Three millions!

TO
HIRAM CLAPP, ESQ.,
This Book
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY HIS FRIEND
WILLIAM T. ADAMS.

DRIFTING TO SEA.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

BY
WILLIAM T. ADAMS
(OLIVER OPTIC)

AUTHOR OF “LIVING TOO FAST,” “IN DOORS AND OUT,” “TAKEN BY THE ENEMY,” “WITHIN THE ENEMY’S LINES,” “ON THE BLOCKADE,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

BOSTON MDCCCXCI
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET NEXT “THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE”

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by WILLIAM T. ADAMS,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THREE MILLIONS. 7

II. MR. ELIOT BUCKSTONE. 21

III. THE HUNGERFORD FAMILY. 33

IV. OFF THE GREAT BELL. 45

V. THE KINGMAN FAMILY. 58

VI. A STRANGE STORY. 71

VII. POOR MARY! 83

VIII. TO EUROPE AND BACK. 96

IX. HEALING THE WOUNDS. 109

X. ROSS KINGMAN. 122

XI. DOCTOR BILKS. 135

XII. DICK BIRCH. 144

XIII. DICK UNDER A SHADOW. 161

XIV. IN THE LIBRARY. 174

XV. DR. BILKS ON THE STAND. 188

XVI. DR. BILKS’S BABY. 203

XVII. THE SETTLEMENT. 217

XVIII. EVIDENCE WANTED. 231

XIX. THE ROPE AND THE WEIGHT. 244

XX. THE SHADOW AT PINE HILL. 256

XXI. THE DEMIGOD OF PINE HILL. 269

XXII. DICK BIRCH’S SUGGESTION. 282

XXIII. JULIA HUNGERFORD. 296

XXIV. POPPLETON GOSPEL. 309

XXV. DOCTOR LYNCH. 321

XXVI. THE PENITENT DEMIGOD. 335

XXVII. THE VERDICT. 349

XXVIII. THE DOCTOR HIMSELF AGAIN. 362

XXIX. FORGIVE AND FORGET. 374

XXX. THE RUSTIC BRIDGE. 387

XXXI. A HOMŒOPATHIC DOSE. 400

XXXII. CRIMINAL CARELESSNESS. 412

XXXIII. DICK BIRCH AND LADY. 425

XXXIV. THIRTY YEARS OLD. 438

XXXV. THE LAST OF THE THREE MILLIONS. 450

THE

WAY OF THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

THREE MILLIONS.

Three million dollars! In round numbers, three million dollars, after the legacies to individuals and the bequests to charitable institutions had been paid!

Three million dollars! Suggestive of mighty air-castles, of untold grandeur, of matchless liberality to the poor and needy! Suggestive, also, of long and weary years of patient seeking after worldly wealth, of painful struggles with adverse circumstances, and of parsimonious self-denial extending even to the very necessities of life.

There had been three great epochs in the life of John Hungerford, the Baltimore millionnaire, at each of which he had annexed a zero to the number indicating his worldly wealth; and it must also be said that he was continually adding zeros to the sum total of his moral and spiritual possessions. When he commenced his business career, he had three thousand dollars. Operating with care and prudence, it required twenty years to annex the first zero, and he was forty-one when the first financial cycle was completed. Another twenty years of care and toil annexed the second zero, and John Hungerford was more than threescore. Then fortune, always constant, became lavish, and the very skies seemed to rain down wealth. His real estate doubled, tripled, and quadrupled, and ten years placed the third and last zero against the accumulations of his lifetime. Then, having passed his threescore years and ten, he retired from active business with fear and trembling for the stupendous fortune he had made. Only three years more of life were vouchsafed to him; but one with his simple habits could not spend a tithe of his income, and another half million was added, almost in spite of himself.

Wherefore had John Hungerford struggled so patiently with the tide of fortune? Wherefore had he neglected his body and his soul for fifty long years? Wherefore had he lived in a mean house, upon the coarsest fare, with never a horse, and hardly a servant to ease his toilsome but successful march up to the pinnacle of his worldly ambition? He had not a child to inherit his hard-earned gains. He had no friends but those who had been constant to him in business relations, and they never crossed the threshold of his homely dwelling. Nothing but the love of wealth could have sustained him in his fierce struggles for the mammon of the world.

Yet John Hungerford was not a bad man. He had cheated no one; had never wronged the widow and the fatherless. He had no friends, because he wanted none; his blood relations had long ago ceased to darken his doors, feeling that they were not welcome guests. They were few in number, including only the son and daughter of his only brother, for the Baltimore millionnaire could boast of no long line of ancestors, and the family tree, so far as his knowledge extended, had its root in the preceding generation.

John Hungerford, senior, had never known a father or a mother. He was, at his earliest recollection, an inmate of an English workhouse, and he had at a tender age been bound out to a farmer. From this humble beginning he had bettered his condition until he was able to save a few pounds, when he married. Prosperity smiled upon him in a small way, and about the year 1790 he had emigrated to America, bringing with him his wife and his four children, the oldest of whom, John, junior, was nineteen years of age, while the youngest, James, was twelve.

The whole family went to work in good earnest, and for a year were prosperous and happy; but the angel of death swept through the contented household during the following year. A malignant fever carried off first the mother, then the two daughters, and finally the father, leaving only John and James to mourn the wreck which death had made in their home. The old man, who had learned industry and thrift in an English workhouse, left six thousand dollars.

John was now twenty-one years of age, and, besides receiving the portion that fell to him, he was appointed the guardian of his younger brother. Then he commenced the career of which we have given the result at the beginning of this chapter. James worked in a store till he was of age; and then, with his three thousand dollars, which John promptly paid to him, with interest, he went farther north, where he invested his little capital in a cotton-mill, and obtained the situation of overseer in the factory.

James Hungerford had none of the genius for money getting which distinguished his brother. He was content with his position in the cotton-mill, and hardly doubled his capital in twenty years. At the age of thirty-four he married a lady of twenty; but it was ten years later when his first child, Eugene, was born, who was followed, four years after, by a daughter, Julia.

