Ned, the son of Webb: What he did.

by William Osborn Stoddard

  Produced by Shaun Pinder, Chris Whitehead and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive)

  NED, THE SON OF WEBB: WHAT HE DID

  "'THERE!' HE EXCLAIMED, AT LAST."]

  NED, THE SON OF WEBB: WHAT HE DID

  BY

  WILLIAM O. STODDARD

  AUTHOR OF

  "CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD," "DESPATCH BOAT OF THE WHISTLE," ETC.

  Illustrated by

  VICTOR A. SEARLES

 

  BOSTON DANA ESTES & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

  _Copyright, 1900_ BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY

  Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

  CONTENTS.

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. THE WAR SPIRIT 11

  II. NED WEBB'S OUTING 29

  III. A VERY WIDE LAKE 53

  IV. BEHIND THE TIMES 76

  V. THE WAR SUMMONS 100

  VI. THE SEA KING 118

  VII. THE KEELS OF THE NORTHLAND 147

  VIII. THE SCOUTING PARTY 173

  IX. THE GREAT FULFORD FIGHT 191

  X. THE COMING OF HAROLD THE SAXON 211

  XI. THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE 233

  XII. A RIDE IN OLD ENGLAND 259

  XIII. THE HOST OF THE NORMANS 279

  XIV. THE BATTLE OF SENLAC 302

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

  PAGE

  "'THERE!' HE EXCLAIMED, AT LAST" _Frontispiece_

  "'THERE ISN'T ANY SCHOOL-BOOK ABOUT THIS'" 37

  "NED DID NOT SIT STILL AT ALL" 45

  "JUNE DAYS ALWAYS GROW WARMER, RAPIDLY, IF YOU ARE SHOVING A HAND-CART" 62

  "WITH A STRONG MOTION THEN HE THREW HIS HAWK UPWARD" 91

  "HE WAS REALLY BUT JUST IN TIME, FOR THE RUFFIAN STRUCK AT ONCE" 220

  "FOR FATHER BRIAN'S AX CAME DOWN UPON THAT MAN'S HELMET" 298

  "NEAR HIM SAT KING HAROLD HIMSELF, UPON HIS HOUSE, AS MOTIONLESS AS A BRONZE IMAGE" 312

  NED, THE SON OF WEBB.

  CHAPTER I.

  THE WAR SPIRIT.

  "She's grand!" exclaimed Ned, enthusiastically. "Uncle Jack, the_Kentucky_ could knock any other ironclad in all the world!"

  "Perhaps she could," growled Uncle Jack, somewhat thoughtfully. "I'mglad she is out of range of them, just now, though. I like her looks asshe is. It is best for them, too."

  They were standing near the head of Pier Number One, North River,gazing at the great line-of-battle ship as she steamed along slowly upthe stream.

  "Those double turrets make her as tall as a house," said Ned. "There'snothing else like her! See the long noses of those big guns!"

  "That's what I came for," replied Uncle Jack. "I wanted to see her, andnow I have seen her I am more opposed to war than ever. I'm going tojoin the Peace Society."

  "I'd rather join the navy," said Ned. "But if a shell from one of thoseguns should burst inside of another ship it would blow her sky-high."

  "No!" responded his uncle, with firmness. "She would not go up to thesky, she would go down to the bottom of the deep sea."

  "She could do it, anyhow," said Ned, not explaining which of the twoships he referred to.

  It was evident that Uncle Jack was too deeply interested in the_Kentucky_ to care for general conversation. For fear, however, thathe might not have read the papers, his somewhat excited nephew toldhim that the steel-clad wonder of the sea had at least twelve thousandhorses in her steam engines. He also said that she was of twelvethousand tons burden, but did not say whether that was the load shecould carry or whether it might be supposed to be her fighting weight.

  "I wish I were captain of her," he declared, at last. "I'd like toconquer England."

  "I felt just so once," responded Uncle Jack. "There is more in Englandthat is worth capturing than there is anywhere else. You would needmore than one ship, though. I tried the experiment, but the Englishbeat me."

  "Oh!" exclaimed Ned. "I know how you tried it. You went alone, though,and without any _Kentucky_."

  "No," said his uncle, "I didn't go alone. Your aunt went with me. Sodid thousands of other brave Americans. They try it every year, andthey always come home beaten."

  "Yes, sir!" said Ned. "They spend all their money, and are glad to getback. They say the English can whip anything in all the world exceptAmericans. I'm going there, some day. I don't believe there is anyBritish ship that can whip the _Kentucky_."

  "She certainly is magnificent," replied his uncle. "She is a tremendouswar machine. What we are ever to do with her, however, I don't care tothink of. I want her never to fire one of those guns. After all, Ned,if one of her great steel bottom plates should get shaken loose anddrop out, that vast leviathan would sink, with all on board."

  "I guess not," said Ned. "They would get away in the boats. Besides,she isn't going to fall to pieces right away."

  "All right," said his uncle. "We've seen her. Now let's go home."

