Phil the Fifer.
The evening passed pleasantly at Master Peter Walker’s. Mistress Walker
was glad to have the opportunity to get a fresh stock of needles and
thread, and other little things which the pedler kept for sale. Phil
was an old acquaintance. For many years he had been a welcome guest at
the Walker homestead. In him Peter found a congenial spirit, and the
neighbors were sure to come in to enjoy the old man’s droll stories and
listen to the stirring music of his fife. Phil was always ready to do
his best and his popularity was unbounded with the young folks who had
no sympathy with the puritanical idea that dancing was the invention of
Satan.
The general public knew very little of Phil’s history. Only to Peter
Walker had he confided the fact that, when a mere youth, he had come to
this country from Ireland. He had been a “bound-man” in Pennsylvania
years before the Revolution, but when the Continental army took the
field, Phil Murphy had joined the patriot ranks and served through the
war with credit. Then he became a wanderer in search of adventure, and,
as he told Peter: “Bedad, I found plinty of it!” About the beginning
of the century, he came to Boston, his only possessions being his
beloved fife and a cheerful mind. He was getting old and unfitted for
hard work, so he took to the road as a pedler and eventually found his
way to Cape Cod where his little wares were in demand and where he
established a route.
The people liked his pleasant ways and he was always welcome to their
firesides, having no permanent home of his own.
Small of stature, with bright blue eyes and a dulcet brogue, Phil
the Fifer, as he was commonly called, was still an active man
notwithstanding his seventy years.
Late that night, long after the family had retired, Phil and Peter were
engaged in discussing the feasibility of the mission to the “Spencer.”
As Peter had surmised, Phil was more than anxious to be of assistance
to his good friends. There might be some difficulty in getting an
interview with the prisoners, but he felt sure there would be no
objection to his visiting the warship.
“It’s just like this, Masther Walker: the boys aboard the ship think
old Phil is a kind of an omadhaun, as we call a simpleton in the old
counthry. Captain Raggett has a fine crew of dacint min, an’ many
the shillin’ they threw at the old pedler for his little goods. The
officers is all gintiemin, an’ there’s only wan man aboard who behaves
like an upstart of a fellow. He’s a master’s mate called Dunton. He
thried some of his nasty ways on me, but I kep’ my timper, thank God!”
“Perhaps he may interfere with you again, Phil?”
“Well, Masther Walker, if he does it won’t upset me. You see, if I am
to get this job done for you, it won’t do for me to lose my timper
whatever cause I get, will it?”
“No, Phil, it won’t. I know we can trust you, old friend, and I am
proud that I told the meeting so. Not that any person doubted you, but
you know these are troubled times, Phil, and the enemy is upon us; so
most of us don’t know which way to turn for help.”
“I know that well, sir, an’ it would ill become me to refuse to do a
small favor for the frinds who have always been good to old Phil, even
if my heart an’ soul wasn’t with the cause.”
“You are well acquainted in Provincetown?”
“Oh, fairly well, Masther Walker. Old Phil knows almost everybody on
the Cape. There isn’t much money in Provincetown these times, but the
good housekeepers have always a few pence for the needles an’ thread.
I’ll borry a skiff from me frind John Whorf. He is fine man.”
“Yes, Phil; Master Whorf is one of the Committee of Safety there.
Remember me to him; he called at my shop about a month ago. He was on
his way to Yarmouth and his horse wanted shoes. He told me all about
the desperate state of affairs in his town.”
“There’s one thing I should like to mintion, Masther Walker. The min
of Raggett’s ship are the very divils to dhrink when they can get the
stuff. Now that their shore lave has been stopped for some time past,
they will have a ragin’ thirst an’ nothing to satisfy it. An’, by the
same token, they won’t be in any good sperrits to talk much about their
doin’s. You know there’s nothing to loosen a man’s tongue like a dhrop
o’ the crather!”
“It makes a fool of the best of us, Phil. However, I see what you mean
and I agree with you that a little lubricant is essential. There isn’t
very much of anything in the town at present but Uriah Nickerson has a
demijohn laid by for cases of sickness and I can get a quart to help
you out.”