When the patient, plodding father died at the age of fifty-four, he left only the small cottage in which he lived, and the three thousand dollars in mill stock, which had paid him dividends for over thirty years. Mrs. Hungerford was a prudent and skilful woman, and she contrived to live very comfortably with her little family on the income of the stock, still occupying the small cottage which her husband had left. At this time John Hungerford had added the second zero to the number which indicated his wealth. For many years there had been no regular communication between the families of John and James. Mrs. Hungerford had written to her brother-in-law, whom she had never seen, the particulars of the death of her husband. A prompt reply had been returned, in which the man of money deplored the loss of the husband and father, and even intimated that, if any assistance were required, it would be rendered. The widow was too high-spirited and self-reliant to make any demands upon the wealthy brother, and she replied that her family was in comfortable circumstances, and had no occasion to trespass upon his liberality.

In the mean time John himself, at the age of fifty-three, had married a widow who was the mother of a boy four years of age. Mrs. Lynch, who became Mrs. Hungerford by this arrangement, was an ambitious woman, who knew something of the extent of her husband’s possessions; but she found that John had an iron will. He would not even move from the mean dwelling he occupied to one better adapted to a man of his wealth. Few and slight were the changes adopted in the household; indeed, they were little more than the substitution of a wife for a housekeeper. The widow was disappointed and indignant; but John was growing old, and she temporized with the present that the future might yield a golden harvest.

The man of wealth, as before hinted, was not a bad nor a hard-hearted man, and though Tom Lynch, his wife’s son, was not the most promising youth in the world, John Hungerford derived a solid pleasure from his company, and favors which the mother could not obtain were readily won by the son. Mrs. Hungerford was delighted with these indications, and hoped and expected that her boy would be the fortunate heir of the rich man. She kept the peace, and submitted to her disappointments in the most exemplary manner, believing that the day of her triumph was not far distant.

Tom Lynch, in due time, was sent to a Pennsylvania college by his indulgent step-father, who had thus far obstinately refused to die, as his loving wife wished; and when John Hungerford had closed up his warehouses, and nominally retired from business, Tom had been graduated, and was studying a profession in Philadelphia.

When his wife’s son had completed his collegiate course, a bright thought entered the brain of the millionnaire. As sending Tom to college had not ruined him, it occurred to him that he might make another venture of the same kind. Having more time on his hands than ever before, having, in fact, so closed up his business that he had little to do but collect and invest his income, he had bestowed a thought upon the family of his brother James. In six lines of a letter, penned with difficulty, he had informed the widow Hungerford that he was tolerably well, and wished to know something about her family. The answer assured him that all were well and happy; that the children were growing finely, and in due time would doubtless ripen into an excellent young man and an excellent young woman. Eugene, she wrote, had particularly distinguished himself as a scholar, and a minister of Poppleton had intimated that the young man ought to be sent to college; but, the widow added, her means were utterly insufficient to enable her to carry out such a magnificent project, though her son would be rejoiced to continue his studies. She declared that Eugene was a noble boy, and submitted without a murmur to his disappointment. In a few weeks he would go into a store.

Whether the statement was intended as a hint or not, the uncle promptly sent her a draft for two thousand dollars, which he thought would take the boy through college handsomely. The letter of thanks in which this gift was acknowledged was so warm and earnest, that the old man’s heart was kindled to finer issues than he had ever before known. He wrote again, insisting that Mrs. Hungerford and her two children should visit him in Baltimore without delay. He was too old and feeble to go to them, and they must come to him. Of course the widow could raise no objections to a project so reasonable, and she immediately announced her intention to accept the invitation. Though she was an independent and high-minded woman, who would not thrust herself or her children upon the notice of her wealthy brother-in-law, very likely she felt that it would be trifling with Providence to neglect this opportunity to improve the relations subsisting between them and the childless millionnaire.

John Hungerford told his wife what he had done, and announced the visit of his relatives. She turned pale, and trembled for the future of her son. She would have rebelled, if policy had not suggested a milder course, and she only declared that the house was in no condition to receive guests. The only practical result of the lady’s protest was, a few hundred dollars were spent in “tidying” up the establishment.

Mrs. Hungerford and her children came. They were kindly welcomed by the old man, and prudentially welcomed by the old man’s wife. It is true the visitors were astonished to find that the man of millions dwelt in a mean, poorly furnished house, without the slightest pretension to luxury or style; but they made no comments. Uncle John was kind and attentive to them; and this was all they could expect of him. Eugene was a fine, manly youth of seventeen, gentle and winning in all his ways; and the fond mother could hardly conceal her satisfaction, when, at the expiration of a week, she realized that her boy was a decided favorite of the old man. The boy was too artless to be mercenary; so he resorted to no tricks to win the regards of his uncle.

John Hungerford was too keenly schooled in human nature to be deceived by a false show of attention. He read his nephew’s noble nature; he understood it perfectly; and day by day the old man’s wife became more troubled and anxious about the prospects of her son. The visit was terminated only when Eugene was obliged to return home to attend the examination for admission to Harvard College. The uncle expressed his desire that the visit should be repeated, and Mrs. Hungerford readily promised to come again.

Tom Lynch went home to spend his vacation a few months after the departure of the widow and her family. His mother imparted to him the appalling intelligence that he was in danger of being supplanted in the regards of her husband; but the young man was confident, and by every art and device which his ingenuity could suggest, he labored to make himself useful and agreeable to his step-father. His mother still dreaded the impending evil. John Hungerford, so far as she knew, had made no will. As the case now stood, the children of James Hungerford were his sole heirs. Nothing but a wife’s portion could come to her, and her son would be utterly excluded from the division. She did not dare to suggest the propriety of his making a will; but she commenced upon a series of hints, and a course of expedients, which were intended to effect her purpose. Thus months and years wore away, and Eugene Hungerford was graduated at Harvard; but the visit to Baltimore was not repeated.

