were plenty of small craft to be seen, and the Ranger ran within short
distance of a three-decker frigate that looked like an Englishman. She
was standing by to go about, and looked majestic, and a worthy defender
of the British Isles. Every man on board was in a fury to fight and
sink this enemy; but she was far too powerful, and much nobler in size
than the Ranger. They crowded to the rail. There was plenty of
grumbling alow and aloft lest Captain Paul Jones should not dare to try
his chances. A moment later he was himself in a passion because the
great Invincible had passed easily out of reach, as if with insolent
unconsciousness of having been in any danger.
Dickson, who stood on deck, maintained his usual expression of
aggravating amiability, and only ventured to smile a little more openly
as the captain railed in greater desperation. Dickson had a new
grievance to store away in his rich remembrance, because he had been
overlooked in the choice of prize masters to bring the two merchantmen
into port.
"Do not let us stand in your way, sir," he said affably. "Some
illustrious sea fights have been won before this by the smaller craft
against the greater."
"There was the Revenge, and the great San Philip with her Spanish fleet
behind her, in the well-known fight at Flores," answered Paul Jones, on
the instant. "That story will go down to the end of time; but you know
the little Revenge sank to the bottom of the sea, with all her men who
were left alive. Their glory could not sink, but I did not know you
ever shipped for glory's sake, Mr. Dickson." And Dickson turned a
leaden color under his sallow skin, but said nothing.
"At least, our first duty now is to be prudent," continued the captain.
"I must only fight to win; my first duty is to make my way to port,
before we venture upon too much bravery. There 'll be fighting soon
enough, and I hope glory enough for all of us this day four weeks. I
own it grieves me to see that frigate leave us. She's almost hull down
already!" he exclaimed regretfully, with a seaward glance, as he went to
his cabin.
Presently he appeared again, as if he thought no more of the
three-decker, with a favorite worn copy of Thomson's poems in hand, and
began to walk the deck to and fro as he read. On this fair winter
morning the ship drove busily along; the wind was out of the west; they
were running along the Breton coast, and there was more and more
pleasure and relief at finding the hard voyage so near its end. The men
were all on deck or clustered thick in the rigging; they made a good
strong-looking ship's company. The captain on his quarter-deck was
pacing off his exercise with great spirit, and repeating some lines of
poetry aloud:--
"With such mad seas the daring Gama fought,
For many a day and many a dreadful night;
Incessant lab'ring round the stormy Cape
By hold ambition led"--
"The wide enlivening air is full of fate."
Then he paused a moment, still waving the book at arm's length, as if he
were following the metre silently in his own mind.
"On Sarum's plain I met a wandering fair,
The look of Sorrow, lovely still she bore"--
"He's gettin' ready to meet the ladies!" said Cooper, who was within
listening distance, polishing a piece of brass on one of the guns. "I
can't say as we 've had much po'try at sea this v'y'ge, sir," he
continued to Lieutenant Wallingford, who crossed the deck toward him, as
the captain disappeared above on his forward stretch. Cooper and
Wallingford were old friends ashore, with many memories in common. The
lieutenant was pale and severe; the ready smile that made him seem more
boyish than his years was strangely absent; he had suddenly taken on the
looks of a much-displeased man.
"Ain't you feelin' well, sir?" asked Cooper, with solicitude. "Things
is all doin' well, though there's those aboard that won't have us think
so, if they can help it. When I was on watch, I see you writin' very
late these nights past. You will excuse my boldness, but we all want
the little sleep we get; 't is a strain on a man unused to life at sea."
"I shall write no more this voyage," said Wallingford, touched by the
kindness of old Cooper's feeling, but impatient at the boyish relation
with an older man, and dreading a word about home affairs. He was an
officer now, and must resent such things. Then the color rushed to his
face; he was afraid that tears would shame him. With a sudden impulse
he drew from his pocket a package of letters, tied together ready for
sending home, and flung them overboard with an angry toss. It was as if
his heart went after them. It was a poor return for Cooper's innocent
kindness; the good man had known him since he had been in the world.
Old Susan, his elder sister, was chief among the household at home.
This was a most distressing moment, and the lieutenant turned aside, and
leaned his elbow on the gun, bending a little as if to see under the
sail whether the three-decker were still in sight.
