Chapter 4

A BRILLIANT SCHEME MADE POSSIBLE.

Dory began to think his companion was a lunatic. Certainly he was a Christian man, for he seemed to have nothing but kindness in his heart towards his late assailant.

"I don't want any pay for what I did for either," said Dory Dornwood, as he saw his companion thrust his hand into his pocket, and he feared that his joke had been taken in earnest.

"We will talk about that when we get to Plattsburgh. Will you tell me your name, young man?"

"My name is Theodore Dornwood, though almost everybody calls me Dory. But I don't care what they call me, if they don't call me too late to supper, or don't call me at all, as nobody did to-night," replied Dory. And an emphatic wrenching at his stomach, just at the moment he spoke, compelled him to repeat that ancient witticism.

"You have had no supper, Dory?" demanded his new friend, with much sympathy in his tones.

"Not a bit, and not much dinner," added Dory. "Major Billcord spoiled my dinner. And I dare say he charges me with spoiling his dinner: but I didn't; it was the cook."

The curiosity of his companion was excited, and Dory told the whole story of his experience as a waiter at dinner that day. In answering the questions of the stranger, he told the history of himself and his family. He enlarged upon his efforts to obtain a situation, and declared that he wanted to do something to help his mother, and make things easier for her.

Just as he was finishing his narrative, they reached the front of a farmhouse. The stranger led the way to the door, and knocked. Presently the door was opened by a man with a lamp in his hand. Dory wondered what his companion wanted there; for he had not spoken of making a call on the way to the town.

"Ah! is that you, Basil Hawlinshed?" said the occupant of the house, as the light from his lamp fell upon the face of the stranger,--a stranger to Dory, though he did not appear to be such to the man of the house. "I am glad to see you. Come in!"

"Thank you, Neighbor Brookbine. I am sorry to trouble you: but this young man with me has not been to supper yet; and it makes my stomach turn somersets to travel with any one who has not been to supper when it is after nine o'clock in the evening."

"Come in! come in, Neighbor Hawlinshed! though I suppose you are to be no longer my neighbor. The boy shall have the best supper we can get up for him at this time of night."

Mr. Hawlinshed--for this appeared to be the name to which he answered--and Dory followed him into the house. When he had gone to make preparations for the supper, Dory's companion led him to one side of the room.

"Will you do me a favor, Dory?" said Mr. Hawlinshed.

"I will try with all my might to do it," replied Dory.

"Don't say one word about what happened in the woods while you are in this house," said Mr. Hawlinshed earnestly, and with much emotion.

"Oh, that's an easy one!" replied Dory gayly. "I could do that, and only half try."

"Be very sure you don't speak a word about the matter, or even hint at it in the most distant manner," continued Mr. Hawlinshed with painful emphasis.

"Not a word or a hint, sir. No one shall squeeze it out of me with a cider-press," protested Dory.

Mr. Brookbine came into the room, and Mr. Hawlinshed tried to compose himself. The talk of the two men was upon subjects in which the boy felt no interest. He was more concerned about his supper than about the affairs of the two speakers. But he learned that Mr. Hawlinshed had been a farmer, and had just sold his farm for forty-five hundred dollars in cash. He was going to another part of the State to engage in the lumber business.

Nothing was said which afforded Dory a clew to the strange event in the woods. He fancied it had some connection with the money the farmer had received for his farm. The hungry boy was called into another room by Mrs. Brookbine to eat his supper. He found a plentiful meal on the table, and he did ample justice to it. While he was eating, the farmer's wife, who was a motherly sort of woman, plied him with questions; and he answered all those that related to himself, but he was extremely careful not to betray the confidence of his new friend.

Dory felt like a new creature when he had finished his supper, which he thought was quite good enough to have suited Major Billcord; though he was sure that it would not have suited him, for the simple reason that he was never suited with any thing. Mr. Hawlinshed offered to pay for the meal, and Farmer Brookbine felt insulted by the proposition. The visitor explained that he should not have offered to pay for his own supper, but he had brought an entire stranger into the house. Mr. Brookbine declared that he always gave a meal of victuals to any one who needed it. With many thanks the visitors took their leave, and resumed their walk to town. In less than half an hour they were at a hotel in Plattsburgh.

"I can't stay here, Mr. Hawlinshed," said Dory, as they entered the house. "I have no money to pay my bill."

"Do you think I am a heathen, that I won't pay your bill after the service you have done me?" asked Mr. Hawlinshed with a smile.