Long and not very patiently had Mrs. Hungerford been waiting for the old man to die. He was aged and feeble, and he would be better off in heaven than upon the earth. It would be better for him to die, even though she obtained no more than her legal share of his estates. More must be obtained if possible, and while she was hinting and studying up expedients, which the superannuated millionnaire persistently refused to notice, she died herself: a violent attack of disease carried her off even before her son could arrive to close her eyes in death.

John Hungerford was alone in the world again. Perhaps his experience of wedded life had not been wholly satisfactory; at any rate, he bore his bereavement with much calmness and resignation, and meekly submitted to the necessity of supplying the place of the departed one by employing a housekeeper. If this sudden death in his little family had no other influence upon him, it forcibly reminded him of the uncertainty of life. For two whole years he labored upon his will, elaborating whole pages of details, freely consulting his business friends, before he instructed the lawyer to embody his intentions in legal forms. Strange as it may seem, he did not send for his brother’s family, as he had intimated he should, at least once a year. Mrs. Hungerford wrote to him occasionally, and with business-like promptness he answered her letters; but no invitation came for the family to repeat the visit. After the death of his wife, his sister-in-law had even proposed to move to Baltimore, and take care of him in his age and feebleness; but the old man, evading a direct reply, continued to study upon the details of his will, which document certainly promised to be the crowning work of his life. He wrote that he was so much occupied, the visit must be deferred; and he continued to postpone it, until one morning his housekeeper found him dead in his bed.

Three staid, dignified, elderly merchants had been John Hungerford’s most intimate friends--friends only in the worldly and business sense. They had been his advisers, and during those two years of patient toil over his will--the master-work of his career--they had been occasional visitors in the little back parlor where the millionnaire now spent most of his time. They had furnished him with all his information of the outer world, and assisted him, so far as they could, in performing the task on which all his remaining energies were concentrated. For two weeks the best lawyer in the city had been closeted with John Hungerford during a portion of each day; and the great deed which finally disposed of the old man’s immense property was completed only a few days before his death. Perhaps he felt that he had nothing more to live for; and permitting his energies to relax, this suspension of his wonted activity had hastened his death.

The housekeeper sent for John’s trio of business friends as soon as she discovered that the vital spark had fled. One after the other they came, and when all had arrived, a solemn and dignified conference was held. There were no friends to be sent for but the Hungerfords of Poppleton, and Tom Lynch, who was attempting to establish himself as a physician in an interior town of Ohio, though reports came to Baltimore that he was too unsteady to achieve a success. Telegraph messages were immediately sent to Mrs. Hungerford and Tom Lynch. The former, with her family, arrived in season to attend the funeral, but the despatch did not promptly reach the young physician, and he did not appear.

John Hungerford went to his grave in greater state than he had ever moved in the flesh, for the three eminent merchants who managed the affair had a high regard for the proprieties of the solemn occasion. A long procession of carriages, occupied by men and women who were willing to join the brilliant funeral cortége for the gloomy excitement of the scene, though they had no interest in, and only a few had any acquaintance with, the deceased, followed the plumed hearse to the cemetery, and the tomb closed upon all that was mortal of the Baltimore millionnaire.

After the old man’s dust had been solemnly disposed of, there was an intense curiosity to ascertain what disposition he had made of his princely fortune. This was really the most interesting question connected with the life or death of the departed. Few, if any, asked what he was; all, what he had. Hardly one wanted to know what pleasant memories he had left behind him; all, the sum total of his worldly possessions. None but fanatics asked where the old man had gone; but every one, where his fortune was to go.

What John Hungerford had been doing in the little back parlor for the last two years was to be made manifest. It had cost the old man fifty years of severe struggles to get his three and a half millions; it had cost him two years of diligent thought, and what struggles none could know,--it had cost him two years of hard labor, more trying, perhaps, in his age and feebleness, than the half century of toil in the vigor of his healthy life,--to give it away. The will was read. There were present at the reading only the three eminent merchants, the Hungerford family from Poppleton, and the housekeeper.

Mrs. Hungerford was quiet and self-possessed. The neglect to send for her, as had been arranged with her brother-in-law, to pay the proposed annual visits, had prepared her to expect nothing more than a simple remembrance. Her son, Eugene, was calm and dignified, but there was something in the expression of his manly face which indicated his dislike of the proceedings. Like his mother, he was independent and self-reliant; and, very likely, he felt that the position of the family before the lawyer and the merchants was an exceedingly unpleasant one. They were to be regarded as expectants, if not supplicants, before the still closed coffers of the dead man; but Eugene repudiated the position. He asked nothing, expected nothing. He was deeply grateful to his uncle for the means of obtaining his education, and he was prepared to be entirely satisfied if this proved to be the total of his indebtedness to the deceased.

Julia Hungerford was nineteen, and she was so fair to look upon that even the dignified merchants stole frequent glances at her, as she sat annoyed and embarrassed, like her brother and her mother, by the awkwardness of the situation.

The lawyer read, and two mortal hours were consumed in the reading; and more of John Hungerford’s life and thought was revealed than the world had ever known before. No one had ever suspected the millionnaire of any family ambition, or of any special affection for the name he bore; but this posthumous document convinced the listeners that the old man regarded the word “Hungerford” as the apple of his eye. The two years of hard reflection had been employed in devising schemes to prevent the name of Hungerford from being forgotten. He had labored to honor it and to perpetuate it.

The great disappointment of John Hungerford’s life, as the truth was educed from the will, was, that no son had blessed his lot--no son to be called John Hungerford, to live like a prince, and to keep the name alive. The testator, however, was not to be wholly balked. He was strenuous for the whole name of John Hungerford; and in spite of his disappointment, he determined to have a representative in the future who should be known and called as he had been known and called. It appeared that he had intended at one time to make Tom Lynch change his name, and become the fortunate owner of the appellation; but the young man had shown a disposition to follow after strange gods, and was not therefore a suitable person to support the honor and dignity of the Hungerford name, and the plan was discarded for the one which was now shadowed forth in the will. But even this might fail, and the old man, in this event, had finally resolved to satisfy himself by rendering immortal and glorious the single name of Hungerford, though his hopes and expectations still coupled it with the dearly beloved John.

