tone that was heard and repeated along the rooms. It brought many of
the company to their feet and to surround him, with a new sense of his
high commission and authority. "I ask again for your kind wishes,
Colonel Hamilton, and yours, Mr. Justice, and for your blessing on my
voyage, reverend sir;" and saluting those of the elder ladies who had
been most kind, and kissing his hand to some younger friends and
partners of the dance, he turned to go. Then, with his fine laced hat in
hand, the captain waved for silence and hushed the friendly voices that
would speak a last word of confidence in his high success.
"These friends of his and mine who are assembled here should know that
your neighbor, Mr. Wallingford, sails with me in the morning. I count
my crew well, now, from your noble river! Farewell, dear ladies;
farewell, my good friends and gentlemen."
There was a sudden shout in the hushed house, and a loud murmur of talk
among the guests, and Hamilton himself stepped forward and began to
speak excitedly; but the captain stayed for neither question nor answer,
and they saw him go away hurriedly, bowing stiffly to either hand on his
way toward the door. Mary had been standing there, with a proud smile
and gentle dignity in her look of attendance, since they had come in
together, and he stopped one moment more to take her hand with a low and
formal bow, to lift it to his lips, and give one quick regretful look at
her happy face. Then Hamilton and some of the younger men followed him
down through the gardens to the boat landing. The fleet tide of the
river was setting seaward; the captain's boat swept quickly out from
shore, and the oars flashed away in the moonlight. There were ladies on
the terrace, and on the broad lookout of the housetop within the high
railing; there were rounds upon rounds of cheers from the men who stood
on the shore, black and white together. The captain turned once when he
was well out into the river bay and waved his hand. It was as if the
spectators were standing on the edge of a great future, to bid a hero
hail and farewell.
The whole countryside was awake and busy in the moonlight. So late at
night as this there were lights still shining in one low farmhouse after
another, as the captain went away. The large new boat of the Ranger was
rowed by man-of-war's men in trim rig, who were leaving their homes on
the river shores for perhaps the last time; a second boat was to join
them at Stiles's Cove, heaped with sea chests and sailors' bags. The
great stream lay shining and still under the moon, a glorious track of
light lay ready to lead them on, and the dark pines stood high on the
eastern shore to watch them pass. The little captain, wrapped in his
boat cloak, sat thoughtful and gloomy at the stern. The gold lace
glittered on his hat, and the new flag trailed aft. This was the first
reach of a voyage that would go down in history. He was not familiar
with many of his men, but in this hour he saw their young faces before
him, and remembered his own going from home. The Scottish bay of
Carsethom, the laird's house at Arbigland, the far heights of the
Cumberland coast, rose again to the vision of a hopeful young adventurer
to Virginia and the southern seas.
They could still hear the music, faint and far away; perhaps the girls
were dancing again, and not weeping for poor Jack, the sailor; but as
the men pulled at their oars, light in the channel's flow, and looked
back at the bright house, they saw a fire shining on the shore at
Hamilton's. Word had been passed that the captain was going down; the
crowd had gathered again; they were cheering like mad, and the boys in
the boat yelled themselves hoarse, while some one drifting in a skiff
near by fired a heavy pistol, which roused all the river birds and
echoed in the river pines from shore to shore. Huzza! they were
bringing refuse from the shipyard now, and piling it on the flame! The
bonfire towered high, and lighted the shipping and the reefed sails of
the gundalows. The steep roof of the house with its high dormer
windows, the leafless elms, were all like glowing gold against the blue
height of the sky. The eagles waked, and flew crying above the river in
the strange light. Somebody was swinging a lantern from the roof of
Hamilton house, and then there came a light to an upper window that had
been dark before, and another, and another, till all the great house was
lit and seemed to tower into the skies. The boat's crew leaned upon
their oars, drifting and losing way as they tried to shout back. It
cheered their brave hearts, and sent them gayly on their dark journey; a
moment before they had thought heavily that some could play and dance
ashore while others must go off into the night, leaving all but the
thought of Glory behind them.
