Not Pretty, But Precious
by
John Hay, et al.
Part 5 out of 5
another child, but simply questioning. The little creature looked so
unnaturally wise and self-possessed that I was reminded perforce of a wild
tale Wyanota had once told me about a remote ancestress of his who had
married some sort of a wood-demon. The legend ran that Wyanota's family
was descended from the offspring of this marriage, and I think Wyn more
than half believed the story.
I passed on, and going into the next room found the pistols, carried them
back to my own chamber, and loaded them carefully. I was quite accustomed
to the use of firearms. There had been times in my life when I never sat
down to my work or went to rest without having rifle or pistol within easy
reach of my hand. When I had loaded the weapons, I put them on the table
by my bed and lay down again. My excitement seemed to have subsided, and I
was just falling asleep when I heard a door in the kitchen violently burst
open. I thought the wind had done it, and waited a moment to hear if the
Panther would rise and shut it.
The next instant there was a shot, a wild cry as of mingled pain and fury,
the sound of a heavy fall and a struggle. Before I had well realized that
the noise was in the house, I found myself at the kitchen door with my
pistols in my hand. I was greatly startled, but my one idea was to help my
old friend. The miserable door resisted me for a moment. Seconds passed
that seemed hours. When at last I tore it open, I saw a man in his shirt
sleeves lying dead on the floor, his head shattered apparently by a blow
from the axe: another, a large, powerful Irishman, was kneeling on the
Panther's breast, with his hands at the old man's throat.
I sprang forward, but something swifter than I darted past me with a
savage cry, and, tearing and biting with claws and teeth, flung itself
full at the ruffian's face and naked throat. It was our big old brindle
cat, Tom, roused from his place before the fire. The unexpected fierceness
of Tom's assault took the man quite by surprise. Before he could tear the
creature away I had the pistol at his head.
"If you move," I said, "I'll kill you;" for, as I saw that my old friend
was hurt, wrath took the place of fear.
He gave in directly. Indeed the cat, a large, powerful animal, had almost
scratched his eyes out. In the most abject tones the fellow implored me to
let him go.
"Don't you do it, mamma," said the Panther, faintly.
"I don't mean to," I said.
Under the kitchen stairs was a dark closet with a strong outside bolt. I
ordered the man into this place. He obeyed, and I drew the bolt upon him.
His face and throat were streaming with blood from Tom's teeth and claws.
All this passed in much less time than it takes to tell it. Roused by the
noise, the children, and Minny with the baby in her arms, were already in
the kitchen.
"Oh, my dear, my poor darling!" said Minny, kneeling by the old man's
side, "you are hurt!"
"Yes," he said, quietly, "pretty considerable bad. Charley, you fasten
that door;" for the door into the shed, which had been secured only by a
button, was wide open. "You get the hammer and two, three big nails, and
drive 'em in," he continued. "Maybe more them darn scamps round."
Charley obeyed directions in a way which did him credit. Little Ned, with
wide, surprised eyes, clung to me in silence; little Carry, seeing her
mother in tears, put up a piteous lip and sobbed in her unbaby-like,
sorrowful fashion; the old cat, in great excitement, went purring and
talking from one to another.
"Tell me where you are hurt," I said, holding the chief's hand.
He had been shot through the stomach with a great, old-fashioned
smooth-bore musket, which lay on the floor--a gun not carrying less than
twenty-five to the pound. I had seen gunshot wounds before, and I knew
that this was serious. It did not bleed much externally, but the edges of
the wound were torn and discolored.
"That fellow dead?" asked the Panther.
"Yes indeed!" for the man's head was split like a walnut.
The old warrior looked gratified. "Mamma," he said, touching his
hunting-knife, "you take that fellow's scalp."
"Don't think of such a thing," I said, not so much shocked as I might have
been had I not lived on the Indian frontier. "Do you know who they are?"
"See them to Ryan's. Guess they some folks that mizzable railroad bring
into this country. 'Spect they follow me. Mamma," said the Panther,
looking up into my face, "tell you, red fox not bark for nothing. Better
be old man than you."
"Oh, my dear old friend, if you had only not come to us to-night! It was
all your love for us that has done this, but I pray God you may get well.
Charley, do you think you can go for Doctor Beach?"
"Yes, mamma," said the boy, though he turned pale.
"No, no," said the Panther. "You no send that little fellow out in the
dark. Besides, no good. You go wrap yourselves up. You two, you git bad
cold."
At that moment we heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet.
"Go, Charley," said Minny. "Stop whoever it is, and tell them what has
happened."
Charley ran out, and soon returned with Dr. Beach, who, happily for us,
had been out on one of those errands which are always rousing doctors from
their beds.
Dr. Beach was a burly, rough-mannered sort of man, but he could be very
kind and tender in the exercise of his profession. He wasted no time in
questions, but looked grave when he saw how the old man was hurt.
"Needn't tell me," said the Panther, quietly. "Know it's the end. Kill one
of 'em, anyhow!" he concluded in a tone of calm satisfaction.
"And I wish with all my heart you had killed the other," said the doctor,
bitterly. "He got off, I suppose."
The Panther showed his white teeth in a laugh. "No," he said, pointing to
me: "she got him--she and the cat. Pretty well for one little squaw and
pussy-cat. Mamma, you keep that kitty always."
"Where is the scoundrel?" asked the doctor.
"Shut up in that closet."
Here the man within cried out that he was "kilt" already, and should be
hung if we did not let him go.
"I hope you will, with all my heart," said the doctor.
With some difficulty we helped the Panther into the parlor and laid him on
the sofa.
He told us the story in a few words. He had been asleep when the door was
burst open. The man whom he had killed had fired the shot. He had kept his
feet to strike one blow with the axe, and the other man had sprung upon
him as he fell.
The doctor did what little he could to ease his patient, and then went
away, but soon returned with some men from the village, who were quite
ready to lynch the criminal when they heard what he had done. They took
the man away, however, and I am happy to say he afterward received the
heaviest sentence the law would allow. He confessed that, knowing the
chief had a large sum in his possession, himself and his companion had
broken the lock of the rifle, intending to waylay the old man and shoot
him in the woods. They had not, however, been able to overtake him till he
reached the clearing, and then, fearing to encounter him, they had
followed him at a distance and watched him enter our house. Knowing that
the captain was gone, they had waited until all was quiet, and then made
their entrance as described.
The Panther asked that some one might go to the reservation and send over
three of his friends, whom he named. He was very anxious to see Wyanota,
and Calvin Bruce, who had come with the doctor, instantly volunteered to
take his trotting mare and do both errands. The chestnut did her work
gallantly, though unhappily in vain, for the old man did not live to see
his friends.
"Don't you fret, you two," he said, softly, as Minny and I watched over
him. "Great deal the best way for old Ingin. Die like a man now: not cough
myself to death, like an old dog. Minny, little girl, you tell your
husband be good to our people, well as he can. Not much of our nation left
now--not good for much, either," he added; "but you tell him and the
captain stand their friends, won't you?"
"Indeed, indeed they will," said Minny in tears.
A Methodist clergyman of some kind, who preached in Maysville at that
time, hearing what had happened, came in to offer his services and to pray
with the dying man. The Panther thanked him courteously, but he clung to
the simple creed of his fathers and his belief that "Ingin religion was
good for Ingin;" and Mr. Lawrence had the sense and feeling not to disturb
him by argument.
"Want your Charley to have my rifle," he said to me. "Nobody left of our
people but my cousin's son, and he most a mizzable Ingin. You 'member
that, please," he said to Mr. Lawrence, who sat quietly at the head of the
sofa. "Do you think," he asked wistfully of the clergyman, "that I ever
see these two again where I go?" The minister--Heaven bless him!--answered
stoutly that he had not a doubt of it. "All right, then," said the
Panther, quietly. "Now, mamma, you see red fox know, after all."
Minny brought her baby for him to kiss. Little Carry's dark eyes were full
of tears, for, like most babies, she felt the influence of sorrow she
could not understand. She did not scream, as another child would, but hid
her face on her mother's bosom and sobbed quietly, like a grown-up woman.
My two little boys, understanding all at once that their old friend was
going away, burst out crying.
"Hush! hush!" he said, gently. "You be good boys to your mother. Say
'good-bye.'"
We kissed him, keeping back the lamentations which we knew would trouble
him.
"Good-bye," he said, softly, and then he spoke some few words in his own
tongue, as Minny told me afterward, about going to his lost children. Then
a smile came over his face, a look of sweet relief and comfort softened
the stern features, the hand that had held mine so close slowly relaxed;
and with a sigh he was gone.
The old minister gently closed his eyes. "My dear," said Mr. Lawrence to
Minny, who was in an agony of grief, "God knows, but it was His Son who
said, 'Greater love hath no man than this--that a man lay down his life
for his friends!'"
When we buried the old chief we wrote those words on the stone we placed
over his grave.
Since then the New Year's Eve brings back to me very vividly the memory of
the augury that so strangely accomplished its own fulfillment.
CLARA F. GUERNSEY.
Louie.
