“Forewarn him, that he use no scurrilous words.”
_Winter’s Tale._
As Wilder approached the “Foul Anchor,” he beheld every symptom of some
powerful excitement existing within the bosom of the hitherto peaceful
town. More than half the women, and perhaps one fourth of all the men,
within a reasonable proximity to that well known inn, were assembled
before its door, listening to one of the former sex, who declaimed in
tones so shrill and penetrating as not to leave the proprietors of the
curious and attentive countenances, in the outer circle of the crowd,
the smallest rational ground of complaint on the score of impartiality.
Our adventurer hesitated, with the sudden consciousness of one but
newly embarked in such enterprises as that in which he had so recently
enlisted, when he first saw these signs of commotion; nor did he
determine to proceed until he caught a glimpse of his aged confederate,
elbowing his way through the mass of bodies, with a perseverance and
energy that promised to bring him right speedily into the very presence
of her who uttered such loud and piercing plaints. Encouraged by this
example, the young man advanced, but was content to take his position,
for a moment, in a situation that left him entire command of his limbs
and, consequently, in a condition to make a timely retreat, should the
latter measure prove at all expedient.
“I call on you, Earthly Potter, and you, Preserved Green, and you,
Faithful Wanton,” cried Desire, as he came within hearing, pausing to
catch a morsel of breath, before she proceeded in her affecting appeal
to the neighbourhood; “and you too, Upright Crook, and you too, Relent
Flint, and you, Wealthy Poor, to be witnesses and testimonials in my
behalf. You, and all and each of you, can qualify if need should be,
that I have ever been a slaving and loving consort of this man who has
deserted me in my age, leaving so many of his own children on my hands,
to feed and to rear, besides”—
“What certainty is it,” interrupted the landlord of the “Foul Anchor”
most inopportunely, “that the good-man has absconded? It was a merry
day the one that is just gone, and it is quite in reason to believe
your husband was, like some others I can name—a thing I shall not be so
unwise as to do—a little of what I call how-come-ye-so, and that his
nap holds on longer than common. I’ll engage we shall all see the
honest tailor creeping out of some of the barns shortly, as fresh and
as ready for his bitters as if he had not wet his throat with cold
water since the last time of general rej’icing.”
A low but pretty general laugh followed this effort of tavern wit,
though it failed in exciting even a smile on the disturbed visage of
Desire, which, by its doleful outline, appeared to have taken leave of
all its risible properties for ever.
“Not he, not he,” exclaimed the disconsolate consort of the good-man;
“he has not the heart to get himself courageous, in loyal drinking, on
such an occasion as a merry-making on account of his Majesty’s glory;
he was a man altogether for work; and it is chiefly for his hard labour
that I have reason to complain. After being so long used to rely on his
toil, it is a sore cross to a dependant woman to be thrown suddenly and
altogether on herself for support. But I’ll be revenged on him, if
there’s law to be found in Rhode Island, or in the Providence
Plantations! Let him dare to keep his pitiful image out of my sight the
lawful time, and then, when he returns, he shall find himself, as many
a vagabond has been before him, without wife, as he will be without
house to lay his graceless head in.”[1] Then, catching a glimpse of the
inquiring face of the old seaman, who by this time had worked his way
to her very side, she abruptly added, “Here is a stranger in the place,
and one who has lately arrived! Did you meet a straggling runaway,
friend, in your journey hither?”
[1] It would seem, from this declaration, that certain legal
antiquarians, who have contended that the community is indebted to
Desire for the unceremonious manner of clipping the nuptial knot,
which is so well known to exist, even to this hour, in the community
of which she was a member, are entirely in the wrong. It evidently did
not take its rise in her example, since she clearly alludes to it, as
a means before resorted to by me injured innocents of her own sex.
“I had too much trouble in navigating my old hulk on dry land, to log
the name and rate of every craft I fell in with,” returned the other,
with infinite composure; “and yet, now you speak of such a thing, I do
remember to have come within hail of a poor fellow, just about the
beginning of the morning-watch somewhere hereaway, up in the bushes
between this town and the bit of a ferry that carries one on to the
main.”
“What sort of a man was he?” demanded five or six anxious voices, in a
breath; among which the tones of Desire, however, maintained their
supremacy rising above those of all the others, like the strains of a
first-rate artist flourishing a quaver above the more modest thrills of
the rest of the troupe.
