“SHIPS OF ADVENTURE”
Stephen opened his eyes once, as he was borne up toward the house and
saw, in one sudden flash, the whole bright garden lying still and quiet
in the hot sun. He saw his mother, white-cheeked and agonised, coming up
the path behind him and still unconsciously clutching the great pistols
in her apron. He wondered a little who was carrying him and, contriving
to look upward, saw that it was Sergeant Branderby and that his red
face, under its coat of sunburn, had turned to mottled grey. Then a
sudden stab of pain went through him and all was black again.
That cloud of darkness seemed to hang over him for weeks—or was it
years? Sometimes it would lift and he would realise that he was in his
own bed with his mother’s anxious face bending over him, would see the
open lattice window with the red tendrils of woodbine clinging to its
edge, or with the moon peeping in perhaps, for in his moments of awaking
it would be sometimes day and sometimes night. Once he saw the
Sergeant’s unhappy face at the door and was about to call to him to come
in when the blackness fell again before he could find his voice. It was
a queer darkness, full of pain and flashes of light and fantastic dreams
that he could never remember.
In the village of Hopewell there was never one person who could pass
another without stopping to ask:
“Have you heard aught that is new of little Stephen Sheffield?”
The old doctor, when he left the big house and came out through the
white gate could scarcely make his way along, so many there were who
came running to him to gasp out:
“Is he better? Oh, say that he is going to live.”
To all their questions his only answer would be to purse his lips and
shake his head doubtfully.
“We can know nothing yet,” was all that he would ever say.
King George of England would have scarcely liked to hear that in one
small Puritan town his loyal subjects remembered the date of his coming
to the throne only because it happened at the same season as “that
dreadful mishap to Mistress Sheffield’s little son, Stephen.” In the
history of Hopewell other boys had tumbled from trees, it was quite
true, but never had one fallen who was so generally beloved or who lay
so long in danger of his life.
At last a day came when the doctor, stumping up the street, told fifty
persons at least between the gate and the town square, that:
“God has been good to us, the lad is going to live.” Whereupon the fifty
ran with all speed to tell the good news to a hundred more. Rough old
Sergeant Branderby came out of the gate, wiping the tears of joy from
his eyes with the sleeve of his red coat and saying to every one,
“Have you heard? Have you heard? I did not slay him after all!”
“There was no one ever thought that the fall was through fault of
yours,” old dame Allen told him, “and though we loved you little when
you came and liked your errand less, we have learned to put up with you
for the love you have shown our Stephen. Ay, he will live, it is not so
easy to down the Radpath blood!”
Stephen himself, propped up in the four-post bed among the big pillows
and covered over with the precious blue and white quilt that had been
part of Mistress Radpath’s dowry, felt himself to be a very great person
indeed. He was a very pale and thin Stephen, whose knees doubled up when
he tried to stand, but whose voice and merry laugh sounded quite the
same.
“I know how ill I must have been, since you give me the Orange-Tree
quilt,” he said to Alisoun, “but I do not care ever to earn such an
honour again. When can I get up and play in the garden, mother?”
“Very soon now, I hope,” she answered, “but we must go carefully and do
all that the good doctor says.”
It was Sergeant Branderby, pale, aghast and trembling, who had carried
Stephen up to his room upon that terrible day; it was the same stout
soldier, beaming and jubilant, who bore him downstairs the first morning
that he was able to leave his bed. Established in a great armchair on
the columned verandah, Stephen held court among his youthful friends,
who came running down the lane from the farthest ends of the town at the
news, “Stephen Sheffield is out again.”
After they had all gone home the boy leaned back in his chair and looked
up at his good friend the Sergeant, who had never left his side through
all the coming and going.
“I had forgotten,” Stephen sighed, as he looked out over the garden,
“that leaves could be so green or sun could shine so bright. And I feel
so well that surely by to-morrow I can run down the path and see what
time it is by the sundial.”
“Not just to-morrow, I fear,” objected Branderby. Then, seeing the boy’s
face clouded with disappointment, he added, “Suppose I come in a day or
two and carry you down yonder to the harbour’s edge, where you can sit
all day on the warm sand and watch the full blue tide come in.”
“Ah, that will be famous,” exclaimed Stephen, “and then perhaps the day
after that I can run in the garden again. It tries my patience sorely to
be still so long!”
The morning after this brought Stephen another visitor, a long
looked-for and most welcome one. During the night a big ship slipped
into the harbour and early next day a brown-faced, smiling man came
striding up the path and knocked at the door. Mistress Sheffield, who
opened it, flung two joyful arms about his neck crying:
“Amos Bardwell, but it is good to see you, lad!”
