THE WOUNDED SAILOR.
The curiosity of Somers was not a little excited before he opened the
uncouth letter in his hand. It was postmarked Philadelphia, which made
its reception all the more strange, for he had no friends or
acquaintances residing in the city. He tore open the dirty epistle,
which was not even enclosed in an envelope, and read as follows:--
PHILA. June the 19. 1864.
MR. JOHN SOMERS ESQ. Sir. I been wounded in the leg up the Missippi and
can not do nothing more. I been in your division aboard the Rosalie, and
I know you was a good man and I know you was a good officer, I hope you
be in good helth, as I am not at this present writen. my Leg is very
bad, and don't git no better. This is to inform you that I am the only
son of a poor widdow, who has no other Son, and she can not do nothing
for me, nor I can't do nothing for her. I have Fout for my countrey and
have been woundded in the servis. If you could git a penshin for me. it
would be a grate help to me Sorrowin condition. I live No -- Front
Street. If I might make bold to ask you to come and see a old Sailor,
thrown on the beam ends of missfortune, I would be very thankful to you.
Yours to command,
THOMAS BARRON.
N. B. The doctor says he thinks my Leg will have to come off.
Tom Longstone knows me, and you ask him, he will tell you all About me.
"Thomas Barron," mused Somers, as he folded the letter. "I don't
remember him. There were two or three Toms on board the Rosalie. At any
rate, I have nothing better to do than call upon him. He is an old
sailor, and that is enough for me."
It was already after dark; but he decided to visit the sufferer that
night, and after tea he left the house for this purpose. He was
sufficiently acquainted with the streets of this systematic city to make
his way without assistance. Of course he did not expect to find the home
of the old sailor in a wealthy and aristocratic portion of the city; but
if he had understood the character of the section to which the direction
led him, he would probably have deferred his charitable mission till the
following day. On reaching the vicinity of the place indicated, he
found himself in a vile locality, surrounded by the lowest and most
depraved of the population.
With considerable difficulty he found the number mentioned in the
letter. The lower story of the building was occupied as a liquor shop,
and a further examination of the premises assured him the place was a
sailor's boarding-house. As this fact was not inconsistent with the
character of Tom Barron, he entered the shop. Half a dozen vagabonds had
possession; and as Somers entered, the attention of the whole group was
directed to him.
"Is there a sailor by the name of Thomas Barron in this house?" asked
Somers of the greasy, corpulent woman, who stood behind about four feet
of counter, forming the bar, on which were displayed several bottles and
decanters.
"Yes, sir; and very bad he is too," replied the woman, civilly enough,
though the young officer could hardly help shuddering in her presence.
"Could I see him?"
"I 'spect you can, if you be the officer Tom says is comin' to see him."
"I am the person."
"Tom's very bad."
"So he says in his letter."
"He hain't had a minute's peace or comfort with that leg sence he come
home from the war. Be you any relation of his?"
"I am not."
"Mebbe you're his friend."
"He served under me in the Rosalie."
"Tom hain't paid no board for two months, which comes hard on a poor
woman like me, takin' care of him, and his mother too, that come here to
nuss him."
"Perhaps something can be done for him."
"Well, I hope so. I don't see how I can keep him any longer. He owes me
forty dollars. If any body'll pay half on't, I'd keep on doin' for him."
"I will see what can be done for him. Why was he not sent to the
hospital?"
"He's too bad to be sent, and he don't want to go, nuther. He says the
doctors try speriments on poor fellers like him, and he don't want to be
cut up afore he's dead."
"Well, I will endeavor to have something done for him. I am entirely
willing to help him as much as I can."
"Perhaps you'd be willin' to do sunthin' towards payin' my bill, then."
"Perhaps I will; but I wish to see the man before I do anything. Will
you show me to his room?"
"I don't go up and down stairs none now. Here, Childs, you show this
gentleman up to the front room," said the landlady to one of the
vagabonds before her. "Then go and tell Tom his officer has come. I
suppose they'll want to slick up a little, afore they let you in; but
Miss Barron will tell you when she is ready."
Somers followed the man up a flight of rickety stairs, and was ushered
into the front room. It was a bedchamber, supplied with the rudest and
coarsest furniture. The visitor sat down, after telling Childs that the
sailor's mother need not stop to "slick up" before he was admitted. He
did not like the surroundings, even independent of the villainous odors
that rose from the groggery, and those that were engendered in the
apartment where he sat. Slush and tar were agreeable perfumes, compared
with those which assaulted his sense in this chamber; and he hoped Mrs.
Barron would humiliate her pride to an extent which would permit him to
make a speedy exit from the house.
Mrs. Barron, however, appeared not to be in a hurry, and Somers waited
ten minutes by his watch, which seemed to expand into a full hour before
he heard a sound to disturb the monotony of the chamber's quiet. But
when it was disturbed, it was in such a manner that he forgot all about
the place and the odors, the hour and the occasion, and even the poor
sailor, who had so piteously appealed to him for assistance.
In the rear of the room in which Somers sat, there was a door
communicating with another apartment. The house was old and out of
repair; and this door, never very nicely adjusted, was now warped and
thrown out of place, so that great cracks yawned around the edges, and
whatever was said or done in one room, of which any knowledge could be
obtained by the sense of hearing, was immediately patent to the
occupants of the other. Somers heard footsteps in the rear room, though
the parties appeared not to have come up the stairs by which he had
ascended. The rattling of chairs and of glass ware next saluted his
ears; but as yet Somers had not the slightest interest in the business
of the adjoining apartment, and only wished that Mrs. Barron would
speedily complete the preparations for his reception.
