Rockhaven
re still in sight that June morning, and Jess Hutton, having swept his store, sat tilted back in an arm-chair on his piazz
surroundings at a glance, "and I represent Weston & Hill and have come to
th, I never 'spected ter. It's been most a year now since yer boss landed here and bought my ledge o' stun, and I've made up m
ced them, replied, "Oh, Mr. Weston is not the man to throw away money, but it takes time to organize a company and get ready to operate a quarry;" and pausing to draw from a
ed it c
oked it over, "but out here we don't u
d the store, handed Winn a long, yellow envelope. "Here's the deed;
ave not yet arrived, and in the meantime I must look about and hire some men. In th
en. Most on 'em here ain't doin' more'n keepin' soul an' body togeth
ask? I heerd last night a strang
ed me where she lived; and now, if you will be good enough, I would like to
much time," observed Jess, smiling, "but
he continued, having in mind his instructions, "is to establish a permanent and paying industry here, and enlis
ketch yer drift
a home industry, and to get all those here who have
ter hurry. Folks here are mighty keerful, 'n' none on 'em's likely ter do much bakin' till their oven's hot. 'Sides, there ain't
t that matter rest for the present. Now if you will show me the quarry, I will look it over and let you see wh
briars that grew on top of it, had known that the quarry he had sold for two thousand dollars and considered it well paid for, was the sole basis for a stock company capitalized at one million dollars. But he did not, and neither does many another blind fool who buys "gilt-edged" stock in
e did not. While the ratio of value between the capitalization of the Rockhaven Granite Company and the original cost of the quarry seemed absurd, it did not follow but that Weston & Hill might not intend actually to put capital into
ack of this, and below an arm of the harbor, it narrowed down to where the roadway crossed it. Beside this stood an old stone mill, or what was once the walls of one, for the roof was gone. He examined it carefully, peering into its ghostly interior and down to where the ebb tide had left its base walls bare. To this, and to the piles that had once held the tide gates, were clinging masses of black mussels, with here and the
e sails of coasters. Below him, where the rock-walled gorge broadened to meet the ocean, the undulating ground swells leisurely tossed the rockweed and brown kelpie upward, as they swept over the sloping rocks. For a few moments he stood spellbound by the silent and solemn grandeur of the limitless ocean view and the colossal pathway to the wat
, until at the head of this deep chasm, and down beneath him, he heard
a fretwork of foam fringe where the ground swells met it, and above its m
bonnie An
me doon
wondering still whence and from whose hand had come this almost uncanny music, he saw, deep down amid the tangle of rocks below him, a slight, girlish f