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Within the Capes

by Howard Pyle · English · Gutenberg #48458 · 364,922 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Within the Capes

Author: Howard Pyle


        
Release date: March 11, 2015 [eBook #48458]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WITHIN THE CAPES ***

[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
text is surrounded by _underscores_.]



Within the Capes

    By
    HOWARD PYLE

    New York
    International Association of Newspapers and Authors
    1901




    COPYRIGHT, 1885,
    BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.


    NORTH RIVER BINDERY CO.
    PRINTERS AND BINDERS
    NEW YORK




        TO HIS FRIEND

     ALFRED LEIGHTON HOWE

    THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

             BY

        THE AUTHOR




WITHIN THE CAPES.




CHAPTER I.


CERTAIN members of Captain Tom Granger’s family have asked him, time
and time again, why he did not sit down and write an account of those
things which happened to him during a certain period of his life.

These happenings, all agree, are of a nature such as rarely fall to the
lot of any man, crowding, as they did, one upon the heels of another,
so that in two years’ time more happened to Tom Granger than happens to
most men in a lifetime.

But Captain Granger has always shaken his head, and has answered that
he was no writer and that a pen never did fit nicely betwixt his stiff
fingers, as Mrs. Granger can tell them if they will ask her.

Beside this, he has hitherto had his affairs to look after, so that he
may be able to leave behind him enough of the world’s goods to help his
children and his children’s children easily along the road that he
himself found not over smooth.

Now, however, he has given up much of his business to the care of his
sons, who are mostly men well on in years, with families of their own,
and who are discreet in the management of things. Therefore, having
much more leisure time upon his hands than he has ever had in his life
before, he will undertake to do as he has been asked, and to write a
plain, straightforward story of his adventures. This he does with much
diffidence, for, as I have said, he is no very good hand with the pen
and the ink-horn. The story may be told in a rough way; nevertheless, I
believe that many of those that read it will think well of it, having a
certain tenderness for the writer thereof.

I am furthermore inclined to thus take upon myself the transcribing of
the history of these things, because that Captain Tom Granger is coming
fast to the ending of his life; and, though his latter days may be
warm and sunny, like a late Indian summer, there are those yet to come
in a few years who will not have the chance to hear of these things
from his own lips. Therefore, as there has been much gossip about
certain adventures that befell him, I would rather that they should
learn of them under mine own hand than from hearsay. Truly, things get
monstrously twisted in passing from mouth to mouth, and by the time
that the story of these doings has passed down through three or four
generations, the old gentleman might be turned into a pirate and a
murderer, for all that I know, which would be a pretty state of affairs.

I do not know how it was that Tom Granger got the title of captain, for
the highest grade that he ever reached was that of second mate of the
Privateersman _Nancy Hazlewood_. However, as no one in Eastcaster ever
had held so high a grade of the like nature up to that time, I suppose
that the wonder really is that he was not called commodore, or even
admiral.

Any one in Eastcaster can tell you where he lives; it is the large
white house, with the porch in front, that stands well back from the
road under the shadow of three broad maple trees. It is just across
the way from the Hicksite Meeting-house. You can easily tell it as you
go along the street, because there is a ship in full sail chiseled in
relief on the stone gate-post, which is very well done indeed, and was
carved by William Johnson, the stone-cutter, under mine own direction
and supervision.

I will say here, that Captain Granger will be always glad to see you
if, at any time, you should chance to come to Eastcaster. If he is not
at home, you will be likely to find him playing chequers or backgammon
at the Black Horse Tavern, just around the corner of Market street, and
nearly opposite to the court-house.

However, that is neither here nor there, and I find that I am wandering
from the point. But you must excuse and overlook that, bearing in mind
that it is the way of an old man, who has done a great deal of talking
in his day. I thank goodness that I am old enough now to know better
than to gossip and talk as much as I used to do, and am rather silent
than otherwise.

Nevertheless, I promise now that I will heave ahead with my yarn,
though it may be that I will leave some things untold that you would
like to hear, being, as I said, no great talker, in which case you must
come to Eastcaster, and then I will tell you anything that you may want
to know.

I will not enter into a long yarn concerning what happened in Tom
Granger’s life before the year 1812, for though such a yarn would hold
within it many concerns of interest, it is not for the sake of relating
them that I have thus taken my pen betwixt my fingers. It was late in
the spring of that year (1812) when he returned home after a three
years’ cruise to the East Indies.

I think that there is no joy in all the world like that of getting home
again after a long voyage, such as this had been. I do not know but
that it repays one for all the sorrow and pain of leave-taking, and
for the home-sickness that follows thereon. Even such changes as have
happened betwixt the going and returning do not seem amiss, provided
that they have not brought grief and trouble with them.

The changes that had occurred since Tom’s departure in the summer
of 1809 had brought no sadness with them. When he had gone away,
he had left his sisters, Susan and Mary, as young girls; the former
sixteen and the latter fifteen years old. They had now grown into a
pair of fine young women and were chits no longer. This was the first
and greatest change that struck Tom, so you may see how little had
happened. The folks were already beginning to tease Susan about Will
Gaines, who had just returned from Philadelphia, where he had been
studying law, and had set up an office for himself in Eastcaster.

The next day was Sunday, or First-day, as we call it in Quaker
neighborhoods, and as all of the family were going to meeting, Tom put
on his best toggery to go with them.

It was a beautiful, bright clear day, and as Tom stood on the porch
waiting for Henry, who was to go with him, his heart swelled within
him with the love of home. It seemed sweet to him to look on the young
leaves of the trees, the green meadowlands and the richness of growing
wheat, after seeing nothing for months but a wide stretch of troubled
waters; it was good to feel the balmy blowing of a breeze that was not
salt; to hear the singing of the robin and the chattering of the wren;
the crowing of the cocks and the lowing of the cattle, and not to have
in his ears the everlasting washing and gurgling of the water alongside.

The folks use to ride to meeting on horseback in the old times, the
women behind the men on pillion saddles. But Tom was a sailor, and
consequently no good figure on horseback, so he and Henry, the
youngest, set off ahead of the rest to foot it, for the homestead farm
was only a mile and a half from Eastcaster meeting.

The meeting-house looked very pleasant where it stood, back from the
street under the shadow of the two great elms in front of it. The old
meeting-house was standing then, for they did not tear it down to make
room for the new building until ’32. The present building is larger
than the old one was, and is, no doubt, lighter and better, and more
comfortable in many ways; but for all that, I have never liked it as
well as the old black and red brick meeting-house, with its high roof
running up to a point from all four corners and topped with something
that looked like a belfry, though it had no bell in it, of course.

In the old days, as now, when the weather was warm and bright and
pleasant, the men used to stand for a while around the door of their
side of the meeting, talking and chatting together before they went
into the building. Such a group was standing on the grass under the
shadow of the elm trees as Tom and his brother Henry came up the steps
that led into the meeting-house yard.

Tom knew all of them, and they came forward and shook hands with him
and welcomed him heartily. Will Gaines was amongst them, for, though he
was not a member of the Society of Friends, he went to meeting as often
as he went anywhere else. It might have been that he came on Susan’s
account, though I do not say that he did.

He was the first to recognize Tom, and he came forward and shook hands
with him and seemed very glad to see him. A young man usually is glad
to see the brother of the young woman that he wants to marry, but I
think that Will really was pleased to see Tom, for he and Tom had been
dear friends from the time that they were children together. There were
other young men of Tom’s age amongst the group: John Black, Joseph
Sparks, Henry Jackson and others. They too came forward and shook hands
with him and seemed glad to see him, though not so glad as Will Gaines
had been.

Two men were standing by the open door of the meeting-house, talking
earnestly together. One of them was Isaac Naylor, and the other was Mr.
Edmund Moor, the real estate agent. As these two men had very much to
do with Tom’s life at a later time, it may be well that I should give
you a notion of them now.

Isaac Naylor was a young man—not over thirty at that time, I should
think. He dressed very plainly, and was so serious of deportment that I
do not know that any one ever saw him smile. He never jested himself,
and never enjoyed a jest, for he was too practical for such trivial
things. It was as though the man of him had been dried into parchment
by his continued self-repression. He was well off in the world, for his
father had died the year before, and, as Isaac was the only son, he
had inherited all the property, which was very large. Although such a
young man, he was high in the meeting, sitting in the gallery with men
old enough, in some cases, to be his grandfather.

Mr. Moor was not a member of meeting, though he attended pretty
regularly. He was a large, fleshy man, not exactly fat, but full
looking. He had a smooth, goodly face and straight iron-grey hair,
brushed straight back from his forehead and behind his ears. I never
heard him say an unkind word or saw him in anything but a cordial mood.
He was always full of jests and quaint turns of speech, and never
failed to shake Tom heartily by the hand whenever he met him; yet for
all that Tom did not like him. He had an oily, unctuous way, that was
not pleasing to him; he was always so goodly that he did not seem
sincere, and always so cordial that it did not seem as though he meant
his cordiality.

Such were the two men that were talking together by the meeting-house
door, and each welcomed him in his own manner.

“How is thee, Thomas?” said Isaac, dryly.

“Why! It’s Thomas Granger! Bless my soul! Back again like a bad penny,
eh?” said Mr. Moor, and he shook Tom by the hand with great warmth.

In the meantime, Tom’s father and his two brothers, John and William,
came over from the horse shed, where they had been hitching their
horses, and joined the group, and then they all went into the
meeting-house together, taking their seats on the hard wooden benches
within.

That morning they held a silent meeting, no one speaking for all the
hour between ten and eleven o’clock. Now and then the wind would rush
in little puffs through the open window and across the gloom of the
building. A fly buzzed against a window pane, and once a robin outside
burst into a sudden gush of song.

No other sound broke the silence, saving for the rustling of a dress,
as one of the women Friends would move in her seat, or the restless
sighing of some poor boy in the back part of the building. The
overseers sat ranged along on the raised bench facing the meeting, and
amongst them was Isaac Naylor. All of them sat with their hats on,
motionless, with downcast eyes, buried in serious thought: but no one
spoke.

At such a time every one is supposed to address a sermon to his own
heart, but I am very much afraid that Tom Granger addressed none to
himself, for his thoughts flew here and there and everywhere, and his
mind was never still a moment in the chase of them. Now and then he
shifted himself uneasily on the hard wooden bench, trying to find a
more comfortable position than the one in which he was sitting, but the
seats in Friends’ meeting were not made with a thought to comfort in
those days. There was a long partition that ran down the length of the
meeting, separating the men’s from the women’s side.

After a while Tom’s eyes wandered over this partition in a way that
they had no business to do. It was toward the place where his mother
and his sisters sat that his eyes rested the most, but it was not at
them that he was looking, for Patty Penrose sat between his mother and
him.

After a man has reached the age of four and twenty, it becomes a
continued source of wonder to him how the little girls about him grow
up into young women. You leave a poor lean little chit of a thing; a
few years pass, you meet her and, lo! she is transmogrified into a
young woman, going her sedate way with very different thoughts in her
head than when you saw her last. It seems as though it were only a
week or two since you patted her upon the head and said kind things to
encourage her; now your heart shrinks at the thought of such boldness,
and you feel that she needs encouragement no longer.

When Tom had last seen Patty Penrose, three years before, he left
her just such a little chit as I have spoken to you of,—lean and not
graceful. She used to come over now and then to play with his sister
Mary, but he had not noticed her excepting when she stayed to dinner
or to supper. Even then he had not observed her very closely, and had
not had much to say to her, for she was too shy to make it a pleasure
to him to talk to her, and too young for it to be worth while for him
to put himself out to amuse her. He would give her a nod with a “How is
thee, Patty?” and then would turn his mind to other things.

Now, when he first looked at her sitting across the meeting beside
his mother, he did not know her; then he saw first one little thing
and then another, until it slowly dawned upon him that it was Patty
Penrose, though not the Patty Penrose that he had known in times past.
At first he looked with wonder and interest at the change that had come
in three years; but, after a while, his interest took a very different
shape with no wonder about it, and he thought that his sister Mary’s
friend was a great deal better worth looking at than when he had last
seen her, for Patty had grown into a very pretty girl,—a very pretty
girl, indeed.

She sat looking calmly before her; but, though she seemed sedately
unaware of his presence, as is becoming in a modest girl, I have not a
grain of doubt that she knew that Tom Granger was at meeting that day,
and, maybe, she even knew that he was looking at her at that moment.

Her head was uncovered, for she had worn a broad beaver hat, such as
they used in those days, and she held the hat in her lap. She sat with
her side turned to Tom, and it made his heart feel very warm as he
looked at her pale, delicate face, the long lashes of her eyes, the
smooth roundness of her chin and throat, and the soft curling of the
brown hair at her forehead and temples. So, as I said, he was preaching
no sermon to himself as he sat in silent meeting that day.

At length, the court-house clock around the corner of Market street
struck eleven. They all sat in silence for a minute or two longer, and
then old Thomas Winterapple shook John Stidham by the hand, and meeting
was broken. After that they all went out into the sunlight and the open
air again.

Will Gaines went over to where the young women were standing talking
together, and said a few words to Susan, and Tom followed after him.

Patty was standing beside his mother.

“Thomas, this is Patty Penrose,” said she, turning to him; “don’t thee
remember Patty?”

Tom knew that the color was rising in his face; knowing it, he felt
very uncomfortable, and that made his cheeks burn all the hotter. It
was a different matter talking to Patty now from what it had been three
years ago. Oh, yes, he remembered Patty; “How is thee, Patty?” said he,
holding out his hand to her. Her little fingers rested in his only for
a moment, and then were quickly withdrawn.

“I’m pretty well, thank thee, Thomas,” said she.

Then there was a space of silence, during which Tom was thinking of
something to say. This was no easy thing for him to do on the spur of
the moment, considering how little he knew of Patty and her ways. He
stood with his hands clasped behind him, looking at her and waiting for
a thought, and she stood looking down at the toe of her shoe. Presently
she raised her eyes to his face for a moment.

“Has thee just come back, Thomas?” said she.

“Yes; I came back yesterday afternoon.”

“Thee’s been gone a long while this time, hasn’t thee?”

“About three years.”

And then they were silent again.

Just then Isaac Naylor came up and spoke to Patty, and she turned
partly away from Tom to answer him. It seemed to Tom that it was a
relief to her to talk to some one else beside him, and no doubt it was,
for she must have felt easier with Isaac than she did with Tom, knowing
him so much better. After this, several of the young men came up, and
in a little while Patty and his sister were quite surrounded by them,
and were presently talking and laughing at a great rate, about people
and things of which Tom knew little or nothing. Isaac Naylor stood
amongst the other young men; he did not talk to Patty and Mary as they
did, but he seemed contented to remain where he was.

At last Tom’s brother Henry plucked him by the sleeve of his coat, “Is
thee ready to go now, Thomas?” said he. “Father and mother have gone
and I’m ready to go if thee is.” Henry was too young yet to talk to the
girls with any ease, and so the waiting was no pleasure to him.

“Yes; I guess I’m about ready,” said Tom. He felt that he had been
awkward and ungainly before Patty, and he would have liked to say a
word or two more to her before he left her to set himself straight in
her opinion. But he saw no chance for this in all the talk and laughter
that was going on around Mary and her, so there was nothing left for
him to do but to go.

As Henry and he walked along the turn-pike road, numbers of Friends
passed them on their way homeward from meeting.

There was a clatter of hoofs behind them, and old Elihu Penrose came
riding by with Patty back of him on the pillion saddle.

“Woah!” cried he, reigning in his horse when he had come up to Tom and
Henry. “How is thee, Thomas? I’m glad to see thee back again.”

“I’m glad to get back again,” said Tom.

“That’s right! I like to hear a young man say he’s glad to get back
home again,—it sounds well. Come over and see us some time.”

“I will,” said Tom; “I’d like to come over very much.”

“Very well; do. Come over soon. Farewell.”

Then he clicked to the horse and rode on, turning down the road that
led through the shady woods to the old mill.

“Patty Penrose’s a mighty pretty girl; ain’t she, Thomas?” said Henry.

Tom made no answer, and they walked on in silence.

At dinner time, Patty was brought up as a subject of talk.

“Don’t thee think she’s very pretty, Thomas?” said Susan.

“Well—I don’t know,” said Tom, hesitatingly; “n—not so very.” I do not
know why he should have answered as he did, but, somehow, he did not
feel like saying that he thought Patty was pretty.

“Well, I can’t help thinking as thee does about it, Thomas,” said Mary;
“I love Patty Penrose very dearly, but, I must say, I never could see
her beauty.”

“She’s the prettiest girl in the neighborhood,” said William.

“I know some people think she’s pretty,” said Mary, “but, I must say,
I don’t see where her beauty lies. Her nose isn’t good, and she has
hardly a bit of color in her face. She’s a dear good girl, but I don’t
think she’s what one would call handsome.”

“Thee isn’t of the same way of thinking as the young men,” said John.
“There isn’t one within ten miles of Eastcaster who doesn’t think that
she’s the prettiest girl in the township. There isn’t a girl in the
neighborhood who has as much company as she.”

“Nonsense,” said Susan; “what does thee know about it, John? Leave out
Isaac Naylor and John Black and the two Sharpleys and she doesn’t have
any more company than other people.”

“All right,” said John, who had an ill way of holding to an opinion and
never arguing about it, “all right, have thy own way; it doesn’t make
any difference to me; I only know what I hear the young men say about
her.”

Then Tom’s father broke into the talk and nothing more was said about
Patty. “I bought a new short-horn bull last fall, Thomas,” said he.
“We’ll go over to the cattle-yard after dinner and take a look at it,
if thee likes.”

So presently they all got up from their chairs, and the men-folks went
over to the barn-yard to take a look at the short-horn bull.

But the talk at the dinner table had not pleased Tom, though I do not
know why he should have disliked to have heard that Patty had a great
deal of attention paid her; for how could it make any difference to
him?




CHAPTER II.


AS time wore along, Tom got into the habit of dropping in at Penrose’s
and of spending an evening now and then. At first he would find himself
there once in every ten days or two weeks; in time his visits became
more and more frequent. Elihu was always very glad to see him and Patty
herself seemed pleased at his coming. I think that some of the happiest
evenings of his life were those spent in sitting on the porch of the
old mill-house in the long summer twilights—Elihu and he smoking their
pipes, he telling his adventures at sea and Patty sitting listening
to him. Often some one of the young men of the neighborhood would be
at the house, and then it was not so pleasant for Tom; his talk would
cease, and after a little while, perhaps, he would arise and bid them
farewell. Patty and her visitor would usually sit apart talking and
laughing together, and it would strike Tom how much more easy she
seemed in the company of others than she did with him. More than once
when he called he found that she had gone out riding with one of these
young men, and then he and Elihu would spend the evening together, and
the old man would seem quite contented, for neither Patty nor he seemed
to think that Tom’s visits were meant for any one else than him.

One First-day evening Tom mustered up courage to ask Patty to take a
walk with him. That evening is impressed upon his mind even yet, for he
was very happy. There was a dim glow in the sky to the westward, and
the road stretched away grey and glimmering between the blackness of
the banks and bushes alongside of it. So, walking slowly and talking
but little, they came to the bridge just below Whiteley’s barn, and
there they stood leaning on the parapet, looking up the stream into the
black woods beyond, from which came the many murmuring whispers of the
summer’s night. All the air was laden with the spicy odor of the night
woods, and through the silence the sound of the rushing and gurgling of
the water of the brook came to them clearly and distinctly. There was
a bit of marshy land beyond, over which flew fireflies in thousands,
here gleaming a brilliant spark and there leaving a long trail of light
against the black woodlands behind. For some time they both leaned upon
the bridge without saying a word; it was Patty that broke the silence
at last.

“Does thee know, Thomas,” said she, “that when thee first came home I
was dreadfully afraid of thee? Thee seemed to me to be so much older
than I was, and then thee’d seen so much on thy travels.”

“Thee ain’t afraid of me now, is thee, Patty?”

“No, indeed; it seems as though thee might almost be a cousin of mine,
I know thee so well. It does father so much good to see thee; he’s
never been the same since mother died till now.”

There was a moment or two before Tom spoke.

“Perhaps it isn’t thy father I come to see, Patty,” said he, in a low
voice. He leaned over the edge of the bridge as he spoke and looked
fixedly into the dark rushing water beneath.

Patty made no answer, and Tom was not sure that she heard him. Neither
of them said another word until Patty said, in a low voice, “I guess
we’d better go home now, Thomas.”

Then they turned and walked back again to the old mill. Tom opened the
gate for Patty. “Farewell, Patty,” said he.

“Won’t thee come up and see father, Thomas?” said she.

“Not to-night.”

“Farewell, then.”

