was going down with the sun. How often I have watched for my dear man
such nights as this, when he was kept late in Portsmouth! 'T was well
we lived in town those latest winters. You remember that Rodney always
kept the fire bright in the dining parlor ('t is a cosy place in
winter), and put a tankard of mulled wine inside the fender; 't would
bring back the color to his face all chilled with winter rain, and the
light into his eyes. And Roger would come in with him, holding his
father's hand; he would ever run out bareheaded in the wet, while I
called to them from the door to come in and let the horse go to stable,
and they laughed at me for my fears. Where is Roger to-night, I wonder,
Susan? They cannot be in port for a long time yet. I hate to think of
him on the sea!"
"Maybe 't is morning there, and the sun out, madam."
"Susan," said Madam Wallingford, "you used to sing to him when he was a
baby; sit near the fire awhile,--there is no more for you to do. Sing
one of your old hymns, so that I may go to sleep; perhaps it will quiet
his heart, too, if we are quiet and try to be at peace."
The very shadows grew stiller, as if to listen, as the patient old
handmaiden came and sat beside the bed and began to sing, moving her
foot as if she still held the restless baby who had grown to be a man.
There were quavering notes in her voice, but when she had sung all her
pious verses of the Cradle Hymn to their very end Madam Wallingford was
fast asleep.
*XII*
*BETWEEN DECKS*
"'But when shall I see Athens and the Acropolis again?'
"'Wretched man! doth not that satisfy thee which thou seest every day?
Hast thou aught better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the
stars, the common earth, the sea?'"
"Who would Hercules have been if he had sat at home?"
The Ranger was under full sail, and ran like a hound; she had cleared
the Banks with all their snow squalls and thick nights, without let or
hindrance. The captain's boast that he would land his dispatches and
spread the news of Burgoyne's surrender in France in thirty days seemed
likely to come true. The men were already beginning to show effects of
constant vigilance and overwork; but whatever discomforts might arrive,
the splendid seamanship of Paul Jones could only be admired by such
thorough-going sailors as made up the greater portion of his crew. The
younger members of the ship's company were full of gayety if the wind
and work eased ever so little, and at any time, by night or day, some
hearty voice might be heard practicing the strains of a stirring song
new made by one of the midshipmen:--
"That is why we Brave the Blast
To carry the news to Lon-don."
There were plenty of rival factions and jealousies. The river men were
against all strangers; and even the river men had their own divisions,
their warm friendships and cold aversions, so that now and then some
smouldering fire came perilously near an outbreak. The tremendous
pressure of work alow and aloft, the driving wind, the heavy tumbling
seas, the constant exposure and strain in such trying duty and incessant
service of the sails, put upon every man all that he could well bear,
and sent him to his berth as tired as a dog.
It takes but little while for a good shipmaster to discover who are the
difficult men in his crew, the sea lawyers and breeders of
dissatisfaction. The captain of the Ranger was a man of astonishing
readiness both to blame and praise; nobody could resist his inspiriting
enthusiasm and dominating presence, but in absence he was often proved
wrong, and roundly cursed, as captains are, with solid satisfaction of
resentment. Everybody cheered when he boldly declared against flogging,
and even tossed that horrid sea-going implement, the cat, lightly over
the ship's side. Even in this surprising moment, one of the old seamen
had growled that when you saw a man too good, it was the time to look
out for him.
"I dasen't say but it's about time to get a fuss going," said one of
these mariners to a friend, later on. "Ginerally takes about ten days to
start a row atween decks, 'less you 're extra eased off with good
weather."
[Illustration: THE RANGER]
"This bad weather's all along o' Dickson," ventured his comrade; "if
they'd known what they was about, he 'd been the fust man they'd hasted
to set ashore. I know him; I 've knowed him ever since he was a boy. I
see him get a black stripe o' rage acrost his face when he seen Mr.
Wallin'ford come aboard, that mornin'. Wallin'ford's folks cotched him
thievin' when he had his fat chance o' surveyor up country, after the
old judge died. He cut their growth on his own account and done a sight
o' tricks, and Madam dismissed him, and would ha' jailed him but for
pity of his folks. I always wished she'd done it; 't would ha' stamped
him plain, if he'd seen the inside o' old York jail for a couple o'
years. As 't was, he had his own story to tell, and made out how he was
the injured one; so there was some o' them fools that likes to be on the
off side that went an' upheld him. Oh, Dickson 's smart, and some calls
him pious, but I wish you'd seen him the day Madam Wallin'ford sent for
him to speak her mind! That mornin' we was sailin' out o' Porchmouth, I
see him watch the young man as if he was layin' for him like a tiger!
