Outward Bound | Page 3

the lungs.
"Take that, you little monkey!" said Shuffles, angrily, as he struck the
little fellow a heavy blow on the side of the head with his fist, which
knocked him down. "I'll fix you the next, time I see you."
Shuffles consulted his discretion rather than his valor, now that the
alarm had been given, and retreated towards the place where he had
entered garden.
"What's the matter, Harry?" asked Mr. Lowington, as he rushed over
the bridge, followed by the gardener and his assistants, just as Harry
was picking himself up and rubbing his head.

"They were stealing your peaches, and I tried to stop them," replied
Harry. "They have taken some of them now."
Mr. Lowington glanced at the favorite tree, and his brow lowered with
anger and vexation. His paper before the "Pomological" could be
illustrated by only nine peaches, instead of thirteen.
"Who stole them, Harry?" demanded the disappointed fruit-grower.
The nephew hesitated a moment, and the question was repeated with
more sternness.
"Robert Shuffles; Isaac Monroe was with him, but he didn't take any of
the peaches."
"What is the matter with your head, Harry?" asked his uncle, when he
observed him rubbing the place where the blow had fallen.
"Shuffles struck me and knocked me down, when I called out for you."
"Did he? Where is he now?"
"He and Monroe ran up the walk to the back of the garden."
"That boy shall be taken care of," continued Mr. Lowington, as he
walked up the path towards the point where the marauders had entered.
"The Academy is fast becoming a nuisance to the neighborhood,
because there is neither order nor discipline among the students."
The thieves had escaped, and as it would be useless to follow them, Mr.
Lowington went back to the house; but he was too much annoyed at the
loss of his splendid peaches, which were to figure so prominently
before the "Pomological," to permit the matter to drop without further
notice.
"Did he hurt you much, Harry?" asked Mr. Lowington as they entered
the house.
"Not much, sir, though he gave me a pretty hard crack," answered

Harry.
"Did you see them when they came into the garden?"
"No, sir? I was fixing my water-wheel in the brook, when I heard them
at the tree. I went up, and tried to prevent Shuffles from taking the
peaches. I caught hold of him, and pulled him away. He said he
couldn't stop to lick me then, but he'd do it within twenty-four hours.
Then he hit me when I called for help."
"The young scoundrel! That boy is worse than a pestilence in any
neighborhood. Mr. Baird seems to have no control over him."
Suddenly, and without any apparent reason, Mr. Lowington's
compressed lips and contracted brow relaxed, and his face wore its
usual expression of dignified serenity. Harry could not understand the
cause of this sudden change; but his uncle's anger had passed away.
The fact was, that Mr. Lowington happened to think, while his
indignation prompted him to resort to the severest punishment for
Shuffles, that he himself had been just such a boy as the plunderer of
his cherished fruit. At the age of fifteen he had been the pest of the
town in which he resided. His father was a very wealthy man, and
resorted to many expedients to cure the boy of his vicious propensities.
Young Lowington had a taste for the sea, and his father finally
procured a midshipman's warrant for him to enter the navy. The strict
discipline of a ship of war proved to be the "one thing needful" for the
reformation of the wild youth; and he not only became a steady young
man, but a hard student and an accomplished officer. The navy made a
man of him, as it has of hundreds of the sons of rich men, demoralized
by idleness and the absence of a reasonable ambition.
When Mr. Lowington was thirty years old, his father died, leaving to
each of his three children a quarter of a million; and he had resigned his
position in the navy, in order to take care of his property, and to lead a
more domestic life with his wife and daughter than the discipline of the
service would permit.

He had taken up his residence in Brockway, the early home of his wife.
It was a large town on the sea shore, only a few miles from the
metropolis of New England, thus combining all the advantages of a
home in the city and in the country. For several years he had been
happy in his peaceful retirement. But not wealth, nor even integrity and
piety, can bar the door of the lofty mansion against the Destroyer of the
race. His wife died