This, then, was Stephen’s Cousin Amos, the same who, when he was a
little boy, had figured so bravely in the witch affair. Although he was
a sea captain now and dwelt in England when he was ashore, he visited
Hopewell as often as it was possible, and was Stephen’s most
well-beloved playmate in spite of the difference in their years.
“Now,” he said, when he was seated at the boy’s bedside, “what is this I
hear of your climbing King James’ Tree in defiance of the British Army
and then falling out of it through turning to gape after a retreating
enemy? We must have no more of such doings.”
“No, indeed,” replied Stephen gaily, “and when I climb King James’ Tree
again I will surely be more careful.”
Mistress Sheffield, as she heard his cheery words, turned quickly and
went out of the room, closing the door behind her.
“Lest you have such another mischance,” said Amos, “I think I must give
you my lucky penny that is supposed to keep off just such evil fortune.”
As he spoke he felt in the deep pockets of his sailor’s coat and drew
forth a battered old silver coin. “It may have power and it may have
none, but certain it is that I have carried it since I was a smaller boy
than you and have not yet come to any very grievous harm in spite of
many adventurings. It once belonged to—whom do you suppose? None other
than Master Simon’s sworn enemy, the shoemaker, Samuel Skerry.”
“Samuel Skerry?” repeated Stephen, wondering. “I thought that he
disappeared the day after Margeret Bardwell’s marriage and was never
seen again. My mother has told me many tales of the shoemaker and his
wicked ways, but she has never spoken of his homecoming.”
“I think she never knew of it,” replied Amos, “nor am I myself certain,
though I have pondered the matter a hundred times, whether he ever
really came back or not. But my old nurse swore always that he did. When
our house was crowded she used to dwell sometimes in the shoemaker’s
cottage, and it was there she thought she saw him.”
“You say he came back?” questioned Stephen. “I do not see how he dared.”
“I am not sure if he really did, but such was old Betsey’s tale. She
said that as she went toward her little dwelling very late one winter
night she was amazed to see footsteps in the snow along the path and to
catch the glint of firelight through the window. She peeped in through a
crack of the door and saw the shoemaker himself, a little shrunken,
bent, old man, leaning over the hearth and holding out his hands to the
blaze. Then, while she watched, he climbed upon the seat of the big
armchair and thrust his hand into an opening behind the cupboard. She
was holding her breath and peering in with such curiosity as to what he
would do next that she leaned over hard against the rickety old door and
it burst open, casting her headlong into the room.”
“O-oh,” gasped Stephen, wriggling in delighted excitement, although the
sudden movement cost him a sharp reminder of his recent fall; “oh, what
happened then?”
“She screamed aloud with terror, thinking she was in the presence of a
ghost, and he too gave a startled cry as he stepped down from the chair
and dropped something that rolled ringing and jingling across the floor.
But in a moment he turned upon her with eager questionings, about Master
Simon and Roger Bardwell and my grandmother, Margeret Radpath. And over
and over he asked, ‘But Master Simon’s garden, does it bloom as fair as
once it did?’ Something he said also of a message, having to do with
Master Simon, that he had come all the long way across the sea to leave
with the minister of Hopewell, yet what such an errand might be he would
not say. In the end he gave her the silver coin that had fallen jingling
upon the floor, saying, ‘I found this in my old hiding-hole behind the
cupboard where it chanced to be left behind after my hasty flight. They
say that money long lost and found again brings good luck, so keep it to
buy your silence concerning my visit here.’ She took the coin and bent
to examine it in the firelight, for it was one of the clumsy old
shillings of the Colony’s first coinage. When she looked up again—he was
gone. She came running back to the kitchen door of our big house and
burst in among the other servants crying that there were ghosts and
witches in the shoemaker’s hut and that she would never enter its door
again. Nor did she! But the coin she held in high reverence as a lucky
charm and insisted upon giving it to me when I was eight years old.”
“Do you believe she really saw the shoemaker?” asked Stephen. “Did you
never hear more of his visit than that?”
“My grandfather, Roger Bardwell, listened to her tale and forbade her
telling it to any one further. He questioned the minister next day
however, who admitted that he had had such a visitor but was sworn to
secrecy concerning his errand. And in the graveyard on the hill there
were fresh footprints in the snow leading up to the spot where Master
Simon sleeps. So it must have been Samuel Skerry that came, but whether
his purpose was good or evil no one can tell. He may have been plotting
some new villainy, yet I think—yes, I have thought it often—that in his
years of loneliness in a foreign land the little shoemaker came at last
to repent of his jealousy and ill-will and returned finally to make
tardy amends. But what his errand was, or what message he left with the
Hopewell minister is a secret still unrevealed.”
