Chapter 7. In Which Captain Nat Picks Up A Derelict

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_ CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH CAPTAIN NAT PICKS UP A DERELICT

It is probable that John Ellery never fully realized the debt of gratitude he owed to the fog and the squall and to Captain Nat Hammond. Trumet, always hungry for a sensation, would have thoroughly enjoyed arguing and quarreling over the minister's visit to Come-Outer meeting, and, during the fracas, Keziah's parson might have been more or less battered. But Captain Nat's brilliant piloting of the old packet was a bit of seamanship which every man and woman on that foam-bordered stretch of sand could understand and appreciate, and the minister's indiscretion was all but forgotten in consequence. The "Daily Advertisers" gloated over it, of course, and Captain Elkanah brought it up at the meeting of the parish committee, but there Captain Zeb Mayo championed the young man's course and proclaimed that, fur's he was concerned, he was for Mr. Ellery more'n ever. "A young greenhorn with the spunk to cruise single-handed right into the middle of the Come-Outer school and give an old bull whale like Eben the gaff is the man for my money," declared Zebedee. Most of his fellow-committee agreed with him. "Not guilty, but don't do it again," was the general verdict.

As for the Come-Outers, they professed to believe that their leader had much the best of the encounter, so they were satisfied. There was a note of triumph and exultation in the "testimony" given on the following Thursday night, and Captain Eben divided his own discourse between thankfulness for his son's safe return and glorification at the discomfiture of the false prophets. Practically, then, the result of Ellery's peace overture was an increased bitterness in the feeling between the two societies and a polishing of weapons on both sides.

Keziah watched anxiously for a hint concerning her parson's walk in the rain with Grace, but she heard nothing, so congratulated herself that the secret had been kept. Ellery did not again mention it to her, nor she to him. A fortnight later he preached his great sermon on "The Voyage of Life," and its reference to gales and calms and lee shores and breakers made a hit. His popularity took a big jump.

He met Nat Hammond during that fortnight. The first meeting was accompanied by unusual circumstances, which might have been serious, but were actually only funny.

The tide at Trumet, on the bay side, goes out for a long way, leaving uncovered a mile and a half of flats, bare and sandy, or carpeted with seaweed. Between these flats are the channels, varying at low water from two to four feet in depth, but deepening rapidly as the tide flows.

The flats fascinated the young minister, as they have many another visitor to the Cape, before or since. On cloudy days they lowered with a dull, leaden luster and the weed-grown portions were like the dark squares on a checkerboard, while the deep water beyond the outer bar was steely gray and angry. When the sun shone and the wind blew clear from the northwest the whole expanse flashed into fire and color, sapphire blue, emerald green, topaz yellow, dotted with white shells and ablaze with diamond sparkles where the reflected light leaped from the flint crystals of the wet, coarse sand.

The best time to visit the flats--tide serving, of course--is the early morning at sunrise. Then there is an inspiration in the wide expanse, a snap and tang and joy in the air. Ellery had made up his mind to take a before-breakfast tramp to the outer bar and so arose at five, tucked a borrowed pair of fisherman's boots beneath his arm, and, without saying anything to his housekeeper, walked down the lawn behind the parsonage, climbed the rail fence, and "cut across lots" to the pine grove on the bluff. There he removed his shoes, put on the boots, wallowed through the mealy yellow sand forming the slope of the bluff, and came out on the white beach and the inner edge of the flats. Then he plashed on, bound out to where the fish weirs stood, like webby fences, in the distance.

It was a wonderful walk on a wonderful day. The minister enjoyed every minute of it. Out here he could forget the petty trials of life, the Didamas and Elkanahs. The wind blew his hat off and dropped it in a shallow channel, but he splashed to the rescue and laughed aloud as he fished it out. It was not much wetter than it had been that night of the rain, when he tried to lend his umbrella and didn't succeed. This reflection caused him to halt in his walk and look backward toward the shore. The brown roof of the old tavern was blushing red in the first rays of the sun.

A cart, drawn by a plodding horse and with a single individual on its high seat, was moving out from behind the breakwater. Some fisherman driving out his weir, probably.

The sand of the outer bar was dimpled and mottled like watered silk by the action of the waves. It sloped gradually down to meet the miniature breakers that rolled over and slid in ripples along its edge. Ellery wandered up and down, picking up shells and sea clams, and peering through the nets of the nearest weir at the "horsefoot crabs" and squid and flounders imprisoned in the pound. There were a few bluefish there, also, and a small school of mackerel.

The minister had been on the bar a considerable time before he began to think of returning to the shore. He was hungry, but was enjoying himself too well to mind. The flats were all his that morning. Only the cart and its driver were in sight and they were half a mile off. He looked at his watch, sighed, and reluctantly started to walk toward the town; he mustn't keep Mrs. Coffin's breakfast waiting TOO long.

The first channel he came to was considerably deeper than when he forded it on the way out. He noticed this, but only vaguely. The next, however, was so deep that the water splashed in at the top of one of his boots. He did notice that, because though he was not wearing his best clothes, he was not anxious to wet his "other ones." The extent of his wardrobe was in keeping with the size of his salary.

