Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 439 — page 2: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 2 ————————— ——————————— * “Go, then, and I promise you most solemn- ly that I will never see you again if I can help it.” It was the old story—a girl who had married against her father’s will, and an obstinate father, if not an obdurate one, who would not forgive her. ere was every reason why he should not forgive her, and she had no right to expect his forgiveness. If ever a man had cause to utterly dislike and abominate another, there was ample justi- fication for the antipathy of Emma Plympton’'s father toward the man whom his daughter had chosen. Benjamin Plympton bad come to Pennsylvania when he was a young man, and had there grown wealthy and respected. By industry and frugality, combined with enterprise, shrewdness and correct principles, he had built up an extensive and largely profit- able business, and was held in high considera- tion, not only because of his wealth, but because of his personal character. The man whom his daughter had married was a penniless adventurer, and there was good reason to believe that he was as destitute of principle as he was of cash or the industry that might procure cash. _ Deine the great Civil War which had been not long since brought to an end, Benjamin Plympton was an enthusiastic Union man using all his influence and giving largely of his means in support of the cause that he believed to be above all things just and right- eous, It might be said that he was inclined to be fanatical in his devotion to the Union, declaring upon all occasions that every Southern soldier, no matter what he might have believed or how he might have been influenced, was a traitor who deserved death upon the galiows. Yet Absalom Startle, the man who had stolen his daughter from him, had been a Southern soldier, a pirate at that, with no redeeming trait of character or phase of circumstances ex- cuse or palliate his disloyalty to the section of his birth and education. The close of the war had found that Absalom Startle in a Northern military prison, and after his release he had remained in the North wan- dering from place to place, and picking up a precarious living in a more or less questionable manner by means of his wits. He had made the acquaintance of Emma Plymptom at a town where she was attending a boarding-school, had succeeded in fascinatin the young and romantic girl, and had followec her home in vacation time, It is not to be supposed that he was ignorant of the wealth and position of her father, who was known personally or by reputation to everybody in that region. Benjamin Plympton saw him going about the village with the young lady, and made a busi- ness of inquiring about him, soon finding out all he wanted to know. He cautioned Emma against the man, giving her his character in a nutshell, and ordered her, under pain of her father’s severest displeasure, to have nothing more to do with Startle. Her ready assent to his wishes disarmed his suspicions, and yet the only effect was to ren- der her meetings with Startle not less frequent, but more secret, The girl was infatuated. She was filled with the belief that she ona could understand and appreciate her lover, though she expected the Whole world in time to fall down and worship at the shrine where she had placed him. Like many another, she ‘‘ meant well, but didn’t know.” The first intimation her father had of her con- tinued disobedience was the fact of her elope- ment, which was made so plain to him that he could not doubt it. He her home. a Then, after a letter from her which he did not answer, and after a reasonable lapse of time fora honeymoon and for sober consideration of the matter, she brought her husband to him, asking forgiveness for both, and of course de- manding a restoration of her rights and privi- leges at home, for herself and her husband. t was not without reason that she expected to be forgiven, even in the face of her flagrant - disobedience of her father’s commands. © | He was a widower, and she was his only child, - and his life was bound up with hers. It was not possible that he could forsake her, and to whom but to her should be give the property which he had accumulated for her sake? Yet she found him as hard as rock and as cold as ice. His antipathy to the man she had chosen was so intense that he could scarcely tolerate Absa- lom Startle in his presence for a moment. He had thought the matter over during her atesiaaAadeed, he had hardly thought of any- thing else—and bad but one proposition to make to her, from which no consideration could per- suade him to swerve, If she desired to return to_ her father, she must give up her husband and never see him again; otherwise she would be an outcast from Salamander Sam. When she declared her intention of sticking to her husband, and was told to take herself off she felt that she had a right to consider herself an aggrieved young woman. Absalom Startle attempted to come out in a heroic role, for that occasion only, ‘*T came here at my wife’s request,” said he, ‘fand we have both done our duty. If other folks don’t do theirs, it can’t be helped. I can take care of my wife, and don’t ask help from anybody.” If anything more had been needed to turn the sweetness of Benjamin Plympton’s nature to gall this speech would have done it. He told his daughter that she had heard his last word, and that she must come to his terms or leave him and her home forever. She went away in tears, and alsoin anger, but soon dried her eyes and clung more closely to her husband, vowing thatshe would never desert him, and expressing a sublime confidence in his willingness and ability to shape a splendid future for them both. Again it was the old story. The scamp who had married her in the hope of gaining position and property soon showed himself in bis true light, and made her regret the day she had first seen bim. He dragged her from place to place in his va- grant existence—or she followed him because there was nothing else for her to cling to—and her life was thereafter a continued round of poverty and wretchedness and misery. He was constantly reproaching her with being a burden to him, and endeavoring to force her to appeal to her father for aid. She did so, again and again, particularly when her boy was born; but her letters were unan- ves Ey The hope that Benjamin Plympton would re- lent kept her up for some time; but she sunk at last under the weight of hardships and abuse, and when her boy was five years old she lay on her death-bed. They bad then drifted down to Florida, where Absalom Startle, having become connected with a gang of the tough subjects of that region, was icking up a livelihood by methods in which onesty was not considered. Again it was the old story, but with a little variation. , The dying woman wrote a last letter to her father, informing him of her condition, and beg- ging him to come to Florida after her Adath. which would surely occur before be could get her letter, to take her boy from Absalom Startle, who would be glad to get rid of him, and