“As she lay, on that day, in the Bay of Biscay, O!”
Previously to the occurrence of the scene at the “Bold Dragoon,”
Elizabeth had been safely reconducted to the mansion-house, where she
was left as its mistress, either to amuse or employ herself during the
evening as best suited her own inclinations. Most of the lights were
extinguished; but as Benjamin adjusted with great care and regularity
four large candles, in as many massive candlesticks of brass, in a
row on the sideboard, the hall possessed a peculiar air of comfort and
warmth, contrasted with the cheerless aspect of the room she had left in
the academy.
Remarkable had been one of the listeners to Mr. Grant, and returned with
her resentment, which had been not a little excited by the language
of the Judge, somewhat softened by reflection and the worship. She
recollected the youth of Elizabeth, and thought it no difficult task,
under present appearances, to exercise that power indirectly which
hitherto she had enjoyed undisputed. The idea of being governed, or
of being compelled to pay the deference of servitude, was absolutely
intolerable; and she had already determined within herself, some half
dozen times, to make an effort that should at once bring to an issue the
delicate point of her domestic condition. But as often as she met the
dark, proud eye of Elizabeth, who was walking up and down the apartment,
musing on the scenes of her youth and the change in her condition, and
perhaps the events of the day, the housekeeper experienced an awe that
she would not own to herself could be excited by anything mortal. It,
however, checked her advances, and for some time held her tongue-tied.
At length she determined to commence the discourse by entering on a
subject that was apt to level all human distinctions, and in which she
might display her own abilities.
“It was quite a wordy sarmon that Parson Grant gave us to-night,” said
Remarkable. “The church ministers be commonly smart sarmonizers, but
they write down their idees, which is a great privilege. I don't think
that, by nater, they are as tonguey speakers, for an off-hand discourse,
as the standing-order ministers.”
“And what denomination do you distinguish as the standing-order?”
inquired Miss Temple, with some surprise.
“Why, the Presbyter'ans and Congregationals, and Baptists, too, for-til'
now; and all sitch as don't go on their knees to prayer.”
“By that rule, then, you would call those who belong' to the persuasion
of my father, the sitting-order,” observed Elizabeth. “I'm sure I've
never heard 'em spoken of by any other' name than Quakers, so called,”
returned Remarkable, betraying a slight uneasiness; “I should be the
last to call them otherwise, for I never in my life used a disparaging'
tarm of the Judge, or any of his family. I've always set store by the
Quakers, they are so pretty-spoken, clever people, and it's a wonderment
to me how your father come to marry into a church family; for they are
as contrary in religion as can be. One sits still, and, for the most
part; says nothing, while the church folks practyse all kinds of ways,
so that I sometimes think it quite moosical to see them; for I went to a
church-meeting once before, down country.”
“You have found an excellence in the church liturgy that has hitherto
escaped me. I will thank you to inquire whether the fire in my room
burns; I feel fatigued with my journey, and will retire.”
Remarkable felt a wonderful inclination to tell the young mistress
of the mansion that by opening a door she might see for herself; but
prudence got the better of resentment, and after pausing some little
time, as a salve to her dignity, she did as desired. The report was
favorable, and the young lady, wishing Benjamin, who was filling the
stove with wood, and the housekeeper, each a good-night, withdrew.
The instant the door closed on Miss Temple, Remarkable commenced a
sort of mysterious, ambiguous discourse, that was neither abusive nor
commendatory of the qualities of the absent personage, but which
seemed to be drawing nigh, by regular degrees, to a most dissatisfied
description. The major-domo made no reply, but continued his occupation
with great industry, which being happily completed, he took a look at
the thermometer, and then opening a drawer of the sideboard, he produced
a supply of stimulants that would have served to keep the warmth in
his system without the aid of the enormous fire he had been building. A
small stand was drawn up near the stove, and the bottles and the glasses
necessary for convenience were quietly arranged. Two chairs were placed
by the side of this comfortable situation, when Benjamin, for the first
time, appeared to observe his companion.
