attempt at mutiny on board, but the captain had quelled that, and
mastered the deep-laid plot behind it. Once at sea, everything seemed
to be at rights again, since the ship was heading toward the English
coast. The captain was silent now, as if always brooding upon great
affairs, and appeared to have fallen into a calm state of
self-possession; his eyes looked unconscious of whatever minor objects
were reflected in their quick mirrors. All his irascibility was for the
moment gone; his face was thoughtful and even melancholy, with a look as
if at last he possessed some secret happiness and assurance. Glory
herself had become strangely identified with a beautiful French
princess, and he had made a vow to high Heaven that he would some day
lay an English frigate at her feet, and show himself worthy of her
confidence and most inspiriting sympathy. The captain had spoken to her
of all his hard and hopeful life as he had never spoken to any one; she
even knew the story of Wallingford, and their relations to Mary Hamilton
and to each other. The Duchess of Chartres had listened eagerly, and
next day said a word to the lieutenant that made his young heart fairly
quiver at such exquisite understanding; to the captain she had spoken
only of Glory as they both understood it, and of a hero's task and
sacrifice.
The Ranger headed past the Channel and into the Irish Sea. At last she
stood over from the Isle of Man until the shores of England were close
at hand, behind a shifting veil of fog, and even those among the
Ranger's crew whose best dreams were of prizes were not unsatisfied with
their prospects. When the gusty wind beat back the fog, they could see
the mountains of Cumberland; and the shapes of those solid heights
looked well to the eye, after the low lines of the French coast they had
left behind. They passed St. Bees Head, keeping well at sea; and the
captain did some petty trading with poor fishermen, to learn how things
stood now at Whitehaven, and whether there might be frigates in those
waters, or any foe too great for so bold a venturer. They were beating
against the easterly winds, and steadily nearing the shore. They could
see no large-looking ships when the fog lifted, though it was a region
where much shipping went and came. There was possible danger of alarm,
and that their sailing from Brest had been heralded by treachery. The
captain was alive in every nerve, and held himself steady, like a tiger
in the night, whose best weapons must be speed and silence.
Wallingford stood long on deck in the late afternoon, leaning against
the gun in his wonted place, and troubled by the persistent reluctance
of his heart. These were the shores of England, and he was bound to do
them harm. He was not the first man who found it hard to fight against
the old familiar flag which a few months earlier had been his own. He
had once spent a few months in the old country, after his college course
had ended,--a boy of eighteen, who looked on at life admiringly, as if
it were a play. He had been happy enough in London then, and in some
country houses, where old family friends of both his father and his
mother had shown him much kindness, and the days had gone by not so
unlike the fashion of life at home. The merchants and gentlefolk of New
England had long been rich enough to live at ease, and Boston and
Portsmouth, with Salem and the harbor towns between, were themselves but
tiny Londons in those happier days before the war. Each had a few men
of learning and women of the world, and were small satellites that
borrowed their lesser light from a central sun. Wallingford knew enough
of the solid force and dignity of England to wince at the ignorant talk
of the crew about so formidable an enemy, and again his heart grew heavy
with regret that this mother and child among the nations had been so
rashly drawn into the cruelties of war. The King and those who
flattered him were wrong enough, God forgive them! But the great Earl
of Chatham, and Mr. Fox, and many another man of authority and power had
stood for the colonies. For a moment this heavy young heart grew even
heavier with the thought of being the accomplice of France in such a
short-sighted business, but next moment Wallingford angrily shook
himself free from such fears as these. They were the thoughts that had
been born in him, not his own determination: he had come to fight for
the colonies, and would trample down both his fears and his opinions
once for all on the Ranger's deck. The lieutenant looked down at the
solid deck planks where he stood,--they had grown out of the honest
ground of his own neighborhood; he had come to love his duty, after all,
and even to love his ship. Up went his head again, and his heart was
once more hot within him; the only question now was, what did the
captain mean to do?
The light began to fade, and evening to fall. The men were heaving the
lead, and the captain watched them, listening anxiously as they told
their soundings with the practiced drawl and quaint phrases that old
seamen use. They could now and then catch a glimpse of small houses on
the shore. The ship was evidently in shoal water, and the fog lifted
and parted and thickened again, as if a skyful of clouds had dropped
upon the sea.