The great river was flowing peacefully down to the sea, opening its blue
tides at the silver fretting of the bar into a shallow expanse some miles
in width, a part of which on either side overlay stretches where the
submerged eel-grass lent a tint of chrysoprase to the sheathing flow, and
into which one gazed, half expecting to see so ideal a depth peopled by
something other than the long ribbons of the weed streaming out on the
slow current--the only cool sight, albeit, beneath the withering heat of
the day across all that shining extent. Far down the shores, on the right,
a line of low sand-hills rose, protecting the placid harbor from sea and
storm with the bulwark of their dunes, whose yellow drifts were ranged by
the winds in all fantastic shapes, and bound together by ropes of the wild
poison-ivy and long tangles of beach-grass and the blossoming purple pea,
and which to-day cast back the rays of the sun as though they were of
beaten brass. Above these hills the white lighthouse loomed, the heated
air trembling around it, and giving it so vague and misty a guise that,
being by itself a thing of night and storm and darkness, it looked now as
unreal as a ghost by daylight. On the other side of the harbor lay the
marshes, threaded by steaming creeks, up which here and there the pointed
sails of the hidden hay-barges crept, the sunshine turning them to white
flames: farther off stood a screen of woods, and from brim to brim between
swelled the broad, smooth sheet of the river, coming from the great
mountains that gave it birth, washing clean a score of towns on its way,
and loitering just here by the pleasant old fishing-town, whose wharves,
once doing a mighty business with the Antilles and the farther Indies,
now, in the absence of their half dozen foreign-going craft, lay at the
mercy of any sand-droger that chose to fling her cable round their
capstans. A few idle masts swayed there, belonging to small fishers and
fruiters, a solid dew of pitch oozing from their sides in the sun, but not
a sail set: a lonely watchman went the rounds among them, a ragged urchin
bobbed for flounders in the dock, but otherwise wharves and craft were
alike forsaken, and the sun glared down on them as though his rays had
made them a desert. The harbor-water lay like glass: now and then the tide
stirred it, and all the brown and golden reflections of masts and spars
with it, into the likeness of a rippled agate. Not one of the boats that
were ordinarily to be seen darting hither and yon, like so many
water-bugs, were in motion now; none of the white sails of the gay
sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the
usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that
deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed;
the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if
they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks,
had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will
disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing
here. In all the scene there was hardly any other sign of life than the
fervent sunbeams shedding their cruel lustre overhead: the river flowed
silent and lonely from shore to shore; the whole hot summer sky stretched
just as silent and lonely from horizon to horizon; only the old ferryman,
edging along the bank till he was far up stream, crossed the narrower tide
and drifted down effortless on the other side; only an old black brig lay
at anchor, with furled sail and silent deck, in the middle channel down
below the piers, and from her festering and blistering hull it was that
all the heat and loneliness and silence of the scene seemed to exude--for
it was the fever-ship.
It was a different picture on the bright river when that brig entered the
harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a
welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of
the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among
them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first
shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters--waters than which none
could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow
breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps the owner of
some pale face looked through the pane and thought of brother or father,
or, it may be, of lover, and grew paler with pity, and longed to do kind
offices for those who suffered; but the greater part of all the people
hived upon the shores would have scouted the thought of going out with aid
to those hot pillows rocking there upon the tide, and of bringing back
infection to the town, as much as though the act had been piracy on the
high seas. And they stayed at home, and watched their vanes and longed for
an east wind--an east wind whose wings would shake out healing, whose
breath would lay the destroying fever low; but the east wind refused to
seek their shores, and chose rather to keep up its wild salt play far out
on the bosom of its mid-sea billows.
Yes, on that return of the last voyage of the brig the stream had swarmed
with boats, flags had fluttered from housetops and staffs, piers and quays
had been lined with cheering people, all flocking forth to see the broken,
battered little craft; for the brig had been spoken by a tug, and word had
been brought to the wharves, and had spread like wild-fire through the
town, that, wrecked in a tempest and deserted by the panic-stricken crew,
the steadfast master and a boy who stood by him had remained with her, had
refitted her as best they might when the storm abated, and had brought her
into port at last through fortunate days of fair weather and slow sailing.
The town was ringing with the exploit, with praise of the noble
faithfulness of master and boy; and now the river rang again, and no
conquering galley of naval hero ever moved through a gladder, gayer
welcome than that through which the little black brig lumbered on her
clumsy way to her moorings.
But though all the rest of the populace of the seaport had turned out with
their greetings that day, there was one little body there who, so far from
hurrying down to shore or sea-wall with a waving handkerchief, ran crying
into a corner; and it was there that Andrew Traverse, the person of only
secondary importance in the river scene, rated as a boy on the brig's
books, but grown into a man since the long voyage began,--it was there he
found her when the crowd had let him alone and left him free to follow his
own devices.
"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he,
standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment.
"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away
into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!"
"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and
erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red
shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that
surveyed her.
"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others
left--bringing home the ship!"
"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his
merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going
to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?"
"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy
face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls;
and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape,
the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was
hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a
sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he
was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him
and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind.
Certainly no two happier, prouder beings walked along the sea-wall that
night, greeted with hearty hands at every step, followed by all eyes till
the shelter of deepening dusk obscured them, and with impish urchins,
awe-struck for once, crying mysteriously under their breath to each other,
"That's him! That's the feller saved the Sabrina! That's him and her!" How
proud the little body was! how her heart beat with pleasure at thought of
the way in which all men were ready to do him honor! how timidly she
turned her eyes upon him and saw the tint deepen on his cheek, the shadow
flash into light in his eye, the smile kindle on his lips, as he looked
down on her--glad with her pride and pleasure, strong, confident, content
himself--till step by step they had left the town behind, wandering down
the sandy island road, through the wayside hedge of blossoming wild roses
and rustling young birches, till they leaned upon the parapet of the old
island bridge and heard the water lap and saw the stars come out, and only
felt each other and their love in all the wide, sweet summer universe.
Poor Louie! She had always been as shy and wary as any little brown bird
of the woods. It was Andrew's sudden and glorious coming that had
surprised her into such expression of a feeling that had grown up with her
until it was a part of every thought and memory. And as for
Andrew--certainly he had not known that he cared for her so much until she
turned that tearful, rosy face upon him in welcome; but now it seemed to
him that she had been his and he hers since time began: he could neither
imagine nor remember any other state than this: he said to himself, and
then repeated it to her, that he had loved her always, that it was thought
of her that had kept him firm and faithful to his duty, that she had been
the lodestar toward which he steered on that slow homeward way; and he
thanked Heaven, no doubt devoutly enough, that had saved him from such
distress and brought him back to such bliss. And Louie listened and clung
closer, more joyful and more blest with every pulse of her bounding heart.
After all, sudden as the slipping into so divine a dream had been, it had
need to be full as intense and deep, for it was only for a little while it
lasted. A week's rapt walking in these mid-heavens, where earth and care
and each to-morrow was forgotten, and there broke in upon them the voice
of the Sabrina's owner seeking for Andrew Traverse.
Of course such conduct as that of one who preferred to do his utmost to
save a sinking ship rather than seek safety with her flying crew, was
something too unusual to go unrewarded: it must be signalized into such a
shining light that all other mariners must needs follow it. And if the sky
had fallen, Andrew declared, he could have been no more surprised than he
was when he found himself invited with great ceremony to a stately
tea-drinking at the house of the owner of the Sabrina. "Now we shall catch
larks," said he; and dressed in a new suit, whose gray tint set off the
smoothness of his tanned cheek with the color sometimes mantling through
the brown, he entered the house with all the composure of a gentleman used
to nothing but high days and holidays. Not that either the state or
ceremony at Mr. Maurice's required great effort to encounter with
composure--trivial enough at its best, wonderful though it was to the
townsfolk, unused to anything beyond. But Andrew had seen the world in
foreign parts, and neither Mr. Maurice's mansion-house and gardens, nor
his gay upholstery, nor his silver tea-service, nor his condescending
manners, struck the least spark of' surprise from Andrew's eyes, or gave
them the least shadow of awe.
"This is some mistake," said the owner graciously, after preliminary
compliment had been duly observed. "How is it that you are rated on the
books as a boy--you as much a man as you will ever be?"
"A long voyage, sir, slow sailing and delays over so many disasters as
befell us, three years out in the stead of a year and a half--all that
brings one to man's estate before his reckoning."
"But the last part of the time you must have done able seaman's service?"
"The captain and I together," said Andrew with his bright laugh. "We were
officers and crew and passengers, cox'n and cook, as they say."
"A hard experience," said Mr. Maurice.
"Oh, not at all, but worth its weight in gold--to me, at least. Why, sir,
it taught me how to handle a ship as six years before the mast couldn't
have done."
"Good! We shall see to what purpose one of these days. And you have had
your share of schooling, they tell me?"
"All that the academy had to give, sir."
"And that's enough for any one who has the world to tussel with. How
should you like to have gone through such hard lines, Frarnie?" turning to
his daughter, a pale, moon-faced girl, her father's darling.
"Were you never afraid?" she asked in her pretty simpering way.
"Not to say afraid," answered Andrew, deferentially. "We knew our
danger--two men alone in the leaky, broken brig--but then we could be no
worse off than we were before; and as for the others--"
"They got their deserts," said Mr. Maurice.
