The Voyage of the HoppergrassPearson, Edmund Lester
General
The Voyage of the Hoppergrass
Pearson, Edmund Lester
Boats and boating -- Juvenile fiction; Pirates -- Juvenile fiction
We were in a little yard at the rear of the jail. There was a
large empty building,--a barn, or a boat-builder's work-shop, on
the next lot. It cast a deep shadow over one side of the yard, and
we kept in this shadow, as we stole toward the fence. A short
alley ran down the hill on the other side of this fence. In a
moment or two we were tip-toeing through the alley. It seemed to
me that I had been going on tip-toe for hours,--I wondered if I
would forget how to walk in the usual way.
Everything was quiet; we met no one, and heard nothing. Turning up
the street we kept on, silently, until we reached the open space
near the water. There was the tent, white and still in the
moonlight. We looked in at the flap of the tent,--two dim forms
lay wrapped in blankets, breathing heavily, and both sound asleep.
"Look at 'em!" said the banjo-man, in a low tone, "sleeping like
babes, while _I_ was languishing in jail."
"Wake up!" he said, in a slightly louder voice, prodding the
nearest one with his banjo.
"Ub-ber-ubber-er-bubber-yah!" remarked the man, sitting bolt
upright, and looking about him, as if he had been attacked by wild
animals.
"That's all right," said Sprague, "it's only me. Don't get
excited. Keep quiet,--don't bubber any more. We're hunted
criminals, with a price upon our heads. Prices, I should say."
The other man stirred slightly, and rolled over.
"Hullo! That you? Rescued from a county jail?"
"Rescued nothing!" replied Sprague, "I might have died in jail of
old age before you would have done anything. Got out by our own
valor and ingenuity. Tunneled through fifteen feet of living rock.
Now, get up, and be quiet about it,--the hounds of the law are on
our trail, and we must leave these shores quick."
The second man arose swiftly, and began folding his blankets. The
other one, however,--the one who had wakened uttering gibberish--
crossed his hands over his knees, and said: "I don't know about
this!"
"No," said Sprague, "of course you don't. We'll discuss it on the
boat,--you shall argue it out to your heart's content. Come out of
the tent, now'. We're going to get under way, and quit this place
just as soon as we can,--and that's in about two shakes."
The second man had come out of the tent, bringing his blankets
with him. Mr. Daddles and all the rest of us set to work pulling
up the tent stakes. But the other man sat there, shaking his head.
"I think you're making a mistake," said he; "of course that
constable was very arbitrary in his manner, but he IS the
constable, just the same. I inquired and found that he is. The
arrest was perfectly legal. You had much better stay in jail until
morning, and submit to a fine which would probably be merely
nominal. As it is, you are becoming a fugitive from justice--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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