THE “HEBE MAITLAND.” CAPTAIN BUCKINGHAM'S NARRATIVE.
“I was that way,” he said, “full of opinions, like one of those little
terrier pups with his tail sawed off, so he wags with the stump, same
way a clock does with the pendulum when the weight's gone--pretty
chipper. I used to come often from the other end of Newport Street,
where I was born, to Pemberton's. But that wasn't on account of
Pemberton, though he was agreeable, but on account of Madge Pemberton.
Madge and I were agreed, and Pemberton was agreeable, but I was restless
and keyed high in those days, resembling pups, as stated.
“No anchoring to Pemberton's chimney for me,” I says. “No digging clams
and fishing for small fry in Long Island Sound for me. I'm going to
sea.”
And Madge asks, “Why?” calm and reasonable, and I was near stumped for
reasons, having only the same reason as a lobster has for being green.
It's the nature of him, which he'll change that colour when he's had
experience and learned what's what in the boiling. I fished around for
reasons.
“When I'm rich,” I says, “I'll fix up Pemberton's for a swell hotel.”
Madge says, “It's nice as it is,” and acted low in her mind. But if she
thought the less of me for wanting to go to sea, I couldn't say. Maybe
not.
I left Greenough in the year '65, and went to New York, and the wharves
and ships of East River, and didn't expect it would take me long to get
rich.
There were fine ships and many in those days in the East River slips.
South Street was full of folk from all over the world, but I walked
there as cocky as if I owned it, looking for a ship that pleased me,
and I came to one lying at dock with the name _Hebe Maitland_ in gilt
letters on a board that was screwed to her, and I says, “Now, there's
a ship!” Then I heard a man speak up beside me saying, “Just so,” and I
turned to look at him.
He didn't seem like a seaman, but was an old man, and grave-looking, and
small, and precise in manner, and not like one trained to the sea, and
wore a long, rusty black coat; and his upper lip was shaven.
“You like her, do ye?” he said. “Now I'm thinking you know a good one
when you see her.”
I said I thought I did, speaking rather knowing. But when he asked if
I'd been to sea, I had to say I hadn't; not on the high seas, nor in any
such vessel as the _Hebe Maitland_. She was painted dingy black, like
most of the others, and I judged from her lines that she was a fleet
sailer and built for that purpose, rather than for the amount of cargo
she might carry.
“Why, come aboard,” he said, and soon we were seated in a cabin with
shiny panels, and a hinge table that swung down from the wall between
us. He looked at me through half-shut eyes, pursing his dry lips, and he
asked me where I came from.
That was my first meeting with Clyde. I know now that my coming from
Connecticut was a point in my favour; still I judge he must have
taken to me from the start. He surely was good to me always, and that
curiously.
“You want a job,” he says. “You've sailed a bit on fishing smacks in the
Sound. But more'n that, the point with you is you're ambitious, and not
above turning a penny or two in an odd way.”
“That depends on the way,” I says pretty uppish, and thinking I wasn't
to be inveigled into piracy that way.
“Just so?”
“Maybe I've got scruples,” I says, and not a bit did I know what I was
talking about. Captain Clyde rapped the table with his knuckles.
“I'm glad to hear you say it. Scruples! That's the word, and a right
word and a good word. I don't allow any vicious goings-on aboard this
ship. Wherever we go we carry the laws of the United States, and we
stand by them laws. We're decent and we stick to our country's laws as
duty is. Why now, I'm thinking of taking you, for I see you're a likely
lad, and one that will argue for his principles. Good wages, good food,
good treatment; will you go?” The last was shot out and cut off close
behind, his lips shutting like a pair of scissors. I says, “That's what
I'll do,” and didn't know there was anything odd about it. It might have
been the average way a shipmaster picked up a man for aught I knew. I
shipped on the bark _Hebe Maitland_ as ordinary seaman.
The shipping news of that week contained this item:
“Sailed, Bark, _Hebe Maitland_, Clyde, Merchandise for Porto del Rey.”
Now, there is such a place as Porto del Rey, for I was there once, but
not till twenty years later.
The _Hebe Maitland_ didn't always go to the place she was billed for,
and when she did she was apt to be a month late, and likely couldn't
have told what she'd been doing in the meantime. Somebody had been doing
something, but it wasn't the _Hebe Maitland_. Ships may have notions for
aught I know, and the _Hebe Maitland_ was no fool, but if so, I judge
she couldn't have straightened it out without help; and if she argued
and got mad about it, that was no more than appropriate, for we all
argued on the _Hebe Maitland_.