"The poor fellows left us in such a hurry that they took hardly any water
or biscuit; and at the worst our fate could not be so bad as theirs, under
the hot sun in those salt seas."
"Well, well!" said Mr. Maurice, who loved his own ease too much to like to
hear of others' dis-ease. And to turn the conversation from the possible
horrors into which it might lapse, he invited his guest out into his
gardens, among his grapehouses, his poultry and his dogs. It was a long
hour's ramble that they took there, well improved on both sides, for
Andrew of course knew it to be for his interest to please the brig's
owner; and Mr. Maurice, who prided himself on having a singularly keen
insight into character, studied the young man's every word and gesture,
for it was not often that he came across such material as this out of
which to make his captains; and to what farther effect in this instance be
pursued his studies might have been told, by any one keener than himself,
through the tone of satisfaction with which, on re-entering the parlor, he
bade his daughter take Andrew down the rooms and tell him the histories of
the surprising pictures there. For Mr. Maurice, one of the great fortunes
of the seaport, being possessed by a mania of belief that every youth who
cast tender eyes upon his daughter cast them not on her, but on her future
havings and holdings, had long since determined to select a husband for
her himself--one who evinced no servile reverence for wealth, one whom he
could trust to make her happy. "And here," he said, "I am not sure but
that I have him."
When Andrew went in to see Louie a moment on his way home that night, he
was in great spirits over the success of his visit, and, dark as it was,
made her blush the color of the rose over the low doorway where they stood
when he asked how she would like to go captain's wife next voyage. And
then he told her of Mr. Maurice's scrutiny and questioning, and the half
hint of a ship of his own to sail some day, and of the pale-faced Miss
Frarnie's interest, and of the long stroll down the parlors among the
pictures, the original of one of which he had seen somewhere in the
Mediterranean, when he and a parcel of sailors went ashore and rambled
through the port, and looked in at a church, where, in the midst of music
and incense and a kneeling crowd, they were shearing the golden locks off
of young girls and making nuns of them. And Andrew forgot to tell of the
way in which Miss Frarnie listened to him and hung upon his words: indeed,
how could he? Perhaps he did not notice it himself; but if he had had a
trifle more personal vanity, and had seen how this pale young
girl--forbidden by a suspicious father much companionship with
gallants--had forgotten all difference of station and purse, and had
looked upon him, nobly made, handsome, gay, knowing far more than she did,
much as upon a young god just alighted by her side a moment,--if Andrew
had been aware of this, and had found any words in which to repeat it,
then Louie might have had something to startle her out of her blessedness,
and pain might have come to her all the sooner. But since the pain would
have been as sharp then as at any future time, it was a pitying, pleasant
Fate that let her have her happiness as long as might be. For Louie's love
was a different thing from the selfish passion that any clown may feel:
she had been happy enough in her little round of commonplace satisfactions
and tasks before Andrew came and shed over her this great cloud of
delight--happy then just in the enjoyment of that secret love of hers that
went out and sought him every night sailing over foreign sunlit waters,
and hovered like a blessing round his head; and now that he had come and
folded her about and about with such warm devotion, it was not for the new
happiness he gave her that she loved him, but in order to make his own
happiness a perfect thing; and if her heart's blood had been needed for
that, it would have been poured out like water. The pale-faced Frarnie--if
question could be of her--might never know such love as that: love with
her could be a sentiment, a lover one who added to her pleasure, but a
sacrifice on her part for that lover would have been something to tell and
sing for ever, if indeed it were possible that such a thing should be made
at all.
So day by day the spell deepened with Louie, and for another week there
was delightful loneliness with this lover of hers--strolls down through
the swampy woods hunting for moss to frame the prints he had brought home
uninjured, and which were to be part of the furnishing of their future
home; others across the salt meadows for the little red samphire stems to
pickle; sails in the float down river and in the creeks, where the tall
thatch parted by the prow rustled almost overhead, and the gulls came
flying and piping around them: here and there, they two alone, pouring out
thought and soul to each other, and every now and then glancing shyly at
those days, that did not seem so very far away, when they should be
sailing together through foreign parts; for Louie's father, the old
fisherman, was all her household, and a maiden aunt, who earned her
livelihood in nursing the sick and attending the dead, would be glad to
come any day and take Louie's place in the cottage.
At the end of the week, Mr. Maurice sent for Andrew to his counting-room;
and after that, on one device or another, he had him there the greater
part of every day, employing him in a score of pleasant ways--asking his
advice as to the repairs of the Sabrina, taking him with him in his chaise
jogging through the shipyard, where a new barque was getting ready for her
launching, examining him the while carefully from time to time after his
wont; at last taking him casually home to dinner with him one day, keeping
him to tea the next, and finally, fully satisfied with the result of his
studies in that edition of human nature, giving him the freedom of the
family as much as if he had been the son of the house.
"I've some plans ahead for you, my boy," said he one day with a knowing
shake of the head; and Andrew's innocent brain began to swim straightway
between the new barque and the Sabrina.
"Look at him!" said Mr. Maurice to his wife one evening as Andrew walked
in the garden with Miss Frarnie. "My mind's made up about him. He's the
stuff for a sea-captain, afraid neither of wind nor weather nor the face
of clay--can sail a ship and choose her cargo. He's none of your coxcombs
that go courting across the way: he's a man into the core of his heart,
and as well bred as any gentleman that walks; though Goodness knows how he
came by it."
"These sea-coast people," said his wife, reflectively (she was inland-born
herself), "see the world and learn."
"Well, what do you say to it? I don't find the flaw in him. If Heaven had
given me a son, I'd have had him be like this one; and since it didn't,
why here's my way to circumvent Heaven."
"Oh, my dear," said the wife, "I can't hear you talk so. And besides--"
"Well? Besides what?"
"I think it is always best to let such things take their own course. We
did."
"Of course we did," laughed Mr. Maurice. "But how about our fathers and
mothers?"
"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice, "not to force things."
"And who intends to force them? It's plain enough the young fellow took a
fancy to our Frarnie the first time he laid eyes on her, isn't it?"
"I mean," said Mrs. Maurice again, "that if Frarnie should have the same
fancy for him, I don't know that there'd be any objection. He is quite
uncommon--quite uncommon when you consider all things--but I don't know
why you want to lead her to like any one in particular, when she has such
a nice home and is all we have."
"Girls will marry, Mrs. Maurice. If it isn't one, it will be another. So I
had rather it should, be one, and that one of my own choosing--one who,
will use her well, and not make ducks and drakes of her money as soon as
we are gone where there's no returning, and without a 'thank you' for your
pains. Look at them now! Should you imagine they thought there was any one
else on earth but each other at this moment? They're fond of each other,
that's plain. They'd be a remarkable-looking couple. What do you think of
it?"
"Frarnie might have that India shawl that I never undid, to appear out
in," said Mrs. Maurice, pensively, continuing her own reflections rather
than directly replying. "And I suppose we needn't lose her really, for she
could make her home with us."
And so the conspiracy advanced, its simple victims undreaming of its
approach--Louie sighing faintly to think she saw so little of Andrew now,
but content, since she was sure it was for his best interest to make the
friendship of the Sabrina's owner; Andrew fretting to see how all this
necessary submission to superiors kept him from Louie, but more than half
compensated with the dazzling visions that danced before his eyes of the
Sabrina in her new rig--of the barque coming down for her masts and sails
from her launching.
The Sabrina had been so badly injured by her disasters that it took much
more time to repair her than had at first been thought. "I'm going to
stand by the old brig," said Andrew to some one--by accident it was in Mr.
Maurice's hearing. "But if I'd known it was going to take so long to have
her whole again, I should have made a penny in taking a run down the bay,
for I had an offer to go second mate on the Tartar."
"I'll go one better than that," said Mr. Maurice then. "Here's the
Frarnie, nearly ready to clear for New Orleans and Liverpool, with your
old captain. You shall go mate of her. That'll show if you can handle a
ship. The Sabrina won't be at the wharf till the round voyage is over and
the Frarnie coming up the stream again. What say you?"
Of course what Andrew said was modest thanks--what he felt was a rhapsody
of delight; and when he told Louie that night, what she said was a sob,
and what she felt was a blank of fright and foreboding. Oh what should she
do? cried the selfish little thing--what should she do in the long, long,
weary days with Andrew gone? But then in a moment she remembered that this
was the first step toward going master of that craft in which her bridal
voyage was to be taken. "And what a long step it is, Andrew!" she cried.
"Was the like of it ever known before? What a long, long step it would be
but for that bitter apprenticeship when you and the captain brought the
wreck home!"
"Ay," said Andrew, proudly: "I served my time before the mast then, if
ever any did."
"And I suppose with the next step you will be master of the Sabrina? Oh, I
should so like it!"
"I don't know," said Andrew, more doubtfully than he had used to speak.
"I'm afraid the owners will think this is enough. This is a great lift.
I'll do my best to satisfy them, though; for I'd rather sail master of the
Sabrina than of the biggest man-of-war afloat."
"We used to play round her when we were children," said Louie,
encouragingly. "Don't you remember leading me down once to admire the lady
on her stern?--like a water-witch just gilded in the rays of some sunrise
she had come up to see, you said."
