CAPTAIN ICHABOD PUTS THE CASE
In the river at Bridgetown lay the good brig King and Queen, just
arrived from Jamaica. On her deck was an impatient young gentleman,
leaning over the rail and watching the approach of a boat, with two men
rowing and a passenger in the stern.
This impatient young man was Dickory Charter, that morning arrived at
Bridgetown and not yet having been on shore. He came for the purpose of
settling some business affairs, partly on account of Miss Kate Bonnet
and partly for his mother.
As the boat came nearer, Dickory recognised one of the men who were
rowing and hailed him.
"Heigho! Tom Hilyer," he cried, "I am right glad to see you on this
river again. I want a boat to go to my mother's house; know you of one
at liberty?"
The man ceased rowing for a moment and then addressed the passenger in
the stern, who, having heard what he had to say, nodded briefly.
"Well, well, Dick Charter!" cried out the man, "and have you come back
as governor of the colony? You look fine enough, anyway. But if you want
a boat to go to your mother's old home, you can have a seat in this one;
we're going there, and our passenger does not object."
"Pull up here," cried Dickory, and in a moment he had dropped into the
bow of the boat, which then proceeded on its way.
The man in the stern was fairly young, handsome, sunburned, and well
dressed in a suit of black. When Dickory thanked him for allowing him to
share his boat the passenger in the stern nodded his head with a jerk
and an air which indicated that he took the incident as a matter of
course, not to be further mentioned or considered.
The men who rowed the boat were good oarsmen, but they were not
thoroughly acquainted with the cove, especially at low tide, and
presently they ran upon a sand-bar. Then uprose the passenger in the
stern and began to swear with an ease and facility which betokened long
practice. Dickory did not swear, but he knit his brows and berated
himself for not having taken the direction of the course into his own
hands, he who knew the river and the cove so well. The tide was rising
but Dickory was too impatient to sit still and wait until it should be
high enough to float the boat. That was his old home, that little house
at the head of the cove, and he wanted to get there, he wanted to see
it. Part of the business which brought him to Barbadoes concerned that
little house. With a sudden movement he made a dive at his shoes and
stockings and speedily had them lying at the bottom of the boat. Then he
stepped overboard and waded towards the shore. In some of the deeper
places he wetted the bottom of his breeches, but he did not mind that.
The passenger in the stern sat down, but he continued to swear.
Presently Dickory was on the dry sand, and running up to that cottage
door. A little back from the front of the house and in the shade there
was a bench, and on this bench there sat a girl, reading. She lifted her
head in surprise as Dickory approached, for his bare feet had made no
noise, then she stood up quickly, blushing.
"You!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," cried Dickory; "and you look just the same as when you first put
your head above the bushes and talked to me."
"Except that I am more suitably clothed," she said.
And she was entirely right, for her present dress was feminine, and
extremely becoming.
Dickory did not wish to say anything more on this subject, and so he
remarked: "I have just arrived at the town, and I came directly here."
Lucilla blushed again.
"This is my old home," added Dickory.
"But you knew we were here?" she asked, with a hesitating look of
inquiry.
"Oh, yes," said he, "I knew that the house had been let to your father."
Now she changed colour twice--first red, then white. "Are you," she
said, "I mean ... the other, is she--"
"I left her in Jamaica," said Dickory, "but I am going to marry her."
For a moment the rim of her hat got between the sun and her face, and
one could not decide very well whether her countenance was red or white.
"I am very glad to find you here," said Dickory, "and may I see your
father and mother?"
"Yes," said she, "but they are both in the field with my young sister.
But who is this man walking up the shore? And is that the boat you came
in?"
"It is," said Dickory. "We stuck fast, but I was in such a hurry that I
waded ashore. I don't know the man; he had hired the boat, and kindly
took me in, I was in such haste to get here."
For a moment Lucilla bent her eyes on the ground. "In such haste to get
here!" she said to herself; then she raised her head and exclaimed: "Oh,
I know that man; he is the pirate captain who captured the Belinda,
which afterward brought us here." And with both hands outstretched, she
ran to meet him.