“What sort of a man! Why a fellow with his arms rigged athwart ship,
and his legs stepped like those of all other Christians, to be sure:
but, now you speak of it, I remember that he had a bit of a sheep-shank
in one of his legs, and rolled a good deal as he went ahead.”
“It was he!” added the same chorus of voices. Five or six of the
speakers instantly stole slyly out of the throng, with the commendable
intention of hurrying after the delinquent, in order to secure the
payment of certain small balances of account, in which the unhappy and
much traduced good-man stood indebted to the several parties. Had we
leisure to record the manner in which these praiseworthy efforts, to
save an honest penny, were conducted the reader might find much subject
of amusement in the secret diligence with which each worthy tradesman
endeavoured to outwit his neighbour, on the occasion, as well as in the
cunning subterfuges which were adopted to veil their real designs, when
all met at the ferry, deceived and disappointed in their object As
Desire, however, had neither legal demand on, nor hope of favour from,
her truant husband, she was content to pursue, on the spot, such
further inquiries in behalf of the fugitive as she saw fit to make. It
is possible the pleasures of freedom, in the shape of the contemplated
divorce, were already floating before her active mind, with the
soothing perspective of second nuptials, backed by the influence of
such another picture as might be drawn from the recollections of her
first love; the whole having a manifest tendency to pacify her awakened
spirit, and to give a certain portion of directness and energy to her
subsequent interrogatories.
“Had he a thieving look?” she demanded, without attending to the manner
in which she was so suddenly deserted by all those who had just
expressed the strongest sympathy in her loss. “Was he a man that had
the air of a sneaking runaway?”
“As for his head-piece, I will not engage to give very true account,”
returned the old mariner though he had the look of one who had been
kept a good deal of his time, in the lee scuppers. If should give an
opinion, the poor devil has had too much”—
“Idle time, you would say; yes, yes; it has been his misfortune to be
out of work a good deal latterly and wickedness has got into his head,
for want of something better to think of. Too much”—
“Wife,” interrupted the old man, emphatically. Another general, and far
less equivocal laugh, at the expense of Desire, succeeded this blunt
declaration Nothing intimidated by such a manifest assent to the
opinion of the hardy seaman, the undaunted virago resumed,—
“Ah! you little know the suffering and forbearance I have endured with
the man in so many long years. Had the fellow you met the look of one
who had left an injured woman behind him?”
“I can’t say there was any thing about him which said, in so many
words, that the woman he had left at her moorings was more or less
injured;” returned the tar, with commendable discrimination, “but there
was enough about him to show, that, however and wherever he may have
stowed his wife, if wife she was, he had not seen fit to leave all her
outfit at home. The man had plenty of female toggery around his neck; I
suppose he found it more agreeable than her arms.”
“What!” exclaimed Desire, looking aghast; “has he dared to rob me! What
had he of mine? not the gold beads!”
“I’ll not swear they were no sham.”
“The villain!” continued the enraged termagant, catching her breath
like a person that had just been submerged in water longer than is
agreeable to human nature, and forcing her way through the crowd, with
such vigour as soon to be in a situation to fly to her secret hordes,
in order to ascertain the extent of her misfortune; “the sacrilegious
villain! to rob the wife of his bosom, the mother of his own children,
and”—
“Well, well,” again interrupted the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor,’ with
his unseasonable voice, “I never before heard the good-man suspected of
roguery, though the neighbourhood was ever backward in calling him
chicken-hearted.”
The old seaman looked the publican full in the face, with much meaning
in his eye, as he answered,—
“If the honest tailor never robbed any but that virago, there would be
no great thieving sin to be laid to his account; for every bead he had
about him wouldn’t serve to pay his ferryage. I could carry all the
gold on his neck in my eye, and see none the worse for its company. But
it is a shame to stop the entrance into a licensed tavern, with such a
mob, as if it were an embargoed port; and so I have sent the woman
after her valuables, and all the idlers, as you see, in her wake.”
