CHAPTER XV.
UNDER WAY, OR UNDER WEIGH.
Captain Michael Angelo Spickles was delivered to an officer, who committed him to a cell in the lock-up. The future must have looked very dark to him, for he was morally sure of spending the next few years in the State prison. The Nautifelers Club had come to naught. Only the day before, he had been blackguarding his former friend for not drinking beer, and for being correct in his moral ideas. To-day he was in condition to see the folly of his conduct, even from a merely worldly point of view.
At the Beech Hill Industrial School, as soon as the principal dismissed the students, the wharf and the boat-house were scenes of intense activity. Although Captain Gildrock had not the slightest intention of exposing them to a possible shot from the burglars, many of the pupils believed they were going out in search of the companions of the chief who had been exhibited to their wondering gaze in the schoolroom.
The principal was not at all inclined to foster their belligerent propensities, and he mercilessly ridiculed any thing that looked like a fight to "see who was the better man." If it was clearly shown that a boy had fought purely in self-defence, after he had done nothing to provoke his opponent to wrath, if he did not commend him, he excused him.
Mr. Brookbine had reported that Mr. Jepson and Dory were watching the schooner, which was at anchor off Camp-Meeting Point. Four of the five members of the Nautifelers Club must still be on board of her. This was understood by all on the place. The principal hoped that Dory would not do any thing more than watch the La Motte. If he had known just what his nephew was about, he would have interposed to prevent him from meddling with such dangerous characters.
Mrs. Dornwood had been in a fever of excitement all the morning; for her son was absent, and she did not seem to have as much confidence in his discretion as her brother had. The news that he was safe and unharmed had been sent to her, as soon as the master-carpenter arrived with the prisoner; but this comforted, while it did not satisfy, her.
As soon as he left the schoolroom, the principal had driven rapidly to the town, and procured two deputy-sheriffs, and brought them to the wharf, where they went on board of the Sylph, the larger of the two steamers. If any one was to attack the burglars on board of the La Motte, one or both of these officers were the proper persons to do it, in the opinion of Captain Gildrock.
The new steamer was about fifty feet long. She had been built by the students, both hull and machinery, and had been launched as soon as the ice went out of Beechwater. There had been a great deal of discussion over the subject of a name for her, as there had been when the name of Miss Bristol had been given to the "Lily," for the sole reason that she was a remarkably pretty girl.
When the students came to vote on a name for the new steamer they had built, after a long discussion, in which all the names of localities on the lake were mentioned, the vote was almost unanimous for the name of "Marian." She was goodlooking enough, though not decidedly pretty; but she was not only the sister of Dory, and the niece of the principal, but Oscar Chester, the captain of the Sylph, was very partial to her society.
The new steamer was therefore called the "Marian;" but the act of giving this name to her robbed the eight-oar barge of her name, or made two craft at the school with the same name, which would cause confusion. The name of a river on the other side of the lake, which had been suggested for the steam-yacht, "Bouquet," had been given to the barge.