University of Virginia Library

1. THE PILOT.

1. CHAPTER I.

A single glance at the map will make the reader
acquainted with the position of the eastern coast
of the island of Great Britain, as connected
with the shores of the opposite continent. Together
they form the boundaries of the small
sea, that has for ages been known to the world
as the scene of maritime exploits, and as the
great avenue through which commerce and war
have conducted the fleets of the northern nations
of Europe. Over this sea the islanders long
asserted a jurisdiction, exceeding that which reason
concedes to any power on the highway of nations,
and which frequently led to conflicts that
caused an expenditure of blood and treasure, utterly
disproportioned to the advantages that can
ever arise from the maintenance of a useless and
abstract right. It is across the waters of this disputed
ocean that we shall attempt to conduct our
readers, in imagination, selecting a period for our
incidents that has peculiar interests for every

American, not only because it was the birth-day
of his nation, but because it was also the era when
reason and common sense began to take place of
custom and feudal practices in the management of
the affairs of nations.

Soon after the events of the revolution had involved
the kingdoms of France and Spain, and
the republics of Holland, in our quarrel, a group
of labourers were collected in a field that lay exposed
to the winds of the ocean, on the north-eastern
coast of England. These men were lightening
their toil in husbandry, and cheering the
gloom of a day in December, by uttering their
crude opinions on the political aspects of the
times. The fact that England was engaged in a
war with some of her dependencies on the other
side of the Atlantic, had long been known to
them, after the manner that faint rumours of distant
and uninteresting events gain on the ear;
but now that nations, with whom she had been
used to battle, were armed against her in the quarrel,
the din of war had disturbed the quiet even
of these secluded and illiterate rustics. The
principal speakers, on the occasion, were a Scotch
drover, who was waiting the leisure of the occupant
of the fields, and an Irish labourer, who had
found his way across the channel, and thus far
over the island, in quest of employment.

“The Nagurs wouldn't have been a job at all
for ould England, letting alone Ireland,” said the
latter, “if these French and Spanishers hadn't
been troubling themselves in the matter. I'm
sure it's but little rason I have for thanking them,
if a man is to kape as sober as a praist at mass,
for fear he should find himself a souldier, and he
knowing nothing about the same.”

“Hoot! mon! ye ken but little of raising an
airmy in Ireland, if ye mak' a drum o' a whiskey
keg,” said the drover, winking to the listeners.

“Noo, in the north, they ca' a gathering of the
folk, and follow the pipes as graciously as ye wad
journey kirkward o' a Sabbeth morn. I've seen
a' the names o' a Heeland raj'ment on a sma' bit
paper, that ye might cover wi' a leddy's hand.
They war' a' Camerons and M`Donalds, though
they paraded sax hundred men! But what ha'
ye gotten here! That chield has an ow'r liking
to the land for a seafaring body; an' if the bottom
o' the sea be ony thing like the top o't, he's in
gr'at danger o' a shipwrack!”

This unexpected change in the discourse, drew
all eyes on the object towards which the staff of
the observant drover was pointed. To the utter
amazement of every individual present, a small
vessel was seen moving slowly round a point of
land that formed one of the sides of the little bay,
to which the field the labourers were in composed
the other. There was something very peculiar in
the externals of this unusual visiter, which added
in no small degree to the surprise created by her
appearance in that retired place. None but the
smallest vessels, and those rarely, with, at long
intervals, a desperate smuggler, were ever known
to venture so close to the land, amid the sand-bars
and sunken rocks with which that immediate
coast abounded. The adventurous mariners who
now attempted this dangerous navigation in so
wanton, and, apparently, so heedless a manner, were
in a low, black schooner, whose hull seemed utterly
disproportioned to the raking masts it upheld,
which, in their turn, supported a lighter set of spars,
that tapered away until their upper extremities
appeared no larger than the lazy pennant, that in
vain endeavoured to display its length in the light
breeze.