Stephen took the thin, old silver coin that Amos had laid upon his
pillow and turned it over and over.
“You should not give it to me, Cousin Amos,” he said. “You should keep
it still to bring you fair winds and prosperous voyages.”
“It has not always brought me those,” laughed Amos. “And of what use are
fair winds, when fewer and fewer of our ships are permitted to put to
sea? No, it is a better luck penny for a lad than for a man, for, as old
Betsey said, it requires much good fortune to keep boys from destroying
themselves before they grow to man’s estate. So do you keep it and if it
saves you from tumbling out of any more treetops I shall be satisfied.”
Captain Amos’ visit was all too short. In spite of many protests from
Alisoun and loud lamentations from all the children, he set out two
mornings later for Salem, whither important business called him. Stephen
grieved so much over his playmate’s going that he quite forgot that this
was the great day for his first expedition abroad. His faithful servant,
Sergeant Branderby, had not forgotten, however, and came that afternoon,
true to his promise, to carry the boy down to the shore.
“I think it must be Samuel Skerry’s lucky penny,” said Stephen as they
set forth, “that has given us so fine a day.”
It was indeed weather that could scarcely have been bettered, for the
cloudless sky was glowing blue and the sea was bluer still. The little
waves splashed merrily as they came tumbling in, the smooth hard sand
sparkled in the sun and even the tiny grey sandpipers running back and
forth across the beach seemed to be bidding them all welcome. The boy’s
two sisters and fat little Peter came also to play at the water’s edge,
while Stephen sat sheltered from the wind and propped against a huge,
grey rock that lay like some sleeping monster in the midst of the
drifting sand.
The children were sailing toy boats, bits of board with paper sails,
launching them with some difficulty through the breaking waves, but
watching with cries of joy when one after another of the little craft
caught the wind and sped away. Only Peter’s clumsily whittled vessel
came to grief so often and was upset and washed back upon the beach so
many times that finally, half crying, the little boy brought it to
Stephen.
“Do make it sail,” he said. “I know that you can do somewhat to make it
pass all the others.”
“Give me your knife then,” said Stephen. Peter’s coming had interrupted
his absorbing talk with Sergeant Branderby, but Stephen could not, even
on that account, seem unwilling to help his small friend. He had an odd
skill with toy boats and could always make his sail when the others
foundered.
“There,” he said at last, “launch her with the sails set so and I think
she will ride the waves and outdo all the rest.”
Peter, delighted, ran off to try again and Stephen turned once more to
the soldier.
“And did you really see King George?” he asked, for it was of that
worthy monarch that the story had to do.
“Bless you, that I did,” was the answer, “and it was not so wonderful a
sight, merely a fat grey-haired man, blinking from his recent nap, and
with a halting tongue that could speak no word of English. Kings and
Queens are more common than they used to be, since the people of England
discovered that they could dispose of them at will, and fell into the
way of changing their monarchs often. Eight have I seen in my own time,
eight men and women that wore the crown of England.”
“What?” exclaimed Stephen. “Eight! How could that ever be?”
“’Tis as true as that I sit here,” returned Branderby seriously. “There
were Charles the Second and his Portuguese wife, Katherine; there was
his brother James who reigned after him and there was that Italian
Princess who became James’ Queen. Not long did he reign, poor James
Stuart, for his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange,
came across the channel and drove the last Stuart King from the throne.
Those two wicked ones I have seen too, and Mary’s sister Anne, the Queen
for whose death the bells were ringing upon that very day that we first
met. And that German George who sits now in her place, him I saw in the
Low Countries, where we fought so long a war that, when it was finally
ended, scarcely any one remembered for what reason it had been begun. So
there are eight English Kings and Queens that my own eyes have seen, to
say nothing of a host of French dukes and marquises of the royal blood,
and more German princelings than my dull wits could ever learn to
count.”
“You must have had many wondrous adventures,” sighed Stephen. “I can
scarcely wait until I become a man and can have them too.”
“Look, look,” Peter interrupted them again with a joyous shout. After
two vain launchings, his little boat, trimmed by Stephen’s skilful hand
had at last put to sea successfully and was rocking upon the waves as
merrily as a duckling.
“Good,” called Sergeant Branderby, “our Stephen knows how to fashion a
boat, does he not, Master Peter?”
In great excitement Peter ran off down the beach, following his boat as
it drifted with the wind.