To the end that his intentions might be clearly understood, the deceased had compelled the unwilling lawyer to preface the will with the matter from which the information we have given is derived; and it was estimated that the word “Whereas” occurred two hundred and some odd number of times in the folios devoted to this preliminary statement. But this story, in spite of the legal verbiage with which it was encumbered, proved to be of the deepest interest to all present, even including the eminent merchants, whose ideas were generally expressed by figures.

The reader turned the folios for an hour before he came to the pith and cream of the document, the masterpiece of John Hungerford’s labors. “Imprimis” gave to John Lester, Edward Baker, and Loring Greene, the eminent merchants, each the sum of fifty thousand dollars. These gentlemen were John’s best friends, and he made them his executors and trustees for the disposal of his property as “hereinafter mentioned.” To the widow of his late brother James he gave twenty thousand dollars. To Julia Hungerford and Thomas Lynch he gave a like sum. Then were mentioned twenty-eight literary, scientific, and charitable associations, to each of which the testator gave the sum of ten thousand dollars. John Hungerford must have been terribly puzzled to find all these names, and without the assistance of the eminent merchants he would certainly have neglected many of them. He was impartial in his bequests, for without regard to the objects or the magnitude of the enterprises to which he contributed, he gave to each the same sum.

These bequests, with an allowance of ten thousand dollars for present expenses of probate--there were no stamps then--used up only the half million, which was but a kind of flourish on the end of John Hungerford’s fortune, and which had accumulated since he retired from active pursuits. The grand army of zeros, marshalled by its significant three, was yet in the field, and the three eminent merchants actually gasped with anxiety to hear the name of the residuary legatee. And now came John Hungerford’s dying crotchet; now came the notable scheme by which John Hungerford, dead and in his grave, was to be represented in the coming generation by a John Hungerford, alive and glorious in the possession of a princely fortune; or, failing the “John,” by which the name of Hungerford, simply, was to be honorably sent down to remote ages.

The whole three millions was to be placed in the hands of the eminent merchants, as trustees, who for their valuable services were to receive a fixed sum per annum, the whole income of which, after deducting the expenses, was to be paid to his “beloved nephew,” Eugene Hungerford.

Eugene did not faint when he heard that he was to be the recipient of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year, but his mother absolutely gasped for breath.

The lawyer proceeded. The eminent trustees were to retain possession of the three millions, all safely and profitably invested at the present time, until the before-mentioned beloved nephew, Eugene Hungerford, had attained the age of thirty years; at which time, if the said Eugene was legally married, and was the legal father of a legal son, then the said eminent trustees should pay over to the said beloved nephew, Eugene Hungerford, the said legal father of the said legal son, absolutely and irrevocably the said three millions, now invested as aforesaid: provided that the name of John Hungerford shall be unchangeably given by the said legal father to the said legal son.

Eugene twisted uneasily in his chair. Mrs. Hungerford looked very complacent, as though the conditions of the will, in her estimation, were not very difficult to be complied with. Julia wanted to laugh, but the eminent merchants, who continued to glance at her occasionally, were too solemn and dignified to permit her to indulge in any levity.

The reading was not finished. If the said beloved nephew was not married when he attained the said age of thirty; or, if married, and being the legal father of a legal daughter or daughters only, and not being the said legal father of a said legal son; or if the said son was called by any other than the said name of “John Hungerford,”--then the three millions was to be shattered and divided into six equal parts of half a million each; one part to be paid to the said beloved nephew, Eugene Hungerford; one part to the before-mentioned beloved niece, Julia Hungerford; one part to the son of his late wife, Thomas Lynch; one part to the Hungerford Orphan Asylum; one part to the Hungerford Institute for Aged Women; and one part to the Hungerford Home for Aged Men.

Every provision of the will was carefully set forth, and nicely protected from any possible misconstruction. John made things strong. It was duly signed and sealed, and was witnessed by the twelve proprietors of the twelve nearest stores; for though the testator knew that three witnesses were enough, he insisted upon having an army of them, at least one half of whom should not be over thirty years of age; so that if any trouble came, some of them could be found, and not all of them would have died of old age.

The reading of the will was completed. The eminent merchants and the sharp lawyer congratulated Eugene, his mother, and especially his sister. They were astonishingly polite to the whole family. Eugene tried to be good natured, but, with his peculiar temperament, he found it even more difficult than if he had been cut off with a shilling. As Eugene is the hero of the story, we will not attempt to use him up in the first chapter, or even to indicate his views of the magnificent position to which he had suddenly been elevated.

Tom Lynch had not yet been heard from, and Eugene, after listening to all the trustees had to say, started for Poppleton with his mother and sister.

CHAPTER II.

MR. ELIOT BUCKSTONE.

The view from Poppleton Point was very fine. A marine painter sat making a sketch where the spray from the sea which beat upon the rocks below spattered his patent leather boots. He was wholly absorbed in his work, and one with a taste for the grand and beautiful, engaged in such a task, might well be pardoned for knowing nothing else. The Point was the eastern boundary of the northern coast line of the estuary into which Bell River disembogued. At an average distance of half a mile from the shore lay two islands, which had been named from their shape The Great Bell and The Little Bell. Just above the latter, on the north side of the river, was Port Poppleton, a village of four thousand inhabitants, who were principally engaged in the coasting and fishing business.

Above its mouth Bell River made two turns, which gave it the form of the letter S. The country was hilly and rocky, and the stream had been forced into a tortuous way in its path to the sea. Two miles north of the Port was another village, within the corporate limits of the town, which went by the name of Poppleton Mills. The place was a live New England town, with some farming, some fishing, some coasting, some ship-building, a great deal of trade with Boston and Portland by land and by sea, but the principal interest was the cotton factories.

