 | CHAPTER XII. The pilot |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
Cries `Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o'er the ferry.'
Lord Ullin's Daughter.
The sky had been without a cloud during the
day, the gale having been dry and piercing, and
thousands of stars were now shining through a chill
atmosphere. As the eye, therefore, became accustomed
to the change of light, it obtained a
more distinct view of surrounding objects. At
the head of the line, that was stretched along the
narrow pathway, marched a platoon of the marines,
who maintained the regular, and steady front of
trained warriors. They were followed, at some
little distance, by a large and confused body of
seamen, heavily armed, whose disposition to disorder
and rude merriment, which became more
violent from their treading on solid ground, was
with difficulty restrained by the presence and severe
rebukes of their own officers. In the centre
of this confused mass, the whole of the common
prisoners were placed, but were no otherwise attended
to by their nautical guard, than as they furnished
the subjects of fun and numberless quaint
jokes. At some distance in their rear, marched
Col. Howard and Borroughcliffe, arm in arm,
silence, though under the influence of very bitter
feelings. Behind these again, and pressing
as nigh as possible to her uncle, was Miss Howard,
leaning on the arm of Alice Dunscombe,
and surrounded by the female domestics of the
establishment of St. Ruth. Katherine Plowden
moved lightly by herself, in the shadow of this
group, with elastic steps, but with a maiden coyness,
that taught her to veil her satisfaction with
the semblance of captivity. Barnstable watched
her movements with delight, within six feet of her,
but submitted to the air of caprice in his mistress,
which seemed to require that he should approach no
nearer. Griffith, avoiding the direct line of the
party, walked on its skirts in such a situation that
his eye could command its whole extent, in order, if
necessary, to direct the movements. Another body
of the marines marched at the close of the procession,
and Manual, in person, brought up the rear.
The music had ceased by command, and nothing
was now audible, but the regular tread of the soldiers,
with the sighs of the dying gale, interrupted
occasionally by the voice of an officer, or the hum
of low dialogue.
“This has been a Scotch prize that we've taken,”
muttered a surly old seaman; “a ship without
head-money or cargo! There was kitchen
timber enough in the old jug of a place, to have
given an outfit in crockery and knee-buckles, to
every lad in the ship; but, no! let a man's mouth
water ever so much for food and raiment, damme
if the officers would give him leave to steal even
so good a thing as a spare Bible.”
“You may say all that, and then make but a
short yarn of the truth,” returned the messmate,
who walked by his side; “if there had been such
have choused a poor fellow out of the use of it.—
I say, Ben, I'll tell ye what; it's my opinion, that if
a chap is to turn soldier and carry a musket, he
should have soldiers' play, and leave to plunder a
little—now the devil a thing have I laid my hands
on to-night, except this firelock, and my cutlash—
unless you can call this bit of a table-cloth something
of a windfall.”
“Ay! you have fallen in there with a fresh
bolt of duck, I see!” said the other, in manifest
admiration of the texture of his companion's prize
—“why, it would spread as broad a clue as our
mizen-royal, if it was loosened! well, your luck
hasn't been every man's luck—for my part, I
think this here hat was made for some fellow's
great toe; I've rigged it on my head both fore-and-aft,
and athwart ships; but curse the inch can
I drive it down—I say, Sam! you'll give us a
shirt off that table cloth?”
“Ay, ay, you can have one corner of it; or for
that matter, ye can take the full half, Nick; but
I don't see that we go off to the ship any richer
than we landed, unless you may muster she-cattle
among your prize money.”
“No richer!” interrupted a waggish young
sailor, who had been hitherto a silent listener to
the conversation between his older, and more calculating
shipmates; “I think we are set up for a
cruise in them seas where the day watches last six
months; don't you see we have caught a double
allowance of midnight!”
While speaking he laid his hands on the
bare and woolly heads of Col. Howard's two
black slaves, who were moving near him, both occupied
in mournful forebodings on the results that
were to flow from this unexpected loss of their
he added; “there; don't you think that a sight
to put out the binnacle lamps? there's darkness
visible for ye!”
“Let the niggars alone,” grumbled one of the
more aged speakers; “what are ye sky-larking
with the like of them for? the next thing they'll
sing out, and then you'll hear one of the officers
in your wake. For my part, Nick, I can't see
why it is that we keep dodging along shore here,
with less than ten fathoms under us, when, by
stretching into the broad Atlantic, we might fall
in with a Jamaica-man every day or two, and
have sugar hogsheads, and rum puncheons as
plenty aboard us as hard fare is now.”
