Reube Dare's Shad Boat: A Tale of the Tide Country Read online

  CHAPTER VII.

  Mart Gandy Hacks the Shad Net.

  DURING the next forenoon the _Dido_ and the pinkie were sailed up totheir old berths in the creek. That night all the boats went out exceptthe _Dido_, fading like ghosts into the misty, half-moonlit dusk. Reubewas very indignant at the thought that Gandy might attack his shad net,and vowed, if he caught him at it, to clap him in jail. Mrs. Dare hadmade the boys take a pair of heavy blankets with them, and, stretched onthese, they lay along the seat in the _Dido’s_ stern, just under theshelter of the gunwale. The reel, with its dark burden of net, rose afew feet away, and stood out black but vague against the paler sky.Close at hand lay the wharf, like a crouching antediluvian monster, withits fore paws plunged into the tide.

  From where they lay our watchers commanded a view of the surroundinglevels by merely lifting their heads. In low but eager tones theydiscussed the Boston trip planned for the coming autumn, and Reubesqueezed his comrade’s hand gratefully when he heard what company he andhis mother would have.

  “I can never tell your mother my gratitude,” said he. “With her there myanxiety will be more than half gone.”

  “I’m so glad muzz thought of it!” said Will. “I’m sure it would neverhave entered my heedless head. And yet it is just the thing for us todo.”

  Another subject of their excited colloquy was the disposal of those oldcoins. If deposited at the Barchester Bank they would certainly arousecomment and set all sorts of romantic stories going. But presently Willthought of his friend Mr. Hand, to whom all things in the way offinancial management seemed possible. It was decided that on the verynext day Will should take the whole store to him and get him to send itaway for conversion into modern currency.

  “And he’ll be able to see that we don’t get cheated,” added Will. “Ifancy some of those coins will be wanted by collectors, and so be wortha lot more than their face value.”

  “I tell you, Will,” exclaimed Reube, “I can’t even yet quite get over myastonishment at the way you swear by old Hand; or, perhaps I shouldrather say, at the way the old fellow seems to be developing qualitiesof which he was never suspected until you begun to thaw him out.”

  “Indeed,” said Will, warmly, “Mr. Hand is fine stuff. He was like apiece of gold hidden in a mass of very refractory ore. But Toddlesmelted him down all right.”

  In a short time conversation flagged, and then, listening to thelip-lip-lipping of the softly falling tide and the mellow far-off roarof the waters pouring through an _aboideau_, both the watchers grewdrowsy. At last Will was asleep. Even Reube’s brain was gettingentangled with confused and fleeting visions when he was brought sharplyto himself by the queer sucking sound of footsteps in the mud.

  He raised his head and peered over the gunwale. There was Mart Gandywithin ten paces of the net reel. He had come by way of the dike. In hishand gleamed the polished curve of the sickle with which he wasaccustomed to reap his buckwheat, and Reube’s blood boiled at thethought of that long, keen blade working havoc in the meshes of hischerished nets. Gandy marched straight up to the reel, raised thesickle, and slashed viciously at the mass of woven twine.

  Ere he could repeat the stroke a yell of wrath rang in his ear and Reubewas upon him, hurling him to the ground. His deadly weapon flew from hisgrasp, and he was too startled to make much resistance. The weight ofReube’s knee on his chest, the clutch of Reube’s strong fingers at histhroat, took all the fight out of him. He looked up with angry andfrightened eyes and saw Will standing by, a meaning smile on his lipsand a heavy tarred rope’s end in his hand.

  Reube rubbed the culprit’s head rudely in the mud, and then relaxed thegrip upon his gasping throat.

  “I cannot pound the scoundrel now that I’ve got him down,” said he,turning his face toward Will. “What shall we do with him? You can’tlather a chap that doesn’t resist and that has his head down in the mud.It’s brutal!”

  “We’ll tie his hands to the reel and give him a taste of this rope’send,” suggested Will, judiciously.

  “I don’t exactly like that either,” said Reube, rubbing his captive’shead again in the slime. “It’s too much like playing hangman. Hedeserves the cat-o’-nine-tails if ever a scoundrel did, but I don’t likethe dirty work of applying it. We’d better just take him to jail. Thenhe’ll get a term in the penitentiary, and be out of the way for a fewyears. Fetch me that cod line out of the cuddy, will you?”

  By this time Mart Gandy had found his voice. That word “penitentiary”had reduced him to an abject state of terror, and he began to pleadpiteously for mercy.

