CHAPTER VI
THE BUD OF A ROMANCE
The little steamer _Rockhaven_ was but a speck on the southern horizon,the fishermen that had earlier spread their wings were still in sightthat June morning, and Jess Hutton, having swept his store, sat tiltedback in an arm-chair on his piazza, smoking while he watched the whitesails to the eastward, when a tall, well-formed, and city-garbed youngman approached.
"My name's Hardy," he said, smiling as his brown eyes took in Jess andhis surroundings at a glance, "and I represent Weston & Hill and havecome to open and manage the quarry they own here. You are Mr. Hutton, Ibelieve?"
Jess rose and extended a brown and wrinkled hand. "That's my name," hesaid, "'n' I'm glad ter see ye. But ter tell ye the truth, I never'spected ter. It's been most a year now since yer boss landed here andbought my ledge o' stun, and I've made up my mind he did it jist ferfun, 'n' havin' money ter throw 'way. Hev a cheer, won't ye?" Andstepping inside he brought one out.
Winn seated himself, and glancing down at the row of small, brown housesand sheds that fringed the harbor shore below them, and then across towhere the ledge of granite faced them, replied, "Oh, Mr. Weston is notthe man to throw away money, but it takes time to organize a company andget ready to operate a quarry;" and pausing to draw from an insidepocket a red pocketbook, and extracting a crisp bit of paper, he added,"the first duty, Mr. Hutton, is to pay the balance due you, and here isa check to cover it."
Jess eyed it curiously.
"It's good, I guess," he said as he looked it over, "but out here wedon't use checks; it's money down or no trade."
Then without more words he arose, and limping a little as he entered thestore, handed Winn a long, yellow envelope. "Here's the deed; an' thequarry's yourn, an' ye kin begin blasting soon's ye like."
"I cannot do anything for a few days," replied Winn, "for the tools andmachinery have not yet arrived, and in the meantime I must look aboutand hire some men. In this matter I must ask you to aid me, and infact, I must ask your help in many ways."
"I'll do what I kin," answered Jess, "an' it won't be hard ter git men.Most on 'em here ain't doin' more'n keepin' soul an' body togetherfishin' an'll jump at the chance o' airnin' fair wages quarryin'.
"Where did yer put up, if I may ask? I heerd last night a stranger hadfetched in on the steamer."
"I found lodging with a Mrs. Moore," answered Winn; "the boat's skippershowed me where she lived; and now, if you will be good enough, I wouldlike to have you show me the quarry and then I will look around for mento work it."
"Ye don't come here cac'latin' to waste much time," observed Jess,smiling, "but as fer hirin' men, ye best let me do it."
"I should be grateful if you will," answered Winn, "I feel I must askyou to aid me in many ways. What we want," he continued, having in mindhis instructions, "is to establish a permanent and paying industry here,and enlist the interest of those who have means to invest. We want tomake it a sort of cooeperative business, as it were."
"I don't quite ketch yer drift," replied Jess.
"I mean," responded Winn, "that we want to make this a home industry,and to get all those here who have means to take stock in it and sharein the profits."
Jess made no immediate answer, evidently thinking. "Wal, we'll see 'boutthat bimeby," he said finally. "It's a matter as won't do ter hurry.Folks here are mighty keerful, 'n' none on 'em's likely ter do muchbakin' till their oven's hot. 'Sides, there ain't many as own more'n theroof that shelters 'em, and not over well shingled, at that. Money'sskeercer'n hen's teeth here, Mr. Hardy."
"I shall be guided by your opinion," answered Winn, realizing the truthof what Jess had said, "and we will let that matter rest for thepresent. Now if you will show me the quarry, I will look it over and letyou see what can be done in the way of getting men to work it. Whateveryou do for us we shall insist on paying you for."
