Friend or Fortune? The story of a strange year, etc

Front matter

FRIEND OR FORTUNE? "How we drank ! 'Not wisely but too much;' though every draft seemed to put fresh life into us." — p. 148. FRIEND OR FORTUNE? Cfce of a strange gear [:V ROBERT OVERTON Author of " After School," '•Lights Out ! " " Tkt Kings P<!rdon," " Far from Home" etc. ILLUSTRATED BY ENOCH WARD LONDON JARROLD & SONS, 10 & u, WARWICK LANE, E.C [All Rights Reserved] I«97 NEW 2/6 PRESENTATION BOOKS. Crown Svo, Cloth Elegant. THE "HONESTY" DORES. By Selina Gave, Author of "Courage and Cowards," "Jack by the Hedge," "Dickie Winton," " All's Well that Ends Well," etc. Illustrated by Caroline Manning. WEST DENE MANOR. By Mrs. J. A. Owen, Author of " Forest, Field, and Fell," "The Country, Month by Month." Illustrated by Caroline Manning. DON'T WORRY. By Rev. Frederick Hastings, Author of "Sundays about the World," " Back Streets and London Slums," etc.

With numerous Illustrations. FRIEND OR FORTUNE? The Story of a Strange Year. By Robert Overton, Author of " Lights Out!" "After School," etc. With 4 Illustrations by Enoch Ward. CLIMBING THE LADDER. By Grace Stebbing, Author of "That Aggravating School Girl," "That Bother of a Boy," "Wild Kathleen," etc. Illustrations by K. M. Skeaping. THROUGH THEIR SPECTACLES. By C. Lockhart Gordon, Author of "A Bunch of Roses," " Hurap and All," etc. Illustrations by Caroline Manning. AFTER LONG WAITING. By Ada Mary Rowley. Illustration by K. M. Skeaping. London: Jarrold & Sons, io & ii, Warwick Lane, E.C. And of all Booksellers. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Situation ... ... ... ... ... 7 II. A Message from the Sea ... ... ... 15 III. An Auction in the Big Dormitory ... ... 20 IV. A Startling Revelation ... ... ... 28 V. What Happened ... ... ... ... ... 37 VI.

Was Harry Saxon Murdered? ... ... 49 VII. Facing the World with a "Fiver" ... ... 54 VIII. POOLEY DE VERE PULLET ... ... ... 64 IX. Red Lights Ahead ! ... ... ... ... 69 X. What was the Dead Man's News? ... ... 79 XL The Land of Gold ... ... ... ... 84 XII. Good-bye, Old England! ... ... ... 93 XIII. A Mysterious Passenger ... ... ... ... 99 XIV. A White Night ... ... ... ... 109 XV. An Old Chum on and a New Chum off ... 114 XVI. The Other End of the World ... ... 121 XVII. Adopting a Father ... ... ... ... 129 XVIII. In Dire Peril CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XIX. Just in Time ... ... ... ... ■•• M5 XX. A Sinful Paradise... ... ... ... 149 XXI. Passing the Word ... ... ... ... 160 XXII. " Forewarned, Forearmed ! " ... ... 168 XXIII. Jacobs' Chance... ... ... ... ... 175 XXIV. Sentenced to Death ... ... ... 184 XXV.

Chapter I. The Situation

id^SpiJJHE situation is getting strained, Rase," said Ræs Pl»ll Harry Saxon, my cousin and my chum. E^B-Bl " So much so," I replied, " that some thing 's bound to go snap before long." Briefly, the " situation " under discussion was this — Harry Saxon and I — Ralph Towers — were orphans. Until our parents died (his father and mother within a few weeks of my father and my mother) we had seen little of each other. But since that sad time, six years ago, we had never been parted, for we had been at the same boarding-school. Having nowhere else to go, our vacations were spent there as well as term times. FRIEND OR FORTUNE? The only living relative of whom we had any know ledge — our uncle, Major Bengough, of Bombay — had, we understood, undertaken to pay for both of us. He was the brother of Harry's dead mother and of mine.