"Yes; and we used to climb her shrouds, we boys, and get through the
lubber-hole, before we could spell her name out. She's made of heart of
oak: she'll float still when the Frarnie is nothing but sawdust. We used
to watch for her in the newspapers--we used to know just as much about her
goings and comings as the owner did. Somehow--I don't know why--I've
always felt as if my fate and fortune hung upon her. It used to be the top
of my ambition to go master of her. It is now. I couldn't make up my mind
to leave her when the others did that cruel morning after the wreck; and
when the captain said he should stay by her, my heart sprang up as if she
had been a living thing, and I stayed too. And I'd rather sail her than a
European steamer to-day--that I would, by George!"
"Oh, of course you will," said the sympathizing voice beside him.
"I don't know," said Andrew again, more slowly and reflectively. "I've the
idea--and I can't say how I got it--that there's some condition or other
attached to my promotion--that there's something Mr. Maurice means that I
shall do, and if I don't do it I don't get my lift. It can't be anything
about wages: I don't know what it is!"
"Perhaps," said Louie, innocently, and without a glimpse of the train her
thoughtless words fired--"perhaps he means for you to marry Frarnie!"
laughing a little laugh at the absurd impossibility.
And Andrew started as if a bee had stung him, and saw it all. But in a
moment he only drew Louie closer, and kissed her more passionately, and
sat there caressing her the more tenderly while they listened to a thrush
that had built in the garden thicket, mistaking it for the wood, so near
the town's edge was it, and so still and sunny was the garden all day long
with its odors of southernwood and mint and balm; and he delayed there
longer, holding her as if now at least she was his own, whatever she might
be thereafter.
As he walked home that night, and went and sat upon the wharf and watched
the starlit tide come in, he saw it all again, but with thoughts like a
procession of phantoms, as if they had no part even in the possible things
of life, and were indeed nothing to him. How could they have any meaning
to him--to him, Louie's lover? What would the whole world be to him, what
the sailing of the Sabrina, without Louie? And then a shiver ran across
him: what would Louie be to him without the sailing of the Sabrina! for
that, indeed, as he had said, was the top of his ambition, and that being
his ambition, perhaps ambition, was as strong with him as love.
But with this new discovery on Andrew's part of Mr. Maurice's desires,
Andrew could only recall circumstances, words, looks, hints: he could not
shape to himself any line of duty or its consequences: enough to see that
Mr. Maurice fancied his simple and thoughtless attentions to Frarnie to be
lover-like, and, approving him, looked kindly on them and made his plans
accordingly; enough to see that if he should reject this tacit proffer of
the daughter's hand, then the Sabrina was scarcely likely to be his; and
that in spite of such probability, the first and requisite thing in honor
for him to do was to tell Mr. Maurice of his marriage engagement with
Louie, and then, if the man had neither gratitude nor sense enough to
reward him for his assistance in saving the brig, to trust to fortune and
to time, that at last makes all things even. As he sat there listening to
the lapping of the water and idly watching the reflected stars peer up and
shatter in a hundred splinters with every wash of the dark tide, he could
not so instantaneously decide as to whether he should make this confession
or not. "What business is it of Maurice's?" he said to himself. "Does he
think every one that looks at his scarecrow of a daughter--" But there he
had need to acknowledge to himself his injustice to Miss Frarnie, a modest
maiden who had more cause to complain of him than he of her, since he had
done his best to please her, and her only fault lay in being pleased so
easily. She was pleased with him: he understood that now, though his
endeavors to enlist her had been for a very different manifestation of
interest. Perhaps it flattered him a little: he paused long enough to
consider what sort of a lot it would be if he really had been plighted to
Frarnie instead of Louie. Love and all that nonsense, he had heard say,
changed presently into a quiet sort of contentment; and if that were so,
it would be all the same at the end of a few years which one he took. He
felt that Frarnie was not very sympathetic, that her large white face
seldom sparkled with much intelligence, that she would make but a dull
companion; but, for all that, she would be, he knew, an excellent
housewife: she would bring a house with her too; and when a man is
married, and has half a dozen children tumbling round him, there is
entertainment enough for him, and it is another bond between him and the
wife he did not love too well at first; and if she were his, his would be
the Sabrina also, and when the Sabrina's days were over perhaps a great
East Indiaman, and with that the respect and deference of all his
townsmen: court would be paid to him, his words would be words of weight,
he would have a voice in the selection of town-officers, he would roll up
money in the bank, and some day he should be master of the great Maurice
mansion and the gardens and grapehouses. It was a brilliant picture to
him, doubtless, but in some way the recollection of two barelegged little
children digging clams down on the flats when the tide was out, with the
great white lighthouse watching them across the deserted stretches of the
long bent eel-grass, rose suddenly and wiped the other picture out, and he
saw the wind blowing in Louie's brown and silken hair and kissing the
color on her cheeks; he saw the shy sparkle of her downcast eyes, lovely
and brown then as they were now; and as he stood erect at last, snapping
his fingers defiantly, he felt that he had bidden Mr. Maurice's ships and
stocks and houses and daughter go hang, and had made his choice rather to
walk with Louie on his arm than as master of the Sabrina.
It was a good resolution; and if he had but sealed it by speaking next day
to Mr. Maurice of his engagement, there would not have been a word to say.
But, though he valiantly meant to do it, it was not so easy, after all, as
he had thought, and so he put it off for a more convenient season, and the
season did not come, and the day of sailing did. And the outfit that went
on board the Frarnie was made and packed by the hands of Mrs. Maurice and
her daughter--such an outfit as he had never dreamed of; such warm woolens
for the storms, such soft linens for the heats, such finery for port, such
dainties and delicacies as only the first mate of the Frarnie could think
to have. And as for Louie, it was no outfit, no costly gift of gold or
trouble either, that she could give him: she had nothing for him but a
long, fine chain woven of her own hair, and she hung it round his neck
with tears and embraces and words that could not be uttered and sighs that
changed to sobs, and then came lingering delay upon delay, and passionate
parting at the last. But when the crew had weighed anchor and the sails
were swelling and the waves beyond the bar crying out for them, Miss
Frarnie and her mother could still be seen waving their handkerchiefs from
an upper window; and half blind with the sorrow and the pain he choked
away from sight, and mad with shame to think he had found no way but to
accept their favors, Andrew felt that their signal must be answered, and
sullenly waved his own in reply; and then the pilot was leaving the
barque, and presently the shore and all its complications, and Louie
crying herself sick, were forgotten in the excitement of the moment and
its new duties.
"Didn't say a word of love to Frarnie, eh?" remarked Mr. Maurice in answer
to his wife's communications that evening. "A noble lad, then! I like him
all the better for it. He shall have her all the sooner. He won't abuse
our confidence: that's it. He'll wait till he's bridged over the gap
between them. The first mate of a successful voyage is a better match for
my daughter than the boy who stayed by the Sabrina, brave as he was. He's
fond of her? Don't you think so? There's no doubt about that? None at all!
All in good time--all in good time. I'll speak to him myself. They're
going to write to each other? I thought so."
Short as the trip was that the Frarnie made in that favorable season, it
seemed to Louie an interminable period; but from the cheerful, hopeful
smile upon her lips no one would ever have known how her heart was longing
for her lover as she went about her work; for the little housekeeper had
quite too much to do in keeping the cottage clean, the garden weedless,
the nets mended, to be able to neglect one duty for any love-sick fancies
it might be pleasant to indulge. From morning till night her days were
full in bringing happiness to others: there was her father to make
comfortable; there were the sick old women, of whom her aunt brought word,
to concoct some delicacy for--a cup of custard, to wit, a dish of the
water-jelly she had learned how to make from the sea-moss she gathered on
the beach, a broiled and buttered mushroom from the garden; there were the
canaries and the cat to be cared for, and the dog that Andrew left with
her to feed and shower caresses on; and there was the parrot's toilet to
be made and her lesson to be taught, and the single jars of preserves and
pickles and ketchups to be put up for winter, and the herbs to be dried:
there were not, you may see, many minutes to be wasted out of that busy
little life in castle-building or in crying. One day there came a letter
with Victoria's head and the Liverpool stamp upon it: she knew it by heart
presently, and wore it next her heart by night and day; and even if she
had known that Miss Frarnie Maurice received one in the same handwriting
by the same mail, it would hardly have made much difference to her; and
one day the Sabrina, all freshly coppered and painted and repaired, with
new masts and sails, and so much else that it was not easy to say what
part of her now represented the old brig, came round to her old wharf and
began to take in cargo. Louie ran down one evening with her father, and
went all over her from stem to stern, only one old sailor being aboard;
and she could have told you then every rope from clew to ear-ring; and, as
if it were all the realization of a dream, a thousand happy, daring
thoughts of herself and Andrew then filled her fancy like birds in a nest;
and so swiftly after that did one day flow into another for Louie that the
Frarnie lay in the mid-stream once more before she had more than begun to
count the days to that on which her Liverpool letter had promised that she
should see its writer come walking into her father's cottage again.
But she never did see him come walking into her father's cottage again.
That promised day passed and the night, and another--a long, long day that
seemed as if it would never quench its flame in sunset, and a night that
seemed as if it would never know the dawning; but the threshold of the
fisherman's cottage Andrew Traverse crossed no more.