place him where he would be decently cared for and properly brought cs 9 As it happened, Benjamin Plympton was far from his home when that letter was written, traveling with the view of combining the pur- suit of business with the pursuit of health. The letter was forwarded to him, and it fol- lowed him from place to place, just missing bim at each flight, until it finally rested from its Hs and settled down in the Dead Letter flice. When it became an assured fact that Emma Startle had been absolutely discarded by her father, hopes began to spring in the breast of the old man’s next of kin, after his daughter. That was his nephew, Morley Plympten by name, a person whom Benjamin Plympton had for a long time intensely disliked, and apparent- ly with good reason. But there was no other kinsman to whom the old man’s money could go, his daughter being cut out, and Morley had at least gone tothe war on the Union side as asutler, and that wasa point in his favor, though a small one. Benjamin Plympton made overtures to his nephew, which Morley was glad to accept, took him into his business, and made him promises of beg ln oe and future prosperity, conditional on good behavior. The good behavior began well, but failed to hold out. Morley Plympton was vicious by nature, and had not enough of a true villain’s sense to curb his propensities until his future was secure, Deeming himself stinted in the matter of mon- ey by the old man, he secured a considerable sum by forging his uncle’s name, and the forgery was discovered, He gained immunity from punishment through Benjamin Plympton’s forbearance, but no for- giveness nor anything like it. On the contrary, his uncle ordered him off, telling him plainly that he would never have anything more to do with him, and would never willingly see bis face again. After that occurrence Benjamin Plympton, who had been failing in health since his daugh- ter’s mad act, began to decay quite rapidly, and was finally persuaded to try a milder climate, with the view of lengthening the un- satisfactory remnant of his life. He went to Cuba, and there, after dragging out a few more painful years, he died and was buried. Before his death repentance came to bim—or at least, regret—together with the necessity o making some disposal of his property. membering well the fact that a son had Re | been born to his daughter, he consulted with ah \ Ce old and trusty friend, Tom Cresswell by name, who was then in Cuba on business, as to what he might, could or should do for his possibly living daughter and her child or children. As a result of this consultation he made a will, which he intrusted to Cresswell, together with the valuables in his possession there, giving in- structions which his old friend faithfully pro- mised to carry out to the best of his ability, Tom Cresswell, after attending to the burial of Benjamin Plympton and to such other mat- ters on the island as needed his attention, set sail for Baltimore on a brigantine which he had chartered and with a cargo which he owned, The brigantine was wrecked on the Florida Coast, and all on board were lost, CHAPTER II. STARTLE, THE WRECKER. DANGER POINT was and continues to be near one of the worst bits of sea bottom on the Florida Coast. At the eastward and southward, and in a less degree at the northward, too, were bidden reefs which never showed their tops except during an unusually low tide, and whose oxistence was seldom made known by the breaking up of the ocean swell until a vessel had approached them too near for her safety. The Point was a narrow strip of sand run- ning directly out into the ocean, and its sea- ward terminus was, strangely enough, a mass of rock that almost deserved to be called an emi- nence. This pe of rock was probably the end of a reef which had accumulated sand and debris until it had formed a connection with the main land; but the sand strip was still quite narrow and so low that at high tides it was mostly covered by water. Nobody would have expected to find a habita- tion there, and yet there was one. A small hut crouched under the rocks at the southwesterly side—if the rocky mass could be said to have a side—and was so low and so placed, doubtless with the view of getting shel- ter from the worst of the winds, that it would scarcely be recognized as a habitation except upon a rear view, Close inspection would have shown it to be poorly constructed and of most incongruous ma- terial. It had been built of bits of wreckage that had come ashore from time to time, and other bits of wreckage had been heaped against and piled on top of the original structure, until it looked to be nothing but a mass of such stuff flung to- gether by the waves and winds. Yet there was fine material in it, though in Wego noe shape—fragments of costly wood that had been diverted from their original pur- poses and become battered and weather-stained, anda curious person would have found matter “a study and speculation within it and all about i The entrance was by a once handsome door, which had formerly ornamented a ship’s cabin, and within was a room which was painfully small but not as comfortless as one on the out- side might suppose it to be, There was a fireplace at one end, connected with a rude and low stone chimney outside, and there were two decent bunks, with a table, some battered chairs, and a chest and some lockers, together with a lot of cooking utensils that might have been gathered from the four quar- ters of the globe. One gloomy and muggy afternoon in Febru- ary there were two persons in that queer little ut. One of them was a man of about forty ec zled and weatherbeaten, and with a hard look on his face that added at least ten years to his apparent age. he other was a boy of sixteen, tall for his years, and slimly built as yet, but with remark- Ta right black eyes. ough his face was bronzed, and his hands were rough, and bis clothing was of the coarsest and rudest make, his expressive features were full of intelligence, and his words and actions showed quickness and alertness that had been trained in the hard school of necessity. The man was seated in one of the battered chairs, smoking strong tobacco in a short pipe, and the boy was neal at the hearth, busy in preparing the coming meal. _As the tide was then low,a horseman came riding from the main land across the sand strip toward the pile of rock at the end. | His horse’s hoofs sunk noiselessly in the sand, and could not be supposed to give any indication of his approach; but the senses of the man in the hut bad been sharpened by pe uliar uses, ‘““Thar’s somebody or somethin’ comin’ this way, Sam,” he remarked. ‘“Mebbe it’s the wind,” answered the boy. “Thar ain’t no wind. Hello! Yes, it’s some body.” A hail from the outside gave point to this re- mark, and the man opened the door and found there the rider who had come from the main land, and who had just then dismounted and hitched his horse. The stranger was a man of medium hight, ap- parently somewhat younger than the yy, of S) f : e, | i | eee walle iia ieee ty SCOUT KC 7 » , ‘ . 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