We knew little else about him. He never wrote to us, never sent us any message, any word of greeting, through the London solicitor who appeared to act as his agent, and through whom his remittances for our school bills were received by Dr. Job Consett, the principal of the Beechy Bay Academy for Young Gentlemen. For more than five years the Major had sent these remittances with military regularity and punctuality. But for two whole terms, and the greater part of a third term, nothing had been received from him. Of this fact Consett himself, with harsh voice and black brows, had not hesitated to inform us. " Old Consett cares for money," Harry Saxon had said, " more than he cares for anything else in this world— or the next. If somebody doesn't pay up, what will he do, and what shall we have to do ?

" That was just the crux of the situation, and the particular point in it which Harry and I had been specially discussing in the hamper-shed after morning school on the day on which these veracious chronicles have their beginning. Our conversation was interrupted by the sudden THE SITUATION. 9 opening of the door, and the thrusting into view of the merry face and the exceedingly curly head of Walter Locks, the playground monitor. "Here, I say, you fellows, I don't know what you're in for, but The Patient One is waiting for you in the sanctum, and you're both to go in to him at once." " All right, Curly. What does he look like ? " "A double dose, Harry, with a little bit to spare for next time " — and the merry face and curly head disappeared. The genesis of the sobriquet of " The Patient One " for Dr. Job Consett was in this wise : Some brilliant wit suggested " The Patient " as an agreeable variation of " The Doctor."

This suggestion was eventually improved upon by an even more brilliant wit dubbing our anything but esteemed pedagogue, " The Patient One," in pointed allusion to his lack of patience and to his Christian name. " We ought to make the most of his Christian name," this genius had remarked ; " it's the only Christian thing about him." And looking back even now — in the days when an ex-schoolboy is disposed to think kindly of those whom he judged less charitably in early days — I honestly believe that boy spoke the truth. Harry and I looked at each other. " The situation is about to snap," said I. " Let it snap," returned Harry, recklessly and curtly — though he linked his arm in mine affectionately, as much as to add, "Whatever's before us, we'll face it together," as off we walked with silent tongues but beating hearts to learn the worst.

Through the playground into the school-house, along the passages towards the Doctor's dreaded study. He was waiting for us — a spare little man, whose face a physiognomist would have found a good deal of fault with. He would have said that the small, closely set eyes were cunning ones ; that the long upper lip in dicated avariciousness ; that the whole expression of his face was a shifty one. However avaricious he may have been, it was an open secret in the school that he hadn't acquired much. The elder boys used to say that, in his haste to be rich, what he made he lost by rash dabbling in stocks and shares which had a habit of falling in value as soon as he possessed them. In the thin, grating voice we knew so well, he came to the point without any preliminary parley. " Well, young gentlemen," he said — his habit of sarcastic politeness was a seldom-failing irritant — " I have some interesting news for you.

Being still without money — money for your education, your board, and the very clothes you wear — I wrote at last to Mr. Dexton, your benevolent uncle's agent in London, demanding an THE SITUATION. 11 explanation. I had asked for one several times without getting it — now I've got it, such as it is. After shelter ing himself, for not having told me before, behind the excuse of his principal's instructions to be silent, he has condescended to inform me that nine months ago Major Bengough advised him that he was returning to England on board the Eastern Star. In fact, he wrote from on board her at Bombay, and was to sail the next day or the day after." "That was nine months ago, sir!" exclaimed Harry. " Yes, sir ; nine months almost to the day." " Did he — did uncle say anything about us, sir ?