“It is all owing to that Pilot,” returned the
other; “for d'ye see, if there was no bottom, there
would be no Pilots. This is dangerous cruising
ground, where we stretch into five fathoms, and
then drop our lead on a sand-spit, or a rock! Besides,
they make night work of it too! If we had
day-light for fourteen hours instead of seven, a man
might trust to feeling his way for the other ten.”
“Now, a'n't ye a couple of old horse-marines!”
again interrupted the young sailor; “don't you
see that Congress wants us to cut up Johnny Bull's
coasters, and that old Blow-Hard has found the
days too short for his business, and so he has
landed a party to get hold of night. Here we
have him! and when we get off to the ship, we
shall put him under hatches, and then you'll see
the face of the sun again! Come, my lilies! let
these two old gentlemen look into your cabin windows—what?
you won't! Then I must squeeze
your woollen night-caps for ye!”
The negroes, who had been submitting to his humours
with the abject humility of slavery, now
pain, under the rough manipulation of their tormentor.
“What's that!” cried a stern voice, whose
boyish tones seemed to mock the air of authority
that was assumed by the speaker—“who's that, I
say, raising that cry among ye?”
The wilful young man slowly removed his two
hands from the woolly polls of the slaves, but as he
suffered them to fall reluctantly along their sable
temples, he gave the ear of one of the blacks a tweak
that caused him to give vent to another cry, that
was uttered with a much greater confidence of sympathy
than before.
“Do ye hear, there!” repeated Merry—
“who's sky-larking with those negroes?”
“'Tis no one, sir,” the sailor answered with affected
gravity; “one of the pale faces has hit his
shin against a cob-web, and it has made his ear
ache!”
“Harkye, you mister Jack Joker! how came
you in the midst of the prisoners! did not I order
you to handle your pike, sir, and to keep in
the outer line!”
“Ay, ay, sir, you did; and I obeyed orders as
long as I could; but these niggars have made the
night so dark, that I lost my way!”
A low laugh passed through the confused crowd
of seamen, and even the midshipman might have
been indulging himself in a similar manner at this
specimen of quaint humour, from the fellow, who
was one of those licensed men that are to be
found in every ship. At length—
“Well, sir,” he said, “you have found out
your false reckoning now; so get you back to
the place where bid you stay.”
“Ay, ay, sir, I'm going. By all the blunders
has made one of these niggars shed tears! Do
let me stay to catch a little ink, sir, to write a
letter with to my poor old mother—devil the line
has she had from me since we sailed from the
Chesapeake!”
“If ye don't mind me at once, Mr. Jack Joker,
I'll lay my cutlass over your head,” returned Merry,
his voice now betraying a much greater
sympathy in the sufferings of that abject race,
who are still in some measure, but who formerly
were much more, the butts of the unthinking and
licentious among our low countrymen; “then
ye can write your letter in red ink if ye will!”
“I wouldn't do it for the world,” said Joker,
sneaking away, towards his proper station—“the
old lady wouldn't forget the hand, and swear
it was a forgery—I wonder, though, if the breakers
on the coast of Guinea be black! as I've heard
old seamen say who have cruised in them latitudes.”
His idle levity was suddenly interrupted by a
voice that spoke above the low hum of the march,
with an air of authority, and a severity of tone, that
could always quell, by a single word, the most violent
ebullition of merriment in the crew.
The low buzzing sounds of “Ay, there goes Mr.
Griffith!” and of “Jack has woke up the first
lieutenant, he had better now go to sleep himself;”
were heard passing among the men. But these
suppressed communications soon ceased, and
even Jack Joker himself pursued his way with diligence,
on the skirts of the party, as mutely as if
the power of speech did not belong to his organization.
The reader has too often accompanied us over
the ground between the Abbey and the ocean, to
require any description of the route pursued by
dialogue; and we shall at once pass to the incidents
which occurred on the arrival of the party
at the cliffs. As the man who had so unexpectedly
assumed a momentary authority within St.
Ruth, had unaccountably disappeared from among
them, Griffith continued to exercise the right of
command, without referring to any other for consultation.
