“He needs it, I’ve no doubt,” said Edward Warren. “And they make the men do their underhand work for them, too—the captains that go poaching. Why, I took a shot at a craft, just the other night, up above Forrests, myself. I was up to Wilkes’s place, over night, and we caught a fellow poaching in on the beds. Gave him a close call, too. We had him between us and the Folly for a few minutes; but he was smart and got away.”
The lights of the old farm house were gleaming by this time, and in a moment or two they were within its hospitable walls. It was a pleasant, old-style house, with some pillars at the front, and a broad verandah; the main house of two stories in height, and a series of rambling extensions, of a story and a half, extending in the rear; stables and two barns not far away—in all, an air of comfort and prosperity, if not of great means. The land on which the house stood overlooked the river, now gleaming with the harbour lights of many vessels, and some small ponds along shore.
They entered at the big front door, stepping into a wide hall that ran the entire length of the first floor of the main part. The hall ended in a wall in which a huge open fireplace, built of the stones taken from the land, now gave forth a blazing welcome.
But they did not linger long before this inviting blaze, for old Mammy Stevens had them all out in the dining-room before many minutes. This room was equally cheery, with a hearth fire snapping and singing there, also; and there sat young Joe, gloating in anticipation over an array of good things, including the heaped up platter of corn fritters, with a pitcher of syrup squatted agreeably close by.
They fell to and ate till Mammy Stevens’s face lighted up and shone like a piece of polished ebony; and she laughed and chuckled till she was almost white to see young Joe tuck away corn fritters and country sausage. And all the while they were making merry and enjoying comfort and warmth, Jack Harvey, not far away, on the bug-eye, Brandt, was climbing into his bunk, wet from his drenching, and sore from the blow Haley had given him.
A vessel, seen from the old farmhouse, anchored in near shore the following afternoon, but it had no special interest in the eyes of the newcomers, nor had it as it sailed away again when the fog had lifted.
“Cap’n,” queried Jim Adams, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem of it forward in the direction of the stranger who stood by the foremast, “what’s happened? What have we got him for?”
Haley shrugged his shoulders and squinted one eye, significantly. “Bill’s in trouble again,” he answered. “This fellow and a pardner tried to get away. The pardner got it a bit hard—Bill had to put him ashore below in St. Mary’s. This one goes, too, when we get a good chance to land him where he’ll be a long time walking up to Baltimore. Oh, it’s all right, so long as the two don’t get together. The pardner can’t make any more trouble by himself.”
Jim Adams, rightly construing Haley’s remarks to mean that the “pardner” had been badly hurt, perhaps crippled—or worse—and had been landed in some convenient spot away from any town, resumed his pipe, and asked no more questions. But he added, as he surveyed the muscular frame of the man forward, “He’s a sure enough good man at the winders, I reckon. I’ll make him earn his board and lodgin,’ if he stays.”
Jim Adams grinned, and showed his fine, white teeth.