I've spoken of Captain Clyde. The crew, except one man called “Irish,”
were all Yankee folk that Clyde had trained, and most of them had been
caught young and sailed with him already some years. I never saw so odd
an acting crew in the way of arguing. I've seen Clyde and the bos'n with
the Bible between them, arguing over it by the hour. It was a singular
crew to argue. Stevey Todd here, who was cook, was a Baptist and a
Democrat, and the mate he was a Presbyterian and Republican, and the
bos'n he was for Women's Rights, and there was a man named Simms, who
was strong on Predestination and had a theory of trade winds, but he
got to arguing once with a man in Mobile, who didn't understand
Predestination and shot him full of holes, supposing it might be
dangerous. It was a singular crew, and especially in the matter of
arguing.
They were all older than I. Stevey Todd was a few years older. I
recognised Abe Dalrimple here, for he came from Adrian, though I'd seen
him but seldom before. Three more I'll name, Kid Sadler, J. R. Craney,
and Jimmy Hagan, who was called Irish; for they were ones that I had to
do with later. I never met another crew like the _Hebe Maitland's_. I
guess there never was one.
Aboard and under Clyde's eye they were a quiet crew, even Sadler, who
wasn't what you'd call submissive by nature, but in port, Clyde would
now and then let them run riotous. He was a little, old, dried up, and
odd man with a vein of piousness in him, and he could handle men in a
way that was very mysterious.
The fourth day out of New York, as I recollect it, was fair, the sun
shining, and everything peaceful except on board the _Hebe Maitland_.
But on the _Hebe Maitland_ the men were running around with paint pots
and hauling out canvas from below. Nobody seemed to tell me what was the
matter. The _Hebe Maitland's_ hull was any kind of a dingy black, but
the rails, canvas, tarpaulins, and companion were all white. By the
end of the day almost everything had modified. They'd got a kind of
fore-shortening out of the bowsprit, and another set of canvas partly up
that was dirty and patched. The boats were shifted and recovered, cupola
taken off the cabin, and the whole look of the ship altered in mid-sea.
Then Clyde came out of his cabin with a board in his hand, and they
unscrewed the _Hebe Maitland's_ name from forward under the anchor hole,
and the _Hebe Maitland_ in gilt was the _Hawk_ in white.
I went off and sat down on a coil of rope, and the more I thought it
over, the more I didn't make it out.
After that I heard lively talking forward a little, and there was
Captain Clyde, the bos'n, mate, Stevey Todd, and some others arguing.
The bos'n was saying he hadn't “sworn no allegiance to no country but
the United States, an' there ain't no United States laws,” he says,
“against dodging South American customs that I ever see nohow, and being
I never see a South American man that took much stock in 'em either, I
ain't so uppish as to differ.”
Then Stevey Todd chimed in and made a tidy argument, quoting Scripture
to prove that “actions with intent to deceive, and deception pursuant,”
weren't moral, and, moreover, he says: “Shall we lose our souls because
S. A. customs is ridiculous? Tell me that!”
“Shucks!” says the mate; “we're saved by grace!”
Then Captain Clyde took it up and his argument was beautiful. For
he said S. A. customs were oppressive to the poor of that country by
wrongfully preventing them from buying U. S. goods; so that, having
sworn to the U. S., we weren't bound by S. A. laws further than humanity
or the Dago was able to enforce; “which,” he says, “I argue ain't either
of 'em the case.”
“That's a tart argiment, Captain Clyde,” says the bos'n. “I never heerd
you make a tarter.”
They went on that way till it made my head ache, and before I knew it I
was arguing hard against the bos'n, the captain egging me on.
I sailed with that crew four years. They were smugglers. I'm free to say
I loved Clyde, and liked the crew. For, granting he was much of a
miser and maybe but a shrewd old man, to be corrupting folks with his
theories, though I'm not so sure about that, not knowing what he really
thought; yet, he was a bold man, and a kind man, and I never saw one
that was keener in judgment. You might say he had made that crew to suit
him, having picked out the material one by one, and they were most of
all like children of his bringing up. I judge he had a theory about
arguments, that so long as they talked up to him and freed their
opinions, there wouldn't be any secret trouble brewing below, or maybe
it was only his humour. It was surely a fact that they were steady
in business and a rare crew to his purpose, explain it as one may. He
taught me navigation, and treated me like a son, and it's not for me to
go back on him. I don't know why he took to me that way, and different
from the rest. He taught me his business and how he did it. I was the
only one who knew. He was absolute owner as well as captain, and his own
buyer and seller as well. He carried no cargoes but his own, which he
made up for the most part in New York or Philadelphia, and would bill
the _Hebe Maitland_ maybe to Rio Janeiro. Then the _Hawk_ would maybe
deliver the biggest part off the coast of Venezuela in the night, and
the _Hebe Maitland_ would, like as not, sail into Rio by-and-by and pay
her duty on the rest, and take a cargo to New York as properly as a lady
going to church.
