The pilot a tale of the sea |
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| 9. | CHAPTER IX. |
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 | CHAPTER IX. The pilot |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
To come in armour thus, against your king!”
Drama.
The large, irregular building, inhabited by
Colonel Howard, well deserved the description it
had received from the pen of Katherine Plowden.
Notwithstanding the confusion in its orders,
owing to the different ages in which its
several parts had been erected, the interior was
not wanting in that appearance of comfort which
forms the great characteristic of English domestic
life. Its dark and intricate mazes of halls,
galleries, and apartments, or by such other names
as they were properly to be distinguished, were
all well provided with good and substantial furniture,
and whatever might have been the purposes
of their original construction, they were
now peacefully appropriated to the service of a
quiet and well-ordered family.
There were divers portentous traditions, of
cruel separations and blighted loves, which always
linger, like cobwebs, around the walls of
old houses, to be heard here also, and which,
doubtless, in abler hands, might easily have been
pathos. But our humbler efforts must be
limited by an attempt to describe man as God
has made him, vulgar and unseemly as he may
appear to sublimated faculties, to the possessors
of which enviable qualifications we desire to say,
at once, that we are determined to eschew all
things supernaturally refined, as we would the
devil. To all those, then, who are tired of the
company of their species, we would bluntly insinuate,
that the sooner they throw aside our pages,
and seize upon those of some more highly gifted
bard, the sooner will they be in the way of quitting
earth, if not of attaining heaven. Our business
is solely to treat of man, and this fair scene
on which he acts, and that not in his subtleties
and metaphysical contradictions, but in his palpable
nature, that all may understand our meaning
as well as ourselves—whereby we manifestly
reject the prodigious advantage of being thought
a genius, by perhaps foolishly refusing the mighty
aid of incomprehensibility to establish such a
character.
Leaving the gloomy shadows of the cliffs, under
which the little Ariel has been seen to steer,
and the sullen roaring of the surf along the margin
of the ocean, we shall endeavour to transport
the reader to the dining parlour of St. Ruth's Abbey,
taking the evening of the same day as the time
for introducing another collection of those personages,
whose acts and characters it has become
our duty to describe.
The room was not of very large dimensions,
and every part was glittering with the collected
light of half a dozen candles, aided by the fierce
rays that glanced from the grate, which held a most
cheerful fire of seacoal. The mouldings of the
dark oak wainscoting threw back upon the massive
which played among the rich fluids, that were
sparkling on the board, in mimic haloes. The
outline of this picture of comfort was formed by
damask curtains of a deep red, enormous oak
chairs with leathern backs and cushioned seats,
as if the apartment were hermetically sealed
against the world and its chilling cares.
Around the table, which still stood in the centre
of the floor, were seated three gentlemen, in
the easy enjoyment of their daily repast. The
cloth had been drawn, and the bottle was slowly
passing among them, as if those who partook of
its bounty well knew that neither the time nor
the opportunity would be wanting for their deliberate
indulgence in its pleasures.
At one end of the table an elderly man was
seated, who performed whatever little acts of
courtesy the duties of a host would appear to
render necessary, in a company where all seemed
to be equally at their ease and at home. This
gentleman was in the decline of life, though his
erect carriage, quick movements, and steady hand,
equally denoted that it was an old age free from
the usual infirmities. In his dress, he belonged to
that class whose members always follow the fashions
of the age anterior to the one in which
they live, whether from disinclination to sudden
changes of any kind, or from the recollections of
a period which, with them, has been hallowed by
scenes and feelings that the chilling evening of
life can neither revive nor equal. Age might
possibly have thrown its blighting frosts on his
thin locks, but art had laboured to conceal the
ravages with the nicest care. An accurate outline
of powder covered not only the parts where
the hair actually remained, but wherever nature
had prescribed that hair should grow. His countenance
in expression, exhibiting, on the whole, a look of
noble integrity and high honour, which was a
good deal aided in its effect, by the lofty receding
forehead, that rose like a monument, above the
whole, to record the character of the aged veteran.
