CHAPTER II.

MR. ELIOT BUCKSTONE.

The view from Poppleton Point was very fine. A marine painter sat making a sketch where the spray from the sea which beat upon the rocks below spattered his patent leather boots. He was wholly absorbed in his work, and one with a taste for the grand and beautiful, engaged in such a task, might well be pardoned for knowing nothing else. The Point was the eastern boundary of the northern coast line of the estuary into which Bell River disembogued. At an average distance of half a mile from the shore lay two islands, which had been named from their shape The Great Bell and The Little Bell. Just above the latter, on the north side of the river, was Port Poppleton, a village of four thousand inhabitants, who were principally engaged in the coasting and fishing business.

Above its mouth Bell River made two turns, which gave it the form of the letter S. The country was hilly and rocky, and the stream had been forced into a tortuous way in its path to the sea. Two miles north of the Port was another village, within the corporate limits of the town, which went by the name of Poppleton Mills. The place was a live New England town, with some farming, some fishing, some coasting, some ship-building, a great deal of trade with Boston and Portland by land and by sea, but the principal interest was the cotton factories.

The mouth of Bell River was surrounded by rocks, and the region to the southward was rather noted for its fine scenery. The gunning and fishing in the vicinity were first class. Not only were the finest cod, haddock, perch, and tautog caught in the sea off the Port, but the finest pickerel and pouts were taken in the river above the Mills, and the finest trout in the brooks which flowed into it. It was therefore a paradise for sportsmen and summer idlers, and two very comfortable hotels in the lower village were usually well filled with visitors for four months in the year. Port Poppleton was rapidly acquiring a reputation as a watering-place, on a small scale.

Mr. Eliot Buckstone, marine painter from the city of New York, sat on a rock at the extremity of Poppleton Point. He had taken a room at the Bell River House for a fortnight, and was just now at the height of earthly felicity in the enjoyment of the luxuries of the place, not the least of which, to his artistic soul, was the view from the Point. He watched the green waves, as they rolled up from the sea, and broke themselves in flaky spray upon the rocks of the Great Bell. This was the scene he was sketching. He had already outlined the rocks, with the curling billows shattering themselves upon them, and the dilapidated farm-house and barn which occupied the highest part of the island.

“Help! help!”

Eliot Buckstone dropped his sketch-book and pencil, and sprang to his feet, for the tones were those of a woman.

“Help! Help!”

It was the voice of a woman, but the accents were not so deeply burdened with terror as the words would seem to indicate. Mr. Buckstone glanced in the direction from which the appeal came, and discovered a small boat, containing a female. She uttered no wild screams, she made no extravagant gestures; and as her tones, gentle and supplicatory as they were, had before informed him, she did not appear to be seriously alarmed. The strong tide was bearing the boat swiftly through the narrow strait between the Great Bell and the north shore.

Although the lady, standing up in the boat, did not seem to regard her situation as a perilous one, the artist took a very different view of it. The wind was blowing fresh from the south-west, and the frail craft, already tossed by the great waves that rolled up from beyond the Point, was going out to sea. The wind and the tide might force it miles from the shore, and the lady, if not drowned, would be subjected to a long absence and a great deal of suffering. She appealed to him for help, or, if not to him, to somebody, for it was doubtful whether she had yet seen him. If there was no danger, of course she would not ask for assistance. Mr. Eliot Buckstone was an artist, and his imagination was strong and vivid. To him the lady’s situation at once became desperate. Without his prompt decision, and his strong arm, the interesting supplicant would be swallowed up by the remorseless billows, ingulfed by the relentless tide, mangled upon the pitiless rocks.

Mr. Buckstone threw off his coat the very instant he discovered the helpless lady, for though all the matters we have mentioned were duly considered, the thoughts flashed through his mind as thoughts always should flash through the brain of a genius. Mr. Buckstone threw off his vest. He did not take off either of these garments, for he was an impetuous young man, and a lady was in mortal peril--he threw them off. Mr. Buckstone kicked off his boots, though they were of patent leather, and snugly encased a pair of well-formed feet; he did not pull them off by any of the slow and tedious expedients known to the wearers of artistic boots--he kicked them off.

“Help! help!” again appealed the lone voyager, this time with a little more emphasis, but hardly with more feeling or more terror.

Mr. Buckstone rushed down to the water, walked out upon a big flat rock, and launched himself upon the stormy tide. The boat was coming within a few rods of the Point, and having measured with his eye the base and perpendicular of a triangle, the hypothenuse of which was the space between himself and the boat, he struck out on the base line, leaving the wayward craft to follow the perpendicular.

