Captain John Hardy, Otherwise Ancient Mariner,
Otherwise Old Man.
CAPTAIN HARDY, or Captain John Hardy, or Captain Jack Hardy, or plain
Captain Jack, or simple Captain, as his neighbors pleased to name him,
was a famous character in the village. Everybody knew the captain, and
everybody liked him. He was a mysterious sort of person,--here to-day
and there to-morrow,--coming and going all the time, until he fairly
tired out the public curiosity and people's patience altogether, so that
even the greatest gossips in the town had to confess at length that
there was no use trying to make anything of Captain Jack, and they
prudently gave up inquiring and bothering their heads about him; but
they were glad to see him always, none the less.
The Captain was known as a great talker, and was always, in former
years, brimful of stories of adventure to tell to any one he met during
his short visits to the village,--any one, indeed, who would listen to
him; and, in truth, everybody was glad to listen, he talked so well.
Many and many a summer evening he spent seated on an old bench in front
of the village inn, reciting tales of shipwrecks, and stories of the sea
and land, to the wondering people. Of late years, however, he was not
disposed to talk so much, and was not so often seen at his favorite
haunt. "I'm getting too old," he would say, "to tarry from home after
nightfall."
He had now grown to be fifty-nine years old, although he really looked
much more aged, for he bore about him the marks of much hardship and
privation. His hair was quite white, and fell in long silvery locks over
his shoulders, while a heavy snow-white beard covered his breast. There
was always something in his appearance denoting the sailor. Perhaps it
was that he always wore loose pantaloons,--white in summer, and blue in
winter,--and a sort of tarpaulin hat, with long blue ribbons tied around
it, the ends flowing off behind like the pennant of a man-of-war.
Captain Hardy was known to everybody as a generous, warm-hearted, and
harmless man; but he was thought to be equally improvident. The poor had
a constant friend in him. No beggar ever asked the Captain for a
shilling without getting it, if the Captain had a shilling anywhere
about him. Sometimes he had plenty of money, yet when at home he always
lived in a frugal, homely way. Great was the rejoicing therefore, among
his friends (and they were many), when it was known that he had fallen
in with a streak of good fortune. Having been instrumental in saving the
British bark _Dauntless_ from shipwreck, the insurance companies had
awarded him a liberal salvage, and it was to secure this that he had
gone away on his last voyage. As soon as he came home he went right off
and bought the house which we have before described, with the money he
brought back; and for once got the credit of doing a prudent thing.
The old man's happiness seemed now complete. "Here," exclaimed he,
"Heaven willing, I will bring the old craft to an anchor, and end my
days in peace." But after the excitement of fitting up his house and
grounds, and getting his little yacht in order, had passed over, he
began to feel a little lonely. He was so far away from the village that
he could not meet his old friends as often as he wished to. We have seen
that he was a great talker; and he liked so much to talk, and thus to
"fight his battles over again," as it were, and he had so much to talk
about, that an audience was quite necessary to him. It is not
improbable, therefore, that he looked upon his meeting with William and
Fred and Alice as a fortunate event for him; and if the children were
delighted, so was he. He was very fond of children, and these were
children after his own heart. To them the coming story was a great
event,--how great the reader could scarcely understand, unless he knew
how much every boy in Rockdale was envied by all the other boys, big and
little, when he was known to have been especially picked out by Captain
Hardy to be the listener to some tale of adventure on the sea.