Tom watched her until she had gone up the porch steps and was hidden by
the vines that were clustered about it. He heard Elihu say, “Where’s
Thomas?” but he did not hear Patty’s answer; then he turned and walked
slowly homeward.

The summer passed, the fall passed, the winter passed, and the spring
time had come again.

Tom’s walk with Patty seemed to have broken through the smoothness of
the acquaintance betwixt the three.

Elihu had never been the same to him since that night; he had never
been as cordial or as friendly as he had been before.

Sometimes it seemed to Tom as though Patty herself was growing tired of
seeing so much of him. At such times he would vow within himself as he
walked homeward that he would never call there again, and yet he always
went back after a while.

So things moved along without that pleasant friendliness in their
acquaintanceship until that occurred which altered the face of
everything.

One First-day afternoon, Tom found himself standing on the porch of the
mill-house. It was in the early part of April, but the day was very
mild and soft, and Elihu and Patty were sitting on the porch.

“How is thee, Thomas?” said Elihu. He did not take the pipe from his
lips as he spoke, neither did he ask the other to be seated. Tom stood
leaning against the post and no one spoke for a while.

“Isn’t it a lovely day?” said Patty.

“Yes, it is,” said Tom; “would thee like to take a walk up the road as
far as Whiteley’s?”

“Yes, I would,” said Patty; “I haven’t been away from the house all
day.”

“It’s very damp; it’s too damp to walk,” said Elihu; “besides, thee’s
got thy thin shoes on.”

“But we’ll walk in the road, father; I’ll promise not to go off of
the road. I’ll put on heavier shoes if thee thinks that these are too
thin.”

“Very well, do as thee pleases,” said Elihu, sharply; “I think it’s too
damp, but I suppose thee’ll do as thee chooses.” Then he knocked the
ashes out of his pipe and went into the house without another word,
shutting the door carefully behind him.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t want me to go,” said Patty; “it’s a lovely
day for a walk. Wait till I go in and speak to him, maybe he’ll change
his mind;” and she followed her father into the house.

“I can’t bear this any longer;” said Tom to himself. “I’ll have it over
this afternoon, or I’ll never come here again. I’ll ask her to be my
wife, and if the worst comes to the worst I’ll ship for another cruise.”

Presently Patty came out of the house again. She had thrown a scarf
over her shoulders. “Is thee ready to go, Thomas?” said she.

“Yes; I’m ready.”

There was very little talk between them as they walked on side by side,
for Tom’s heart was too full of that which was upon his mind to say
much with his lips; so they went down the road into the hollow, past
the old mill, over the bridge that crossed Stony Brook just beyond,
up the hill on the other side, past Whiteley’s farm-house, and so
to the further crest of the hill that overlooked Rocky Creek Valley
beyond. There they stopped and stood beside the fence at the roadside,
looking down into the valley beneath them. It was a fair sight that lay
spread out before their eyes—field beyond field, farm-house, barn and
orchard, all bathed in the soft yellow sunshine, saving here and there
where a cloud cast a purple shadow that moved slowly across the hills
and down into the valleys.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” said Patty, as she leaned against the rough
fence, looking out across the valley, while the wind stirred the hair
at her cheeks and temples.

“Yes; it is;” said Tom, “it’s a goodly world to live in, Patty.”

Then silence fell between them.

“There’s the old Naylor homestead,” said Patty at last.

“Yes; I see it,” said Tom, shortly, glancing as he spoke in the
direction which she pointed. Then, after a while, he continued, “What a
queer man Isaac Naylor is!”

“I don’t see anything queer about him,” said Patty, looking down at the
toe of her shoe.

“Well, I never saw a man like him.”

“He is a very good worthy man, and everybody respects him,” said Patty,
warmly.

“Oh! I don’t deny that,” said Tom, with a pang at his heart.

“Thee couldn’t truthfully deny it if thee would, Thomas,” said Patty.

“I’m only a rough sea-faring man,” said Tom. “I don’t know that any one
respects me very much.” He waited a moment, but Patty said nothing;
then he went on again:

“For all that, I’d rather be a man of thirty at thirty, and not as dead
to all things as though I was a man of eighty. Isaac Naylor is more
like a man of eighty than he is like one of thirty. No one would take
him to be only five years older than I am.”

“I don’t know any man that I respect as much as I do Isaac Naylor,”
said Patty. “I don’t like to hear thee talk against him as thee does.
He has never spoken ill of thee.”

“Thee need never be afraid of my saying anything more against him,”
said Tom, bitterly; “I see that thee likes him more than I thought thee
did. I might have known it too, from the way that he has been visiting
thee during this last month or two.”

“Why shouldn’t he visit me, Thomas?”

“The Lord knows!”

She made no answer to this, and presently Tom spoke again.

“I’m going off to sea before long, Patty,” said he, for it seemed to
him just then that the sea was a fit place for him to be. Patty made no
answer to this; she was picking busily at the fringe of the scarf that
hung about her shoulders.

“How soon is thee going, Thomas?” said she at last.

“Oh! I don’t know; in three or four weeks, I guess. It doesn’t matter,
does it?”

Patty made no reply.

Tom was leaning on the fence, looking out across the valley, but seeing
nothing. His mind was in a whirl, for he was saying unto himself,
“Now is the time, be a man, speak your heart boldly, for this is the
opportunity!”

Twice he tried to bring himself to speak, and twice his heart failed
him. The third time that he strove, he broke the silence.

“Patty,” said he. His heart was beating thickly, but there was no
turning back now, for the first word had been spoken.

Patty must have had an inkling of what was in Tom’s mind, for her bosom
was rising and falling quickly.

“Patty,” said Tom again.

“What is it, Thomas?” said she, in a trembling voice, and without
raising her head.

Tom was picking nervously at the rough bark upon the fence-rail near to
him, but he was looking at Patty.

“Thee knows why I have been coming to see thee all this time, doesn’t
thee, Patty?”

“No,” whispered Patty.

“Thee doesn’t know?”

“No.”

It seemed to Tom as though the beating of his heart would smother him:
“Because,—because I love thee, Patty,” said he.

Patty’s head sunk lower and lower, but she neither moved nor spoke.

Then Tom said again, “I love thee, Patty.”

He waited for a while and then he said: “Won’t thee speak to me,
Patty?”

“What does thee want me to say?” whispered she.

“Does thee love me?”

Silence.

“Does thee love me?”

Tom was standing very close to her as he spoke; when she answered it
was hardly above her breath, but low as the whisper was he caught it—

“Yes.”

Ah me! those days have gone by now, and I am an old man of four score
years and more, but even yet my old heart thrills at the remembrance
of this that I here write. Manifold troubles and griefs have fallen
upon me betwixt then and now; yet, I can say, when one speaks to me of
the weariness of this world and of the emptiness of things within it,
“Surely, life is a pleasant thing, when it holds such joys in store for
us as this,—the bliss of loving and of being loved.”

Half an hour afterward, Tom was walking down the road toward the old
mill-house, and in his hand he held the hand of his darling—his first
love—and life was very beautiful to him.




CHAPTER III.


NOW, although the good people of Eastcaster were very glad to welcome
Tom Granger home again whenever he returned from a cruise, at the same
time they looked upon him with a certain wariness, or shyness, for they
could not but feel that he was not quite one of themselves.

Now-a-days one sees all kinds of strange people; the railroad brings
them,—young men who sell dry-goods, books and what not. They have
traveled all over the country and have, or think that they have, a
world more of knowledge about things in general than other people who
are old enough to be their father’s father. Such an one I saw this
morning, who beat me three games of chequers, which, I own, did vex
me; though any one might have done the same, for I was thinking of
other things at the time, and my mind was not fixed upon the run of
the game. One sees plenty of such people now-a-days, I say, but in the
old times it was different, and few strangers came to Eastcaster, so
that but little was known of the outside world. The good people liked
well enough to hear Tom tell of the many out-of-the-way things that
had happened to him during his knocking about in the world; at the same
time there was always a feeling amongst them that he was different from
themselves. Tom knew that they felt this way, and it made him more
shy of going amongst his father’s neighbors than he would otherwise
have been. Nothing makes a man withdraw within himself as much as
the thought that those about him neither understand him nor care to
understand him. So it came about that Elihu Penrose was not very much
pleased with that which had passed between Tom Granger and his daughter.

As Tom and Patty walked home hand in hand, hardly a word was said
betwixt them. When they came to the gate in front of the mill-house
they saw that Elihu was not on the porch.

“I’ll go in and speak to thy father now, Patty,” said Tom.

“Oh, Tom! Will it have to be so soon?” said Patty, in a half-frightened
voice.

“The sooner spoken, the sooner over,” said Tom, somewhat grimly, for
the task was not a pleasant one to do, as those who have passed through
the same can tell if they choose.

So Tom went into the house, and Patty sat down on a chair on the porch
to wait for his coming out again.

Tom looked in through the half-open door of the dining-room and
saw Elihu sitting in his cushioned rocking-chair in front of the
smouldering fire, rocking and smoking the while.

“May I come in?” said Tom, standing uncertainly at the door.

“Yes; come in,” said Elihu, without moving.

“I have something to tell thee,” said Tom.

“Sit down,” said Elihu.

Tom would rather have stood up, for he felt easier upon his feet;
nevertheless, he sat down as he was bidden, leaning his elbows on his
knees and gazing into the crown of his hat, which he held in his hand
and turned about this way and that.

Old Elihu Penrose’s eyebrows were bushy and thick, and, like his hair,
were as white as though he had been in the mill of time, and a part of
the flour had fallen upon him. When he was arguing upon religion or
politics, and was about to ask some keen question that was likely to
trip up the wits of the one with whom he was talking, he had a way of
drawing these thick eyebrows together, until he had hidden all of his
eyes but the grey twinkle within them. Though Tom did not raise his
head, he felt that the old man drew his eyebrows together just in this
manner, as he looked upon him where he sat.

Not a word was spoken for some time, and the only sounds that broke the
stillness of the room was the regular “creak, creak” of the rocker of
the chair on which Elihu sat, and the sharp and deliberate “tick, tack”
of the tall, old eight-day clock in the entry.

Old Elihu broke the silence; he blew a thin thread of smoke toward the
chimney, and then he said: “What is it thee wants to say to me Thomas?”
And yet, I have a notion that he knew very well what it was that Tom
was going to tell him.

Then Tom looked up and gazed straight into the grey twinkle of Elihu’s
eyes, hidden beneath their overhanging brows. “I—I love thy daughter,”
said he, “and she’s promised to be my wife.”

Elihu looked at Tom as though he would bore him through and through
with the keenness of his gaze, and Tom looked steadfastly back again at
him. He felt that Elihu was trying to look him down, and he drew upon
all of his strength of spirit not to let his eyes waver for a moment.
At last Elihu arose from his chair and knocked the ashes out his pipe
into the fire-place.

Then Tom stood up too, for he was not going to give the other the
advantage that a standing man has in a talk over one that is seated.

“Thomas,” began Elihu, breaking the silence again, and he thrust his
hand into his breeches pocket, and began rattling the coppers therein.

“Well?” said Tom.

“I take it thee’s a reasonable man;—at least, thee ought to be, after
all the knocking around that thee’s done.”

This did not sound very promising for the talk that was to come. “I
hope I’m a reasonable man,” said Tom.

“Then I’ll speak to thee plainly, and without any beating about the
bush;—I’m sorry to hear of this, and I wish that it might have been
otherwise.”

“Why?”

“I should think that thee might know why, without putting me to the
pains of telling thee. We’re a plain folk hereabouts, and the son’s
followed in his father’s steps for a hundred and fifty years and more.
I suppose that it’s an old-fashioned way that we have, but I like it.
I’d rather that my daughter had chosen a man that had been contented
with the ways of his father, and one that I had seen grow up under my
eye, and that I might know that I could rely upon. I’ve seen little or
nothing of thee, since thee ran away to sea, ten or twelve years ago.”

“I don’t see why that should weigh against me.”

“Don’t thee?”

“No. My trade isn’t farming, to be sure, but such as it is, I work
steadily at it. I’m sober; I don’t drink, and I trust that I’m no worse
than most men of my age.”

“That may all be true; I know nothing of thy habits, but this I do
know,—that thee ran away from home once; what surety have I that thee
won’t do it again?” Tom made a motion as though to interrupt him, but
Elihu held up his hand; “I know! I know!” said he; “thee don’t feel,
just now, as though such a thing could happen; but my observation has
led me to find that what a man will do once, he may do again. Besides
all this, thy trade must unsettle thy life more or less; thee knows
the old saying,—‘a rolling stone gathers no moss.’”

“I don’t know why a man should want to stay long enough in one place to
get moss-grown,” said Tom.

“That is all very well,” said Elihu Penrose, “but we hereabouts have
been content to grow green in the same place that our fathers grew
green before us. So, I tell thee plainly, I wish that Patty had chosen
some one that I know better than I do thee. Of course, I shan’t bridle
her choice, but I wish that it had been Isaac Naylor. I believe that
she would have chosen him if thee hadn’t come home amongst us.”

There was a time of silence between them in which both were sunk deeply
in thought; then Tom spoke very bitterly: “I see thee don’t like me.”

“Thee’s wrong to say that, Thomas,” said Elihu; “I have no dislike for
thee at all.”

“It looks very much as though thee had.”

“I don’t see that at all. I want to see my daughter well settled in the
world,—that’s all.”

“I should think that thy daughter’s happiness would weigh more with
thee than anything else.”

“It does,” said Elihu, somewhat sternly, “and I hope that I shall know
what is best for her happiness without being taught by any man, young
or old.”

“I had no thought to teach thee.”

Silence followed this, till, after a while, Elihu spoke again.
“However,” said he, “all this is neither here nor there; Patty’s chosen
thee from amongst the rest, and she must lie upon the bed that she’s
made for herself, for I don’t see that I can justly interfere. I can
only make myself sure that thee is able to support a wife, before thee
marries her. How much does thee make a year?”

“About five hundred for pay. Maybe I could make a couple of hundred
more in the way of trade here and there, if I keep my wits about me.”

“Does thy trade bring thee in forty dollars a month now?”

“About that.”

Elihu, sunk in thought, looked at Tom for a while, without speaking.
Tom stood looking at his finger-tips, very unhappy and troubled in his
mind. After a while the absent look left Elihu’s eyes, and he spoke
again.

“Thomas,” said he, “I have no wish to be hard on thee, or any man in
the world. It’s not thee, but thy trade, that don’t please me. If thee
was living quietly at home, like thy brothers John and William, I’d be
glad to give my daughter to thy father’s son, for he and I have been
old friends, and have known each other since we were boys together.
However, I’m not prepared to say that thee shall not marry Patty, so
I’ll make a proposition to thee. If thee’ll show me seven hundred and
fifty dollars of thy own earning at the end of a year’s time, I am
willing that thee shall have her. Is that fair?”

“Yes; I suppose it is,” said Tom.

“Very well. Show me seven hundred and fifty dollars at the end of a
year’s time from to-day, and I’ll give thee leave to marry Patty.
Farewell.”

“May I see Patty now?”

“I reckon so. There’s no reason that thee shouldn’t see her that I know
of.”

Then Tom left the room. He found Patty sitting on the porch when he
went out. He was feeling very bitter, for his talk with Elihu had not
been of the pleasantest kind. It seemed to have taken much of the joy
out of his new happiness, for the grudging words of Elihu’s consent had
stung his pride very sharply. Therefore there was a smack of bitterness
in his joy that spoilt the savor of the whole. He sat down by Patty
without a word, and began rubbing his palm slowly over the end of the
arm of the chair on which he was sitting, looking down at it moodily
the while. It was both weak and selfish in him to give way to such
feelings at such a time, but love is a subtle joy that only one false
chord will jar the whole out of tune, and, for the time, there will be
discord in the heart.

Patty sat looking at him, as though waiting for him to speak.

“Thy father don’t seem much pleased with this, Patty,” said he, at last.

“Never mind, Tom,” said Patty, and her little hand slid over and rested
softly upon his own; “he’ll like it when he is more used to the thought
of it. Father’s queer, and sometimes harsh in his ways, but his heart
is all right. No one could be more kind and loving than he is to me.
When he finds how dear thee is to me, he’ll like thee for my sake, if
for nothing else. After a while he will be as proud of thee as though
thee were his own son.”

“I hope that he will like me better, as time goes on,” said Tom, but
the tone of his voice said, “I don’t believe he will.”

“Yes; his liking will come all in good time, Tom;” then, very softly,
“Isn’t thee happy, Tom?”

“Yes; I’m happy,” said Tom, but in truth, his words belied his thoughts
a little, and his voice, I think, must have somewhat belied his words.

“Tom,” said Patty, and he looked up. She looked bravely and lovingly
into his eyes; “I am very happy,” said she, in a low voice.

“God bless thee, Patty!” said Tom, in a voice that trembled a little;
“thee’s a good girl,—too good a girl for me. I’m afraid I’m not worthy
of thee.”

“I’m satisfied,” said Patty, quietly. “Tell me; what did father say to
thee, Thomas?”

Then Tom told all that had passed, and the telling of it seemed to
blow away the dark clouds of his moodiness; for, as he talked, it did
not seem to him that the old man’s words had been as bitter as he had
felt them to be at the time. After all, he had said nothing but what he
should have said, considering that it behooved him to see his daughter
well settled in the world.

“Thee _can_ earn seven hundred and fifty dollars in a year’s time,
can’t thee, Thomas?”

“I hope so.”

“Then it’ll only be waiting a year, and that isn’t a long time, Tom, is
it? Thee’ll find me just the same when thee comes back again.” Patty
talked very bravely;—I believe that she talked more bravely than she
felt, for her eyes were bright with tears, beneath the lids.

“It’s pretty hard to have to leave thee so soon,” said Tom. “I’ll have
to leave thee soon if I’m to earn all that money in a year’s time.”

Both were sunk in thought for a while. “How long will it be before thee
starts, Tom?” said Patty, presently.

“Not longer than a week, I guess.”

Patty looked at him long and earnestly, and then the tears brimmed
in her eyes. Poor girl! What happiness it would have been to her,
if she could have had Tom with her for a while, while their joy was
still fresh and new. The sight of her tears melted away all the little
bitterness that was still in Tom’s heart; he drew her to him, and she
hid her face in his breast and cried. As he held her silently, in
his arms, it seemed to him that their love had not brought them much
happiness, so far.

After a while, she stopped crying, but she still lay with her face on
his shoulder.

As Tom walked home that afternoon, he met Isaac Naylor coming down the
mill-road from the turnpike. He knew that Isaac was going straight to
Penrose’s house.

“How is thee, Thomas?” said he, as they passed one another.

Tom stared at him, but said never a word. He turned and looked after
Isaac as the Friend walked briskly down the road that led through the
woods to the mill.

“Never mind, friend Isaac,” said he, half-aloud, “the father may like
thee better than he does me, but the daughter’s mine.” A thrill darted
through his heart as he said this, for it made him realize that she was
indeed his, and his alone. It was the last time that he saw Isaac for a
year and a half.

Tom went straight to his mother and told her everything. A mother is
nearer to her son in such matters than a father, for there is more in a
woman’s sympathy than there is in a man’s. If he had had any trouble in
regard to money matters, he would, no doubt, have gone to his father;
but troubles like these that were upon him were more fitted for his
mother’s ears.

“I wish thee’d never run away to sea,” said Tom’s mother.

“I wish so too,” said Tom; “but it can’t be helped now. I did run away
to sea, and there’s an end of it.”

“Can’t thee find some way of making a living at home? Maybe Elihu
Penrose would like thee better than he does if thee could stay at home,
as other young men do.”

“How can I make a living at home?” said Tom, bitterly. “Can thee tell
me of any way to make it?”

“No; but something might turn up.”

“I can’t wait for the chance of something turning up. I have seven
hundred and fifty dollars to make in twelve months’ time.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. Tom sat beside his mother, and she
was holding his hand and softly stroking it the while.

“Mother,” said Tom, at last.

“Well, son?”

“Does thee know what I’ve pretty well made up my mind to do?”

“What?”

“To go to Philadelphia on the stage to-morrow morning, and to take the
first berth that I can get.”

“Oh, Thomas! thee wouldn’t go so soon, surely! What would Patty do?”

“Patty would have to bear it, mother. She’ll have to bear it, anyhow.
It’ll be just as hard to leave to-morrow week as it will to-morrow. The
sooner I leave the sooner I’ll be back, thee knows.”

All this was very reasonable, but, nevertheless, his heart failed him
at the thought of leaving. “Of course,” he burst out, after a while,
“of course, it’s as hard for me to go as it is for her to have me go.”

“I don’t know that, Thomas,” said his mother, in a trembling voice.
“Thy life will be full of work and change. Patty will have nothing to
do but to think of thee.”

