The Missing Merchantman

The Missing Merchantman
By Harry Collingwood
CHAPTER ONE.
INTRODUCTORY.
This story opens on a glorious day about the middle of July; and
Weymouth, with its charming bay, was looking its very best. A gentle
southerly breeze was blowing; the air was clear--just warm enough to
render a dip in the sea the quintessence of luxury--and so laden with
ozone and the wholesome scent of the sea that to breathe it was like
imbibing a draught of elixir vitae. The east land was in itself a picture
as it stretched across the horizon in front of the town, its lofty
chalk-cliffs and swelling downs, the latter dotted here and there with a
solitary farm-house or a clump of trees, gleaming softly through the
clear transparent atmosphere in a thousand varied hues of green, and
creamy white, and ruddy neutral, which gradually merged into a series
of delicate pearly-greys as the eye followed the bold outline to where
Saint Alban's Head sloped down into the azure sea. The noble bay,
gently ruffled by the morning breeze, shimmered and sparkled
brilliantly in the strong unclouded sunlight, its rippling wavelets
chasing each other shoreward in long lines until they plashed with a
soothing murmur into mimic breakers upon the broad, smooth, firm
expanse of sand, whereon happy children were disporting themselves,
bare-footed, with boat, and spade, and bucket, to their innocent hearts'
content.
The proprietors of the bathing-vans were doing an excellent business,
their lumbering vehicles jolting noisily down into the water with
scarcely a moment's intermission. The band, drawn up in front of the
hideous statue to George the Fourth, which so greatly disfigures the
town, was discoursing, fairly well, a selection of good music; a long
line of chairs on the sands was fully occupied by loungers, mostly

ladies, reading, or amusing themselves by watching the antics of the
thronging children; the broad promenade was crowded with people on
pleasure bent. Light skiffs and neat well-appointed sailing boats were
darting hither and thither along the surface of the glancing waters; and
farther out, at a distance of about a mile from the shore, some half-a-
dozen or more yachts of various rigs and tonnage were lying at anchor,
with their club burgees gaily fluttering in the breeze, and most of them
with mainsail hoisted, or with other preparations actively going forward
toward getting under weigh for a day's cruise.
The delightful little watering-place, it has been said, was looking its
best; or at least this was the opinion expressed by a young man who,
accompanied by his father and sister, walked up the esplanade on that
particular morning, on his way to the railway-station en route for
London by the ten o'clock South-Western express--his luggage having
preceded him on a hand-truck.
As the young man happens to be the hero of the present story, it may
not be amiss to describe him somewhat particularly.
Edward Damerell, then--for that was his name--was, at the date of our
introduction to him, within a month of reaching his nineteenth year;
and he had hoped to spend his birthday at home with his father and
sister, the only relatives he possessed on earth, but circumstances had
ordered it otherwise. He stood just five feet seven inches in his
stockings; was as stout-built and shapely a youth as one need wish to
see, though it was evident that he had not yet attained his full growth;
his frank, handsome, albeit sunburnt face was lighted up by a pair of
keen, honest grey eyes and crowned by a close-cut crop of crisp, curly,
flaxen hair-- a good-tempered, pleasant-looking fellow enough, true as
steel, brave as true, and, having been already three years at sea, as
smart a seaman as ever trod a plank.
His father was his exact counterpart, with the comparatively trifling
difference that he was not quite so tall as Ned; was broader in the beam,
and, as of course might be expected, much older-looking, though the
appearance of age was due principally to the grey with which his hair
and bushy whiskers (which latter appendages, by the by, Ned was still

without) was thickly dashed; the old gentleman's eye being as keen and
bright as his son's, and his step almost as springy.
Edward Damerell, senior, it may be as well to mention, was a naval
lieutenant, retired upon half-pay. He had seen a great deal of service in
his youth, principally on the West Coast of Africa and in the China seas,
and had been fairly fortunate in the matter of acquiring prize-
money--to which circumstance he was indebted for the exceedingly
comfortable little cottage on the hill overlooking Newton's Cove, which
he had inhabited for some twenty-five years, having purchased and
settled down in it upon his marriage and retirement from the service.
His daughter