The Coming Wave; Or, The Hidden Treasure of High Rock, Oliver Optic [story read aloud TXT] 📗

The steward did not believe the passenger's name was Wallbridge, as written on the Waldo's papers. He did not see what he had changed his name for, and hoped he hadn't done anything wrong.[Pg 292]

"'He gave his name as J. Wallbridge,' Leopold read from the diary; 'but that was not the name I found on the paper in his state-room, when I made up his bed on the day we sailed from Havana, though the initials were the same. Then he lent me his Bible to read one day, and this other name was written on it in forty places, wherever there was any blank paper. I wanted to borrow the Bible again, but he would not lend it to me; and I thought he remembered about his name being written in it so many times. I saw the same name stamped on a white shirt of his, which he hung up to air on deck to-day. The name was not J. Wallbridge either; it was Joel Wormbury.'"

"My father!" shouted Stumpy, springing to his feet.

[Pg 293]

CHAPTER XVI. GOLD AND BILLS.

Stumpy was an excited young man. He had come into the parlor on the invitation of Leopold, and had very modestly coiled himself away in the most obscure corner of the room. He was very much interested in the reading of Harvey Barth's diary, and especially in regard to the mysterious passenger. When Leopold read the name of "Joel Wormbury," he could no longer contain himself. He leaped from his corner, and shouted as though he had been hailing the Rosabel half a mile off.

"My father!" repeated he; and all eyes were fixed upon him.

Stumpy was excited, not so much, we must do him the justice to say, because there was money involved in the fact, as because the name and memory of his father were dear to him.[Pg 294]

"That man was Stumpy's father as true as the world!" said Mr. Bennington.

"It is a very remarkable affair," added Mr. Hamilton. "Such things don't often happen."

"But I haven't the slightest doubt that this Wallbridge was Joel Wormbury," replied the landlord.

"I'm sure of it," exclaimed Stumpy. "I know all about that Bible; I've seen it twenty times; and mother always used to put it into father's chest when he was going away fishing."

"I don't know about that, Stumpy," interposed Mr. Bennington, with a smile of incredulity; "I'm afraid it won't hold water."

"What's the reason it won't?" demanded Stumpy, who was entirely satisfied in regard to the identity of the sacred volume. "I used to carry it to Sunday school sometimes; and I've seen my father's name written in forty places in it, wherever there was a page or part of a page not printed on, just as Harvey Barth says in his diary. I don't believe there is any mistake about that."

"But the writer of this journal appears to have been considerably exercised about the passenger's[Pg 295] change of name," said Mr. Hamilton, before the landlord had an opportunity to explain why he doubted the truth of the statement in regard to the Bible. "Harvey Barth hoped Mr. Wallbridge had not done anything wrong."

"He hadn't done anything wrong," protested Stumpy, warmly.

"Why should he change his name, then?" asked the ex-congressman. "For the fact that he did so appears to be well established."

"There was a reason for it," replied the landlord, "though as Stumpy says, Joel Wormbury had done nothing wrong. Joel was attacked by a man in liquor, and in self-defence he struck the assailant on the head with a bottle, and supposed that he had killed him. He left Rockhaven in a great hurry, in order to escape the consequences. He did not even go to his house before he left town, afraid, perhaps, of finding a constable there waiting for him. He went off in such a hurry, that I don't believe he thought to take his Bible with him."

The landlord bestowed a smiling glance upon Stumpy, satisfied that he had as completely demolished[Pg 296] the Bible argument as though he had been a practised theologian.

"If my mother was only here, she could tell you all about that," said Stumpy.

"Do you think he went home for the Bible before he left?" asked Mr. Bennington.

"I know he didn't."

"Where did he get the Bible, then?" asked the landlord.

"I'll tell you; and I won't say a word that I can't prove," replied Stumpy, warmly.

"You are not among enemies, or those who are at all inclined to doubt your word, young man," added Mr. Hamilton.

"I'll tell you about it, then; but I wish my mother was here, with the letters my father wrote to her."

"We are willing to believe all you say, Stumpy," said the landlord.

"You thought that what I said would not hold water, just now."

"But I explained why I thought so."

"And the doubt was certainly a reasonable one," added the merchant; "now we only wait for you to remove it."[Pg 297]

"I will do that and I can prove all I say by my father's last letter to my mother, which is post-marked at Gloucester, Mass., in which he told all about the fight, and gave the reasons why he cleared out."

In answer to a question asked by one of the ladies, Stumpy related more fully the particulars of Joel Wormbury's departure from Rockhaven.

"About six months before my father went off for the last time, he returned to Gloucester from a fishing trip to the Georges," continued Stumpy. "He expected to go again in a few weeks; so he left his chest in Gloucester. His Bible was in that chest; but, as he found work coopering at home, he did not go again till he left after the fight. In his letter to my mother, he said he had got his chest, and that he had the Bible all right. He wrote, too, that he meant to read it more than he had ever done before, and not use it to scribble in. That was the last letter we ever got from father. We heard that he had gone out to attend to the trawls, and was lost in a fog, not being able to find his way back to the vessel. Of course we[Pg 298] hadn't any doubt that he was dead, after we got a letter from the captain of the schooner in which my father sailed. That's all I know about it."

"But how came he in Havana?" asked Mr. Hamilton.

"That's more than I know, sir," answered Stumpy.

"Harvey Barth could not have known anything about Joel Wormbury," added Leopold; "and he wrote his diary, it appears on the very day the Waldo was lost."