For Mr. Maurice, on his notable errand of circumventing Heaven, had been
ahead of Fate, and had gone down on the pilot-boat to meet the
Frarnie--with no settled designs of course, but in his own impatient
pleasure; and, delighted with the shipmaster's report and with the
financial promise of the voyage, the cargo, the freights, and ventures and
all, had greeted Andrew with a large-hearted warmth and after a manner
that no churl could withstand; and unwilling to listen to any refusal, had
taken Andrew up to the mansion-house with him the moment the ship had
touched the wharf.
"You don't ask after her?" said Mr. Maurice when they were alone in the
chaise together. And knowing well enough what he meant, Andrew blushed
through all his bronze--knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in
a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he
understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad
enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin!
"Oh, you scamp!" said Mr. Maurice, quickly then detecting the blush.
"Don't say a word! I've been there myself: I know how you're longing to
see her; and she's been at the window looking through the glass every half
hour, the puss!"
"Mr. Maurice," began Andrew, half trembling, but wholly resolved, he
thought--although it must be confessed that with time, and distance, and
Frarnie's effusive letters and flattering prospects on the other hand,
Louie's image was not so bright at that moment as it had been at others,
and for that very reason Andrew was taking great credit to himself for his
upright intentions--credit enough to tide him over a good deal of baseness
if need were,--"Mr. Maurice--" he began; and there he paused to frame his
sentence more suitably, for it was no easy thing to tell a man that he was
throwing his child at one who did not care for her, and that man the
disposer of his fortunes.
But Mr. Maurice saved him any such trouble. "I know all you're going to
say," he exclaimed. "I understand your hesitation, and I honor you for it.
But I'm no fool, and there's no need to have you tell me that you want my
Frarnie, for I've known that long ago."
"Mr. Maurice!"
"Yes, I have," answered the impulsive gentleman. "Mrs. Maurice and I
talked it over as soon as we saw which way the wind lay; but of course we
decided to say nothing till we were sure, quite sure, that it was Frarnie
and not her prospects--"
"Oh, sir, you--"
"Tush, tush! I know all about it now. But it becomes a father to be wary,"
continued the other, taking the words from Andrew's lips in spite of
himself, and quite wary enough not to mention that in Frarnie's
easily-excited favor a young scapegrace was very likely to supplant Mr.
Andrew if things were not brought to a point at once. "It was my duty to
look at all sides," he said, without stopping for breath. "Now I know you,
and I see you'd rather give the girl the go-by for ever than have her
think you wanted her because she was her father's daughter, and not some
poor fisherman's."
"Indeed, indeed--" began Andrew again, leaning forward, his cheeks
crimson, his very hands shaking.
"Of course, my boy," interrupted his companion as before--"of course.
Don't say a word: you're welcome to her at last. I never thought I'd
surrender her to any one so freely; but if I were choosing from all the
world, Andrew, I don't know any one I'd choose sooner for my son. She's a
sensible girl, my Frarnie is, at bottom. We know her heart: it's a good
heart--only the froth of all young girls' fancies to be blown off. And the
Sabrina always was a pet of mine, and, though I've said nothing of it,
I've meant her for Frarnie's husband this many a day." And before Andrew,
in his flurry and embarrassment and bewilderment, could enunciate any
distinct denial of anything or avowal of anything else, the chaise was at
the door, and Mrs. Maurice was waiting for him with extended hands, and
Frarnie was standing and smiling behind, half turned to run away. And Mr.
Maurice cried out: "Captain Traverse of the Sabrina, my dear! Here,
Frarnie, Frarnie! none of your airs and graces! Come and give your
sweetheart an honest kiss!" And Andrew, doubting if the minister were not
behind the door and he should not find himself married out of hand,
irresolute, cowardly, too weak to give up the Sabrina and that sweet new
title just ringing in his ears, was pushed along by Mr. Maurice's foolish,
hearty hand till he found himself bending over Frarnie with his arm around
her waist, his lips upon her cheek, and without, as it seemed to him,
either choice or volition on his part. But as he looked up and saw the
portraits of the girl's grandfathers, where they appeared to be looking
down at him stern and questioning, a guilty shame over the wrong he was
doing their child smote him sorely: he saw that he had allowed the one
instant of choice to slip away; the sense came over him that he had sealed
his own doom, while a vision of Louie's face, full of desolation and
horror, was scorching in upon his soul; and there, in the moment of
betrothal, his punishment began. He stole down to the Sabrina's wharf that
evening, after the moon had set, and looking round to see that it was
quite forsaken at that hour, he took from his neck a long, slender
hair-chain to drop over into the deep water there; but as he held the
thing it seemed suddenly to coil round his hand with a caress, as if it
were still a part of Louie's self. He stamped his foot and ground his heel
into the earth there with a cry and an oath, and put the chain back again
whence he had taken it, and swore he would wear it till they laid his
bones under ground. And he looked up at the dark lines of the brig looming
like the black skeleton of an evil thing against the darkness of the
night, and he cursed himself for a traitor to both women--for a hypocrite,
a craven, a man sold to the highest bidder. Well, well, Captain Traverse,
there are curses that cling! And Louie sat in the gloom at the window of
the fisherman's cottage down below the town, and sighed and wondered and
longed and waited, but Captain Traverse went back to the Maurices'
mansion.
* * * * *
It is one of the enigmas of this existence how women forgive the wrong of
such hours as came to Louie now--hours of suspense and suffering--hours of
a misery worse than the worm's misery in blindness and pain before it
finds its wings.
At first she expected her lover, and speculated as to his delay, and
fretted to think anything might detain him from her; and now she was
amazed, and now vexed, and now she was forgiving the neglect, accusing
herself and making countless excuses for him; and now imagining a thousand
dire mishaps. But as the third day came and he was still away--he who had
been always wont to seek her as soon as the craft was made fast to
wharf--then she felt her worst forebodings taking bodily shape: he was
ill, he had fallen overboard, he had left the vessel at Liverpool and
shipped upon another, and a letter would come directly to say so; or else
he had been waylaid and robbed and made away with: not once did she dream
that he was false to her--to her, a portion of his own life!
How it was with him there were numberless ways in which she might have
discovered, for every soul of her acquaintance knew Andrew, and must be
aware of the fact if he were missing or ailing, or if any other ill chance
had befallen him. But as often as she tried to address one or another
passing by the window, her voice failed her and her heart, and she asked
no questions, and only waited on. A life of suspense, exclaims some one, a
life of a spider! And when we are in suspense, says another, all our aids
are in suspense with us. Day after day she stayed continually in the
house, looking for him to come, never stirring out even into the garden,
lest coming she might miss him. Night after night she sat alone at her
window till the distant town-clocks struck midnight--now picturing to
herself the glad minute of his coming, the quick explaining words, the
bursting tears of relief, the joy of that warm embrace, the touch of those
strong arms--now convinced that he would never come, and her heart sinking
into a bitter loneliness of despair.
It grew worse with her when she knew that he was really in the town, alive
and well; for, from the scuttle in the roof, by the aid of her father's
glass, she could see the Sabrina, and one day she was sure that a form
whose familiar outlines made her pulses leap was Andrew himself giving
orders on the deck there; and after that she tortured herself with
conjectures till her brain was wild--chained hand and foot, unable to
write him or to seek him in any maidenly modesty, heart and soul in a
ferment. Still she waited in that shuddering suspense, with every nerve so
tightly strung, that voice or footfall vibrated on them into pain. If
Andrew, in the midst of the gayeties by which he found himself accepted of
the Maurices' friends, was never haunted by any thought of all this, his
heart had grown stouter in one year's time than twenty years had found and
left it previously.
But Louie's suspense was of no long duration, as time goes, though to her
it was a lifetime. A week covered it--a week full of stings and fevered
restlessness--when her father came in one day and said bitterly, thinking
it best to make an end of all at once: "So I hear that a friend of ours
has been paid off at last. Captain Andrew Traverse of the Sabrina is going
to marry his owner's daughter Frarnie. Luck will take passage on that
brig!" And when Louie rose from the bed on which she lay down that night,
the Sabrina had been a fortnight gone on her long voyage--a voyage where
the captain had sailed alone, postponing the evil day perhaps, and at any
rate pleading too much inexperience, for all his dazzling promotion, to be
trusted with so precious thing as a wife on board during the first trip.
He had not felt that hesitation once when portraying the possibilities of
the voyage to another.
It was not a long illness, Louie's, though it had been severe enough to
destroy for her consciousness both of pain and pleasure. Her aunt had left
other work and had nursed her through it; but when, strong and well once
more, she went about her old duties, it seemed to her that that
consciousness had never returned: she took up life with utter listlessness
and indifference, and she fancied that her love for Andrew was as dead as
all the rest. The poor little thing, laying this flattering unction to
heart, did not call much reason to her aid, or she would have known that
there was some meaning in it when she cried all day on coming across an
old daguerreotype of Andrew. "It isn't for love of him," she sobbed. "It's
for the loss of all that love out of my life that was heaven to me. Oh no,
no! I love him no longer: I can't, I can't love him: he is all the same as
another woman's husband." But, despite this stout assertion, she could not
bring herself to part with that picture: he was not in reality quite the
husband of another woman, and till he was indeed she meant to keep it. "He
is only promised to her yet, and he was promised first to me," she said
for salve to conscience; and meanwhile the picture grew so blurred with
conscious tears, and perhaps with unconscious kisses, that it might have
been his or another's: Miss Frarnie herself, had she seen it, could not
have told whose it was.
