"O father! how could you trust him with Philip?" burst forth involuntarily.
"Trust Ben? Why, child, thar ain't a handier sailor round the place. And if he wan't, I guess Moore could take care of himself—he'll manage a craft equal to an old salt."
"Can't you go after them, father? oh, do go, now, this night—this hour!"
"Why, child, you're crazy!" replied the raftsman, looking at her in surprise. "I never saw you so foolish before. Go after a couple of young chaps full-grown and able to take care of themselves? They've the only sail-boat there is, besides—and I don't think I shall break my old arms rowing after 'em when they've got a good day's start," and he laughed good-naturedly. "Go along, little one, I'm 'fraid you're love-cracked."
Got the only sail-boat there was! There would be no use, then, in making her father the confidant of her suspicions. It seemed as if fate had fashioned this mischance. Several of the men had got into a quarrel, at the mill, that morning; some of the machinery had broken, and so much business pressed upon the owner, that he had been obliged to relinquish his journey. He had selected Ben as his substitute because he was his favorite among all his employees; trusty, quick, honest, would make a good selection of winter stores, and render a fair account of the money spent. Such had been the young man's character; and the little public of Wilde's mill did not know that a stain had come upon it—that the mark of Cain was secretly branded upon the swarthy brow which once could have flashed back honest mirth upon them.
They say "the devil is not so black as he is painted;" and surely Ben Perkins was not so utterly depraved as might be thought. He was a heathen; one of those white heathen, found plentifully in this Christian country, not only in the back streets of cities, but in the back depths of sparsely-settled countries.
He had grown up without the knowledge of religion, as it is taught, except an occasional half-understood sensation sermon from some travelling missionary—he had never been made to comprehend the beauty of the precepts of Christ—and he had no education which would teach him self-control and the noble principle of self-government. Unschooled, with a high temper and fiery passions, generous and kindly, with a pride of character which would have been fine had it been enlightened, but which degenerated to envy and jealousy of his superiors in this ignorant boy-nature—the good and the bad grew rankly together. From the day upon which he "hired out," a youth of eighteen, to Captain Wilde, and saw Alice Wilde, a child of twelve, looking shyly up at him through her golden curls, he had loved her. He had worked late and early, striven to please his employer, shown himself hardy, courageous, and trustworthy—had done extra jobs that he might accumulate a little sum to invest in property—all in the hope of some time daring to ask her to marry him. Her superior refinement, her innate delicacy, her sweet beauty were felt by him only to make him love her the more desperately. As the sun fills the ether with warmth and light, so she filled his soul. It was not strange that he was infuriated by the sight of another man stepping in and winning so easily what he had striven for so long—he saw inevitably that Alice would love Philip Moore—this perfumed and elegant stranger, with his fine language, his fine clothes, and his fine manners. He conceived a deadly hate for him. All that was wicked in him grew, choking down every thing good. He allowed himself to brood over his wrongs, as he regarded them; growing sullen, imprudent, revengeful. Then the opportunity came, and he fell beneath the temptation.
Chance had saved him from the consummation of the deed, though not from the guilt of the intent. He had thought himself, for half a day, to be a murderer,—and during those hours the rash boy had changed into the desperate man. Whether he had suffered so awfully in conscience that he was glad to hear of the escape of his intended victim, or whether he swore still to consummate his wish, his own soul only knew.
Everybody at Wilde's mill had remarked the change in him, from a gay youth full of jests and nonsense to a quiet, morose man, working more diligently than ever, but sullenly rejecting all advances of sport or confidence.
If he was secretly struggling for the mastery over evil, it was a curious fatality which threw him again upon a temptation so overwhelming in its ease and security of accomplishment.