The artist swam well, and vigorously breasted the strong waves which beat against him. It is hardly more than once in a lifetime that a young man has an opportunity to become the hero of a romance, and Mr. Eliot Buckstone seemed to be determined to make a rich investment on the present occasion. It is hardly necessary to say that he intercepted the truant boat, as it was in the act of passing the Point, for to a young man in his frame of mind, with a helpless female before him rushing on to death and misery, failure was as impossible as success to a less determined person. He grasped the gunwale of the boat, and held on; he could do no more, for, short as was the distance he had accomplished, the obstinate waves and the pitch of excitement to which he had worked himself up, had completely exhausted him. He hung on at the gunwale, puffing like a porpoise torn from his native element.

The imperilled female, now apparently in less peril than her gallant deliverer, stood up in the stern of the boat, regarding with intense interest and anxiety the amphibious gentleman who had so boldly battled the waves in her behalf. While Mr. Eliot Buckstone recovers his breath, let us glance at her who had unwittingly caused the enthusiastic artist all this trouble and inconvenience.

She was rather tall; beautifully proportioned, and exceedingly graceful. Her complexion was naturally fair, but it had been somewhat browned by the summer sun. Her eye was large, soft, and blue; her nose Grecian; and her lips had just curl enough to indicate firmness of purpose. Her face and form would have attracted attention anywhere; but the more spiritual the nature, the more elevated the taste, the higher the intellectual cultivation, of the beholder, the more intense would have been his appreciation of the gentle maiden, whom the wind and the waves were wafting to sea, when the artist rushed to her assistance.

“I am very sorry to have caused you all this trouble, sir,” said the lady, in tones so sweet and soothing, and withal so musical, that the marine painter instantly lost all sense of fatigue, and felt whole volumes of fresh, pure air pour into his empty lungs.

Eliot Buckstone was not sorry when he saw that face, beheld that graceful form, and heard that musical voice. He was endowed with a highly sensitive organization, and he may be pardoned for the raptures which were kindled into being beneath his wet garments. I am inclined to think, knowing what he felt in this moment of enthusiasm, that he was a fatalist; that he believed fate or providence had at this time, and in this manner, brought him into the presence of the tall maiden, who gazed in pity and gentleness upon him.

“No trouble at all, madam,” he replied, as with a vigorous movement he climbed over the rail into the boat, to the imminent risk of swamping the frail craft.

“I did not see you, sir, when I called for help,” she added, apologetically.

“I am glad you did not, if seeing me would have prevented you from claiming my assistance,” answered Mr. Buckstone, as he shook the salt water from his curly locks.

“I would not have had you expose yourself in this manner on any consideration,” continued the lady, who had seated herself when the artist climbed into the boat.

“Do not complain of me for what I have done, for I assure you it has been a greater pleasure to me than to you.”

“You are very kind, sir, but I must regret that you adopted this method of assisting me.”

“What other method could I have adopted?” asked Mr. Buckstone, not a little puzzled by the protest of the rescued damsel.

He was a man of the world, and though he had been in the habit of hearing ladies pretend to object to the trouble they might have caused, he felt that they regarded any sacrifices of time or comfort as expressions of devotion, highly flattering and complimentary to them. He believed that the gentleman who incurred the greatest risk for a lady had the sincerest admiration for her. In the present instance, Mr. Buckstone realized that the lady actually regretted the annoyance and discomfort which she had caused him.

“Gentlemen do not usually put to sea like seals and porpoises,” replied the lady, with a soothing smile, the first he had seen, and which rendered his case even more desperate than before.

“How do they put to sea?”

“In boats.”

“But I had no boat.”

“Perhaps you might have found one at the salt works beyond the Point.”

“Perhaps I might--who knows!” replied Mr. Buckstone with a rather vacant expression on his handsome face, for the idea of resorting to a boat when a lady was in peril, looked absolutely preposterous to him, especially if the boat had to be searched for before it could be found.

“I beg you will not think I am ungrateful,” continued the lady, noticing the shade of discontent that appeared on the face of the artist.

“By no means, madam.”

“I am really very grateful to you; and I was only sorry to have caused you so much trouble and discomfort. I was not in great danger----”

“Not in great danger?” interposed Mr. Buckstone, puzzled by the lady’s apparent intention to underrate his services.

“Did you think I was?”

“I certainly did.”

“Then I am all the more obliged to you for your kind exertions in my favor.”

“Don’t mention it; but you will excuse me if I say I think you are the coolest lady it was ever my good fortune to meet.”

