|It was in the latter part of September that I first observed the three
strangers at the corner table in the public room, though they may have
been there before. Afterwards, whenever passing through, I would look
for them, and they were noticeable men; the eldest of the three an
easy-looking gentleman with an air of commanding and greyish hair and
beard; the second, who always sat beside him against the wall, was odd
and humorous in his manner and had a look of imperturbable happiness,
round faced, smooth-shaven, with straight hair and rather long, thin
lips sticking out when something amused him, a well-muscled, large-framed
man; the third stranger always sat opposite the others, with his back
and square, slender shoulders to the rest of the room. And when all
three men were there, the first two seemed to talk to the third loudly
and genially; but sometimes these two came alone, and then they talked
to each other and were more quiet.
One afternoon I stood within the door that led from the long verandah to
the hall and floor above, the door of the public close beside it; and my
father was asleep in his chair far at the other end of the verandah.
I heard the three strangers come to the door of the public, heard the
third say good-by, not two yards from my ear, and go down the steps
briskly. And in a moment the elder stranger spoke thus in a drawling
way:
“He's close, Dan, he is. He takes a man's confidence like it belonged to
him natchully, but he don't appear to have any opinion on it. Hey?”
“Folks are diff'ent, cap,” said the other blandly. “You don' expect a
te'apin to open hisself. He can't 'ithout bustin', an' he may be a very
good sort of te'apin an' a warm-hearted te'apin. An' another man comes
along whoopin', 'How d'ye do! Here's me. Who are you?' like he couldn't
help his candor, Ever hear o' the snake in the gyarden o' Eden, cap? He
was very co'dial, that snake.”
“Still,” said the first, “I shan't open on him till the time comes, He
can have his choice then.”
“As how, cap?”
“Not here. Offshore.”
With that they went down the steps also. My father woke with the noise,
and they nodded to him pleasantly.
After a time Tony, the waiter in the public, came out and winked at me
wonderfully.
“Those fellies is fittin' a ship,” he said. “Say, she's jus' goin' in
der navvy yard. Say, I hear 'em tell she's a keener.”
My father only gazed down the slip with absent, pathetic eyes, thinking,
as always, those September days, of what was slipping away from us in
the white-curtained room above that looked out on the garden.
When I think of the thing we call death in a general way, spelling it
maybe with a capital, it never seems to me a going down at sea--and
I have seen that--or any violent accident; but it seems like a
white-curtained room with a little breeze blowing the curtain in, and
outside you hear the rattle and mutter of the city, as though it were
making comments on the matter in a hoarse undertone. A broad white bed
is near the wall, the doctor and nurse are sometimes in and out of the
room, and on the pillows is a thin white face with the hair drawn neatly
back. The lips are moving with a faint sound, and the eyes look out
softly and peacefully, at me kneeling beside, and my father sitting with
his chin on his crutch and his beard rumpled. There is a lost look in
his eyes, wide and lonely; like a man under whom a ship is going down at
sunset, who sees the sun for the last time and the red clouds doing his
burial service. My mother is speaking; her voice is not like any sound
that seems natural to the earth, but thin, creeping, and slow, like
the mists you see in the early morning that cling and whisper to slack
sails.
“You were always my big boy, Tom,” she says, “like Ben, only bigger.”
“Ben's growing,” says my father, hoarsely.
“You'll not remember it against me, Ben, for it was not I. And he shall
go to sea, Tom, remember, like all the Bensons and Crees, all sailing
folk and proud to be, proud to be all sailing folk. But I'm glad you're
not a woman, Ben, for the sea's hard on women, very hard.” When I went
to school in the brick schoolhouse on Willet Street I studied Latin in
a green-covered book of selections, which for the most part I greatly
disliked. There was a passage ending with these words, “sunt lacrimæ
rerum”; and what “lacrimæ rerum” means I find less easy to say in common
English than I did then, when we called it “the tears of things,” and
appeared to satisfy the master with that. But now I suppose it might
mean, there is a hidden sorrow in the middle of God's universe that
likely has been there always. However it may be, I suppose it quite
beyond a plain man to describe his idea of the matter. But whenever I
think of those words, “lacrimæ rerum,” they sound to me as if spoken in
my mother's voice, sighing, plaintive, and moving away from me; or as if
she might have meant the same thing in saying, “The sea's hard on women,
very hard.”
The wind blew the curtain in so that it wavered in the room. “Lacrimæ
rerum. The sea's hard on women,” a kind of sighing sound that moved far
and far away.