  “Lick me! Lick me all you like!” he cried, in his queer, high voice. “Ikin take a hidin’; but don’t send me to the penitentiary! What’d the oldman do, as hain’t got his right senses no more? An’ the old woman’d jestplumb starve, for the gals they ain’t a mite o’ good to work. Le’ me offthis time, Reube Dare, ’n’ I declare I won’t never do it ag’in!”

  Mart’s imploring voice more than his words made Reube weaken in hispurpose. As for Mart’s promise, he put no faith in that, and marked onWill’s face an unrelenting grin. Nevertheless he said:

  “There’s something in what the rascal says, Will. If Mart goes to thepenitentiary his family’s going to suffer more than he. I’ve a mind tolet him off this time, after all.”

  “Well,” grunted Will, “just as you say. But it would be nothing short ofiniquitous to let him off altogether. You’d better give him a goodducking, to let him know you’re in earnest, anyway.”

  Reube pondered this a moment.

  “Mart Gandy,” he said, sternly, “I’m going to let you off this time withnothing more than a ducking, to fix the circumstance in your mind. Butremember, if I find you again at any of your old pranks I’ll have awarrant out against you that very day! And I’ve got all the evidenceneeded to convict you. Now get up!” And he jerked the lanky andbedraggled form to its feet.

  Mart, with the fear of prison walls no longer chilling his heart, hadrecovered himself during this harangue, and his eyes gleamed with afurtive, half-wild hate. Still he made no resistance. The sickle lay farbeyond his reach, and he knew he was physically no match for eitherReube or Will. He was led to the very edge of the steep, slipperyincline of the channel, wherein the tide had dropped about fifteen feet.Will snatched a coil of rope out of the boat.

  “Can you swim?” he asked, curtly.

  “No,” said the fellow, eyeing him sidewise.

  “He is lying,” remarked Reube, in a businesslike voice.

  “Well,” said Will, “if he isn’t lying we’ll fish him out again, that’sall.”

  Just as he was speaking, and while Gandy’s eyes were fixed upon his facewith an evil light in them, Reube stepped forward and executed a certaindexterous trip of which he was master. Gandy’s heels flew out over thebrink, his head went back, and, feet foremost, he shot like lightningdown the slope and into the stream.

  In a moment he came to the surface and began floundering and strugglinglike a drowning man.

  “He’s putting that all on,” said Reube.

  “Maybe not,” exclaimed Will. “Better throw him the end of the rope now.”

  Reube smiled, gravely, but obeyed and a coil fell almost in Gandy’sarms. The struggling man seemed too bewildered to catch it. He graspedat it wildly, sank, rose, sank, and rose again. Will prepared to jump inand rescue him. But Reube interposed.

  “No, you don’t,” said he, coolly; “not without one end of this roperound your waist and me hanging onto the other end!”

  “Make haste, then,” cried Will, in some anxiety.

  In a few seconds the rope was knotted firmly about Will’s waist, and hesprang into the water. Even as he did so the apparently drowning mandisappeared. He came up again many feet away, and, swimming withwonderful speed, gained the opposite bank. He clambered nimbly up theslope and started at a run across the marsh. Reube, with derisivecompliments, helped the dripping and disgu
sted Will to shore again.

  “I saw his game,” said he, while Will wrung out his clothes. “He’s justlike a fish in the water, and he thought he’d make believe he wasdrowning, and so manage to drag you down without getting blamed for it.But he knew the game was up when he heard what I said and saw you hadthe rope tied to you.”

  “Right you are this time, old man,” said Will.

  The sky had cleared perfectly, and in the radiant moonlight Reube’sskillful fingers quickly mended the net. The cut was not a deep one, asthe blade had been stopped by two of the large wooden floats with whichthe net was beaded. The mending done and the net made ready for the nextnight’s fishing, the boys turned their faces toward the uplands to seeka few hours’ sleep at Mrs. Dare’s.

  Meanwhile Mart Gandy had never ceased running till he got behind an oldbarn which hid him from the scene of his punishment. Then he turned andshook his long, dark finger in silent fury toward the spot where hisantagonists were working. When he reached home he crept to a loft in theshed and drew out a long, heavy musket, once a flintlock, which he hadaltered to a percussion lock, so that it made an effective weapon forduck shooting. This gun he loaded with a heavy charge of powder and aliberal proportion of buckshot. He muttered over his task till it wasdone to his satisfaction, and then stole off to sleep in the barn.