Presently the word was passed to let go the anchor; and the storm of
oaths and exclamations which this involved, owing to some unexpected
hindrance, grew so tiresome to the lieutenant that he left the place
where he had been standing, to go below again.
"Look, look, mon ami!" urged the captain eagerly; and Wallingford turned
to see that the fog had driven away, while Paul Jones pointed toward a
large town, and a forest of vessels lying in the bay before it,--a huge
flock of shipping for such a port. The Irish Sea had emptied itself
into Whitehaven, and the wind had gone down; not a sloop or a snow, and
not a little brig in a hurry, could put to sea again that April night.
"'T is old Whitehaven," said Paul Jones. "Now I 'll show them that they
have made an enemy! Now they 'll know we are to be feared, not laughed
at! I 'll put an end to all their burnings in America. I 'll harry
their own coasts now, and frighten them back into their hills before I'm
done. I 'll sweep them off their own seas! My chance is in my hand!"
Dickson presented himself at this moment. The captain would not have
had him listening, and turned upon him angrily to hear what he had to
say.
"Thick as coasters in Portsmouth lower harbor in a northeast blow,"
commented the unwelcome officer, "but that's no such handsome town as
ours."
"'T is a town of three hundred ships, mostly in the coal trade, and
ranks close to Newcastle in Northumberland; 't is a town large enough to
be charged with six hundred men for his Majesty's navy," and the captain
scowled. "We need not take it for a poor fishing village till we have
seen it better. A more uncertain coast, from the shifting sands, I do
not remember to have known; but I can keep the main channels well enough
through long acquaintance," he added, in a lower voice. "Now we are out
of this dungeon of fog, thank God, and I shall creep in still and steady
as a snail when I get ready."
They could see the gleam of white cliffs now, as the fog rolled up the
hills.
"'T is full of poor miners there, burrowing like moles in the dark
earth," said the captain pityingly,--"a wretched life for a Christian!"
Then he went to his cabin, and called his officers about him, and gave
orders for the night's work.
"I loved Britain as a man may only love his mother country; but I was
misjudged, and treated with such bitter harshness and contempt in my
younger days that I renounced my very birthright!" said Paul Jones,
turning to Wallingford with a strange impulse of sadness when the other
men had gone. "I cannot help it now; I have made the break, and have
given my whole allegiance to our new Republic, and all the strength of
me shall count for something in the building of her noble future.
Therefore I fight her battles, at whatever cost and on whatever soil.
Being a sailor, I fight as a sailor, and I am here close to the soil
that bore me. 'T is against a man's own heart, but I am bent upon my
duty, though it cost me dear."
Wallingford did not speak,--his own reluctance was but hardly overcome;
he could not take his eyes off the captain, who had grown unconscious of
his presence. It was a manly face and bold look, but when at rest there
was something of sad patience in the eyes and boyish mouth,--something
that told of bafflings and disappointments and bitter hardness in a life
that had so breathlessly climbed the steep ladder of ambition. The
flashing fire of his roused spirit, the look of eager bravery, were both
absent now, leaving in their places something of great distinction, but
a wistfulness too, a look hungry for sympathy,--that pathetic look of
simple bewilderment which sometimes belongs to dreamers and enthusiasts
who do not know whither they are being led.
The wind was down, so that there was no hope, as at first, of the
Ranger's running in closer to the harbor, with all her fighting force
and good armament of guns. There was still light enough to see that no
man-of-war was standing guard over so many merchantmen. The Ranger
herself looked innocent enough from shore, on her far anchorage; but
when darkness fell they hove up the anchor and crept in a little way,
till the tide turned to go out and it was too dangerous among the
shoals. They anchored once more, yet at too great a distance. Hours of
delay ran by, and when the boats were lowered at last there was
hindrance still. Some preparations that the captain had ordered were
much belated, to his great dismay; discipline was of no avail; they were
behindhand in starting; the sky was clear of clouds now, and the night
would be all the shorter.
The officers were silent, wrapped in their heavy boat-cloaks, and the
men rowed with all the force that was in them. The captain had the
surgeon with him in one boat, and some midshipmen, and the other boat
was in charge of Lieutenant Wallingford, with Dickson and Hall.
