The Yacht Club Part 29

"You don't mean to say that you will prosecute me, Don John?"

"Yes; I do mean it."

"I came down from the harbor, and tacked between those two wharves,"

explained Laud. "I was standing off on this tack when you bunted your skiff into me. That's all I know about it."

"But I saw you on the wharf. No matter; we won't argue the case here,"

said Donald, as he made a movement to go into his skiff.

"Hold on, Don John. I want to talk with you a little."

"What about?"

"Two or three things. I am going off on a long cruise in a day or two. I think I shall go as far as Portland, and try to get a situation in a store there."

"I don't believe you will have a chance to go to Portland, or anywhere else, unless it's Thomaston, where the state prison is located."

"I didn't think you would be so rough on me, Don John. I didn't set your boat afire; but I can see that it may go hard with me, because I happened to be near the wharf at the time."

"You will find that isn't the worst of it," added Donald.

"What is the worst of it?"

"Never mind; I'll tell Squire Peters to-morrow, when we come together."

"Don't go to law about it, Don John; for though I didn't do it, I don't want to be hauled up for it. Even a suspicion is sometimes damaging to the honor of a gentleman."

"You had better come down from that high horse, and own up that you set the Maud afire."

"Will you agree not to prosecute, if I do?" asked Laud.

Donald, after his anger subsided, thought more about the "white cross of Denmark" than he did about the fire; for the latter had done him no damage, while the former might injure his character which he valued more than his property.

"I will agree not to prosecute, if you will answer all my questions," he replied; but I confess that it was an error on the part of the young man.

Donald fastened the painter of his skiff at the stern, and took a seat in the standing-room of the Juno.

"I will tell you all I know, if you will keep me out of the courts,"

added Laud, promptly.

"Why did you set the Maud afire?"

"Because I was mad, and meant to get even with you for what you did at Rodman's this afternoon. You might do me a great service, Don John, if you would. I like Nellie Patterdale; I mean, I'm in love with her. I don't believe I can live without her."

"I'll bet you'll have to," interposed Donald, indignantly.

"You don't know what it is to love, Don John."

"I don't want to know yet awhile; and I think you had better live on a different sort of grub. What a stupid idea, for a fellow like you to think of such a girl as Nellie Patterdale!"

"Is it any worse for me to think of her, than it is for you to do so?"

asked Laud.

"I never thought of her in any such way as that. We went to school together, and have always been good friends; that's all."

"That's enough," sighed Laud. "I actually suffer for her sake. If the quest were hopeless," Laud read novels--"I think I should drown myself."

"You had better do it right off, then," added Donald.

"You can pity me, Don John, for I am miserable. Day and night I think only of her. My feelings have made me almost crazy, and I hardly knew what I was about when I applied the incendiary torch to the Maud."

"I thought it was a card of friction matches."

"The world will laugh and jeer at me for loving one above my station; but love makes us equals."

"Perhaps it does when the love is on both sides," added the practical boat-builder.

"But I think I am fitted to adorn a higher station than that in which I was born."

"If so, you will rise like a stick of timber forced under the water; but it strikes me that you have begun in the wrong way to figure for a rise."

"But I wish to rise only for Nellie's sake. You can help me, Don John; you can take me into her presence, where I can have the opportunity to win her affection."

"I guess not, Laud. Shall I tell you what she said to me this afternoon?"

"Tell me all."

"She said you were an impudent puppy, and she was sorry I invited you."

"Did she say that?" asked Laud, looking up to the cold, pale moon.

"She did; and I was obliged to tell her that I didn't invite you."

"Perhaps I have been a fool," mused the lover.

"There's no doubt of it. Nellie Patterdale dislikes, and even despises you. I have heard her say as much, in so many words. That ought to comfort you, and convince you that it is no use to fish any longer in those waters."

"Possibly you are right; but it is only because she does not know me. If she only knew me better--"

"She would dislike and despise you still more," said Donald, sharply.

"If she only knew that you set the Maud afire, she would love you as a homeless dog likes the brickbats that are thrown at him."

"You will not tell her that, Don John?"

"I will not tell her, or any one else, if you behave yourself. Now I want to ask some more questions."

"Go on, Don John."