sumpin--'bout de crick, an' de way de lan' slope, an' sich; but I watch
him, an' I see he warn't half listenin' ter ole marse, an' he kep' he
eyes on little missy. An' she useter look at him sometimes, an' smile,
an' turn away. An' den he met me on de road one Sunday when I was gwine
ter meetin', an' he stop he horse an' say: 'Good-mornin', aunty. How's
yo' mistis?' An' when I tole him she was right peart, he laugh, an drop
a gol' dollar in my han'. I went home an' tole little missy, and she
turn red, an' say, 'It was very saucy of him, mammy, an' I've got a
great mind ter make you send that money back.' But she didn't.
"He kep' comin', an' missy kep' gittin' kinder ter him, an' he was
so perlite an' he voice were so nice an' he were se'ch a gent'mun I
couldn't help thinkin' she gwi' fall in love wid him. An' one night he
come, an' arter he hed done tole ole marse good-night, she come ter de
door, an' he axed her to come out on de porch, an' pres'ny, arter he
hed been talkin' ter her in a kinder whisper, he stan' up straight an'
open he arms, an' she slip in an' laid her head on he shoulder.
"Jes' den ole marse come out. He look so white it skeered me. Little
missy raise her head, but de orficer wouldn't let go her han'. Ole
marse he shake like he hed de ager, an' he say: 'Take yo' choice. Go
wid dat man, an' take yo' father's curse, an' never darken these
doors, or sen' him away where he b'longs, an' never speak ter him
again.' De orficer say: 'Colonel Baskerville, I love your daughter,
an' she loves me. You can't separate us.' But ole marse he p'int he
finger, an' he holler, 'Take yo' choice.' An' little missy she stan'
fur a minnit or two like stone, an' den she take her han' away an'
say, 'Father can't do without me. It would kill him. You must go.' De
orficer he look like he would hol' on ter her, but she turn an' walk in
de house, an' he got on he horse, lookin' black an mizerbul, an' gallop
off as hard as he could.
"I seed a look naix day in little missy's face like missis when dey
got dat letter 'bout Georgie. She was gwine ter die--I knowed it.
Warn't nuttin' matter wid her--she went like missis. Ole marse he done
ev'ything fur her; she never say a cross word ter him, but I b'lieve
he wish she hed. Ev'y night I ondress her an' put her ter bed like
when she was a little gal, an' ev'y night she got lighter an' lighter.
'Oh, mammy,' she would say, 'I'm so tired!' an' she didn't do nuttin'
either. Ole marse he walk de floor all night. I heerd him, an' so did
little missy. 'Poor father!' she would say. Den one day, arter de
doctor hed been here an' gone, ole marse he go in de library an' he
write a letter, an' he tear it up; an' he write 'nother one, an' he
tear dat one up; an' at las' he write one an' he tooken it upst'yars
an' he lay it on little missy's bed an' went out. 'Twas ter de orficer.
Little missy she read it, an' she say, 'It's too late.' An' sho 'nough,
'twas."
She stopped again and paused. The shadows were very long by this. It
was nearly night.
"He got here befo' dey put her in de groun'. He stan' by de grave, an'
when de yearth fell in on de coffin he say to hisself, 'Amy! Amy!'
"I stayed by ole marse. I knowed 'twarn't fur long. It come one day
when he was settin' in he cheer on de porch. He didn't move fur so
long I was skeered. I went up to him, an' he was dead. Arter dat I
went away. De orficer he give me some money, an' he tole me he'd sen'
me some mo' ev'y year--an' dat's what I lives on. I c'yarn come here
no mo'. I c'yarn go to de graveyard. Evy'whar I sees my chillen like
when dey was little. I hear little missy sayin', 'Kethiah! Kethiah!' I
'spects ter see 'em soon, an' I wants ter tell 'em 'bout de ole place.
I thankee kindly fur takin' keer o' things."
She limped down the steps and soon was far down the narrow path, and
her bent and crippled form melted away into the twilight.
THE SEA FORTUNES OF DICKY CAREW.
I.
The sun shone so bright at Portsmouth Harbor that afternoon that
everything was gold and green and white except the black hulls of
the ships and the great gray forts, out of which the guns sometimes
bellowed warnings to Boney across the water. And right out in the
golden light lay his Majesty's ship-of-the-line Xantippe, riding
statelily at anchor, like a queen of the seas upon her throne, so noble
and commanding was she. But all the beauty and glory of sunlit harbor
and white-walled town and sky and ships was as black as midnight to
Dicky Carew when the dreadful summons came:
"Please, sir, the captain wants to see you in his cabin."