The whole river country was up. The old Piscataqua plantations had not
been so stirred since the news came, many months before, of the peril of
Boston and the fight at Lexington, when a company had started from Saco
and marched across country, gathering like a rolling snowball on its
way, and with Eben Sullivan and Nathan Lord's Berwick men had reached
the great Bunker Hill fight in good season. Captain Moulton's company
had taken the post road out of old York to join them; there was running
to and fro in the country then, and a frenzy of haste, of bawling
orders, of piteous leavetakings, of noisy drums and fifes and all the
confusion of war. But this was felt to be almost as great a moment, and
to mark a still bolder challenge to the foreign foe. There were
bonfires on all the river points, and hardly a farmer whose beacon did
not answer to his neighbor's. There were shadowy groups of women
standing on the high banks against the dim sky, and crying shrill
farewells to the boys in the boats: "God speed the Ranger! God bless
you, Captain Paul!" and one voice after another took up the cry.
"Good-by, boys! Good-by, boys!" they heard the girls calling after them
all down the river, and saw new firelights brighten as they came.
The boat now felt the swift seagoing current more and more; they had
passed High Point and the Devil's Reach and the old Hodgdon Farm and the
mouth of Dover River, and at Hodgdon's Landing they had taken off young
Humphry Lord with his little chest, and his mother's tears wet upon his
coat; they swept faster still down past Dover Point and the mouth of
Great Bay, where a new current caught them again like a mill race. The
fires were bright along the Kittery shore, and the sound of old
Portsmouth bells came up along the water, and soon they saw the lights
at Rice's Ferry and all the leafless forest of idle shipping, and came
at last to the dark crank-looking hull of the Ranger lying in midstream.
*VII*
*THE SAILING OF THE RANGER*
"Go you with your Don Quixote to your adventures, and leave us to our
ill fortunes! God will better them for us if we deserve it!"
It was a gray, cold morning, windy and wet after the mild southerly airs
of the night before. When the day broke and the heavy clouds changed to
a paler hue, there were already many persons to be seen waiting on the
Portsmouth wharves. There was a subdued excitement as the crowd
gathered, and the hull and heavy spars of the Ranger out in the gray
river were hardly imposing enough to be the centre of such general
interest. She might have been one of the less noticeable merchantmen of
that busy port, well used to its tugging tides and racing currents, and
looked like a clumsy trading-vessel, until one came near enough to see
that she was built with a gun deck, and that her ports were the many
shrewd eyes of a warship, bent upon aggression as well as defense.
At that early hour there was a continual coming and going between the
frigate and the shore, and an ever increasing cluster of boats
surrounded her. There was loud shouting on the river and from the pier
heads, and now and then a round of cheers from some excited portion of
the admiring multitude. There were sad partings between the sailors and
their wives and mothers at the water's edge, and there were sudden gusts
of laughter among the idle lookers-on. The people had come out of the
houses on Badger's Island, while from Newington and upper Kittery the
wherries were coming down in a hurry, most of them strongly rowed by
women with the short cross-handed stroke that jerked such boats steadily
ahead against the wind, or through any river tide or set of current.
The old market women bound for the Spring Market in Portsmouth, with
their autumn freight of geese and chickens and high-priced eggs, rested
on their crossed oars, and waited in midstream to see what came of this
great excitement. Though they might be late to catch the best of their
early traffic, some of them drove a thriving trade, and their hard red
apples were tossed from boat to boat by rollicking customers, while
those that missed their aim went bobbing, gay and shining on the cold
water, out to sea.
The tide had now turned, and the noise of voices grew louder; there was
a cold waft of air from the rising northerly wind, and suddenly
everybody heard a shrill whistle on the ship and a cheer, and there was
a yell from the tangled boats, before those on shore could see that the
Ranger's men were lying out along the yards, and her sails were being
spread. Then there were cheers indeed; then there were handkerchiefs
and hats a-waving; then every boy and every man who wished in his heart
to go and fight Great Britain on her own coasts split his throat with
trying to cheer louder than the rest, while even those who had counseled
prudence and delay felt the natural joy of seeing a great ship spread
her wings to go to sea.