The short day of that high northern latitude
was already drawing to a close, and the sun was

throwing his parting rays obliquely across the
waters, touching the gloomy waves here and there
with streaks of pale light. The stormy winds of
the German ocean were apparently lulled to rest;
and, though the incessant rolling of the surge on
the shore, heightened the gloomy character of the
hour and the view, the light ripple that ruffled the
sleeping billows was produced by a gentle air, that
blew directly from the land. Notwithstanding
this favourable circumstance, there was something
threatening in the aspect of the ocean, which was
speaking in hollow, but deep murmurs, like a volcano
on the eve of an eruption, that greatly heightened
the feelings of amazement and dread with which
the peasants beheld this extraordinary interruption
to the quiet of their little bay. With no other
sails spread to the action of the air, than her heavy
mainsail, and one of those light jibs that projected
far beyond her bows, the vessel glided over the
water with a grace and facility that seemed magical
to the beholders, who turned their wondering
looks from the schooner to each other, in silent
amazement. At length the drover spoke in a low,
solemn voice—

“He's a bold chield that steers her! and
if that bit craft has wood in her bottom, like
the brigantines that ply between Lon'on and
the Frith at Leith, he's in mair danger than
a prudent mon could wish. Ay! he's by the big
rock that shows his head when the tide runs low,
but it's no mortal man who can steer long in the
road he's journeying, and not speedily find land
wi' water a top o't.”

The little schooner, however, still held her way
among the rocks and sand-spits, making such slight
deviations in her course, as proved her to be under
the direction of one who knew his danger,
until she had entered as far into the bay as prudence

could at all justify, when her canvass was
gathered into folds, seemingly without the agency
of hands, and the vessel, after rolling for a few
minutes on the long billows that hove in from the
ocean, swung round in the currents of the tide,
and was held by her anchor.

The peasantry, now, began to make their conjectures
more freely, on the character and object
of their visiter; some intimating that she was engaged
in a contraband trade, and others that her
views were hostile, and her business war. A few
dark hints were hazarded on the materiality of
her construction, for nothing of artificial formation,
it was urged, would be ventured by men in such
a dangerous place, at a time when even the most
inexperienced landsman was enabled to foretell the
certain gale. The Scotchman, who, to all the
sagacity of his countrymen, added no small portion
of their superstition, leaned greatly to the
latter conclusion, and had begun to express this
sentiment warily and with reverence, when the
child of Erin, who appeared not to possess any
very definite ideas on the subject, interrupted him,
by exclaiming—

“Faith! there's two of them! a big and a
little! sure the bogles of the saa likes good company
the same as any other christians!”

“Twa!” echoed the drover; “twa! ill luck
bides o' some o' ye. Twa craft a sailing without
hands to guide them, in sic a place as this, whar'
eyesight is na guid enough to show the dangers,
bodes evil to a' that luik thereon. Hoot! she's
na yearling the tither! Luik, mon! luik! she's
a gallant boat, and a gr'at;” he paused, raised his
pack from the ground, and first giving one searching
look at the objects of his suspicions, he nodded
with great sagacity to the listeners, and continued,
as he moved slowly towards the interior of

the country, “I should na wonder if she carried
King George's commission aboot her; 'weel, 'weel,
I wull journey upward to the town, and ha'a crack
wi' the guid mon, for they craft have a suspeecious
aspect, and the sma' bit thing wu'ld nab a mon
quite easy, and the big ane wu'ld hold us a' and
no feel we war' in her.”

This sagacious warning caused a general
movement in the party, for the intelligence of a
hot press was among the rumours of the times.
The husbandmen collected their implements of
labour, and retired homewards; and though
many a curious eye was bent on the movements of
the vessels from the distant hills, but very few of
those not immediately interested in the mysterious
visiters, ventured to approach the little rocky
cliffs that lined the bay.

