“—Well, Jessica, go in;
Perhaps, I will return immediately;
Do as I bid you,
Shut doors after you: Fast bind, fast find;
A proverb never stale, in thrifty mind.”
Merchant of Venice.
The decision, with which la demoiselle Barbérie had dismissed her
suitor, was owing to some consciousness that she had need of
opportunity to reflect on the singular nature of the events which had
just happened, no less than to a sense of the impropriety of his
visiting her at that hour, and in a manner so equivocal. But, like
others who act from feverish impulses, when alone the maiden repented
of her precipitation; and she remembered fifty questions which might
aid in clearing the affair of its mystery, that she would now gladly
put. It was too late, however, for she had heard Ludlow take his leave,
and had listened, in breathless silence, to his footstep, as he passed
the shrubbery of her little lawn. François reappeared at the door, to
repeat his wishes for her rest and happiness, and then she believed she
was finally alone for the night, since the ladies of that age and
country, were little apt to require the assistance of their attendants,
in assuming, or in divesting themselves of, their ordinary attire.
It was still early, and the recent interview had deprived Alida of all
inclination for sleep. She placed the lights in a distant corner of the
apartment, and approached a window. The moon had so far changed its
position, as to cast a different light upon the water. The hollow
washing of the surf, the dull but heavy breathing of the air from the
sea, and the soft shadows of the trees and mountain, were much the
same. The Coquette lay, as before, at her anchor near the cape, and the
Shrewsbury glittered towards the south, until its surface was concealed
by the projection of a high and nearly perpendicular bluff.
The stillness was profound, for, with the exception of the dwelling of
the family who occupied the estate nearest the villa, there was no
other habitation within some miles of the place. Still the solitude of
the situation was undisturbed by any apprehension of danger, or any
tradition of violence from rude and lawless men. The peaceable
character of the colonists, who dwelt in the interior country, was
proverbial, and their habits simple; while the ocean was never entered
by those barbarians, who then rendered some of the seas of the other
hemisphere as fearful as they were pleasant.
Notwithstanding this known and customary character of tranquillity, and
the lateness of the hour, Alida had not been many moments in her
balcony, before she heard the sound of oars. The stroke was measured,
and the noise low and distant, but it was too familiar to be mistaken.
She wondered at the expedition of Ludlow, who was not accustomed to
show such haste in quitting her presence, and leaned over the railing
to catch a glimpse of his departing boat. Each moment she expected to
see the little bark issue from out of the shadows of the land, into the
sheet of brightness which stretched nearly to the cruiser. She gazed
long, and in vain, for no barge appeared, and yet the sound had become
inaudible. A light still hung at the peak of the Coquette, a sign that
the commander was out of his vessel.
The view of a fine ship, seen by the aid of the moon, with its symmetry
of spars, and its delicate tracery of cordage, and the heavy and grand
movements of the hull as it rolls on the sluggish billows of a calm
sea, is ever a pleasing and indeed an imposing spectacle. Alida knew
that more, than a hundred human beings slept within the black and
silent mass, and her thoughts insensibly wandered to the business of
their daring lives, their limited abode, and yet wandering existence,
their frank and manly qualities, their devotion to the cause of those
who occupied the land, their broken and interrupted connexion with the
rest of the human family, and finally to those weakened domestic ties,
and to that reputation for inconstancy, which are apparently a natural
consequence of all. She sighed, and her eye wandered from the ship to
that ocean on which it was constructed to dwell. From the distant, low,
and nearly imperceptible shore of the island of Nassau, to the coast of
New-Jersey, there was one broad and untenanted waste. Even the sea-fowl
rested his tired wing, and slept tranquilly on the water. The broad
space appeared like some great and unfrequented desert, or rather like
a denser and more material copy of the firmament by which it was
canopied.