He never addressed himself to Barnstable,
and it was apparent that both the haughty young
men felt that the tie which had hitherto united
them in such close intimacy, was, for the present
at least, entirely severed. Indeed, Griffith
was only restrained by the presence of Cecilia
and Katherine, from arresting his refractory inferior
on the spot; and Barnstable, who felt all the
consciousness of error, without its proper humility,
with difficulty so far repressed his feelings, as
to forbear exhibiting in the presence of his
mistress, such a manifestation of his spirit as his
wounded vanity induced him to imagine was necessary
to his honour. The two, however, acted
in harmony on one subject, though it was without
concert or communication. The first object
with both the young men, was to secure the embarkation
of the fair cousins; and Barnstable proceeded
instantly to the boats, in order to hasten the
preparations that were necessary before they could
receive these unexpected captives.—The descent of
the Pilot having been made in such force as to require
the use of all the frigate's boats, which were left
riding in the outer edge of the surf, awaiting the
return of the expedition. A loud call from Barnstable
gave notice to the officer in command, and in a
few moments the beach was crowded with the busy
and active crews of the “cutters,” “launches,”
“barges,” “jolly-boats,” “pinnaces,” or by
whatever names the custom of the times attached
the fears of the ladies themselves been consulted,
the frigate's launch would have been selected for
their use, on account of its size; but Barnstable,
who would have thought such a choice on his part
humiliating to his guests, ordered the long, low
barge of Capt. Munson to be drawn upon the
sand, it being peculiarly the boat of honour. The
hands of fifty men were applied to the task, and
it was soon announced to Col. Howard and his
wards, that the little vessel was ready for their
reception. Manual had halted on the summit of
the cliffs with the whole body of the marines, where
he was busily employed in posting picquets
and sentinels, and giving the necessary instructions
to his men to cover the embarkation of the
seamen, in a style that he conceived to be altogether
military. The mass of the common prisoners,
including the inferior domestics of the
Abbey, and the men of Borroughcliffe, were also
held in the same place, under a suitable guard;
but Col. Howard and his companion, attended by
the ladies and their own maids, had descended the
rugged path to the beach, and were standing passively
on the sands, when the intelligence that the
boat waited for them, was announced.
“Where is he?” asked Alice Dunscombe, turning
her head, as if anxiously searching for some
other than those around her.
“Where is who?” inquired Barnstable; “we are
all here, and the boat waits.”
“And will he tear me—even me, from the home
of my infancy! the land of my birth and my affections!”
“I know not of whom you speak, madam, but
if it be of Mr. Griffith, he stands there, just without
that cluster of seamen.”
Griffith, hearing himself thus named, approached
the ladies, and, for the first time since
leaving the Abbey, addressed them:—“I hope I
am already understood,” he said, “and that it is
unnecessary for me to say, that no female here is a
prisoner; though should any choose to trust themselves
on board our ship, I pledge to them the
honour of an officer, that they shall find themselves
protected, and safe.”
“Then will I not go,” said Alice.
“It is not expected of you,” said Cecilia;
“you have no ties to bind you to any here.”—
(The eyes of Alice, were still wandering over the
listeners.) “Go, then, Miss Alice, and be the
mistress of St. Ruth, until my return; or,” she
added, timidly, “until Col. Howard may declare
his pleasure.”
“I obey you, dear child; but the agent of Col.
Howard, at B—will undoubtedly be authorized
to take charge of his effects.”
While no one but his niece alluded to his will,
the master of the Abbey had found, in his resentment,
a sufficient apology for his rigid demeanor;
but he was far too well bred to hear, in silence,
such a modest appeal to his wishes, from so fair,
and so loyal a subject as Alice Dunscombe.
“To relieve you, madam, and for no other reason,
will I speak on this subject,” he said; “otherwise,
I should leave the doors and windows of St.
Ruth open, as a melancholy monument of rebellion,
and seek my future compensation from the
Crown, when the confiscated estates of the leaders
of this accursed innovation on the rights of Princes,
shall come to the hammer. But you, Miss
Alice, are entitled to every consideration that a
lady can expect from a gentleman. Be pleased,
therefore, to write to my agent, and request him to
of his Majesty's Secretary of State. They breathe
no treason, madam, and are entitled to official protection.