When Dicky stood inside the cabin facing the captain, stern, handsome,
and as neat as wax, a sorrier-looking object than Dicky Carew would
have been hard to find. His cap, which he held in his hand and twirled
dolefully, had a big hole torn in the top, his jacket was white
with dust, and right across his nose was a large black smut. Captain
Sarsfield examined him carefully from the top of his tousled yellow
head down to his unblacked shoes, Dicky blushing furiously all the
while.
"A pretty spectacle you are, Mr. Carew, for an officer and a
gentleman!" For although Dicky was only fifteen and barely five feet
high, he was a middy and a gentleman.
Dicky said nothing, but continued to twirl his cap, while his eyes
roamed uneasily around the captain's orderly cabin. And there, sitting
on a sofa, with a dolly in her lap, was a little dark-eyed girl dressed
in mourning, who was watching Dicky with great interest.
"What have you been doing, sir, to get yourself in such a mess as you
are?"
"Catching cockroaches down in the hold, sir, with Barham," answered
Dicky, in a quavering voice.
"A nice employment for two young gentlemen. When I was a midshipman, I
employed my leisure in studying my profession."
"Yes, sir. That's what all the officers tell us. Barham and I are
the only fellows I ever heard of that did anything but study their
profession."
Captain Sarsfield looked very hard indeed at Dicky. Was it possible
that this dirty and ingenuous youth was poking fun at a post-captain?
But could deceit reside in those innocent eyes and that timid, boyish
voice? The captain was in doubt.
"At all events," he continued, with an appalling look at the smut
on Dicky's sunburned nose, "your appearance, sir, is disgraceful. I
believe you are the dirtiest midshipman in his Majesty's service, and
you will be docked of leave to go ashore for the next eight days."
The captain was about to deliver Dicky a lecture, when an orderly
tapped at the cabin door and saluted.
"The new cutter has come, sir, and is about to be taken aboard."
The captain got up and went out without remembering to send Dicky back
into the steerage, where he belonged.
As Dicky continued to stand, cap in hand, he would certainly have
boohooed right out if he had not been an officer and a gentleman.
Dicky, when he remembered that, gulped down two large sobs that rose
in his throat, and winked his eyes to keep the tears back. Was there
ever another such unlucky fellow as he, Dicky Carew, he asked himself,
dismally. There was Barham, that was just as busy with the cockroaches
as he was, and yet Barham's jacket wasn't dirty nor his nose smutted,
and if the captain had sent for him he would have turned up as trig as
the captain himself. And how many times a week Dicky was mast-headed
for untidiness, and how often had he ridden to London and back on the
spanker boom for that same fault, only Dicky himself could tell.
While he was pursuing these melancholy reflections the little girl on
the sofa had fixed her dark eyes on him.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked.
"I'm dirty," answered Dicky, desperately. "I tub and scrub as much as
any of 'em, but the captain can't see what I am underneath, and he
thinks because I'm dirty outside I'm dirty all over."
"The captain is my papa," said Miss Bright Eyes.
"I wish he was _my_ papa," remarked Dicky, sadly, "if he'd be any
easier on me."
Girls, as a rule, possessed no charm for Dicky; but this was such a
very little one--not more than ten years old--that he regarded her as
an infant, and rather a pretty one.
"I'm staying in Portsmouth," she continued, nursing her dolly very
carefully, "with my governess and my nurse. My mamma is dead. She died
only a month ago--before papa's ship got here--and I come on board
nearly every day to see my papa. Sometimes, if it rains, I stay all
night. I have a funny little bed made up in papa's sleeping cabin, and
in the morning I get up and make his tea for him."
That story about her mamma went to Dicky's heart.
"And my mother got to Portsmouth this morning to see me, and she hasn't
much money, and can only stay a week, and I can't go ashore to see her
because I didn't keep my face clean and mussed my jacket."
"Why didn't you behave yourself, then?" promptly and severely asked
his young friend. "Papa always behaved himself when he was a little boy
like you."
This last very much incensed Dicky.
"Now look here, young lady," he said, "I'm an officer and a gentleman!