“Come,” he cried, “come, Mistress Remarkable, bring yourself to an
anchor on this chair. It's a peeler without, I can tell you, good woman;
but what cares I? blow high or blow low, d'ye see, it's all the same
thing to Ben. The niggers are snug stowed below before a fire that would
roast an ox whole. The thermometer stands now at fifty-five, but if
there's any vartue in good maple wood, I'll weather upon it, before one
glass, as much as ten points more, so that the squire, when he comes
home from Betty Hollister's warm room, will feel as hot as a hand that
has given the rigging a lick with bad tar. Come, mistress, bring up in
this here chair, and tell me how you like our new heiress.”
“Why, to my notion, Mr. Penguillum----”
“Pump, Pump,” interrupted Benjamin; “it's Christmas eve, Mistress
Remarkable, and so, d'ye see, you had better call me Pump. It's a shorter
name, and as I mean to pump this here decanter till it sucks, why, you
may as well call me Pump.”
“Did you ever!” cried Remarkable, with a laugh that seemed to unhinge
every joint in her body. “You're a moosical creature, Benjamin, when the
notion takes you. But, as I was saying, I rather guess that times will
be altered now in this house.”
“Altered!” exclaimed the major-domo, eyeing the bottle, that was
assuming the clear aspect of cut glass with astonishing rapidity; “it
don't matter much, Mistress Remarkable, so long as I keep the keys of
the lockers in my pocket.”
“I can't say,” continued the housekeeper, “but there's good eatables
and drinkables enough in the house for a body's content--a little
more sugar, Benjamin, in the glass--for Squire Jones is an excellent
provider. But new lords, new laws; and I shouldn't wonder if you and I
had an unsartain time on't in footer.”
“Life is as unsartain as the wind that blows,” said Benjamin, with a
moralizing air; “and nothing is more varible than the wind, Mistress
Remarkable, unless you happen to fall in with the trades, d'ye see,
and then you may run for the matter of a month at a time, with
studding-sails on both sides, alow and aloft, and with the cabin-boy at
the wheel.”
“I know that life is disp'ut unsartain,” said Remarkable, compressing
her features to the humor of her companion; “but I expect there will
be great changes made in the house to rights; and that you will find
a young man put over your head, as there is one that wants to be over
mine; and after having been settled as long as you have, Benjamin, I
should judge that to be hard.”
“Promotion should go according to length of sarvice,” said the
major-domo; “and if-so-be that they ship a hand for my berth, or place
a new steward aft, I shall throw up my commission in less time than you
can put a pilot-boat in stays. The Squire Dickon”--this was a common
misnomer with Benjamin--“is a nice gentleman, and as good a man to sail
with as heart could wish, yet I shall tel the squire, d'ye see, in plain
English, and that's my native tongue, that if-so-be he is thinking
of putting any Johnny Raw over my head, why, I shall resign. I began
forrard, Mistress Prettybones, and worked my way aft, like a man. I
was six months aboard a Garnsey lugger, hauling in the slack of the
lee-sheet and coiling up rigging. From that I went a few trips in a
fore-and-after, in the same trade, which, after all, was but a blind
kind of sailing in the dark, where a man larns but little, excepting
how to steer by the stars. Well, then, d'ye see, I larnt how a topmast
should be slushed, and how a topgallant-sail was to be becketted; and
then I did small jobs in the cabin, such as mixing the skipper's grog.
'Twas there I got my taste, which, you must have often seen, is excel
lent. Well, here's better acquaintance to us.” Remarkable nodded a
return to the compliment, and took a sip of the beverage before her;
for, provided it was well sweetened, she had no objection to a small
potation now and then, After this observance of courtesy between the
worthy couple, the dialogue proceeded.