" I faltered. " Simply that he would inspect you — these are his own words, mark you — and make such arrangements as he thought proper about your future, upon his arrival. But he hasn't arrived, and nothing whatever has been heard of the Eastern Star from the day she sailed, nine months ago. Nine months' education, board, clothing, religious training, books, and extras, all owing to me — to say nothing of kindness, special anxiety, and indi vidual attention ! " Harry's face flushed. " Won't Mr. Dexton pay you, Dr. Consett ? " Mr. Dexton has no funds to pay me from, and no instructions to pay me if he had the funds — and no wish to pay me if he had both," added the patient Job, viciously. " There's his letter," he continued, grabbing hold of a paper before him and flinging it across the table.

" Read it." Harry Saxon and I read the lawyer's communication together. It was brief and succinct. The news it con tained had been retailed to us without palliation or exaggeration. Annexed to it was a copy of Uncle Bengough's own short letter. " The Eastern Star is a sailing vessel, mark you," resumed Dr. Consett as we returned him the letter. " If this Major Bengough had been a man of proper character, he would have come by the steamer that carried his precious note, and would have brought my money with him, instead of taking a cheaper passage by a sailing-ship and getting drowned in my debt. As it is, here you are, you two, with the largest appetites in the school, but without a friend or relation in the world who can pay me." I noticed that Harry's brown eyes, so gentle as a rule, began to glitter dangerously.

But I got in before him with— " Surely, sir, if ... if uncle is not heard of again, it'll be somebody's duty to pay you out of what he may have left behind him." " If he had anything to leave behind him, do you think his solicitor would write like that ? " THE SITUATION, 13 Consett pointed with an angry gesture to Mr. Dexton's letter. "Would his own solicitor disclaim responsibility if there were any money to be responsible with ? Bah ! " Harry's eyes were blazing now. He drew himself up as he cried hotly — " We'll pay you ourselves ! " " Yes," I joined in — I was a capital hand at joining in — " we'll pay you ourselves ! " Job Consett didn't laugh — he never did ; I don't believe he had ever honestly laughed in all the fifty years of his life — but his thin lips parted in the nearest approach to a smile he ever indulged in.

" I shall be happy to give you a receipt." " So you shall give us a receipt one of these days." " And in the mean time, Master Saxon, I propose to take care that the amount is not increased. In six days' time — on the 28th of July — we break up. If I have not been paid by then — and who is there to pay me ? — instead of spending the vacation with me as usual, you will both go with the other boys." " Go where, sir ? " asked Harry. " Wherever you like, so long as you don't come back." " What are we to do, sir ? " was the question I vainly struggled to repress. " Whatever you like, so long as you never come back, I won't seek to influence you in any way. Shift for yourselves. For the six days between now and the twenty-eighth — almost a week — I will continue to keep you. But I trust to your honour not to eat more than you can help."

If it cost me an effort to control my feelings, what must it have cost my high-spirited cousin ? An out break of indignant words trembled on his lips ; I even saw that he doubled those strong fists of his. I nudged him with my elbow, and tossed back my head towards the door, to which we both stalked off without a word. But at the door Harry turned, and looked Dr. Job Consett square in the face. There was no mistaking the double meaning of the short sentence he shot out at the Head Master of Beechy Bay Academy for Young Gentlemen before he closed that door behind him — "One of these days, Dr. Consett, we'll pay you !"

Chapter II

A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. UJ£§|R]hlHE situation had snapped, for Consett, its ■*P*I P?B master, had spoken. We were face to face I ■ iTMJ now with the actualities of a new one, which, though anticipated, was so fraught with perplexities, so beset with difficulties, that it is no wonder both Harry and I found ourselves on the punishment-list that after noon for inattention and " gross carelessness." The only part of our punishment we troubled about was its accidental side : it made it impossible for us to be alone to discuss our plans until the long hot summer day had waned into evening. Then — ignoring without a single pang of conscience the rule which would have confined us within bounds — we made off together for the beach, the strip of golden sand which we loved better than any other spot in Beechy Bay.