“Well, all the same, its hard to leave her, and the knowledge that she
will suffer don’t make it any the easier for me.”

He got up and began walking restlessly up and down the room. Presently
he stopped in front of his mother.

“Yes, mother,” said he, “I’ll go on the stage to-morrow morning.
There’s no use putting it off any longer, and I’d be a coward to do so.”

Then his mother put her handkerchief to her face, and the tears that
she was keeping back came very freely.

The next morning at half-past seven o’clock Tom knocked at the door
of Elihu Penrose’s house. The mill-house was about three-quarters of
a mile from the turnpike, and as he had to meet the stage there about
eight o’clock, he had only a few minutes in which to say farewell.

He walked straight into the dining-room. Patty was busy putting away
the breakfast dishes, and Elihu sat at his old brass-handled desk,
footing up his accounts. He looked up as Tom came in, and the color
flew into Patty’s cheeks.

“Thee’s beginning thy courting early in the morning, Thomas,” said
Elihu, dryly.

Tom vouchsafed no answer to this. He stood leaning against the
door-frame, and his eyes were fixed upon Patty.

“I’m going to leave home this morning,” said he.

Neither of the three spoke for a moment or two. Tom stood looking
at Patty, his hands clasped in front of him, feeling unutterably
miserable. Elihu had arisen from his chair, and he and Patty were
gazing at Tom, surprised at the suddenness of what he had told them.
Then Elihu came forward and laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder.

“Thomas,” said he, “does thee mean that thee is going—”

“I mean that I’m going to leave Eastcaster for a year,” said Tom.

“This is—this is very sudden, Thomas,” said he.

Tom nodded his head.

“Come, Thomas; I had no wish to be harsh with thee yesterday,” said the
old man. “I don’t want to push thee to the wall. This is very sudden.
Put off thy going for a week or two. Look here—even if thee don’t bring
me the seven hundred and fifty dollars just at the end of the year, I
won’t count it against thee.”

“It’s too late now,” said Tom. “My chest’s packed, and father’s going
to put it on the stage for me. I’ll not be unmanly and put off the
going, now that everything is fixed for it. If I’d have known how thee
felt yesterday, I don’t deny that I might have stayed a little while
longer. But it won’t do to stop now that I’ve started.”

All this he spoke without looking at Elihu. Elihu took his hand from
Tom’s shoulder. He stood for a moment as though he were about to say
something farther; then he slowly picked up his hat and left the room,
and Tom and Patty were alone.

In about a quarter of an hour the old man came back again. Tom looked
up at the clock. It was a quarter to eight, and he knew that the time
was come for him to go. Patty and he had been sitting on the sofa,
holding one another’s hand. They had been silent for some time, and
they both arose without a word.

Tom stood looking long and earnestly at Patty. Her face was bowed upon
her breast. “Patty, my darling,” whispered he, and then she looked up.

Her eyes were brimming with the tears that she had kept so bravely
hidden until now, and then two bright drops ran slowly down her cheeks.

“Farewell, my darling,” murmured he, in a low, broken voice. He drew
her to him, and their lips met in one long kiss. Then he turned, and
ran out of the house. He did not say farewell to Elihu, for he could
not have spoken the words, if he had tried to do so.

Ah, me! The searching pain of such a parting! Surely, the Good Father
would never have put us on this world to live the life here, were it
not that there is a world and a life to come wherein such partings
shall never be. He hath given that the birds of the air and the beasts
of the field shall not suffer dread of grief to come, and but little
sorrow for things gone by. Why, then, should He give it to us, His
goodliest creatures, to bear these things, if nothing of good or evil
was to come of such suffering hereafter?




CHAPTER IV.


THESE things happened in the spring of ’13, and the war with England
was in full swing. We thought that we knew a great deal about the war
at Eastcaster, but we really knew little or nothing of it.

The Philadelphia stage brought down the _Ledger_ from that town three
times a week, and Joseph Anderson, the teacher at the Friends’ school,
would read it aloud at the “Black Horse” tavern (it was the “Crown and
Angel” then) in the evening. A great many came to hear the news, and it
was said that the tavern did a driving business at the time; for, of
course, no one could come and sit there all evening and drink nothing.

The folks talked with great knowledge about the war; some of them so
wisely that it was a pity that poor President Madison did not have the
chance to hear them.

The truth of the matter was that Eastcaster was too far away from deep
water to feel the full heat and excitement of the trouble.

The part that interested Tom the most was the news that came now and
then of the great sea battles; that being the year that the noble old
_Constitution_ did her best fighting.

When Tom Granger came to Philadelphia, he found matters at a very
different pass from what they were in Eastcaster, for there was
talk just at that time of Commodore Beresford sailing up the river
to bombard the town; so Tom found the streets full of people and
everything in great fervent, as it had been for some time past.

Just outside of the town, the stage passed near to where two regiments
of militia were encamped—one of them not far from Grey’s Ferry.

The next morning after Tom came to Philadelphia, he called at the
office of old Mr. Nicholas Lovejoy, who was the owner of the ship in
which he had last sailed. It was the _Quaker City_, and Tom had had the
berth of third mate aboard her, which was a higher grade than he had
ever held up to that time.

Mr. Lovejoy, beside being the owner of two good ships himself, one of
which, Tom had reason to think, was then lying at the docks, had a
great deal of influence with other merchants and ship owners. He had
always been very friendly to Tom, and had said pleasant things of him
and to him more than once, so Tom had great hopes of getting a berth
through him without much loss of time.

His wish was to ship to the West Indies, if he could, as that did not
seem so far away from home.

Mr. Lovejoy was at his desk when Tom came into the office; a great
pile of letters and papers were in front of him, which he was busy in
looking over. He shook hands cordially with the young man and bade him
be seated. Tom told him what he wanted, and Mr. Lovejoy listened to him
very pleasantly. When he was done, the old gentleman said frankly that
there was a poor chance of his getting any berth just then, for that no
shipping was being done, the Delaware having been blockaded since the
first of the year.

Mr. Lovejoy did not know at that time that the blockade had been
raised, for it was not until a week or so afterward that the despatch
came to Philadelphia telling how Beresford had tried to land for water
at Lewestown, in Delaware, and not being able to do so, had given up
the whole business as an ill piece of work and had sailed away to the
Bermudas.

Mr. Lovejoy furthermore told Tom that there were three privateers being
fitted up at the docks, one of which was about ready to sail.

In those days there was a great deal of feeling against privateering,
and I cannot say that it was altogether ill-grounded, for some very
cloudy things were done by certain vessels that sailed under letters of
marque.

Mr. Lovejoy was a fine looking old gentleman, with a very red face and
very white hair, which was tied behind into a queue with a black silk
ribbon. He was never seen dressed in anything but plain black clothes
with bright silver buttons, black silk stockings and pumps. His frilled
shirt front stood out like a half moon and was stiffly starched and as
white as snow.

After Tom and he had talked a little while together, he arose, and
going to a closet in the side of the chimney place, brought out a
decanter of fine old sherry and two glasses, both of which he filled.
Tom Granger was not fond of wine, not from any conscientious feeling,
but because that the taste was not pleasant to him. Still, he took his
glass of wine and drank it too, for it is never well to decline favors
from men in power, like Mr. Nicholas Lovejoy.

After the old gentleman had finished his glass of wine, he drew out his
fine cambric handkerchief and wiped his lips.

“Tom,” said he.

“Sir,” said Tom.

“Why don’t you ship on board of a privateersman?”

“I couldn’t do it, sir,” said Tom.

“Why not?”

“Well, sir; it may sound very foolish of me to say so, but the truth is
that I don’t like the fighting.”

“Don’t like the fighting!” said Mr. Lovejoy, raising his eyebrows.
“Come, Tom, that won’t do. Why, when that junk attacked the _Quaker
City_ off Ceylon, there was not a man aboard that fought like you.
Captain Austin told me all about it, though you would never do so, and
I haven’t forgotten it. And now you pretend to tell me that you are
afraid.”

“No, sir,” said Tom Granger, very hot about the ears; “it ain’t that;
it’s the _kind_ of fighting that I don’t like. When such a junkfull of
coolies as that was came down on us, a man was bound to fight for his
own life and the lives (and more beside) of the women aboard, and there
was no great credit to him in doing it. If the worst came to the worst,
I wouldn’t so much mind entering the navy, but I don’t like the notion
of going out to run foul of some poor devil of a merchant captain, who,
maybe, has all of his fortune in his ship,—and that’s the truth sir.”

“But, Tom, the navy does the same thing.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tom, “but they do it for the sake of war, while
privateers go out for their own gain alone. I don’t see, sir, that they
are so very much better than pirates, except that they don’t do so much
murder and that the law allows them.”

At this, Mr. Lovejoy’s face began to grow a little bit redder than
usual. “Very well,” said he, getting up and standing with his back to
the fire, “suit yourself.”

By this Tom knew that it was intended for him to go, which he
accordingly did.

Just as he got to the door, Mr. Lovejoy spoke again: “Look’ee, Tom,
you are an able seaman,—none better. Think this matter over a little
more, and if you are inclined to go on a privateering cruise, after
all, I think that I may, perhaps, be able to get you a place aboard
of as tight a craft as ever floated on salt water, and, maybe, a
better berth than you ever had in your life before. There are some
fat pickings down toward the West Indies just now; I shouldn’t wonder
at all if, with the berth that I think I can get you, you would clear
a thousand or twelve hundred dollars in the first twelve months. Good
morning; come to-morrow and let me know what you decide on.” Then the
old gentleman seated himself at the desk and began to look over his
papers again, and Tom left him.

He went straight to his lodging-house (it was the old “Ship and
Anchor,” a great place for sailors in those days), and his mind was all
of a swirl and eddy like the waters astern.

It was a nasty, drizzly, muggy day, and Tom stood leaning on the
window-sill in the bar-room, trying to look out into the street through
the dirty, fly-specked window. The room was full of sailors, many of
them, no doubt, belonging to the privateers that were fitting out at
the docks, of which Mr. Lovejoy had spoken. There was a party of them
playing cards at a sloppy table that stood beside the bar. The day was
so dark with the rainy drizzle that they had a lighted candle amongst
them, so that they might be able to see the game. The room, hazy with
tobacco smoke, was full of the noise of loud talking and the air was
reeking with the heavy smell of hot liquors. But, Tom stood looking
out of the window, with his mind all of a toss and a tumble; for the
last words of old Nicholas Lovejoy sounded in his ears through all the
loud talking and foul words:—“I shouldn’t wonder if you would clear a
thousand or twelve hundred dollars in the first twelve months.”

At times they sounded so clearly that he could almost believe that they
were spoken by some one standing beside him. The more that the words
rang in his ears, the more he thought what a fool he had been in not
taking up with Mr. Lovejoy’s half offer. Why should he be squeamish? If
every one were so, things would come to a pretty pass, for the navy was
weak—in numbers—and the British were sending out their privateers all
over the ocean; and who was to fight them and protect our own shipping
if no one helped the navy?

So Tom argued within himself in the most reasonable way in the world,
for the temptation was very great.

As he stood thus, looking out of the window and seeing nothing, for his
eyes were turned within himself, some one suddenly smote him upon the
shoulder, and a voice roared in his ear, “Helloa, Tom Granger! where
are you bound?”

It was a voice that Tom Granger knew very well, for there could be no
other such in all of the world; it made one’s ears quiver, even when it
was softened somewhat to talking. So, even before Tom turned his head,
he knew that Jack Baldwin was standing behind him.

Jack Baldwin had been second mate of the _Quaker City_ on the voyage to
the East Indies.

Tom Granger never saw in all his life such another man as Jack
Baldwin. He stood nearly six feet and two inches in his stockings. His
hair and beard were black and curly, and his eyes were as black as two
beads. Tom once saw him pick up a mutinous sailor—a large and powerful
man—and shake him as you might shake a kitten. To be sure, he was in
a rage at the time. He was better dressed than Tom had ever seen him
before. There was something of a half naval smack about his toggery,
and, altogether, he looked sleek and prosperous,—very different from
what Jack ashore does as a rule.

Jack Baldwin saw that Tom Granger was looking him over. “I’m on the
crest of the wave now,” said he, in his great, deep voice, grinning as
he spoke. “Look’ee, Tom,” and he fetched up a gold eagle from out of
his breeches pocket. He spun it up into the air, and caught it in his
palm again as it fell. “There’s plenty more of the same kind where this
came from, Tom.”

“I wish that I only knew where the tree that they grow on is to be
found,” said Tom, ruefully.

“So you shall, my hearty. And do you want me to tell you where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Tom, you’re a loon!”

“Why so? Because I want to know where the tree grows where gold eagles
may be had for the picking?”

“You were at the place this very blessed morning, and might have
gathered a pocketful of the bright boys if you hadn’t run before a
little wind as though it was a hurricane.”

“What do you mean?” said Tom, though he half knew without the asking.

“That I’ll tell you—here, you, bring me a glass of hot brandy and
water; will you splice, Tom?”

“Not I.”

“I bring to mind that you were always called the Quaker aboard ship,
and the name fits you well. You will neither fight nor drink, without
you have to.”

So the grog was brought, and Jack Baldwin and Tom Granger sat down,
opposite to one another, at a rickety deal table.

Presently Jack leaned over and laid his hand on Tom’s arm. “Where do
you think I hail from, Tom?” said he.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll tell you: from old Nick, or old Lovejoy, or Davy
Jones,—whichever you choose to call him. I was with him not ten minutes
after you left. He sent me after you, to hunt you up; so I came
straight here, like a hot shot, for I knew I’d find you in the old
place. Sure enough, I’ve found you, and here we are,—shipmates both.”

“And what did you want of me?”

“That I’ll tell you. Tom,”—here he lowered his voice to a deep
rumble—“have you seen the _Nancy Hazlewood_?”

“No.”

“Well I’ll show her to you after a bit. She is lying in the river,
just below Smith’s Island. She’s the new privateer.”

Tom’s heart beat more quickly, but he only said, “Is she?”

“Who do you think’s the owner, Tom?”

“How should I know?”

“Old Lovejoy!” Here Jack raised his glass of grog, and took a long pull
at it, looking over the rim at Tom all the while. Tom was looking down,
picking hard at the corner of the table.

“I don’t see that this is any concern of mine,” he said, in a low voice.

“Don’t you? Well, I’ll tell you what concern it is of yours; I’m to be
first mate, and I want you to be second,—and now the murder’s out!”

Tom shook his head, but he said nothing.

Jack Baldwin slid his palm down, until it rested on the back of Tom’s
hand. “Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said he, roughly; “I like you. We’ve been
messmates more than once, and I don’t forget how you kept that yellow
coolie devil from jabbing his d—d snickershee into my back, over off
Ceylon. There’s no man in all the world that I’d as soon have for a
shipmate as you. Old Lovejoy, too;—he says that he must have you. He
knows very well that there isn’t a better seaman living than the one
that stands in Tom Granger’s shoes. Don’t be a fool! Go to the old man,
name your own figure, for he’ll close with you at any reasonable terms.”

So Jack talked and talked, and Tom listened and listened, and the
upshot of it was that he promised to go and see old Mr. Lovejoy again
the next morning.

You may easily guess how it all turned out, for when a man not only
finds that he is in temptation, but is willing to be there, he is
pretty sure to end by doing that which he knows is not right.

So Tom drank another glass of Mr. Lovejoy’s fine old sherry, the
old gentleman offered liberal terms, and the end of the matter was
that Tom promised to enter as second mate of the _Nancy Hazlewood_,
privateersman.

Tom Granger has always felt heartily ashamed of himself because of the
way that he acted in this matter. It is not that privateering was so
bad; I pass no judgment on that, and I know that there were many good
men in that branch of the service.

I have always held that a man is not necessarily wicked because he
does a bad action; he may not know that it is bad, and then, surely,
no blame can be laid to his account. But when he feels that a thing is
evil, he is wrong in doing it, whether it is evil or not.

Jack Baldwin did nothing wrong in going on this privateering cruise,
for he saw nothing wrong in it, but Tom Granger thought that it was
wrong, and yet did it; therefore he has always felt ashamed of himself.

In looking back, after all these years, it is hard to guess what
he expected would be the end of the matter. If he had come back in
a year’s time,—which he did not do,—and if he had brought home a
thousand dollars of prize money from a privateering cruise, I am very
much inclined to think that Elihu Penrose would hardly have judged that
it had been fairly earned.

Friends were very much more strict in their testimony against war then
than they are now. Numbers of young men went from here during the
rebellion, and nothing was thought of it. I myself had a grandson in
the navy;—he is a captain now.

As I said, Elihu Penrose would hardly have fancied Tom Granger’s way of
earning money, if it had been won in that way; as for what Patty would
have said and done,—I do not like to think of it.

However, it is no use trying to guess at the color of the chicks that
addled eggs might have hatched out, so I will push on with my story,
and tell how the _Nancy Hazlewood_ put to sea, and what befell her
there.




CHAPTER V.


THE _Nancy Hazlewood_ put to sea on a Friday. Tom Granger was not over
fanciful in the matter of signs and omens; nevertheless, he always had
a nasty feeling about sailing on that day; he might reason with himself
that it was foolish, but the feeling was there, and was not to be done
away with. The only other time that he had sailed on a Friday, was in
the barque _Manhattan_ (Captain Nathan J. Wild), bound for Nassau, with
a cargo of wheat. About a week afterward, she put back into New York
harbor again, and not a day too soon, either. Captain Granger has often
told the tale of this short cruise, so I will not tell it over again,
as it has nothing to do with this story, except to show why it was that
Tom Granger always had an ill-feeling about sailing on Friday.

As a matter of fact, there was a greater and a better reason to feel
worried than on account of this, for the truth was, that the _Nancy
Hazlewood_ put to sea fully ten days before she should have done so,
and from that arose most of the trouble.

The blame in the matter belonged no more to one than to another, for
all thought that it was for the best to weigh anchor when they did;
nevertheless, it was a mistake, and a very sad mistake.

There never was any wish to cast a slur on the memory of Captain
Knight, in the account of the matter that was afterward published,
for no one ever said, to my knowledge, that he was anything else than
a good seaman, and knew his business. But certainly, his headstrong
wilfulness in the matter of the troubles that befell the ship was, to
say the least, very blameworthy.

Tom saw nothing of Captain Knight until the day before the ship sailed.
Indeed, the captain had not been in town, so far as he knew. This had
troubled him. He had said nothing about it, but it had troubled him.

About noon on Thursday, the day before the ship sailed, Tom came to
Lovejoy’s dock, where he was overseeing the lading of some stores. One
of the clerks at the dock told him that Captain Knight had been aboard
of the ship, and also that he had wanted to see him, and had waited
for him some time, but had gone about fifteen minutes before. A little
while afterward Mr. Whimple, Mr. Lovejoy’s head-clerk, came to him and
asked him to step up to the office, as Captain Knight and Mr. Lovejoy
were there, and wanted to speak to him.

Captain Knight was standing in front of the fire, talking with Mr.
Lovejoy, when Tom came into the office. He shook hands very heartily
when Mr. Lovejoy made them acquainted, and said some kind things to
Tom—that he had no doubt but that their intercourse would be pleasant;
at least, he hoped so (smiling), for, from that which he had heard of
Tom, he felt that it would be his own fault if it were not. He said
that he was sorry that he had not been on hand to oversee matters, as
he should have done, although he knew that these things could be in no
better hands; that his mother had been so sick that she had not been
expected to live, and that it had not been possible for him to come on
from Connecticut sooner.

Tom felt relieved to find that Captain Knight had such a good reason
for not having been on hand to see to the proper lading of his vessel.
He also gathered from this speech that the captain was a Yankee, which
he had not known before. Jack Baldwin told him afterward that he hailed
from New London, and had the name of being a very good sailor and a
great fighter.

He was quite a young man, a little older than Tom, perhaps, but hardly
as old as Jack Baldwin. He was a fine gentlemanly fellow, and looked
not unlike a picture of Commodore Decatur that Tom had seen in the
window of a print shop in Walnut street, though Knight was the younger
man.

After a short time Jack Baldwin came into the office; Captain Knight
and he spoke to one another, for they had met before.

Presently, as they all stood talking together, Mr. Lovejoy asked of a
sudden whether it would be possible, at a pinch, to weigh anchor the
next day.

Tom was struck all aback at this, and could hardly believe that he
heard aright.

“I should think,” said Captain Knight, “that it might be done;” and,
from the way in which he spoke, Tom could see that he and Mr. Lovejoy
had already talked the matter over and had pretty well settled it
between themselves.

“What do you think, Mr. Baldwin,” said old Mr. Lovejoy, and all looked
at Jack for an answer.