The little package of letters was on its slow way down through the pale
green water; the fishes were dodging as it sank to the dim depths where
it must lie and drown, and tiny shells would fasten upon the
slow-wasting substance of its folds. The words that he had written
would but darken a little salt water with their useless ink; he had
written them as he could never write again, in those long lonely hours
at sea, under the dim lamp in his close cabin,--those hours made warm
and shining with the thought and promise of love that also hoped and
waited. All a young man's dream was there; there were tiny sketches of
the Ranger's decks and the men in the rigging done into the close text.
Alas, there was his mother's letter, too; he had written them both the
letters they would be looking and longing for, and sent them to the
bottom of the sea. If he had them back, Mary Hamilton's should go to
her, to show her what she had done. And in this unexpected moment he
felt her wondering eyes upon him, and covered his face with his hands.
It was all he could do to keep from sobbing over the gun. He had seen
the ring!
"'Tis ashore headache coming on with this sun-blink over the water,"
said Cooper, still watching him. "I'd go and lie in the dark a bit." It
was not like Mr. Wallingford, but there had been plenty of drinking the
night before, and gaming too,--the boy might have got into trouble.
"The Lusitanian prince, who Heaven-inspired
To love of useful Glory roused mankind."
They both heard the captain at his loud orations; but he stopped for a
moment and looked down at the lieutenant as if about to speak, and then
turned on his heel and paced away again.
The shore seemed to move a long step nearer with every hour. The old
seafarers among the crew gave knowing glances at the coast, and were
full of wisest information in regard to the harbor of Nantes, toward
which they were making all possible speed. Dickson, who was in command,
came now to reprimand Cooper for his idleness, and set him to his duty
sharply, being a great lover of authority.
Wallingford left his place by the trunnion, and disappeared below.
"On the sick list?" inquired Dickson of the captain, who reappeared, and
again glanced down; but the captain shrugged his shoulders and made no
reply. He was sincerely sorry to have somehow put a bar between himself
and his young officer just at this moment. Wallingford was a
noble-looking fellow, and as good a gentleman as the Duke of Chartres
himself. The sight of such a second would lend credit to their
enterprise among the Frenchmen. Simpson was bringing in one of the
prizes; and as for Dickson, he was a common, trading sort of sneak.
The dispatches from Congress to announce the surrender of Burgoyne lay
ready to the captain's hand: for the bringing of such welcome news to
the American commissioners, and to France herself, he should certainly
have a place among good French seamen and officers. He stamped his foot
impatiently; the moment he was on shore he must post to Paris to lay the
dispatches in Mr. Franklin's hand. They were directed to Glory herself
in sympathetic ink, on the part of the captain of the Ranger; but this
could not be read by common eyes, above the titles of the Philadelphia
envoy at his lodgings in Passy.
After reflecting upon these things, Paul Jones, again in a tender mood,
took a paper out of his pocketbook, and reread a song of Allan
Ramsay's,--
"At setting day and rising moon,"
which a young Virginia girl had copied for him in a neat, painful little
hand.
"Poor maid!" he said, with gentle affectionateness, as he folded the
paper again carefully. "Poor maid! I shall not forget to do her some
great kindness, if my hopes come true and my life continues. Now I must
send for Wallingford and speak with him."
*XVI*
*IT IS THE SOUL THAT SEES*
"When good and faire in one person meet--"
Every-day life at Colonel Hamilton's house went on with as steady
current as the great river that passed its walls. The raising of men
and money for a distressed army, with what survived of his duties toward
a great shipping business, kept Hamilton himself ceaselessly busy.
Often there came an anxious company of citizens riding down the lane to
consult upon public affairs; there was an increasing number of guests of
humbler condition who sought a rich man's house to plead their poverty.
The winter looked long and resourceless to these troubled souls. There
were old mothers, who had been left on lonely farms when their sons had
gone to war. There was a continued asking of unanswerable questions
about the soldiers' return, while younger women came, pale and
desperate, with little troops of children pulling at their skirts. When
one appealing group left the door, another might be seen coming to take
its place. The improvident suffered first and made loudest complaint;
later there were discoveries of want that had been too uncomplainingly
borne. The well-to-do families of Berwick were sometimes brought to
straits themselves, in their effort to succor their poorer neighbors.
