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CHAPTER VII. The Captain and his Guest go Fishing and come Home Happy
When Dick Lancaster told Captain Asher he had taken toll from two ladies
in a phaeton he was quite eloquent in his description of said ladies. He
declared with an impressiveness which the captain had not noticed in him
before that he did not know when he had seen such handsome ladies. The
younger one, who paid the toll, was absolutely charming. She seemed a
little bit startled, but he supposed that was because she saw a strange
face at the toll-gate. Dick wanted very much to know who these ladies
were. He had not supposed that he would find such stylish people, and
such a handsome turnout in this part of the country.
"Oh, ho," said Captain Asher, "do you suppose we are all farmers and
toll-gate keepers? If you do, you are very much mistaken, although I
must admit that the stylish people, as you call them, are scattered
about very thinly. I expect that carriage was from Broadstone over on
the mountain. Was the team dapple gray, pony built?"
"Yes," said Lancaster.
"Then it was Mrs. Easterfield driving some of her company. I have seen
her with that team. And by George," he exclaimed, "I bet my head the
other one was Olive! Of course it was. And she paid toll! Well, well, if
that isn't a good one! Olive paying toll! I wish I had been here to take
it! That truly would have been a lark!"
Dick Lancaster did not echo this wish of his host. He was very glad,
indeed, that the captain had not been at the toll-gate when the ladies
passed through. Captain Asher was still laughing.
"Olive must have been amazed," he said. "It was queer enough for her to
go through my gate and pay toll, but to pay it to an Assistant Professor
of Theoretical Mathematics was a good deal queerer. I can't imagine what
she thought about it."
"She did not know I am that!" exclaimed Dick Lancaster. "There is
nothing of the professor in my outward appearance--at least, I hope
not."
"No, I don't think there is," replied the captain. "But she must have
been amazed, all the same. I wish I had been here, or old Jane, anyway.
But, of course, when a stranger showed himself she would not have said
anything."
"But who is Olive?" asked Lancaster.
"She's my niece," said the captain. "I don't think I have mentioned her
to you. She is on a visit to me, but just now she is staying at
Broadstone. I suppose she will be there about a week longer."
"It's odd he has not mentioned her to me," thought Lancaster, and then,
as the captain went to ask old Jane if she had seen Olive pass, the
young man retired to the arbor with a book which he did not read.
His desire to inform his host that it would be necessary to take leave
of him on the morrow had very much abated. It would be very pleasant, he
thought, to be a visitor in a family of which that girl was a member.
But if she were not to return for a week, how could he expect to stay
with the captain so long? There would be no possible excuse for such a
thing. Then he thought it would be very pleasant to be in a country of
which that young woman was one of the inhabitants. Anyway, he hoped the
captain would invite him to make a longer stay. The great blue eyes with
which the young lady had regarded him as she paid the toll would not
fade out of his mind.
"She must have wondered who it was that took the toll," said old Jane.
"And there wasn't no need of it, anyway. I could have took it as I
always have took it when you was not here, and before either of them
came."
"Either of them" struck the captain's ear strangely. Here was this old
woman coupling these two young people in her mind!
The next morning Captain Asher sat on his little piazza, smoking his
pipe and thinking about Olive driving through the gate and paying toll
to a stranger. But he now considered the incident from a different point
of view. Of course, Olive had been surprised when she had seen the young
man, but she might also have wondered how he happened to be there and
she not know of it. If he were staying long enough to be entrusted with
toll-taking it might--in fact, the captain thought it probably
would--appear very strange to her that she should not know of it. So
now he asked himself if it would not be a good thing if he were to write
her a little note in which he should mention Mr. Lancaster and his
visit. In fact, he thought the best thing he could do would be to write
her a playful sort of a note, and tell her that she should feel honored
by having her toll taken up by a college professor. But he did not
immediately write the note. The more he thought about it, the more he
wished he had been at the toll-gate when Mrs. Easterfield's phaeton
passed by.
Captain Asher did not write his note at all. He did not know what to
say; he did not want to make too much of the incident, for it was really
a trifling matter, only worthy of being mentioned in case he had
something more important to write about. But he had nothing more
important; there was no reason why he should write to Olive during her
short stay with Mrs. Easterfield. Besides, she would soon be back, and
then he could talk to her; that would be much better. Now, two strong
desires began to possess him; one was for Olive to come home; and the
other for Dick Lancaster to go away. There had been moments when he had
had a shadowy notion of bringing the two together, but this idea had
vanished. His mind was now occupied very much with thoughts of his
beautiful niece and very little with the young man in the colored shirt
and turned-up trousers who was staying with him.
Dick Lancaster, in his arbor, was also thinking a great deal about
Olive, and very little about that stalwart sailor, her uncle. If he had
merely seen the young woman, and had never heard anything about her,
her face would have impressed him, but the knowledge that she was an
inmate of the house in which he was staying could not fail to affect him
very much. He was puzzling his mind about the girl who had given him a
quarter of a dollar, and to whom he had handed fifteen cents in change.