"I don't want anybody to pay for me," protested Dory.

"Don't talk so, my boy," added his new friend. "Come to my room, for I want to talk with you."

Dory assented, though he had set his teeth against taking any thing that looked like charity. He followed Mr. Hawlinshed up-stairs, where it appeared that he had a room. It contained a trunk, a valise, and other baggage.

"Dory, you have rendered me a service that you cannot understand; and I am glad you cannot. I should feel mean to the end of my life if I did not attempt to make some slight return for it," said Mr. Hawlinshed, as he seated himself at a table. "I don't think you saved my life, for I don't believe my life was in danger for a moment."

"I don't think I saved your life, but I think your life has been in danger. Why, the fellow might have hit you by accident, even if he didn't mean to," replied Dory. "But the villain went at you as though he meant to tear you in pieces after he had fired the gun."

"It is hardly worth while to argue the question. I am very confident of what I say. My life has not been in danger, but my money was in great peril. I had forty-seven hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket when that person attacked me," continued Mr. Hawlinshed.

"Jerusalem!" exclaimed Dory, who did not remember that he had ever before been near so much money in all his life.

"I should have lost that money if you had not saved it, Dory. This was the point I was coming to. Don't ask me any questions, for I don't want to answer them."

"I won't ask any, if you don't want me to," added Dory, who was very much mystified by the occurrences of the evening.

"So far as I know and believe, you are the only person who saw the affair in the woods. The three who took part in the affray are the only persons on earth who know any thing about it," added Mr. Hawlinshed.

"I did not see or hear anybody around while I was in the woods," replied Dory. "I don't believe anybody else knows about it."

"That is very lucky, and I am only sorry that you happened to witness the sad affair. Now, Dory, I don't want any other person to know any thing about it."

"Nobody shall find out any thing about it from me," protested the boy. "You used me very handsomely, and got a good supper for me when I should have had to feed on wind if I hadn't come across you."

Mr. Hawlinshed looked the boy in the face; for he suspected that Dory was making game of him when he weighed so insignificant a thing as a supper against the help he had given him in the woods. He took out a large pocket-book, which appeared to be filled with bank-bills. From them he selected several bills, and tendered them to Dory.

"What's that?" asked the boy, as he looked suspiciously at the bills. "I don't want any money for any thing I have done."

"Here is one hundred and five dollars," continued Mr. Hawlinshed. "The five dollars is to pay any expenses you may incur in getting home, so that you may have the hundred when you get there."

Dory looked at the money, and the temptation to take it was very great. He could not bring himself to accept money for doing a kind act to a person who needed his assistance. On this ground he stoutly refused to touch the bills.

"Not for saving my life or preventing me from being hurt, Dory, but for saving my money. I shall be very unhappy, and feel mean, if you don't take the money. If I were rich, I should insist upon your taking thousands. This is a very small sum for the service you have rendered, for saving me from a loss which would have defeated the business enterprise I have in view. Take it, Dory, for my sake, if not for your own. It will be a great help to your mother," persisted Mr. Hawlinshed.

It looked easier to Dory than at first. He had saved his companion's money, and prevented him from losing forty-seven hundred and fifty dollars. But it took another half an hour of argument to satisfy Dory that he was not doing a mean thing in taking the bills. He took them at last, and his companion seemed to be happy in the fact that he had done so.

Dory felt rich enough to buy out the New York Central Railroad, or to become the proprietor of half the land that bordered on Lake Champlain. He had an idea of buying out the steamer on which Major Billcord had caused his discharge. At any rate, he must buy out something that would float on the lake, for he was about half boy and half boat.

He put the money into the old wallet he carried; and he doubted if all the money it had ever contained, even before it came into his possession, would equal the amount he had just deposited in one of its compartments. He had scarcely returned the treasure to his pocket, before he thought of the use to which he would apply the whole or a part of the money. It was a brilliant scheme. He had nursed it in his imagination as an unattainable enterprise, but now the money in his pocket rendered it possible.

"I feel better now, Dory," said Mr. Hawlinshed. "I have given you a feather's weight where I owe you a ton, but I hope the time will come when I can do better. I am going to write a letter now, and I want you to deliver it for me to-morrow. Will you do so?"

"To be sure I will," replied Dory warmly.

"I shall leave by the boat going south in the morning; and I want this letter delivered after I am gone," added Mr. Hawlinshed, as he began to write on a sheet of paper on the table.

Dory considered his brilliant scheme.