There were a good many countries in South America to choose from. It
wasn't wise to visit the same one right along, though there was apt to
be a new government when we came again. Clyde knew all about it. I'm
not saying but what an odd official of a government here and there was
acquainted with the merits of a percentage, being instructed in it
by the same. For all that there was excitement. It was a great life.
Sometimes I catch myself heaving a sigh for the old man that's dead, and
saying to myself, “That was a great life yonder.”
My recollection is, it was a sub-agent in Cuba who turned evidence on
Clyde at last, for a gunboat missed us by only a few miles coming down
by St. Christopher, as I heard afterward. Then a Spanish cruiser ran us
down, at last, under a corner of a little island among the Windwards,
about thirty miles east of Tobago, where Clyde's cleverness came to
nothing.
It was growing twilight, we driving close off the low shores of the
island. The woods were dark above the shore, and half a mile out was
the black cruiser, with a pennon of smoke against the sky, and the
black water between. I went into Clyde's cabin and found him talking to
himself.
“We'll be scuttling her, Tom,” he says.
With that he gave a jerk at the foot of his bunk, and the footboard came
off, and there underneath were four brown canvas bags tied up with rope.
Now, I never knew before that day that Clyde didn't keep his money in a
bank, same as any other civilised gentleman, and it shows how little
I knew about him, after all. He sat there holding up eagles and double
pesos to the lamplight, with his eyes shining and his wrinkled old mouth
smiling.
“What are you going to do with that?” I says, surprised at the sight of
it, and he kept on smiling.
“I guess you and I will take the shiners ashore,” he says; “I'd give
you a writing, but it would do you no good, Tommy. I'm what they called
tainted.”
“I don't know what you mean by that,” I says. “Scuttled she is, if you
say so. Shall we row for Tobago?”
“Well, I'll tell you how it is, Tommy,” he says. “I don't know what the
Dagos will do, and they're pretty likely to get us anyhow, but we'll
give 'em a hunt. But I've got a fancy you ain't got to the end of your
rope yet, lad,” and he says no more for a minute or two, and then he
heaves a sigh and says: “The shiners are yours if they cut me off. I
won't give you no more advice, Tommy, but I wish you luck.”
But I don't see why he had such a notion that he was near his own end.
It was a hard thing to do, to blow a hole in the bottom of the good
ship. The night was dark now, but the lights of the cruiser in plain
sight, and we knew she'd stand off until morning, or as long as the
_Hebe Maitland's_ lanterns burned at the masts. The crew put off in
three boats to round the island and wait for us, and Clyde and I took
the fourth boat, and stowed the canvas bags, and went ashore, running up
a little reedy inlet to the end. We buried them in the exact middle of a
small triangle of three trees. Then we rowed out, and I threw the spade
in the water, and when we rounded the island, taking a last look at the
_Hebe Maitland_, she was dipping considerable, as could be seen from
the hang of her lanterns. Clyde changed to another boat and put Sadler,
Craney, Irish, Abe Dalrimple, and Stevey Todd, into mine.
I noticed it as curious about us, that so long as the old man was at
hand, telling us what to do, we all acted chipper and cheerful, but as
soon as we'd drifted apart, we grew quieter, and Stevey Todd began to
act scared and lost, and was for seeing Spanish cruisers drop out of the
air, and for calling the old man continually. Somehow we dropped apart
in the dark.
I've sometimes fancied that Clyde put me in that boat with those men
because it was the lightest boat, and because Sadler, Craney, and Little
Irish were powerful good rowers, and Abe he had this that was odd about
him for a steersman, for though he was always a bit wandering in his
mind, yet he could tell land by the smell. Put him within twenty miles
of land at sea, no matter how small an island, and he'd smell the
direction of it, and steer for it like a bullet, and that's a thing he
don't understand any more than I. I never made out why Clyde took to me
that way, as he surely did, and left me his shiners as sure as he could,
and gave me what chance he could for getting away, or so I fancied. Just
so surely I never saw him again, when once we'd drifted apart that night
among the Windwards.
A New Orleans paper of the week after held an item more or less like
this:
“An incoming steamer from Trinidad, reports the overhauling of a
smuggler, _The Hawk_, by the Spanish cruiser, _Reina Isabella_.
The smugglers scuttled the ship and endeavoured to escape, but were
captured, and are thought to have been all hanged. This summary action
would seem entirely unjustifiable, as smuggling is not a capital offence
under any civilised law. The disturbed state of affairs under our
Spanish-American neighbours may account for it. _The Hawk_ is stated
to be an old offender. No American vessel of this name and description
being known however, it is not likely that there will be any
investigation.”