Phil smiled. “A quart isn’t much among three hundred min, Masther
Walker, but it will do first rate. There’s one chap aboard that’s a
great frind o’ mine. He’s the boatswain an’ he loves his gill, an’ whin
he’s taken a dhrop or two he’s extra frindly. He’s sure to know what’s
up an’ I’ll thry him with a taste o’ Uriah’s medicine.”
“All right, Phil, I’ll have it for you in the morning. By the way, I’ll
send the horse with you as far as Truro. It will be safer for you to
walk after you get there.”
“That’s so, Masther Walker. ’Tis like puttin’ a beggar on horseback to
see old Phil the Fifer ridin’. I’m used to walkin’ in my business an’
the journey won’t bother me.”
“We should like to hear from you as soon as possible, Phil.”
“Thin I should start airly. I could stable the horse at Truro, an’ as
I expect to be aboard the frigate tomorrow evenin’, I may be here the
same night, or, at any rate, airly the next mornin’.”
“That will be quick work, Phil, considering the difficulty of your task
and your age?”
“Surely I’m not as young an’ active as I ought be, Masther Walker, but
this is work that must be done at once an’ whin it’s over, you’ll admit
that old Phil is no snail whin his frinds want him to hurry.”
Peter impulsively put out his hand and grasped that of the old man.
“By the Lord!” he exclaimed, “I wish there were more hearts of gold
like yours, Phil the Fifer! I have often wondered how a man of your
intelligence could be content with the humble occupation of a pedler.
You must have come of good stock, Phil?”
“No betther in the old County Kerry, Masther Walker, even if I do say
it meself, that shouldn’t. But that’s not here or there now. Old Phil
has made his bed an’ he must lie on it; but there was a time whin there
wasn’t a smarter gorsoon in the Pinnsylvany Rifles than Phil Murphy!
That winter at Valley Forge thried the best of us, but nobody could say
that Phil was a grumbler.”
“I’m sure of that, old friend.”
“I’m thinkin’, Masther Walker, that if I see aither of our frinds on
the frigate, it won’t do for me to show the British that I know thim.”
“Why, Phil, they will be sure to speak to you if they get a chance?”
“I know that, but I must thry an’ let the inimy believe that I never
saw Captain Knowles or Captain Mayo before. ’Twill be hard for me to do
so, especially if the captains get ahead of any signal I may make to
thim, but I may be able to manage it.”
“That’s so. Hoppy is nimble-witted and it won’t take much to make him
understand your object in avoiding them. Use your own judgment, Phil.”
The arrangements for the journey to Provincetown having been perfected,
conversation turned to the topics of the day. It was a period in
which newspapers were scarce and few of them reached the remote
villages of Cape Cod. News of the outside world was brought by traders
and travelers who had occasion to visit Boston, and they sometimes
thoughtfully purchased a copy of the Boston “Centinel” for their
friends at home. This paper was eagerly read and passed from family to
family, but, of course, the details of public events on the Cape were
meagre, and many important happenings were never chronicled in the
press. Men like Phil the Fifer, whose business took them into every
household in the district, knew everything that was going on and they
were always willing to spread the news wherever they went.
Phil told his host many interesting stories of the march of events
in the upper Cape towns. The attacks of the British warships on
Falmouth were described and the narrator was loud in his praises of
the gallantry displayed by the defenders under the command of Captain
Weston Jenkins of the local militia. With martial ardor, the old
man told the tale of how the commander of the British brig “Nimrod”
demanded the surrender of the pieces of artillery which annoyed his
vessel, and how Captain Jenkins tauntingly replied: “Come and get
them!” How the sick and non-combatants were removed to places of safety
when the bombardment commenced, while the militia from the neighboring
towns rushed to reinforce the resolute patriots of Falmouth. Then he
told of the conditions at Hyannis, Yarmouth and other places and kept
Master Peter Walker awake until after midnight.
We leave old Phil on his way to Provincetown while we return to our
friends on the “Spencer.”