Mary Hamilton looked graver and older. All the bright elation of her
heart had gone, as if a long arctic night were setting in instead of a
plain New England winter, with its lengthening days and bright January
sun at no great distance. She could not put Madam Wallingford's sorrow
out of mind; she was thankful to be so busy in the great house, like a
new Dorcas with her gifts of garments, but the shadow of war seemed more
and more to give these days a deeper darkness.
There was no snow on the ground, so late in the sad year; there was
still a touch of faded greenness on the fields. One afternoon Mary came
across the flagstoned court toward the stables, tempted by the milder
air to take a holiday, though the vane still held by the northwest.
That great wind was not dead, but only drowsy in the early afternoon,
and now and then a breath of it swept down the country.
Old Peggy had followed her young mistress to the door, and still stood
there watching with affectionate eyes.
"My poor darlin'!" said the good soul to herself, and Mary turned to
look back at her with a smile. She thought Peggy was at her usual
grumbling.
"Bless ye, we 've all got to have patience!" said the old housekeeper,
again looking wistfully at the girl, whose tired face had touched her
very heart. As if this quick wave of unwonted feeling were spread to
all the air about, Mary's own eyes filled with tears; she tried to go
on, and then turned and ran back. She put her arms round Peggy, there in
the doorway.
"I am only going for a ride. Kiss me, Peggy,--kiss me just as you did
when I was a little girl; things do worry me so. Oh, Peggy dear, you
don't know; I can't tell anybody!"
"There, there, darlin', somebody 'll see you! Don't you go to huggin'
this dry old thrashin' o' straw; no, don't you take notice 'bout an old
withered corn shuck like me!" she protested, but her face shone with
tenderness. "Go have your ride, an' I'm goin' to make ye a pretty cake;
't will be all nice and crusty; I was goin' to make you one, anyway. I
tell ye things is all comin' right in the end. There, le' me button
your little cape!" And so they parted.
Peggy marched back into the great kitchen without her accustomed looks
of disapproval at the maids, and dropped into the corner of the settle
next the fire. She put out her lame foot in its shuffling shoe, and
looked at it as if there were no other object of commiseration in the
world.
"'T is a shame to be wearin' out, so fine made as I was. The Lord give
me a good smart body, but 'tis beginnin' to fail an' go," said the old
woman impatiently. "Once't would ha' took twice yisterday's work to
tire foot or back o' me."
"I'm dreadful spent myself, bein' up 'arly an' late. We car'ied an
upstropelous sight o' dishes to an' fro. Don't see no vally in feedin' a
whole neighborhood, when best part on 'em 's only too lazy to provide
theirselves," murmured one of the younger handmaidens, who was languidly
scouring a great pewter platter. Whereat Peggy rose in her wrath, and
set the complainer a stint of afternoon work sufficient to cast a heavy
shadow over the freshest spirit of industry.
The mistress of these had gone her way to the long stables, where a
saddle was being put on her favorite horse, and stood in the wide
doorway looking down the river. The tide was out; the last brown leaves
of the poplars were flying off some close lower branches; there was a
touch of north in the wind, but the sun was clear and bright for the
time of year. Mary was dressed in a warm habit of green cloth, with a
close hood like a child's tied under her chin; the long skirt was full
of sharp creases where it had lain all summer in one of the brass-nailed
East Indian chests, and a fragrance of camphor and Eastern spices blew
out as the heavy folds came to the air. The old coachman was busy with
the last girth, and soothed the young horse as he circled about the
floor: then, with a last fond stroke of a shining shoulder, he gave Mary
his hand, and mounted her light as a feather to the saddle. "He 's
terrible fresh!" said the old master of horse, as he drew the riding
skirt in place with a careful touch. "Have a care, missy!"
Mary thanked the old man with a gentle smile, and took heed that the
horse walked quietly away. When she turned the corner beyond the
shipyard she dropped the curb rein, and the strong young creature flew
straight away like an arrow from the bowstring. "Mind your first wind,
now. 'T is a good thing to keep!" said the rider gayly, and leaned
forward, as they slackened pace for a moment on the pitch of the hill,
to pat the horse's neck and toss a handful of flying mane back to its
place. Until the first pleasure and impulse of speed were past there
was no time to think, or even to remember any trouble of mind. For the
first time in many days all the motive power of life did not seem to
come from herself.
