“Get the glass, John; that will tell the story.” Resting the glass on the fence, he looked long and carefully. At length he said, “John, that’s your brother Ben on that raft. He’s got half an acre of spars, I verily believe—all they have cut this winter; well, he’s one of the kind to make a spoon or spoil a horn—always was.”
“But where’s he going to?”
“Boston, I expect; he’s steering that way, and is making first-rate headway, too.”
Forgetting all about his breakfast, John ran to Uncle Isaac’s, while Captain Rhines went in to tell the news to his wife.
“Ben’s going to Boston on a raft!” he shouted; “O, come quick, or he’ll be out of sight!”
They watched him from the hill, and then from the garret window, till he disappeared from view.
“If the wind should come in fresh at north-west,” said Uncle Isaac, “no power on earth could prevent his going to sea, and that would be the end of him;” but, noticing the look of anxiety upon John’s face, he said, “Come in and take breakfast with us, and then we’ll see what your father thinks about it.”
“Don’t you think Ben’s running a great risk?” asked Uncle Isaac of Captain Rhines.
Now, Captain Rhines had never done much else, except to run risks, and therefore was not particularly sensitive on that score.
“It’s a risk, that’s certain; but then it’s a risk that’s well worth the running, to get such a tremendous raft of spars as that to market, as you may say, for nothing. The wind often holds easterly, this time of year, a fortnight; it’s our trade-wind; he is going every bit of four knots. I’ll risk Ben; he’s one of the kind that always come on their feet. There’s not another man in the world that looks as bad as he does, that would have got Sally Hadlock. Nobody else could have got Elm Island from Father Welch. I have been trying to buy it of him these twenty years; but he said it was his father’s before him, and he wouldn’t sell it, for he didn’t want to see it stripped; and he knew I would cut the timber off the first thing. No, I’ll risk Ben. Did I ever tell you what a Yankee trick he served a British man-of-war, when he was captain of a privateer?”