And the third channel was so wide and deep that he saw at once it could not be forded, unless he was willing to plunge above his waist. This was provoking. Now he realized that he had waited too long. The tide had been flowing for almost an hour; it had flowed fast and, as he should have remembered, having been told, the principal channels were eight feet deep before the highest flats were covered.

He hurried along the edge, looking for a shallower place, but found none. At last he reached the point of the flat he was on and saw, to his dismay, that here was the deepest spot yet, a hole, scoured out by a current like a mill race. Turning, he saw, creeping rapidly and steadily together over the flat behind him, two lines of foam, one from each channel. His retreat was cut off.

He was in for a wetting, that was sure. However, there was no help for it, so he waded in. The water filled his boots there, it gurgled about his hips, and beyond, as he could see, it seemed to grow deeper and deeper. The current was surprisingly strong; he found it difficult to keep his footing in the soft sand. It looked as though he must swim for it, and to swim in that tide would be no joke.

Then, from behind him, came a hail. He turned and saw moving toward him through the shallow water now covering the flat beyond the next channel, the cart he had seen leave the shore by the packet wharf, and, later, on the outer bar. The horse was jogging along, miniature geysers spouting beneath its hoofs. The driver waved to him.

"Hold on, mate," he called. "Belay there. Stay where you are. I'll be alongside in a shake. Git dap, January!"

Ellery waded back to meet this welcome arrival. The horse plunged into the next channel, surged through it, and emerged dripping. The driver pulled the animal into a walk.

"Say," he cried, "I'm cruisin' your way; better get aboard, hadn't you? There's kind of a heavy dew this mornin'. Whoa, Bill!"

"Bill" or "January" stopped with apparent willingness. The driver leaned down and extended a hand. The minister took it and was pulled up to the seat.

"Whew!" he panted. "I'm much obliged to you. I guess you saved me from a ducking, if nothing worse."

"Yes," was the answer, "I wouldn't wonder if I did. This ain't Saturday night and 'twould be against Trumet principles to take a bath any other time. All taut, are you? Good enough! then we'll get under way." He flapped the reins and added, "G'long, Julius Caesar!"

The horse, a sturdy, sedate beast to whom all names seemed to be alike, picked up his feet and pounded them down again. Showers of spray flew about the heads of the pair on the seat.

"I ain't so sure about that duckin'," commented the rescuer. "Hum! I guess likely we'll be out of soundin's if we tackle that sink hole you was undertakin' to navigate. Let's try it a little further down."

Ellery looked his companion over.

"Well," he observed with a smile, "from what I've heard of you, Captain Hammond, I rather guess you could navigate almost any water in this locality and in all sorts of weather."

The driver turned in surprise.

"So?" he exclaimed. "You know me, do you? That's funny. I was tryin' to locate you, but I ain't been able to. You ain't a Trumetite I'll bet on that."

"Yes, I am."

"Tut! tut! tut! you don't tell me. Say, shipmate, you hurt my pride. I did think there wa'n't a soul that ever trod sand in this village that I couldn't name on sight, and give the port they hailed from and the names of their owners. But you've got me on my beam ends. And yet you knew ME."

"Of course I did. Everybody knows the man that brought the packet home."

Nat Hammond sniffed impatiently.

"Um--hm!" he grunted. "I cal'late everybody does, and knows a lot more about that foolishness than I do myself. If ever a craft was steered by guess and by godfrey, 'twas that old hooker of Zach's t'other night. Well--Humph! here's another piece of pilotin' that bids fair to be a mighty sight harder. Heave ahead, Hannibal! hope you've got your web feet with you."

They had moved along the edge of the flat a short distance and now turned into the channel. The horse was wading above its knees; soon the water reached its belly and began to flow into the body of the cart.

"Pick up your feet, shipmate," commanded Nat. "You may get rheumatiz if you don't. This'll be a treat for those sea clams back in that bucket amidships. They'll think I've repented and have decided to turn 'em loose again. They don't know how long I've been countin' on a sea-clam pie. I'll fetch those clams ashore if I have to lug 'em with my teeth. Steady, all hands! we're off the ways."

The cart was afloat. The horse, finding wading more difficult than swimming, began to swim.

"Now I'm skipper again, sure enough," remarked Hammond. "Ain't gettin' seasick, are you?"

The minister laughed.

"No," he said.

"Good! she keeps on a fairly even keel, considerin' her build. THERE she strikes! That'll do, January; you needn't try for a record voyage. Walkin's more in your line than playin' steamboat. We're over the worst of it now. Say! you and I didn't head for port any too soon, did we?"

"No, I should say not. I ought to have known better than to wait out there so long. I've been warned about this tide. I--"

"S-sh-sh! YOU ought to have known better! What do you think of me? Born and brought up within sight and smell of this salt puddle and let myself in for a scrape like this! But it was so mighty fine off there on the bar I couldn't bear to leave it. I always said that goin' to sea on land would be the ideal way, and now I've tried it. But you took bigger chances than I did. Are you a good swimmer?"