There were thirty picked seamen, more or less, in the party; the boats
were crowded and loaded to the gunwale, and they parted company like
thieves in the night to work their daring purposes. The old town of
Whitehaven lay quiet; there was already a faint light of coming dawn
above the Cumberland Hills when they came to the outer pier; there was a
dim gleam of snow on the heights under the bright stars, and the air was
bitter cold. An old sea was running high after the late storms, and the
boats dragged slowly on their errand. The captain grew fierce and
restless, and cursed the rowers for their slowness; and the old town of
Whitehaven and all her shipping lay sound asleep.
The captain's boat came in first; he gave his orders with sure
acquaintance, and looked about him eagerly, smiling at some
ancient-looking vessels as if they were old friends, and calling them by
name. What with the stormy weather of the past week, and an alarm about
some Yankee pirates that might be coming on the coast, they had all
flocked in like sheep, and lay stranded now as the tide left them.
There was a loud barking of dogs from deck to deck, but it soon ceased.
Both the boats had brought what freight they could stow of pitch and
kindlings, and they followed their orders; the captain's boat going to
the south side, and Wallingford's to the north, to set fires among the
shipping. There was not a moment to be lost.
On the south side of the harbor, where the captain went, were the larger
ships, many of them merchantmen of three or four hundred tons burthen;
on the north side were smaller craft of every sort, Dutch doggers and
the humble coast-wise crafts that made the living of a family,--each
poor fish boat furnishing the tool for a hard and meagre existence. On
few of these was there any riding light or watch; there was mutual
protection in such a company, and the harbor was like a gateless
poultry-yard, into which the captain of the Ranger came boldly like a
fox.
He ran his boat ashore below the fort, and sent most of her crew to set
fires among the vessels, while he mounted the walls with a few
followers, and found the sentinels nothing to be feared: they were all
asleep in the guardhouse, such was the peace and prosperity of their
lives. It was easy enough to stop them from giving alarm, and leave
them fast-bound and gagged, to find the last half of the night longer
than the first of it. A few ancient cannon were easily spiked, and the
captain ran like a boy at Saturday-afternoon bird-nesting to the fort
beyond to put some other guns out of commission; they might make
mischief for him, should the town awake.
"Come after me!" he called. "I am at home here!" And the men at his
heels marveled at him more than ever, now that they were hand to hand
with such an instant piece of business. It took a man that was half
devil to do what the captain was doing, and they followed as if they
loved him. He stopped now in a frenzy of sudden rage. "They have had
time enough already to start the burning; what keeps them? There should
be a dozen fires lit now!" he cried, as he ran back to the waterside.
The rest of the boat's crew were standing where he had left them, and
met his reproaches with scared faces: they had their pitch and tar with
them, and had boarded a vessel, but the candles in their dark lanterns,
which were to start the blaze, had flickered and gone out. Somebody had
cut them short: it was a dirty trick, and was done on purpose. They
told in loud, indignant whispers that they had chosen an old deserted
ship that would have kindled everything near her, but they had no light
left. And the sky was fast brightening.
The captain's face was awful to look at, as he stood aghast. There was
no sight of fire across the harbor, either, and no quick snake of flame
could be seen running up the masts. He stood for one terrible moment in
silence and despair. "And no flint and steel among us, on such an
errand!" he gasped. "Come with me, Green!" he commanded, and set forth
again, running like a deer back into the town.
It took but a minute to pass, by a narrow way, among some poor stone
houses and out across a bit of open ground, to a cottage poorer and
lower than any, and here Paul Jones lifted the clumsy latch. It was a
cottage of a single room, and his companion followed hastily, and stood
waiting close behind oil the threshold.
"Nancy, Nancy, my dear!" said the captain, in a gentle voice, but
thrusting back a warning hand to keep the surgeon out. "Nancy, ye 'll
not be frightened; 't is no thief, but your poor laddie, John Paul, that
you wintered long ago with a hurt leg, an' he having none other that
would friend him. I 've come now but to friend you and to beg a light."