It was now come to the latter part of November, and about the middle of
a certain morning I heard Tony calling my name. At my coming he winked
in a manner to make me think he knew all about something, only that he
always winked to show his knowingness, whether he knew anything or not.
He pointed with his thumb to the door of the inn parlour, where I went
in, and found my father sitting with the three strangers.
Their names, as I came to hear them, were these: the eldest, Captain
Cavarly; the odd-looking one, Mr. Dan Morgan; and the third, Mr. Sabre
Calhoun--a curious name, and he was tall and thin, and, like his name,
not to be quickly forgotten. Indeed, he was a man I never understood,
and, seeing that I came to have such chances of knowing him as do not
commonly fall between men, there must have been something odd with him
or with me. He had sandy hair, and grey eyes that seemed very lively and
shrewd.
“I make you acquainted with these gentlemen,” said my father, “if the
captain don't mind your hearing his yarn.”
“Shuly,” said he, with a fine wave of his hand. “Glad to know you.”
Mr. Calhoun nodded.
“Why, why,” said Mr. Morgan, looking at my red cheeks. “You ain't got
any liver complaint. Well, sir, when I was so old I used to bust the
seams o' my clo'es, an' it hurt my feelins te'ible. I grew like a yellow
punkin, ve'y similar.”
The captain went on with the story, which my coming had interrupted.
“Well, sir, then I started for Washington in a hurry, to see the
Sec'etary o' the Navy, an ol' gen'lman from hereabout 'ith a beard like
a palm leaf fan, yes, sir; an' I said to him, 'Sir, this country is
fairly leakin 'ith pat'iotism. Here's parties, that don't wish their
names known for private reasons--say they're Baltimore parties, but they
want me to tell you, 'Here's the _Octarara_ in Baltimore docks, small
and steady, steam ten knots, an' here's Cavarly an' Dan Morgan knowin'
the coast better'n Webster's Primer consid'able. Let the Gove'nment
commission her, an' Cavarly an' Dan'll raise the crew an' run her for
high an' mighty? An' there you are, sir.' An' there he was, that
ol' gen'lman 'ith the palm leaf beard, calm as a fish in his natchul
element, an' me bustin' 'ith glory.
“'The Gove'nment doesn't commission privateers,' he says. 'Do I
understand the parties offer this vessel to the Gove'nment? In that
case----' Then I saw of co'se it would have to be all regular, an' quite
right he was though too much like ref'ige'ated fish, an' I inte'upted
him. 'The parties wouldn' be satisfied unless Morgan an' I sailed her,
bein' sort of in it ourselves----'
“'In fact you are the parties,' said he.
“I said, 'Not altogther. But it would be like this, sir. If we offer
the _Octarara_, an' the Gove'nment puts her in commission, and furnishes
equipments, arms, ammunition, mess, the parties might see it was
only right the Gov'n-ment should put in its own crew, quite regular,
especially gunners, sir. Sir,' I said, 'I reckon I can take the
_Octarara_ into the back dooryard of Virginia closer'n most, but put it
you wanted to target practice on the back door--I'm no gunner myself.'
“'Ah,' lie says, 'but you're not in the service now. That will of
co'se be neces-sa'y. Well, sir, the Administ'ation appreciates your
gen'osity,' he says. 'You'll convey the Administ'ation's thanks to these
myste'ous parties,' he says, looking extraor'nary calm an' fishy. An' I
goes back to Baltimore feelin' a trifle damp, but still pat'iotic. Well,
sir, they're prompt at that Department, if they are damp. In three
days I got orders to take the _Octarara_ up here to be fitted out an'
commissioned an' manned, an' instead of a family party there won't be
but four Baltimore men aboard her.”
“They couldn't have anything that looked like privateering,” said my
father, after a pause, “with a lot of Confederate privateers locked up
in the Tombs here for piracy.”
“Tha's what I said to Dan. 'Twasn't reason to be sure. Dan wanted the
family party; but he saw reason, an' brought the _Octarara_ up, an' I
came later, an' here we are, bustin' 'ith pat'iot-ism and ordered to
Hampton Roads, maybe they know when. I don't myself.”
“Yes, sir,” broke in Mr. Morgan. “They do say huntin' blockade is like
a dog after fleas, respectin' their liveliness, ve'y similar; him not
knowin' where they are till he's bit.”
Captain Cavarly seemed to disapprove of this saying, glancing sharply
at Mr. Morgan, whether because he felt it a slur on the navy, or for
another reason, I could not guess at that time; moreover, they all now
fell to looking at me inquiringly, which made me nervous and out of
countenance.
