While young Bowdoin's father, with the file of soldiers, marched up
State Street to a magistrate's office, Mr. James and clerk McMurtagh
retired with their spoils to the counting-room. Here these novel
consignments to the old house of James Bowdoin's Sons were safely
deposited on the floor; and the clerk and the young master, eased of
their burdens, but not disembarrassed, looked at one another. The old
clock ticked with unruffled composure; the bag of gold lay gaping on
the wooden floor, where young Bowdoin had untied its mouth to see; and
the little maid had climbed upon McMurtagh's stool, and was playing
with the leaves of the big ledger familiarly, as if pirates' maids and
pirates' treasure were entered on the debit side of every page.
"What shall I do with the money?" asked Bowdoin.
"Count it," said McMurtagh, with a gasp, as if the words were wrung
from him by force of habit.
"And when counted?"
"Enter it in the ledger, Mr. James," said McMurtagh, with another
gasp.
"To whose account?"
"For account--of whom it may concern."
Bowdoin began to count it, and the clock went on ticking; one piece
for each tick of the clock. He did not know many of the pieces; and
McMurtagh, as they were held up to him, broke the silence only to
answer arithmetically, "Doubloon,--value eight dollars two shillings,
New England;" or, "Pistole,--value the half, free of agio." When they
were all counted, McMurtagh opened a new page in the ledger, and a new
account for the house: "June 24, 1829. To credit of Pirates, or Whom
it may concern, sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven
dollars."
"Pirates!" he muttered; "it's a new account for us to carry. I'll not
be sorry the day we write it off."
Bowdoin, in the frivolity of youth, laughed.
"And now," said McMurtagh, "you must tie up the bag again and seal it,
and I must take it up and put it in the vault of the bank."
"And the little girl?" asked Bowdoin. "We can hardly carry her upon
the books."
"For the benefit of whom it may concern," said the clerk absently.
Bowdoin laughed again.
McMurtagh looked at her and gasped, but this time silently. She had
clambered down from the stool, and was gazing with delight at the old
pictures of the ships; but, as if she understood that she was being
talked about, she turned around and looked at them with large round
eyes.
"What is your name?" said he; and then, "Como se llama V.?" (for we
all knew a little Spanish in those days.)
"Mercedes," said the child.
"I suppose," ventured Bowdoin, "there is some asylum"--
McMurtagh looked dubious; and the little maid, divining that the
discussion of her was unfavorable, fell to tears, and then ran up and
dried them on McMurtagh's business waistcoat.
"You take the gold," said he dryly; "I'll carry the child myself."
"Where?" inquired young Bowdoin, astonished.
"Home," said McMurtagh sharply.
McMurtagh was known to have an old mother and a bedridden father (a
retired drayman, run over in the service of the firm), whom he lived
with, and with some difficulty supported. Yet little could be said
against the plan, as a temporary arrangement, if they were willing to
assume the burden. At all events, before Mr. James could find speech
for objection, McMurtagh was off with the child in his arms, seeking
to soothe her with uncouth words of endearment as he bore her
carefully down the narrow stairs.
James Bowdoin laughed a little, and then grew silent. Finally, his
glance falling on the yellow piles still lying on the floor, he
shoveled them into the bag again and shouldered it up to the bank.
There the deposit of specie was duly made, the money put in the old
chest and sealed, and he learned that the pirates had been committed
to stand their trial. And he and his father talked it over, and
decided that the child might as well stay with McMurtagh, for the
present at any rate.
But that "present" was long in passing; for the pirates were duly
tried, and all but one of them found guilty, sentenced to be hanged,
and duly executed on an island in the harbor. There were no
sentimentalists about in those days; and their gibbets were erected in
the sand of that harbor island, and their bodies swung for many days
(as these same sentimentalists might now put it) near the sea they had
loved so well; being a due encouragement to other pirates to leave
Boston ships alone. Pity the town has not kept up those tactics with
its railways!
All the common seamen were executed, that is, and Manuel Silva, the
second in command, who had left the little girl with McMurtagh. The
captain, it was proved, had been polite to his two lady captives: the
men safely disposed of, he had placed the best cabin at their command,
and had even gone so far out of his way as to head the ship toward
Boston, on their behalf; promising to place them on board some
fishing-smack, not too far out. Silva had not agreed to this, and it
had led to something like a mutiny on the part of the crew. It was
owing to this, doubtless, that they were captured. De Soto, it was
known, was a married man; moreover, he was new in command, and not
used to pirate ways.
However, this conduct was deemed courteous by the administration at
Washington, and, feminine influence being always potent with Andrew
Jackson, De Soto's sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life;
and shortly after, being taken to a quiet little country prison, he
made interest with the jailer and escaped. It was reported that he
shipped upon an African trader; and, going down the harbor past the
figure of Manuel Silva elegantly outlined against the sky, he bowed
sardonically to the swaying _schema_ of his ancient messmate. It
excited some little comment on the African trader at the time; but the
usual professional _esprit de corps_ keeps sailors from asking too
many questions about the intimate professional conduct of their
messmates in earlier voyages.
But that is why De Soto made no draft upon the credit side of his
account at the Old Colony Bank; and James Bowdoin's Sons continued to
carry the deposit on their books "for the benefit of whom it may
concern." And so McMurtagh, who had taken little Mercedes Silva home
that day, continued to make a home for her there, his old mother and
his father aiding and abetting him in the task; and he carried her
young life, in addition to his other burdens, "for the benefit of whom
it may concern."
"Whom it may concern" is too old a story, in such cases, ever to be
thought of by the actors in them.