The New York _Shipping News_ of three months later had this:
“The bark, _Hebe Maitland_, Mdse., Clyde, Cap., which left this port the
9th of April, has not yet been heard from.”
So the _Reina Isabella_ thought she got all the crew of the _Hebe
Maitland_, likely she thinks so yet, for I don't know of anybody that
ever dropped around to correct her; but being as we rowed all night to
westward and were picked up next morning by an English steamer bound for
Colon on the Isthmus of Panama, and were properly landed in course of
time, I argue there were some of them she didn't get. Their names, as
standing on Clyde's book, were, “Robert Sadler, James Hagan, Stephen
Todd, Julius R. Craney, Abimelech Dalrimple, Thomas Buckingham.”
Kid Sadler, as he was known there and then and since, was a powerful
man, bony and tall, with a scrawny throat, ragged, dangling moustache,
big hands, little wrinkles around his eyes, and a hoarse voice. I
wouldn't go so far as to say I could give you his character, for I never
made it out; yet I'd say he was given to sentiment, and to turning out
poetry like a corn-shucker, and singing it to misfit and uneducated
tunes, and given to joyfulness and depression by turns, and to
misleading his fellow-man when he was joyful, and suffering remorse for
it afterward pretty regular, taking turns, like fever and chills; which
qualities, when you take them apart, don't seem likely to fit together
again, and I'm not saying they did fit in Sadler. They appeared to me to
project over the edges. I never made him out.
Hagan I never knew to be called any name but “Irish,” or “Little Irish,”
except by Clyde himself. He was small and chunky in build, and nervous
in his mind, and had red fuzzy hair that stuck up around his head like
an aureole. Generally silent he was, except when excited, and seemed
even then to be settled to his place in this world, which was to be
Sadler's heeler. He followed Sadler all his after days, so far as I
know, same as Stevey Todd did me. I don't know why, but I'd say as to
Irish, that he was a man without much stiffness or stay-by, if left to
himself, whereas Sadler was one that would rather be in trouble than
not, if he had the choice.
As to Craney, I'll say this. When Clyde and I were coming out of the
inlet, he gave me a hundred and forty dollars, and he says,
“Look out for Craney,” but I had no notion what he meant by it. Now,
soon after we landed in Colon, Craney and Abe Dalrimple got a chance for
a passage to New York, and my hundred and forty went off somewhere about
the same time. Sadler, Irish, nor Stevey Todd didn't take it, for they
didn't have it, not to speak of other reasons. Abe's given to wandering
in his mind, but he don't wander that way either. Now, there were
thieves enough in Colon, and Craney never owned to it, but I'll say
he showed a weakness afterward for putting cash into my pocket, that
I shouldn't have said was natural to him without further reasons. But
supposing he'd been there before, he surely put more back in the end
than he ever took out. On the other hand, if I'd had the money in Colon
I might have gone back to the Windwards and to the triangle of three
trees, with Sadler, Irish, and Stevey Todd, and so back to Greenough and
Madge Pemberton, and been a hotel-keeper maybe, which is a good trade in
Greenough. Craney was ambitious and enterprising. He had, as you might
say, soaring ideas, and he'd been a valuable man to Clyde for the
complicated schemes he was always setting up. He was a medium-sized man,
with light hair and eyebrows, and a yellowish face, and a frame lean,
though sinewy, and had only one good eye, the other pale like a fish's.
His business eye always looked like it was boring a hole in some
ingenious idea. As an arguer on the _Hebe Maitland_ his style was airy
and gorgeous, contrary to the style of Stevey Todd, who was a cautious
arguer, and gingerly.
Craney was about forty years old at the time of the _Hebe Maitland's_
loss, and Sadler about the same.
There were four of us then, left at Colon, after Craney and Abe had
gone. Pretty soon we were badly off. We couldn't seem to get berths, and
not much to eat. One day I up and says:
“I'm going across the Isthmus. Who else?” and Sadler says, “One of 'em's
me,” and we all went, footing thirty miles the first day, and slept
among the rocks on a hillside.
The fourth day we went down the watershed to the town of Panama. There
we found a ship ready in port that was short of hands, and shipped on
her to go round the Horn. She was named the _Helen Mar_.
* * * * *
Captain Buckingham paused to fill his pipe again, and Stevey Todd said:
“'Intent to deceive and deception pursuant,' was my words, and I never
give in,” and Uncle Abimelech piped up to a crazy tune:
“You can arguy here and arguy there,
But them that dangles in the air
They surely was mistook somewhere,
They ain't got good foundations.”
“Aye,” said Captain Buckingham thoughtfully. “It was so. I heard Sadler
tune that to his banjo the night we got to Colon. Abe's got that kind
of a memory, which is loose but gluey. It was so. Sadler meant old man
Clyde.”