and kept it up until the principal ceased. Then they went in among the boys, and began to shake hands with them, and to make themselves acquainted.
“What about those boats, Captain Gildrock?” called Bob Swanton, after he had met the new-comers.
“Those are twelve-oar barges such as they use in the navy. They are single banked, and will accommodate nine persons in the stern-sheet,” replied the captain. “They were built in New-York City especially for the Beech-Hill Industrial School. ”

“ We are shoaling rapidly.”
“Mark under water, two!”
“A little over two fathoms.”
“Ten feet!” shouted Bates with more energy than before.
The gong rang at this report, and two strokes followed instantly. The screw began to turn backwards; and, when her headway was checked, a single stroke stopped her.
“Dory is doing it all right,” said Captain Gildrock. “When he backed her he put the helm to port, so as to get her head pointed east-south-east. If he had not stopped the boat when he did, she would have been aground in a couple of minutes ”

“ The tide has risen and is nearly at its height; the vessel has fallen still more over upon her side; the lee side of the deck is completely under water, the top of the deck-house is just above the sea; the crew have been driven from their old place of shelter, they have lashed a spar across the mizen shrouds, and are all clinging to it, while the heavy waves beat continually over the poor fellows.
It is with terrible agony that the crew on board the wreck witness the second failure of the life-boat: "She will never come again," the captain says, in a voice of despair ”

“ The agony of the captain is almost unendurable, as every wash of the sea, every heave of the frail piece of wreck jars his broken legs; the men have their nails torn from their fingers with the desperate energy with which they clutch the smooth timbers of the piece of deck on which they are lying. Hour after hour passes, and for fifteen hours they thus float about, cold and wet, and wounded, and faint with hunger and thirst; the poor fellows become almost unconscious, and can only just manage to hold on mechanically to their frail support ”

“ Seven men spring to the foremast shrouds, and climb to the cross-trees, the captain and four men cling to the mainmast; time after time the vessel lifts and falls with a crash that wrenches her from stem to stern, and makes all her timbers groan and rend, and nearly shakes the sailors from their hold. Now the ship begins to work and writhe, the timbers break with loud reports, planks are wrenched from her side in the fierce tear of the sea, stout iron bolts are torn from [Pg 210] their hold and twisted like so much thread—the ship is breaking up fast ”

“ So, at any rate, agreed the indulgent Gilmores, reading him quite through in a few glances, while all about the boat those who thought they knew best pronounced him more like Gideon Hayle in his regard for "folks just as folks" than were either the twins or the sister, from all three of whom his impulses kept him amiably aloof.
Of the three brothers certainly he had soon become the most widely acceptable among not only the young people of the passenger guards but also the male commonalty of the boiler deck. In a state of society which he, as "a type," reflected they saw themselves ”

“ They look at the compass, their course is correct, they cannot account for it; a couple of men run forward, and soon see distinctly a white line of foam gleaming out in the darkness, and make out the flash of the breakers as they leap high in the air; they are terror-stricken at the sight, and, with a loud cry of "Breakers ahead! breakers ahead!" they rush to the hatchway and shout to the captain to come on deck at once ”

“ Why, my boy, that's all that's kept her single!"
"Except!" said the Californian softly, but Gideon pressed on. "And single, now, I reckon, she'll always be. Why, sir, not a day breaks but she knows, within an hour's run, the whereabouts of every Hayle boat alive."
"Some Courteney boats too, hmm?"
"Why, eh"—a stare—"I shouldn't wonder. Yes. Humph! 'youngest captain on the river'—fact is, that's her. Lady as she is, and lovely as she is, she's a better steamboatman to-day than—than many a first-class one. She's nearer being my business partner than any man I ever hired." ”