A few streaks of branching red mingled with the
swarthiness that was rendered more conspicuous
by the outline of unsullied white which nearly
surrounded his prominent features.
Opposite to the host, who it will at once be
understood was Colonel Howard, was the thin,
yellow visage of Mr. Christopher Dillon, that
bane to the happiness of her cousin, already
mentioned by Miss Plowden.
Between these two gentlemen was a middle-aged,
hard-featured man, attired in the livery of
King George, whose countenance emulated the
scarlet of his coat, and whose principal employment,
at the moment, appeared to consist in doing
honour to the cheer of his entertainer.
Occasionally, a servant entered or left the
room in silence, giving admission, however,
through the opened door, to the rushing sounds
of the gale, as the wind murmured amid the angles
and high chimneys of the edifice.
A man, in the dress of a rustic, was standing
near the chair of Colonel Howard, between whom
and the master of the mansion a dialogue had
been maintained, which closed as follows. The
colonel was the first to speak, after the curtain is
drawn from between the eyes of the reader and
the scene.
“Said you, farmer, that the Scotchman beheld
the vessels with his own eyes?”
The answer was a simple negative.
“Well, well,” continued the colonel, “you can
withdraw.”
The man made a rude attempt at a bow, which
being returned by the old soldier with formal
grace, he left the room. The host, turning to
his companions, resumed the subject.
“If those rash boys have really persuaded the
silly dotard who commands the frigate, to trust
himself within the shoals, on the eve of such a
gale as this, their case must have been hopeless
indeed! Thus may rebellion and disaffection
ever meet with the just indignation of Providence!
It would not surprise me, gentlemen, to
hear that my native land has been engulphed by
earthquakes, or swallowed by the ocean, so awful
and inexcusable has been the weight of her transgressions!
And yet it was a proud and daring
boy who held the second station in that ship! I
knew his father well, and a gallant gentleman he
was, who, like my own brother, the parent of Cecilia,
preferred to serve his master on the ocean
rather than on the land. His son inherited the
bravery of his high spirit, without its loyalty.
One would not wish to have such a youth drowned
either.”
This speech, which partook much of the nature
of a soliloquy, especially towards its close,
called for no immediate reply; but the soldier,
having held his glass to the candle, to admire the
rosy hue of its contents, and then sipped of the
fluid so often that nothing but a clear light remained
to gaze at, quietly replaced the empty vessel
on the table, and, as he extended an arm
towards the blushing bottle, he spoke, in the
careless tones of one whose thoughts were dwelling
on another theme—
“Ay, true enough, sir; good men are scarce,
and, as you say, one cannot but mourn his fate,
though his death be glorious; quite a loss to his
majesty's service, I dare say, it will prove.”
“A loss to the service of his majesty!” echoed
the host—“his death glorious! no, Captain Borroughcliffe,
the death of no rebel can be glorious;
and how he can be a loss to his majesty's service,
I am myself quite at a loss to understand.”
The soldier, whose ideas were in that happy
state of confusion that renders it difficult to command
the one most needed, but who still, from
long discipline, had them under a wonderful control
for the disorder of his brain, answered, with
great promptitude—
“I mean the loss of his example, sir. It would
have been so appalling to others, to have seen the
young man executed instead of shot in battle.”
“He is drowned, sir.”
“Ah! that is the next thing to being hung;
that circumstance had escaped me.”
“It is by no means certain, sir, that the ship
and schooner that the drover saw are the vessels
you take them to have been,” said Mr. Dillon, in
a harsh, drawling tone of voice. “I should
doubt their daring to venture so openly on the
coast, and in the direct track of our vessels of
war.”
“These people are our countrymen, Christopher,
though they be rebels,” exclaimed the colonel.
“They are a hardy and brave nation.