The house, and most of the furniture, as
you know, are the property of my landlord, who,
in due time, will doubtless take charge of his own
interest. I kiss your hand, Miss Alice, and I
hope we shall yet meet at St. James's—depend on
it, madam, that the Royal Charlotte shall yet
honour your merits; I know she cannot but estimate
your loyalty.”
“Here I was born, in humble obscurity—here I
have lived, and here I hope to die in quiet,” returned
the meek Alice; “if I have known any
pleasure, in late years, beyond that which every
Christian can find in our daily duties, it has been,
my sweet friends, in your accidental society.—
Such companions, in this remote corner of the
kingdom, has been a boon too precious to be
enjoyed without alloy, it seems, and I have now
to exchange the past pleasure for present pain.
Adieu! my young friends; let your trust be in
Him, to whose eyes both prince and peasant, the
European and the American, are alike, and we
shall meet again, though it be neither in the island
of Britain, nor on your own wide continent.”
“That,” said Col. Howard, advancing and taking
her hand with kindness, “that is the only
disloyal sentiment I have ever heard fall from the
lips of Miss Alice Dunscombe! Is it to be supposed
that Heaven has established orders among
men, and that it does not respect the works of its
own formation! But adieu; no doubt if time was
allowed us for suitable explanations, we should
find but little or no difference of opinion on this
subject.”
Alice did not appear to consider the matter as
worthy of further discussion at such a moment, for
then gave her undivided attention to her female
friends. Cecilia wept bitterly on the shoulder of
her respected companion, giving vent to her regret
at parting, and her excited feelings, at the same moment;
and Katherine pressed to the side of Alice,
with the kindliness prompted by her warm, but
truant heart. Their embraces were given and received
in silence, and each of the young ladies
moved towards the boat, as she withdrew herself
from the arms of Miss Dunscombe. Col. Howard
would not precede his wards, neither would he assist
them into the barge. That attention they received
from Barnstable, who, after seeing the
ladies and their attendants seated, turned to the
gentlemen, and observed—
“The boat waits.”
“Well, Miss Alice,” said Borroughcliffe, in bitterirony,
“you are entrusted, by our excellent host,
with a message to his agent; will you do a similar
service to me, and write a report to the commander
of the district, and just tell him what a dolt—
ay, use the plainest terms, and say what an ass, one
Capt. Borroughcliffe has proved himself in this
affair. You may throw in, by way of episode, that
he has been playing bo-peep with a rebellious
young lady from the Colonies, and, like a great
boy, has had his head broken for his pains! Come,
my worthy host, or rather, fellow prisoner, I follow
you, as in duty bound.”
“Stay,” cried Griffith; “Capt. Borroughcliffe
does not embark in that boat.”
“Ha! sir; am I to be herded with the common
men? Forget you that I have the honour to
bear the commission of his Britannic Majesty, and
that—”
“I forget nothing that a gentleman is bound to
things, I recollect the liberality of your treatment
to myself, when a prisoner. The instant the safety
of my command will justify such a step, not only
you, but your men, shall be set at liberty.”
Borroughcliffe started in surprise; but his feelings
were too much soured by the destruction of
those visions of glory, in which he had been luxuriously
indulging for the last day or two, to admit
of his answering as became a man. He swallowed
his emotions, therefore, by a violent effort,
and walked along the beach, affecting to whistle
a low, but lively air.
“Well, then,” cried Barnstable—“all our
captives are seated. The boat waits only for its
officers!”
In his turn, Griffith walked away, in haughty silence,
as if disdaining to hold communion with his
former friend. Barnstable paused a moment, from
a deference that long habit had created for his superior
officer, and which was not to be shaken off by
every burst of angry passion; but perceiving that
the other had no intention to return, he ordered
the seamen to raise the boat from the sand and
bear it bodily into the water. The command was
instantly obeyed; and by the time the young
lieutenant was in his seat the barge was floating
in the still heavy, though no longer dangerous
surf, and the crew sprang into their places.
“Bear her off, boys!” he cried; “never mind a
wet jacket. I've seen many a worthy fellow tumbling
on this beach in a worse time than this!
Now you have her head to sea; give way, my
souls, give way.”
The seamen rose simultaneously at their oars,
their boat; which, after making a few sudden ascents
and as many heavy pitches in the breakers, gained
the smoother seas of the swelling ocean, and stemmed
the waters, in a direction for the place where
the Alacrity was supposed to be in waiting.
| CHAPTER XII. The pilot | |