Almost every man and woman who looked on knew some lad or man who was
sailing, and now there was great shouting and running near the slip
where a last boat was putting off in haste. There was a young man
aboard her, and many persons of dignity and position were bidding him
farewell. The cheering grew louder; at that moment the slow bells began
to ring in St. John's steeple and the old North Church; there was not a
man who knew his story who did not honor young Mr. Wallingford for his
bold and manly step. Word had been passed that he had taken a commission
and was sailing with the rest, but few believed it. He was bound by
family ties, he was endangering all future inheritance from old Loyalist
relatives who would rather see him in jail than bent upon this thing:
the only son of his mother, and she a Tory widow, there were reasons
enough to keep any hero back upon the narrow neutral ground that still
remained. And Roger Wallingford was not a hero,--only a plain
gentleman, with a good heart and steady sense of honor.
He talked soberly with his old friends, and listened to Mr. Langdon's
instructions and messages to France, and put some thick letters safely
into the pockets of his uniform, which, having been made on a venture,
with those for other officers, fitted him but awkwardly. As he stood in
the boat nearing the frigate's side, there could hardly be a more
gallant-looking fellow of his age. There was in his face all the high
breeding and character of his house, with much personal courage and
youthful expectancy. A handsome sword that had been his grandfather's
hung heavy from the belt that dragged at his thin waist, and furrowed
deep the stiff new cloth of his coat. More than one rough-cheeked
market woman, in that bitter morning air, felt an unwonted slackening in
her throat, and could not speak, but blessed him over and over in her
warm heart, as her tears sprung quick to blur this last sight of young
Wallingford going to the wars. Here was a chapter of romance, though
some things in the great struggle with England were prosaic enough;
there was as much rebellion now against raising men and money as there
had ever been against the Stamp Act or the hated duties. The states
were trying to excuse themselves, and to extort from one another; the
selfish and cold-hearted are ever to be pushed forward to their public
duties, and here in Portsmouth the patriots had many a day grown
faint-hearted with despair.
The anchor broke ground at last; the Ranger swung free and began to
drift; the creak of the cables and the chanty that helped to wind them
mingled now with the noise of church bells and the firing of guns on the
seaward forts at Newcastle. As Wallingford went up the vessel's side
and stepped to the deck, it happened that the Ranger fired her own
parting gun, and the powder smoke blew thick in his face. When it
cleared away he saw the captain close beside him, and made his proper
salute. Then he turned quickly for a last glimpse of his friends; the
boat was still close under the quarter, and they waved to him and
shouted last words that he could not hear. They had been his father's
friends, every one,--they wished to be going, too, those good gentlemen;
it was a splendid errand, and they were all brave men.
"Mr. Langdon and his friends bade me say to you and to Lieutenant
Simpson that they meant to come aboard again, sir; they were sorry to be
too late; they would have me take breakfast and wait while they finished
these last dispatches which they send you for Mr. Franklin and Mr.
Adams. I was late from home; it has been a sudden start for me," said
the young man impulsively. "I thank you for your welcome message, which
I got at two o'clock by the courier," he added, with a wistful appeal in
the friendliness of his tone, as one gentleman might speak with another
in such case.
"I had further business with them!" exclaimed the superior officer.
"They owed it to me to board me long ago, instead of dallying with your
breakfast. Damn your breakfast, Mr. Wallingford!" he said angrily, and
turned his back. "I left them and the shore at three in the morning; I
have been at my affairs all night. Go below, sir!" he commanded the new
lieutenant fiercely. "Now you have no gray-headed pomposities to wait
upon and admire you, you had best begin to learn something of your
duties. Get you down and fall to work, sir! Go to Simpson for orders!"
Wallingford looked like an icicle under the droop of the great mainsail;
he gazed with wonder and pity at the piqued and wearied little man; then
his face grew crimson, and, saluting the captain stiffly, he went at
once below. There was many a friendly greeting and warm handshake
waiting for him between decks, but these could please him little just
then; he made his way to the narrow cabin, cluttered and piled high with
his sea kit and hasty provisionings, and sat there in the dim light
until right-mindedness prevailed. When he came on deck again, they were
going out of the lower harbor, with a following wind, straight to sea.
