The morning after Cheever’s arrival at the tavern he was awakened at
sunrise by the bells, jangling exultantly, as if the men at the ropes
were imparting their own wild feelings to the metal.
He looked out into the street and at another window saw the landlord’s
imperturbable face, surmounted by a red cotton night-cap, and below in
Glover Street several excited men were standing in a group around a man
on horseback by the tavern door.
Wilder grew the bells, so that it seemed to Cheever that the whole town
was afire, but he looked in vain for the conflagration. He could only
see the sun was rising to brighten the world during another fair June
day.
“What is the matter, Noyes?” asked Cheever.
“Congress has declared war against the Britishers,” answered the
landlord. “The news was just brought in from Boston by the courier, the
man on the black horse. It’s about time, I should think. There’ll be
some lively days for the boys in privateering. There’s Captain Vickery
of the _Lion_ out there now; he’ll know what to do with his schooner, I
guess.”
With this the red night-cap disappeared within the room, and Cheever
began to put on his clothes as quickly as he could.
“War!” that was his chance; a privateersman with the rich commerce of
England to prey upon had a rich preserve to poach, and could lead the
reckless life of a pirate without the yard-arm or gibbet in the vista
of the future.
His three thousand dollars would come in handy now; he could buy an
interest in a privateer and be one of its officers, and with a smart
boat and a Yankee crew a few lucky strokes would make his fortune. He
soon joined the group of men in the street; a short, thick-set man,
with a long blond beard, frank light blue eyes, wearing a blue coat
and buff small-clothes, he took to be Captain Vickery; the other men
were common fishermen--great, strapping fellows, who showed from their
lounging, uncomfortable attitudes on land that their natural element
was the sea.
The stirring news made it seem quite natural for a stranger to join in
their conversation, and it was evident that the war-bells had roused
the same thoughts in their breasts that they had in Cheever’s.
“It’s high time the President declared war!” Captain Vickery was
saying, as Cheever joined the men. “High time; we have stood their
British insolence long enough. It’s five years since the _Leopard_
fired into the _Chesapeake_, and we have been submitting to their
outrages ever since.”
“We can make up some of our losses during the Embargo,” spoke up one of
the men.
“Yes; we can, and we will, Hiram Wooldredge,” returned Vickery,
slapping Hiram upon the shoulder as he spoke. “This old town will be as
full of life as a bee-hive before the sun’s an hour higher. We must get
to work on the old _Lion_, and sharpen up her claws. It will be hard
luck if we don’t sail into harbor with a prize before many days.”
“You are Captain Vickery, of the _Lion_?” asked Cheever.
“I am; and what’s your name, sir?”
“Thomas Marks, at your service. This is great news, Captain Vickery,
and hits me just right. I have seen a good deal of service at sea, and
should like to ship with you on the _Lion_.”
“But I know nothing about you,” remarked Vickery, sharply, for he did
not like the man’s face.
“Well, Noyes in the tavern there knows me,” replied Cheever, trusting
in his ability to make the landlord say a good word for him. “You may
be in need of funds for your armament; and dollars do not need any
letter of introduction; I am in funds, and can help out in that way,
if, you give me an interest in the vessel.”
“Now you are talking, Mr. Marks,” replied Vickery, looking sharply at
the stranger. “If you will walk along with me to my house, we will
discuss the matter.”
“I think we would better go first, and have a look at the _Lion_,” said
Cheever.
“Come to my house after breakfast; we will look the vessel over. Where
do you live, Mr. Marks?”
“I have been at sea for the last sixteen years. I was brought up down
East. I cannot say that I live anywhere; I have never been married.”
“That is, you have a wife in every port, eh?” asked Captain Vickery
with a chuckle, as he walked away. The other men followed him, and
Cheever went into the tavern, where he found Noyes seated in the
bar-room, lethargic, even now that the dogs of war were let loose.
Cheever drew a chair up to the friend of his youth, intent upon
influencing him to keep his mouth closed about that turbulent period of
his life. Noyes gazed mournfully at the stove; for the reaction after
the excitement was setting in.
“What kind of a man is Captain Vickery?” asked Cheever.
“Well, some folks say he is a pretty good kind of a man, and others say
he isn’t. He’s a human sort of a fellow, I guess, and people like him
according as how he treats them. If he treats them fust-rate, they like
him fust-rate. I haven’t a word to say against him myself.”
“He’s a man of some property, I suppose?”
“Well, I guess he’s comfortably well off, considerin’ the hard times.
He owns his house and the _Lion_, and he’s a smart, drivin’ sort of a
man. Is he talkin’ of fittin’ up his vessel as a privateer?”
“Yes; he said something about it. He seemed to want to have me ship
with him. Is he as likely a man to ship with as the other captains of
the town?”
Noyes was silent for a few minutes. The one thought which had weighed
on his mind since he had found his long-lost acquaintance, was the
expected recovery of the price of a horse, long since given up by him
as a bad debt. He preferred to roll this delightful anticipation over
in his brain, rather than to talk upon any other subject.
“I don’t see that I have much to say against Captain Vickery as a
master of a vessel. He’s been sailing a ship now for twenty year, and
he ain’t drowned. It seems to me that is a pretty good recommendation.
You expect to hear from Oldbury pretty soon about that money of yourn,
don’t you, Cheever?”
“You are anxious to see the color of your money, Jim; I should think
that as you had waited for it sixteen years, you might hold on a day or
two longer without frettin’. You shall have it all, and fifty dollars
more for interest if you keep your mouth shut about me. I only want a
chance, that’s all; I have been steering straight now for some time,
and I see plain sailing ahead, and I don’t want you to block up the
passage for me, that’s all. I’ll keep the fifty dollars in reserve, and
I shall not pay you a cent of it until I find that you know how to keep
your mouth shut. Do you agree?”