The mouth of Bell River was surrounded by rocks, and the region to the southward was rather noted for its fine scenery. The gunning and fishing in the vicinity were first class. Not only were the finest cod, haddock, perch, and tautog caught in the sea off the Port, but the finest pickerel and pouts were taken in the river above the Mills, and the finest trout in the brooks which flowed into it. It was therefore a paradise for sportsmen and summer idlers, and two very comfortable hotels in the lower village were usually well filled with visitors for four months in the year. Port Poppleton was rapidly acquiring a reputation as a watering-place, on a small scale.

Mr. Eliot Buckstone, marine painter from the city of New York, sat on a rock at the extremity of Poppleton Point. He had taken a room at the Bell River House for a fortnight, and was just now at the height of earthly felicity in the enjoyment of the luxuries of the place, not the least of which, to his artistic soul, was the view from the Point. He watched the green waves, as they rolled up from the sea, and broke themselves in flaky spray upon the rocks of the Great Bell. This was the scene he was sketching. He had already outlined the rocks, with the curling billows shattering themselves upon them, and the dilapidated farm-house and barn which occupied the highest part of the island.

“Help! help!”

Eliot Buckstone dropped his sketch-book and pencil, and sprang to his feet, for the tones were those of a woman.

“Help! Help!”

It was the voice of a woman, but the accents were not so deeply burdened with terror as the words would seem to indicate. Mr. Buckstone glanced in the direction from which the appeal came, and discovered a small boat, containing a female. She uttered no wild screams, she made no extravagant gestures; and as her tones, gentle and supplicatory as they were, had before informed him, she did not appear to be seriously alarmed. The strong tide was bearing the boat swiftly through the narrow strait between the Great Bell and the north shore.

Although the lady, standing up in the boat, did not seem to regard her situation as a perilous one, the artist took a very different view of it. The wind was blowing fresh from the south-west, and the frail craft, already tossed by the great waves that rolled up from beyond the Point, was going out to sea. The wind and the tide might force it miles from the shore, and the lady, if not drowned, would be subjected to a long absence and a great deal of suffering. She appealed to him for help, or, if not to him, to somebody, for it was doubtful whether she had yet seen him. If there was no danger, of course she would not ask for assistance. Mr. Eliot Buckstone was an artist, and his imagination was strong and vivid. To him the lady’s situation at once became desperate. Without his prompt decision, and his strong arm, the interesting supplicant would be swallowed up by the remorseless billows, ingulfed by the relentless tide, mangled upon the pitiless rocks.

Mr. Buckstone threw off his coat the very instant he discovered the helpless lady, for though all the matters we have mentioned were duly considered, the thoughts flashed through his mind as thoughts always should flash through the brain of a genius. Mr. Buckstone threw off his vest. He did not take off either of these garments, for he was an impetuous young man, and a lady was in mortal peril--he threw them off. Mr. Buckstone kicked off his boots, though they were of patent leather, and snugly encased a pair of well-formed feet; he did not pull them off by any of the slow and tedious expedients known to the wearers of artistic boots--he kicked them off.

“Help! help!” again appealed the lone voyager, this time with a little more emphasis, but hardly with more feeling or more terror.

Mr. Buckstone rushed down to the water, walked out upon a big flat rock, and launched himself upon the stormy tide. The boat was coming within a few rods of the Point, and having measured with his eye the base and perpendicular of a triangle, the hypothenuse of which was the space between himself and the boat, he struck out on the base line, leaving the wayward craft to follow the perpendicular.

The artist swam well, and vigorously breasted the strong waves which beat against him. It is hardly more than once in a lifetime that a young man has an opportunity to become the hero of a romance, and Mr. Eliot Buckstone seemed to be determined to make a rich investment on the present occasion. It is hardly necessary to say that he intercepted the truant boat, as it was in the act of passing the Point, for to a young man in his frame of mind, with a helpless female before him rushing on to death and misery, failure was as impossible as success to a less determined person. He grasped the gunwale of the boat, and held on; he could do no more, for, short as was the distance he had accomplished, the obstinate waves and the pitch of excitement to which he had worked himself up, had completely exhausted him. He hung on at the gunwale, puffing like a porpoise torn from his native element.

The imperilled female, now apparently in less peril than her gallant deliverer, stood up in the stern of the boat, regarding with intense interest and anxiety the amphibious gentleman who had so boldly battled the waves in her behalf. While Mr. Eliot Buckstone recovers his breath, let us glance at her who had unwittingly caused the enthusiastic artist all this trouble and inconvenience.

She was rather tall; beautifully proportioned, and exceedingly graceful. Her complexion was naturally fair, but it had been somewhat browned by the summer sun. Her eye was large, soft, and blue; her nose Grecian; and her lips had just curl enough to indicate firmness of purpose. Her face and form would have attracted attention anywhere; but the more spiritual the nature, the more elevated the taste, the higher the intellectual cultivation, of the beholder, the more intense would have been his appreciation of the gentle maiden, whom the wind and the waves were wafting to sea, when the artist rushed to her assistance.

“I am very sorry to have caused you all this trouble, sir,” said the lady, in tones so sweet and soothing, and withal so musical, that the marine painter instantly lost all sense of fatigue, and felt whole volumes of fresh, pure air pour into his empty lungs.

Eliot Buckstone was not sorry when he saw that face, beheld that graceful form, and heard that musical voice. He was endowed with a highly sensitive organization, and he may be pardoned for the raptures which were kindled into being beneath his wet garments. I am inclined to think, knowing what he felt in this moment of enthusiasm, that he was a fatalist; that he believed fate or providence had at this time, and in this manner, brought him into the presence of the tall maiden, who gazed in pity and gentleness upon him.

“No trouble at all, madam,” he replied, as with a vigorous movement he climbed over the rail into the boat, to the imminent risk of swamping the frail craft.