Notwithstanding all the elasticity of youth, life became an inexpressibly
dull thing to Louie as the year wore into the next--dull, with neither aim
nor object, the past a pain to remember, the future a blank to consider.
She could live only from day to day, one day like another, till they grew
so wearisome she wondered her hair was not gray--the pretty hair that,
shorn from her head in her illness, had grown again in a short fleece of
silky curls--for it seemed to her that she had lived a hundred years. And
because troubles never come alone, and one perhaps makes the other seem
lighter and better to be borne, in the thick of a long winter's storm they
brought home her father, the old fisherman, drowned and dead.
Captain Traverse knew of the old fisherman's death through the newspapers
that found him in his foreign ports--not through Miss Frarnie's letters,
for she knew almost nothing of the existence or non-existence of such low
people; and therefore, conjecture as he needs must concerning Louie's
means of livelihood now, there was no intelligence to relieve any anxiety
he might have felt, or to inform him of the sale of the cottage to pay the
debt of the mortgage under which it was bought, or of the support that
Louie earned in helping her aunt watch with the sick and lay out the dead:
he could only be pricked with knowledge of the fact that he had no right
to his anxiety, or to the mention of her name even in his prayers--if he
said them.
Poor little Louie! A sad end to such a joyous youth as hers had been, you
would have said; but, in truth, her new work was soothing to her: her
heart was simply in harmony with suffering, with death and desolation, and
by degrees she found that comfort from her double sorrows in doing her
best to bring comfort to others which it may be she could never have found
had she been the pampered darling of some wealthy house. Often, when she
forgot what she was doing, Louie made surmises concerning Frarnie Maurice,
wondering if she were the noble thing that Andrew needed to ennoble
him--if she were really so strong and beautiful that the mere sight of her
had killed all thought or memory of an older love; trying to believe her
all that his guardian angel might wish his wife to be, and to acknowledge
that she herself was so low and small and ignorant that she could only
have injured him--to be convinced that it was neither weakness, nor
covetousness, nor perjury in Andrew, having met the sun, to forget the
shadows; wondering then if Frarnie cared for him as she herself had done,
and crying out aloud that that could never be, until the sound of her own
sobs woke her from her forbidden dream. But at other times a calm came to
Louie that was more pathetic than her wildest grief: it was the
acquiescence in what Providence had chosen for Andrew, cost herself what
it might--it was the submission of the atom beneath the wheels of the
great engine.
It is true that as, late in the night, when all the town was asleep and
only silence and she abroad, she walked home by herself from some deathbed
whose occupant she had composed decently for the last sleep, she used to
wish it were herself lying there on that moveless pillow, and soon to be
sheltered from the cruel light by the bosom of the kindly earth. For now,
as she passed the birches softly rustling in the night wind, and hurried
by, she remembered other times when she had passed them, and had stopped
to listen, cared for, protected, with Andrew's arm about her; and now, as
the clocks, one after another, remotely chimed the hour, the sound smote
her with a familiar sweetness full of pain; and now, as she came along the
sea-wall and saw the dark river glimmering widely and ever the same, while
its mysterious tide flowed to meet the far-off spark of the lighthouse
lantern, she recalled a hundred happy hours when she and Andrew in the
boat together had rocked there in soft summer nights, with sunset melting
in the stream and wrapping them about with rosy twilight; or those when
whispers of the September gales swelled the sail, and the boat flew like a
gull from crest to crest of the bar; or those when misty sea-turns crept
up stream and folded them, and drowned the sparkle of the lighthouse and
the emerald and ruby ray of the channel lights, and left them shut away
from the world, alone with each other on the great gray current silently
sweeping to the sea--times when she knew no fear, trusting in the strong
arm and stout heart beside her, before the river had brought death to her
door; when the whole of life seemed radiant and rich--times that made this
solitary night walk trodden now seem colder and drearier and darker than
the grave--that made her wish it ended in a grave.
And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the
sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood
had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more
gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed
that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the
harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her
heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the
thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy
climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for
home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose
to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers,
unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a
black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men
called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina.
As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread
through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was
regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be
believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a
pestilence themselves. Exaggerated accounts of a swift, strange illness,
by many believed to be the ancient plague revived again and cast loose
through the land from Asiatic ships had reached the old port; and aware
that they were peculiarly exposed by reason of their trade, small as it
was, the people there had already died a thousand deaths through
expectation of the present coming of the fever already raging in other
parts. Hitherto, the health-officers, boarding everything that appeared,
had found no occasion to give anything but clean papers, and the town had
breathed again. But now, when at last it spread from lip to lip that the
fever lay at anchor in mid-channel, knees shook and cheeks grew white, and
health-officer and port-physician, in spite of the almost instantaneous
brevity of their visit to the infected vessel, were avoided as though they
were the pestilence themselves, and not a soul in all the town was found
to carry a cup of cold water to the gasping, burning men cared for only by
those in less desperate strait than themselves, and who, having buried
two-thirds of their number in deep-sea soundings, were likely to be denied
as much as a grave on shore themselves; while to Mr. Maurice, half wild
with perplexity and foreboding and amazement at Miss Frarnie's yet wilder
terror,--to him the red lantern hung out by the brig at nightfall
magnified itself in the mist into a crimson cloud where with wide wings
lurked the very demon of Fever himself.
Not a soul to carry the cup of cold water, did I say? Yes, one timid
little soul there was, waiting in a fever of longing herself--waiting that
those who had a right to go might do so if they would--waiting till
assured that neither Frarnie Maurice nor her parents had the first
intention of going, though affianced husband and chosen son lay dying
there--waiting in agony of impatience, since every delay might possibly
mean death,--one little brave and timid soul there was who ventured forth
on her errand of mercy alone. The fisherman's old boat still lay rocking
in the cove, and the oars stood in the shed: Louie knew how to use them
well, and making her preparations by daylight, and leaving the rest till
nightfall, lest she should be hindered by the authorities, she found means
to impress the little cow-boy into her service; and after dark a keg of
sweet water was trundled down and stored amidships of the boat, with an
enormous block of ice rolled in an old blanket; a basket of lemons and
oranges was added, a roll of fresh bed-linen, a little box of such
medicines as her last year's practice had taught her might be of use; and
extorting a promise from the boy that he would leave another block of ice
on the bank every night after dark for her to come and fetch, Louie
quickly stepped into the boat, lifted the oars, and slipt away into the
darkness of the great and quiet river.
When, three days afterward, Captain Traverse unclosed his eyes from a
dream of Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for
ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and
tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into
slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage
and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in
a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with
heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a
new delirium chained him, a mattress lay upon the deck with the awning of
an old sail stretched above it and making soft shadow out of searching
sun, a gentle wind was blowing over him, a land-breeze full of sweet
scents from the gardens on the shore, from the meadows and the marshes.
Silence broken only by a soft wash of water surrounded him; a flake of ice
lay between his lips, that had lately been parched and withering, and
delicious coolness swathed his head, that had seemed to be a ball of
burning fire. The last that he remembered had been a hot, dry, aching
agony, and this was bliss: the sleep into which he fell when waking from
the stupor that had benumbed his power of suffering--a power that had
rioted till no more could be suffered--lasted during all the spell of that
fervid noon sun that hung above the harbor and the town like the unbroken
seal of the expected pestilence. A strange still town, fear and heat
keeping its streets deserted, its people longing for an east wind that
should kill the fever, yet dreading lest it should blow the fever in on
them; a strange still harbor, its great peaceful river darkened only by
that blot where the sun-soaked craft swung at her anchor; a strange still
craft, where nothing stirred but one slender form, one little being that
went about laying wet cloths upon this rude sailor's head, broken ice
between the lips of that one, moistening dry palms, measuring out cooling
draughts, and only resting now and then to watch one sleeper sleep, to
hang and hear if in that deep dream there were any breathing and it were
not the last sleep of all. And in Louie's heart there was something just
as strange and still as in all other things throughout that wearing,
blinding day; but with her the calm was not of fear, only of unspeakable
joy; for if Andrew lived it was she that had saved him, and though he
died, his delirium had told her that his heart was hers. "If he dies, he
is mine!" she cried triumphantly, forgetting all the long struggle of
scruple and doubt, "and if he lives, he shall never be hers!" she cried
softly and with that inner voice that no one hears.
And so the heat slipped down with the sun to other horizons, coolness
crept in upon the running river's breast with the dusk, dew gathered and
lay darkly glittering on rail and spar and shroud as star by star stole
out to sparkle in it; and Andrew raised his eyes at length, and they
rested long and unwaveringly on the little figure sitting not far away
with hands crossed about the knees and eyes looking out into the last
light--the tranquil, happy face from which a white handkerchief kept back
the flying hair while giving it the likeness of a nun's. Was it a dream?