When I had the honour to serve his majesty,
some twenty years since, it was my fortune to
face the enemies of my king in a few small affairs,
Captain Borroughcliffe; such as the siege
of Quebec, and the battle before its gates, a trifling
occasion at Ticonderoga, and that unfortunate
catastrophe of General Braddock—with a
few others. I must say, sir, in favour of the
colonists, that they played a manful game on the
latter day; and this gentleman who now heads
the rebels sustained a gallant name among us for
a discreet, well-behaved young man, and quite a
gentleman. I have never denied that Mr. Washington
was very much of a gentleman.”
“Yes,” said the soldier, yawning, “he was
educated among his majesty's troops, and he
could hardly be otherwise. But I am quite melancholy
about this unfortunate drowning, Colonel
Howard. Here will be an end of my vocation,
I suppose, and I am far from denying that
your hospitality has made these quarters most
agreeable to me.”
“Then, sir, the obligation is only mutual,”
returned the host, with a polite inclination of his
head; “but gentlemen, who, like ourselves, have
been made free of the camp, need not bandy idle
compliments about such trifles. If it were my
kinsman Dillon, now, whose thoughts run more
on Coke upon Littleton than on the gayeties of a
mess-table, and a soldier's life, he might think
such formalities as necessary as all his hard words
are to a deed. Come, Borroughcliffe, my dear
fellow, I believe we have given an honest glass to
each of the royal family, (God bless them all!) let
us swallow a bumper to the memory of the immortal
Wolfe.”
“An honest proposal, my gallant host, and
such a one as a soldier will never decline,” returned
the captain, who roused himself with the
occasion. “God bless them all, say I, in echo,
and if this gracious queen of ours ends as famously
as she has begun, 'twill be such a family
of princes as no other army in Europe can brag
of around a mess-table.”
“Ay, ay, there is some consolation in that
thought, in the midst of this dire rebellion of my
countrymen. But I'll vex myself no more with
the unpleasant recollections; the arms of my
the foul stain.”
“Of that there can be no doubt,” said Borroughcliffe,
whose thoughts still continued a little
obscured by the sparkling Madeira that had long
lain ripening under a Carolinian sun; “these
Yankees fly before his majesty's regulars, like so
many dirty clowns in a London mob before a
charge of the horse-guards.”
“Pardon me, Captain Borroughcliffe,” said his
host, elevating his person to more than its usually
erect attitude; “they may be misguided, deluded,
and betrayed, but the comparison is unjust.
Give them arms and give them discipline, and he
who gets an inch of their land from them, plentiful
as it is, will find a bloody day on which to
take possession.”
“The veriest coward in Christendom would
fight in a country where wine brews itself into
such a cordial as this,” returned the cool soldier;
“I am a living proof that you mistook my meaning;
for had not those loose-flapped gentlemen
they call Vermontese and Hampshire-granters
(God grant them his blessing for the deed!) finished
two thirds of my company, I should not have
been at this day under your roof, a recruiting
instead of a marching officer; neither should I
have been bound up in a covenant, like the law
of Moses, could Burgoyne have made head
against their long-legged marchings and counter-marchings.
Sir, I drink their healths, with all
my heart; and, with such a bottle of golden sunshine
before me, rather than displease so good a
friend, I will go through Gates's whole army, regiment
by regiment, company by company, or, if
you insist on the same, even man by man.”
“On no account would I tax your politeness so
far,” returned the Colonel, abundantly mollified by
debtor, Captain Borroughcliffe, for so freely
volunteering to defend my house against the attacks
of my piratical, rebellious, and misguided
countrymen, to think of requiring such a concession.”
“Harder duty might be performed, and no
favours asked, my respectable host,” returned
the soldier. “Country quarters are apt to be
dull, and the liquor is commonly execrable; but
in such a dwelling as this a man can rock himself in
the very cradle of contentment. And yet there is
one subject of complaint, that I should disgrace
my regiment did I not speak of, for it is incumbent
on me, both as a man and a soldier, to be no
longer silent.”