The fields of Berwick were already beginning to wear that look of
hand-shaped smoothness which belongs only to long-tilled lands in an old
country. The first colonists and pilgrims of a hundred and fifty years
before might now return to find their dreams had borne fair fruit in
this likeness to England, that had come upon a landscape hard wrung from
the wilderness. The long slopes, the gently rounded knolls that seemed
to gather and to hold the wintry sunshine, the bushy field corners and
hedgerows of wild cherry that crossed the shoulders of the higher hills,
would be pleasant to those homesick English eyes in the new country they
had toiled so hard to win. The river that made its way by shelter and
covert of the hilly country of field and pasture,--the river must for
many a year have been looked at wistfully, because it was the only road
home. Portsmouth might have been all for this world, while Plymouth was
all for the next; but the Berwick farms were made by home-makers,
neither easy to transplant in the first place, nor easy now to uproot
again.
The northern mountains were as blue as if it were a day in spring. They
looked as if the warm mist of April hung over them; as if they were the
outposts of another world, whose climate and cares were of another and
gentler sort, and there was no more fretting or losing, and no more war
either by land or sea.
The road was up and down all the way over the hills, winding and turning
among the upper farms that lay along the riverside above the Salmon
Fall. Now and then a wood road or footpath shortened the way, dark
under the black hemlocks, and sunshiny again past the old garrison
houses. Goodwins, Plaisteds, Spencers, Keays, and Wentworths had all
sent their captives through the winter snows to Canada, in the old
French, and Indian wars, and had stood in their lot and place for many a
generation to suffer attacks by savage stealth at their quiet ploughing,
or confront an army's strength and fury of firebrand and organized
assault.
There was the ford to cross at Wooster's River,--that noisy stream which
can never be silent, as if the horror of a great battle fought upon its
bank could never be told. Here there was always a good modern moment of
excitement: the young horse must whirl about and rear, and show horror
in his turn, as if the ghosts of Hertel and his French and Indians stood
upon the historic spot of their victory over the poor settlers; finally
the Duke stepped trembling into the bright shallow water, and then
stopped midway with perfect composure, for a drink. Then they journeyed
up the steep battleground, and presently caught the sound of roaring
water at the Great Falls, heavy with the latter rains.
On the crest of the hill Mary overtook a woman, who was wearily carrying
a child that looked large enough to walk alone; but his cheeks were
streaked with tears, and there were no shoes on his little feet to tread
the frozen road: only some worn rags wrapped them clumsily about. Mary
held back her horse, and reached down for the poor little thing, to take
him before her on the saddle. The child twisted determinedly in her
arms to get a look at her face, and then cuddled against his new friend
with great content. He took fast hold of the right arm which held him,
and looked proudly down at his mother, who, relieved of her extra
burden, stepped briskly alongside.
"Goin' up country to stay with my folks," she answered Mary's question
of her journey. "Ain't nothin' else I can do; my man's with the army at
Valley Forge. 'God forbid you 're any poorer than I be!' he last sent
me word. 'I 've got no pay and no clothes to speak of, an' here's
winter comin' right on.' This mornin' I looked round the house an' see
how bare it was, an' I locked the door an' left it. The baby cried good
after his cat, but I could n't lug 'em both. She 's a pretty creatur'
an' smart. I don't know but she 'll make out; there's plenty o'
squirrels. Cats is better off than women folks."
"I 'll ride there some day and get her, if I can, and keep her until you
come home," offered Mary kindly.
"Rich folks like you can do everything," said the woman bitterly, with a
look at the beautiful horse which easily outstepped her.
"Alas, we can't do everything!" said Mary sadly; and there was something
in her voice which touched the complainer's heart.
"I guess you would if you could," she answered simply; and then Mary's
own heart was warmed again.
The road still led northward along the high uplands above the river; all
the northern hills and the mountains of Ossipee looked dark now, in a
solemn row. Mary turned her horse into a narrow track off the highroad,
and leaned over to give the comforted child into his mother's arms. He
slipped to ground of his own accord, and trotted gayly along.