  They turned away and walked on across what the people of New York callthe Battery. They do so because here was a fort once. Part of it,nearest the water, was made there two centuries ago. Another part,more like a modern fort, was made later, and it was distinguished forhaving been surrendered, back and forth, without firing one of itsguns in defence, more times than any other military post in America.It was given up once by the Dutch, twice by the British, and once bythe Americans. That was by General Washington, when the English troopsdrove him and his ragged rebels out of New York. None of the fightingthat was done then was anywhere near the Battery.

  Ned had something to say about that, as they went along, and about theother forts around the harbour, of which he seemed to be very proud.

  "My boy," remarked his uncle, "almost all of our New York forts areback numbers. One steel canoe like the _Kentucky_, if she were English,for instance, and if we were conquering England, could knock all ofthose old-fashioned affairs about our ears."

  "Well," said Ned, doubtfully, "so the _Kentucky_ or the _Oregon_ coulddo for any old fort in Europe. I say, Uncle Jack, right here is thelower end of all the elevated railways."

  "Exactly," said his uncle; "and of the cable-cars that are hauled bya steel rope underground. Away up yonder is the suspension bridgefrom this city to Brooklyn. There will be a dozen of them, more orless, before long. All over the upper part of town the trolley-carsrun by lightning on a string. I hate all these modern inventions andinnovations--I do! I hate railways up in the air on stilts, and I hateexpress trains that go a mile a minute, and I hate these electriclights. Why, Ned, when I was a boy, we were able to get first-ratetallow-dip candles to read by. Nobody can have anything of that kind,nowadays. Now, just look at those forty-story-chimney buildings!Fellows who live at the top of those things have to be shot up. It'sawful!"

  "I went up four of them," said Ned. "I wanted to know how it felt."

  "Well," said Uncle Jack, "how did you feel?"

  "I held my breath," replied Ned, "and I held on to the seat. I was gladto get out, though, top and bottom. I suppose a fellow can get used
toit--"

  "Ned," interrupted his uncle, "wait here a minute. I want to have alittle talk with a friend of mine in Chicago. What they won't do next,with electricity and some things, I don't know."

  They were in front of a long-distance telephone office, and Uncle Jackwent in. His conversation with his neighbour, a thousand miles away,turned out a long one, and it was half an hour before he and his nephewreached the patch of cleared land which still remains around the CityHall.

  "There!" suddenly exclaimed Ned. "Hurrah! We're having first-rate luck,Uncle Jack! That's the very thing I've been wanting to see!"

  It was not another building, this time, and it was not altogether aninnovation. It was something warlike and terrible; for a battery of theFourth Regular Artillery, guns, ammunition wagons, all, was passingthrough the city, down Broadway, on its journey to some new post ofduty.

  "Those are three-inch calibre, long range guns," said Uncle Jack. "Theysend shells ten miles or so, to split things. The gun-barrels arelonger than a fence-rail. For my part, I don't like 'em. They shoot toofar."

  "They're the right thing to have," said Ned. "If I were going toconquer England I'd want plenty of those guns."

  "They'd be of no use at all to you, if you had them," said Uncle Jack."The London police wouldn't let you keep 'em. They'd take them rightaway from you, as soon as you landed. You would be fined, too. It'sagainst English law for any fellow to carry such things around withhim."

  Ned was silenced by that, for the time, and they both got into astreet-car, and went on up-town. There were plenty of things worthseeing, all along, but the car was so crowded with passengers that theywere packed, as Uncle Jack complained, "like sardines in a box." Sothey stood still, and hardly saw anything.

  When at last they stepped out, and walked over toward one of thegateways of Central Park, he growled again.

  "There they go!" he exclaimed. "One--two--three--four of 'em. Theyare those automobile carriages, that go without any horses. I like ahorse, myself. That is, if he's a good one, and pulls well in harness.I was kicked half to death by one of my horses, once. I think he hadsome kind of automobile in him. If you should ever happen to conquerEngland, you'd get fine horses."

  "That's what mother says," replied Ned. "She's a good American now,but she was born in England. She says they have the best horses in theworld."

  "Not by any means equal to ours," snapped Uncle Jack. "Ours are so finethat we are going to preserve some of them for specimens, after we getso that all our riding and pulling is done by steam and electricity. Weshall keep pictures of them, too, and statues, so that people who livein such times as are to come may know what sort of animals horses usedto be."

  Uncle Jack appeared to be in a bad state of mind, that day, for he wenton to denounce vigorously a long list of things. He even went so far asto condemn the entire Anglo-Saxon race, English and American together.

  "Look at it, Ned!" he said, with energy. "Not only do both of thesewretched nations come down to this new state of things, themselves,including the newspapers and the magazines and the floods of books, butthey are clubbing together to force innovations upon all the rest ofthe world. They are a partnership concern now, and which of them is themeanest I don't know. The British are choking their inventions down thethroats of China, India, Africa, and a lot of other unlucky continentsand islands. We Americans are working in the same way with Cuba andPorto Rico and the Philippines and Magatapatanglew."

  "Where on earth is that?" asked Ned.

  "Where is it?" sadly responded his uncle, shaking his head. "I reallydon't know. Nobody else knows where half of these new places are, withlong-tail names. I've a kind of notion it's near the junction."