“I think, sir,” said Jack, in his rough way, “I think, sir, as Captain
Knight says, that it _might_ be done. A man might cruise from here to
Cochin China, in a dory, provided that he had enough hard-tack and
water aboard. If he met a gale, though, he would be pretty sure to go
to the bottom,—and so should we.”

Tom could easily see that Captain Knight was touched at the way in
which Jack had spoken, as well he might be. It was, however, Jack’s
usual way of speaking, and it is not likely that he meant anything by
it.

“What do _you_ think, Mr. Granger?” said Captain Knight, turning
quickly to Tom, with a little red spot burning in each cheek.

Tom was sorry that he was brought into the matter, for he saw, as has
been said, that Captain Knight was touched, and he did not want to say
anything to gall him further. However, he answered, as he was asked:
“I am afraid, sir,” said he, smiling, “that it may perhaps be a little
risky to weigh anchor just yet.” Of course, he could not explain when
it was not asked of him to do so, but he knew that it would take fully
ten days, if not two weeks, to get the _Nancy Hazlewood_ into anything
like fit sailing trim. Not only were the decks hampered up with a mass
of stores of all kinds (for it had been necessary to crowd them aboard
in a great hurry), but no start had been made at drawing out watch,
quarter and station bills. Tom could not help thinking that if Captain
Knight had been on hand during the past week, he never would have given
it as his opinion that the vessel was fit to sail,—even on a pinch.

When Tom gave his answer, Captain Knight turned hastily away to
the fire-place, and began in a nervous sort of a way to finger a
letter-stamp that lay on the mantle-shelf. Any one could see that he
was very much irritated; but in a few moments he turned around again,
and seemed quiet enough, only that the red still burned in his cheeks.
Mr. Lovejoy tried to throw oil on the troubled water.

“Mr. Granger,” said he, resting his hand ever so lightly on Tom’s arm
for a moment, “Mr. Granger has had a great deal to do this past week,
and maybe (smiling) the overpress of work makes him think that there is
more yet to be done than there really is. I wouldn’t,” said he, taking
up a letter from his desk, “I wouldn’t think for a moment, and neither
would Captain Knight, of letting the _Hazlewood_ leave her anchorage
just now, if it were not for this packet, which was sent to me this
morning, about half-past ten o’clock.”

Here he handed the packet to Jack Baldwin, who read it, and then passed
it to Tom without a word. It was the news that Beresford had lifted the
blockade of the Delaware.

“You see,” said Mr. Lovejoy, “here is a good chance of getting away.
There is no knowing how soon John Bull will shut the door again, and
then, here we’ll be penned up for six months, or more, perhaps.”

Then Captain Knight spoke again. He said that while the ship might
not be in fit trim for sailing in an ordinary case, some risks must
be run with her, for risks, greater or less, must always be taken in
this sort of service. He said that he proposed to run for the Capes,
and put into Lewes Harbor if the weather seemed likely to be heavy.
They could get in proper trim there just as easily as they could in
Philadelphia. He also said that, being just inside of the Capes, they
would not only have good harborage, but could either slip out to sea or
run up the bay, in case that any of the enemy’s cruisers should appear
in the offing. Another great advantage was that they would be this much
further on their cruise, and, if the weather turned out well, could
take their chances and run for Key West, even if the ship were not in
the best of order.

“I know,” said he, “that both Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Granger have been
bred to caution in the merchant service, where cargoes and storage are
almost the first things to consider, but” (here he looked straight at
Jack), “one must have some courage in the sort of service that we are
about to enter upon, for a lack of that is almost as great a fault as
poor seamanship.”

There was a great deal of reason in the first part of this speech, and
Tom could not help seeing it, though for all that he was troubled at
the step which they seemed about to take. As for what was last said, he
felt that it was most uncalled for, for he knew that Jack Baldwin was
as brave as any man living; nor was he, I think, a coward.

Jack was very angry. He said that if any occasion should arise, he
hoped to show Captain Knight that he would dare to do as much as any
man that ever walked a deck-plank, no matter whom he might be; that he
would say no more about lying in port, and was now willing to sail at
any time—the sooner the better.

Poor old Mr. Lovejoy was very much troubled at the ill feeling between
the two men. He talked to both very kindly until, after a while, the
trouble seemed to clear away somewhat, and things went more smoothly.

At last it was settled that if the wind held to the northward (it had
been blowing from that quarter for the last two days) they should weigh
anchor at three o’clock in the afternoon, so as to take advantage of
the ebb tide, and run down as far as Lewestown harbor at least.

“What do you say to all this, Tom?” said Jack, as the two walked down
to the dock together.

“I say nothing, Jack.”

“It seems to me that you never do say anything,” said Jack, “but _I_
say something; I say that we are all a pack of lubberly fools, and that
the worst one amongst us is that walking sea dandy, for he ought to
know better.”

Tom could not but agree with a part of this speech, but he made no
answer, for it could do no good.

The anchor was weighed at three o’clock the next day as had been
fixed upon, and they ran down the river with the wind E. N. E. and an
ebb tide to help them along; and so began the cruise of the _Nancy
Hazlewood_.

All this may seem to be spun out somewhat over long, but I tell it to
you that you may see just why the _Nancy Hazlewood_ sailed when she
did, which was ten days before she should have done. The day of sailing
was Friday, the 20th of April, 1813.

Tom wrote a letter to Patty Penrose on the evening before he sailed.
It was a long letter and he told her many things, but he did not
tell her that the vessel in which he had sailed as second mate was a
privateersman.

It may be well that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ should be described, that
you may have a notion of the craft in which Tom Granger went upon his
first and last privateering cruise. She was a full-rigged ship of
five hundred and fifty tons, and, though so small, had a poop and a
top-gallant forecastle.

Tom had rarely seen a vessel with handsomer lines.

She was evidently intended for great speed, though, in his judgment,
she was rather heavily sparred for a vessel of her size. It afterward
proved that she was so. She carried eight thirty-two pound carronades
on the main deck, and two long twelves, one on the forecastle and one
on the poop; and about one hundred men. Altogether, though not so
heavily armed as the _Dolphin_ or _Comet_ of Baltimore, she was one of
the most substantial as well as one of the swiftest privateersmen that
ever left any port of the country during the war.

As a rule, privateersmen were swift-sailing brigs or schooners,
heavily armed and manned, and depending largely upon their prizes
for provisions; but the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was fitted out almost as
completely as though she were in the regular service.

All that night and during Saturday the 21st it blew heavily from the
N. E. On Saturday evening, however, the weather broke and there seemed
a prospect of its being clear the next day. On Sunday forenoon at two
bells the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was nearly abreast of Lewestown harbor.
Captain Knight was on the poop at the time, and he gave orders to Tom,
who was the officer of the deck, that a craft should be signaled to
take off the pilot.

Tom was struck all aback at this; it was the first hint that he had had
that Captain Knight did not intend to put into Lewestown harbor after
all. It was in rather an uncomfortable state of mind that he gave the
needful orders, had the jack run up at the fore and the vessel hove to.

Captain Knight stood beside Tom, his hands clasped behind him, watching
the pilot boat as it presently hoisted sail and bore down under
the lee quarter. What his feelings were cannot be told; Tom’s were
uncomfortable enough, as has been said. He knew that Captain Knight
must have had good and sufficient reason for that which he was about
to do; nevertheless, his heart sank as he cast his eyes around and saw
the confusion everywhere; the deck littered with all sort of gear and
hamper. There is an old saying that a vessel is never ready for sea
until a week after leaving port. Tom thought that the _Nancy Hazlewood_
was at least three weeks behind time.

Presently Jack Baldwin came up from below. He cast his eyes quickly
aloft, and then he looked at the pilot boat, which was now close under
the lee quarter.

Tom could see that he took it all in in a moment.

He came straight across the deck to where Captain Knight and Tom
Granger were standing, and touched his hat to the captain.

“Captain Knight,” said he.

“Sir?” said the captain, turning quickly upon him.

“The understanding was that we were to put into Lewes Harbor, for a
time; at least, so I understood it. May I ask if you intend to put to
sea, after all?”

Tom stood aghast. He had never heard an officer speak to his captain
in such a way in all his life before. There was no better seaman
afloat than Jack Baldwin, and it must have been a serious case, in his
opinion, that would excuse him in so addressing his commanding officer.

As for Captain Knight, he grew white to the lips.

He spoke in a low tone, and very slowly, but his voice trembled with
the weight of his anger. “Mr. Baldwin,” said he, “I don’t know where
you have sailed, or what discipline you have seen, that has taught
you to allow yourself to question your captain’s intentions to your
captain’s self. Understand me, sir, once and for all: I am the chief
officer of this ship, and I will not have you, nor any man aboard,
question me. You hear me? That will do, sir; go to your room.”

The two men looked at one another for a moment. Tom held his breath,
expecting to hear Jack blaze out with something that would get him into
more trouble than ever. However, he said nothing, but swung on his heel
and went below.

Captain Knight stood beside Tom, in silence, his breath coming and
going quickly; suddenly, he too turned and walked hastily to the cabin,
banging the door behind him.

Tom leaned on the rail, sick at heart; he felt miserable about the
whole matter. Here he was, embarked on a cruise for which he had no
liking, in the stormy season of the year, in a ship which he believed
to be unfit for sailing, with a crew that had no discipline, and the
captain and the first mate at loggerheads before they were out of
harbor. He would have given an eye to be safe ashore again.

And yet, that Sunday morning was not a day to breed troubled thoughts.
Tom had rarely seen a lovelier one; the air seemed more like June than
April. The last few days of rain had washed the air until it was as
clear as crystal. One could see every window pane in the little town
of Lewes. There was a sentry walking up and down on the newly-made
earthworks in front of the town, and at every turn that he took at the
end of his beat, his bayonet flashed like a star. The ship rose and
fell lazily on the heaving of the ground swell that rolled in around
the Capes. Down to the southward the white sands stretched away into
the looming of the distance, rimmed with a whiter line of foam until
all was lost in the misty haze cast up by the tumbling surf.

The pilot boat had now run up near to them, and was launching a dory
from her deck. Tom stood leaning on the rail, looking at her, and
presently the pilot came and stood beside him. He was a short, powerful
man, bull-necked and long-armed. A shock of hair and a grizzled
beard seemed to make a sort of frame around his face. Even he felt
uncomfortable at that which had just passed.

“A nasty row, wasn’t it, sir?” said he to Tom, jerking his head toward
the captain’s cabin.

Tom made no answer; in fact, he did not look at the man, for it was
none of the fellow’s business.

Presently the dory came alongside, and the pilot slid down the
man-ropes and stepped cleverly into her.

By noon the _Nancy Hazlewood_ had dropped Cape May astern. The captain
had sent for Jack to come upon deck again, to take his watch at eight
bells. Captain Knight had directed her course to be laid S. E. by E.,
by which Tom supposed that he intended to run well out, so as to escape
the chance of falling in with any of the British cruisers that were at
that time hanging about the coast, more especially off the mouth of the
Chesapeake. The wind was nearly astern, every inch of cloth was spread,
and the way in which the _Nancy Hazlewood_ boomed along showed Tom
Granger that he had not overrated her sailing qualities. The log showed
that she was running at a little over eleven knots.

All of the afternoon Tom was in the forward part of the vessel, looking
to the clearing away of a lot of stores, for they were getting things
to rights as well as they could, and taking advantage of the fair
weather to do it.

And it was very needful, too, for, beside spare suits of sails and
spars, lashed to nothing, there was a great litter of miscellaneous
stores,—barrels of salt pork, junk, hard-tack, and flour, kegs, chests,
crates, yeoman’s and purser’s stores, and a hundred and one things—too
many to tell of.

Tom could not help wondering, as he looked at this mass of stores, what
they should do if it should be needful to man the guns for a fight, or
work the ship in a sudden squall. However, no craft of any sort was in
sight, and there was no sign of foul weather.

One of the worst features of the whole matter was the slowness with
which they got along with the business of clearing up all this hamper;
the work seemed to gather on them instead of growing less.

About the middle of the afternoon, Jack came to where Tom stood
overseeing the men at this work. He stood beside him for some time
without saying a word, looking moodily at them. Presently he spoke all
of a sudden: “What do you say to it all, Tom?”

“I have nothing to say, Jack,” said Tom.

“You may have nothing to say,” said Jack, “but I have. Mark my words,
Tom, if we’re caught in any sort of heavy weather we’ll founder as
sure as my name’s Jack Baldwin!” So saying, he turned on his heel and
walked quickly away. Tom could easily see that Jack felt touched at him
because he did not show more feeling in the matter. But though Tom did
not show it, his thoughts were uncomfortable enough in all conscience.

That day (the twenty-second), was as good a day as one could have
wished for, and so was the next,—and that was the last, for then the
trouble began.




CHAPTER VI.


SO the 23d was the last fair day that they had on that short cruise.
During the forenoon the wind held from nearly the same quarter—that is,
northerly and westerly.

The air was mild and pleasant; the day, like the day before, seemed
more like June than the middle of April.

Toward noon, however, the wind shifted around to the southward and
eastward, and the glass had a downward bearing. Tom saw, with a
troubled feeling, that the weather began to take an ugly sort of
a look. About nine o’clock Captain Knight gave orders to have the
vessel’s course altered to nearly due south.

At noon the observation showed their position to be about 35° 40′
north, by 71° west, with Hatteras about 210 miles distant, W. by S. on
the starboard beam.

A little before eight bells, Captain Knight came up on deck again, and
Tom, feeling anxious himself, looked out of the corners of his eyes,
to see if he could gather what the captain thought of the situation.
It seemed to Tom that he was not quite easy in his mind. He cast his
eyes aloft, and then looked around. He took a turn or two up and down
the deck, and then looked at the glass, which, as had been said, was
falling. Whatever he might have thought about the looks of things,
he said nothing. Tom had half expected an order to shorten sail, but
Captain Knight gave none such, and presently went to his cabin again.

Shortly after noon the wind was blowing from the northeast. It became
a great deal colder, and by four o’clock the sky was overcast by a
gathering haze, which, at last, shut out the sun altogether.

About this time they fell in with shifting banks of fog, blowing before
the wind, the like of which Tom had never seen before. They seemed to
drift in belts, and were no doubt raised by cold currents of air, for
a chill could be felt the minute the ship would run into one of them.
Every now and then the wind would sweep these banks away, rolling them
up before it, and for a little while there would be a clear space
around the ship for maybe a couple of miles or more.

At that time they were under all plain sail to top gallant sails, and
were booming along at a rate that could not have been less than ten
knots. Tom thought that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ might even have done
better than she was then doing, were it not that she labored in a most
unusual way for a vessel, in a wind no heavier than that in which she
was then sailing. There is no doubt that this came from the heaviness
of her spars as well as the ill stowage of her provisions and stores;
still she was doing well, and any one could see with half an eye that
it would be an uncommonly swift cruiser to whom the _Nancy Hazlewood_
would not be able to show a clean pair of heels, if the need should
arise for her doing so.

It was a little before the middle of the first dog watch, when there
happened one of the closest misses that Tom ever had of losing his
life. I most firmly believe that if any one beside Jack Baldwin had
been the officer of the deck, Tom Granger’s story would never have had
to have been told.

Jack was walking up and down on the poop in a restless sort of a way.
It was plain that he was anxious at the fog, as well he might be. At
one time the ship would be surging away across what seemed to be a
lake, with dull banks of snow all around, at another she would plunge
headforemost into whirling clouds of mist, so thick that the leaden sea
alongside could barely be seen; heaving as though it were something
alive, and the fog was smothering it.

Jack came to the break of the poop and looked over to where Tom was
standing, on the deck below. His black hair and beard were covered with
the dampness, so that he looked as though he had turned gray.

“Tom,” said he, “I wish you’d slip foreward and see that those men are
keeping a bright lookout ahead. Keep your weather eye lifted too, Tom,
till we’re out of the worst of this infernally thick fog.”

So Tom went foreward, as Jack had asked him to do, and found that the
two men who had been placed there since they had run into the fog were
keeping as sharp a lookout as could be wished for.

Just as Tom climbed up on the forecastle, they surged out into a clear
space, that was maybe two miles or two miles and a quarter from side to
side.

They had run pretty nearly across this stretch, and I recollect that
Tom was just lighting his pipe under the lee of the foremast. As he
raised his head and looked over the port bow, he saw a sight that made
the blood stand still in his veins.

_It was a man-of-war in full sail, looming up like a mountain._

It came out of the fog so suddenly, that it seemed as though the mist
had taken form from itself. It was bearing straight down across the
port bow of the _Nancy Hazlewood_, plunging forward as solemnly as
death. It could not have been more than six or seven ships’ lengths
distant, and the great sails bellying out like big clouds, shadowed
over the _Nancy Hazlewood_ as _she_ might have shadowed over a fishing
smack.

Ten seconds more and she would have been down upon them, and would have
crushed the little craft as though she had been made of paper. There
was a moment of silence as great as though every man aboard of the
_Nancy Hazlewood_ had been turned to stone. I remember that Tom Granger
stood with his newly-lighted pipe in his hand, never moving a hair.

The silence was only for an instant, though, for the next moment a
voice roared like a trumpet:

“Hard a starboard! Let go, head sheets and lee head braces!”

It was Jack Baldwin’s voice, and never did Tom hear it ring as it
did at that moment. It not only was heard through the ship, but it
pealed through it like a clap of thunder. Those below came tumbling
up helter-skelter, and the captain came running out of his cabin, for
there was a ring in Jack’s voice that told every man aboard of the ship
that great danger was down upon them. It seemed to break the stillness
around just as a stone dropped into a well might break the stillness
below. In an instant the braces were flung from the belaying-pins, and
the ship came up toward the wind without a second to lose. Before those
aboard of the frigate had gathered their wits she had passed alongside,
and so close that a child could easily have pitched a biscuit aboard of
the _Nancy Hazlewood_ from the decks that loomed twenty feet above her.

The whole thing was over in a dozen seconds, but those dozen seconds
are stamped on Tom Granger’s mind as clearly as though they were
chiseled in marble. Even now, though he is over eighty years old, he
can see that great frigate rising higher and higher as she surges
forward, towering over the little ship, while a hundred faces pop up
above the rail and stare down upon her decks. It was only a moment—a
thread of time—on which hung the chance as to whether she would clear
or not. There was a thunderous roar of the waters under the bow, flung
back in an echo from the wooden walls of the frigate; there was a
vision of open ports rushing by, and of scared faces crowded at them,
in spite of discipline; then the frigate was astern and the danger gone
past with her. But in that short moment of passing they saw enough to
make them know that she was a British cruiser.

I say again that if Jack Baldwin had not had the deck at that time
there would never have been any story to tell of Tom Granger, for if
Jack had hesitated only so much as two seconds, as I am afraid that Tom
would have done in his case, the _Nancy Hazlewood_ would have been run
down just as sure as that there is a sun in the heavens.

So the danger went by, and all was over in a quarter of the time that
it takes to tell it. The head-yards were braced up, the head-sheets
were gathered aft, the _Nancy Hazlewood_ stood away on her course
again, and the next moment plunged into the fog and was gone.

But, in the meantime, they had wakened up aboard of the frigate, and
just as the _Nancy Hazlewood_ ran into the bank they heard an order
shouted aboard of the man-of-war, sounding faint because of the
distance that the two vessels had now run:

“Weather head, and main; lee cro’ jack braces!”

That meant that the frigate was about to wear, follow down in their
wake and do that which she had so nearly missed doing a minute
before—finish up the Yankee.

Tom came aft, and, though he would have felt like knocking the man down
that would have said so at the time, his hands were cold and trembling
nervously. For the matter of that, Jack Baldwin’s face was whiter than
it was used to be. “A close shave, sir,” said he to Captain Knight, who
stood beside him; but there was a nervous tremor in his voice in spite
of the boldness that he assumed. Indeed, the only perfectly cool man
aboard was Captain Knight. He stood looking aft, as though he would
pierce the fog and make out what the vessel astern of him was about.

Presently he turned to Jack. “Did you not understand from that order
that he was about to ware ship, Mr. Baldwin?” said he.

“I think that I understood them to give such an order, sir,” said Jack.

Captain Knight drew out his snuff box and took a pinch of snuff. “I
understood it so,” said he, shutting the lid of the box with a snap
and sliding it into his pocket again. He stood for about a couple of
minutes looking, now up at the sails and now straight ahead; presently
he turned to Jack again.

“Bring her by the wind on the starboard tack, Mr. Baldwin,” said he.
“We’ll slip out of this neighborhood on somewhat the same course that
the Englishman held a few minutes ago, and leave him groping about here
in this infernal blindness for us.”