“I'll have to refer you to the p'oper official, Mr. Cree,” said Cavarly.
“Ben, boy,” said my father, in a voice quickly growing husky, while his
eyes looked dim and sad, “your uncle advises you ship naval apprentice,
and he thinks you're as well not aboard the _Saratoga_ as yet.”
“He's quite right, sir,” said Cavarly. “There was no favo'itism where I
learned seamanship.”
“Man can't throw the necessa'y belayin' pins at his relative,” said Mr.
Morgan. “It lace'ates the feelin's.”
“And Captain Cavarly is good enough to----”
“Oh, tha's all right, tha's all right.”
“He'll see if he can't get you a berth with him, if you like, Ben,
supposing you feel that way.”
My father paused, looking troubled and uncertain, while Cavarly
murmured, “Tha's all right,” soothingly, and Morgan, “Don' lace'ate the
feelin's.”
For me, I felt bewildered, and my heart seemed to be pumping my head
full of confusion, so that I stammered, saying I would go. Then Cavarly
and Morgan and my father went on talking, while Calhoun sat quietly
listening, and I was content enough to have no further notice taken of
me.
So it came about that I went with my father and Captain Cavarly that
afternoon, and climbed to a little upstairs office, where an orderly
stood within the door; and there I was examined and entered a naval
apprentice, with the privilege of full seamanship in a year, all the
while in that state of excitement I would not have known the difference
if they had listed me a porpoise with the privilege of becoming a whale.
And afterwards we went by ferry to the navy yard, and saw the _Octarara_
lying in dock, two-masted, side-wheeled, as steaming vessels mostly
were in those days; neat though small; it might be less than two hundred
tons, but a wonder in my eyes and very threatening to the Southern
Confederacy. There seemed to be little doing on the _Octarara_, though
the yard was full of noise and bustle. We found Morgan playing a banjo
in the cabin and singing:
"This world is full o' trouble an' sin;
Don' keep me mournin' here, 0 Lord!
Don' keep me mournin' long."
“Howdy, Mr. Cree,” he said. “The cap'en, he's troubled because we ain'
goin' to be fit in time to crush the Southern Confede'acy. It's the sins
an' sorrows o' this world troubles me. 'Don' keep me mournin' long.'
Your son, sir, hasn't the liver complaint?”
And, seeing Cavarly looking at him uneasily, he fell to playing his
banjo again.
The captain's trouble, which Morgan spoke of, lest the _Octarara_ should
not be fit in time to crush the Confederacy, seemed to me more and more
natural. For the weeks went by, and the yard all the time rushed with
work, and it seemed a slight on the _Octarara_, that wonderful craft,
that they passed her by in the way of preparation. December slipped
away. On Christmas Day my father had the captains, Morgan and Calhoun,
up to a handsome dinner, where there was great exchange of cordiality,
and much grumbling at the delay, with great comfort taken out of the
grumbling.
It was notable how gladly we listened to Calhoun. The captain
particularly seemed to ponder on what he said, and turn it over in his
mind, as if looking for a secret meaning. The great variety of Calhoun's
information was odd in one not very old in years, and especially his
knowledge of foreign lands and seas, trade lines and ocean navigation
at large, whereas I gathered that Cavarly had never been beyond coasting
trade.
Calhoun in his talk let himself be easily led to speak of the South
Atlantic, and what amount of American shipping was found there. And
all through it ran the stream of his personal adventure, from which
I thought, even so early in my knowledge of him, that seldom was so
foolhardy a man, to walk into any danger or adventure, wherever he could
find it, and walk out again when ready to do so. Indeed, I think this of
Calhoun, and may say so now, that he was never so pleased and satisfied,
as when edging along in some peculiar and perilous circumstance, and
that he would go far out of his way to find that circumstance. It is a
secret hid in the nature of many that they love nothing better than the
chance to fight skilfully for their own lives, and seek this chance by
jungles, glaciers, and high seas. But I never knew one who sought it
more inquisitively than Calhoun.
In January Cavarly went away, and was gone, it might be, a week, but
whether to Washington or Baltimore he did not say. Morgan said he was
“after a list of Southern cities desirable to bombard.”
And it was the 17th of February when we stood out into the river at
last. My father was among a crowd of people cheering on the dock in the
Wall about Canal.
The wind was blowing bitter and cold, and cakes of ice were floating
about us, as we slid into the bay after a tug that made a great swash
and tumult in front. But the sky was as clear as if it were the first
and newest of all days.