“Name it, sir, freely, and its cause shall be as
freely redressed,” said the host, in some amazement.
“Here we three sit, from morning to night,”
continued the soldier, “bachelors all, well provisioned
and better liquored, I grant you, but like
so many well fed anchorites, while two of the
loveliest damsels in the island pine in solitude
within a hundred feet of us, without tasting the
homage of our sighs. This I will maintain is a
reproach both to your character, Colonel Howard,
as an old soldier, and to mine as a young one. As
to our friend Coke on top of Littleton here, I
leave him to the quiddities of the law to plead his
own cause.”
The brow of the host contracted for a moment,
and the sallow cheek of Dillon, who had sat during
the dialogue in a sullen silence, appeared to
grow even livid; but gradually the open brow
of the veteran resumed its frank expression, and
the lips of the other relaxed into a jesuitical sort
of a smile, that was totally disregarded by the
captain, who amused himself with sipping his
analyzed each drop that crossed his palate.
After an embarrassing pause of a moment,
Colonel Howard broke the silence.
“There is reason in Borroughcliffe's hint, for
such I take it to be—”
“I meant it for a plain, matter-of-fact complaint,”
interrupted the soldier.
“And you have cause for it,” continued the
colonel. “It is unreasonable, Christopher, that
the ladies should allow their dread of these piratical
countrymen of ours to exclude us from their
society, though prudence may require that they
remain secluded in their apartments. We owe
the respect to Captain Borroughcliffe, that at
least we admit him to the sight of the coffee-urn
in an evening.”
“That is precisely my meaning,” said the captain;
“as for dining with them, why, I am well
provided for here, but there is no one knows how
to set hot water a hissing in so professional a manner
as a woman. So forward, my dear and honoured
colonel, and lay your injunctions on them,
that they command your humble servant and Mr.
Coke unto Littleton to advance and give the
countersign of gallantry.”
Dillon contracted his disagreeable features into
something that was intended for a satirical smile,
before he spoke as follows:
“Both the veteran Colonel Howard and the
gallant Captain Borroughcliffe may find it easier
to overcome the enemies of his majesty in the
field than to shake a woman's caprice. Not a
day has passed, these three weeks, that I have not
sent my inquiries to the door of Miss Howard, as
became her father's kinsman, with a wish to
soften her apprehensions of the pirates; but little
has she deigned me in reply, more than such
dispense with.”
“Well, you have been as fortunate as myself,
and why you should be more so, I see no reason,”
cried the soldier, throwing a glance of cool contempt
at the other; “fear whitens the cheek, and
ladies best love to be seen where the roses flourish
rather than the lilies.”
“A woman is never so interesting, Captain
Borroughcliffe,” said the gallant host, “as when
she appears to lean on man for support; and he
who does not feel himself honoured by the trust
is a disgrace to his species.”
“Bravo! my honoured sir, a worthy sentiment,
and spoken like a true soldier; but I have
heard much of the loveliness of the ladies of the
Abbey, since I have been in my present quarters,
and I feel a strong desire to witness beauty encircled
by such loyalty as could induce them to flee
their native country, rather than to devote their
charms to the rude keeping of the rebels.”
The colonel looked grave, and for a moment
fierce; but the expression of his displeasure soon
passed away in a smile of forced gayety, and, as
he cheerfully rose from his seat, he cried—
“You shall be admitted this very night, and
this instant, Captain Borroughcliffe. We owe it,
sir, to your services here, as well as in the field,
and those froward girls shall be humoured no
longer. Nay, it is nearly two weeks since I have
seen my ward myself, nor have I laid my eyes on
my niece but twice in all that time. Christopher,
I leave the captain under your good care, while I
go seek admission into the cloisters; we call that
part of the building the cloisters, because it holds
our nuns, sir! You will pardon my early absence
from the table, Captain Borroughcliffe.”