It seemed to Tom that Captain Knight had done a wise thing in taking
the course that he did to get away from the Englishman. If the fog
should lift, and they should find that the frigate had the weather
gauge, they might get into a nasty pickle, whereas this course would
give _them_ the weather gauge and every chance to get away.

After a while Captain Knight told Jack to set the fore-topmast stay
sail, and then, after some hesitation, to set the royals. It was quite
plain that he had made up his mind to crack on sail, so as to gain as
much to the windward of the frigate as he could.

The _Nancy Hazlewood_ was now sailing close-hauled, and was as pretty
a sight as one could wish to see. The wind was blowing stiffly, as it
had done for some time. It had not increased to any account, though the
scud was beginning to fly across the sky, and there was every prospect
of its blowing heavily before morning. So the _Nancy Hazlewood_ went
bowling along on this wind, her bows every now and then flinging a
roaring sea from her in an ocean of foam. She was careened over so that
the sea eddied around the lee scuppers, and her copper bottom showed
red in the green waters. On she went, bouncing from sea to sea, as a
ball bounces when it is rolled across the ground. The top-gallant masts
were bent like a bow, and the weather backstays were as taut as the
bow-string, those on the lee bowing out gracefully before the wind. The
cloud of sails were bellied big and round, and were as hard as iron,
and altogether, as was said, the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was as pretty a
sight as one could wish to see.

About two bells in the first watch Captain Knight gave orders that the
ship should be put about, and running two points free on the starboard
tack, stood off to the S.E.

This, as has been said, was one of the narrowest shaves that Tom
Granger ever had for his life, and as long as he shall remember
anything he will never forget that half-minute when the British frigate
was coming down upon them under full sail, with death at the helm.




CHAPTER VII.


THE next morning, when Tom came upon deck, he found that the wind had
increased to half a gale. It was a dreary sight. The sky was heavy and
leaden, and the sea was like liquid lead, for, when the sky is dull,
like it was that morning, it seems as though one could almost walk
over the surface of the ocean, so hard does it look, and so lacking of
depth, excepting where the crest of the wave sharpens just before it
breaks.

The _Nancy Hazlewood_ showed that she was a very wet ship, for her
decks were covered with water, that ran swashing from side to side. She
would roll well over on her side, like a log, and scoop in the top of a
wave, that would rush backward and forward across the deck until it had
run out of the scupper holes; but before it was fairly gone another sea
would come, so that the decks were never free of water. Not only was
the ship laboring strangely, but she was yawing so that two men at the
wheel could hardly keep her to her course.

Jack was standing on the poop, anxious and troubled. Tom stood beside
him, but neither of them spoke for a while, both being sunk in deep
thought.

“Tom,” said Jack, at last, in a low voice, “I’ve sailed in a many ships
in my time, but I never saw one behave like this. She bothers me; I
don’t know what to make of her.” He paused for a moment, and then he
clapped his hand to his thigh. “D—n it,” said he, “she ain’t either
equipped or stowed in a fit way. She ought never to have put out from
Lewestown Harbor in her condition, and, without I’m much mistaken,
we’ll find that out long before we reach Key West.”

Then he turned over the orders and went below to get his breakfast,
leaving Tom in charge of the deck.

The day passed without especial event, and that night at the mid-watch
Tom turned in to get a little sleep. It seemed to him that he had
hardly closed his eyes when he was aroused by the sound of the
boatswain’s voice ringing, as it were, in his very ears:

“_All hands reef topsails!_”

Tom tumbled out of his bunk and stood on the cabin floor. There was a
noise of pounding and grinding alongside, and the decks were careened,
so that the first thought that occurred to him was that the ship was
foundering. He ran up on deck without stopping a moment, for there
was a vibration in the boatswain’s voice that told him that something
serious had befallen.

The gale had increased with a sudden and heavy squall, and the
maintop-gallant-mast had gone by the board. It was hanging alongside,
a tangled wreck, and it was the thumping and grinding of this that Tom
had heard when he had first opened his eyes. A dozen men were at work
cutting away the wreck, and Tom jumped to help them. At last it drifted
away astern, a tangled mass on the surface of grey foam.

All around them were seas, ten or fifteen feet high, shining with
phosphorescent crests, moving solemnly forward with their black weight
of thousands of tons of solid water. Amongst these the little ship
labored like a living thing in pain. The men ran up aloft, and Jack,
trumpet to mouth, bellowed orders that rang above all the thunder of
the gale. Presently the sails were clapping and thundering in the
darkness above, as the men wrestled with them. Now and then voices were
to be heard through all the roaring of the waters and the howling of
the wind: “Haul out to windward!” and “Light out to leeward!”—an uproar
of noises that one never hears excepting on shipboard, and at such a
time.

Day broke with the storm blowing as furiously as ever. Tom was officer
of the deck, when, about ten o’clock, Maul, the carpenter, came aft to
where he was standing. He was a fine-looking fellow, broad-shouldered
and deep-chested. He chucked his thumb up to his forehead, and,
shifting the quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other, told Tom that
which sent a thrill shivering through him:

“Ten inches of water in the well, sir.”

The pumps sucked at five inches, so the _Nancy Hazlewood_ had made five
inches of water in the last hour.

“I was afraid it would come,” said Tom to himself, and then he went
and reported it to the captain, for, though the leak was not of much
account as regarded size, it was as dangerous as it was sudden.

“Man the pumps, sir,” was all that the captain said.

Before very long the pumps sucked, and the men gave a cheer. So far
all was well enough. But an hour afterward the carpenter came aft and
reported that there was a little less than thirteen inches of water in
the well. Captain Knight, and Tom, and Jack were standing near together
on the poop at the time.

“Man the pumps,” was all that the captain said, and then he moved away.

“Jack,” said Tom, in a low voice, “this looks ugly.”

“You’re right; it does,” said Jack.

There was a cold, dull rain blowing slantwise across the ocean at that
time, which shut in everything to within a mile or two of the ship.
The gale had moderated but little, but now, through all the roaring,
you could hear the regular thump, thump of the pumps, where two lines
of men were working at the brakes. Every now and then the sound of the
pumping would stop with the sucking of water, but presently it would
begin again—thump! thump! thump! thump! When evening came the sound was
unceasing, for at that time they were not pumping the water out of the
ship as fast as she was making it.

The last thing that Tom heard that night was the continuous thumping,
and it was the first thing that met his ears when he opened his eyes
again. He went up on deck, and when he looked around him his heart
fell within him. Half of the maintop-sail was blown away, the shreds
standing straight out with the force of the wind. There was a great
deal of water on the deck—perhaps never less than three feet on the lee
side.

She was not taking much water over the weather rail, but she would take
it to leeward, and then roll to windward, and the sea would go rushing
across the deck, carrying everything before it.

That afternoon he stood on the poop deck looking over the side of the
vessel. She was rolling with a dull, heavy motion from side to side; it
was just such a motion as a log in a mill pond will take if you give it
a push with your foot. He looked first astern, and then forward, and
he saw that the stern was deeper in the water than the bows. Just then
he felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up and saw that it was Jack
Baldwin.

“Tom,” said he, in a low voice.

“What is it, Jack?”

“I’ve been looking too; do you know that the ship’s foundering?”

Tom nodded his head, for he did not feel like speaking.

“Tom,” said Jack, after a moment of silence; “what do you suppose is
the reason that Captain Knight don’t give orders to have the boats
cleared away, ready for lowering.”

“Perhaps he don’t think it’s time; the ship’ll last a good while longer
yet, Jack.”

“Do you think that’s his reason, Tom?” said Jack.

Tom did not answer.

“I see you don’t. Look here, Tom; do you want to know what I’m
beginning to think? It’s this,—_that he don’t intend to let a man leave
this ship, if he can’t bring her to Key West!_”

“For God’s sake, don’t breathe a word of that in the men’s hearing,
Jack. You can’t believe what you say.”

“What did Captain Sedgwick do last November?”

Tom did not answer; he knew that story only too well. Captain Sedgwick,
of the privateersman _Mirabel_, had fallen in with a British cruiser
off Barnegat; had been crippled by her, and had blown up his ship and
all hands on board, so that she might not fall into the Englishman’s
hands. Three men out of one hundred and eighteen had come off with
their lives.

“For heaven’s sake, Jack, don’t breathe a word of this to the crew!”
said Tom again, and then he turned away.

As the day wore along, things looked more and more gloomy.

About three o’clock in the afternoon a sound fell on their ears, that
thrilled through every man on board. It was the voice of the lookout,
roaring,—“Sail ho!”

“Where away?” sang out Jack.

“Two points on the port bow,” came the answer.

Most of the crew ran to the side of the vessel, as did the men at the
brakes. Tom did not order them back, for he saw that there would be no
use in doing so.

As the day had worn along, the discipline of the ship had begun to go
pretty much to pieces, and there had been great difficulty in keeping
the men at the brakes. I think that they, like Jack and Tom, had gotten
a notion that the ship was doomed, for, though they worked when they
were ordered, it was in a dull, stolid way, as though they had no
interest in it one way or another. Tom had tried to do all that lay in
him to keep them going, and I think that it was only through his urging
that they were kept at it at all.

So now they all left the pumps and ran to the side of the vessel to get
a look at the sail.

At first it was seen like a flickering speck in the dull, grey
distance, but it presently rose higher and higher as the _Nancy
Hazlewood_ held on her course. Jack Baldwin was on the poop when
the vessel was first sighted; he did not lose a moment, but went
straightway and reported it to the captain, who presently came upon
deck from his cabin. He had wound a red scarf about his waist, and had
thrust a brace of large pistols in it. There was an odd look about
him, that at first led Tom to think that he had been drinking, but he
soon found that he was wrong. Whatever it was that had led him to rig
himself up in this style, it was not drink.

He stood silently with the glass at his eye, looking at the distant
sail that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was slowly raising above the horizon.
He did not seem to notice that the men had left the pumps; at least
he made no remark upon it. Minute after minute passed, until at last
the hull of the vessel hove in sight and showed her to be a large
barque—apparently, from the cut of her sails, an English merchantman.
She came within about three miles of them, but Captain Knight neither
gave orders to have the course of the _Hazlewood_ altered, or signals
of distress run up. Every moment Tom expected to hear such an order,
but none passed the captain’s lips. Presently, he shut the tube of the
glass sharply, and then he spoke.

“She’s too large for us to tackle in our present condition,” said he.

“Tackle!” burst out Jack. “My G—d! You didn’t think of _fighting_ that
vessel, did you?”

Captain Knight turned sharply upon him, as though he were about to say
something; but he seemed to think better of it, for he swung on his
heel, as though to enter his cabin again.

Then Jack Baldwin strode directly up to him. “Captain Knight,” said he,
and he did not so much as touch his hat, “a’n’t you going to signal
that vessel?”

His voice rang like a bell, and every man aboard of the sinking ship
heard it, and listened eagerly for the captain’s answer. Captain Knight
stood where he was, and looked Jack from top to toe, and back again.

“No, sir,” said he, coldly, “I am not going to signal that vessel.”

“Do you mean to say that you’re going to drown every man aboard this
ship, as you might a cage full of rats, just because you’re too proud
to signal an Englishman.”

Captain Knight made no answer; he only looked at Jack and smiled, and
Tom Granger thought that it was as wicked a smile as he had ever seen
in all of his life.

“Now, by the eternal,” roared Jack, “I’ll run the signals up myself!”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Captain Knight. He spoke very
quietly, but his face was as white as the other’s was red.

“Won’t I? That you’ll see,” said Jack, passionately, and he made a
movement to turn.

“Wait a moment, sir,” said the captain, in his quiet voice. But the
words were hardly out of his mouth, when, as quick as a flash, a pistol
was leveled at Jack’s head, with a pair of wicked grey eyes behind it.

There was a dead pause for about as long as you could count ten; the
captain’s finger lay on the trigger, and every instant Tom expected to
see the flash that was to come. He held his breath, for there was death
in the captain’s eyes, but he did not draw the trigger.

It was Tom that broke the silence. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot,
captain,” cried he, from where he stood. The captain did not seem to
hear him.

“You mutinous scoundrel,” said he at last, “down on your knees and ask
pardon!”

Jack did not move.

“You hear me? Down on your knees and ask pardon, or you’re a dead man!”

He spoke as quietly as ever, but there was a deadly ring in his voice
for all that.

“I’ll give you till I count three,” said he, at last, and then he began
to count, “one,—two—”

Jack looked around, with despair in his eyes. The captain smiled.
“Stand where you are,” said he, and then his teeth and tongue began to
form the “th—”

Jack Baldwin was no coward; but would you yourself have stood still
and be shot down like a dog? It would have been a brave man indeed—a
foolishly brave man—that would have done such a thing. I will not tell
the rest. It is enough to say that Jack _did_ do that which the captain
ordered him, and that before the whole ship’s company.

“You are wise,” said Captain Knight, dryly, and then he thrust the
pistol back again into his belt, and, turning on his heel, went into
his cabin.

Jack got up slowly from his knees. His face was haggard and drawn. He
looked at no one, but went to the side of the ship and stood gazing
into the water. Tom saw him a half an hour afterward, standing just in
the same way, and in the same place.

When the captain had gone into his cabin, Tom turned to the pumps
again. “Shake her up!—— your eyes! Shake her up!” roared he.

It was the first time that he ever used an oath to the men under him,
and it is hard to tell why he used it then, for in his heart he did not
believe that he was long for this life. Then the men fell to pumping
again, but what little life they had left was all gone out of them now.




CHAPTER VIII.


THAT evening Tom took a scrambling meal in the cuddy; it was the last
that he had aboard of the _Nancy Hazlewood_.

The darkness came on early, and the wind still held as heavy as ever
when night fell. At that time the ship was very low in the water
astern, and Tom did not expect her to live till morning. Even to this
day it is a mystery to him why she did not founder long before she did.

It was plain that even the sailors themselves felt that there was no
hope; they were dull, lifeless and spiritless. Those who were not
working at the pumps, stood around the forecastle, or lay in their
hammocks; all were quiet, excepting where one or two were talking
together in low tones.

Of course, there was no sleep to be had for Tom that night. He
had stood by the pumps since early in the morning, and was nearly
exhausted, for there were times when he could feel the water washing
around his waist. One after another the men would drop the brakes,
altogether done up, but there was no chance for him to leave his
station and get a little rest. Jack had done nothing since his
encounter with Captain Knight, the afternoon before. Captain Knight
himself did not come out of his cabin, so Tom seemed to be the only
officer in charge of the ship.

“Shake her up, lads! Shake her up!” cried he, whenever there were signs
of flagging at the pumps, and he repeated these words so often that he
began to say them mechanically.

So the weary night dragged slowly along, and at last the dull light of
the morning came, and the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was still afloat. One by
one the things stood out in the pallid light of the dawning; first of
all the black troubled field of water was seen, sharply marked against
the slowly greying sky; then came a faint light across the flooded
deck, against which the men stood out as black as ink, as they worked
at the pumps.

About eight o’clock in the morning Captain Knight came upon deck again.
He, Jack Baldwin, Mr. Wilde (the surgeon), the boatswain and one or two
of the men were standing on the poop together. No attention was paid to
these men standing aft the quarter deck, and Tom could not see that any
orders were given, for the helm was lashed, keeping the vessel before
the wind.

Tom left the pumps for a minute or two, and slipped into the cuddy for
a dram of rum, which he very much needed. He found that the cuddy was
awash with several inches of water. He took the dram of rum, and then
looking around his state room he saw his sea-chest, and opened it and
took out his watch and purse. He slipped the watch into his pocket, but
the ship giving a sudden lurch at the time, he dropped his purse. He
smiled when he found himself groping in the swashing water for it, for
he could not take it with him where he expected that he would have to
go.

The men had left the pumps when he came upon deck again. A crowd of
them were standing foreward, some on the top-gallant forecastle.
There was no drunkenness amongst them, and Tom found later that the
spirit-room had been fastened securely, and in good time, which was
about the only timely thing that was done in the whole business. He did
not order them to work again, for there could be no use in it. Indeed,
there had been but little use in it for some time past, and the only
reason that he had kept the pumps going was because it seemed better to
be doing something than to stand still, waiting for death. But Captain
Knight gave no orders to lower the boats, and Jack Baldwin did not seem
to care whether they were lowered or not.

At this time there were only two boats left. The whale-boat had been
stove in the night before, and all of the cutters were gone but one. A
part of one of them was hanging by the stern falls from the davits. The
mate to it was good, however, and, with a pinnace, capable of holding
maybe thirty men at a pinch, was all that was left of the six boats
that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ had carried with her when she first started
on her cruise.

Tom saw that there was no prospect of Captain Knight’s giving the
order to have the boats cleared away, so he went aft to the poop, where
the captain stood, and touched his hat to him very respectfully.

“Captain Knight,” said he, “the ship’s sinking, and I can’t keep the
men at their work any longer. Shall I get the boats cleared away?”

“They won’t work, you say?”

“No, sir.”

The captain took a pinch of snuff. “Then let ’em drown, and be d—d to
’em—the mutinous dogs,” said he. And he shut the snuff-box lid with a
snap.

“But, captain—” began Tom.

“Mr. Granger,” said the captain, sternly, “I wish to hear no more. When
I want to have the boats lowered I’ll give the orders, and not till
then. You hear me?”

Tom turned away, sick at heart. He still hoped that the captain meant
to have the boats cleared away, but in his heart he felt that he
intended nothing of the kind. The men had gathered aft when they saw
that Tom was talking to the captain. When they heard what came of it, a
deep groan arose from them.

About half an hour passed, and nothing was done. At the end of that
time a number of men who had been talking together, went over to the
pinnace and began clearing it away, and Tom saw that they were about to
lower it.

Nothing was said to them at the time, and no one interfered with them.
He went forward to where they were at work, after a while, for he felt
that he might be of some use to them. The boatswain was amongst them,
and he asked him to join them, as they needed an officer. But Tom shook
his head, for he could not bring himself to leave the ship. It was
false pride on his part, for he should have gone and have done what he
could. If Jack Baldwin would only have lent a hand with the other boat,
he would not have hesitated, I think.

Well, it was a misfortunate piece of business, and there is no use in
making more of it than need be. The boat was lowered safely enough;
but, in spite of all that Tom could do, a number of the crew, maybe
thirty or more, jumped into her from the ship, and she was swamped
almost immediately. Most of the men came climbing back again; but, to
the best of Tom’s recollection, eight or ten of them were drowned at
this time. No one but he seemed to care very much for this; no doubt
they felt that it was only a question of a few minutes, earlier or
later.

When Tom went back to the poop, Captain Knight met him with a sneering
smile. “You had better have let the matter alone, Mr. Granger,” said
he; “their blood be on your head.”

Now, Tom had put all the restraint upon himself that he could. He had
felt all the blunders and mismanagement that had brought them to this
pass as deeply as ever Jack Baldwin could have done, and had also felt
that most of the fault lay at Captain Knight’s door, but he had never
been anything but respectful to the captain, nor had he ever let a
questionable word pass his lips. But now, feeling the loss of the poor
devils that had been drowned in the pinnace resting heavily on his
mind, this speech was too much for his patience. He walked straight up
to Captain Knight and looked him squarely in the eyes.

The captain looked back at him for a little while, but presently his
eyes wavered, and he turned them aside. Then it was that a certain
vague thought that had been floating about in Tom’s mind, took shape
and form. At first he rejected the thought, but the longer he looked
upon Captain Knight the more he felt sure that his surmise was right.
At last he spoke:

“Look here, sir,” said he, sternly, “you’re not fit to be where you
are. You’re not in your right mind—you’re crazy.”

Captain Knight looked up. His face was white and his eyes uncertain,
and, for the first time, Tom noticed how bloodshot they were. Tom was
standing within arm’s length of him, and presently he saw that his
fingers were sliding furtively toward the pistol in his belt. Tom kept
his eyes fixed upon him.

“Take care,” said he, as quietly as he could, “don’t touch that pistol.”

Then Captain Knight drew his fingers away. “You mutinous scoundrel!”
whispered he, in a trembling voice. But he did not look directly at Tom
when he spoke; neither did he again attempt to draw a pistol.

Tom stood looking at him without a word for maybe half a minute. He
felt that if he turned his eyes away for so much as a second, he was a
dead man. So he stood without moving. At last he spoke again:

“Captain Knight, give me that pistol.”

The captain looked from side to side.

“Captain Knight, give me that pistol,” he repeated, and very sternly.
He held out his left hand as he spoke. His right was clenched, and if
the captain had made a dangerous movement, he would have smitten him
down where he stood. Captain Knight looked up for an instant. He must
have seen the resolve in Tom’s face, for he slowly drew out the pistol
and put it into his hand.