“Indeed, you misunderstand me entirely,” protested she, a slight flush mantling her cheeks, while she looked exceedingly troubled and annoyed. “I am very, very grateful to you.”

“O, I do not doubt that.”

“You think that I am cool, but I assure you my heart is warm with thankfulness. I am just as much obliged to you as though I had been in peril of my life, and all the more so because you so regarded my situation.”

“I only meant that you were very cool in view of your danger. How a lady could be as composed as you were, when alone in a boat drifting out to sea, is more than I can comprehend. That was what I meant. I would not by any means accuse you of undervaluing my poor service.”

“I am relieved,” added she, her smile meaning even more than her words. “I do not think I am lessening the value of your efforts in my behalf when I say that I should not have been very much alarmed if I had been sure of going out to sea. It is now only the middle of the forenoon: I should have been picked up by some boat or vessel bound in or out of the river.”

“I must say you have more courage and self-possession than I ever happened to meet with in a lady before.”

“I am quite used to the water.”

“I see that you are,” laughed the artist, rising from his seat on the thwart, where all this time he had been resting from his labors, while the boat continued to drift out to sea.

“Have you any oars?” he asked, after he had glanced into the bottom of the boat.

“I have not, unfortunately. If I had I should not have been here.”

“Then I am very thankful that you had none;” whereat the maiden blushed, and looked troubled again.

“I lost the oars overboard,” she added, without noticing the pretty speech of the gallant young man.

“I am glad you did, Miss----,” and he looked up into the fair face of the lady.

“Miss Kingman; but I am very sorry I lost the oars, for you are as wet as a fish, and you may take cold.”

“I never take cold; I am above such infirmities.”

“I hope you will not, but a cold bath is not comfortable on a chilly day like this.”

“This is a beautiful day, and my heart is warm enough just now to generate sufficient caloric for my whole body.”

Miss Kingman did not, perhaps, precisely comprehend this bold speech. She glanced back at the Point, past which the boat had drifted, and was now tossing about like a chip on the great waves of the open bay.

“You think we had better get back to the land,” continued Mr. Buckstone, interpreting her glance at the shore to mean this.

“I am not at all frightened; my father is an old sailor, and I have always lived on the sea shore.”

“Upon my word, I am heartily rejoiced that you are not alarmed at your situation, for really I can’t see that I have done anything more by my swim, than to give you a companion in your voyage out to sea,” replied the artist, as he glanced over the boat again in search of something that would serve as an oar.

The lady was silent; perhaps disliking to say what she may have believed--that a companion like the young artist was more dangerous than the wind and the waves.

Whether she thought so or not, it was true in this case, though by no fault on his part; and it would have been better for her to be buried in the depth of the ocean, with nothing but the wind and the waves to chant her requiem, than to have met Eliot Buckstone.

“What shall I do? I have no oars, and the thwarts are all fastened into the boat.”

“I don’t know, really,” she replied, “what you can do. I wondered, when I saw you swimming out, what you intended.”

“I supposed you had oars,” answered Mr. Buckstone, stung by the implied, but not intended, reproach for his thoughtless measures.

“If I had had oars, I should not have needed your assistance.”

“Then I am only an encumbrance to you. I suppose the boat would live longer in a sea with one person in it than with two. I have actually added to your peril, Miss Kingman, instead of removing you from it. What a blunderer I am!”

“You wrong yourself. Whatever the practical result, you intended to do me a great service, and I assure you I appreciate it as such.”

“I think it would be better for me now to leave you, and swim ashore.”

“Swim ashore!”

“And save you from my presence.”

“You wrong me now, sir.”

“I have come to the conclusion, that in your estimation, I have made a fool of myself.”

“Far from it, sir,” protested she, earnestly.

“That you owe me thanks only for my good intentions, which have stupidly increased your danger rather than diminished it.”

“I have no thought but gratitude.”

“For my good intentions, and contempt for my blundering work.”

“I hope I have not offended you. I did not mean to say anything unkind. I am sure I owe you----”

“Nothing, Miss Kingman. We are not more than half a mile from the Point, and I will swim ashore.”

“Not on any account. I shall never forgive myself for my careless words.”

“But when I get ashore, I will procure a boat, and come--or send some one--to your relief.”

“You are vexed with me, sir. I did not mean to say a word which would wound you.”

“Neither have you.”

“And I do not undervalue your kind exertions in my behalf. Do not attempt to swim ashore in such a sea as this,” pleaded the lady, as she saw him look significantly over the side.

“I can easily do so.”