“I beg it may not be mentioned; you leave
the soldier, taking in the lank figure of Mr. Dillon
in a sweeping glance, that terminated with a
settled gaze on his decanter. “Make my devoirs
to the recluses, my dear colonel, and say all that
your own excellent wit shall suggest as an apology
for my impatience. Mr. Dillon, I meet you
in a bumper to their healths and in their honour.”
The challenge was coldly accepted, and while
these gentlemen still held their glasses to their
lips, Colonel Howard left the apartment, bowing
low, and uttering a thousand excuses to his guest,
as he proceeded, and even offering a very unnecessary
apology of the same effect to his habitual
inmate, Mr. Dillon.
“Is fear so very powerful within these old
walls?” said the soldier, when the door closed
behind their host, “that your ladies deem it necessary
to conceal themselves before even an
enemy is known to have landed?”
Dillon coldly replied—
“The name of Paul Jones is terrific to all on
this coast, I believe, nor are the ladies of St. Ruth
singular in their apprehensions, sir.”
“Ah! the pirate has bought himself a desperate
name, since the affair of Flamborough Head.
But let him look to't, if he trusts himself in another
Whitehaven expedition, while there is a detachment
of the —th in the neighbourhood,
though the men should be nothing better than
recruits.”
“Our last accounts leave him safe in the court
of Louis,” returned his companion; “but there
are men as desperate as himself, who sail the
ocean under the rebel flag, and from one or two
of them we have had much reason to apprehend
the vengeance of disappointed men. It is they
that we hope are lost in this gale.”
“Hum! I hope they were dastards, then, or
your hopes are a little unchristian, and—”
He would have proceeded, but the door opened,
and his orderly entered, and announced, with
military precision, that a sentinel had detained
three men, who were passing along the highway,
near the Abbey, and who, by their dress, appeared
to be seamen.
“Well, let them pass,” cried the captain;
“what, have we nothing to do better than to stop
passengers, like footpads, on the king's highway!
give them of your canteens, and let the rascals
pass. Your orders were to give the alarm, if any
hostile party landed on the coast, not to detain
peaceable subjects on their lawful business.”
“I beg your honour's pardon,” returned the
sergeant; “but these men seemed lurking about
the grounds for no good, and as they kept carefully
aloof from the place where our sentinel was
posted, until to-night, Downing thought it looked
suspiciously, and detained them.”
“Downing is a fool, and it may go hard with
him for his officiousness. What have you done
with the men?”
“I took them to the guard-room in the east
wing, your honour.”
“Then feed them; and harkye, sirrah! liquor
them well, that we hear no complaints, and let
them go.”
“Yes, sir, yes, your honour shall be obeyed;
but there is a straight, soldierly looking fellow
among them, that I think might be persuaded to
enlist, if he were detained till morning. I doubt,
sir, by his walk, but he has served already.”
“Ha! what say you!” cried the captain,
pricking up his ears, like a hound who hears a
well-known cry, “served, think ye, already?”
“There are signs about him, your honour, to
that effect. An old soldier is seldom deceived in
can be no other, and the place where we took
him, there is no danger of a have-us corpses,
until he is tied to us by the laws of the kingdom.”
“Peace, you knave!” said Borroughcliffe, rising,
and making a devious route towards the
door; “you speak in the presence of my lord
chief justice that is to be, and should not talk
lightly of the laws. But still you say reason;
give me your arm, sergeant, and lead the way to
the east wing; my eyesight is good for nothing in
such a dark night. A soldier should always visit
his guard before the tattoo beats.”
After emulating the courtesy of their host,
Captain Borroughcliffe retired on this patriotic
errand, leaning on his subordinate in a style of
most familiar condescension. Dillon continued
at the table, endeavouring to express the rancorous
feelings of his breast by a satirical smile of
contempt, that was necessarily lost on all but himself,
as a large mirror threw back the image of
his morose and unpleasant features.
But we must precede the veteran colonel in his
visit to the “cloisters.”
| CHAPTER IX. The pilot | |