He wondered how such a girl happened to be living at such a place. He
wondered if there were any possibility of his staying there, or in the
neighborhood, until she should come back; he wondered if there were any
way by which he could see her again. He might have wondered a good many
other things if Captain Asher had not approached the arbor. The captain
having been aroused from his mental contemplation of Olive by a man in a
wagon, had glanced over at the arbor and had suddenly been struck with
the conviction that that young man looked bored, and that, as his host,
he was not doing the right thing by him.
"Dick," said the captain, "let's go fishing. It's not late yet, and I'll
put my mare to the buggy, and we can drive to the river. We will take
something to eat with us, and make a day of it."
Lancaster hesitated a moment; he had been thinking that the time had
come when he should say something about his departure, but this
invitation settled the matter for that day; and in half an hour the two
had started away, leaving the toll-gate in charge of old Jane, who was a
veteran in the business, having lived at the toll-gate years before the
captain.
As they drove along the smooth turnpike Lancaster remembered with great
interest that this road led to the gap in the mountains; that the
captain had told him Broadstone was not very far from the gap; and that
the river was not very far from Broadstone; and his face glowed with
interest in the expedition.
But when, after a few miles, they turned into a plain country road
which, as the captain informed him, led in a southeasterly direction, to
a point on the river where black bass were to be caught and where a boat
could be hired, the corners of Dick Lancaster's mouth began to droop. Of
necessity that road must reach the river miles to the south of
Broadstone.
It was a very good day for fishing, and the captain was pleased to see
that the son of his old shipmate was a very fair angler. Toward the
close of the afternoon, with the conviction that they had had a good
time and that their little expedition had been a success, the two
fishermen set out for home with a basket of bass: some of them quite a
respectable size; stowed away under the seat of the buggy. When they
reached the turnpike the old mare, knowing well in which direction her
supper lay, turned briskly to the left, and set out upon a good trot.
But this did not last very long. To her great surprise she was suddenly
pulled up short; a carriage with two horses which had been approaching
had also stopped.
On the back seat of this carriage sat Mrs. Easterfield; on one side of
her was a little girl, and on the other side was another little girl,
each with her feet stuck out straight in front of her.
"Oh, Captain Asher," exclaimed the lady, with a most enchanting smile,
"I am so glad to meet you. I was obliged to go to Glenford to take one
of my little girls to the dentist, and I inquired for you each time I
passed your gate."
The captain was very glad he had been so fortunate as to meet her, and
as her eyes were now fixed upon his companion, he felt it incumbent upon
him to introduce Mr. Richard Lancaster, the son of an old shipmate.
"But not a sailor, I imagine," said Mrs. Easterfield.
"Oh, no," said the captain, "Mr. Lancaster is Assistant Professor of
Theoretical Mathematics in Sutton College."
Dick could not imagine why the captain said all this, and he flushed a
little.
"Sutton College?" said Mrs. Easterfield. "Then, of course, you know
Professor Brent."
"Oh, yes," said Lancaster. "He is our president."
"I never met him," said she, "but he was a classmate of my husband, and
I have often heard him speak of him. And now for my errand, Captain
Asher. Isn't it about time you should be wanting to see your niece?"
The captain's heart sank. Did she intend to send Olive home?
"I always want to see her," he said, but without enthusiasm.
"But don't you think it would be nice," said the lady, "if you were to
come to lunch with us to-morrow? It was to ask you this that I inquired
for you at the toll-gate."
Now, this was another thing altogether, and the captain's earnest
acceptance would have been more coherent if it had not been for the
impatience of his mare.
"And I want you to bring your friend with you," continued Mrs.
Easterfield. "The invitation is for you both, of course."
Dick's face said that this would be heavenly, but his mouth was more
prudent.
"It will be strictly informal," continued Mrs. Easterfield. "Only myself
and family, three guests, and Olive. We shall sit down at one. Good-by."
Mrs. Easterfield was entirely truthful when she said she was glad to
meet the captain. Her anxiety about Olive and Claude Locker was somewhat
on the increase. She was very well aware that the most dangerous thing
for one young woman is one young man; and in thinking over this truism
she had been impressed with the conviction that it was not well for Mr.
Claude Locker to be the one man at Broadstone. Then, in thinking of
possible young men, her mind naturally turned to the young man who was
visiting Olive's uncle. She did not know anything about him, but he was
a young man, and if he proved to be worth something, he could be asked
to come again. So it was really to Dick Lancaster, and not to Captain
Asher, that the luncheon invitation had been given.
The appointment with the Glenford dentist had made it necessary for her
to leave home that afternoon. To be sure, she had sent the Foxes with
Olive and Claude Locker upon the drive through the gap, and, under
ordinary circumstances, and with ordinary people, there would have been
no reason for her to trouble herself about them, but neither the
circumstances nor the people were ordinary, and she now felt anxious to
get home and find out what Claude Locker and Olive had done with Mrs.
and Mr. Fox.
Read next: Chapter 8. Captain Asher Is Not In A Good Humor
Read previous: Chapter 6. Mr. Claude Locker
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