He may have gone below a boy, but he came on deck a man.
Sir William Pepperrell's stately gambrel-roofed house, with the deer
park and gardens and row of already decaying warehouses, looked drowsy
with age on Kittery Point, and opposite, hiding away in Little Harbor,
was the rambling, huge old mansion of the Wentworths, with its fine
council chamber and handsome card-rooms, where he had danced many a
night with the pretty Portsmouth girls. All Roger Wallingford's youth
and pleasantries were left behind him now; the summer nights were ended;
the winter feasts, if there were any that dreary year, must go on
without him. The Isles of Shoals lay ahead like pieces of frozen drift
ill the early morning light, and the great sea stretched away to the
horizon, bleak and cold and far, a stormy road to France.
The ship, heading out into the waste of water, took a steady movement
between wind and wave, and a swinging gait that seemed to deny at every
moment the possibility of return. The gray shore sank and narrowed to a
line behind her. At last the long blue hill in Northwood and the three
hills of Agamenticus were seen like islands, and long before noon these
also had sunk behind the waves, and the Ranger was well at sea.
*VIII*
*THE MAJOR'S HOSPITALITIES*
"But see how merciful Heaven sends relief in the greatest distresses,
for now comes Don Gayferos!"
The Haggens house, with its square chimneys, and a broad middle-aged
look of comfort, like those who were sheltered under its roof, stood
facing the whole southern country just where the two roads joined from
the upper settlements. A double stream of travel and traffic flowed
steadily by this well-known corner, toward the upper and lower landings
of the tide river. From the huge square stone that floored a pointed
porch of severely classic design could be seen a fine sweep of land from
the Butlers' Hill on the left, over the high oak woods of a second
height to the deep pasture valleys. Major Hight's new house and huge
sentinel pines stood on a ridge beyond, with the river itself showing a
gleam of silver here and there all along the low lands toward
Portsmouth. Across the country westward was the top of Garrison Hill at
Dover; to the south was the dark pine-forested region of the Rocky
Hills. It was a wide and splendid prospect even on a bleak autumn day,
and Major Haggens, the socially minded master of the house, was trying
hard to enjoy it as he sat in the morning wind, wrapped in his red cloak
and longing for proper companionship. He cast imploring glances across
the way to the habitation of his only near neighbor, Mr. Rogers, but he
could see the old gentleman sitting fast asleep at that ridiculous hour
of the morning, behind a closed window. There was no one to be seen up
the road, where Mr. Jenkins's place of business was apt to attract the
idle, especially in the harvest time of his famous early apples. These
were dull days; before the war there were few mornings of the year when
the broad space before the major's house lacked either carriages or
foot-travelers for half an hour. In winter the two roads were blocked
as far as a man could see with the long processions of ox teams laden
with heavy timber, which had come from fifty or even a hundred miles
back in the north country. There were hundreds of trees standing yet in
the great forests of the White Hills that were marked with the deeply
cut King's arrow, but the winter snows of many years to come were likely
to find these timber pines for the King's shipyards still standing.
The busy, quick-enriching days of the past seemed to be gone forever,
and poverty and uncertainty had replaced them. There was no such market
anywhere for Berwick timber as England had always been; the Berwick
merchants would be prosperous no more; the town must live long now upon
their hoarded gains, and then seek for some other means of living. The
gay-hearted old major looked downcast, and gave a deep sigh. He had no
such remembrance of the earlier wars, when Old England and New England
had fought together against a common enemy. Those battles had been
exciting enough, and a short and evident path to glory, where his fellow
colonists had felt something of the happy certainties of the Old
Testament Jews, and went out boldly to hew Agag in pieces and to smite
the Amalekites hip and thigh. It appeared now as if, with all its
hardships, war had been a not unwelcome relief to a dull level of
prosperity and the narrowness of a domestic horizon. War gave a man the
pleasures of travel, it was a man's natural business and outlet of
energy; but war with moral enemies, and for opinion's sake, lacked the
old color, and made the faces of those who stayed at home grow sullen.
