Jennette Alison, or, The young strawberry girl :: :: University of Virginia Library

`We must be speedy!' said Hugh, who
had hastened forward on hearing the outcry
made by the old seaman. `The shot has
knocked a hole in her large enough for a man
to enter, and the waves are rushing like a
cataract into the hold. Our only hope of
safety lies in the boat.'

In less than a minute and a half from the
time the shot struck the shallop between
wind and water and stove her bows, they had
launched this yawl, placed oars in it and
brought it under the gangway. Jennette was
first placed in it by Gordon, who then assisted
her father and Colonel Ogilvie out of the
sinking vessel. Hugh saw his men in and
then heaving the vessel to, he lashed the helm
and last of all sprung after them, though
Cæsar the negro would have been last to cast
off.

`She will go down in less than ten minutes,
sir,' said the old seaman as he took the bow
oar.

`Give way and let us make as wide a distance
between her and the boat as we can,
before the schooner comes up.'

`And she is rapidly approaching!' said
Captain Alison. `She is not more than half
a mile to windward.'

`She will ceased firing as soon as she discovers
that the shallop is hove to, and this
will assist us in escaping,' said Gordon.

`That was my object in lashing her helm
down. Now give way men hearty and
strong,' he added to the four oarsmen. We
shall reach the main-land in an hour with
steady rowing.'

`One thing is certain, we escape the
schooner by taking to the boat,' said Colonel
Ogilvie. `But I am pained that I should be
the cause of exposing you all to such discomforts
and dangers, especially this fair young
girl.'

`Do not think of me, sir! I would cheerfully
endure greater risks to secure your
safety, sir,' answered Jennette earnestly.

Hugh had the helm, and while he steered
the boat landward, he kept his eyes wondering
back to the shallop and the schooner.

`The cutter has tacked again and beats
rapidly up to the shallop,' he said. `She has
discovered that she is hove to and has ceased
firing.'

`The shallop still swims,' said Gordon.

`Yes, she may fill only to her gunwales
and then float. They will be disappointed
when they board her, to find that their prey
has escape. Pull strong and steady, men.
Every moment is of value, for it is possible
that they may discover even this boat, especially
should they throw up a rocket.'

`She has hove to! That last shot brought
them to their senses,' cried the captain of
the cutter, as with his glass he saw the
shallop come up into the wind and become
stationary.

`I thought it surprising,' remarked the
marshal with exultation, `that they should
dare to keep on under such a fire of shot!
But we have them now.'

`Ready about!' cried the captain. `We
shall fetch her on the other tack.'

The schooner now rapidly beat to windward,
and soon came abeam of the shallop,
which still floated head to the wind. The
captain sailed within fifty yards of it and
then hailed:

`Ho, the shallop.'

There was no reply.

`They must be all killed!' said the chief
of the police.

`The shallop ahoy!' repeated the captain
in a loud and angry tone. `Send your boat
aboard or I'll sink you.

`See! What is that! How she rocks!'
exclaimed the marshal.

`She seems to be leaping into the air!'
cried the collector. `What can it mean?'

`That is what it means,' answered the
captain of the cutter. `She has gone down
all standing.'

There was a general cry of surprise as
they beheld the shallop after a heavy plunge
and wide roll or two, descend slowly into the
deep and disappear from their eyes.

`Out with the boats and save all who float,'
cried the lieutenant.

`She has been struck and sunk by our
shot!' said the captain, `Give way men and
look carefully round and see if you can find
any body to pick up.'

`But nothing but spars and a keg or two
were visible on the surface of the sea. The
boats were re-called to the cutter and a counsel
at once held on deck touching this unlooked
for issue.

`There is little doubt but that a shot from
our guns sunk her, for here is a fresh splinter
from a bottom plank, we have picked up,'
said the lieutenant.

`But there is not so much certainty that
her crew went down with her,' said the captain,

`How could they have escape?' asked the
collector.

`In a boat. The fact that we found her
lying to when we come up, leads me to believe
that she was deserted as soon as she was
hit.'

`This is likely,' cried the marshal and
chief of police in the same breath.