Joe Joram gazed on the speaker like a man enthralled by some mysterious
charm; neither answering nor altering the direction of his eye, for
near a minute. Then, suddenly breaking out in a deep and powerful
laugh, as if he were not backward in enjoying the artifice, which
certainly had produced the effect of removing the crowd from his own
door to that of the absent tailor, he flourished his arm in the way of
greeting, and exclaimed,—“Welcome, tarry Bob; welcome, old boy,
welcome! From what cloud have you fallen? and before what wind have you
been running, that Newport is again your harbour?”
“Too many questions to be answered in an open roadstead, friend Joram;
and altogether too dry a subject for a husky conversation. When I am
birthed in one of your inner cabins, with a mug of flip and a kid of
good Rhode Island beef within grappling distance, why, as many
questions as you choose, and as many answers, you know, as suits my
appetite.”
“And who’s to pay the piper, honest Bob? whose ship’s purser will pay
your check now?” continued the publican, showing the old sailor in,
however, with a readiness that seemed to contradict the doubt,
expressed by his words, of any reward for such extraordinary civility.
“Who?” interrupted the other, displaying the money so lately received
from Wilder, in such a manner that it might be seen by the few
by-standers who remained, as though he would himself furnish a
sufficient apology for the distinguished manner in which he was
received; “who but this gentleman? I can boast of being backed by the
countenance of his Sacred Majesty himself, God bless him!”
“God bless him!” echoed several of the loyal lieges; and that too in a
place which has since heard such very different cries, and where the
words would now excite nearly as much surprise, though far less alarm,
than an earthquake.
“God bless him!” repeated Joram, opening the door of an inner room, and
pointing the way to his customer, “and all that are favored with his
countenance! Walk in, old Bob, and you shall soon grapple with half an
ox.”
Wilder, who had approached the outer door of the tavern as the mob
receded, witnessed the retreat of the two worthies into the recesses of
the house, and immediately entered the bar-room himself. While
deliberating on the manner in which he should arrive at a communication
with his new confederate, without attracting too much attention to so
odd an association, the landlord returned in person to relieve him.
After casting a hasty glance around the apartment, his look settled on
our adventurer, whom he approached in a manner half-doubting,
half-decided.
“What success, sir, in looking for a ship?” he demanded now
recognizing, for the first time, the stranger with whom he had before
held converse that morning. “More hands than places to employ them?”
“I am not sure it will so prove. In my walk on the hill, I met an old
seaman, who”—
“Hum!” interrupted the publican, with an intelligible though stolen,
sign to follow. “You will find it more convenient, sir, to take your
breakfast in another room.” Wilder followed his conductor, who left the
public apartment by a different door from that by which he had led his
other guest into the interior of the house, wondering at the air of
mystery that the innkeeper saw fit to assume on the occasion. After
leading him by a circuitous passage. The latter showed Wilder, in
profound silence, up a private stair-way, into the very attic of the
building. Here he rapped lightly at a door, and was bid to enter, by a
voice that caused our adventurer to start by its deepness and severity.
On finding him self, however, in a low and confined room, he saw no
other occupant than the seaman who had just been greeted by the
publican as an old acquaintance and by a name to which he might, by his
attire, well lay claim to be entitled—that of tarry Bob. While Wilder
was staring about him, a good deal surprised at the situation in which
he was placed, the landlord retired, and he found himself alone with
his confederate. The latter was already engaged in discussing the
fragment of the ox, just mentioned, and in quaffing of some liquid that
seemed equally adapted to his taste, although sufficient time had not
certainly been allowed to prepare the beverage he had seen fit to
order. Without allowing his visiter leisure for much further
reflection, the old mariner made a motion to him to take the only
vacant chair in the room, while he continued his employment on the
surloin with as much assiduity as though no interruption had taken
place.
“Honest Joe Joram always makes a friend of his butcher,” he said, after
ending a draught that threatened to drain the mug to the bottom. “There
is such a flavour about his beef, that one might mistake it for the fin
of a halibut. You have been in foreign parts, shipmate, or I may call
you ‘messmate,’ since we are both anchored nigh the same kid—but you
have doubtless been in foreign countries?”
“Often; I should else be but a miserable seaman.”
“Then, tell me frankly, have you ever been in the kingdom that can
furnish such rations—fish, flesh, fowl, and fruits—as this very noble
land of America, in which we are now both moored? and in which I
suppose we both of us were born?”