Didn't you hear your father call me so just now? And if people in
this ship call the officers 'little boys,' they'll get put in irons
as likely as not. As for the officers behaving themselves when they
were midshipmen, everybody knows they were angels--sea-angels--and the
steerage was a little heaven. Oh, they didn't catch cockroaches--not
they! And all the time they weren't on duty they were studying or
saying their prayers. And as for skylarking, why, they never heard of
such a thing! I'll tell you what--eh, what's your name?"
"Polly," answered Bright Eyes.
"Well, Polly, it ain't true that 'whom the gods love die young'; for if
it were, there wouldn't be an officer of this ship alive to-day. Barham
and I ain't going to die young, though. The gods don't love us, nor the
captain neither."
"You oughtn't to talk so about dying," answered Polly, gravely. "You
never had your mamma to die. Sometimes, when I've stayed on board all
night, I've waked up and seen papa sitting by me, looking so strange
and sad, and I know he is thinking about mamma, although he says, 'Go
to sleep, my dear, nothing is the matter!' and I can see the tears on
his cheek; and my papa is a brave sailor too. He says he knows I ought
to go to school, but he can't bear to part with me." This very proudly.
"I dare say," said Dicky, mournfully, "it will break my mother's heart
when she has come all this long way to see me, and can't see me. And
she will be sure to think I have done something scandalous. I know she
will!"
This worked so upon Polly's feelings that she said:
"Come here, and I'll get some pictures and show you."
"I can't," answered Dicky. "I've got to stand here until the captain
comes back."
"Then I'll come to you," said Polly.
When the captain got back he found Polly sitting on the floor, with
her lap full of pictures, and Dicky on the floor too, explaining them
to her. The captain was quite in the cabin before Dicky heard a step.
Then he jumped up, stood perfectly rigid, and blushed scarlet. It was
bad enough to be caught at boyish tricks on the quarter-deck, which had
sometimes happened, but to be found playing on the floor with a little
girl was a reflection on his manhood. However, the captain did not seem
very angry. He only said, "You may go, sir, and don't let me have to
speak to you again about your personal appearance!" and Dicky fancied
he saw something like a smile on Captain Sarsfield's face. Dicky said,
"Yes, sir," and bowed to the captain, and then to the little girl.
"Good-by, Miss Polly," said he. It had been "Polly" and "Dicky" before
the captain came in.
"Ain't you going to give me a kiss?" asked Polly in a surprised voice.
Dicky could get no redder than he was, but his hair almost stood on
end, while he darted out and down the ladder, never stopping until he
got to his own nook in the steerage.
"Girls are deuced bothersome--damme if they ain't," he remarked to
Barham--these young gentlemen, in privacy, swearing quite mannishly,
and discussing the feminine sex with a great assumption of knowingness.
Up in the cabin, the captain had said, "Polly!" in a reproving voice,
and Polly had climbed up on his knee and kissed him, by way of answer.
"Do you know, papa, Dicky's mother is poor. She is the widow of an
officer who was killed by that wicked Boney at the battle of the
Nile"--for in those days Boney was supposed to command on sea as well
as on land--"and Dicky was only ten years old, and his mother has come
to Portsmouth to see him, and she can only stay a week, so Dicky won't
be able to see her."
"Ah," said the captain, stroking his little daughter's hair.
"And she is staying in a little gray house, the next but one to the
gate leading into the great dock yard. Papa, I would like to go to see
Dicky's mother the next time we go ashore, and tell her that Dicky
hasn't done anything very bad--because he says she'll think he has been
very, very naughty--and tell her it's only because he is so dirty."
"You may go this afternoon," said the captain; "and perhaps I may let
Dicky off before the week is out."
The next day, as Dicky was rather disconsolately poring over a book on
seamanship, another summons came to the cabin. Dicky was in perfect
order, for a wonder, and looked considerably less frowsy and blowzy
than he had the day before. When he entered the captain's room the
captain was at the table, writing, and Polly, on her knees on the
cushioned seat, was peering out of the port-hole; but she turned around
when Dick entered.
"Mr. Carew," said the captain, sternly, "I hope I impressed upon you
yesterday the necessity for absolute personal neatness in your attire.
The punishment I gave you, however, I have concluded to partially
remit. After to-day, you may go ashore when you can get leave."
"Thank you, sir," replied Dicky, blushing with pleasure;
"and--and--Captain Sarsfield, I'm not--as dirty as I look."
"I am glad to hear it, sir," responded Captain Sarsfield, gravely.
"Good afternoon."
Still Dicky lingered. He wanted to say a word to Polly, but he couldn't
do it with the captain's grave eyes fixed on him. So he only hung about
for a moment, then said, "Good-by, Miss Polly," and vanished.
