The young master of Hyson Hall

The person who entered the front door of Hyson Hall when Philip cried “Come in!” was a small, smooth-shaven man, wearing a high-crowned, black straw hat. There was a hanging-lamp burning in the hall, and as Phil sprang up to receive his visitor he could see his features distinctly, but he did not recognize him. He had never seen the man before.

“Is Mr. Berkeley in?” asked the visitor, taking off his hat.

“No, sir,” answered Philip, “he is not.”

“Can you tell me when he will be here? Do you expect him to-night?”

“No,” said Philip, “he will not be home to-night, and I can’t tell you just when he will return.”

“That’s curious,” said the man. “I’d ’a’ thought he’d told you what time he’d be back.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” asked Phil, not caring to pursue the previous subject any further.

“No,” said the man, “I don’t think there is. Is there any grown person about the house that I can speak to?”

This remark nettled Phil.

“No,” said he, “there is no grown person here. My uncle left me in charge of the place, and if you have anything to say, you can say it to me.”

“I hardly think I will,” said the man, putting on his hat. “I guess I’ll call again some time.”

“All right,” said Phil. And the person departed.

This visit perplexed Phil a good deal, and annoyed him also. If people did not intend to recognize him as general manager of Hyson Hall, there would be no use in his trying to go on with the business.

He wondered, too, who this man could be. He thought he knew everybody with whom his uncle ordinarily did business, but this man was a perfect stranger to him. He had been considering the matter but a short time when Chap arrived.

“Who is that old fellow out there talking to your Susan?” inquired Chap.

“Talking to Susan!” cried Phil. “Why, I thought she was in bed long ago. And why should he be talking to her?”

And with this remark he started for the door.

“Oh, you needn’t go after him,” said Chap; “he left just as I came up. Who was he?”

Phil gave his friend no further satisfaction about the man with the black straw hat, except that he was a person who had come to see his uncle. He had no disposition to talk upon the subject.

“Well,” said Chap, “are we going after muskrats? Or has that little expedition been put off?”

“We’ll do that,” said Phil, taking his gun from a corner and putting on his hat. “Come along.”

Phil locked the front door and put the key in his pocket, and then the two boys, with their guns on their shoulders, walked over the lawn and the pasture-field to the river.

It was not, perhaps, altogether wise for Phil to leave the house that night, with nobody in it but a woman and a girl, but the man, Joel, lived with his mother in a small cottage just back of the garden, and Phil himself did not intend to go out of sight of the house.

The two boys had not walked very far before Chap stopped and exclaimed,—

“Why, Phil, what are you doing with that little pop-gun?”

“Oh, this will do well enough to shoot all the muskrats we shall see,” said Phil.

“But, why didn’t you bring Old Bruden?” persisted Chap.

“Never you mind why I didn’t!” answered Phil, a little impatiently.

He was generally a good-humored fellow, but his mind had been greatly ruffled that day.

“My Lord High Steward,” said Chap, after they had walked a little way in silence, “I see what this thing is coming to. You are enveloping yourself in a cloud of mystery. That may be all very well for a fellow just starting off on a track which hasn’t been surveyed yet, and which is to go nobody knows where, and no rails laid, but if you don’t want me to thrust aside the cloud with my strong right arm, you’d better let me inside the fog, I tell you, my boy.”

“You’ve got a nice lot of metaphors tangled up there,” said Phil. “If you were to pick them out and hang them up to dry, in assorted sizes, a fellow might find out what you’re trying to say.”

The boys did not see many muskrats that evening. After a good deal of waiting and watching they shot two.

Chap proposed that they should go about half a mile farther down the river, where there were some low meadow-lands, protected by embankments, and where there were generally a good many muskrats to be found.

These animals delight to burrow, and they sometimes made such extensive excavations into the embankments that these gave way, and the meadows were flooded when the tide came in.

“You know it’s doing a real service to Mr. Hamlin to shoot the muskrats down there,” said Chap.

Phil would have been very willing to do his neighbor a service, but he refused to go off his uncle’s place.

“Well, I will tell you what let’s do,” said Chap. “Let’s go down and look at the wreck. That is on your place, and I’ve never seen it by moonlight.”

“Very well,” said Phil, “we’ll go and look at it.”

The wreck, of which Chap Webster had made frequent mention, was the remains of a good-sized vessel, which was deeply embedded in the mud of the river, at one corner of the Hyson Hall estate.

At high tide it could not be seen at all, but when the tide was low a number of its forward ribs stuck up out of the mud.

It was generally believed, especially by the boys of the neighborhood, that this was the wreck of a British sloop-of-war, which, in the time of the Revolution, had got into trouble down the river and had run up here for safety, but had afterwards been abandoned and sunk.

It was certain that the ship had come there when this part of the country was very thinly settled, for there was no one in the neighborhood who was able to give the exact facts in the case; but the story of the British war-vessel was a very good one, and was generally believed.

Chap Webster was one of a few persons who felt sure that there was a lot of British gold buried in this wreck.

“All war-vessels have to carry quantities of money,” he argued, “to pay off the crew and to do ever so many other things. And then, sometimes, they have prize-money aboard.”

The two boys walked out as far as the river-beach was firm enough to give them footing, and gazed at the wreck.

The tide was at its lowest ebb, and as much of the sunken vessel was visible as it was possible to see at any time.

The prospect was certainly not a hopeful one to any person who had an idea of raising the old wreck. A few ribs stuck up in a mournful way out of the watery mud, and that was all.

“Why, Chap,” said Phil, “we would have to take out twenty scow-loads of mud before we could get at the fore-part of that vessel, and then we would not find anything worth having, anyway. All the valuables on board a ship are kept in the officers’ quarters, near the stern, and that is sunk in deep water.”

“Mud wouldn’t matter,” said the sanguine Chap. “We could blow all that out at once with the giant-powder.”

“And the people all over the county would think, the next morning, that it had been raining mud in the night,” said Phil.

“I don’t care what they’d think,” said Chap; “and I’m not at all sure about the treasure being always in the stern; but if it is there, and we could lower down a big, water-tight cartridge and explode it, we might loosen things so that they would float up.”

“Money wouldn’t float,” said Phil.

“Do you know, Phil Berkeley,” cried Chap, “that if I had a tug-boat, and could get a good hitch on to the sunken part of that ship, I believe I could pull it up and tow it into shallow water, where we could get at it?”

“If I wanted to get the sunken treasure, if there is any,” said Phil, “I wouldn’t like to have to wait until that time.”

“Do you mean,” said Chap, turning sharply upon him, “that you think I am never going to have a tug-boat?”

“Oh, no!” said Phil, “I didn’t mean that. I only meant that I didn’t believe you could move that old wreck, or anything else that is as much a part of this continent as that is now.”

“Oh!” said Chap; “that’s it, is it?”

Then the two boys started for home, each carrying his muskrat by the tail.