There he is now, comin' out o' the cabin. I guess the cap'n 's been
rakin' him fore an' aft. He hates him; an' Simpson hates him, too, but
not so bad. Simpson don't jibe with the cap'n hisself, so he demeans
himself to hark to Dickson more 'n he otherwise would. Lord, what a
cur'ous world this is!"
"What's that n'ise risin' out o' the fo'c's'le now, Cooper? Le' 's go
see!" and the two old comrades made haste to go below.
Paul Jones gave a hearty sigh, as he sat alone in his cabin, and struck
his fist into the empty air. He also could hear the sound of a loud
quarrel from the gun deck, and for a moment indulged a fierce hope that
somebody might be well punished, or even killed, just to lessen the
number of citizens in this wrangling village with which he had put to
sea. They had brought aboard all the unsettled rivalries and jealousies
of a most independent neighborhood.
He looked about him as he sat; then rose and impatiently closed one of
his lockers where there was an untidy fold of crumpled clothing hanging
out. What miserable surroundings and conditions for a man of inborn
fastidiousness and refinement of nature!
Yet this new ship, so fast growing toward the disgusting squalor of an
old one; these men, with their cheap suspicions and narrow ambitions,
were the strong tools ready to his hand. It was a manly crew as crews
go, and like-minded in respect to their country's wrongs.
"I feel it in my breast that I shall some day be master in a great sea
fight!" said the little captain as he sat alone, while the Ranger
labored against the waves, and the light of heroic endurance came back
to his eyes as he saw again the splendid vision that had ever led him
on.
"Curse that scoundrel Dickson!" and his look darkened. "Patience,
patience! If I were a better sleeper, I could face everything that can
come in a man's day; I could face the devil himself. The wind's in the
right quarter now, and the sea's going down. I 'll go on deck and give
all hands some grog,--I 'll give it them myself; the poor fellows are
cold and wet, and they serve me like men. We 're getting past the
worst," and again Paul Jones fell to studying his charts as if they were
love letters writ by his lady's hand.
Cooper and Hanscom had come below to join the rest of their watch, and
still sat side by side, being old shipmates and friends. There was an
easy sort of comfort in being together. Just now they spoke again in
low voices of young Mr. Wallingford.
"Young master looks wamble-cropped to me," said Hanscom. "Don't fancy
privateerin' so well as ridin' a blood horse on Porchmouth Parade, and
bein' courted by the Tory big-bugs. Looks wintry in the face to me."
"Lord bless us, when he's old 's we are, he 'll l'arn that spring al'ays
gets round again long's a creatur' 's alive," answered Cooper, who
instinctively gave a general turn to the discussion. "Ary thing that's
livin' knows its four seasons, an' I 've long maintained that after the
wust o' winter, spring usu'lly doos come follerin' right on."
"I don't know but it's so," agreed his mate politely. Cooper would have
these fanciful notions, while Hanscom was a plain-spoken man.
"What I'd like to know," said he, "yes, what I 'd like to ascertain, is
what young Squire Wallin'ford ever come for; 't ain't in his blood to
fight on our side, an' he's too straight-minded to play the sneak.
Also, he never come from cowardice. No, I can't make it out noway.
Sometimes folks mistakes their duty, and risks their all. Bain't spyin'
round to do no hurt, is he?--or _is_ he?"
There was a sharp suggestion in the way this question was put, and
Cooper turned fiercely upon his companion.
"Hunscom, I be ashamed of you!" he said scornfully, and said no more.
There was a dull warmth of color in his hard, sea-smitten face; he was
an elderly, quiet man, with a round, pleasant countenance unaltered in
the worst of weather, and a look of kindly tolerance.
"There's b'en some consid'able changin' o' sides in our neighborhood, as
you know," he said, a few moments later, in his usual tone. "Young
Wallin'ford went to school to Master Sullivan, and the old master l'arnt
everybody he could l'arn to be honest an' square, to hold by their word,
an' be afeard o' nothin'."
"Pity 't was that Dickson could n't ha' got a term o' such schoolin',"
said Hanscom, as they beheld that shipmate's unwelcome face peering down
the companion.
"Sometimes I wish I was to home again," announced Cooper, in an
unexpected fit of despondency. "I don' know why; 'tain't usual with me
to have such feelin's in the outset of a v'y'ge. I grow sicker every
day o' this flat, strivin' sea. I was raised on a good hill. I don'
know how I ever come to foller the sea, anyway!"