For the fishermen were all chums of ours : there wasn't one of them who didn't make us free of his boat, and it was from this favourite spot of ours they had taught us to put out fearlessly to sea — taught us to swim, to row, to sail. We had gone with some of them as far as Start Point on one side, and Portland Bill on the other ; for it was between the two that lay the little town I will continue to call Beechy Bay. As a matter of fact, it was so called by the local rustics. And just beyond where the sands ended in a rugged, ragged, jagged, bristling line of rocks and crags, we had our own cave, into which we fondly believed few but ourselves knew the tortuous way. Besides, scarcely a mile from this part of the shore, to the left of the projecting headland that ran seaward beyond it, was Bay Island.

And what a glorious place at low tide was Bay Island ! What hours Harry and I used to spend there, collaring the first idle boat we came to ! What fishing and harpooning in its salt pools we enjoyed ! What Natural history collecting, chiefly of live (and unfortunate) specimens for Harry's "museum," as he called a zinc lined box which, with the connivance of a good-natured housemaid, he kept under his bed in the big dormitory ! We sat with our backs against an upturned smack. The southerly wind blew sweet and fresh in our faces, cooling the pine-scented air. The blue sky hung low over a bluer sea, athwart which began to stream the white track of the moonlight. " What were we to do ? " was all we talked about. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 17 " It's the suspense — the uncertainty — that makes it all so hard to tackle," said Harry.

" If we knew that uncle was alive — well, little as we really know about him, we know what he said in that letter : that he'd inspect us, and make arrangements about our future. That's indefinite, but still it's something to hang on by — or would be. On the other hand, if we knew for certain that he was dead . . ." "Well?" said I, for he hesitated. " Why, we'd clear away from old Consett's to-morrow, that's certain. What we'd have to do afterwards is . . ." "Is as uncertain as the fate of Uncle Bengough is at present." " His fate may be uncertain for long enough yet." "But not ours, Harry — that's to be decided, at least up to a certain big point, by the twenty-eighth." "So it is. I say, old man," he interjected after a pause of silence, " the wind's freshening." " Yes," I agreed ; " it's been getting up for a quarter of an hour past.

And look there — just the other side of the island — there's one of the boats running in before it. It's Dan Runciman's, I think," I continued, as I caught a fuller view of the bellying brown sails. We rose and walked to the water's edge. The boat sailed so rapidly that we soon satisfied ourselves that it Was our old friend Dan's. We sent a hail across the water, and Dan's own voice answered it. B Is we were to be back in time for the last roll-call we ought to have returned at once ; but we were just in the mood to risk anything, and we agreed to wait to lend a hand in beaching the approaching Curlew. She wasn't long in getting in. Down came her sails with a run as she touched ground. Out sprang Dan and his son Joe. To the former's cheery " Heave-heave ho-o!" they and Harry and I hauled her up.

"A poor catch, Dan," said Harry, with a glance at the few fish at the bottom of the boat. "Aye, poor enough, sir," responded old Dan. With a mysterious look on his honest, brown-red face, he went on — "But we've fished up something I never caught before." Leaning over the gunwale of his little craft, he opened the locker and brought out — if I may use such a phrase — a weather-beaten looking bottle, tightly corked, and further secured at the opening by what looked like a complicated arrangement of wirework. Holding the bottle in his hands, Dan said — "We found this bobbing round our bows, just as though it was asking for to be took aboard. I says to Joe as I catches hold of it, 'Joe,' I says, 'this here bottle do look like what the papers call a "Message from the Sea.'" And so it do, young gennelmen, so it do."

A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 19 We looked at the bottle with interest. " It's lucky you're here," reflected Dan ; " for if so be as there's anything in it of the sort I'm thinking, it'll be a wrote message, and you'll be able to read a wrote message better than me and Joe. Print's more in our line." " Open it, Dan ! " we cried. Dan raised the mysterious-looking bottle, and broke the neck on the Curlew's gunwale. Our excitement increased as he drew out of it and handed to Harry what looked like a folded leaf from a pocket-book. With eager fingers Harry unfolded the slip of paper. Looking over his shoulder in the moonlight, my hands and lips trembled with his as together we read this message from the dead, written in large, clear characters on the widely-lined page. Somehow, the letters conveyed the idea that it was the lost ship they came from that quivered as they were written, not the hand that wrote them.