“I did not see you, sir, when I called for help,” she added, apologetically.

“I am glad you did not, if seeing me would have prevented you from claiming my assistance,” answered Mr. Buckstone, as he shook the salt water from his curly locks.

“I would not have had you expose yourself in this manner on any consideration,” continued the lady, who had seated herself when the artist climbed into the boat.

“Do not complain of me for what I have done, for I assure you it has been a greater pleasure to me than to you.”

“You are very kind, sir, but I must regret that you adopted this method of assisting me.”

“What other method could I have adopted?” asked Mr. Buckstone, not a little puzzled by the protest of the rescued damsel.

He was a man of the world, and though he had been in the habit of hearing ladies pretend to object to the trouble they might have caused, he felt that they regarded any sacrifices of time or comfort as expressions of devotion, highly flattering and complimentary to them. He believed that the gentleman who incurred the greatest risk for a lady had the sincerest admiration for her. In the present instance, Mr. Buckstone realized that the lady actually regretted the annoyance and discomfort which she had caused him.

“Gentlemen do not usually put to sea like seals and porpoises,” replied the lady, with a soothing smile, the first he had seen, and which rendered his case even more desperate than before.

“How do they put to sea?”

“In boats.”

“But I had no boat.”

“Perhaps you might have found one at the salt works beyond the Point.”

“Perhaps I might--who knows!” replied Mr. Buckstone with a rather vacant expression on his handsome face, for the idea of resorting to a boat when a lady was in peril, looked absolutely preposterous to him, especially if the boat had to be searched for before it could be found.

“I beg you will not think I am ungrateful,” continued the lady, noticing the shade of discontent that appeared on the face of the artist.

“By no means, madam.”

“I am really very grateful to you; and I was only sorry to have caused you so much trouble and discomfort. I was not in great danger----”

“Not in great danger?” interposed Mr. Buckstone, puzzled by the lady’s apparent intention to underrate his services.

“Did you think I was?”

“I certainly did.”

“Then I am all the more obliged to you for your kind exertions in my favor.”

“Don’t mention it; but you will excuse me if I say I think you are the coolest lady it was ever my good fortune to meet.”

“Indeed, you misunderstand me entirely,” protested she, a slight flush mantling her cheeks, while she looked exceedingly troubled and annoyed. “I am very, very grateful to you.”

“O, I do not doubt that.”

“You think that I am cool, but I assure you my heart is warm with thankfulness. I am just as much obliged to you as though I had been in peril of my life, and all the more so because you so regarded my situation.”

“I only meant that you were very cool in view of your danger. How a lady could be as composed as you were, when alone in a boat drifting out to sea, is more than I can comprehend. That was what I meant. I would not by any means accuse you of undervaluing my poor service.”

“I am relieved,” added she, her smile meaning even more than her words. “I do not think I am lessening the value of your efforts in my behalf when I say that I should not have been very much alarmed if I had been sure of going out to sea. It is now only the middle of the forenoon: I should have been picked up by some boat or vessel bound in or out of the river.”

“I must say you have more courage and self-possession than I ever happened to meet with in a lady before.”

“I am quite used to the water.”

“I see that you are,” laughed the artist, rising from his seat on the thwart, where all this time he had been resting from his labors, while the boat continued to drift out to sea.

“Have you any oars?” he asked, after he had glanced into the bottom of the boat.

“I have not, unfortunately. If I had I should not have been here.”

“Then I am very thankful that you had none;” whereat the maiden blushed, and looked troubled again.

“I lost the oars overboard,” she added, without noticing the pretty speech of the gallant young man.

“I am glad you did, Miss----,” and he looked up into the fair face of the lady.

“Miss Kingman; but I am very sorry I lost the oars, for you are as wet as a fish, and you may take cold.”

“I never take cold; I am above such infirmities.”

“I hope you will not, but a cold bath is not comfortable on a chilly day like this.”

“This is a beautiful day, and my heart is warm enough just now to generate sufficient caloric for my whole body.”

Miss Kingman did not, perhaps, precisely comprehend this bold speech. She glanced back at the Point, past which the boat had drifted, and was now tossing about like a chip on the great waves of the open bay.

“You think we had better get back to the land,” continued Mr. Buckstone, interpreting her glance at the shore to mean this.

“I am not at all frightened; my father is an old sailor, and I have always lived on the sea shore.”

“Upon my word, I am heartily rejoiced that you are not alarmed at your situation, for really I can’t see that I have done anything more by my swim, than to give you a companion in your voyage out to sea,” replied the artist, as he glanced over the boat again in search of something that would serve as an oar.

The lady was silent; perhaps disliking to say what she may have believed--that a companion like the young artist was more dangerous than the wind and the waves.

Whether she thought so or not, it was true in this case, though by no fault on his part; and it would have been better for her to be buried in the depth of the ocean, with nothing but the wind and the waves to chant her requiem, than to have met Eliot Buckstone.

“What shall I do? I have no oars, and the thwarts are all fastened into the boat.”

“I don’t know, really,” she replied, “what you can do. I wondered, when I saw you swimming out, what you intended.”

“I supposed you had oars,” answered Mr. Buckstone, stung by the implied, but not intended, reproach for his thoughtless measures.

“If I had had oars, I should not have needed your assistance.”

“Then I am only an encumbrance to you. I suppose the boat would live longer in a sea with one person in it than with two. I have actually added to your peril, Miss Kingman, instead of removing you from it. What a blunderer I am!”

“You wrong yourself. Whatever the practical result, you intended to do me a great service, and I assure you I appreciate it as such.”

“I think it would be better for me now to leave you, and swim ashore.”

“Swim ashore!”

“And save you from my presence.”

“You wrong me now, sir.”

“I have come to the conclusion, that in your estimation, I have made a fool of myself.”

“Far from it, sir,” protested she, earnestly.

“That you owe me thanks only for my good intentions, which have stupidly increased your danger rather than diminished it.”