"Look at them pore little feet! I wisht he had some shoes; he can't git
fur afore he 'll be cryin' again for me to take an' car' him," said the
mother ruefully. "You see them furthest peaks? I've got to git there
somehow 'n other, with this lo'd on my back an' that pore baby. But I
know folks on the road; pore's they be, they 'll take me in, if I can
hold out to do the travelin'. War 's hard on pore folks. We 've got a
good little farm, an' my man didn't want to leave it. He held out 'count
o' me till the bounty tempted him. We could n't be no porer than we be,
now I tell ye!"
"Go to the store on the hill and get some shoes for the baby," said Mary
eagerly, as if to try to cheer her fellow traveler. "Get some warm
little shoes, and tell the storekeeper 't was I who bade you come." And
so they parted; but Mary's head drooped sorrowfully as she rode among
the gray birches, on her shorter way to the high slopes of Pine Hill.
This piece of country had, years before, furnished some of the noblest
masts that were ever landed on English shores. The ruined stump of that
great pine which was the wonder of the King's dockyards, and had loaded
one of the old mastships with its tons of timber, could still be seen,
though shrunken and soft with moss. A fox, large in his new winter fur,
went sneaking across the way; and the young horse pranced gayly at the
sight of him, while Mary noticed his track and the way it led, for her
brother's sake, and turned aside across the half-wooded pasture, until
she had a sportsman's satisfaction in seeing the fox make toward a
rough, ledgy bit of ground, and warm thicket of underbrush at a spring
head. This would be good news for poor old Jack, who might take no time
for hunting, but could dream of it any night after supper, like a happy
dog before his own fire.
On the heights of the great ridge some of the elder generation of trees
were still standing, left because they were crooked and unfit for the
mastships' cargoes. They were monarchs of the whole landscape, and waved
their long boughs in the wintry wind. Mary Hamilton had known them in
her earliest childhood, and looked toward them now with happy
recognition, as if within their hard seasoned shapes their hearts were
conscious of other existences, and affection like her own. She stopped
the fleet horse on the top of the hill, and laid her hand upon the bark
of a huge pine; then she looked off at the lower country. The sight of
it was a challenge to adventure; a great horizon sets the boundaries of
the inner life of man wider to match itself, and something that had
bound the girl's heart too closely seemed to slip easily away.
She smiled and took a long breath, and, turning, rode down the rough
pasture again, and along the field toward the river. Her heavy riding
dress filled and flew with the cold northwest wind, and a bright color
came back to her cheeks. To stand on the bleak height had freed her
spirit, and sent her back to the lower countries of life happier than
she came: it was said long ago that one may not sweep away a fog, but
one may climb the hills of life and look over it altogether.
She leaped the horse lightly over some bars that gave a surly sort of
entrance to a poor-looking farm, and rode toward the low house.
Suddenly from behind a thorn bush there appeared a strange figure,
short-skirted and bent almost double under a stack of dry beanstalks.
The bearer seemed to have uprooted her clumsy burden in a fury. She
tramped along, while the horse took to shying at the sight, and had to
be pacified with much firmness and patience.
The bean stack at last ceased its angry progress, and stood still.
"What's all that thromping? Keep away wit' yourself, then, whoiver ye
are! I can only see the ground by me two feet. Ye 'll not ride over
me; keep back now till I'm gone!" screamed the shrill voice of an old
woman.
"It is I, Mary Hamilton," said the girl, laughing. "You 've frightened
the Duke almost to death, Mrs. Sullivan! I can hold him, but do let me
get by before you bob at him again."
There was a scornful laugh out of the moving ambush.
"Get out of me road, then, the two of ye!" and the bean stack moved
angrily away, its transfixing pole piercing the air like a disguised
unicorn. The two small feet below were well shod and sturdy like a
boy's; the whole figure was so short that the dry frost-bitten vines
trailed on the ground more and more, until it appeared as if the tangled
mass were rolling uphill by its own volition.
Mary went on with the trembling horse. A moment later she walked
quickly up the slope to the gray wooden house. There was the handsome
head of a very old man, reading, close to the window, as she passed; but
he did not look up until she had shut the door behind her and stood
within the little room.