Supplemented by details of latitude and longitude, these were the words of the message :— " Midnight, January 1st, 188 — , " The ' Eastern Star ' is sinking, with all on board. "Gabriel Bengough."

Chapter III An Auction In The Big Dormitory

UR agitation was too great to escape notice, Old Dan and his son — a brawny young fisherman only some five or six years our senior — regarded us with looks of amazement. " What be it, sirs ? " cried the former, Harry slowly read the message aloud, and turned to me with a look of inquiry which I answered with a nod. Then he told our two honest-hearted humble friends what the message meant to himself and to me. Almost everybody in the place knew why it was that we always spent our holidays at school instead of going home like the other boys — Dan and Joe were certainly no strangers to the fact that it was because we had no home to go to. They knew from ourselves all that we had ever known about our uncle Gabriel — so a very few words sufficed to make them understand what the definite news of the loss of the Eastern Star with Major Bengough on board meant after the ultima tum that had been delivered to us that morning.

That must be our last night at Beechy Bay — to morrow morning we must pack up the few things belonging to us and go — where ? "We won't eat the bread of charity from his table, Rase, any way," said Harry in a rather choky voice. " No, old chap — we'll starve first." Dan and Joe said very little, but as they walked up the beach with us towards the school gates a weight seemed to be on the mind of each. Perhaps it was just this weight on their minds that kept their tongues so silent. " Good-night, Dan — and good-bye." With similar words I offered my hand to Joe, as Harry extended his to Joe's father. "Good-night, sir, and good-night, Master Rase — but not good-bye yet. We shall be sort of standing by to morrow all day — p'raps two pairs o' willing hands might come in useful in the matter o' boxes, and so on."

"All we have, Dan, I'm afraid we shall be able to carry ourselves," said Harry with a laugh in which there was very little mirth. " But we'll look out for you before we go, all the same." That weight wasn't off Dan's mind yet. " Look 'ee here, Master Harry, and likewise Master Rase equally," he got out at last with an obvious effort, "seeing as how as I knows what I knows — ■ which the same is what you've told me — what I would respeckful mean to say is as how there is a home open and free though humble enough, and the same" — pointing a huge red finger towards his own cottage — "is there I Also, likewise, if a rough and tumble substitoot for a father might be wanted any time — or a uncle — why, he's Itere ! " And the red finger touched his broad chest. " And if a rougher and tumbler substitoot for a brother might any time come in handy," burst in Joe, who was apt to get a little " mixed " when excited, " he's here-er !

" I don't see why I should be ashamed to record that my eyes were not any more above suspicion than Harry's were, as again we shook the hard hands of these rough chums of ours, and bolted off from the other side of the gates. We felt that it wouldn't be quite safe for us to try any speechifying on, even by way of thanks. Speechifying doesn't agree well with lumps in the throat. We were too late for roll-call, but found that Curly Locks, who had lately been studying and practising ventriloquism, had seized the opportunity of proving the practical value of the art, and his own proficiency in it, by answering to our names, to the intense admiration of the whole school. Curly was not only monitor of the playground, but of the big dormitory. Before we twenty who slept there filed upstairs, Harry and I had a chat with him ; and he constituted himself the conductor of the subsequent proceedings.

These proceedings were more or less lively. They began soon after the under-master had passed through the different bedrooms to make sure that all lights were out. A naked-footed and night-shirted scout was sent out to summon the occupants of the smaller apart ments to a grand palaver in the big one. As soon as they had assembled, Walter Locks cautiously lit a piece of candle and stuck it into the neck of an empty ginger-beer bottle. Sitting bolt upright at the head of his bed, he proceeded to unburden his soul. He went at some length (for he was very fond of talking) into the circumstances under which Harry and I were about to leave and to face the great unknown " world " for ourselves. With breathless interest our school-mates listened to his account of what had occurred only an hour or two ago ; from hand to hand passed the message from the sinking Eastern Star.