The forecastle was a forlorn abiding-place at best, and crowded at any
hour almost past endurance. The one hint of homeliness and decency was
in the well-made sea chests, which had not been out of place against a
steadier wall in the farmhouses whence most of them had come. They were
of plain wood, with a touch of art in their rude carving; many of them
were painted dull green or blue. There were others with really handsome
escutcheons of wrought iron, and all were graced with fine turk's-heads
to their rope handles, and every ingenuity of sailors' fancywork.
There was a grumbling company of able seamen, their owners, who had no
better place to sit than the chest tops, or to stretch at idle length
with these treasuries to lean against. The cold sea was nearer to a man
than when he was on deck and could reassure himself of freedom by a look
at the sky. The hammocks were here and there sagging with the rounded
bulk of a sleeping owner, and all jerked uneasily as the vessel pitched
and rolled by turns. The air was close and heavy with dampness and
tobacco smoke.
At this moment the great sea boots of Simon Staples were seen descending
from the deck above, and stumbling dangerously on the slippery straight
ladder.
"Handsomely, handsomely," urged a spectator, with deep solicitude.
"She 's goin' large now, ain't she? How's she headin' now?" asked a man
named Grant.
"She's full an' by, an' headin' east by south half east,--same 's we
struck out past the Isles o' Shoals," was the mirthful answer. "She
can't keep to nothin', an' the cap'n 's got to make another night on't.
But she 's full an' by, just now, all you lazy larbowlines," he repeated
cheerfully, at last getting his head down under decks as 'his foot found
the last step. "She 's been on a good leadin' wind this half hour back,
an' he 's got the stu'n'sails set again; 'tis all luff an' touch her,
this v'y'ge."
There was a loud groan from the listeners. The captain insisted upon
spreading every rag the ship could stagger under, and while they admired
his persistent daring, it was sometimes too much for flesh and blood.
Staples was looking ruefully at his yarn mittens. They were far beyond
the possibility of repair, and he took off first one and then the other
of these cherished reminders of much logging experience, and, sitting on
his sea chest, began to ravel what broken gray yarn was left and to wind
it into a ball.
"Goin' to knit you another pair?" inquired Hanscom. "That's clever;
empl'y your idle moments."
"Mend up his stockin's, you fool!" explained Grant, who was evidently
gifted with some sympathetic imagination.
"I wish they was thumbs up on the stakes o' my old wood-sled," said
Staples. "There, when I'm to sea I wish 's how I was lumberin', an'
when I'm in the woods I'm plottin' how to git to sea again; ain't no
suitin' of me neither way. I al'ays wanted to be aboard a fast sailer,
an' here I be thrashin' along, an' lamentin' 'cause my mittins is wore
out the fust fortnight."
"My! I wish old Master Hackett that built her could see how she runs!"
he exclaimed next moment, as if a warm admiration still had power to
cheer him. "I marked her lines for a beauty the day I see her launched:
't was what drove me here. There was plenty a-watchin' her on Lungdon's
Island that hoped she'd stick in the stays, but she took the water like
a young duck."
"He'd best not carry so much sail when she's clawin' to wind'ard close
hauled," growled James Chase, an old Nantucket seaman, with a warning
shake of the head. "'T won't take much to lay her clear down, I can
tell him! I never see a ship drove so, in my time. Lord help every
soul aboard if she wa'n't so weatherly!"
Fernald and Sherburne, old Portsmouth sailors, wagged their sage heads
in solemn agreement; but William Young, a Dover man, with a responsible
look, was waiting with some impatience for Chase to stand out of the
poor supply of light that came down the narrow hatchway. Young was
reading an old copy of the New Hampshire Gazette that had already been
the solace of every reading man aboard.
"What in time 's been the matter amongst ye?" Staples now inquired, with
interest. "I heard as how there was a fuss goin' down below; ain't ary
bully-raggin' as I can see; dull as meetin'!" Hanscom and Cooper looked
up eagerly; some of the other men only laughed for answer; but Chase
signified that the trouble lay with their messmate Starbuck, who
appeared to be surly, and sat with his back to the company. He now
turned and displayed a much-disfigured countenance, but said nothing.
"What's the cap'n about now?" Chase hastened to inquire pointedly.
"He's up there a-cunnin' the ship," answered Staples. "He 's workin'
the life out o' Grosvenor at the wheel. I just come from the maintop;
my arms aches as if they'd been broke with a crowbar. I lost my holt o'
the life line whilst we was settin' the stu'n's'l there on the
maintops'l yard, an' I give me a dreadful wrench. He had n't ought to
send them green boys to such places, neither; pore little Johnny Downes
was makin' out to do his stent like a man, but the halyards got fouled
in the jewel blocks, an' for all he's so willin'-hearted the tears was
a-runnin' down his cheeks when he come back. I was skeert the wind'd
blow him off like a whirligig off a stick, an' I spoke sharp to him so
's to brace him, an' give him a good boxed ear when I got him in reach.