Dicky's mother was delighted to see him next day, and Dicky gave her
such a bear hug, as he sometimes did Barham, that his mother shrieked,
while she laughed and covered his face with kisses.
"And Dicky, such a dear little girl, all dressed in black, came here
yesterday with her nurse! She was little Polly Sarsfield, the captain's
daughter, and she told me why you couldn't come ashore, and that the
captain, hearing I was here, had concluded to remit your punishment.
I knew my dear boy wasn't punished for insubordination, or swearing,
or gambling. If I thought that possible, it would break your mother's
heart."
Dicky felt rather uncomfortable at his mother's supreme confidence in
him, and was glad she didn't know everything that went on among the
young gentlemen in the steerage.
"And Polly is a jolly little thing," remarked Dicky. "Nothing but a
baby, though."
"Polly will be a young lady by the time you are a man," answered his
mother, who did not take Dicky's assumption of manliness seriously.
"Oh, pshaw!" remarked Dicky, with a blush.
II.
In those days, when England was at war with France and half of Europe,
promotion was sometimes rapid; and when Dicky had not got very far
in his twenties he had been gazetted three times, and actually
commanded a little eighteen-gun brig that carried as much manliness
and courage as anything afloat. Dicky walked the deck of his little
vessel, the Hornet, as proudly as Captain Sarsfield walked his splendid
quarter-deck on his new line-of-battle ship--the Indomptable, finer
even than the old Xantippe. And Dicky had developed into a model
of sailor-and-officer-like neatness, and kept his ship as clean as
a lady's boudoir. And one bright day the Hornet came sailing into
Portsmouth Harbor, her sails and rigging roughly patched where the
shot had torn through, with holes covered with bright new planking in
her black sides, with four of her guns shattered at their muzzles, but
bravely towing a French sloop of war almost twice as big as the little
Hornet. The Frenchman, too, could barely keep afloat, but he had ten
good guns that Dicky had brought home in place of the four he had lost.
And Dicky, seeing the great, big, splendid Indomptable anchored in the
harbor, stood boldly in and dropped his anchor just astern of her.
Dicky knew well enough who commanded the Indomptable.
Oh, what shouting and hurrahing there was when the people in the ships
and those on shore made out the little Hornet! And what dipping of
flags and waving of caps and cheering when the little vessel had come
to anchor! And then, when Dicky, in a very small and shabby gig, with
only four men at the oars, and some of them with their heads or their
legs bound up, was rowed to the admiral's ship, there was more cheering
and shouting, which made Dicky's heart swell.
That very afternoon, by the time Dicky had got back on board the
Hornet, a gig very unlike the Hornet's gig put off from the big
Indomptable, and presently Captain Sarsfield clambered up the side, and
Dicky, looking very red and pleased, holding his cap in his hand very
much as he had done when Captain Sarsfield sent for him to scold him
about his untidiness and general naughtiness, received the captain at
the gangway.
"Let me congratulate you," said Captain Sarsfield, shaking his hand
warmly. "What a trouncing you gave the Frenchman to be sure! How you
managed to keep afloat I can't see."
"We are badly knocked to pieces," answered Dicky, "and on that account
I hope you will excuse the appearance of things. The ship isn't as
clean as I'd like her to be."
The Hornet was, though, as clean as hands could make her, her
brass-work shining and her deck snow-white, although some of her spars
were in splinters and things generally broken up. As for Dicky, he
looked as if he had been parboiled and sand-papered and then hung out
to dry, so clean was he; and he had the air of having just stepped out
of a bandbox. Captain Sarsfield grinned at Dicky.
"You are certainly cleaner than you used to be," said he.
The captain had to hear all about the fight off Cherbourg, where Dicky
sailed in under the very guns of the forts and made the Frenchman come
out to fight. It seemed very unequal at first, as the Frenchman had the
most men and the most metal. But Dicky plainly had the most seamanship,
and, in a running fight that lasted four hours, he cut the French ship
up so that at last, when she struck, nothing but a tow line and her
nearness to Portsmouth saved her from going to the bottom. Both the
Frenchman and Dicky were too far gone to carry the prisoners back to
Portsmouth. These had been transferred to another vessel, but Dicky had
the Frenchman's captain and her ensign and ten guns, which was good for
Dicky.
Dicky was dying to ask Captain Sarsfield about Polly; but, although he
had been gazetted three times, he was so afraid of the captain that he
could not get it out to save his life until just as Captain Sarsfield
was leaving.