“It would be carrying the love of home a little too far, to believe in
such universal superiority,” returned Wilder, willing to divert the
conversation from his real object, until he had time to arrange his
ideas, and assure himself he had no other auditor but his visible
companion. “It is generally admitted that England excels us in all
these articles.”
“By whom? by your know-nothings and bold talkers. But I, a man who has
seen the four quarters of the earth, and no small part of the water
besides, give the lie to such empty boasters. We are colonies, friend,
we are colonies; and it is as bold in a colony to tell the mother that
it has the advantage, in this or that particular, as it would be in a
foremast Jack to tell his officer he was wrong, though he knew it to be
true. I am but a poor man, Mr—By what name may I call your Honour?”
“Me! my name?—Harris.”
“I am but a poor man, Mr Harris; but I have had charge of a watch in my
time, old and rusty as I seem, nor have I spent so many long nights on
deck without keeping thoughts at work, though I may not have overhaul’d
as much philosophy, in so doing, as a paid parish priest, or a fee’d
lawyer. Let me tell you, it is a disheartening thing to be nothing but
a dweller in a colony. It keeps down the pride and spirit of a man, and
lends a hand in making him what his masters would be glad to have him.
I shall say nothing of fruits, and meats, and other eatables, that come
from the land of which both you and I have heard and know too much,
unless it be to point to yonder sun, and then to ask the question,
whether you think King George has the power to make it shine on the bit
of an island where he lives, as it shines here in his broad provinces
of America?”
“Certainly not: and yet you know that every one allows that the
productions of England are so much superior”—
“Ay, ay; a colony always sails under the lee of its mother. Talk does
it all, friend Harris. Talk, talk, talk; a man can talk himself into a
fever, or set a ship’s company by the ears. He can talk a cherry into a
peach, or a flounder into a whale. Now here is the whole of this long
coast of America, and all her rivers, and lakes, and brooks, swarming
with such treasures as any man might fatten on, and yet his Majesty’s
servants, who come among us, talk of their turbots, and their sole, and
their carp, as if the Lord had only made such fish, and the devil had
let the others slip through his fingers, without asking leave.”
Wilder turned, and fastened a look of surprise on the old man, who
continued to eat, however, as if he had uttered nothing but what might
be considered as a matter of course opinion.
“You are more attached to your birth-place than loyal, friend,” said
the young mariner, a little austerely.
“I am not fish-loyal at least. What the Lord made, one may speak of, I
hope, without offence. As to the Government, that is a rope twisted by
the hands of man, and”—
“And what?” demanded Wilder, perceiving that the other hesitated.
“Hum! Why, I fancy man will undo his own work, when he can find nothing
better to busy himself in. No harm in saying that either, I hope?”
“So much, that I must call your attention to the business that has
brought us together. You have not go soon forgotten the earnest-money
you received?”
The old sailor shoved the dish from before him, and, folding his arms,
he looked his companion full in the eye, as he calmly answered,—
“When I am fairly enlisted in a service, I am a man to be counted on. I
hope you sail under the same colors, friend Harris?”
“It would be dishonest to be otherwise. There is one thing you will
excuse, before I proceed to detail my plans and wishes: I must take
occasion to examine this closet, in order to be sure that we are
actually alone.”
“You will find little there except the toggery of some of honest Joe’s
female gender. As the door is not fastened with any extraordinary care,
you have only to look for yourself, since seeing is believing.”
Wilder did not seem disposed to wait for this permission; he opened the
door, even while the other was speaking, and, finding that the closet
actually contained little else than the articles named by his
companion, he turned away, like a man who was disappointed.
“Were you alone when I entered?” he demanded, after a thoughtful pause
of a moment.
“Honest Joram, and yourself.”
“But no one else?”
“None that I saw,” returned the other, with a manner that betrayed a
slight uneasiness; “if you think otherwise, let us overhaul the room.
Should my hand fall on a listener, the salute will not be light.”
“Hold—answer me one question; who bade me enter?”
Tarry Bob, who had arisen with a good deal of alacrity, now reflected
in his turn for an instant, and then he closed his musing, by indulging
in a low laugh.
“Ah! I see that you have got your ideas a little jammed. A man cannot
talk the same, with a small portion of ox in his mouth, as though his
tongue had as much sea-room as a ship four-and-twenty hours out.”
“Then, you spoke?”