They were backbiting Hamilton in many a pious household, that morning,
for giving a farewell feast to Paul Jones. 'T was all of a piece with
Roundhead days, and christening a child by such names as must have
depressed Praise-God Barebones, and little Hate-Evil Kilgore who was a
neighbor of the major's, down the Landing hill.
The major's sound but lately unpracticed head was a little heavy from
the last night's supper, and the world seemed to him badly out of joint.
He was a patriot at heart, but one who stood among the moderates. He
seemed uneasy in his wooden armchair, and pushed the ferule of his stout
old ivory-headed cane angrily into a crevice below one of the Corinthian
pillars of the porch. His tall sister, who, by virtue of two years'
precedence in age, resolutely maintained the position of superior
officer, had already once or twice opened the door behind to advise him
to come in out of the cold wind; the chill might very well send him an
attack of gout in the stomach.
"I 've got no gout to send, nor any stomach to send it to," returned the
major angrily. "What's the use of a stomach, when a man can get nothing
decent to put into it, and has not even a dog to keep him company? I'd
welcome even a tax gatherer!" The great door was shut again with
decision enough to clack the oval brass knocker, and the major finished
some protests against fate deep in his own disparaged interior, and
punctuated his inarticulate grumbles by angry bobs of the head. He was
really too cold, but he would not submit to Nancy, or let her think that
she could rule him, as she seemed to wish.
Suddenly there was something moving down at the end of the street; it
came up quickly over the slope into the full appearance of a horse and
rider, and hope filled the major's once sorrowful mind.
"Jack Hamilton, by zounds!" laughed the old gentleman. "He 's late on
his way up country. I 'll stretch a point: we 'll make it an hour
earlier, and have our toddy now; it must be after ten."
Hamilton presently declared that he was too much belated; he must go to
the far regions of Tow-wow, where he owned great tracts of woodland; he
really must not vex his conscience by loitering.
"Here, you, Cuffee! here, 'Pollo, you lazy dog!" the major called,
merely turning his head, so that his voice might reach round the house
through the long yard to his barns; and after a moment's consideration,
Hamilton dismounted unwillingly. The gay creature he had ridden sidled
away, and whinnied fretfully, as if she also objected to such an
interruption of their plans.
"Keep her here; I shall not stop long," said the colonel to a black
namesake of the great god Apollo, who was the first to arrive, and,
although breathless, began to walk to and fro sentry fashion, as if by
automatic impulse. The already heated young mare was nosing his
shoulder with an air of intimacy, and nipping at the edge of his frayed
hat.
"You 'll be just far enough from both dinner and breakfast now,"
insisted the major, stamping along through the handsome cold hall of the
house, with its elaborate panelings of clear, uupainted pine. "You 'll
get to Tow-wow, or Lebanon, as the new folks want to call it, all the
sooner for this delay. You 've pounded the first wind out of that colt
already; you 'd have had her sobbing on Plaisted's Hill. What we can't
find in eatables we 'll make up in drinkables. Nancy, Nancy, where 's my
spirit case? You 're so precise I never can find anything where I leave
it!"
"The case is on the top of the sideboard, directly in the middle,
brother Tilly," said Miss Nancy, politely coming out of the room on the
right, and looking after him, with her knitting in hand.
Mr. Hamilton turned, and she dropped a somewhat informal curtsy. She
wore a plain turban which gave her a severe but most distinguished air.
Miss Haggens was quite the great lady, and even more French in her
appearance than the major himself.
"I was sorry to miss the gayeties last night," she said. "The major is
boyish enough for anything, and can answer every beck and call, but I
felt that I must not venture. I was sorry when it proved so fine an
evening."
"No becks and calls to answer in these days," insisted the busy host.
"'T would do you good, Nancy, as it did all the rest of us. Let's have
it in the breakfast-room; I left a good fire there. If there's no hot
water, I 'll heat some quick enough in a porringer."