"Not too good. I hardly know what might have happened if you hadn't--"

"S-sh-sh! that's all right. Always glad to pick up a derelict, may be a chance for salvage, you know. Here's the last channel and it's an easy one. There! now it's plain sailin' for dry ground."

The old horse, breathing heavily from his exertions, trotted over the stretch of yet uncovered flats and soon mounted the slope of the beach. The minister prepared to alight.

"Captain Hammond," he said, "you haven't asked me my name."

"No, I seldom do more'n once. There have been times when I'D just as soon cruise without too big letters alongside my figurehead."

"Well, my name is Ellery."

"Hey? WHAT? Oh, ho! ho! ho!"

He rocked back and forth on the seat. The minister's feelings were a bit hurt, though he tried not to show it.

"You mustn't mind my laughin'," explained Nat, still chuckling. "It ain't at you. It's just because I was wonderin' what you'd look like if I should meet you and now--Ho! ho! You see, Mr. Ellery, I've heard of you, same as you said you'd heard of me."

Ellery smiled, but not too broadly.

"Yes," he admitted, "I imagined you had."

"Yes, seems to me dad mentioned your name once or twice. As much as that, anyhow. Wonder what he'd say if he knew his son had been takin' you for a mornin' ride?"

"Probably that it would have been much better to have left me where you found me."

The captain's jolly face grew serious.

"No, no!" he protested. "Not so bad as that. Dad wouldn't drown anybody, not even a Regular minister. He's a pretty square-built old craft, even though his spiritual chart may be laid out different from yours--and mine."

"From yours? Why, I supposed--"

"Yes, I know. Well, WHEN I go to meetin', I generally go to the chapel to please father. But when it comes right down to a confession of faith, I'm pretty broad in the beam. Maybe I'd be too broad even for you, Mr. Ellery."

The minister, who had jumped to the ground, looked up.

"Captain Hammond," he said, "I'm very glad indeed that I met you. Not alone because you helped me out of a bad scrape; I realize how bad it might have been and that--"

"Shsh! shh! Nothin' at all. Don't be foolish."

"But I'm glad, too, because I've heard so many good things about you that I was sure you must be worth knowing. I hope you won't believe I went to your father's meeting with any--"

"No, no! Jumpin' Moses, man! I don't find fault with you for that. I understand, I guess."

"Well, if you don't mind the fact that I am what I am, I'd like to shake hands with you."

Nat reached down a big brown hand.

"Same here," he said. "Always glad to shake with a chap as well recommended as you are. Yes, indeed, I mean it. You see, you've got a friend that's a friend of mine, and when she guarantees a man to be A. B., I'll ship him without any more questions."

"Well, then, good-by. I hope we shall meet again and often. And I certainly thank you for--"

"That's all right. Maybe you'll fish ME out of the drink some day; you never can tell. So long! Git dap, Gen'ral Scott!"

He drove off up the beach, but before he turned the corner of the nearest dune he called back over his shoulder:

"Say, Mr. Ellery, if you think of it you might give my regards to--to--er--the lady that's keepin' house for you."

Breakfast had waited nearly an hour when the minister reached home. Keziah, also, was waiting and evidently much relieved at his safe arrival.

"Sakes alive!" she exclaimed, as she met him at the back door. "Where in the world have you been, Mr. Ellery? Soakin' wet again, too!"

Ellery replied that he had been for a walk out to the bar. He sat down on the step to remove the borrowed boots. A small rivulet of salt water poured from each as he pulled them off.

"For a walk! A swim, you mean. How could you get in up to your waist if you just walked? Did you fall down?"

"No, not exactly. But I waited too long and the tide headed me off."

"Mercy on us! you mustn't take chances on that tide. If you'd told me you was goin', I'd have warned you to hurry back."

"Oh, I've been warned often enough. It was my own fault, as usual. I'm not sure that I don't need a guardian."

"Humph! well, I ain't sure either. Was the channels very deep?"

"Deep enough. The fact is, that I might have got into serious trouble if I hadn't been picked up."

He told briefly the story of his morning's adventure. The housekeeper listened with growing excitement.

"Heavens to Betsy!" she interrupted. "Was the channel you planned to swim the one at the end of the flat by the longest weir leader?"

"Yes."

"My soul! there's been two men drowned in that very place at half tide. And they were good swimmers. After this I shan't dare let you out of my sight."

"So? Was it as risky as that? Why, Captain Hammond didn't tell me so. I must owe him more even than I thought."

"Yes, I guess you do. He wouldn't tell you, though; that ain't his way. Deary me! for what we've received let us be thankful. And that reminds me that biscuits ought to be et when they're first made, not after they've been dried up on the back of the stove forever and ever amen. Go on and change those wet things of yours and then we'll eat. Tryin' to swim the main channel on the flood! My soul and body!"

"Captain Nat sent his regards to you, Mrs. Coffin," said the minister, moving toward the stairs.

"Did, hey?" was the housekeeper's reply. "Want to know!" _

Read next: Chapter 8. In Which The Parson And Mr. Pepper Declare Their Independence

Read previous: Chapter 6. In Which Old Friends Meet

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