"And--how--how is Miss Polly?" asked Dicky, looking sheepish and
blushing furiously.
"Very well," answered the captain, "and at present paying me a little
visit. When you come to dinner to-morrow you will see her. She is quite
a young lady--sixteen her last birthday."
Young ladies grew up earlier then, and sixteen was considered quite
old. So Dicky went, and found Polly a grown-up young lady, with full
muslin skirts down to her heels, a short-waisted bodice belted just
under her arms, and a large poke-bonnet. Dicky was very shy, but Polly
was not, and rallied him unmercifully, even cruelly alluding to the
smut on his nose, which she had remembered all those years.
Things were very pleasant about that time to Dicky; but then the war
closed soon after, much to Dicky's disgust, who had wild dreams of
commanding a fifty-gun sloop of war at least before Boney was finally
done for; and Dicky saw, disconsolately enough, that he was well off to
have got the little Hornet, and that he would not get anything better
for a long while.
Meanwhile, Dicky had been making hay while the sun shone, and a day had
come when he went on board the Indomptable to ask Captain Sarsfield a
very important question indeed--which was whether Polly and himself
could get married. Dicky was terribly frightened, but managed to appear
tolerably self-possessed as he sat in Captain Sarsfield's cabin,
although he could not help twiddling his cap desperately under the
table. The captain was as grave and stern as ever, and gave Dicky no
manner of help while he was blundering and floundering about, trying
to tell the captain how much he loved Polly, although it was perfectly
plain that Captain Sarsfield, or anybody with half an eye, for that
matter, must have known directly what ailed Dicky.
Then Dicky told the captain that he had a snug sum of prize money
put by, which should be Polly's, and the captain had said that Polly
was not quite dowerless, and the whole thing was arranged, Captain
Sarsfield shaking Dicky's hand formally, and wishing the young couple
might be as happy as he and Polly's mother had been, long years
ago. And for a wonder, Captain Sarsfield appeared to think that
perhaps Polly and Dicky might have something to say to each other,
and considerately stalked up and down the quarter-deck for a full
hour, while the young ones had a rapturous interview in the cabin.
When Dicky got back to the Hornet, he sent for Barham, who was his
first-lieutenant, and they hugged each other and danced round in the
cabin very much as they had done when they found amusement in catching
cockroaches in the old Xantippe.
Polly and Dicky were to be married in the spring. Dicky was cruising
about the English Channel, getting into Portsmouth for a few days
every month, where the Indomptable was lying awaiting her turn to be
overhauled and repaired, for she too had got a shot or two from Boney
before he got away to Elba.
One bright day in spring, as bright as the one on which Dicky first
met Polly, the Hornet was coming into Portsmouth. There was a spanking
breeze from the sea that tossed the white caps high, and the little
Hornet was skimming along under all the sail she could carry. Now,
although French ships had begun to appear again in English ports by
that time, they were rather unusual; so Dicky, who was on the bridge
of the Hornet, was rather surprised to see a big French frigate, the
Alceste, sailing slowly out of the inner harbor. She was a fine ship,
but she was sailing like a hay-stack, one mile ahead and three miles
to leeward. The passage into the harbor of Portsmouth is narrow--not
more than four or five hundred yards across--and from the lubberly
way the Alceste was tacking about, she would probably take all the
room there was, and considerably more if she could get it, to come
out, and leave none at all for the little Hornet; but Dicky wasn't
afraid of that. When it came to navigating a ship in a tight place,
young Captain Carew was a match for any man who sailed the seas. In
those days England claimed the sovereignty of the narrow seas, and
exacted that a man-of-war, of any other nation whatsoever, on meeting
a British war-ship in those waters, should salute the British ensign
by lowering her topsails. Naturally, this was peculiarly hateful to
French captains, who not infrequently omitted it, when the French ship
was very big and the British ship very little. Then a long official
correspondence would follow, but no French captain was ever punished
for this defiance of the might of England. Dicky Carew, however, was
not the man to consider the difference between a big ship and a little
one where the respect due the flag he carried was at stake. His ensign
was set, which was a hint to the French ship that her topsails must
come down.
But the Alceste seemed in no hurry to show her manners. The fresh
breeze that filled her ill-set sails kept most of her people busy, the
sailors bustling about the decks with more chattering and noise than
Captain Carew would have allowed on his ship in a month. But not a man
went near her topsail halliards.