At the Black Rocks Part 33

"Oh, he is upstairs, and well enough to see us. The doctor says he is doing well. And walk up, gentlemen," said Dave, "walk up!"

Bart was reading to the old man, who was seated in a rocking-chair near his bed. The company almost filled the little room, but the light-keeper bade them welcome.

"Mr. Tolman," said Thomas, "won't you tell Cap'n Sinclair what you told me about the taking of the chronometer?"

"Oh yes," said the old light-keeper slowly. "I was feeling very sick, so much so that I concluded to lie down. I s'pose I was lying with my eyes 'most shut, when I heard a step and saw a man come in, and he looked at me, and then he stood on a chair, examined the top of that clothes-press, and took down a chronometer--an old thing, but it might be fixed up. The man thought I was asleep, and I didn't see his face, only it seemed to me as if he had whiskers, and when he stood on a chair to reach the chronometer he looked--standing with his back to me---as if it was Dave Fletcher. Well, I was that weak I couldn't speak, and my visitor went off, supposing, I daresay, that I was asleep. Well, I kept it on my mind, forgetting the whiskers, that it was Dave, and I charged him with it. Sorry I did--"

"Well," said Timothy fiercely, "why wasn't it Fletcher? It is about time that innocent chap should do something."

"He says--Mr. Tolman says," observed Captain Sinclair, "that you and Fletcher look alike."

"Wall," bawled Timothy, "why couldn't it have been Fletcher much as me, don't you see? Come you--you feller--you stand by this clothes-press and reach up, and let's see how you look."

"This 'feller' is ready," said Dave, going to the clothes-press and reaching to its top.

"And here I am. Why ain't it him?" asked Timothy, also standing by the press and reaching up.

"They do look alike when their backs are turned toward us," observed Captain Sinclair.

"Only the keeper said the one he saw had whiskers, and there are Timothy's," remarked Thomas.

Dave wore only a moustache. Thomas's remark called the attention of everybody to Timothy's whiskers, projecting like wings from his cheeks.

These wings were red, but their colour was not as vivid as that of Timothy's face.

"Besides," continued Thomas, "Dave wasn't here. He can prove an alibi.

He was over at Pudding P'int; came to get a fish from me."

"Why," said Timothy indignantly, "I was--two miles away."

"I saw you round the sh.o.r.e myself; and here is your pocket-book that Dave found at the foot of the light-tower that very morning."

Timothy opened his eyes, swelled up his cheeks, puffed, declared he didn't see how that was, "and--and--"

Here Bart interrupted his stammering, and said,--

"And I saw you up at our shed that evening. I thought it was Dave Fletcher, taking a back view; but when I called 'Dave!' there was no answer to it;--and, Dave, you'd speak if I called, wouldn't you?"

"I think I would."

"This other person that looked like you didn't say a word."

Timothy puffed and protested and denied, growing redder and redder.

"See here, Waters," said Captain Sinclair: "I have been looking at the lighthouse records last year, and I have hunted up places where you have written, and the style is like this in the letter I received--that anonymous one--about the charges against the keepers in the lighthouse.

You come up into the room above with me."

Stuttering in his confusion, still a.s.serting his innocence, blus.h.i.+ng, he stumbled up the stairway, and then alone with Captain Sinclair he was urged to make a clean breast of it.

"Yes," said the captain, "tell the whole story; for there is enough against you to shut you up in quarters of stone, and it won't be a lighthouse."

Timothy was startled by this. He broke down, and made a full confession to the inspector.

XIX.

_A PLACE TO STOP._

Here is a place to bring into a harbour our story drifting on like a boat. Dave Fletcher was appointed keeper of the light at Black Rocks, and Thomas Trafton became his a.s.sistant. Bart, though, said he considered himself to be second a.s.sistant, and should fit himself as rapidly as possible for a keeper. He wanted, he added, to be as useful as he could be--an idea that never forsook him since the old days of his career as Little Mew. d.i.c.k Pray went on in the old style, full of plans and projects, stirred by an intense ambition to do some big thing, but impatient of the little things necessary to the execution of the whole.

Always ready to dare, he was as uniformly averse to the doing of the hard work that might be demanded.

Toby Tolman took up his quarters in his old home ash.o.r.e. As he could not go where Dave was, he said he thought Dave ought to come to him as often as possible. Dave promised to do all in his power, and as a pledge of his sincerity he married the light-keeper's granddaughter, black-eyed, bright-eyed May Tolman. She lived under Toby Tolman's roof; and as Dave improved every opportunity to visit the grand-daughter, he was able to fulfil his promise made to the grandfather.

THE END.