He was about beat, an' half froze anyway; his fingers looked like the
p'ints o' parsnips. When he got back he laid right over acrost the cap.
I left him up there a-clingin' on."
"He worked as handsome a pair o' man-rope knots as I ever see, settin'
here this mornin'," said Cooper, compassionately. "He 'll make a good
smart sailor, but he needs to grow; he's dreadful small to send aloft in
a spell o' weather. The cap'n don't save himself, this v'y'ge, nor
nobody else."
"Come, you'd as good 's hear what Starbuck's b'en saying," said Chase,
with a wink. He had been waiting impatiently for this digression to
end.
"That spry-tempered admiral o' yourn don't know how to treat a crew!"
Starbuck burst forth, at this convenient opportunity. "Some on us gits
a whack ivery time he parades the deck. He's re'lly too outdacious for
decent folks. This arternoon I was a-loungin' on the gratin's an' got
sort o' drowsin' off, an' I niver heared him comin' nor knowed he was
there. Along he come like some upstropelous poppet an' give me a cuff
side o' my head. I dodged the next one, an' spoke up smart 'fore I
knowed what I was doin'. 'Damn ye, le' me be!' says I, an' he fetched
me another on my nose here; most stunded me.
"'I 'll l'arn ye to make yourself sca'ce! Keep to the port-hand side
where ye belong! Remember you 're aboard a man-o'-war!' says he,
hollerin' like a crowin' pullet. ''T ain't no fishin' smack! Go
forrard! Out o' the way with ye!' says he, same 's I was a stray dog.
I run to the side, my nose was a-bleedin' so, an' I fumbled arter
somethin' to serve me for a hankicher.
"'Here 's mine,' says he, 'but you 've got to understand there's
discipline on this frigate,' says he. Joseph Fernald knows where I was,"
continued the sufferer; "you see me, Joseph, when you come past.
'Twa'n't larboard nor starboard; 'twas right 'midships, 'less I may have
rolled one way or t'other. I could ha' squinched him so all the friends
he'd ever needed 'd be clargy an' saxon, an' then to pass me his linning
handkicher 's if I was a young lady! I dove into my pockets an' come
upon this old piece o' callamink I'd wropped up some 'baccy in. I never
give a look at him; I d' know but he gallded me more when he was
pleasant 'n when he fetched me the clip. I ketched up a lingum-vitae
marlinspike I see by me an' took arter him. I should ha' hit him good,
but he niver turned to look arter me, an' I come to reason. If I'd had
time, I'd ha' hit him, if I'd made the rest o' this v'y'ge in irons."
"Lord sakes! don't you bluster no more!" advised old Mr. Cooper
soothingly, with a disapproving glance at the pleased audience.
"Shipmasters like him ain't goin' to ask ye every mornin' how seafarin'
agrees with ye. He ain't goin' to treat hisself nor none on us like
passengers. He ain't had three hours sleep a night sence this v'y'ge
begun. He's been studyin' his charts this day, with his head set to 'em
on the cabin table 's if they showed the path to heaven. They was
English charts, too, 'long by Bristol an' up there in the Irish Sea. I
see 'em through the skylight."
"I 'll bate he's figurin' to lay outside some o' them very ports an' cut
out some han'some prizes," said Falls, one of the gunners, looking down
out of his hammock. Falls was a young man full of enthusiasm, who
played the fiddle.
"You 'll find 't will be all glory for him, an' no prizes for you, my
young musicianer!" answered Starbuck, who was a discouraged person by
nature. Now that he had a real grievance his spirits seemed to rise.
"Up hammocks all! Show a leg!" he gayly ordered the gunner.
"Wall, I seldom seen so good a navigator as the cap'n in my time,"
insisted Staples. "He knows every man's duty well's his own, an' that
he knows to a maracle."
"I 'll bate any man in this fo'c's'le that he 's a gre't fighter; you
wait an' see the little wasp when he 's gittin' into action!" exclaimed
Chase, who had been with Paul Jones on the Alfred. "He knows no fear
an' he sticks at nothin'! You hold on till we 're safe in Channel, an'
sight one o' them fat-bellied old West Injyinen lo'ded deep an' headed
up for London. Then you 'll see Gre't Works in a way you niver
expected."