`Do you see anything in shore, quarter-master?'
asked the collector seeing him looking
intently towards the main-land with his
glass at his eye.

`I see nothing yet, sir. I am trying to
make out if any thing is between us and the
land! But it is most too dark to distinguish
so small an object as a boat.'

`Fill away and stand on!' cried the captain.
`I see them.'

`Where?'

`Just in our course close-hauled. We
shall come up with them without fail.'

But the captain of the cutter was doomed
to be disappointed. The object he had detected
with his glass proved to be a sunken
rock. After beating about the coast, and
approaching as near as he dared, until sunrise,
and then discovering nothing of any
boat with his glass, he gave orders to put
away and sail back to Boston.

`Without doubt, they all went down with
the shallop.' said the marshal, as the cutter
began to retrace her course south and westwardly,

`I should think so, if she had not been
laying to,' answered the captain. My opinion
is that as soon as they found her sinking
they hove her to, to stop our firing and then
took to their boat. It is my belief that they
are now snugly concealed somewhere on the
shore.'

`If I thought so, I would have landed
then!' said the marshal. `But as soon as
we reach Boston, I will have the alarm given
down the coast and if he escaped drowning,
he will yet not escape hanging.'

The fugitive in the meanwhile having
rowed without intermission, reached the mouth
of Salem harbor an hour before day. Hugh,
to whom the coast was well known, steered
directly between the capes and keeping
along the banks at day-light, touched the
land half a mile below the town. Here they
drew up their boat in a secluded inlet and
landing, ascended to and entered an unoccupied
fisherman's cabin. From an eminence
near it, Gordon reported the rchooner just
disappearing in the southern board.

`Now, that we are in no danger from the
cutter, we must guard ourselves against the
risks we run by being on shore,' said Hugh.
`I have been talking with Blunt here, my
old seaman who is a native of Marblehead.
He says that if my father will disguise himself
as a fisherman, and let his beard grow he
will take him in the boat to his own native
cabin, which is in a solitary spot near the
beach, where he will be secure from all danger
of arrest. I shall accompany my father
similarly disguised, for I shall not leave him
till he is safely out of the county. We
start in half an hour, soon as we refresh ourselves

with these provisions I threw into the
boat! As for you, my dear Gordon, and your
friends, I would recommend you to return to
Boston, by the first stage. You will not be
suspected. No one has seen to recognize
you. You will be perfectly secure.'

`I have no fears for myself. No one
knows or suspects the part which Jennette
and I have had in the escape of your father,
and had not circumstances compelled us hurriedly
to embark as we did, I should not
have left the city, Your plan, so far as securing
Colonel Ogilvie's safety, is a good one.
Blunt seems to be faithful!'

`He is to be trusted,' answered Hugh.

They then seated themselves around their
rude breakfast, which was placed upon a
flat stone in front of the hut, as a substitute
for a table. After they had finished their meal,
Hugh and his father took a grateful leave of
their friends, and then embarked with the
faithful Cæsar in the boat for the solitary
cabin of the fisherman, two leagues up the
coast. When they had rowed out of sight
behind a projecting rock, Gordon turned to
Captain Alison and Jennette.

`We are now ourselves out of danger, and
Colonel Ogilvie's safety is no doubt secured.
He will be safe where he is going. Upon the
least alarm he can take to his boat and go
out from the land as if for fish, keeping beyond
recognition and danger.'

`I feel a great load off my mind,' said Captain
Alison. `We can't have been suspected!
No one who sees us now would suspect
us, for the colonel is not with us in company
to commit us. Jennette, I breathe again;
for ever since we were first chased by their
cutter I have been imagining you confined
in a prison. But now we are all safe.'

`Our first course will be to proceed to the
town and obtain a conveyance to Boston,'
said Gordon.

The same evening the post coach, in which
they took passage, stopped with the party of
three persons at the toll gate of Charlestown
bridge, where they alighted; and thence, in
order not to be followed or recognized, they
walked to the residence of Gordon, where
Jeannette and her father gladly found a
refuge, after the exciting events of the two
past days.

