Sam fastened the rope to a bush, and once more led the way up the path, which grew steeper and more difficult the nearer they approached the summit. In some places the cliff was quite perpendicular, and the only way they could advance at all was by drawing themselves up by the bushes that grew out of the crevices of the rocks. They reached the top at last, however, and then Sam stopped, and, pointing through the leaves, showed Tom several men at work in a field, and a farm-house in the distance.
"I hooks them fellers' water-melons," observed the governor.
"What if they should discover us now, and come after us?" said Tom.
"Let 'em come. They wouldn't find us, I reckon; an', even if they did, they couldn't ketch us, fur they couldn't get across that gully. But they don't dream of any body's livin' down here, in this dark hole. If they miss their water-melons, they lay the blame on some of the village boys."
Tom did not care to remain long on the cliff, for he was afraid that something might happen to direct the attention of the farmers toward him and his companion, and he had no desire to run a race with any body down that steep path. He might make a misstep, and that would be a calamity, for he would bring up among the rocks at the bottom of the chasm, and there would not be enough left of him to carry out his new idea by the time he got there. But, although it was quite as difficult and tedious a task to go down the cliff as to ascend it, no accident happened to them. They reached the chasm in safety, crossed it with the aid of the rope – this time without any hesitation on Tom's part – and were soon stretched on the grass in front of the cabin, refreshing themselves with the water-melon.
CHAPTER III.
A NEW PLAN
Tom was no less delighted than astonished at what he had seen in the governor's harboring place. The cove was so romantic, and it was so cool and pleasant down there among the rocks and trees! It was a famous place for reflection, and, as Tom stretched himself out on the grass, and looked up at the bluffs above him, he told himself that he would be perfectly willing to pass the remainder of his existence there. What could be more glorious than the life of ease Sam was leading? He had no business to bother him, no father to keep an eye on all his movements, and no merciless village boys to torment him; but he was free from all care and trouble, was his own master, and passed his time serenely in doing nothing. That was just the life that suited Tom. If other boys were foolish enough to allow themselves to be shut up in an academy for ten months in the year, or were willing to drag out a miserable existence within the dingy walls of a store or office, that was their lookout, and not his. He would not do it for any body. He would leave the village before he was twenty-four hours older; and if he ever placed his foot inside its limits again, it would be because he could not help himself.
"Governor," said he, "you always were a lucky fellow. Here you have been during the last two weeks, enjoying yourself to the utmost, and free to go and come when you please, while I have been cooped up in the village, scarcely daring to stir out of my father's sight, compelled to work like a slave for eight hours in the day, and have been badgered and tormented until I have sometimes wished that the earth would open and swallow up Newport and everybody in it, myself included. You must be happy here."
"Well, I should be," replied the governor, "if I only had something good to eat, an' was sartin that Bobby Jennings an' Mr. Grimes would never trouble me."
"You may make yourself easy on that score," said Tom. "Bob Jennings is a thousand miles from here by this time. He has gone to China, and will not be back for three years."
As Tom said this he settled back on his elbow, and proceeded to give the governor a history of all that had happened in the village since the night the Crusoe men made the attack on the Storm King. He told how Harry Green had taken him and the rest of the band to the academy as prisoners of war; repeated what the principal had said to them; explained how Bob had lost his boat, and found a friend in the man who had paid him the forty dollars in gold by mistake; and how he had obtained a berth on board the Spartan, and gone to sea, leaving his mother well provided for. He wound up by dwelling with a good deal of emphasis upon the resolve he had made to pay off Harry Green for what he had done, and hinted, mysteriously, that the first lieutenant would live to regret that he had ever presumed to act contrary to the wishes of Tom Newcombe. Sam could scarcely believe some portions of the story that related to Bob Jennings. He was sure that the fisher-boy had given one of the gold pieces for the Go Ahead No. 2; and, even if he had not, the governor could not understand how a boy so hard pressed as Bob had been – who had more than once been at a loss to know where his next meal was coming from – could resist the temptation to use a portion of the money, especially when he knew that the man who had paid it to him would never be the wiser for it. Sam acknowledged to himself that the truth of the old adage he had so often heard Bob repeat – that "honesty is the best policy" – had been fully exemplified.
"Now, that's what comes of bein' born lucky," said he, after he had thought the matter over. "That ar' Bobby Jennings is a gentleman, now, an' goes about holden' up his head like he was somebody; while I am a rascal an' an outlaw, not darin' to show my face outside this yere cove, an' livin' in constant fear of Mr. Grimes, an' the State's prison. This is a hard world, Tommy."
"O, now, have you just found it out?" drawled Tom. "If you had seen as much trouble as I have, you would have come to that conclusion long ago. I heard Harry Green say, one day, that it was the very best world he ever saw, and that it could not possibly be any better. If I was as lucky as he is, I would say so too. He holds high positions among those Spooneys at the academy, every body in the village speaks well of him, and he gets along through the world without the least difficulty; while I – just look at me! I won't stand it; now, that's all about it! I'll raise a breeze in that village one of these fine days, that will make the people there think they have never known any thing about Tom Newcombe."
Tom always worked himself into a passion when he talked about the wrongs he imagined the world had done him; and as he dwelt upon Harry Green's success – which he foolishly attributed to luck, instead of downright earnest labor – and drew a contrast between their stations in life, he got angrier with every sentence he uttered; and when he declared that he "wouldn't stand it," he jumped up and stamped his foot furiously upon the ground, to emphasize his words.
"Well, now, Muley, I can't see the use of talkin' on that ar' way," said the governor. "The world has been mighty mean to us, but it might have used us a heap worse."
"O, now, I can't see it!" drawled Tom. "I'd like to know if I wasn't used just as badly as I could be when I lost that yacht?"
"Of course not. You might have been put in jail, like the rest of the fellers."
"What fellows?"
"Why, Friday, Will Atkins, an' all our crowd."
"They are not in jail. They are ferrying on the harbor every day, and nobody troubles them. If you were to go back to the village, no one would say a word to you."
The governor shut one eye, and looked at Tom through, the half-closed lids of the other. "Do you see any thing green about me?" he asked. "We stole the skiff – every body knows that – an' it wasn't no fault of our'n that Bobby Jennings got her agin. That's contrary to law, an' Mr. Grimes, bein' an officer, is bound to put us through for it. He thinks that by lettin' them fellers alone he will get me to go back to the village, and then he'll arrest the whole of us, an' pack us off to jail. But I'm too sharp fur him. He said I couldn't pull no wool over his eyes, an' he'll find that he can't pull none over mine, neither."
"But I tell you that every body thinks you are drowned," said Tom.
"That's all mighty nice, but it don't fool Governor Barton. I just aint going back to Newport, 'cause I know it aint safe. I jumped overboard from the yacht 'cause I didn't want to let Mr. Grimes get his hands on me, an' I'd be the biggest kind of a dunce to put myself in his way ag'in. But I say, Muley, don't it beat all the world how them 'cademy swells got out of the hold that night?"
"It doesn't beat me; I know all about it. You broke me, didn't you?"
"I did; but I am sorry fur it now."
"It is