It has been mentioned that a stunted growth of oaks and pines covered
much of the sandy ridge that formed the cape. The same covering
furnished a dark setting to the waters of the Cove. Above this outline
of wood, which fringed the margin of the sea. Alida now fancied she saw
an object in motion. At first, she believed some ragged and naked tree,
of which the coast had many, was so placed as to deceive her vision,
and had thrown its naked lines upon the background of water, in a
manner to assume the shape and tracery of a light-rigged vessel. But
when the dark and symmetrical spars were distinctly seen, gliding past
objects that were known to be stationary, it was impossible to doubt
their character. The maiden wondered, and her surprise was not unmixed
with apprehension. It seemed as if the stranger for such the vessel
must needs be, was recklessly approaching a surf, that, in its most
tranquil moments, was dangerous to such a fabric, and that he steered,
unconscious of hazard, directly upon the land. Even the movement was
mysterious and unusual. Sails there were none; and yet the light and
lofty spars were soon hid behind a thicket that covered a knoll near
the margin of the sea. Alida expected, each moment, to hear the cry of
mariners in distress, and then, as the minutes passed and no such
fearful sound interrupted the stillness of the night, she began to
bethink her of those lawless rovers, who were known to abound among the
Carribean isles, and who were said sometimes even to enter and to
refit, in the smaller and more secret inlets of the American continent.
The tales, coupled with the deeds, character, and fate of the notorious
Kidd, were then still recent, and although magnified and colored by
vulgar exaggerations, as all such tales are known to be, enough was
believed, by the better instructed, to make his life and death the
subject of many curious and mysterious rumors. At this moment, she
would have gladly recalled the young commander of the Coquette, to
apprize him of the enemy that was nigh; and then, ashamed of terrors
that she was fain to hope savored more of woman’s weakness than of
truth, she endeavored to believe the whole some ordinary movement of a
coaster, who, familiar with his situation, could not possibly be either
in want of aid, or an object of alarm. Just as this natural and
consoling conclusion crossed her mind, she very audibly heard a step in
her pavilion. It seemed near the door of the room she occupied.
Breathless, more with the excitement of her imagination, than with any
actual fear created by this new cause of alarm, the maiden quitted the
balcony, and stood motionless to listen. The door, in truth, was
opened, with singular caution, and, for an instant, Alida saw nothing
but a confused area in the centre of which appeared the figure of a
menacing and rapacious freebooter.
“Northern lights and moonshine!” growled Alderman Van Beverout, for it
was no other than the uncle of the heiress, whose untimely and
unexpected visit had caused her so much alarm. “This sky-watching, and
turning of night into day, will be the destruction of thy beauty,
niece; and then we shall see how plenty Patroons are for husbands! A
bright eye and a blooming cheek are thy stock in trade, girl; and she
is a spendthrift of both, who is out of her bed when the clock hath
struck ten.”
“Your discipline would deprive many a beauty of the means of using her
power,” returned la demoiselle, smiling, as much at the folly of her
recent fears, as with affection for her reprover. “They tell me, that
ten is the witching time of night, for the necromancy of the dames of
Europe.”
“Witch me no witches! The name reminds one of the cunning Yankees, a
race that would outwit Lucifer himself, if left to set the conditions
to their bargain. Here is the Patroon, wishing to let in a family of
the knaves among the honest Dutchmen of his manor; and we have just
settled a dispute between us, on this subject, by making the lawful
trial.”
“Which, it may be proper to hope, dearest uncle, was not the trial by
battle?”
“Peace and olive-branches, no! The Patroon of Kinderhook is the last
man in the Americas, that is likely to suffer by the blows of Myndert
Van Beverout. I challenged the boy to hold a fine eel, that the blacks
have brought out of the river to help in breaking our morning fasts,
that it might be seen if he were fit to deal with the slippery rogues.
By the merit of the peaceable St. Nicholas! but the son of old Hendrick
Van Staats had a busy time of it! The lad griped the fish, as the
ancient tradition has it that thy uncle clenched the Holland florin,
when my father put it between my fingers, within the month, in order to
see if the true saving grace was likely to abide in the family for
another generation. My heart misgave me for a moment; for young Oloff
has the fist of a vice, and I thought the goodly names of the Harmans,
and Rips, Corneliuses, and Dircks of the manor rent-roll were likely to
be contaminated by the company of an Increase or a Peleg; but just as
the Patroon thought he had the watery viper by the throat, the fish
gave an unexpected twist, and slid through his fingers by the tail.