"It's dangerous business," said one of the men in the rear room; which
remark followed a smack of the lips, and a rude depositing of the glass
on the table, indicating that the speaker had just swallowed his dram.
The man uttered his remark in a loud tone, exhibiting a strange
carelessness, if the matter in hand was as dangerous as the words
implied.
"I know it is dangerous, Langdon," said another person, in a voice which
instantly riveted the attention of the listener.
Somers heard the voice. It startled him, and he had no eye, ear, or
thought for anything but the individual who had last spoken. If he had
considered his position at all, it would only have been to wish that
Mrs. Barron might be as proud as a Chestnut Street belle, in order to
afford him time to inform himself in relation to the business of the men
who occupied the other room.
"You have been shut up in Fort Lafayette once," added the first speaker.
"In a good cause I am willing to go again," replied the voice so
familiar to the ears of Somers. "I lost eighty thousand dollars in a
venture just like this. I must get my money back."
"If you can, Coles."
Coles! But Somers did not need to have his identity confirmed by the use
of his name. He knew Coles's voice. At Newport he had lain in the
fore-sheets of the academy boat, and heard Coles and Phil Kennedy mature
their plan to place the Snowden on the ocean, as a Confederate cruiser.
He had listened to the whole conversation on that occasion, and the
knowledge he had thus obtained enabled the government to capture the
steamer, and defeat the intentions of the conspirators.
The last Somers had known of Coles, he was a prisoner in Fort Lafayette.
Probably he had been released by the same influence which set Phil
Kennedy at liberty, and permitted him to continue his career of treason
and plunder. Coles had lost eighty thousand dollars by his speculation
in the Snowden, for one half of which Kennedy was holden to him; but the
bond had been effectually cancelled by the death of the principal. Coles
wanted his money back. It was a very natural desire; but Somers could
not help considering it as a very extravagant one, under present
circumstances.
The listener could not help regarding it as a most remarkable thing,
that he should again be within hearing of Coles, engaged in plotting
treason. Such an event might happen once; but that it should occur a
second time was absolutely marvellous. If our readers are of the opinion
that the writer is too severely taxing their credulity in imposing the
situation just described upon them, he begs they will suspend their
judgment till the sequel justifies him.
It was so strange to Somers, that he could not help thinking he had been
brought there by some mysterious power to listen to and defeat the
intentions of the conspirators. He was not so far wrong as he might have
been. It was Coles who spoke; it was Coles who had been in Fort
Lafayette; and it was Coles who had lost eighty thousand dollars by the
Snowden. All these things were real, and Somers had no suspicion that he
had inhaled some of the vile compounds in the bar below, which might
have thrown him into a stupor wherein he dreamed the astounding
situation in which he was actually placed.
Somers listened, and when Coles had mixed and drank his dram, he spoke
again.
"I can and will get my money back," said he, with an oath which froze
the blood of the listener.
"Don't believe it, Coles."
"You know me, Langdon," added the plotter, with a peculiar emphasis.
Langdon acknowledged that he did know him; and as there was, therefore,
no need of an introduction, Coles proceeded.
"You know me, Langdon; I don't make any mistakes myself."
Perhaps Langdon knew it; but Somers had some doubts, which, however, he
did not purpose to urge on this occasion.
"Phil Kennedy was a fool," added Coles, with another oath. "He spoiled
all my plans before, and I was glad when I heard that he was killed,
though I lost forty thousand dollars when he slipped out. He spilt the
milk for me."
Somers thought not.
"Phil was smart about some things; but he couldn't keep a hotel. Why,
that young pup that finally gave him his quietus, twirled him around his
fingers, like he had been a school girl."
"Thank you, Mr. Coles; but I shall have the pleasure of serving you in
the same way before many weeks," thought Somers, flattered by this warm
and disinterested tribute to his strategetic ability.
"You mean Somers?" said Langdon.
"I mean Somers. The young pup isn't twenty-one yet, but he is the
smartest man in the old navy, by all odds, whether the others be
admirals, commodores, lieutenants, or what not."
"That's high praise, Coles."
"It's true. If he wasn't an imfernal Yankee, I would drink his health in
this old Bourbon. Good liquor--isn't it, Langdon?"
"Like the juice of a diamond."
"I would give more for this Somers than I would for any four rear
admirals. He has just been appointed to the Chatauqua; but he will be in
command of some small craft down South, before many months, doing more
mischief to us than any four first-class steamers in the service. He is
as brave as a young lion; knows a ship from keel to truck, and is as
familiar with every bolt and pin of an engine as though he had been a
machinist all his life."
"Big thing, eh, Coles?"
"If I had this Somers, I could make his fortune and mine in a year, and
have a million surplus besides."
"What would you do with him?"
"I would give him the command of my steamer. I would rather have him in
that place than all the old grannies in the Confederate navy."
Somers thought Mr. Coles was rather extravagant. He had no idea that Mr.
Ensign Somers was one tenth part of the man which the amiable and
patronizing Mr. Coles declared he was; and he was impatient to have the
speaker announce his intentions, rather than waste any more time in such
unwarrantable commendation.
But instead of telling what he intended to do, he confined himself most
provokingly to what he had failed to do, giving Langdon minute details
of the capture of the Theban and the Snowden, dwelling with peculiar
emphasis on the agency of Somers in the work. This was not interesting
to the listener, but something better soon followed.