Page:Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (1921).djvu/223

Rh bark Nancy Lee. The Nancy Lee had been captured by the pirates off Currituck Sound, the crew set adrift in the longboat, and the bark herself and all her cargo burned to the water’s edge.

Five hundred of the seven hundred pounds invested in the unfortunate “venture” was money bequeathed by Hiram’s father, seven years before, to Levi West.

Eleazer White had been twice married, the second time to the widow West. She had brought with her to her new home a good-looking, long-legged, black-eyed, black-haired ne’er-do-well of a son, a year or so younger than Hiram. He was a shrewd, quick-witted lad, idle, shiftless, willful, ill-trained perhaps, but as bright and keen as a pin. He was the very opposite to poor, dull Hiram. Eleazer White had never loved his son; he was ashamed of the poor, slack-witted oaf. Upon the other hand, he was very fond of Levi West, whom he always called “our Levi,” and whom he treated in every way as though he were his own son. He tried to train the lad to work in the mill, and was patient beyond what the patience of most fathers would have been with his stepson’s idleness and shiftlessness. “Never mind,” he was used to say. “Levi’ll come all right. Levi’s as bright as a button.”

It was one of the greatest blows of the old miller’s life when Levi ran away to sea. In his last sickness the old man’s mind constantly turned to his lost stepson. “Mebby he’ll come back again,” said he, “and if he does I want you to be good to him, Hiram. I’ve done my duty by you and have left you the house and mill, but I want you to promise that if Levi comes back again you’ll give him a home and a shelter under this roof if he wants one.” And Hiram had promised to do as his father asked.

After Eleazer died it was found that he had bequeathed five hundred pounds to his “beloved stepson, Levi West,” and had left Squire Hall as trustee.

Levi West had been gone nearly nine years and not a word Rh