“I’ll swear to that much,” returned Bob, resuming his seat like one who
had settled the whole affair to his entire satisfaction; “and now,
friend Harris, if you are ready to lay bare your mind, I’m just as
ready to look at it.”
Wilder did not appear to be quite as well content with the explanation
as his companion, but he drew a chair, and prepared to open his
subject.
“I am not to tell you, friend, after what you have heard and seen, that
I have no very strong desire that the lady with whom we have both
spoken this morning, and her companion, should, sail in the ‘Royal
Caroline.’ I suppose it is enough for our purposes that you should know
the fact; the reason why I prefer they should remain where they are,
can be of no moment as to the duty you are to undertake.”
“You need not tell an old seaman how to gather in the slack of a
running idea!” cried Bob, chuckling and winking at his companion in a
way that displeased the latter by its familiarity; “I have not lived
fifty years on blue water, to mistake it for the skies.”
“You then fancy, sir, that my motive is no secret to you?”
“It needs no spy-glass to see, that, while the old people say, ‘Go,’
the young people would like to stay where they are.”
“You do both of the young people much injustice then; for, until
yesterday, I never laid eyes on the person you mean.”
“Ah! I see how it is; the owners of the ‘Caroline’ have not been so
civil as they ought, and you are paying them a small debt of thanks!”
“That is possibly a means of retaliation that might suit your taste,”
said Wilder, gravely; “but which is not much in accordance with mine.
The whole of the parties are utter strangers to me.”
“Hum! Then I suppose you belong to the vessel in the outer harbour;
and, though you don’t hate your enemies, you love your friends. We must
contrive the means to coax the ladies to take passage in the slaver.”
“God forbid!”
“God forbid! Now I think, friend Harris, you set up the backstays of
your conscience a little too taught. Though I cannot, and do not, agree
with you in all you have said concerning the ‘Royal Caroline,’ I see no
reason to doubt but we shall have but one mind about the other vessel.
I call her a wholesome looking and well proportioned craft, and one
that a King might sail in with comfort.”
“I deny it not; still I like her not.”
“Well, I am glad of that; and, since the matter is fairly before us,
master Harris, I have a word or two to say concerning that very ship. I
am an old sea-dog, and one not easily blinded in matters of the trade.
Do you not find something, that is not in character for an honest
trader, in the manner in which they have laid that vessel at her
anchors, without the fort, and the sleepy look she bears, at the same
time that any one may see she is not built to catch oysters, or to
carry cattle to the islands?”
“As you have said, I think her a wholesome and a tight-built ship. Of
what evil practice, however, do you suspect her?—perhaps she robs the
revenue?”
“Hum! I am not sure it would be pleasant to smuggle in such a vessel,
though your contraband is a merry trade, after all. She has a pretty
battery, as well as one can see from this distance.”
“I dare say her owners are not tired of her yet and would gladly keep
her from falling into the hands of the French.”
“Well, well, I may be wrong; but, unless sight is going with my years,
all is not as it would be on board that slaver, provided her papers
were true, and she had the lawful name to her letters of marque. What
think you, honest Joe, in this matter?”
Wilder turned, impatiently, and found that the landlord had entered the
room, with a step so as to have escaped his attention, which had been
drawn to his companion with a force that the reader will readily
comprehend. The air of surprise, with which Joram regarded the speaker,
was certainly not affected; for the question was repeated, and in still
more definite terms, before he saw fit to reply.
“I ask you, honest Joe, if you think the slaver, in the outer harbour
of this port, a true man?”
“You come across one, Bob, in your bold way, with such startling
questions,” returned the publican, casting his eyes obliquely around
him, as if he would fain make sure of the character of the audience to
which he spoke, “such stirring opinions, that really I am often
non-plushed to know how to get the ideas together, to make a saving
answer.”
“It is droll enough, truly, to see the landlord of the ‘Foul Anchor’
dumb-foundered,” returned the old man, with perfect composure in mien
and eye. “I ask you, if you do not suspect something wrong about that
slaver?”
“Wrong! Good heavens, mister Robert, recollect what you are saying. I
would not, for the custom of his Majesty’s Lord High Admiral, have any
discouraging words be uttered in my house against the reputation of any
virtuous and fair-dealing slavers! The Lord protect me from blacking
the character of any honest subject of the King!”