The face of Captain Ichabod glowed with irrepressible delight; one might
have thought he was about to embrace the young woman, notwithstanding
the presence of Dickory and the two boatmen, but he did everything he
could do before witnesses to express his joy.
Dickory now stepped up to Captain Ichabod. "Oh, now I know you," cried
he, and he held out his hand. "You were very kind indeed to my friends,
and they have spoken much about you. This is my old home; this is the
house where I was born."
"Yes, yes, indeed," said Captain Ichabod, "a very good house, bedad, a
very good house." But hesitating a little and addressing Lucilla: "You
don't live here alone, do you?"
The girl laughed.
"Oh, no," she cried. "My father and mother will be here presently; in
fact, I see them coming."
"That's very well," said Ichabod, "very well indeed. It's quite right
that they should live with you. I remember them now; they were on the
ship with you."
"Oh, yes," said Lucilla, still laughing.
"Quite right, quite right," said Ichabod; "that was very right."
"I will go meet your father and mother and the dear little Lena; I
remember them so well," said Dickory. He started to run off in spite of
his bare feet, but he had gone but a little way when Lucilla stopped
him. She looked up at him, and this time her face was white.
"Are you sure," said she, "that everything is settled between you and
that other girl?"
"Very sure," said Dickory, looking kindly upon her and remembering how
pretty she had looked when he first saw her face over the bushes.
She did not say anything, but turned and walked back to Captain Ichabod.
She found that tall gentleman somewhat agitated; he seemed to have a
great deal on his mind which he wished to say, feeling, at the same
time, that he ought to say everything first.
"That's your father and mother," said he, "stopping to talk to the young
man who was born here?"
"Yes," she answered, "and they will be with us presently."
"Very good, very good, that's quite right," said Captain Ichabod
hurriedly; "but before they come, I want to say--that is, I would like
you to know--that I have sold my ship. I am not a pirate any longer, I
am a sugar-planter, bedad. Beg your pardon! That is, I intend to be
one. You remember that you once talked to me about sugar-planting in
Barbadoes, and so I am here. I want to find a good sugar plantation, to
buy it, and live on it; I heard that you were stopping on this side of
the river, and so I came here."
"But there is no sugar plantation here," said Lucilla, very demurely.
"Oh, no," said Ichabod, "oh, no, of course not; but you are here, and I
wanted to find you; a sugar plantation would be of no use without you."
She looked at him, still very demurely. "I don't quite understand you,"
she said. She turned her head a little and saw that her family and
Dickory were slowly moving towards the house. She knew that with
diffident persons no time should be lost, for, if interrupted, it often
happened that they did not begin again.
"Then I suppose," she said, her face turned up towards him, but her eyes
cast down, "that you are going to say that you would like to marry me?"
"Of course, of course," exclaimed Ichabod; "I thought you knew that that
is what I came here for, bedad."
"Very well, then," said Lucilla, turning her eyes to the face of the man
she had dreamed of in many happy nights. "No, no," she added quickly,
"you must not kiss me; they are all coming, and there are the two
boatmen."
He did not kiss her, but later he made up for the omission.
The moment Mrs. Mander saw Captain Ichabod and her daughter standing
together she knew exactly what had happened; she had noticed things on
board the Belinda. She hurried up to Lucilla and drew her aside.
"My dear," she whispered, with a frightened face, "you cannot marry a
pirate; you never, never can!"
"Dear mother," said Lucilla, "he is not a pirate; he has sold his ship
and is going to be a sugar-planter."
Now they all came up and heard these words of Lucilla.
"Yes, indeed," said Captain Ichabod, "you may not suppose it, but your
daughter and I are about to marry, and will plant sugar together. Now, I
want to buy a plantation. Where is that young man who was born here,
bedad?"
