“Don’t be frightened; I want some linen for a man who has been hurt here: some for him, some for his bed, he has nothing! the messenger can tell you about the facts. I must stay and take care of him to-night. I hope you will not mind.
“Yours, M. D.”
“I will get what Captain Duncan wants, immediately,” said Mrs. Hepburn; “come in and sit down while I do it.” She put the note into Nest’s hands, saying, “Ask for an explanation, dear,” and hurried up stairs.
The man, while he gladly spread his hands to the parlor fire, and refused to sit down on the chairs, which looked too refined for his society, told Miss Duncan that a yacht had appeared off the coast in the morning, and that the preventive men, after watching it for some time, saw a boat put off for the shore, with only one person in her. As there was a heavy ground-swell, and the landing was extremely dangerous, although the sea at the time, a hundred yards from the shore, was like glass, they signaled the boat not to approach. Whether the signals were unseen or unintelligible, they could not tell; the boat made for
the beach, immediately below the preventive station. As might be expected, no sooner did she come within the influence of the rolling sea, than she was caught on the crest of a wave, thrown violently on the shore, capsized, stove, and the gentleman, for such he was, was dashed into the surf, from which he was with difficulty rescued by the coast-guard men, half-drowned, with a broken arm, and other terrible injuries to his head and person. He had been carried into a small public-house hard by, and after some hours they had succeeded in obtaining a doctor to dress his wounds; the remote part of the coast making it a matter of great difficulty to procure help of any kind, until the fortunate arrival of the captain, who had told them what to do, and was now with the wounded man.
“And who is he?” exclaimed Nest.
“Nobody knows, miss; the yacht had been cruising about a while, but when the gale rose so heavily, she was obliged to stand off, and was out of sight before night-fall. The coast is so dangerous, you see, miss, she would be obliged to run for shelter to some better harbor, or keep out to sea for more room. It would never do to be knocking about here in these long dark nights.”
“And you don’t think they were smugglers, then?” said Nest, whose ideas of romance were all running in that line, and who was little interested in a matter-of-fact gentleman.
He assured her they had no suspicions of the sort; and Hilary coming down at the moment with the requisite articles, the man mounted, and rode off without delay. Nest had been both right and wrong; it was her brother’s horse, though he was not the rider.
The sisters agreed now to go to bed at once, as Maurice was not coming home till morning; and when Nest had repeated the story she had heard, in every variety of way which her fancy could suggest, she allowed her sister to go to sleep.