“Do you see nothing wrong, worthy and tender Joram, about the ship in
the outer harbour?” repeated mister Robert, without moving eye, limb,
or muscle.
“Well, since you press me so hard for an opinion and seeing that you
are a customer who pays freely for what he orders, I will say, that, if
there is any thing unreasonable, or even illegal, in the deportment of
the gentlemen”—
“You sail so nigh the wind, friend Joram,” coolly interrupted the old
man, “as to keep every thing shaking. Just bethink you of a plain
answer: Have you seen any thing wrong about the slaver?”
“Nothing, on my conscience, then,” said the publican, puffing not
unlike a cetaceous fish that had come to the surface to breathe; “as I
am an unworthy sinner, sitting under the preaching of good and faithful
Dr Dogma, nothing—nothing”
“No! Then are you a duller man than I had rated you at! Do you
_suspect_ nothing?”
“Heaven protect me from suspicions! The devil besets all our minds with
doubts; but weak, and evil inclined, is he who submits to them. The
officers and crew of that ship are free drinkers, and as generous as
princes: Moreover, as they never forget to clear the score before they
leave the house, I call them—honest!”
“And I call them—pirates!”
“Pirates!” echoed Joram, fastening his eye, with marked distrust, on
the countenance of the attentive Wilder. “‘Pirate’ is a harsh word,
mister Robert, and should not be thrown in any gentleman’s face without
testimony enough to clear one in an action of defamation, should such a
thing get fairly before twelve sworn and conscientious men. But I
suppose you know what you say, and before whom you say it.”
“I do; and now, as it seems that your opinion in this matter amounts to
just nothing at all, you will please”
“To do any thing you order,” cried Joram, very evidently delighted to
change the subject.
“To go and ask the customers below if they are dry,” continued the
other, beckoning for the publican to retire by the way he entered, with
the air of one who felt certain of being obeyed. As soon as the door
was closed on the retiring landlord, he turned to his remaining
companion, and continued, “You seem as much struck aback as unbelieving
Joe himself, at what you have just heard.”
“It is a harsh suspicion, and should be well supported, old man, before
you venture to repeat it. What pirate has lately been heard of on this
coast?”
“There is the well-known Red Rover,” returned the other, dropping his
voice, and casting a furtive look around him, as if even he thought
extraordinary caution was necessary in uttering the formidable name.
“But he is said to keep chiefly in the Caribbean Sea.”
“He is a man to be any where, and every where. The King would pay him
well who put the rogue into the hands of the law.”
“A thing easier planned than executed,” Wilder thoughtfully answered.
“That is as it may be. I am an old fellow, and fitter to point out the
way than to go ahead. But you are like a newly fitted ship, with all
your rigging tight, and your spars without a warp in them. What say you
to make your fortune by selling the knaves to the King? It is only
giving the devil his own a few months sooner or later.”
Wilder started, and turned away from his companion like one who was
little pleased by the manner in which he expressed himself. Perceiving
the necessity of a reply, however, he demanded,—
“And what reason have you for believing your suspicions true? or what
means have you for effecting your object, if true, in the absence of
the royal cruisers?”
“I cannot swear that I am right; but, if sailing on the wrong tack, we
can only go about, when we find out the mistake. As to means, I confess
they are easier named than mustered.”
“Go, go; this is idle talk; a mere whim of your old brain,” said
Wilder, coldly; “and the less said the soonest mended. All this time we
are forgetting our proper business. I am half inclined to think, mister
Robert, you are holding out false lights, in order to get rid of the
duty for which you are already half paid.”
There was a look of satisfaction in the countenance of the old tar,
while Wilder was speaking, that might have struck his companion, had
not the young man risen, while speaking, to pace the narrow room, with
a thoughtful and hurried step.
“Well, well,” the former rejoined, endeavouring to disguise his evident
contentment, in his customary selfish, but shrewd expression, “I am an
old dreamer, and often have I thought myself swimming in the sea when I
have been safe moored on dry land! I believe there must soon be a
reckoning with the devil, in order that each may take his share of my
poor carcass, and I be left the Captain of my own ship. Now for your
Honour’s orders.”
Wilder returned to his seat, and disposed himself to give the necessary
instructions to his confederate, in order that he might counteract all
he had already said in favour of the outward-bound vessel.