There was a cry of joy and a sound of some one rising in the bed, and
the surgeon heard the captain's hasty steps as he crossed the room in
the dark and kissed the old creature, who began to chatter in her feeble
voice.
"Yes, here's your old tinder box in its place on the chimney," said the
captain hastily. "I'm only distressed for a light, Mother Nancy, and my
boat just landing. Here 's for ye till I get ashore again from my
ship," and there was a sound of a heavy handful of money falling on the
bed.
"Tak' the best candle, child," she cried, "an' promise me ye 'll be
ashore again the morn's morn an' let me see your bonny eyes by day! I
said ye'd come,--I always said ye'd come!" But the two men were past
hearing any more, as they ran away with their treasure.
"Why in God's name did you leave the door wide open?" said the surgeon.
"She 'll die of a pleurisy, and your gold will only serve to bury her!"
There was no time for dallying. The heap of combustibles on one old
vessel's deck was quick set afire now and flung down the hatches, and a
barrel of tar was poured into the thick-mounting flames; this old brig
was well careened against another, and their yards were fouled. There
was no time to do more; the two would easily scatter fire to all their
neighborhood when the morning wind sprung up to help them, and the
captain and his men must put off to sea. There were still no signs of
life on the shore or the fort above.
They all gathered to the boat; the oarsmen were getting their places,
when all at once there was a cry among the lanes close by, and a crowd
of men were upon them. The alarm had been given, and the Ranger's men
were pressed hard in a desperate, close fight. The captain stood on the
end of the little pier with his pistol, and held back some of the
attacking party for one terrible minute, till all his men were in. "Lay
out, lay out, my boys!" he cried then from his own place in the stern.
There were bullets raining about them, but they were quick out of harm's
way on the water. There was not a man of that boat's company could
forget the captain's calmness and daring, as they saw him stand against
the angry crowd.
The flames were leaping up the rigging of the burning ship; the shore
was alive with men; there were crowds of people swarming away up among
the hills beyond the houses. There had been a cannon overlooked, or
some old ship's gun lay upon the beach, which presently spoke with
futile bravado, bellowing its hasty charge when the captain's boat was
well out upon the bay. The hills were black with frightened folk, as if
Whitehaven were a ruined ant-hill; the poor town was in a terror. On
the other side of the harbor there was no blaze even yet, and the
captain stood in his boat, swaying to its quick movement, with anxious
eyes set to looking for the other men. There were people running along
the harbor side, and excited shapes on the decks of the merchantmen;
suddenly, to his relief of mind, he saw the other boat coming out from
behind a Dutch brig.
Lieutenant Hall was in command of her now, and he stood up and saluted
when he came near enough to speak.
"Our lights failed us, sir," he said, looking very grave; "somebody had
tampered with all our candles before we left the ship. An alarm was
given almost at once, and our landing party was attacked. Mr. Dickson
was set upon and injured, but escaped. Mr. Wallingford is left ashore."
"The alarm was given just after we separated," said Dickson, lifting
himself from the bottom of the boat. "I heard loud cries for the guard,
and a man set upon me, so that I am near murdered. They could not have
watched us coming. You see there has been treachery; our fine
lieutenant has stayed ashore from choice."
"That will do, sir!" blazed the captain. "I must hear what you have
done with Wallingford. Let us get back to our ship!" And the two boats
sped away with what swiftness they could across the great stretch of
rough water. Some of the men were regretful, but some wore a hard and
surly look as they bent to their heavy oars.
*XXV*
*A MAN'S CHARACTER*
"Yet have they still such eyes to wait on them
As are too piercing; that they can behold
And penetrate the Inwards of the Heart."
The men left on board the Ranger, with Lieutenant Simpson in command,
who had been watching all these long hours, now saw clouds of smoke
rising from among the shipping, but none from the other side of the
town, where they knew the captain had ordered many fires to be set among
the warehouses. The two boats were at last seen returning in company,
and the Ranger, which had drifted seaward, made shift with the morning
breeze to wear a little nearer and pick them up. There was a great smoke
in the harbor, but the town itself stood safe.