“I have no thought but gratitude.”

“For my good intentions, and contempt for my blundering work.”

“I hope I have not offended you. I did not mean to say anything unkind. I am sure I owe you----”

“Nothing, Miss Kingman. We are not more than half a mile from the Point, and I will swim ashore.”

“Not on any account. I shall never forgive myself for my careless words.”

“But when I get ashore, I will procure a boat, and come--or send some one--to your relief.”

“You are vexed with me, sir. I did not mean to say a word which would wound you.”

“Neither have you.”

“And I do not undervalue your kind exertions in my behalf. Do not attempt to swim ashore in such a sea as this,” pleaded the lady, as she saw him look significantly over the side.

“I can easily do so.”

“You are nearly exhausted by your efforts in swimming off to the boat.”

“That was only because I was so much alarmed for your safety.”

“How noble and kind you were! And how cruel and unkind I have been to disparage your efforts; but I did not intend to disparage them,” protested she, with an earnestness which entirely removed the feeling of chagrin that lingered in the mind of the enthusiastic artist. “I hope you will forgive me, sir.”

“With all my heart;” and it was with all his heart, for he could not resist the eloquence of that soft eye, and those musical tones, albeit his vexation was caused wholly by the feeling that the fair stranger did not appreciate him, rather than his exertions in her behalf.

“I cannot express to you how grateful I am, and I would not have you think me unkind for all the world.”

Mr. Buckstone was satisfied. How could he be otherwise after such liberal concession on the part of the lady? He now occupied himself in an examination of the interior structure of the boat. One of the narrow ceiling boards was loose, and without asking to whom the craft belonged, he tore it from its place. With his pocket-knife he soon fashioned it into something that had a remote resemblance to an oar.

“Now, Miss Kingman, if you will permit me to sit in the stern of the boat, I will try to scull her ashore,” said he, as he moved aft for this purpose.

“I am sure you will do all you intended,” replied she, as she rose from her seat.

The artist took her hand to assist her to another seat. It was a delicate and prettily shaped hand, and Mr. Buckstone, in spite of the emergency of the moment, glanced at it with an artist’s eye. He was sufficiently enraptured by the touch to press the hand, if he had dared to do so; but he prudently refrained, and placed himself in the stern with the oar he had improvised.

Mr. Buckstone, in the pursuit of his art, had accustomed himself to marine occupations. He succeeded in putting the boat’s head up to the wind, but that was about all he succeeded in doing, for the pine board twisted and behaved itself in a most unseamanlike manner; or Mr. Buckstone did, for the fault lay somewhere between them; and as far as the boatman or the lady could discover, no progress was made. Then he essayed to row the stubborn craft; but she whirled around, and resolutely went to seaward with the wind and tide. Miss Kingman hoped he would not wear himself out in fruitless exertions; but Mr. Buckstone seemed to have “enlisted for the war,” and to be determined to carry his point in spite of the obstinacy of the boat, the treachery of the oar, and the adverse influence of the wind and tide. Finally, after resorting to various expedients, he turned the craft towards the lighthouse on The Great Bell, so that her intended course was diagonal with the force of the breeze and the current, and pulled his oar on the seaward side. By this strategy, with the utmost exertion at the pine board, he realized that he was making a little progress through the water.

The labor was very great, and the headway very slight. It would be hours before he could reach the lighthouse at this rate, and he was soon discouraged by the prospect before him. But what added to his discomfort and discouragement was the fact that his beautiful companion sat behind him, and he could derive no inspiration in his arduous labors from the contemplation of her sweet face and graceful form. Mr. Buckstone was really in no haste to reach the shore, and nothing but a proper regard for appearances and the proprieties of the occasion induced him to struggle so hard to attain what he did not wish to attain. The marine painter was young, sentimental, and susceptible. Never before in flesh and blood had he so distinctly seen his ideal of a beautiful woman, as in the being who now sat behind him in the boat. In spite of his wet garments, and in spite of the terrors of the ocean upon which the boat was drifting, he found himself very pleasantly situated, and not the least in a hurry to escape from the perils which were as yet too far off to be dreaded. There was a greater peril nearer at hand, of which neither of them was conscious.

“There comes a boat out of the river!” exclaimed the lady, just as Mr. Buckstone had given up his useless labor, and turned round to gaze into the speaking eyes of his lovely companion.

“I am sorry for it,” said he, incautiously; “that is, I am sorry it did not come before.”

Miss Kingman was eighteen years old, and if she was deceived by the change in his words, she was undeceived when she felt the earnest gaze of admiration he bestowed upon her. The artist turned, and saw a sail boat dash out from behind the point of The Great Bell, on which the lighthouse was located.

“She makes good time, and you will soon be relieved of my presence, Miss Kingman,” said he, with a sigh.

She hoped so, but it would have been cruel to say it.

“It is Mr. Hungerford,” continued Miss Kingman, when the sail boat had come within hailing distance; and there was a smile of pleasure on her countenance which did not escape the keen observation of the artist.

“And pray, who is Mr. Hungerford?” he asked.

“Haven’t you heard of him? Eugene Hungerford, the heir of the Baltimore millionnaire?”

Mr. Buckstone had never heard of him; but he hailed the sail boat, and begged the loan of a pair of oars.

CHAPTER III.

THE HUNGERFORD FAMILY.

The Hungerford family, after uncle John had been solemnly and ceremoniously committed to the tomb, returned to Poppleton. Everything had a kind of unsubstantial look to them, as though they had been suddenly lifted from the cares and trials of this sublunary sphere to a region of golden clouds which were very beautiful to look upon, but which would not bear the solid tramp of mortal feet. Whereas they had gone to Baltimore, ten days before, in very moderate and even humble circumstances, now they were rolling in wealth; at least the will of the late John Hungerford had so declared them to be, though they found it exceedingly difficult to realize the stupendous change which had come over them. They reached Poppleton with all these doubts unsolved, and with these cloudy sensations still hanging about them.