Dickory advanced, laughing. Here was a fine opportunity, a miraculous
opportunity, of disposing of the Bonnet estate, which was part of the
business which had brought him here. So he told the beaming captain that
he knew of a fine plantation up the river, which he thought would suit
him.
"Very good," said Captain Ichabod. "I have a boat here; let us go and
look at the place, and if it suits us I will buy it, bedad."
So with Mrs. Mander and her husband beside her, and with Lucilla and
the captain by her, the boat was rowed up the river, with Dickory and
young Lena in the bow.
When the boat reached the Bonnet estate it was run up on the shore near
the shady spot where Kate Bonnet had once caught a fish. Then they all
stepped out upon the little beach, even the oarsmen made the boat fast
and joined the party, who started to walk up to the house. Suddenly
Captain Ichabod stopped and said to Mr. Mander: "I don't think I care to
walk up that hill, you know; and if you and your good wife will look
over that house and cast your eyes about the place, I will buy it, if
you say so: you know a good deal more about such things than I do,
bedad. I suppose, of course, that will suit you?" he said to Lucilla.
It suited Lucilla exactly. They sat in the shade in the very place where
Kate had sat when she saw Master Newcombe crossing the bridge.
A small boat came down the river, rowed by a young man. As he passed the
old Bonnet property he carelessly cast his eyes shoreward, but his heart
took no interest in what he saw there. What did it matter to him if two
lovers sat there in the shade, close to the river's brink? His sad soul
now took no interest in lovers. He had just been up the river to arrange
for the sale of his plantation to one of his neighbours. He had decided
to leave the island of Barbadoes and to return to England.
The house suited Captain Ichabod exactly, when Mrs. Mander told him
about it, and Lucilla agreed with him because she was always accustomed
to trust her mother in such things.
So they all got into the boat and rowed back to Dickory's old home, and
on the way Captain Ichabod told Dickory that when they returned together
to the town he would pay him for the plantation, having brought specie
sufficient for the purpose.
It was a gay party in the boat as they rowed down the river; it was a
gay party at the house when they reached it, and they would have all
taken supper together had the Manders been prepared for such
hospitality; but they were poor, having taken the place upon a short
lease and having had but few returns so far. But they were all going to
live at the old Bonnet place, and happiness shone over everything. It
was twilight, and the two young men were about to walk down to the boat,
one of them promising to come again early in the morning, when Lucilla
approached Dickory.
"Where are you going to live with that girl?" she asked in a low voice.
"In Jamaica," said he.
"I am glad of it," she replied, quite frankly.
* * * * *
They were well content, those Jamaica people, when Ben Greenway came to
live with them. It had been proposed at one time that he should go to
his old Bridgetown home and take charge of the place as he used to, but
the good Scotchman demurred to this.
"I hae served ane master before he became a pirate," he said, "an' I
don't want to try anither after he has finished bein' ane. If I serve
ony mon, let him be one wha has been righteous, wha is righteous now,
an' wha will continue in righteousness."
"Then serve Mr. Delaplaine," said Dickory.
* * * * *
The Manders soon removed to the little house where Dickory was born. The
mansion of their daughter and her husband was a hospitable place and a
lively, but the life there was so wayward, erratic, and eccentric that
it did not suit their sober lives and the education of their young
daughter. So they dwelt contentedly in the cottage at the head of the
cove, and there was much rowing up and down the river.
* * * * *
It was upon a fine morning that the ex-pirate Ichabod thus addressed a
citizen of the town:
"Yes, sir, I know well who once lived in the house I own. I knew the man
myself; I knew him at Belize. He was a dastardly knave, and would have
played false to the sun, the moon, and the stars had they shown him an
opportunity, bedad. But I also knew his daughter; she sailed on my ship
for many days, and her presence blessed the very boards she trod on. She
is a most noble lady; and if you will not admit, sir, that her sweet
spirit and pure soul have not banished from this earth every taint of
wickedness left here by her father, then, sir, bedad, stand where you
are and draw!"
THE END
* * * * *
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