“You have had great experiences in life, Benjamin; for, as the Scripter
says, 'They that go down to the sea in ships see the works of the
Lord.'”
“Ay! for that matter, they in brigs and schooners, too; and it mought
say, the works of the devil. The sea, Mistress Remarkable, is a great
advantage to a man, in the way of knowledge, for he sees the fashions of
nations and the shape of a country. Now, I suppose, for myself here, who
is but an unlarned man to some that follows the seas, I suppose that,
taking the coast from Cape Ler Hogue as low down as Cape Finish-there,
there isn't so much as a headland, or an island, that I don't know
either the name of it or something more or less about it. Take enough,
woman, to color the water. Here's sugar. It's a sweet tooth, that fellow
that you hold on upon yet, Mistress Prettybones. But, as I was saying,
take the whole coast along, I know it as well as the way from here to
the Bold Dragoon; and a devil of acquaintance is that Bay of Biscay.
Whew! I wish you could but hear the wind blow there. It sometimes takes
two to hold one man's hair on his head. Scudding through the bay is
pretty much the same thing as travelling the roads in this country, up
one side of a mountain and down the other.”
“Do tell!” exclaimed Remarkable; “and does the sea run as high as
mountains, Benjamin?”
“Well, I will tell; but first let's taste the grog. Hem! it's the right
kind of stuff, I must say, that you keep in this country; but then
you're so close aboard the West Indies, you make but a small run of it.
By the Lord Harry, woman, if Garnsey only lay somewhere between Cape
Hatteras and the bite of Logann, but you'd see rum cheap! As to the
seas, they runs more in uppers in the Bay of Biscay, unless it may be in
a sow-wester, when they tumble about quite handsomely; thof it's not in
the narrow sea that you are to look for a swell; just go off the Western
Islands, in a westerly blow, keeping the land on your larboard
hand, with the ship's head to the south'ard, and bring to, under
a close-reefed topsail; or, mayhap, a reefed foresail, with a
fore-topmast-staysail and mizzen staysail to keep her up to the sea,
if she will bear it; and ay there for the matter of two watches, if
you want to see mountains. Why, good woman, I've been off there in the
Boadishey frigate, when you could see nothing but some such matter as a
piece of sky, mayhap, as big as the main sail; and then again, there
was a hole under your lee-quarter big enough to hold the whole British
navy.”
“Oh! for massy's sake! and wa'n't you afeard, Benjamin? and how did you
get off?”
“Afeard! who the devil do you think was to be frightened at a little
salt water tumbling about his head? As for getting off, when we had
enough of it, and had washed our decks down pretty well, we called all
hands, for, d'ye see, the watch below was in their hammocks, all the
same as if they were in one of your best bedrooms; and so we watched for
a smooth time, clapt her helm hard a weather, let fall the foresail,
and got the tack aboard; and so, when we got her afore it, I ask you,
Mistress Prettybones, if she didn't walk? didn't she? I'm no liar, good
woman, when I say that I saw that ship jump from the top of one sea to
another, just like one of these squirrels that can fly jumps from tree
to tree.”
“What! clean out of the water?” exclaimed Remarkable, lifting her two
lank arms, with their bony hands spread in astonishment.
“It was no such easy matte: to get out of the water, good woman; for the
spray flew so that you couldn't tell which was sea or which was cloud.
So there we kept her afore it for the matter of two glasses. The first
lieutenant he cun'd the ship himself, and there was four quarter masters
at the wheel, besides the master with six forecastle men in the gun-room
at the relieving tackles. But then she behaved herself so well! Oh! she
was a sweet ship, mistress! That one frigate was well worth more, to
live in, than the best house in the island. If I was king of England
I'd have her hauled up above Lon'on bridge, and fit her up for a palace;
because why? if anybody can afford to live comfortably, his majesty
can.”
“Well! but, Benjamin,” cried the listener, who was in an ecstasy of
astonishment at this relation of the steward's dangers, “what did you
do?”