"There can be no doubt that Wallbridge and Joel Wormbury were one and the same person," said Mr. Hamilton. "The name which Harvey Barth found on the paper, the initials, on his valise, the name on the shirt, and written forty times in the Bible, fully establish the fact in my mind."

"And in mine, too," said Leopold. "Stumpy, the gold is yours, and I will give it to you whenever you are ready to take it."

"This is a go!" exclaimed Stumpy, with a broad grin on his brown face. "We need the money bad enough; and my mother will jump[Pg 299] up six feet when she hears the news. Somebody else won't feel good about it, I'll bet."

Stumpy did not explain to whom the last remark related; but he experienced the most lively satisfaction when he thought of the pleasure it would afford him to see his mother tender the seven hundred dollars in payment of the mortgage note. It occurred to him then that the business ought not to be postponed a single day, for Squire Moses had announced his intention of foreclosing the mortgage at once.

"How much money is there in the bag?" asked the merchant.

"Twelve hundred dollars in gold," replied Leopold; "and the diary says Joel Wormbury saved it in two years from his earnings in Cuba."

"Joel was an industrious and prudent man," added the landlord.

"It is very fortunate that the hidden treasure fell into honest hands," continued Mr. Hamilton, turning to Leopold; whereupon all the company clapped their hands, and the skipper of the Rosabel blushed like a school-girl.

"He's a noble fellow!" exclaimed Miss Rosabel.[Pg 300]

"A pious swell," added Charley Redmond, with a sneer.

The business of the meeting having been thus happily accomplished, the occupants of the parlor departed.

"Come Stumpy, I want to hand the money over to you," said Leopold.

"I don't want it now," replied Stumpy. "I shouldn't dare to take it into the house, for fear my beloved grandad should steal it. I think he would find some way to do it, without calling the deed by any hard name."

"What are you going to do with the gold, Stumpy?" asked Mr. Hamilton.

"Hand it over to my mother. Squire Moses is going to foreclose the mortgage on the house we live in right off. I want to head him off on that before night."

"But gold, you know, is worth a large premium just now. I saw by my paper which came to-day that it was 208 in New York," continued the merchant.

"I'll go and tell my mother about it," said Stumpy, moving off.

"Stop a moment, my boy," interposed Mr.[Pg 301] Hamilton. "If you are going to pay off the mortgage you should do so in currency, not in gold. I will buy your coin, and assist you in this business."

"Thank you, sir," replied Stumpy, warmly.

"I will pay you the market rate for your gold, whatever the papers report it to be for to-day."

Mr. Hamilton was certainly very kind; and Stumpy felt that, with such a powerful friend, he had the weather-gage of his avaricious grandfather. Leopold led the way to the shop of his uncle, and the New York merchant joined them.

"I want the gold, uncle," said Leopold.

"What for you want him?" demanded Herr Schlager.

"I have found the owner."

"Donner and blitz! Den he is no more your golt."

"No, uncle; but I feel better in handing it over to Stumpy than I should in spending it myself," laughed Leopold.

"Himmel! Stumpy!"

"Yes Stumpy." And the money-digger briefly stated the facts which had been discovered.[Pg 302]

"Donner and blitz! I'm glad for der poy, but sorry for you," added the watch-maker, as he took from the safe the shot-bag containing the treasure.

"Take it, Stumpy. It is yours," said Leopold. "Open it."

"I can't exactly believe in this thing yet, Le," replied Stumpy, as, with trembling hand, he cut the red tape, and demolished the sacred seal of Herr Schlager.

Turning the bag over, he poured the gold out upon the counter. The money was American coin, which Joel Wormbury had probably purchased in Havana, to avoid the necessity of exchanging it after his return to Rockhaven. Mr. Hamilton counted the money, and found that Harvey Barth's statement was again correct.

"Now figure it up, my boy. Then we will finish this transaction at once," said the merchant. "I shall not be able to pay you in full for it to-day; but I have credits in Belfast and Rockland, and you shall have the whole of it by to-morrow night for we intend to cross the bay in the Orion to-morrow."[Pg 303]

Leopold and Stumpy both did the sum, multiplying twelve hundred by two hundred and eight, and pointing off two decimals in the product.

"Twenty-four hundred and ninety-six dollars!" exclaimed Leopold.

"That's what I make it," added Stumpy, "What a pile of money!"

Mr. Hamilton, who had left New York prepared to pay the heavy expenses of his yacht excursion, counted off twelve one hundred dollar bills, which he handed to Stumpy.

"I will give you my note for the balance," said the merchant.

"Creation!" cried Stumpy, looking the bills over, his eyes dilated till they were nearly as big as saucers—small saucers. "Here's more money than I ever saw!"

Mr. Hamilton wrote the note, and gave it to Stumpy. It was made payable to the order of Sarah Wormbury.

"But I don't want all this money. I don't know what to do with it," exclaimed Stumpy, embarrassed by his sudden riches.

"You shall have the rest to-morrow night," added Mr. Hamilton.[Pg 304]

"I would rather not have it just yet."

"As you please. If I retain it, I shall pay you interest," replied the merchant.

"Interest! Hold on, now, hold on, all!" almost shouted Stumpy, turning from the bills which still lay on the counter, and looking Leopold square in the face. "I'm a hog! I'm a pig, just out of the sty!"

"What's the matter now?" demanded Mr. Hamilton, laughing heartily at