Mrs. Hungerford was the most practical person of the three. She was a well-educated, well-informed lady, who knew something of books, and a great deal of the world. She had brought up her little family on three hundred dollars a year, and she had necessarily been a very practical person; but as she journeyed home from Baltimore, she was troubled with a dread lest the golden clouds should suddenly roll away, the misty curtain be lifted, and the bright dream of ease, luxury, and happiness be dissipated even before she had tasted its sweetness. Twenty thousand dollars had been left to her, independently of all contingencies; and this to a woman of high aims, who had been struggling all her life with the inconveniences of a small income, was a fortune in itself. By degrees, as the train thundered along towards her home, she reasoned herself into the belief that her own legacy and that of her daughter were as real as the solid earth beneath them. Of the golden clouds, the silver fountains, and the glittering mists from Pactolian streams, that enveloped her son Eugene, she had not the courage to think. Her own little fortune was large enough and suggestive enough to satisfy the highest flights of her imagination.

So far as thought and feeling were concerned, the Hungerford family were only one individual. I do not mean to say there was never any difference of opinion among its members, for that would be saying they were all dolts and fools, and that the cottage in which they dwelt was the dullest and most insipid place in the world; but there was a rich harmony of thought and feeling, even while thought and feeling ran in different channels. Simple-minded, Christian people, of intelligence and cultivation, always remarked what a beautiful family the Hungerfords were. The mother and her children were unselfish; they lived for each other, and there was not a joy or a sorrow for one that was not for all. It made no difference, therefore, what members of the family had been mentioned in the will of John Hungerford as the recipients of legacies, or which one as the residuary legatee; by the ties of nature, what belonged to one belonged to all; and if the millionnaire had known them better, he might have left his bounty to the whole, instead of mentioning individuals.

Eugene Hungerford appeared to take his altered circumstances with the utmost composure; but he only appeared to do so. While he was universally acknowledged to be a generous, noble, and high-minded young man, he had the reputation of being odd and strange. He never did things as other people did them; not apparently for the sake of being odd and strange, but because he had a will and a way of his own. As the train bore him north, he did not seem to be elated: nor was he; for, like his mother and his sister, he was troubled with that feeling of insecurity and unsubstantialness--the fear that things would not work according to the programme laid down in John Hungerford’s will. Perhaps the old man was crazy, and had made his magnificent will without the means of doing a tithe of what the labored document proposed to accomplish. He had heard of men making wills who had not a dollar to leave behind them.

But in spite of this want of confidence in the reality of the golden era which had dawned upon him, he could not help building castles in the air: certain brilliant projects flitted through his mind, some relating to personal comforts, luxuries, and enjoyments, and others to the reformation and improvement of the world at large, but more especially to the world of Poppleton society; though this, as being within the sphere of his knowledge and experience, was only the representative of a general idea. “No pent-up Utica” was to contract his powers, when he became the sole possessor of the three millions. When he did! Eugene regarded the terms of the will as contingent, rather than conditional. They were disagreeable to him. He did not relish them. To have the holiest and dearest relations of life even mentioned in connection with money was repulsive to him.

In a worldly point of view, he must marry as soon as practicable; otherwise the contingency which would give him the three millions, absolutely, could not occur. There was certainly a worldly inducement for him to make some lady Mrs. Eugene Hungerford. He did not like it. Why should he marry, if he did not wish to do so? Why should he be bribed to enter into the holy state of matrimony? He could not very clearly define to himself his feelings on this delicate point; but there was a certain sense of compulsion which fretted and annoyed him, and which tempted him to be obstinate even against his moral, social, and pecuniary interests. To be compelled to marry in order to obtain the three millions, went exactly across the grain of his sensitive and high-strung nature. If the question had been between the three millions and taking to his bosom one whom he did not love, one to whom he was indifferent, he would not have hesitated an instant in making a decision, even if poverty and single blessedness had been the alternative.

But Eugene Hungerford was doomed to be rich in spite of himself. No obstinacy or hardship could deprive him of his entire wealth--always supposing that John Hungerford’s will was not a vision. He was to receive the income of the three millions for seven years; and then, if the conditions were not complied with, he was to have the sixth part of the whole sum. Let him be as obdurate as he pleased, he could hardly help being a millionnaire; let him be denied the blessed boon of a little John Hungerford in the future, and then even a fortune of which he had never been extravagant enough to dream, would still be coming to him. His position would not be a very hard one, though he should choose to be ugly and uncompromising.

With this view he came back to the original question, Why should he marry if he did not wish to marry? Why should he call his first born son John if it did not suit him so to call him? But in this connection there came up before him, unbidden, the image of a beautiful girl, upon whom he had long looked with admiration, and to whose virtues and gentleness his heart had yielded homage. She was all that he could ask for as the partner of his joys and his sorrows in the pilgrimage of life, though never before had he ventured to think of her as his wife. Though she was poor like himself, though her family relations were overshadowed by griefs and sorrows, she was so fair and so good, that crowds of suitors thronged her path. She could choose from a score, if not a hundred, and perhaps her choice was already made.

This beautiful girl was Mary Kingman, whom we left in the boat with Eliot Buckstone. Though only twenty, she had taught the grammar school at Poppleton Mills, and the one at the Port. Her last service had been in the High School, and she had just resigned her situation there on account of family troubles. She had been a pupil in this school with Eugene Hungerford, where a strong friendship had grown up between them. It was not love--they were too young. On his return from college, where, to save expense, he had taken to the study of the law in the office of Squire Perkins at the Port, he saw her only occasionally. The future had been too uncertain to permit him to think of marriage; and though he still cherished his early regard for her, he prudently refrained from committing himself or her to any expression of the feeling which both evidently entertained. All this was changed now; he could give her a home, a palace; he could crown her with golden wreaths, and make her the queen of the county; but above all, he could redeem her from the wasting bondage to which her domestic relations subjected her.