“You are nearly exhausted by your efforts in swimming off to the boat.”

“That was only because I was so much alarmed for your safety.”

“How noble and kind you were! And how cruel and unkind I have been to disparage your efforts; but I did not intend to disparage them,” protested she, with an earnestness which entirely removed the feeling of chagrin that lingered in the mind of the enthusiastic artist. “I hope you will forgive me, sir.”

“With all my heart;” and it was with all his heart, for he could not resist the eloquence of that soft eye, and those musical tones, albeit his vexation was caused wholly by the feeling that the fair stranger did not appreciate him, rather than his exertions in her behalf.

“I cannot express to you how grateful I am, and I would not have you think me unkind for all the world.”

Mr. Buckstone was satisfied. How could he be otherwise after such liberal concession on the part of the lady? He now occupied himself in an examination of the interior structure of the boat. One of the narrow ceiling boards was loose, and without asking to whom the craft belonged, he tore it from its place. With his pocket-knife he soon fashioned it into something that had a remote resemblance to an oar.

“Now, Miss Kingman, if you will permit me to sit in the stern of the boat, I will try to scull her ashore,” said he, as he moved aft for this purpose.

“I am sure you will do all you intended,” replied she, as she rose from her seat.

The artist took her hand to assist her to another seat. It was a delicate and prettily shaped hand, and Mr. Buckstone, in spite of the emergency of the moment, glanced at it with an artist’s eye. He was sufficiently enraptured by the touch to press the hand, if he had dared to do so; but he prudently refrained, and placed himself in the stern with the oar he had improvised.

Mr. Buckstone, in the pursuit of his art, had accustomed himself to marine occupations. He succeeded in putting the boat’s head up to the wind, but that was about all he succeeded in doing, for the pine board twisted and behaved itself in a most unseamanlike manner; or Mr. Buckstone did, for the fault lay somewhere between them; and as far as the boatman or the lady could discover, no progress was made. Then he essayed to row the stubborn craft; but she whirled around, and resolutely went to seaward with the wind and tide. Miss Kingman hoped he would not wear himself out in fruitless exertions; but Mr. Buckstone seemed to have “enlisted for the war,” and to be determined to carry his point in spite of the obstinacy of the boat, the treachery of the oar, and the adverse influence of the wind and tide. Finally, after resorting to various expedients, he turned the craft towards the lighthouse on The Great Bell, so that her intended course was diagonal with the force of the breeze and the current, and pulled his oar on the seaward side. By this strategy, with the utmost exertion at the pine board, he realized that he was making a little progress through the water.

The labor was very great, and the headway very slight. It would be hours before he could reach the lighthouse at this rate, and he was soon discouraged by the prospect before him. But what added to his discomfort and discouragement was the fact that his beautiful companion sat behind him, and he could derive no inspiration in his arduous labors from the contemplation of her sweet face and graceful form. Mr. Buckstone was really in no haste to reach the shore, and nothing but a proper regard for appearances and the proprieties of the occasion induced him to struggle so hard to attain what he did not wish to attain. The marine painter was young, sentimental, and susceptible. Never before in flesh and blood had he so distinctly seen his ideal of a beautiful woman, as in the being who now sat behind him in the boat. In spite of his wet garments, and in spite of the terrors of the ocean upon which the boat was drifting, he found himself very pleasantly situated, and not the least in a hurry to escape from the perils which were as yet too far off to be dreaded. There was a greater peril nearer at hand, of which neither of them was conscious.

“There comes a boat out of the river!” exclaimed the lady, just as Mr. Buckstone had given up his useless labor, and turned round to gaze into the speaking eyes of his lovely companion.

“I am sorry for it,” said he, incautiously; “that is, I am sorry it did not come before.”

Miss Kingman was eighteen years old, and if she was deceived by the change in his words, she was undeceived when she felt the earnest gaze of admiration he bestowed upon her. The artist turned, and saw a sail boat dash out from behind the point of The Great Bell, on which the lighthouse was located.

“She makes good time, and you will soon be relieved of my presence, Miss Kingman,” said he, with a sigh.

She hoped so, but it would have been cruel to say it.

“It is Mr. Hungerford,” continued Miss Kingman, when the sail boat had come within hailing distance; and there was a smile of pleasure on her countenance which did not escape the keen observation of the artist.

“And pray, who is Mr. Hungerford?” he asked.

“Haven’t you heard of him? Eugene Hungerford, the heir of the Baltimore _millionnaire_?”

Mr. Buckstone had never heard of him; but he hailed the sail boat, and begged the loan of a pair of oars.