"Queer old fellow," mused Winn to himself two hours later, after he hadparted from Jess, "but I doubt if he buys much of this quarry stock." Itis likely that surmise would have been a positive certainty if JessHutton, with horse sense as hard as this granite ledge and wits as keenas the briars that grew on top of it, had known that the quarry he hadsold for two thousand dollars and considered it well paid for, was thesole basis for a stock company capitalized at one million dollars. Buthe did not, and neither does many another blind fool who buys"gilt-edged" stock in gold mines, oil wells, and schemes of all sorts,know that his investment rests on as insecure and trifling a basis; forthe world is full of sharpers who continually set traps for the unwaryand always catch them, and, although their name is legion, their dupesare as the sands of the sea.
But of Winn Hardy, who had come to Rockhaven, as he honestly believedand felt, to carry out a legitimate business enterprise, it must not bethought that he for one moment understood the deep-laid schemes of J.Malcolm Weston, for he did not. While the ratio of value between thecapitalization of the Rockhaven Granite Company and the original cost ofthe quarry seemed absurd, it did not follow but that Weston & Hill mightnot intend actually to put capital into it sufficient to warrant such anissue of stock. All of which would go to show that Winn Hardy had not asyet entirely escaped the trammels of his inherited honesty and bringingup, which insensibly led him to judge others by himself.
And that afternoon, having nothing to do, and curious to explore thisrock-ribbed island that was like to be his home for some months, hestarted out on a tour of exploration. First he followed the seldom-usedroad that connects the two villages, up to Northaven, and looked thatover. There was a little green in the centre where stood the smallchurch, and grouped about, a dozen or two houses and two or threestores, while back of this, and below an arm of the harbor, it narroweddown to where the roadway crossed it. Beside this stood an old stonemill, or what was once the walls of one, for the roof was gone. Heexamined it carefully, peering into its ghostly interior and down towhere the ebb tide had left its base walls bare. To this, and to thepiles that had once held the tide gates, were clinging masses of blackmussels, with here and there a pink starfish nestled among them. Then,following this arm of the sea until it ended, he crossed a half mile ofbillowing ledges of rock between which were grass-grown and bush-chokeddingles, and came to the ocean. Then, following the coast line as wellas possible, owing to the jutting cliffs, he reached a deep inlet withalmost precipitous sides, and, turning inland, found its banks ended ina dense thicket of spruce.
Through this wound a well-defined path, shadowy beneath the canopy ofevergreen boughs, and velvety with fallen needles. Following this alittle way, he came to an opening view of the ocean once more. The daywas wondrously fair, the blue water all about barely rippled by a gentlebreeze, while here and there and far to seaward gleamed the white sailsof coasters. Below him, where the rock-walled gorge broadened to meetthe ocean, the undulating ground swells leisurely tossed the rockweedand brown kelpie upward, as they swept over the sloping rocks. For a fewmoments he stood spellbound by the silent and solemn grandeur of thelimitless ocean view and the colossal pathway to the water's edge belowhim, and then suddenly there came to his ears the faint sound of aviolin. Now low and soft, hardly above the rhythmic pulse of the sea,and again clear and distinct, it seemed to come up out of the rocksahead, a strange, weird, ghostly harmony that, mingling with the whisperof the distant wave-wash, sounded exquisitely sweet.
Breathless with astonishment now, he crept forward slowly, step by step,until at the head of this deep chasm, and down beneath him, he heard thewell-recognized strains of "Annie Laurie" played by invisible hands.
The sun was low in the west, the sea an unruffled mirror, the coast linea fretwork of foam fringe where the ground swells met it, and above itsmurmur, trilling and quivering in the still air, came that old, oldstrain:--
"And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me doon and dee,"
repeated again and again, until Winn, enraptured, spellbound, moving nota finger but listening ever, heard it no more. Then presently, aswatching
and wondering still whence and from whose hand had come thisalmost uncanny music, he saw, deep down amid the tangle of rocks belowhim, a slight, girlish figure emerge, with a dark green bag claspedtenderly under one arm, and slowly pick her way up the sides of thedefile and disappear toward the village.
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