Flaws and loop-holes! but that experiment has as much wisdom as wit in
it!”
“And to me, it seemeth better, now that Providence has brought all the
colonies under one government, that these prejudices should be
forgotten. We are a people, sprung from many nations, and our effort
should be to preserve the liberality and intelligence, while we forget
the weaknesses, of all.”
“Bravely said, for the child of a Huguenot! But I defy the man, who
brings prejudice to my door. I like a merry trade, and a quick
calculation. Let me see the man in all New-England, that can tell the
color of a balance-sheet quicker than one that can be named, and I’ll
gladly hunt up the satchel and go to school again. I love a man the
better for looking to his own interests, I; and, yet common honesty
teaches us, that there should be a convention between men, beyond which
none of reputation and character ought to go.”
“Which convention shall be understood, by every man, to be the limits
of his own faculties; by which means the dull may rival the quick of
thought. I fear me, uncle, there should be an eel kept on every coast,
to which a trader comes!”
“Prejudice and conceit, child, acting on a drowsy head; ’tis time thou
seekest thy pillow, and in the morning we shall see if young Oloff of
the Manor shall have better success with thy favor, than with the
prototype of the Jonathans. Here, put out these flaring candles, and
take a modest lamp to light thee to thy bed. Glaring windows, so near
midnight give a house an extravagant name, in the neighborhood.”
“Our reputation for sobriety may suffer in the opinion of the eels,”
returned Alida, laughing, “but here are few others, I believe, to call
us dissipated.”
“One never knows—one never knows—” muttered the Alderman, extinguishing
the two large candles of his niece, and substituting his own little
handlamp in their place. “This broad light only invites to wakefulness,
while the dim taper I leave is good as a sleeping draught. Kiss me,
wilful one, and draw thy curtains close, for the negroes will soon rise
to load the periagua, that they may go up with the tide to the city.
The noise of the chattering black guards may disturb thy slumbers!”
“Truly, it would seem there was little here to invite such active
navigation,” returned Alida, saluting the cheek of her uncle at his
order. “The love of trade must be strong, when it finds the materials
of commerce, in a solitude like this.”
“Thou hast divined the reason, child. Thy father Monsieur de Barbérie
had his peculiar opinions on the subject, and doubtless he did not fail
to transmit some of them to his offspring. And yet, when the Huguenot
was driven from his château and his clayey Norman lands, the man had no
distaste, himself, for an account-current, provided the balance was in
his own favor. Nations and characters! I find but little difference,
after all, in trade; whether it be driven with a Mohawk for his pack of
furs, or with a Seigneur, who has been driven from his lands. Each
strives to get the profit on his own side of the account, and the loss
on that of his neighbor. So rest thee well, girl; and remember that
matrimony is no more than a capital bargain, on whose success depends
the sum-total of a woman’s comfort—and so once more, good night.”
La belle Barbérie attended her uncle, dutifully to the door of her
pavilion, which she bolted after him; and then, finding her little
apartment gloomy by the light of the small and feeble lamp he had left,
she was pleased to bring its flame in contact with the wicks of the two
candles he had just extinguished. Placing the three, near each other,
on a table, the maiden again drew nigh a window. The unexpected
interview with the Alderman had consumed several minutes, and she was
curious to know more of the unaccountable movements of the mysterious
vessel.
The same deep silence reigned about the villa, and the slumbering ocean
was heaving and setting as heavily as before. Alida again looked for
the boat of Ludlow; but her eye ran over the whole distance of the
bright and broad streak, between her and the cruiser, in vain. There
was the slight ripple of the water in the glittering of the moon’s
rays, but no speck, like that the barge would make, was visible. The
lantern still shone at the cruiser’s peak. Once, indeed, she thought
the sound of oars was again to be heard, and much nearer than before;
and yet no effort of her quick and roving sight could detect the
position of the boat. But to all these doubts succeeded an alarm which
sprang from a new and very different source.