“Do! why, we did our duty like hearty fellows. Now if the countrymen of
Monnsheer Ler Quaw had been aboard of her, they would have just struck
her ashore on some of them small islands; but we run along the land
until we found her dead to leeward off the mountains of Pico, and dam'me
if I know to this day how we got there--whether we jumped over the
island or hauled round it; but there we was, and there we lay, under
easy sail, fore-reaching first upon one tack and then upon t'other, so
as to poke her nose out now and then and take a look to wind'ard till
the gale blowed its pipe out.”
“I wonder, now!” exclaimed Remarkable, to whom most of the terms used by
Benjamin were perfectly unintelligible, but who had got a confused idea
of a raging tempest. “It must be an awful life, that going to sea! and I
don't feel astonishment that you are so affronted with the thoughts, of
being forced to quit a comfortable home like this. Not that a body cares
much for't, as there's more houses than one to live in. Why, when the
Judge agreed with me to come and live with him, I'd no more notion
of stopping any time than anything. I happened in just to see how the
family did, about a week after Mrs. Temple died, thinking to be back
home agin' night; but the family was in such a distressed way that I
couldn't but stop awhile and help em on. I thought the situation a good
one, seeing that I was an unmarried body, and they were so much in want
of help; so I tarried.”
“And a long time you've left your anchors down in the same place,
mistress. I think yo' must find that the ship rides easy.”
“How you talk, Benjamin! there's no believing a word you say. I must say
that the Judge and Squire Jones have both acted quite clever, so long;
but I see that now we shall have a specimen to the contrary. I heern say
thats the Judge was gone a great 'broad, and that he meant to bring his
darter hum, but I didn't calculate on sich carrins on. To my notion,
Benjamin, she's likely to turn out a desp'ut ugly gal.”
“Ugly!” echoed the major-domo, opening eyes that were beginning to close
in a very suspicious sleepiness, in wide amazement. “By the Lord Harry,
woman, I should as soon think of calling the Boadishey a clumsy frigate.
What the devil would you have? Arn't her eyes as bright as the morning
and evening stars? and isn't her hair as black and glistening as rigging
that has just had a lick of tar? doesn't she move as stately as a
first-rate in smooth water, on a bowline? Why, woman, the figure-head
of the Boadishey was a fool to her, and that, as I've often heard the
captain say, was an image of a great queen; and arn't queens always
comely, woman? for who do you think would be a king, and not choose a
handsome bedfellow?”
“Talk decent, Benjamin,” said the housekeeper, “Or I won't keep your
company. I don't gainsay her being comely to look on, but I will
maintain that she's likely to show poor conduct. She seems to think
herself too good to talk to a body. From what Squire Jones had telled
me, I some expected to be quite captivated by her company. Now, to my
reckoning, Lowizy Grant is much more pritty behaved than Betsey Temple.
She wouldn't so much as hold discourse with me when I wanted to ask her
how she felt on coming home and missing her mammy.”
“Perhaps she didn't understand you, woman; you are none of the best
linguister; and then Miss Lizzy has been exercising the king's English
under a great Lon'on lady, and, for that matter, can talk the language
almost as well as myself, or any native-born British subject. You've
forgot your schooling, and the young mistress is a great scollard.”
“Mistress!” cried Remarkable; “don't make one out to be a nigger,
Benjamin. She's no mistress of mine, and never will be. And as to
speech, I hold myself as second to nobody out of New England. I was born
and raised in Essex County; and I've always heern say that the Bay State
was provarbal for pronounsation!”
“I've often heard of that Bay of State,” said Benjamin, “but can't say
that I've ever been in it, nor do I know exactly whereaway it is that it
lays; but I suppose there is good anchorage in it, and that it's no bad
place for the taking of ling; but for size it can't be so much as a yawl
to a sloop of war compared with the Bay of Biscay, or, mayhap, Torbay.