Noyes wagged his head slowly in assent, and his eye lighted up for a
moment, in anticipation of the extra fifty dollars, which he was to
receive for his silence. As it was a great effort for him to speak at
all, it seemed to him that his silence was cheaply purchased for fifty
dollars.
“I will keep silent,” he answered.
“It will be money in your pocket if you do. Now, after breakfast, you
must come with me to the Captain’s and I will try to see what I can do
with him.”
Cheever calculated that he would receive the money from Newburyport
within a few days, in time enough to buy a share in the _Lion_, and a
leather belt which he carried around his waist contained enough gold
and silver coin to make a show with until the three thousand dollars
came to him. Meanwhile, he judged it to be prudent to get still further
into Noyes’ good graces by offering him some money.
“I can give you something on account, Jim; to settle up that old horse
trade. Here’s twenty-five dollars.” He handed the landlord the money in
“pillar” dollars, and they were soon pouched in the pockets of Jim’s
capacious trousers.
“There’s nothing like hard money,” remarked Jim, as he clinked the
coins in his pockets. “A man feels as if he were fortified against the
world, when he rubs it in his pocket.”
When Cheever reached the wharf with Captain Vickery an hour later, he
found that the news of war had awakened the town as the kiss of the
Prince awakened the sleeping Beauty and her court; the rusty sides of
the vessels were being painted; the spars and wood-works were being
scraped; the long disused vessels were being got ready for service
under letters of marque and reprisal.
“Which one is the _Lion_?” asked Cheever, as they reached the wharf.
“She is lying out in the harbor,” said Vickery. “I haven’t begun work
on her yet, to speak of. There will not be a great deal to do to her.
She has been kept up well; her rigging is sound, and she has a new
set of sails. The great work will be for the armament, and when I get
a crew shipped, I shall sail for Boston and get it aboard. We shall
need a Long Tom, some carronades, and ammunition, as well as muskets,
sabres, and boarding-pikes. It will be no holiday cruise.”
“No; the men who expect to get ahead of John Bull on the sea must get
up early in the morning.”
“I should like to row out with you and inspect the schooner!”
“I guess that we can take this dory.”
Cheever was pleased with the _Lion_. She was about two hundred tons in
burden, strongly built of oak, and in good condition, and her lines
were so good that he thought that she must be a fast sailer.
“When was she built, Captain Vickery?” he asked, as they went on deck
from the cabin.
“She’s only four years old, Mr. Marks, and she’s as good a schooner as
ever sailed from Marblehead, and we flatter ourselves that we know
what a ship is in this old town. What was your last voyage, Mr. Marks?”
“I sailed from Havana to Boston. I am familiar with all the West India
Islands and with the Caribbean Sea. I am sure that I shall be a useful
man on a privateer, and I wish some stirring occupation. You know how
it is, when a man has a pinch of salt in his blood, he cannot grow fat
in a chair and be happy over it, like our friend Noyes at the tavern.”
“The lazy fellow,” said Vickery. “He’d rather ride in a hearse than
walk, and he is scared to death when he trusts his unwieldy carcass
upon the water. I suppose that he can vouch for you, Mr. Marks?”
“I rather think that he’ll be willing to tell you that I am all right.
But after all, ready cash will be my best voucher. I will put in one
thousand dollars toward fitting up the vessel and buying the armament,
if you will make me your first mate and give me one-half the share
which you have in the schooner’s earnings.”
“Have you the money on hand?” asked Vickery.
“No; I shall not get it for three or four days, but I am sure to then.
I am expecting that a legacy from my father will be paid to me. You
know I have been away from home many years, and when I came home the
old gentleman was dead, and I was not with him to close his eyes. He
was a good old man, Captain, and I brought him little but sorrow. He
had thought me dead for years, but the family are to send me my share
of the money. How many shall we carry in the crew, Captain?”
Vickery was gazing intently on the dark-haired stranger, wondering what
manner of man he might be. He felt a natural distrust of this fellow,
dropped from nobody knows where into the middle of the quiet fishing
village, and he was loath to enter into a venture with a man who was
only faintly recommended by Jim Noyes, the tavern-keeper; but, on the
other hand, men with ready cash to invest in privateering enterprises
were likely to be rare birds, and it was all-important that the _Lion_
should be ammunitioned and furnished with her armament in time to
capture the British merchantmen before the war had made them shy and
scarce.
“Well, Mr. Marks,” he finally said, “I want some man with ready cash
to come with me, but I don’t wish to buy a pig in a poke or to waste
my time with a man who hasn’t the money he pretends to have. Still, it
will be some days before this vessel will be ready to sail for Boston
with her armament, and I shall not make any arrangement with another
fellow-adventurer until I get to Boston.”
“My money will be in Boston in a few days,” interrupted Cheever. “I
don’t expect you to close with me until I have the cash on hand. I’ll
stay here and help get the schooner in shape, and perhaps I can show
you a thing or two about fitting her for a war cruise, if you have only
been on fishing-craft. I’ve sailed on many a queerish sort of vessel
in my day, Captain, and while I am no saint, I am not the worst sinner
in the world; and, whatever happens, if I don’t get the money, I am
content to ship as one of your crew, and if we do not capture a rich
prize before many weeks are past, my name’s not Tom Marks.”
“Quite likely that it is not,” remarked Vickery, with a grim smile.
“You are a queer customer, Marks; and, to be quite frank, I do not
altogether like your looks. You speak like a man who was brought up
among decent people; you seem to have had an experience which may have
made you a good privateersman, but I don’t know that you will turn
out a desirable ship-mate; still, if you can do me a good turn, I am
willing to take some risk and take a good deal for granted about you,
into the bargain.”