“Now give me the other,” said Tom. And once more the captain did as he
was bidden. Tom went to the side of the ship and threw both pistols
overboard. When he turned around the captain had gone into his cabin.
Tom never saw him again.

It was not till all was over that he felt what he had passed through.
So long as he had faced the captain his purpose had kept him braced to
what he was doing, but now his hands were cold and trembling nervously.

All of the ship’s crew had been looking on at what had passed, so he
tried to appear as cool as though nothing of any account had happened.
He went up to where Jack Baldwin was standing. “Jack,” said he (but his
voice trembled a little in spite of himself), “you’re the chief officer
now. For the Lord’s sake, give orders to get the cutter cleared away,
for there’s no time to lose.”

“I’ll give orders when I choose,” said Jack, roughly, and he swung on
his heel and strode away.

Tom was struck all aback, for he could not think at first what he had
done to touch Jack’s feelings. Presently Jack came back to him again.
He stopped close in front of him, and folded his arms.

“Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said he, “I suppose you think that because you
got the better of that d—d sea dandy, you can get the better of me. You
needn’t think that you’re the cock-of-the-walk because you took the
barkers away from him. I could have done it easy enough, if he hadn’t
taken me unawares. I’ll not deny that you _did_ get the better of him,
but I want you to understand that you’re not to lord it over me on that
account. I’m the chief officer here, and I’ll give my orders to you,
and not take them from you. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
Then he turned on his heel again and walked away.

But Tom had caught some insight into Jack’s mind, and he could not
but feel a certain contempt for him, for this was no time for little
jealousies and heart-burnings. He did not say anything to Jack, for
there could be no use in answering such a speech, so he walked to the
mizzen-mast without a word, and stood leaning against it, looking
ahead. All of a sudden Jack went stumbling down the ladder from
the poop, and forward amongst the men. Tom saw him a little while
afterward, talking to the boatswain, and then he knew that he was
thinking of lowering the cutter. He was glad that Jack had so far
swallowed his ugly pride, for it was a pity that all of the men aboard
of the ship should drown, when some of them might get safely away.

I say that he was glad, but there was a bitter feeling, too, when he
thought of others being saved, while he was to be left to drown like
a rat in a box. His pride would not let him run away from the ship to
take his chance in the cutter, but, all the same, his thoughts were
very bitter. About this time he saw that those of the crew not at work
about the cutter were throwing many loose things overboard. He saw the
side of a hen-coop near to the ship; “I shall keep close to something
of that kind when she goes down,” said he to himself. They were a good
hundred miles from land, but the thought did not seem as foolish to him
then as it does now, for a man clings to his life as long as he is able.

Presently, Jack Baldwin came aft. He went to the lashings of the wheel
and put the helm over, so as to give the cutter a lee, but he never
looked at Tom for a moment. Just as he was about to leave the poop,
however, he turned suddenly, and came straight across the deck to him.

“Tom,” said he, gruffly; “will you take a try in the cutter?”

“Not I,” said Tom.

“Why not?”

“One officer’s enough for the boat; it would be cowardly for me to go!”
He spoke bravely enough, but I am compelled to own that his courage was
only of words, and not of heart.

“Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said Jack, fiercely; “do you mean to say that
I’m a coward?”

“I mean to say nothing about you,” said Tom, calmly; “you know your own
reasons for leaving the ship better than any other man. If you’re going
for the sake of the crew, you’re no coward; if you’re going for the
sake of your own skin, you are.”

Jack looked him very hard in the face for a moment or two. “See here,
Tom,” said he, at last; “you know the old saying;—‘each man for
himself, and the devil take the hindmost;’ don’t be a fool; go with us,
you’re a better hand at managing a boat than I am.”

“I don’t care to go.”

“Very well, my hearty; suit yourself,” was all that Jack said, and he
swung on his heel, and left the poop.

Tom saw him a little later standing beside the cutter with a heavy iron
belaying pin in his hand, so as to keep the men from crowding into the
boat. The men had a great notion of Jack’s strength, and maybe it was
this that kept them back, for Tom saw no movement in that direction.

About five or ten minutes before the cutter was lowered, and about
half-past ten or eleven o’clock in the morning of Thursday, the 26th,
the ship was slowly settling by the stern. Any one could see that
there was a great change in the last half of an hour, and Tom began to
be afraid that she would founder before they could get the boat away.
He went forward to where Jack and the men were busy at work.

“If you don’t lower away pretty soon, it’ll be too late, Jack,” said he.

“Tom,” said Jack, turning to him, suddenly, “don’t be a bull-headed
loon in such a matter as this. Come, and take your chance like a man;
there’s a place in the cutter yet, for I’ve taken care to save it for
you.”

Poor Tom was only a mortal man, and his life was very sweet to him at
that moment, when there seemed so great a chance of his losing it.
Therefore, he could not screw the words of refusal from his lips;—he
could only shake his head.

“You won’t come?” said Jack.

“No!” roared Tom; “didn’t you hear me say no? Are you deaf? No! I tell
you; no! no!!”

“Now, by the eternal, you shall go, and that whether you want to or
not!” said Jack, and as he spoke, he flung his arms around Tom, and
undertook to drag him into the boat. Jack had never measured his
strength with Tom before, and it is altogether likely that he found him
to be stronger than he had any notion of, for, after struggling with
him for a little while, and not being able to throw him down upon the
deck, he presently began singing out to the boatswain to come and lend
him a hand, as there was no time to lose. So the boatswain came, and
in a short time they had lashed Tom’s arms and legs so that he could
not move. As soon as they had done this, they heaved him heels over
head into the cutter, and then stepped in themselves, and all hands
lowered away immediately.

As soon as the boat was in the water, it began drawing under the
channel of the ship, and was in great peril of being stove, but the
boatswain and two others got out oars, and shoved her off. But no
sooner had they pushed the cutter away, than she began drawing in
again, for there was a suction that was bringing her right under the
stern, which would have been sudden death to every man in her, so they
brought the oars to bear once more. At that time the crew of the cutter
seemed more afraid of being drawn under the stern of the ship than of
too many men jumping into the boat; for the matter of that, Tom saw
only one attempt to keep any of the crew from boarding, and that was
just after the boat had been lowered into the water.

A poor fellow attempted to slide down the falls from the davits, but
the boatswain pushed them to one side, so that he would have fallen
into the water if he had tried to jump. It seemed to Tom to be a
horrible thing to cut away the last chance that the poor man had for
saving his life; he begged hard for him as he hung from the davits, but
the boatswain said that the cutter was already full, and that even one
man might be enough to swamp her. I suppose that the boatswain must
have acted according to his light, but Jack Baldwin, who sat looking on
without speaking, should have seen that the man was taken aboard.

The second time that the boat was pushed away, its head came around,
and they were soon pulling from the port side of the ship.

When those aboard of the _Nancy Hazlewood_ saw that the cutter was
clear, and was likely to get away, they cheered and waved their hands.
I can hardly bear to write of this, even now;—it made Tom Granger cry
like a child.

The boatswain sat next to him where he lay. He chewed hard at the quid
of tobacco in his mouth, as, lying on his oars, he looked back at the
sinking ship, and at his messmates standing on her decks. I think, from
what some of the sailors afterward said, that they would have been
willing to put back to the ship, and have taken off a parcel more of
the crew, but nothing of the kind was done.

So every one lay on his oars and looked back; just then the sun shone
out, pale and watery. Tom could see the vessel very easily from where
he lay. The fore-top sail was still standing, and also half of the
main-top sail. The yards on the mizzen were swinging about with the
braces loose, and her bulwarks were as sound as when she left the
docks. Her stern was low in the water, and her bow was standing so high
that her red copper bottom could be plainly seen.

Soon they ran down into the trough of a sea, and the _Nancy Hazlewood_
was hidden from sight; when they came up again, she had changed her
position. They could not see the after-part of the vessel, though it
might have been hidden by a sea, and not under water. By the pitch of
her masts the ship seemed to be sitting at an angle of about forty-five
degrees. Just then another sea came, and again they ran down in the
trough of it;—when they came up the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was nowhere to be
seen.




CHAPTER IX.


FOR a time no one in the cutter moved or said a word. I remember that
the boatswain chewed at his quid of tobacco as though he was starving;
but he did not speak a word.

It was Jack Baldwin’s voice that broke the silence.

“The old ship’s gone, boys,” roared he. “We can’t do her any good, so
drop her, and mind what you’re about, or you’ll be with her before you
know it.” And he was right, for the cutter was heavily loaded, there
being nineteen aboard of her—the right number of her crew was twelve.

I am bound to say, that I believe if any one of the crew of the _Nancy
Hazlewood_ had been seen clinging to the loose gear that was floating
about the place where the ship foundered they would have been taken
into the cutter; but no one was seen, nor was it likely that a man
could keep afloat for any length of time, for the spray was flying.

Such was the loss of the good ship _Nancy Hazlewood_, the story of
which I have tried to tell you just as it happened, adding nothing
and keeping nothing back that might give you a clear idea of how she
foundered on that Thursday, the 26th of April, 1813.

It was judged that she went down in latitude 27° North, by longitude
77° West, and about one hundred or one hundred and ten miles north of
the Little Bahama Banks.

The cutter was a fine, light boat, about twenty-five feet in length, by
six feet in breadth at the widest part—a small craft to carry nineteen
souls one hundred miles through a stormy sea.

Ten minutes after the _Nancy Hazlewood_ foundered the crew of the
cutter were pulling away to the southward. After a little while Tom
looked up and saw that Jack Baldwin was gazing very earnestly at him.

“Tom,” said he, suddenly, “if I loose the lashings on your arms and
legs, will you promise to be quiet, and do your fair share of work?”

Tom’s cheeks were still wet, and he was shaken every now and then by a
sob. I hope that you who read this will not think him overly womanish,
but will give a thought as to how broken he was with fatigue, and with
the hardships through which he had passed. I can say that none of the
crew of the cutter seemed to think lightly of him on account of it, and
even Jack Baldwin’s voice was kind as he spoke.

I have always found that when men are strongly moved they are apt to be
very unreasonable. So it was with Tom, for he felt very bitterly toward
Jack at that moment, as though Jack were to blame for the trouble that
had fallen upon them. However, nothing could be gained by staying tied
as he was, so he presently said:

“You may untie me, if you like. The Lord knows that I don’t care much
for my life just now, but there’s no use letting all these poor fellows
drown like the rest.”

“Is that all the thanks I get for saving your life?” said Jack Baldwin.
“Never mind; you’ll give me more thanks when your feet are safe on dry
land. Untie him, bo’sen, for he’ll have to take his hand at the oars,
along with the rest.”

The first thing that was done was to divide the boat’s crew into
parties, each of which were to row by spells. Two of the men not
rowing were to keep a lookout ahead, in case any vessel might heave in
sight. The rest were to bail out the boat, for it was needful to keep
bailing nearly all the time. In most cases it might have been safer to
have tried to ride out the storm, and to have run the chance of being
picked up by some passing vessel; but there were certain things to be
considered in the case of those in the cutter. Their provisions and
water were none too plenty, and there was little chance of being picked
up, as so few vessels were sailing in those waters, excepting in fleets
and under convoy.

A landsman would have been puzzled to know how a boat as small as the
cutter could ever hope to live in a sea such as that was. It was,
indeed, no small matter to run her safely, and Jack, who was at the
tiller, had to keep his weather eye lifting, I can tell you.

One of the crew kept a constant lookout over the stern, to see when a
wave with a crest was coming, and to warn the man at the tiller of it,
for these were the seas that brought danger with them. At one time all
hands would back water, so as to let such a one break in front of them.
At another time they would pull all, so as to get out of the way until
the force of the broken sea was spent. Sometimes one of these following
seas would fling the cutter high aloft on its crest, carrying it along
like an eggshell for a little distance, and giving them a dash as it
went by that would set them all bailing for dear life.

Of course, it was needful to let each sea meet them fairly astern, for
if the boat should broach too, she would be swamped or capsized as
quick as a wink. As soon as one sea would pass them another would come.
Perhaps it would be a cross sea, which, of course, was the kind that
they dreaded the most of all. Sometimes the helm of the cutter could
not bring her around quickly enough, or, maybe, just then her rudder
would be clear of the water. Then Jack Baldwin would sing out in his
mighty voice:

“Give way starboard! Back port!” or “Give way port! back starboard!”

The next moment, perhaps, another green sea would be seen rushing at
them, and Jack would shout:

“Give way together!”

Then there would be a thunder and a roar behind them, and the seething
of white foam would hiss alongside of the gunwale, and as it rolled
past Jack’s voice would ring out:

“Back, back all!”

There were times when all four of these orders would be given inside
the space of a minute. This is what they went through for nearly two
days, so it may perhaps give you a notion of what they had to do to
keep the boat alive for that time, and what a sea it was to keep her
alive in.

They had in the way of provisions about seventy-five pounds of
hard-tack and two small breakers of water. They presently found that
the water in one of the breakers was mixed with salt, so they heaved it
overboard at once to make more room, as they were very much crowded.

So the afternoon wore along, and at last evening began to settle down
over them.

Any one but a seaman might have wondered how the boat was to be kept
afloat at night, when it was only by such unending care that she was
kept alive in the daytime. But as darkness settled the crest of each
wave glimmered with a pale phosphorescence that not only showed its
position, but the course in which it was traveling. Nevertheless, it
was an awful night, one of the most awful that Tom Granger has ever
passed through. Above the ceaseless din and thunder of the roaring
water Jack Baldwin’s voice could be heard singing out his orders to
the oarsmen, and now and then to the others:

“Bail her out smartly, lads! Keep her dry! Who’s bailing there? Lively
now!”

Tom had turned to, and was bailing a great part of the time. He had
been pulling an oar in the afternoon, for every one had to take his
turn; and so, what with weariness and cold and want of sleep, he was
nearly done up. He managed to joke and laugh with the men, as though
all that they were passing through was nothing to speak of; but for
all that he would find himself half asleep at times, though he was
still dipping out the water. When in this state he always had one
thing before his eyeballs; it was a ship, her stern under water and
her bows standing so high that she showed her copper bottom. Her
maintop-gallant-mast was gone, and her fore-sail was shaking in the
wind—it was the _Nancy Hazlewood_ as he had last seen her.

It was the same all that night; whenever he would shut his eyes, even
if it were only for a moment, he would see that sinking ship and the
troubled waters around her.

About four o’clock in the morning Jack gave up the tiller to Tom
Granger. Tom felt very sorry for him, for he seemed harassed and worn.
He himself was pretty well tired out, as I have said, for he had only
had about two hours sleep for over three days. Nevertheless, he took
the tiller, for Jack seemed more done up than he. Tom held the tiller
for the rest of that day, and for most of the next night.

Early in the day it was found that the water had given out, so they
heaved that breaker overboard also. There was a great mistake somewhere
in the matter of this water. Either the allowance for each man was
wrong, or there was not as much in the breaker as had been supposed.
They had counted on its lasting eighteen hours longer than it did,
and the lack of it proved to be one of the greatest causes of their
suffering.

The next morning the sun shone out, though the weather was squally, and
the sea as heavy as ever. By that time they were suffering more from
thirst than from anything else. Tom pitied the poor men from the bottom
of his heart. The boatswain, who sat nearest him, kept clearing his
throat, as though he could get rid of the dryness and the pain in that
way.

As the sharpness of their thirst increased, the men showed that there
was not the friendly feeling between them that there had been at first.
They were surly, would speak sharply to one another, and were sullen
when spoken to by Jack or Tom. About nine o’clock one of the men on the
lookout sang out all of a sudden:

“Land over the port bow!”

Jack had the tiller again at this time, and it was all that Tom could
do to keep the men from standing up in the boat. If they had done so,
they would have capsized her, in all likelihood. About a quarter of an
hour afterward they were near enough to hear the surf thundering on the
beach. Some of the men were for landing off-hand, and both Jack and Tom
found it hard work to keep these fellows in order.

Tom thought that the land in front of them was most likely one of the
smaller islands at the northern part of the Bahama group. A line of
white sand-hills, topped by a growth of coarse grass and low scrub
bushes, could be seen a little distance inland. The shore stretched
northerly and southerly, and looking from the seaward, they could see
no break in it.

Jack put the boat’s head to the southward, so as to keep the seas
pretty well to the stern, his idea being to run along the coast line
until he could either turn the end of the island, or find some creek or
inlet where there would be a fit place to beach the cutter.

There was a current setting up the beach, and it was very laborious
work pulling against it, so, as time went on, the men grumbled louder
and louder, saying that they might just as well land where they were,
and that there was no use breaking their hearts with rowing, while they
might beach the boat, with only a ducking at the worst.

Tom was more sorry for the men, than angry at them, for any one could
see how parched they were with thirst, and how nearly worn out.

At last a sailor named Hitch flung down his oar, and swore that he
would row no more, without it was to row to the shore. An approving
growl went up amongst the men, and things began to take a very ugly
look. Jack was in a towering rage; he swore at the men, as only he
could swear; but every moment showed that they could not be kept at
their oars a great while longer.

Meantime the man Hitch sat sullenly, answering Jack’s words with others
not a bit better.

“Tom,” roared Jack, all of a sudden; “Tom, come here and take this
tiller, while I settle that mutinous son of a sea cook.”

He made a step forward as he spoke, but in a moment the man’s fingers
were around the boat’s plug.

“You’ll settle me, will you?” cried he. “— — your eyes! Come a step
furder, and I’ll out with this plug, and send us all to the bottom,
with the boat under us!”

Jack stopped where he was, for he saw that the fellow would do as he
said; had he done so, the boat would have filled and gone down in a
minute.

When Jack stopped, a laugh went up from all around, for it was plain to
see that the men were in sympathy with Hitch. This made the fellow feel
inclined to go a step further, for he felt bold when he saw Jack pause.

“If you don’t put the boat’s head to the shore,” said he, “I’ll pull
out the plug, anyhow!”

“Tom,” cried Jack, passionately, “give me the tiller; if they will
drown for a pack of lubberly fools, let them drown and be ——d!”

“For heaven’s sake, Jack!” cried Tom; “think what you’re about. You’ll
drown us all. Let me hold the tiller!”

But Jack was blind and deaf with his passion, and would listen to
nothing. Tom struggled with him as long as he was able; holding on to
the tiller with might and main, fighting him off, and pleading with him
all the while.

I suppose that they must have fought for two or three minutes, and the
boat was nearly swamped more than once with their struggles. At last
Jack wrenched Tom’s hands away and seized hold of the tiller, for a
great part of Tom’s strength had gone from him, because of long and
hard exposure, which seemed to have told more upon him than on Jack.

The men appeared to be pretty well frightened by this time, and Hitch
had taken his oar again. In a moment Jack had put the boat’s head
toward the shore.

“Pull lively now, my hearties,” said he, grimly, “for you’ll have a
tough pull of it before you get to that beach over yonder.”

Just before they came to the outer line of breakers, Jack put the
cutter’s head about so as to let her beach stern foremost.

Tom knew that the cutter would never get through the breakers. There
was not the tenth part of the tenth part of a chance of it; therefore
he flung off his coat and kicked off his shoes, so as to be in
readiness when the time should come. There was not much of the raging
and the lashing of the surf to be seen from the sea. Now and then a
spit of foamy water would shoot high up into the air from the recoil
of the waters on the hard sand, but they could not tell what the full
wrath and roaring of the great breakers were until they had gotten
fairly in amongst them.

Jack did all that a man could do to get that boat to the beach. He
tried rather to keep it off than to urge it too rapidly toward the
shore. He did his work well, for he had brought the cutter through the
first line of breakers, and into the second—but he got her no further.

A monstrous wave, fully twelve feet high, a solid mountain of green
water, came rushing toward them, its crest growing sharper and sharper,
and seeming to mount higher and higher as it swept toward the shore.

“Pull for your lives!” roared Jack, in a voice of thunder. But it was
no use, for the next instant the breaker was on them. For a moment
Tom had a feeling of spinning toward the shore, with the green water
towering ten feet above him; then it arched slowly over, there was a
crash and a roar, and he was struggling in a whirling, watery blindness.

Over and over he rolled, grasping at the sand every now and then, but
all the time feeling himself as helpless as a rat in the tumultuous
swirling of the water. Presently he felt himself being sucked out
again. Faster and faster he went, as the undertow gathered force in its
rush. For a moment he gained his feet, and bore with all his strength
against the outgoing water. The sand slid from beneath his heels,
till he must have sunk three inches into it. For an instant he had a
half-blinded vision of Jack Baldwin, fifteen or twenty feet nearer to
the shore than himself. Then came another crashing roar, and he was
whirled over and over and round and round, like a feather in the water.
A great feeling of utter helplessness came over him; for a moment his
lips came to the surface and he gave a gurgling cry.