This local allusion was not lost upon most members of the larboard
watch, and Starbuck's wrongs, with the increasing size of his once
useful nose, were quite disregarded in the hopeful laughter which
followed.
"Hand me the keerds," said one of the men lazily. "Falls, there, knows a
couple o' rale queer tricks."
"You keep 'em dowsed; if he thinks we ain't sleepin' or eatin', so 's to
git our courage up," said Staples, "he 'll have every soul on us aloft.
Le' 's set here where 't 's warm an' put some kecklin' on Starbuck; the
cap'n 's 'n all places to once, with eyes like gimblets, an' the wind 's
a-blowin' up there round the lubber holes like the mouth o' hell."
Chase, the Nantucket sailor, looked at him, with a laugh.
"What a farmer you be," he exclaimed. "Makes me think of a countryman,
shipmate o' mine on the brig Polly Dunn. We was whaling in the South
Seas, an' it come on to blow like fury; we was rollin' rails under, an'
I was well skeert myself; feared I could n't keep my holt; him an' me
was on the fore yard together. He looked dreadful easy an' pleasant. I
thought he'd be skeert too, if he knowed enough, an' I kind o' swore at
the fool an' axed him what he was a-thinkin' of. 'Why, 't is the 20th
o' May,' says he; 'all the caows goes to pastur' to-day, to home in
Eppin'!'"
There was a cheerful chuckle from the audience. Grant alone looked much
perplexed.
"Why, 't is the day, ain't it?" he protested. "What be you all
a-laughin' at?"
At this moment there was a strange lull; the wind fell, and the Ranger
stopped rolling, and then staggered as if she balked at some unexpected
danger. One of the elder seamen gave an odd warning cry. A monstrous
hammer seemed to strike the side, and a great wave swept over as if to
bury them forever in the sea. The water came pouring down and flooded
the forecastle knee-deep. There was an outcry on deck, and an instant
later three loud knocks on the scuttle.
"All the larboard watch ahoy!" bawled John Dougall. "Hear the news,
can't ye? All hands up! All hands on deck!"
*XIII*
*THE MIND OF THE DOCTOR*
"Or rather no arte, but a divine and heavenly instinct, not to be gotten
by labour and learning, but adorned by both."
There was one man, at least, on board the Ranger who was a lover of
peace: this was the ship's surgeon, Dr. Ezra Green. With a strong and
hearty crew, and the voyage just beginning, his professional duties had
naturally been but light; he had no more concern with the working of the
ship than if he were sitting in his office at home in Dover, and eagerly
assented to the captain's proposal that he should act as the Ranger's
purser.
The surgeon's tiny cabin was stuffed with books; this was a good chance
to go on with his studies, and, being a good sailor and a cheerful man,
the whole ship's company took pleasure in his presence. There was an
amiable seriousness about his every-day demeanor that calmed even the
activities of the captain's temper; he seemed to be surgeon and purser
and chaplain all in one, and to be fit, as one of his calling should be,
to minister to both souls and bodies. It was known on board that he was
unusually liberal in his views of religion, and was provided with some
works upon theology as well as medicine, and could argue well for the
Arminian doctrines against Dickson, who, like many men of his type, was
pretentious of great religious zeal, and declared himself a Calvinist of
the severest order. Dickson was pleased to consider the surgeon very
lax and heretical; as if that would make the world think himself a good
man, and the surgeon a bad one, which was, for evident proof and reason,
quite impossible.
On this dark night, after the terrible sea of the afternoon had gone
down, and poor Solomon Hutchings, the first victim of the voyage, had
been made as comfortable as possible under the circumstances of a badly
broken leg, the surgeon was sitting alone, with a pleasant sense of
having been useful. He gave a sigh at the sound of Dickson's voice
outside. Dickson would be ready, as usual, for an altercation, and was
one of those men who always come into a room as if they expect to be
kicked out of it.
Green was writing,--he kept a careful journal of the voyage,--and now
looked over his shoulder impatiently, as if he did not wish to be
interrupted.
Dickson wore a look of patient persistence.
The surgeon pointed to a seat with his long quill, and finished the
writing of a sentence. He could not honestly welcome a man whom he
liked so little, and usually treated him as if he were a patient who had
come to seek advice.
"I only dropped in for a chat," explained the visitor reprovingly, as
his host looked up again. "Have you heard how the captain blew at young
Wallingford, just before dark? Well, sir, they are at supper together
now. Wallingford must be a tame kitten. I suppose he crept down to the
table as if he wanted to be stroked."