The monitor said that we were leaving behind us a reputation of which that school would always be proud. " No, no," we murmured modestly. "Yes, yes," insisted Curly firmly. He would deal first with Harry Saxon. Was there a boy in that room who didn't remember, or who hadn't heard of, Jim Bloggs, the pork-butcher's assistant ? Hadn't the name of Bloggs been a terror, term after term — for hadn't Bloggs licked our chosen champions one after the other ? Who was it who finally plugged Bloggs in the eye, and left him on the field of battle in such a disabled condition that he had to crawl out of it into a bed of sickness for a fortnight ? It was Harry Saxon. (Smothered cheers.) The first eleven would miss him sorely ; it would be long before his place could be filled in the football team. If another Bloggs should arise, he trembled for the good name of the school with Harry Saxon's fist shining in some other sphere of life.

He was not going to deny that there was a blot on Harry Saxon's character. For there was one. It was his museum. He denied the right of any boy to keep a lot of beastly reptiles and other live things, crawling or otherwise, in a box under his bed, as experience had proved that it was impossible to prevent the frequent escape of adventurous specimens which were obviously — and, he considered, not unreasonably — dissatisfied with the accommodation of that box. He himself, though a strict teetotaler, had upon no fewer than seven occasions found green snakes in his bed, and there could be no doubt where they came from. However, was there not a snake in Paradise? He believed that if Harry Saxon would struggle against snakes he would get on in the world. And that brought him to the point. Harry Saxon and Rase Towers had found, upon the very eve of their departure, that their united available capital amounted to one shilling and eleven pence.

This was a small sum to start life on their own account with. It must be augmented. With this end in view, he was about to conduct a public auction, at their own request, of their effects, or such of them as they felt it would be out of place to take into the world with them. After some further remarks, he said that he would start with the beastly museum he had already referred to, and hastened to state at once that he had wrung a reluctant consent from its present owner to the following condition of sale : the fellow who bought it was at liberty to kill the specimens and smash up the box. He would start the bidding himself at seven and six pence. Would nobody bid more than seven and sixpence ? Then he'd say ten shillings, and — with a bang of his fist on the pillow to represent the fall of the hammer — " The museum's mine."

Lot No. 2 was my cricket-bat — I'd won it the previous season with the second eleven for the best match-score average. " Now, what shall we say for this prime bat ? " demanded Curly. "You see, they've decided to go to London first to see this solicitor chap for them selves, and the fares are stiff— awfully stiff. So what shall we start this fine bat at ? " The fellows saw through Locks's dodge at once. Competition was keen for the bat and the few other articles that followed it. They were all " knocked down " at fancy prices. "The sale has realized," announced the auctioneer at last, running his eye down the figures pencilled on the cuff of his night-gown — " the sale has realized three pounds nineteen." " That's all very well, Curly," remarked the voice of one of the highest bidders, " but what about stumping up the money ?

It's the end of the term, and we're all hard up. I don't believe we've got even the nineteen shillings between the whole lot of us ! " A hurried consultation resulted in the establishment of this painful surmise as a still more painful fact. Every bidder had relied upon borrowing from some other bidder. But the auctioneer was equal even to this emergency. " I'd thought of this," he said, " and it's all right. My godfather sent me a fiver only yesterday, to spend during the vacation — I haven't broken into it yet. I sympathize with my godfather very much, but I shall have to tap him for another fiver. So I shall pay up for everybody. I shall hand Harry and Rase their three pounds and nineteen bob entire, and all you chaps who've been bidding will have to settle up with me for your different lots when you come back after the holidays."