Was it Louie? Or was it only some one of the tormenting phantoms that for
so many burning days had haunted him? He tried in vain to ask: his tongue
clove to the roof of his mouth; he seemed to be in the power of one of
those fierce nightmares where life depends on a word and the word is not
to be spoken. Only a vision, then: he closed his lids thinking it would be
gone when he lifted them, but he did not want it to be gone, and looked
again to find it as before. And by and by it seemed to him that long
since, in a far-off dream, he had gathered strength and uttered the one
thought of his fever, "Louie, what do you do now?" and she had answered
him, as though she thought aloud, "I stroke the dead;" and he had cried
out, "Then presently me too, me too! And let the shroud be shotted heavily
to bury me out of your sight!" And he was crying it out again, but while
he spoke a mouth was laid on his--a warm, sweet mouth that seemed to
breathe fresh spirit through his frame--his head was lifted and pillowed
on a breast where he could hear the heart beneath flutter like a happy
bird, and he was wrapped once more in slumber, but this time slumber sweet
as it was deep.
Morning was dawning over the vessel's side, a dream of rosy lustre sifting
through the purple and pearly mist, behind which the stars grew large and
lost while it moved away to the west in one great cloud, and out of which
the river gleamed as if just newly rolled from its everlasting
fountains,--morning was dawning with the sweet freshness of its fragrant
airs stealing from warm low fields, when Andrew once more lifted his eyes
only to find that tranquil face above him still, that happy heart still
beating beneath his pillowed head. "Oh, Louie," he sighed, "speak to
me--say--have I died?--am I forgiven?--is this heaven?"
"To me, dear--oh to me!" answered she with the old radiant smile that used
to make his pulse quicken, and that, ill as he yet was, reassured him as
to his earthly latitude and longitude.
"And it was all a dream, then?" he murmured. "And I have not lost you?" He
raised his wasted hand and drew from his breast the little hair chain that
he had hidden there so long ago. "It was a fetter I could not break," he
whispered. "I wrote her all about it long ago. I wrote her father that he
should have his vessel back again--and I would take my freedom--and not a
dollar's wages for the voyage would I ever draw of him. But I should never
have dared see you--for--oh, Louie--how can you ever--"
"Hush, hush, dear!" she breathed. "What odds is all that now? We have our
life before us."
"Only just help me live it, Louie."
"God will help us," she answered. And as she spoke a sudden rainbow leaped
into the western heaven as if to seal her promise, and as it slowly faded
there came a wild salt smell, an air that tingled like a tonic through the
veins: the east wind was singing in from sea, bringing the music of
breaker and shore, and the fever was blasted by its breath throughout the
little Sabrina.
HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
Old Sadler's Resurrection:
A Yarn of the Mexican Gulf.
"Talking about ghosts," said the captain, "listen while I spin you a bit
of a yarn which dates back some twenty-five years ago, when, but a wee bit
of a midshipman, I was the youngster of the starboard steerage mess on
board the old frigate Macedonian, then flag-ship of the West India
squadron, and bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Jesse Wilkinson.
"It would hardly interest you to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and
ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two
steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the
taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore
gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat
eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the
quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we
planked up and down the lee side, tired enough, and waiting for eight
bells to strike to rush below and call our relief. He was an austere man,
and, unlike the brave old commodore, made no allowance for our pranks and
skylarking.
"Among our crew, made up of some really splendid fellows, but with an odd
mixture of 'Mahonese,' 'Dagos,' 'Rock-Scorpions,' and other countrymen,
there was an old man-of-war's man named Sadler--a little, dried-up old
chap of some sixty years, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, so he
said, and had been up and down, all around and criss-cross the world so
often that he had actually forgotten where he had been, and so had all his
geography lessons, learned by cruising experience, sadly mixed up in his
head; which, although small, with a little old, weazened frontispiece, was
full of odds and ends of yarns, with which he used to delight us young
aspirants for naval honors, as he would spin them to us on the booms on
moonlight nights, after the hammocks had been piped down. How well do I
remember the old fellow's appearance!--his neat white frock and trowsers,
his low-quarter purser's shoes, with a bit of a ribbon for a bow; no
socks, save the natural, flesh-tinted ones, a blue star, done in India
ink, gleaming on his instep; his broad blue collar, decorated with stars
and two rows of white tape, falling gracefully from a neck which, as we
youngsters asserted, had received its odd-looking twist from hanging too
long by a grape vine, with which the Isle of Pines' pirates had strung him
up when he was chasing them under old Commodore Kearney's command. Anyhow,
old, sharp-faced, wrinkled and tanned to the color of a sole-leather
trunk, the whole cut of his jib told you at once that he was a regular
man-of-war's man--one of a class whose faults I can hardly recall while
remembering their sense of duty, their utter disregard of danger, and the
reliance with which you can lead them on to attack anything, from a
hornet's nest to an iron-clad.
"Well, it so happened, one hot day, while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico,
that the news came to us that old Sadler was dead; and sure enough it was
so, for the old fellow had quietly slipped his moorings, and, as we all
hoped, had at last gone to where the sweet little cherub sits up aloft who
looks out for the soul of poor Jack. Then, after the doctors had had a shy
at him, to see why he had cleared out so suddenly, his remains were taken
in charge by his messmates, who rigged the old man out in his muster
clothes, sewed him up in his clean white hammock, with an eighteen pound
shot at his feet, and reported to the officer of the deck that the body
was ready for burial. So, about six bells in the afternoon watch, the
weather being very hot, and not a breath of air to ripple the glassy
surface of the water, the lieutenant of the watch directed one of the
young gentlemen to tell the boatswain to call 'All hands to bury the
dead;' and soon fore and aft the shrill whistles were heard, followed by
that saddest of all calls to a sailor at sea--'All hands bury the dead!'
"Our good old boatswain, Wilmuth, seemed to linger on the words with a
feeling akin to grief at parting with an old shipmate, and as the last man
reached the deck, he touched his hat and in a sad sort of way reported,
'All up, sir,' to the first lieutenant, who in his turn reported,
'Officers and men all on deck, sir,' to the commodore, who thereupon gave
an order to the chaplain to go on with the services.
"The courses were hauled up, main-topsail to the mast, band on the
quarter-deck, colors half-mast, and all hands, officers and men, stood
uncovered, looking silently and sadly upon the body as it lay upon the
gang-boards in its white hammock, ready for the last rites. Solemnly and
most impressively were the services read, and at the words, 'We commit his
body to the deep,' a heavy splash was heard, and poor old Sadler had gone
to his long home for ever. Some of us youngsters ran up in the lee main
rigging to see him go down, and as we watched him go glimmering and
glimmering down to a mere speck, we wondered where he was bound, and how
long it would take him to fetch Davy Jones' locker on that tack.
"'Pipe down, sir,' says the commodore to Mr. Bispham; 'Pipe down, sir,'
says Mr. Bispham to Mr. Alphabetical Gray, who was officer of the deck;
'Pipe down, sir,' says Mr. Gray to the gentleman of the watch; 'Pipe down,
sir,' says this youngster to the boatswain; and then _such_ a twitter of
pipes followed this order, and all hands were piped down, while poor old
Sadler was still off soundings, and going down as fast as the
eighteen-pound shot would take him.
"Now, you know that people coming from a funeral on shore always have a
gay sort of air, suppressed it may be, but still cropping out; and just so
is it with sailors at sea; for, Sadler's body committed to the deep, all
hands felt better: the fore and main tacks were hauled aboard, the main
yard was filled away, and the jib sheet hauled aft, and we all settled
down into every-day life, which, after all, is not half so monotonous on
board a man-of-war as you might suppose.
"Well, as I have said, the weather was very hot, the surface of the water
was as smooth as a mill-pond, the wind was all up and down the mast, and
so the old ship was boxing the compass all to herself, and not making a
foot of headway.
"At one bell in the first dog watch, Boyle, the ship's cook, reported the
tea-water ready, and after this came the inevitable evening-quarters--and
some old man-of-war's men would think the country was going to 'Jemmy
Square-toes' stern first if they didn't have quarters--then down hammocks
for the night at six bells, and after that just as much of fun, frolic,
dance, song and yarn spinning as all hands wanted until eight bells, when
the watch was called.
"John Moffitt, the sailing master, the best fellow in the ward-room mess,
and a great favorite with the youngsters, was officer of the deck from six
to eight o'clock; and my messmate, Perry Buckner, of Scott county,
Kentucky, the most dare-devil midshipman of us all, was master's mate of
the forecastle; Hammond, Marshall, Smith and I were the gentlemen of the
Watch; Rodney Barlow was quartermaster at the 'con;' the lookouts had just
been stationed; the men were singing, dancing, spinning yarns and
otherwise amusing themselves about the decks, while the old ship was
turning lazily around in the splendid moonlight as if admiring herself.
"Discipline, you know, is the very life of a man-of-war, and this must
account for what now took place. Tom Edwards, a young foretopman, had the
lee lookout, and as seven bells struck he sang out, 'Lee cat-head;' but
the last syllable died away on his lips as his eyes rested upon an
object--a white object--standing bolt upright in the water before him,
about a hundred yards distant and broad off on the lee bow. Suppressing a
strong desire to shriek, and recovering himself, he touched his hat and
said, 'Mr. Buckner, will you step up here, sir, if you please?'