Out went the undertow again, and out went Tom with it, only to meet
another breaker and to be again whirled by it toward the beach. By this
time he had given up struggling, and everything was sliding away from
him.

All of a sudden he felt himself clutched by the shirt. Once more came
the horrible dragging of the undertow, but this time some one was
holding him against it. Everything was glimmering to his sight, but he
felt that he was being dragged up on the beach, and at last that he was
lying on the dry sand, face up, and Jack Baldwin panting alongside of
him.




PART II




CHAPTER X.


IN this story of Tom Granger I have undertaken to divide that which
I am writing into chapters and parts, in the same manner that novel
writers sometimes divide their novels and tales. I find that it keeps
me more steadily to my course, so that, though I wander now and then
from the matter in hand, I always get safely back to my bearings again.
If you will go with me to the end, you will find that I have spun my
yarn to the last word, though it may be in my own fashion.

Every one has read tales of shipwreck and of lonely islands, and there
is generally something romantic and even pleasant in them; but in real
shipwreck there is nothing either romantic or pleasant; neither is a
desert island a cheerful place to dwell upon. I say this because I wish
you to understand why it is that I do not intend to give you a long
account of the life that they led at this place.

Nevertheless, I would not have you think from that which I have just
written that Tom and Jack were altogether miserable during the year
and a half that they lived there. Many times they were sick at heart
looking for the aid that was so long in coming; but there were other
times when they were full of hopes, and times when they were even
happy. Neither was the place a barren, desolate, dreary sand waste,
such as are many of the Bahama Islands. They saw many curious and
beautiful things during the time of their living there. As an instance
I may say that when Tom came away he brought with him a parcel of as
handsome shells as ever I saw in all my life. They are now piled upon
the mantle-shelf in my parlor. I have them before my eyes as I write
these words. There is a large one upon the centre-table that has a
full-rigged ship wrought upon it. It was carved with a jack-knife, and
it shows the work of many idle moments, when Tom sat beside the fire in
front of their hut at night, with Jack Baldwin for company.

Oftentimes a great longing has come upon Tom to visit the old place
once more, and to see those things again which he learned to know so
well. As I sit here now, and close my eyes, I can see many of them with
my inward sight. I can even see them more clearly than when the memory
of them was fresh and green, for, as the eyes of one’s body become
dim and blurred, the eyes of memory become ever sharper and keener,
so that not even the smallest thing escapes their sight. So now I can
see the place that was Tom’s home for sixteen months so long ago, as
plainly as though I had left it only yesterday. I can see the cave in
the side of the sand-hill, the cutter turned bottom up for the roof,
and the screen of woven grass that hung in front to keep the rain from
beating in. I can even see the tame sea-gull sitting on the keel of the
upturned boat.

Oftentimes, as I sit smoking my pipe after my dinner, I slide off into
a doze, and sometimes I dream of all these places—of the sand-spit
where they found the half-buried wreck that brought them so strange a
fortune; of the long, narrow tongue of sand beyond, where, at low tide,
the flamingoes always stood in a line, like so many red-coated British
soldiers; of the coral reef where they fished; of the beach where the
turtles came to drop their eggs, and of other things, all of them
seeming pleasant as I look at them down through the distance of the
past. So I should like to see the old place once more with my mortal
eyes, though I may never hope to do so now, for my sands are nearly run.

But, though the place may seem pleasant to me after all these years, it
was not an island such as one reads of in novels and stories; it was
not a place upon which one would choose to live all one’s years, and
Tom Granger was tired enough of it before he got through with it, I can
tell you.

My neighbors profess to be very fond of listening to me when I get
started in upon spinning yarns about Tom Granger’s life on the island,
and I think that not only do they profess to be fond of it, but that
they really are so.

My dear old friend, the late Doctor White, used to come regularly
every Saturday night, winter or summer, clear or foul, and the first
thing that he would say was:

“Come, Tom, spin us a yarn;” or, “Let us hear one of your traveler’s
lies, Tom.” (This, you understand, was merely a piece of pleasantry
upon his part.) Then straightway I would begin upon some yarn, while he
would sit opposite to me across the fire, listening to me and smoking
his pipe the while. I must say, though, that he had a nasty habit of
interrupting me with experiences of his own, for he had been assistant
surgeon aboard the _Pimlico_, in the South Atlantic, from 1836 to 1838,
and he had seen a few little trivial things which he would tell me,
though I had heard them a score of times before, and though they were
not nearly as interesting as those things which I would be telling him.

However, that is neither here nor there, and I find that I am again
wandering from the point in hand. What I began to say was, that, though
my neighbors are always glad to listen to my yarns, and though they
tell me that they are both interesting and instructive, I will not give
a long and full account of Tom’s and Jack’s daily life upon the island
on which they were cast, for this narrative concerns other matters of
more import, and I thank my stars that I am able to bridle my tongue,
being, as I said before, no great talker.

Tom and Jack were the only ones of all the crew of the cutter that
were cast alive on the island. The first day or two of their life
thereon was as bitter and miserable as could be. All this would be both
painful and unpleasant to tell, as well as needless, and, therefore, I
will pass it by. By the time that a month had gone, they were settled
as comfortably as could be, considering what they had at hand to make
themselves comfortable.

The body of the island was about five miles in length, and about two
miles or two miles and a half in breadth at the widest part. From the
lower and easterly end a long, sandy hook ran out into the ocean. It
was the continuation of the eastern beach, and, with the south shore of
the island, it enclosed a smooth, deep bay or harbor, in which even the
largest ships could have ridden at anchor easily and comfortably.

On the Atlantic side of this sand-spit, and close to where it joined
the body of the island, was the sunken wreck that afterward had so much
to do with Tom’s fortunes, and of which I shall soon have more to tell
you. The eastern side of this hook or beach was of sloping sand, washed
up by the continual beating of the surf. The western, or bay side, was
an abrupt coral reef. This coral reef was covered with barnacles, so
that there were always plenty of fish to be caught along that shore
during the slack water or the young flood.

Up and down the length of the eastern shore, and following in a line
with the beach, was a ridge of white sand hills. A number of scrub
trees grew along the crest of this ridge, and it was these trees
or bushes that the lookout in the cutter had first sighted. In the
south-western end of these sand hills Jack and Tom built their hut.

The lower end of the chain of white hills made a sudden turn to the
westward, and not far from where they fell away to the level of the
beach was a thicket of underbrush, with half a dozen palmetto trees
growing in the midst of it. Near to the edge of this thicket a spring
of clear, cool water bubbled up out of the white sand, and slid away
through thick grasses and sedge until it found its way through a marshy
little flat into the bay.

It was close to this spot that they chose to live, and thither they
dragged the cutter from the place where she had been flung on the
sand, two or three miles further up the beach. The boat had been stove
in beyond all hopes of repairing, especially as they had no tools to
mend it with, excepting their jack-knives and two rude chisels that
Tom afterward made from rusty bolts which they picked out of the ribs
of the wreck on the sand-spit. But, even if they had had a whole
boat-builder’s outfit, and planks to spare, I doubt if the cutter could
have been mended, for not only had the bottom been stove in, but the
bow had been smashed into splinters.

The loss of the cutter was one of their bitterest sources of regret
during their life on this place, for now and then they could see the
looming of land not more than twenty miles away toward the southward.
They could easily have reached it in a day’s time, if the boat had
been sound and whole. As it was, she would never float again, so they
dragged her down the beach and patched her with grass and mud, and used
her for a roof to cover them at night, for they found that the dews
were heavy at some seasons of the year. It took them over a fortnight
to move the boat from where she had been thrown to the place where they
built their home, three miles away. It was heavy work hauling it across
the sand, but, as I said, by the time that a month had gone, they were
pretty comfortably settled, and were feeling quite at home in their
quarters.

In front of them was the long, narrow hook of white sand, over which
the air danced and quivered when the hot sun beat down upon it. It
curved out into the dark water for a mile, like a long, slender hook,
cutting off the bay from the open water beyond. To the right of them
was the bay shore of the island, the silvery sand strewn thickly with
many-colored shells as far as the eye could reach. About three hundred
yards away was the buried wreck. At that time nothing was to be seen of
it but the ribs, that just showed above the sand like a row of dead,
blackened stumps. From this wreck they obtained iron spikes, which Tom
fashioned into rude tools and ruder fish-hooks.

Such was the scene that they had before their eyes for all those
sixteen months, unchanged, excepting as storm or calm would change
the face of things; and the same monotonous sound was always in
their ears—the eternal “swash! swash!” of the ground swell on the
shell-strewn beach below the hut, sounding unceasingly through the
deep, heavy thundering of the Atlantic breakers to the eastward.

Day followed day in an unchanging round—now fishing and now hunting
gull’s eggs. The fishing was done in the morning, when the tide was
good. During the hot afternoons they would lie on the sand, in the
shade of the cutter, looking out to sea, talking lazily, and now and
then dozing. It was a helpless, listless life, and as time wore along,
I doubt if they would have known what day or month or even what year it
was, if Tom had not kept a score of the days as they passed, by marking
them on the side of the cutter with his jack-knife—a short mark for
week days and a long mark with a cross for Sundays. By this means they
contrived to know how time was going with them.

This enforced inaction was one of the bitterest trials to them. I have
known times when, while they were sitting still, Jack would burst out
into a sudden volley of imprecations. Tom would never give way in this
manner;—perhaps it would have been a relief to him if he had. When the
darkness of despair would settle over him, he would leave Jack, and
walk up and down the beach by himself; perhaps for hours at a time.
During all the time that the _Nancy Hazlewood_ was sinking under him,
Tom had thought little of Patty, and had wondered at himself in a dull
sort of a way; perhaps it was the press of work that was then upon
him, that drove her out of his mind, or rather blunted the keenness
of the thought of her. But now, in the listless idleness of his life,
he thought of her, and thought of her continually. Her presence was
always with him, and at times his longing for her was so deep and
keen, that his heart ached with it. Often in the night time he would
lie on the dark, lonely sand, looking up at the stars, saying nothing,
but thinking of Patty and of his home, with a longing so strong, that
sometimes he was nearly crazy with the yearning of his home-sickness.
At other times the gloominess of a deep despair would settle over him
in a dark cloud; then, perhaps, he would say to himself, “Supposing
that I do get back to my home again, what good will it do me? I have
been given a year in which to earn seven hundred and fifty dollars; it
may be two years before I am taken off of this sand spit,—what chance
is there of my earning that much here?” Then, maybe he would get up and
walk away, pacing up and down the beach by himself, cursing the fortune
that had thrown him on this land, and sometimes even selfishly wishing
that he could die, and be rid of all the troubles that beset him.
During such moods Jack would leave him alone, for he saw that Tom was
thinking of things, and was not to be talked to or interfered with;—he
had grown to have a strangely high regard and respect for him; very
different from the way in which he used to look upon him. He seemed to
have a dim idea that Tom’s troubles were deeper than his own, but why
they were greater, he did not know, for Tom never talked of Patty to
him. So Jack always let him alone, and, though he would follow him with
his eyes, he never ventured a word at such times.

I would not have you think that Tom was twiddling his thumbs all this
time, and idly wishing that he could get away without doing anything
further than to wish.

During the fall they built a raft; it took them nearly a month and
a half to make it, for they had no tools to work with, but two rude
chisels and two jack-knives, one of which (Jack’s) had the point broken
off of it. But after they had spent all the time in the making of the
raft, it turned out to be of no use, excepting to fish off of in the
bay during fair weather, so all their labor was for nothing.

They had great ideas of it at first, and one day when the wind was
fair, and the day clear and bright, they undertook to sail away upon it
to the island to the southward. Tom had fashioned a pair of oars out
of a palmetto tree, and he and Jack had made a sail out of the coarse
sea-grass that covered the island; these had cost them vast labor, but
they found that with oars and sail together, they did not get their
clumsy craft along at the rate of a mile an hour. I doubt if they ever
could have reached the island under the best of circumstances; as it
was, they met a current a couple of miles to the southward, that swept
them out to sea. They were fully six hours in getting back to land;
even then it was a chance that they got back at all, nor would they
have done so if a wind had not luckily sprung up from the south. After
that they were content to remain where they were.

They also set up a signal: it was a palmetto tree with a bush lashed to
the top of it; beside this they built a pile of brush to fire at night,
in case any vessel should appear in the offing at evening time. They
added to this brush heap, from day to day, until it was as high as a
hay stack.

Once, during the latter part of that autumn, a dead porpoise was washed
up on the beach toward the lower part of the sandy hook. This was a
Godsend to them as a means to let their condition be known to the
outside world, for of the skin of this porpoise they made a number of
bags or bladders, which they set adrift at different times, when the
wind was fair for carrying them away. In these air bladders Tom put a
map of the island, its bearings (as nearly as he could judge), and word
of their condition. All this was drawn and written on two strips of
bark, and was done with the point of a red hot piece of iron. This was
the wording of the written part:

    +-----------------------------+
    | _The ship Nancy Hazlewood   |
    | of Philadelphia was lost    |
    | at sea on the 26 of Apl.    |
    | 1813. The 1st & 2d mates    |
    | by name John Kent Baldwin   |
    | and Thomas Granger were     |
    | wrecked on ths. Islnd. If   |
    | you are a Christn. come to  |
    | thr. aid._                  |
    +-----------------------------+

This I have copied from a slip of bark that Captain Williamson
afterward gave me.

Thus they settled and lived on the island with little of interest
happening in their lives, until the great hurricane of 1814 came upon
them. This was great in itself, but it brought that with it which let
them have no more idle days for a long time to come.




CHAPTER XI.


I SUPPOSE that there are very few people who read this story that have
not heard of the great hurricane of 1814, for I take it that very
few will read what I have written who are not in some way related or
connected with Tom Granger, and all such have heard him tell of it
again and again. Nevertheless, as I have ink and paper before me, and
as the itch of writing is upon me, I will tell it once more for the
benefit of those who come hereafter, and who have not heard of it from
Tom’s own mouth.

This hurricane reached over a zone stretching in breadth from Florida
to the Greater Antilles. It was felt more heavily in the northern part
than anywhere else; so that Tom and Jack passed through the worst of
it. One hundred and eight vessels were wrecked in the harbors and on
the coast of this region during the progress of the hurricane, and the
death-list was known to reach as high as one hundred and six. The crops
suffered severely, and over seven hundred houses were destroyed.

A few years ago, while I was spending a couple of weeks at Atlantic
City with my wife and two of my grandchildren, I met a Mr. Fitzgerald.
He was a lad living at Nassau at the time of this hurricane, and he
not only remembered it well, but his father, who was a gentleman much
interested in scientific matters, had kept careful data and memoranda
relating to it.

Mr. Fitzgerald was a very bright and intelligent old gentleman at the
time that I met him, and I was much interested in talking the matter
over with him, and comparing notes regarding it. The storm was severe
enough with Tom and Jack, but it must have been terrible indeed in a
place where there were so many lives to be lost and so much property to
be destroyed as in Nassau. He told me that the storm began with them
about ten o’clock in the night of the fourth of March, and blew with
great violence until half-past ten o’clock in the morning of the fifth.
The barometer at that time stood at 27.06 inches, which was the lowest
that his father had ever seen it. From that time the storm subsided,
and the torrents of rain began to cease, though the wind continued to
blow with violence until four o’clock in the afternoon. But all the
great loss of life and property happened in the space of twelve hours,
and while the hurricane was at its height.

The storm began at an earlier hour with Jack and Tom than it did at
Nassau, according to Mr. Fitzgerald’s account of it. I know, however,
that it came on the fourth of March, because that is the day before
Tom’s birthday, which comes on the fifth; therefore I am accurate in
regard to my dates, even if Mr. Fitzgerald had not corroborated the
account that I have always given of it.

It was a peculiarly sultry day, especially for that time of the year.
Tom and Jack were fishing in the morning, and, though they were sitting
still, the sweat kept running from Tom’s face in streams, as though he
was engaged in doing a hard piece of work. All morning there was a dead
stillness and a leaden heaviness in the air, and it seemed as though it
was a labor even to breathe. The sea gulls kept flying around the reef
in a troubled way, clamoring as they flew, and seeming to be restless
and uneasy at the oppressive stillness. The sky in the morning was of
a dull copperish color, though not a cloud was to be seen, but, as the
day wore along, a misty haze spread above them, through which the sun
shone red and dull, as it does in the morning and evening, when it is
near to the horizon. Once Jack said:

“Tom, there’s something going to happen. I never felt anything like
this in all my life before; and did you ever see the sea gulls behaving
as they are doing now? Mark my words, Tom, there’s something going to
come of all this before the day’s over.”

Tom agreed with him in his forebodings, for the oppression that he was
laboring under made him feel singularly apprehensive and uneasy in his
mind. In the afternoon they left their fishing and went back to their
hut, where they stretched themselves out in the shade, panting for
breath, for it seemed as though a hot blanket had been spread above
them. The tame sea gull sat under the lee of the boat, all hunched up
together. Every now and then it would look restlessly about, uttering a
low, whimpering note as it did so.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, as near as Tom could judge,
a strong puff of wind blew suddenly from the south. It ceased as
suddenly as it began, but, in a few minutes a gust as sudden and as
short-lived blew from the west. Then it blew again, but from the
eastward. This time it was more steady, and in a quarter of an hour it
had increased to a smart gale. It seemed to bring some coolness with
it, and lifted the oppressed feeling that had rested upon Tom and Jack
during the morning. Within an hour or so of sundown this wind died away
completely, and then it was as heavy, and as still, and as sultry as
ever. Then half an hour passed before anything farther happened.

Jack and Tom were busy scaling and cleaning their fish when, all of a
sudden, a shadow fell as though a hand had been stretched out across
the sky. Jack ran out of the hut with his knife in his hand, and the
next moment Tom heard him calling to him in a loud voice, bidding him
to hurry out and look at what was coming. Then Tom dropped everything
and ran.

As I said before, there was not a breath of air stirring, and yet a
black ragged wrack of clouds was flying wildly above their heads.
This bellying sheet of clouds hung very low in the air; above them it
was of a dull leaden color, rimmed with a strange reddish light, but
toward the west it was as black as ink. Although there was no wind
going, a cold air seemed to breathe out of the black emptiness of the
west, just such as you may feel when you open the door of a cool room
in the summer time. The ocean near to them was grey, with the light
from the east, and every now and then a white-cap would gleam, with a
pallid light against the darkness behind; but in the distance it grew
darker and darker, until the rim of the horizon was lost in the inky
pall beyond. Every moment the gloom fell about them, until it seemed
as though night had set in, though it was a good hour till sundown.
A dull, whispering moaning sound came from out the hollow of the
west, and Tom could hear it through all the beating and thundering of
the surf behind him. There was something awful in that moaning that
seemed to fill the air above and around them; both men stood looking
out toward the west, and neither of them said a word. Tom noticed how
the sea gulls were running restlessly up and down the beach, uttering
shrill wild cries every now and then, but not taking to wing.

And every moment the deep moaning grew louder and louder.

Suddenly a faint breath of air came, and instantly the sound of the
surf to the east was dulled as though a blanket had been spread
over it. Then there was a pause,—then there was a wild sweep of the
wind,—then, in an instant, the hollow roar was upon them and around
them.

Out from the blackness of the west came rushing an awful grey cloud of
mist and rain and salt spray, and before I can write these words, it
struck the island with a tremendous and thunderous uproar. Tom and Jack
were flung backward and down to the ground as though a wall had fallen
upon them, and all around them was a blinding gloom of sand and rain
and spray. Through this whirling darkness Tom saw the cutter lifted up
and tossed over and over like a dead leaf. Even through all the uproar
he could distinctly hear the noise of snapping and rending and tearing,
as the trees and bushes of the thicket near to them were being torn up
by the roots. Then he had a vision of one of the palmetto trees being
whirled through the air as though it were a straw.

For a while he lay clinging flat to the ground, digging his fingers
into the sand; but after a while he saw that Jack was crawling on his
hands and knees toward the lee of the sand hills, not far away from
where they lay; then he followed him in like manner.

It was a great while before they got safely to the shelter of the duns;
I suppose that it could not have taken them less than half an hour to
cross the two hundred yards of sand that lay between them and the lee
of the sand hills. Every now and then a heavier gust than usual would
come, and then they would lay flat upon the sand again, holding on to
the shifting surface, as though they feared being blown bodily away.
But between the gusts they would contrive to crawl a few feet farther.

At last they reached the lee of the hills, and so were sheltered from
the full force of the wind, though the hurricane bellowed and roared
above and around them with a noise such as Tom never heard before or
since.

