The old man—he was past sixty, but hale and hearty still—came out of Bob’s stall and put his grizzled face close to mine while he stared into my eyes in the dim light of the stable lantern.
“List ye, Master Clint,” he said. “’Tis my suspicion that that same scaley Chester Downes has it in his mind to get rid of you—to put ye away from your mother altogether—to make her believe ye air a bad egg, in fact. ’Tis time he and that precious b’y of his was put off the place. Ye’ve done right this night, Clint Webb, if ye never done so before.”
Chapter V
In Which the Old Coachman Goes Somewhat Into Details
Ordinarily it might seem that a servant taking it upon himself to so plainly state his opinion of family matters, should be admonished. But Hamilton Mayberry was just as much my friend as he was our hired coachman. He had been my father’s friend. He had served in the same ship as my father long before he came ashore to drive horses for Dr. Webb. And I verily believe the old man loved me as though I were his own blood.
Anyhow, I was too excited and worried on this night to think of any class distinction. Beside, among Bolderhead people, the master was considered no better than the man—if both behaved themselves, were honest, and attended church on the Sabbath!
So I opened my heart to Ham as we sat with our backs against the grain-chest, and told him all that had occurred on the Wavecrest as she drifted into the harbor that evening, and what had followed when I brought Paul Downes home with his hands tied behind his back.
“But what is puzzling me, Ham,” I said, in conclusion, looking sideways into his shrewdly puckered face, “is what those Downes meant by hinting that there was something queer about father’s death.”