"'What is she, Edwards?' said Buckner, as he quickly mounted the
hammock-rail.
"One look, a dip down, a shiver, and, O Lord! what did he see but _old
Sadler standing straight as a ramrod, and heading right for the ship!_
"It took Buck a full minute to recover himself, and then, with one eye on
the lee bow and the other on the quarter-deck, he walked aft and
deliberately touching his cap, reported to Moffitt, 'Old Sadler broad off
on the lee bow, sir.'
"'The d---- he is!' exclaimed Moffitt; but, checking himself, he said,
'Mr. Hammond, report Sadler's arrival to the commodore; and you, Mr.
M----, report it to the first lieutenant, sir.'
"My eyes were as big as saucers as I rushed down the steerage ladder and
into the ward-room, where I found the first lieutenant quietly seated
reading over the black list; and when, with my heart in my throat, I said,
'Mr. Bispham, old Sadler is on the lee bow, sir,' he serenely replied,
'Very well, Mr. M---- I'll be on deck directly.'
"'O Lord!' said I to myself--'to take a ghost as easily as all that!'
Bolting up the ladder on my way back to the deck, and trembling lest I
should see the ghost popping his head in through one of the gun-deck
ports, I ran into Hammond, who dodged me like a shot.
"When I got on deck the news was all out, for Tom Edwards couldn't stand
it any longer, but had just yelled out, 'Ghost ho! ghost ho! Look out!
stand from under! here he comes!' and bolted aft, scared out of his wits.
"In ten seconds all hands were on deck--ship's cook, yeoman, 'Jemmy Legs,'
'Jemmy Ducks,' 'Bungs,' Loblolly boy,' captain of the hold, and, by this
time, all the officers too, with the midshipmen scuttling up the ladders
as fast as their legs and hands could carry them.
"Moffitt had hauled up the courses and squared the main yard, as much to
make a diversion as anything else, although the men thought it was to keep
old Sadler from boarding us; and as they rushed up on deck they filled the
booms; lee rigging, hammock--netting and every available spot from which a
sight of the old fellow could be had.
"Very soon they saw that he was not approaching the ship: the old sinner
was just turning and turning around in the water, like a fishing-cork,
dancing away all to himself, while the moonlight, first on one side, and
then on the other, in light and shadow, gave a queer sort of look to his
features, sometimes sad and sometimes funny.
"After watching him for a few minutes, Bill Ellis, the second captain of
the foretop, hailed him thus: 'Sadler, ahoy! What do you want?'
"No answer being received, one of the mizzentop boys suggested that the
old man had come back for his bag and hammock, and that they ought to be
thrown overboard to him; but all this was cut short by the appearance of
the commodore on the quarter-deck, and upon him all eyes were turned as he
stepped upon the port horseblock, where a good view could be had.
"Now, old Jess was as brave an old fellow as ever sailed a ship, but he
did not fancy ghosts, and the knowledge that all hands were looking at him
to see how he took it made him feel a little nervous; but with a firm
voice he called for his night-glass, and when the quartermaster, with a
touch of his hat, handed it to him, he quietly arranged the focus, and, as
we all supposed, was about to point it at Sadler, who was still dancing
away for dear life all to himself. But old Jess was too smart for that: he
quietly directed his glass to another quarter, to gain a little time, and,
gradually sweeping the horizon, brought it at last, with a tremor of
mortal dread, to bear dead upon the ghost. Bless my soul! how the old
gentleman shook! But recovering himself, with a big gulp in his throat he
turned to the chaplain and said, 'Did you read the _full_ service over him
to-day, Mr. T----?'
"'I did, sir, as well as I can remember,' replied Mr. T.
"'Then, sir,' said the commodore, turning to Mr. Bispham and speaking in
an authoritative tone, 'we must send a boat and bring him on board.'
"'O Lord! O Lord!--bring a ghost on board!' groaned the men.
"'Silence, fore and aft!' said Mr. Bispham, 'and call away the second
cutter.'
"'Away there, you second cutters, away!' sung out the boatswain's mate.
But they didn't 'away' one step, and we youngsters could hear the men
growling out, 'What does the commodore want with old Sadler? This isn't
his place: let the old man rip: he is dead and buried all right. We didn't
ship to go cruising after ghosts: we shipped to reef topsails and work the
big guns; and if old Jess wants old Sadler on board, he had better go
after him himself.' Some said he had come back after his bag and hammock,
and the best way was to let him have them, and then he would top his boom
and clear out. Others said the purser had not squared off his account; and
one of the afterguard was seen to tickle the mainmast and whistle for a
breeze, to give the old fellow a wide berth. But it wouldn't do:
discipline is discipline; and after a free use of the colt and a good deal
of hazing, the boat's crew came aft, the cutter was lowered, and the men,
with their oars up and eyes upon the ghost, were waiting the order to
shove off, the bow oarsman having provided himself with a boarding-pike to
'fend off,' as he said, if the old man should fight.
"We youngsters knew that _somebody_ else was needed in that boat, and that
_somebody_ was a midshipman with his side-arms; but not a boy of us said a
word about it, and we were afraid even to catch the first lieutenant's
eye, lest he should be reminded that no young officer had, as usual, been
ordered to go; but the order came at last. When Moffitt asked the first
lieutenant, 'What officer, sir, shall I send in that boat?' we scattered
like a flock of birds, but all too late; for Mr. Bispham referred the
matter to the commodore, who, with a twinkle in his eye, said, 'Who
discovered the ghost, sir?'
"'Midshipman Buckner reported him, sir,' was the reply.
"'Then,' said the commodore, 'by priority of discovery he belongs to Mr.
Buckner, who will take charge of the cutter and bring him on board.'
"I heard all this from my place behind the mizzen mast, and you may guess
how glad I was not to have been selected; but a groan, a chattering of the
teeth, a trembling and shaking of bones close by my side, caused me to
look around, and there was poor Buck, with his priority honors thick upon
him.
"'Get your side-arms, sir,' said Moffitt: 'take charge of the cutter and
carry out the commodore's order.'
"'Ay, ay, sir!' said Buck, but oh with what a change in his voice! As he
buckled on his sword I could see what a struggle he was making to feel
brave. As he went over the gangway to get into the boat I caught his eye,
and if you could have seen that forlorn look you would have pitied him;
for there was old Sadler turning and turning in the water, looking first
this way, and then the other, and, as Buck thought, just ready to hook on
to him and carry him down among the dead men.
"It is no light matter to go up to a ghost, front face, full face, and
look him in the eye; but what must it be when you have to go up to him
_backward_, as that cutter's crew had to do while pulling their oars,
leaving only Buck and the cox-swain to face him? They just couldn't do it,
and at every stroke they would suddenly slew around on their thwarts and
look at the old fellow, who seemed to them as big as an elephant, and just
ready to clap on to them, boat and all, as soon as they turned to give
another stroke. Poor fellows! they made but little headway, and what with
catching crabs, fouling their oars, blasting old Sadler's eyes, and
denouncing him generally (one fellow fairly yelled outright when the bow
oarsman accidentally touched him), they had a hard pull of it; but still
they made some progress, and when Buck sang out, 'Way enough,' every oar
flew inboard, every man faced suddenly around, and with this the cutter
keeled over, and, her bow touching old Sadler on his shoulder, ducked him
out of sight for a second, at which all hands shouted, thinking that he
had gone for ever; but in a moment more up he popped, fresh as a lark,
higher than ever before, and this time right abreast of the stern-sheets,
where he bobbed and bowed to Buck, at which, with a yell of terror, all
hands went overboard, and, floundering in the water, begged for mercy. The
cutter had some little headway, and this of course brought Sadler astern
on the other quarter, and then there was a wild rush to get back into the
boat, for fear the old fellow was doubling on them to make a grab.
"The commodore, hearing the row and fearing disaster, ordered another boat
to the rescue, but ere it reached the spot, Buck had, in some manner,
quieted his men, who, seeing the ghost still standing bolt upright in the
water and dancing away as if nothing had happened to scare _him_, manned
their oars again and pulled cautiously toward him; while he, with that
changeable moonlight grin on his face, was bobbing up and down to the
boat's crew, as if Buck were the commodore himself coming to pay him a
visit.
"'Stand by, there in the bow, to hook on to him,' sang out Buck.
"'Ay, ay, sir! I'll fix him;' and with that, and a heavy expletive in
regard to the old fellow's eyes, the bow oarsman slammed his boarding-pike
right into the ghost, just abaft his left leg, and as the sharp steel
touched the body, a whizzing sound, like the escape of steam, was heard,
and without a word old Sadler vanished from sight for ever."
"But, captain, tell us what really brought the old gentleman back," said
one of the auditors.
"Well, just think of that tight white hammock, the light weight of the
shot, and the very hot weather--think, too, how easily a fishing-cork is
balanced in the water by a very small sinker, and lastly how confined air
will buoy up anything--and you have the whole secret of his coming back.
Let that air suddenly escape, and you have the secret of his
disappearance.
"Buck used to say that 'priority of discovery' was a good thing in the
days of Columbus, but if it was to be continued in force in the United
States navy, hang him if he should ever report another ghost, even if he
should see him walking the quarter-deck with the speaking-trumpet under
his arm."
R. D. MINOR.
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