  "What junction?" inquired his nephew.

  "Why!" exclaimed Uncle Jack. "The junction? You don't know? It is atthe corner where the Congo River crosses the Ganges. It is very nearthe point where the Ural Mountains pour down into the Red Sea."

  Ned was not entirely caught and mystified, this time, for he promptlyreplied: "Oh, I know where that is! I've been to Grammar SchoolSixty-eight. I know! It's down near the custom house."

  "I declare!" said his uncle. "Boys know too much, anyhow, nowadays.You would learn a great deal more, though, if you'd take an army and asteamer, and go and conquer England. Your mother has dozens of cousinsthere, too. But you had better buy return excursion tickets before youstart. That's what I did, and it helped me to get back home. Let's goto dinner."

  "It's about dinner-time," said Ned; and his uncle talked along as theywent.

  "I like the English for one thing," he said. "They cook good dinners.I hate 'em for another thing, though: if you go to an Englishdinner-party, you have to wait till the last man gets there beforethey will give you anything to eat. I conquered them a little on that,anyhow, for I always went two hours late, myself. So I generally had towait only about half an hour or so."

  Ned studied that matter until he thought he understood it. Afterward,however, he was glad to be an American, when his own dinner came to thetable exactly on time. So did he and his uncle.

  A long walk, and sightseeing, combined with plans for the conquest ofEngland, will surely prepare a healthy sixteen-year-old boy for hisdinner, especially if he is somewhat tall for his age and burly inbuild. Ned was not quite prepared, nevertheless, for some things whichwere coming upon him. He could not have expected, reasonably, thathis entire family would set him up for a mark and shoot at him. Thatis what they did, and they fired at him from all around the table,hitting him.

  "Ned," began Uncle Jack, "I heard you! Where on earth did you learn tospeak Norwegian? Not at the grammar school."

  "Why," said Ned, "I got it from old Erica. She has been in the housesince before I was born. She began with me when I was doing my firstwords of any kind."

  "Oh," said Uncle Jack, "that's it! I suppose even the Norway babiescatch it that way."

  "I see," said his father. "It is about the same way with your Latin.I used to talk Latin at you when you wore frocks. You are pretty wellup in it, for a boy only just graduated from a public school. Perhapsit may be of use to you, some day; but I am afraid that your Norwegiannever will."

  "Not unless he should go there, if he ever travels," said his mother."What he needs to do now is to get out into the country. He has beencooped up in the city and held down over his books long enough."

  "He must spend a few weeks at his grandfather's house," remarked hisAunt Maria, with a severe expression. "He must go fishing. His healthrequires it."

  So said his sisters and his older brothers, and then Uncle Jack gavehim away entirely, telling of Ned's dealings with the _Kentucky_, andwith the other wonders they had seen that morning.

  "You don't say so!" exclaimed his father. "He wishes to conquerEngland! I know some English boys that could make him wish he werehiding on board the _Kentucky_."

  "Well," responded Ned, rebelliously, "I'm not so sure about that! I'mcaptain of the baseball nine. I'm in on football, too. I can fencefirst-rate, and I've had Pat McCool for a boxing master."

  "Oh!" remarked Aunt Maria. "Now I know! That is why you came homelimping so horridly, a week ago Saturday. You had a pair of blackeyes, too--"

  "That's nothing, Aunt Maria," interrupted Ned. "That was Jimmy Finley.We were boxing barehanded. He got it as bad as I did, too."

  "Edward," exclaimed his mother, "that is shocking! It is like fighting!And you have been talking slang, too!"

  "Well, mother," said Ned, respectfully, "I didn't mean to; but Jim is aregular rusher to hit."

  "Edward!" said his father. "Slang again? I must take you in hand,myself."

  "He is dreadful!" whispered one of his sisters. "He called SallieHemans a bricktop. Her hair is red--"

  "I see how it is," continued his father. "The sooner you are out inthe country, the better. Football, indeed! Baseball, fencing, boxing!All that sort of thing! What you need is exercise. Fishing, I shouldsay, and plenty of good, fresh country air. Something beside books andschool."
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br />   "I'll tell you what, then," responded Ned. "I'll be glad enough to getthere. All the colts I rode last summer'll be a year older now. I'mgoing to try 'em, and see if they can send me to grass, like they didthen."

  "Edward! What grammar!" groaned his aunt. "His Grandmother Webb willattend to that."

  "I have my serious doubts," remarked Uncle Jack. "She has notaltogether reformed her own neighbourhood. The country is the place forhim, however. If he isn't sent away he may stir up a war with England,and it would be expensive."

  From that the table talk drifted back to the terrible battle-ships andthe new inventions.

  "It is dreadful!" remarked Uncle Jack. "I used to think I knew,generally, what I was eating, but I have given it up. They haveinvented artificial eggs. The butter we get is a mystery; they makealmost anything out of corn. The newspapers are printed on stuffthat's made of cord-wood, and this new imitation silver is nothing butpotter's clay, boiled down, somehow. It tires me out to think of itall."

  "I don't care," said Ned. "Hurrah for the country, and for the colts,and for some fishing!"