The captain looked back eagerly from the height of the deck after he
came aboard; then his face fell. "I have been balked of my purpose!" he
cried. "Curse such treachery among ye! Thank God, I 've frightened
them, and shown what a Yankee captain may dare to do! If I had been an
hour earlier, and no sneaking cur had tampered with our lights"--
He was pale with excitement, and stood there at first triumphant, and
next instant cursing his hard luck. The smoke among the shipping was
already less; the Ranger was running seaward, as if the mountains had
waked all their sleepy winds and sent them out to hurry her.
There was a crowd on deck about the men who had returned, and the
sailors on the yards were calling down to their fellows to ask
questions. The captain had so far taken no notice of any one, or even
of this great confusion.
"Who's your gentleman now?" Dickson's voice suddenly rang triumphant,
like a cracked trumpet, above the sounds of bragging narrative that were
punctuated by oaths to both heaven and the underworld. "Who 's a traitor
and a damned white-livered dog of a Tory now? Who dropped our spare
candles overboard, and dirtied his pretty fingers to spoil the rest? Who
gave alarm quick 's he got his boat ashore, and might have had us all
strung up on their English gallows before sunset?"
Dickson was standing with his back against the mast, with a
close-shouldered audience about him, officious to give exact details of
the expedition. Aloft, they stopped who were shaking out the sails, and
tried to hear what he was saying. At this moment old Cooper lowered
himself hand over hand, coming down on the run into the middle of the
company before he could be stopped, and struck Dickson a mighty blow in
the breast that knocked him breathless. Some of Dickson's followers set
upon Cooper in return; but he twisted out of their clutch, being a man
of great strength and size, and took himself off to a little distance,
where he stood and looked up imploringly at the captain, and then
dropped his big head into his hands and began to sob. The captain came
to the edge of the quarter-deck and looked down at him without speaking.
Just then Dickson was able to recover speech; he had nearly every man
aboard for his audience.
"You had ten minutes to the good afore Mr. Wallingford follered ye!"
bellowed Hanscom, one of the Berwick men who had been in the same boat.
"I saw nothing of the judge's noble son; he took good care of that!"
answered Dickson boldly; and there was a cry of approval among those who
had suspected Wallingford. They were now in the right; they at last had
proof that Wallingford deserved the name of traitor, or any evil name
they might be disposed to call him. Every man in the lieutenant's boat
was eager to be heard and to tell his own story. Mr. Hall had
disappeared; as for Wallingford, he was not there to plead for himself,
and his accusers had it all their own way.
"I tell ye I ain't afraid but he's all right! A man's character ought
to count for something!" cried Hanscom. But there was a roar of
contempt from those who had said from the first that a Tory was a Tory,
and that Wallingford had no business to be playing at officer aboard the
Ranger, and making shift to stand among proper seamen. He had gone
ashore alone and stayed ashore, and there had been a sudden alarm in the
town: the black truth stared everybody in the face.
The captain's first rage had already quieted in these few minutes since
they had come aboard, and his face had settled into a look of stolid
disappointment and weariness. He had given Whitehaven a great
fright,--that was something; the news of it would quickly travel along
the coast. He went to his cabin now, and summoned Dickson and Hall to
make their statements. Lieutenant Hall had no wish to be the speaker,
but the fluent Dickson, battered and water-soaked, minutely described
the experience of the boat's company. It certainly seemed true enough
that Wallingford had deserted. Lieutenant Hall could contradict nothing
that was said, though the captain directly appealed to him more than
once.
"After all, we have only your own word for what happened on shore," said
the captain brutally, as if Dickson were but a witness in court before
the opposing attorney.
"You have only my word," said Dickson. "I suppose you think that you
can doubt it. At least you can see that I have suffered. I feel the
effects of the blows, and my clothes are dripping here on your cabin
floor in a way that will cause you discomfort. I have already told you
all I can."
"I know not what to believe," answered Paul Jones, after a moment's
reflection, but taking no notice of the man's really suffering
condition. The captain stood mute, looking squarely into Dickson's
face, as if he were still speaking. It was very uncomfortable.
"Lieutenant Wallingford is a man of character. Some misfortune may have
overtaken him; at the last moment"--
"He made the most of the moments he had," sneered Dickson then. "The
watch was upon us; I had hard work to escape. I tried to do my best."