“I should think,” continued Stephen, going back to their former talk,
“that it would be hard to learn loyalty to so many Kings and Queens,
following so quickly one upon another.”
“Love of the King has gone somewhat out of fashion in England,” returned
the soldier. “Once in the golden times of great Queen Bess, folk were
all of one heart and one blood, nobles and gentry, Kings and commoners,
Englishmen all. But now that we have taken to trying this foreigner and
that upon our throne, monarchs seem to have less value in our eyes.”
He paused and through the quiet could be heard Peter’s shouts to the two
girls to stop and admire the prowess of his vessel.
“When I see how little you people of New England regard who is, or who
is not, upon the throne,” Branderby went on, “when I see those splendid
ships of yours lying at anchor or rotting at their docks, when I hear
the growing murmurs of discontent and questioning where once men
accepted the King’s will and thought he could do no wrong, I wonder,
lad, I wonder what will come of it. The signs of great changes are in
the air, but I cannot read their meaning.”
He was silent again, musing upon the question that so perplexed his
mind. He and Stephen both heard, presently, footsteps upon the sand,
coming toward them from beyond the great stone. They had seen, in the
distance, a shabby woman of Hopewell digging for clams, aided by her
ragged boy. The footsteps were evidently of these two, coming home again
since now the sun was dropping low. Unseen and not observing the soldier
and the boy, they passed by on the further side of the high grey rock.
“Mother,” the boy’s voice was saying, “I have heard that Stephen
Sheffield is getting well at last. Will he be able to play at Indian
scouts with me soon again, think you?”
The woman’s voice answered slowly:
“It is not likely that the Sheffield lad will ever run and play again
with the other boys,” she said. “The doctor, so people tell me, says
that he will live, and will not be crippled, but that he never will be
well and strong again like other children.”
The two passed on and never knew of the secret that they had betrayed.
Stephen heard them with his face gone white and his eyes wide with
terror.
“Tell me,” he cried to Branderby, “she does not know? That is not true?”
The old soldier growled and muttered something below his breath,
something far from flattering in regard to idle women who gossip on the
beach.
“I will know,” gasped Stephen, shaking him by the arm with all his
feeble strength. “You shall tell me. Did the doctor say such a thing?”
“In my opinion,” grumbled the Sergeant, “these men of medicine know
little and their word is scarce worth believing.”
“But did he say it?” persisted Stephen. “I will have the truth.”
“I would sooner face a siege cannon belching smoke and fire,” muttered
Branderby. Then he turned to Stephen and looked him fairly in the eyes.
“We are both men,” he said steadily, “and a real man can bear a blow
though it be a hard and bitter one. Yes, lad, he did say it.”
Stephen made no answer, for he had flung himself face downward upon the
sand. One long terrible sob shook his thin body and then he lay still.
The Sergeant’s hard, rough hand was laid over his clenched one.
“There are some that help the world forward by their strength of arm,”
he said gently, “and some by their power of mind and will. We cannot all
be of one kind or the other, for we know the world has need of both.”
The boy sat up. There was a flush on his thin cheek and his jaw was set
firmly.
“We will not tell my mother that I know,” he began, “and perhaps some
day—but oh,” he broke off, “my thought was always to be a sailor like my
father and my grandfather and my Cousin Amos, to sail mighty ships like
the _Margeret_ to the farthest foreign ports. But now—I shall be fit
only to launch such vessels as Peter sails.”
His brave voice did not tremble but the hand in Branderby’s shook.
“I have often seen children sailing such ships,” said the soldier, “and
never see them without thinking, as many others do, how like they are to
human lives. Some upset, some sink, some drift back and forth hugging
the shore, while others spread their sails and put bravely forth to
sea.”
He pointed to where the little fleet of wind-tossed ships had scattered
wide. Many of them had suffered mishap, even as the Sergeant had said,
some had disappeared and some still clung to the shore. But Peter’s
boat, the vessel of Stephen’s fashioning, had caught the wind and was
skimming away toward the harbour’s mouth. The red of the dropping sun
coloured its tiny white sails, its long shadow stretched across the
green waters making it seem greater than it was, as with steady prow it
bore away, bound, it seemed, for Spain or France or some magic country
that no man knew.
The rough old soldier’s hand closed tight on Stephen’s.
“Whatever comes to you, boy,” he said; “whatever life brings to you of
pain or disappointment or sorrow, of one thing I am certain. What your
future will be, I may not know, for presently I will go back to England
and we may never meet again. But whether your days are to be dark or
bright ones, whether time is to bring you good or ill, of this I am
sure, that the world will have need of you some day, and the ship that
you launch will carry far.”