The next day Gordon was privately married
to Jennette, with the full approval of
his sister Isabel, who had not been long in
the society of the lovely sewing-girl, before
she became fondly attached to her. Isabel
said nothing to her brother about the escape
of Colonel Ogilvie, of which she had heard
through the public prints, but she was well
aware that her brother had been engaged in
it; and she half guessed that Jennette, now
his sweet bride, had performed the part of
the strawberry-girl.

The fourth day after the return of Gordon,
being alone with his sister, asked her if she
still ebjected to Hugh, now that his father
had escaped.

`He is not less infamous, Gordon,' she
answered. `All the world are talking of his
escape, and his guilt has been, as it were,
doubly sealed by it. Indeed, it will hardly
be safe for Hugh to come to Boston again.'

`But he can live abroad.'

`No, no! I love him—I would gladly become
his wife—but I cannot, I cannot sacrifice
myself.'

While she was speaking the street bell
rung and a person came to the door and left
a note, to the following purport.

Sir:—Call and see me, I am dying, and
have a secret of importanc to communicate
to you.

Parchnip.

Attorney, No. — street.
To Gordon Hays, Esq.

Gordon believing this evil man was about
to reveal something in favor of his victim,
Colonel Ogilvie, hastened to obey this extraordinary
summons. He found the lawyer
near his end, having been knocked down and
severely crushed, that morning, by a loaded
dray. There were two gentlemen in the
room when Gordon entered, one of whom he
recognized to be the Judge who had sentenced
Colonel Ogilvie.

`Glad you have come,' said the attorney
looking at Gordon with glassy eyes; `you see
me dying! Sent for you, knew you friend to
Colonel Ogilvie. Don't know whether he is
alive or dead. Hope he lives. Sent for you
and these gentlemen!—Driver of coach
didn't die. Bribed the landlord and doctor
to report him dead. Buried an empty coffin.
Driver to be found at No.— Street,
Baltimore. Send for him. Prove it. Colonel
Ogilvie was right in trying to get the
papers. They would have ruined his word
—bound in honor to protect him. Papers
forged. Colonel Ogilvie innocent. No murder
done. Ought to be pardoned for stopping
mail. An honorable man. That's all
I have to say. Couldn't die without telling

100

all! Hope the Colonel's alive. If not it'll
do his son good to know this. These gentlemen
are witnesses to what I say. I've
done. Doctor tells me I shall be dead in an
hour! Die happier for making clean breast.
This is my true deposition, so help me
Heaven!'

The amazement of those present and the
joy of Gordon may be conceived. The attorney
died that night. An officer was despatched
to Baltimore and in six days returned
with the driver so long supposed dead,
but who had been kept out of the way by
Parchnip's bribes. The landlord of the tavern
was also arrested where the driver was
supposed to have died. The fact of his existence
being fully established and the substance
of Parchnip's confession having been
made known to the Governor he proclaimed
a full pardon to Colonel Ogilvie.

Gordon was the happy bearer of this intelligence
to the fisherman's cabin by the
sea-side; and the next day after receiving
the joyful news, Colonel Ogilvie and Hugh
were inmates of Gordon's house in Summer
Street. It would be difficult to decide which
was the happiest at this propitious issue of
events, Hugh or Isabel. She no longer re
fused him her hand, and so in one week
there were two weddings at Gordon's happy
mansion; while Colonel Ogilvie restored
to his good name and fortune, blessed in
prosperity those who had been such firm
friends to him in adversity. Old Captain
Alison was rejuvenized, and lame as he was,
threw away his crutch and danced at Isabel's
wedding like a jolly young sailor of
one and twenty.

`What a contrast this scene and time;
Jennette,' he said with tears glistening in
his eyes, as he drew near his daughter's side,
during the bridal evening, `to the time three
weeks ago, when we knew not where we
should get the next piece of bread. But I
recollect you told me then that one should
never doubt the goodness of Providence.'

`And you never will again I know, dear
father.'

`Never, my child. If we had not been so
poor, Cæsar would not have come to visit and
aid us, and so Lieutenant Hays, your noble
young husband, would not have found us out;
and all these happy things would not have
come to pass. Even after this, I shall remember
that the darkest hour is just before
day.'

THE END.

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