And as for language, if you want to hear the dictionary overhauled like
a log-line in a blow, you must go to Wapping and listen to the Lon'oners
as they deal out their lingo. Howsomever, I see no such mighty matter
that Miss Lizzy has been doing to you, good woman; so take another drop
of your brews and forgive and forget, like an honest soul.”
“No, indeed! and I shan't do sitch a thing, Benjamin. This treatment is
a newity to me, and what I won't put up with. I have a hundred and fifty
dollars at use, besides a bed and twenty sheep, to good; and I don't
crave to live in a house where a body mustn't call a young woman by her
given name to her face. I will call her Betsey as much as I please;
it's a free country, and no one can stop me. I did intend to stop while
summer, but I shall quit to-morrow morning; and I will talk just as I
please.”
“For that matter, Mistress Remarkable,” said Benjamin, “there's none
here who will contradict you; for I'm of opinion that it would be as
easy to stop a hurricane with a Barcelony handkerchy as to bring up your
tongue when the stopper is off. I say, good woman, do they grow many
monkeys along the shores of that Bay of State?”
“You're a monkey yourself, Mr. Penguillum,” cried the enraged
housekeeper, “or a bear--a black, beastly bear! and ain't fit for a
decent woman to stay with. I'll never, keep your company agin, sir, if
I should live thirty years with the Judge. Sitch talk is more befitting
the kitchen than the keeping-room of a house of one who is well-to-do in
the world.”
“Look you, Mistress Pitty--Patty------Prettybones, mayhap I'm some such
matter as a bear, as they will find who come to grapple with me; but
dam'me if I'm a monkey--a thing that chatters without knowing a word of
what it says--a parrot; that will hold a dialogue, for what an honest
man knows, in a dozen languages; mayhap in the Bay of State lingo;
mayhap in Greek or High Dutch. But dost it know what it means itself?
canst answer me that, good woman? Your midshipman can sing out, and pass
the word, when the captain gives the order, but just send him adrift by
himself, and let him work the ship of his own head, and stop my grog if
you don't find all the Johnny Raws laughing at him.”
“Stop your grog, indeed!” said Remarkable, rising with great
indignation, and seizing a candle; “you're groggy now, Benjamin and
I'll quit the room before I hear any misbecoming words from you.” The
housekeeper retired, with a manner but little less dignified, as she
thought, than the air of the heiress, muttering as she drew the door
after her, with a noise like the report of a musket, the opprobrious
terms of “drunkard,” “sot,” and “beast.”
“Who's that you say is drunk?” cried Benjamin fiercely, rising and
making a movement toward Remarkable. “You talk of mustering yourself
with a lady you're just fit to grumble and find fault. Where the devil
should you larn behavior and dictionary? in your damned Bay of State,
ha?”
Benjamin here fell back in his chair, and soon gave vent to certain
ominous sounds, which resembled not a little the growling of his
favorite animal the bear itself. Before, however, he was quite
locked--to use the language that would suit the Della-cruscan humor of
certain refined minds of the present day--“in the arms of Morpheus,” he
spoke aloud, observing due pauses between his epithets, the impressive
terms of “monkey,” “parrot,” “picnic,” “tar pot,” and “linguisters”
We shall not attempt to explain his meaning nor connect his sentences;
and our readers must be satisfied with our informing them that they were
expressed with all that coolness of contempt that a man might well be
supposed to feel for a monkey.
Nearly two hours passed in this sleep before the major domo was awakened
by the noisy entrance of Richard, Major Hartmann, and the master of the
mansion. Benjamin so far rallied his confused faculties as to shape
the course of the two former to their respective apartments, when he
disappeared himself, leaving the task of securing the house to him
who was most interested in its safety. Locks and bars were but little
attended to in the early days of that settlement, and so soon as
Marmaduke had given an eye to the enormous fires of his dwelling he
retired. With this act of prudence closes the first night of our tale.