The existence of the inlet, which united the ocean with the waters of
the Cove, was but little known, except to the few whose avocations kept
them near the spot. The pass being much more than half the time closed,
its varying character, and the little use that could be made of it
under any circumstances, prevented the place from being a subject of
general interest, with the coasters. Even when open the depth of its
water was uncertain, since a week or two of calms, or of westerly
winds, would permit the tides to clean its channel, while a single
easterly gale was sufficient to choke the entire inlet with sand. No
wonder, then, that Alida felt an amazement which was not quite free
from superstitious alarm when, at that hour and in such a scene, she
saw a vessel gliding, as it were unaided by sails or sweeps, out of the
thicket that fringed the ocean side of the Cove, into its very centre.
The strange and mysterious craft was a brigantine of that mixed
construction, which is much used, even in the most ancient and
classical seas of the other hemisphere, and which is supposed to unite
the advantages of both a square and of a fore-and-aft rigged vessel,
but which is nowhere seen to display the same beauty of form, and
symmetry of equipment, as on the coasts of this Union. The first and
smallest of its masts had all the complicated machinery of a ship, with
its superior and inferior spars, its wider reaching, though light and
manageable yards, and its various sails, shaped and arranged to meet
every vicissitude and caprice of the winds; while the latter, or larger
of the two, rose like the straight trunk of a pine from the hull,
simple in its cordage, and spreading a single sheet of canvas, that, in
itself, was sufficient to drive the fabric with vast velocity through
the water. The hull was low, graceful in its outlines, dark as the
raven’s wing, and so modelled as to float on its element like a
sea-gull riding the billows. There were many delicate and attenuated
lines among its spars, which were intended to spread broader folds of
canvas to the light airs, when necessary; but these additions to the
tracery of the machine, which added so much to its beauty by day, were
now, seen as it was by the dimmer and more treacherous rays of the
moon, scarcely visible. In short, as the vessel had entered the Cove
floating with the tide, and it was so singularly graceful and
fairy-like in form, that Alida, at first, was fain to discredit her
senses, and to believe it no more than some illusion of the fancy. Like
most others, she was ignorant of the temporary inlet, and, under the
circumstances, it was not difficult to lend a momentary credence to so
pleasing an idea.
But the delusion was only momentary. The brigantine turned in its
course, and, gliding into the part of the Cove where the curvature of
the shores offered most protection from the winds and waves, and
perhaps from curious eyes, its motion ceased. A heavy plunge in the
water was audible even at the villa, and Alida then knew that an anchor
had fallen into the bay.
Although the coast of North America offered little to invite lawless
depredation, and it was in general believed to be so safe, yet the
possibility that cupidity might be invited by the retired situation of
her uncle’s villa, did not fail to suggest itself to the mind of the
young heiress. Both she and her guardian were reputed to be wealthy;
and disappointment, on the open sea, might drive desperate men to the
commission of crimes that in more prosperous moments would not suggest
themselves. The freebooters were said to have formerly visited the
coast of the neighboring island, and men were just then commencing
those excavations for hidden treasures and secreted booty, which have
been, at distant intervals, continued to our own time.
There are situations in which the mind insensibly gives credit to
impressions, that the reason in common disapproves. The present was one
in which Alide de Barbérie, though of a resolute and even a masculine
understanding, felt disposed to believe there might be truth in those
tales, that she had hitherto heard, only to deride. Still keeping her
eye on the motionless vessel, she drew back into her window and wrapped
the curtain round her form, undecided whether to alarm the family or
not, and acting under a vague impression that, though so distant, her
person might be seen. She was hardly thus secreted, before the
shrubbery was violently agitated, a footstep was heard in the lawn
beneath her window, and then one leaped so lightly into the balcony,
and from the balcony into the centre of the room, that the passage of
the figure seemed like the flitting of some creature of supernatural
attributes.