“We have not seen Barr since his failure to overhaul us after Don had been taken on board the Firefly, and I don’t think he will ever trouble you. There are too many things against him that he wouldn’t like to have brought to light in a court of law. Don knows nothing whatever of your complicity in his abduction, and you may be sure that we shall not enlighten him. We hope to see you next term, but we tell you plainly that if you have any more schemes for mischief in your head, you can keep them there, or look to somebody besides Jones and me to help you carry them out. We are tired of playing the part of scamps and law-breakers, and are going to see how boys feel who honestly try to behave themselves. It will be a novel experience to us, but we hope to live through it. We are friends with all Egan’s party now, and they have invited us to join them in their hunts and pleasure-rides. They didn’t throw any fatherly advice at our heads, but we have as good evidence as we want that they will stand by us and help us all they can.”
It was wonderful what a change that breakfast on board the cutter made in Enoch and his friend Jones. After that they were seen in Egan’s company almost every day, and the officers of the Magpie, who had more than once told themselves that Enoch would bear watching, began to think that they had been greatly mistaken in him. He and Jones had been brought to their senses in the same way that Don Gordon was. The influence that Egan and his friends exerted over them was a silent one, but it was none the less powerful. They often went sailing and hunting together, and Enoch’s skill as a wing-shot enabled him to present Bert Gordon with one of the largest and finest swans that had ever been killed on the bay. They did not get a shot on the day that Don was lost in the marshes (it was probable that Barr’s sloop frightened the birds away), but they afterward had fine sport with the swans, and every one of Egan’s guests took a specimen home with him.
Affairs went smoothly after that, and the boys who have been spoken of in this book as THE YOUNG WILD-FOWLERS were happy—all except Lester Brigham. He was as miserable as a boy ever gets to be. When Don was a prisoner, and in danger of being sent off to some distant port, Lester’s terror almost drove him frantic; but as soon as he learned that Don had come safely out of his troubles, that Enoch and Jones had been at hand to assist him when he made that bold “Swim for Liberty,” and that through his influence and Egan’s, his sworn friends had been led to desert him and to resolve to mend their ways—when Lester knew all these things, his fear gave way to rage, intense and bitter. To repeat the expression Enoch Williams once made, he could not have been more alone in the world if he had been set down on Robinson Crusoe’s island, before the man Friday made his appearance. Bert could hardly believe his ears when his brother told him that it was Lester who put Barr up to do as he did, and he threatened to expose him in spite of the pledge of secrecy he had given; but Don promised to duck him in the bay if he did, and so Bert said nothing, although he stormed a good deal.