The rain increased till it fell in torrents; it did not beat down the
wind, for the tempest blew more and more heavily until just before
morning, when it was something frightful.

All that night the rain poured down upon them in a deluge, but I do not
think that either of them noticed it, their minds being taken up with
quite different matters. The darkness around them was utter and blank
beyond what I can tell you. You could not have seen your hand within
six inches of your face. It seemed as though the end of all things had
come.

Tom and Jack sat hand in hand;—when one of them said anything to the
other, he had to put his lips to within an inch of his companion’s ear,
to make him understand a single word. But very little was said between
them, and most of the time they sat holding one another’s hand in
silence. Now and then the ground would actually tremble beneath them,
and at times a dim fear passed through Tom’s mind that the very sand
hill above them would be carried bodily away with the force of that
tremendous blast. About day-break, or what would have been day-break at
an ordinary time, the rain ceased to fall, though the hurricane still
raged with nearly as much fury as ever.

At last the faint grey daylight came, and after a while they were able
to see the things around them pretty clearly. The first thing that
Tom saw was a white sea gull crouched on the ground close to him. He
could have reached out his hand and have touched it, but it did not
seem to be in the least afraid at his presence. There were hundreds of
them around, but they all seemed to be dulled with terror, and made no
effort to move out of the way, or to take to flight.

At length, in the dim morning light, the ocean came out before them; it
was a strange sight, for the surf was beaten down by the wind, until
the sand beach reached out half as far again as it did on ordinary
occasions.

At first they could see nothing of the sandy hook to the southward,
for, though no sea was running, and though the ocean was leveled to
a seething sheet of whiteness, the water was banked up in the bay,
and covered the sand spit completely. The first thought that occurred
to Tom was that the whole bar had been swallowed up, and that there
had been an earthquake, though they had not noticed it in all the
bewilderment of the tempest. But, as the light grew stronger and
stronger, they could see the gleam of wet sand here and there, and
then could see the water running over it from the bay to the ocean.

By this time the storm was beginning to fall, though they did not dare
to leave their shelter for an hour or so later, and though the wind was
still heavy until the middle of the afternoon.

When they did leave the lee of the hill, the sight was strange enough;
the palmetto trees were all gone but one, and it was more than half
stripped of leaves.

One of them had been carried more than a quarter of a mile, and was now
lying half buried in the sand at the base of the dun, beneath which
they had taken shelter.

There was not a sign of their home in the sand hill, for not only was
the place levelled over as completely as though it had never been, but
the very shape of the hills themselves had been changed by the sand
that had blown against them here, or had been carried away from them
there.

The cutter had been swept away to a distance of two or three hundred
yards. It had lodged in a hollow between two of the duns. It was lying
keel up, and the sand was banked around the weather side of it like a
snowdrift. Strange enough, it was not much more broken than it had been
before, so they got it back again in a day or two, and it was still
sound enough to serve for their roof for the balance of the time that
they stayed on the island.

The great stack of brushwood that they had heaped on the highest
sand-dun had all been carried away, as had also their signal tree with
the bush lashed to it. Everything was salt with the spray that had been
carried inland, and the island flats were dotted all over with pools of
salt water, that had been blown or swept over the land. Wherever this
salt water lay the grass was killed or blackened, so that the following
summer the island looked as though fire had passed over it.

Such was the great hurricane of 1814 as Tom Granger and Jack Baldwin
felt it; and I think that they both felt it in its full force, though
they escaped from it with no more harm than a thorough wetting and
a great fright. It took them several weeks to do what they could at
making good the damage done, and then it was not fully repaired, for
all the provisions that they had stored up had been carried away or had
been covered up by the sand that had been blown before the blast.

I think that the greatest loss that they suffered was that of Tom’s
jack-knife. He had left it lying beside the fish that he was in the
act of cleaning when Jack had called to him and he had run out of the
hut. They looked for it every now and then for several days afterward,
digging about the place where it had been lost; but their hut or cave
in the sand hill had been so completely covered, and the lay of the
hill itself had been so entirely changed, that they never found it
again.

The loss of a jack-knife may seem but a small thing to tell you, who
have only had to slip around the corner and buy a new one at the
nearest hardware shop. But there was no hardware shop near to Jack and
Tom, and the loss of the jack-knife was a very great ill to them.

Neither did they ever see the tame sea-gull again, and they missed the
sight of it from the keel of the upturned boat. I suppose that it must
have been swept away and have perished in the hurricane.




CHAPTER XII.


AND now a little more than a week had passed since the great hurricane
of which I have just told you fell upon them. I recollect that it was a
Sunday morning. Sundays were generally spent in doing no work, and in
taking a stroll around the island. But they had had no rest since the
day of the storm, for the time between then and now had all been spent
in repairing the damages that had been wrought. Now they were pretty
comfortably settled again, and the day being bright and fair, they had
fixed that it should be spent in taking a look about them.

It was cool and pleasant, and they strolled leisurely up the western
side of the island, skirting the belt of Mangrove bushes, around the
northern end, past the barren sand flat, and so down the Atlantic beach
again. By the middle of the afternoon they had come back to the lower
end of the island, and had gone out on to the spit.

The water that had washed over this place on the day of the storm had
carried away a great deal of the sand. The surf ran much farther up the
beach, and Tom noticed that the ribs of the wreck stood higher out of
the sand than he had ever seen them. They did not go farther than the
wreck, but laid themselves down close to it, looking out across the
water toward the distant island that was then looming to the southward,
talking about it and about their chances of getting to it.

Jack was in a more than usually downhearted state as to their not being
able to get away from the place that they were on. He said that so far
as he could see, they might have to live there all their lives and then
die, and no one be the wiser of it. Tom was feeling gloomy himself on
this particular day, and he felt very impatient at poor Jack when he
began his complaining. He felt that if complaints were to be made, it
was he that should make them, and not Jack, for had he not much more
to lose by staying where he was than the other? I know how selfish
this was, but there are times when we are given over to spells of
selfishness, and, though such a state may be very wrong, it is yet very
natural.

“You might just as well have patience, Jack,” said he, “We’ve tried to
get away already, and you know what came of it. We certainly can’t live
here forever without sighting a vessel of some sort at some time or
other.”

“We haven’t seen a sign of a ship up to this time,” said Jack, gloomily.

“That’s very true, and maybe we’ll have to wait till the war’s over
before one comes along. You know very well that there’s no shipping
being done nowadays.”

“Wait till the war’s over!” cried Jack, raising himself suddenly on his
elbow; “why, heavens and earth, man, it may be half a dozen years to
come, before the war’s over!”

“Perhaps it may be a dozen years, for all that I know,” said Tom, “but
all the same you’ll have to wait, so you may just as well keep your
tongue still between your teeth, and be patient about it!”

“Wait?” cried Jack, and he thumped his clenched fist down on the sand.
“By G—I’ll not wait! I’ll do something; see if I don’t! I’ll not let
any twenty miles of water keep me tied up in this God-forsaken place!
Why don’t you do something? You’re so full of your d—d contrivances for
making us comfortable; why don’t you puzzle out some plan for getting
us off altogether?”

Tom was lying on the sand, his hands under his head, and one leg
crossed comfortably over the other. He did not move while Jack was
talking, and he made a point of seeming to be very easy under it, but
he was getting more and more angry all the time. He did not answer Jack
immediately, but after a while he spoke as quietly as he could.

“You’re unreasonable, Jack,” said he. “Haven’t I done everything
that I could do to get us away; haven’t I built a raft and put up
signals on the sand hills; haven’t I set a dozen or more bladder-bags
adrift? The chances are that some of them’ll be picked up, and in good
time a ship’ll come to us. I don’t see that you have any reason to
complain, and if you have reason, you’d better try to do something
yourself;—you’re welcome to it. As for our getting away;—we’ve tried to
get away already, and you know what came of it. In my opinion we came
so devilish near getting away, that we liked never to have got back to
this or to any other island.”

“Do you mean to say that you’re so scared at a little risk that you’re
afraid to try it over again?”

“I don’t know about being scared, but I certainly ain’t going to try it
over again.”

“You ain’t?”

“No.”

Jack did not say a word for a little while, but Tom felt that he was
looking at him very hard. At last he spoke again.

“It’s my belief, Tom Granger,” said he, “that you haven’t got an ounce
of pluck left about you. I believe that you’re that dull that you’d
be content to live here forever, if you could get enough to fill your
belly!”

This was too much for Tom. He sat up suddenly, facing the other. “Jack
Baldwin,” said he, and his voice trembled with his anger, “understand
me, once for all. If we’re to live together, or to talk together, or to
have anything to do with one another, I never want to hear such speech
from your mouth as you’ve just given me; do you understand me?”

Here he paused for a moment, and then he burst out passionately: “What
do you know how much I want to get away? Do you suppose that I don’t
want to get away because I don’t keep up an everlasting whimpering and
whining about it, as you do? What do you want to get away for, anyhow?
Is the only woman that you love in all the world waiting at home for
you, looking for you, and praying for you, and wondering why she don’t
hear from you—thinking, maybe, that you’re dead. God help her! I wish
that I was dead, and that she knew it. It would be better for us both,
I guess!” Then he rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in
his hands, rocking his body to and fro as he sat.

Jack did not say another word, and in a few moments Tom heard him get
up and walk away. After a little while Tom got a grip on himself and
looked up again.

Jack was standing just below the wreck and over toward the ocean. He
had gathered what seemed to be a handful of small, black, flat shells,
and he was busy in skimming them out across the surf. Presently Tom got
up and walked slowly over to where he was standing. He was heartily
ashamed of the way in which he had spoken to the other, and would have
given a great deal if he could only have recalled his words; but that
is a thing that can never be done. He stood a little behind Jack, with
his hands in his breeches pockets, looking down at the sand the while.
After a while Jack spoke, without looking around.

“Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said he, doggedly, “I’m sorry I spoke to
you the way that I did. I didn’t know that you had a sweetheart at
home,—you ought to ha’ told me before. I’ll never say any more about
getting away, if I have to stay on this d—d island to the crack of
doom, and that I promise you.”

“That’s all right,” muttered Tom; “don’t let’s say any more about it.”

One of the round black things that Jack was skimming out to sea, lay at
his feet, and without knowing what he did, he stooped and picked it up
as he was speaking. He turned it over and over in his palm in an absent
sort of a way, for he was feeling very uncomfortable at the time.

He turned it over and over, until, after a while, it worked through
his sight into his mind; then he looked more closely at it, for he
had never seen the like of it before. It was not a shell, neither was
it a pebble, for there were no pebbles on the island. It was thin and
perfectly round, and as black as ink. On one side of it was a raised
surface that bore a faint likeness to the rude image of a head; below
this was something that looked like a row of small figures. He brushed
it smooth with the palm of his hand, and then looked more closely at
it, turning it around and around, and this way and that. All of a
sudden a thought struck him, and I cannot describe the thrill that
went through him as he looked at that which he held. As this thought
went through his mind, he closed his hand and looked slowly around
him, as though he was in a dream. I can distinctly recollect that that
singular feeling which we all have felt at times passed over him;—a
feeling as though all this had happened before, but as though it had
happened in a dream. Then he looked at the object once more, and could
just make out the figures;—they were 1, 7, 9 and 2. He picked at the
edge of the disk, and a white sparkle followed the scratching of his
thumb nail.

“Good Lord, Jack!” cried he, “look! look!”

There was a ring in his voice that made Jack jump as though he had been
struck. “Look at what, Tom?” said he, in a half-frightened voice.

“Look at this!” said Tom, and he held out that which he had picked up a
minute before. “What do you think it is?”

Jack had three or four of them in his own hand. “I don’t know,” said
he, turning them over and over. Suddenly he too began to look more
closely at them. “Why, Tom—Tom—” he began, “is it—is it—”

“It’s money;—it’s silver money, Jack, as sure as I am a living sinner!”

“Why, so it is!” cried Jack, “why, so it is, Tom! This is a half a
dollar, and so is this, and this, and this! Why, Tom, here’s another,
and another! Great heavens, Tom! _the sand’s covered with them!_”

And so it was. Here and there would be two or three lying together, but
in most cases they were scattered about like shells at high water mark.
Jack sat down quite overcome, and then began laughing in a foolish sort
of a way, but there was a catch in his laugh that sounded mightily
like crying. “Tom,” said he, “we’re rich men! Tom, did you ever see or
hear of the like? Why, Tom—”

Then he stopped all of a sudden, and, scrambling to his feet, fell to
gathering up the money as though he had been crazy.

For an hour or more they hunted up and down, picking up silver pieces
as children pick up chestnuts under a chestnut tree. After a while they
only found a few stray coins here and there, and finally they cleared
the beach of them altogether. Then they sat down to count them. Tom had
about two hundred dollars; Jack had gathered more nearly three hundred
than two. Altogether they had a little less than five hundred dollars
between them.

“Where do you suppose they came from, Tom?” said Jack, after a while.
He was sitting on the sand when he spoke, holding a lot of the coins in
his hand and turning them over with his fingers.

Tom shook his head. This was the same thought that had been puzzling
him for some time past, and, as yet, he had not been able to answer it.

After a while they went back to their hut, carrying their money with
them. Jack was very talkative and excited, but Tom was as silent as
the other was noisy, for he was pondering over the matter of Jack’s
question—Where did they all come from?

Where did they all come from? He thought and thought till his brain was
muddled with his thinking. Could there have been a treasure buried
here by the buccaneers in times past? It was a wild thought, but Tom
was ready for any kind of wild thought at the time. But then the date
of the coin that he had found—1792—that was long after the time of the
buccaneers. He picked up another piece and looked at it; it also bore
the same date, 1792, and so did another and another; they were all of
the same mintage. He did not know what to think of it.

Jack must have had a notion that Tom was puzzling his wits over this,
for he sat beside the fire all of the evening without saying a word.
Every now and then he arose and threw some more brushwood on the
flames; beyond that he hardly moved, but sat in silence, watching Tom
furtively.

“Tom,” said he, at last.

“Well, Jack.”

“Do you suppose that it could _rain_ money?”

“Stuff and nonsense!”

“I don’t see any stuff and nonsense about it. I’ve heard of it raining
stones, and why shouldn’t it rain money as well? We never found any
before that hurricane came on us.”

“That’s true enough, Jack,” said Tom, “I hadn’t thought of that.” For
the finding of this money had driven all thought of the hurricane out
of his head.

“Then you think it might have rained money, after all?”

“No; I don’t think that.”

“Humph! Well, what do you think about it?”

“I don’t know what to think about it; but you’ve put a new idea into my
head.”

It was later than usual when they went to rest that night. Tom laid
awake hour after hour, his thoughts as busy as bees. Where had the
money come from? This was the question that ran through his brain
unceasingly, keeping him awake as the silent night moved along. And
then, why should all the coins bear the same date of 1792?

Suddenly the whole thing opened before him, and he saw it all as
clearly as I see the hand before my face. He could hardly help shouting
aloud, but he bethought him that Jack might be asleep, and that it
would be a pity to awaken him.

“Jack,” whispered he, in a low voice.

“Helloa!” said the other, quickly, for he was wide awake.

“I think I’ve found it out!”

“Found out what?”

“Found where the money came from.”

“Well, where did it come from?” said Jack, and Tom could see in the
gloom that he sat up in his excitement.

“Did you notice that all the money bore the same date, 1792?” said Tom.

“No; I didn’t notice that.”

“Well, it did, and, what’s more, it’s all Spanish money.”

“But where did it come from?” said Jack.

“Jack,” said Tom, slowly, “as sure as I’m lying here, that wreck on
the sand-spit is the wreck of a Spanish treasure ship.”

“Tom!” shouted Jack, “you’re right! What a fool I was not to think of
that! Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”

No doubt you who read this have guessed the matter long ago, and have
wondered that Tom and Jack were so dull of wits as not to have thought
of it before. But the idea never entered their heads that a fortune was
lying buried in the sand that covered the poor old wreck that had been
so constantly before their eyes for almost a year, and when they found
money like pebbles along the beach, it never struck them that it could
have been washed out of those crumbling ribs, whose only value had been
that they gave them a rusty spike every now and then.

Jack was wild to go out into the night, and to hunt for money there and
then, and it was as much as Tom could do to quiet him and make him lie
down and try to get a little sleep. Of course, neither of them caught a
wink, and both were stirring at the dawn of day.

They hardly ate a bite of food before they set to work.

By noontide Tom had made a couple of rude shovels, the blades of which
were of the plankings of the cutter over their heads, and the handles
of which were two straight limbs, cut from the neighboring thicket. It
was a long tedious piece of work to make these shovels, for Tom had no
tools to work with but Jack’s knife, and only half of the blade of
that was left. Tom labored steadily at the shovels, but Jack was very
impatient at the slowness of the work, and was continually urging him
to hurry matters. I suppose that he was back and forth from the hut to
the wreck a dozen times in the course of the morning.

But at last the shovels were finished. Tom tried to persuade Jack to
eat a bite before he went to work, but Jack would have nothing to
do with food; he shouldered the two shovels and started away to the
sand-spit, leaving Tom to cook and eat his dinner by himself. When Tom
went over to the wreck a half an hour later, he found Jack busily at
work, and a great hole already scooped out in the sand,—but Jack had
not yet found a cent of money.

I do not think that they had any idea of what they were undertaking,
and what a tremendous piece of work it was that lay before them. I
confess that Tom was as foolish as Jack, in having a notion that all
they would have to do would be to scoop away a little sand, and pick up
money by the handful; but they found nothing either on that day or the
next, or the next, or for a week or more to come. Jack began to be very
much discouraged, and said more than once that he was certain that Tom
had been mistaken in his notion that the wreck was that of a treasure
ship.

Tom himself began to be a little down-hearted, and more than once
suspected that he had made a wrong guess. But when he brought to mind
that the money was of one mintage, and, from the way in which it lay,
that it was plainly washed out of the wreck by the water that had
flowed over the sand-spit at the time of the hurricane, he would feel
reassured that he was right, though he could not account for the reason
why a part of it should have been washed up, while the rest seemed to
lie so deeply beneath the surface. So he managed to keep Jack pretty
steadily to his work, though, as the days dragged along and nothing
came of their labor, it became a great task to do so.

But on the tenth day they made a find. They were just about to give up
their work for the evening, when Tom unearthed a small, wooden box. It
was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three or four inches deep.
It was very rotten, and fell to pieces as Jack tried to pick it up. It
was full of money, which tumbled all in a heap as the box crumbled in
Jack’s hand. The money must have been in rolls when it was put into the
case, for there were scraps of mouldy paper mixed with it, and some of
the coins had bits of paper glued to them by the black rust that had
gathered upon them.

This was the first money that they found by digging, and Jack nearly
went crazy over it. Tom himself was very much excited, but he did not
act as absurdly as Jack, who danced, and laughed, and shouted like one
possessed. It was their first gleam of good luck, and it was a good
thing that it came when it did, for it was speedily followed by the
worst of ill fortune.

That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had
been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it,
or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore
the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in
the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away
that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was
blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the
next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way
into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved
in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect
their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come,
the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next
morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be
done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a
week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow,
and the same thing happened as before.

After this they set about the work with more system. They built a
breakwater of stakes, between which they wove twigs and grass. This was
Tom’s plan, and they found that it kept the sea back completely, for,
as I have said, it was only the wash of the breakers that ran over the
place that they were at work. It never filled up again as long as Tom
and Jack were engaged upon it.

But all this cost a great deal of time and labor, and I doubt very much
if they had not found the box of money whether they would ever have
struck a shovel into the sand again after the first storm came upon
them; so that it was a lucky thing that they found the box when they
did, and that the southeaster did not come a day sooner.

For three or four months they worked as never men worked before. It is
strange to think of how men will labor and toil for money, even when
money will do them as little good as it did Jack and Tom on this lonely
island. It is a wonder that they did not kill themselves with the work
and the hardships that they went through during that time. However, the
excitement that they were living under kept them up to a great degree.

During all these months they lived upon little else than fish. Now and
then they would gather a few mussels or catch a crab or two, but their
chief living was fish—broiled fish for breakfast, dinner and supper,
until they both grew to loathe the very sight of it. Tom got such a
surfeit of them in that time that he could never bear the smell of a
frying fish from that day to this.

Upon the first of September they counted over the money that they had
unearthed, and they found that they had over eight thousand dollars in
all. It was made up of silver coins of all sizes, large and small.

They only had three days more of work on the island, and, as two of
those days were blank, they did not add very much to the sum that they
had already gathered.




CHAPTER XIII.


IT was the morning of the 3d of September of the same year,—1814.

Tom and Jack had just finished their breakfast;—it was of broiled fish.
Hughy! It makes me shudder even now to think of it, for I do hate the
very sight of a fish.

The work of dig

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