The lad had visited B—— as one of a schooner’s crew, and not long after had come with his mother and Peggy, and sought a home in a cabin on the shore.
After a run to Boston, where he had seen the agent of Cliff Castle, he had permission to move into the mansion, and for over a year they had dwelt there, and that was all that was known of them.
At the risk of his life the brave boy had gone out in a storm one night and acted as pilot to a schooner that was in a dangerous anchorage, and this had won him fame along the coast, and the name of the boy pilot.
Again, he had sailed out in his surf-skiff to a vessel adrift, and found it utterly deserted, so had gotten up sail, as well as he could, and run the craft to a safe anchorage.
He had given notice of the fact, but no one had come to claim the pretty craft, which was a small schooner yacht, and Mark had begun to regard her as his own property.
One afternoon he was standing upon the cliff watching the coming up of what threatened to be a terrible storm.
The whole heavens to seaward were one mass of inky clouds, which were rising higher and higher, and ominous rumblings of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning grew louder and brighter as the tempest came sweeping on.
From his position on the cliff he could look down into two basins, or bays.
In one lay the little schooner at anchor, and all ship-shape to meet the coming tempest, and there, too, was his surf-skiff with a couple of boats drawn up on the beach.
The entrance to this bay was winding and dangerous in the extreme, but these very dangers of running in and out made it more sheltered and secure as a harbor.