The vessel that occasioned these cautious
movements, was a gallant ship, whose huge hull,
lofty masts, and square yards, loomed in the evening's
haze, above the sea, like a distant mountain
rising from the deep. She carried but little sail,
and though she warily avoided the near approach
to the land that the schooner had attempted, the
similarity of their movements was sufficiently apparent
to warrant the conjecture that they were
employed on the same duty. The frigate, for
the ship belonged to this class of vessels, floated
across the entrance of the little bay, majestically
in the tide, with barely enough motion through
the water to govern her movements, until she arrived
opposite to where her consort lay, when she
hove up heavily into the wind, squared the enormous
yards on her mainmast, and attempted, in
counteracting the power of her sails by each other,
to remain stationary; but the light air that had
at no time swelled her heavy canvass to the utmost,
began to fail, and the long waves that rolled in

from the ocean, ceased to be ruffled with the
breeze from the land. The currents, and the billows,
were fast sweeping the frigate towards one of
the points of the estuary, where the black heads of
the rocks could be seen running far into the sea,
and, in their turn, the mariners of the ship dropped
an anchor to the bottom, and drew her sails in
festoons to the yards. As the vessel swung round
to the tide, a heavy ensign was raised to her peak,
and a current of air opening, for a moment, its
folds, the white field, and red cross, that distinguish
the flag of England, were displayed to view.
So much, even the wary drover had loitered at a
distance to behold; but when a boat was launched
from either vessel, he quickened his steps, observing
to his wondering and amused companions, that
“they craft were a' thegither, mair bonny to
luik on than to abide wi'.”

A numerous crew manned the barge that was
lowered from the frigate, which, after receiving an
officer, with an attendant youth, left the ship, and
moved with a measured stroke of its oars, directly
towards the head of the bay. As it passed at a
short distance from the schooner, a light whale-boat,
pulled by four athletic men, shot from her
side, and rather dancing over, than cutting through
the waves, crossed her course with a wonderful
velocity. As the boats approached each other,
the men, in obedience to signals from their officers,
suspended their efforts, and for a few minutes they
floated at rest, during which time, there was the
following dialogue:

“Is the old man mad!” exclaimed the young
officer in the whale-boat, when his men had ceased
rowing; “does he think that the bottom of the
Ariel is made of iron, and that a rock can't knock
a hole in it! or does he think she is mann'd with
alligators, who can't be drown'd!”

A languid smile played for a moment round the
handsome features of the young man, who was
rather reclining than sitting in the stern-sheets of
the barge, as he replied,

“He knows your prudence too well, Captain
Barnstable, to fear either the wreck of your vessel,
or the drowning of her crew. How near the
bottom does your keel lie?”

“I am afraid to sound,” returned Barnstable.
“I have never the heart to touch a lead-line when
I see the rocks coming up to breathe like so many
porpoises.”

“You are afloat!” exclaimed the other, with
a vehemence that denoted an abundance of latent
fire.

“Afloat!” echoed his friend; “ay! the little
Ariel would float in air!” As he spoke, he rose
in the boat, and lifting his leathern sea-cap from his
head, stroked back the thick clusters of black
locks which shadowed his sun-burnt countenance,
while he viewed his little vessel with the complacency
of a seaman who was proud of her qualities.
“But it's close work, Mr. Griffith, when a
man rides to a single anchor in a place like this,
and at such a nightfall. What are the orders?”

“I shall pull into the surf and let go a grapnel;
you will take Mr. Merry into your whale-boat,
and try to drive her through the breakers on
the beach.”

“Beach!” retorted Barnstable; “do you call
a perpendicular rock of a hundred feet in height,
a beach!”

“We shall not dispute about terms,” said Griffith,
smiling; “but you must manage to get on the
shore; we have seen the signal from the land,
and know that the pilot, whom we have so long
expected, is ready to come off.”

Barnstable shook his head with a grave air,

as he muttered to himself, “this is droll navigation;
first we run into an unfrequented bay that
is full of rocks, and sand-spits, and shoals, and
then we get off our pilot. But how am I to know
him?”

“Merry will give you the pass-word, and
tell you where to look for him. I would land myself,
but my orders forbid it. If you meet with
difficulties, show three oar-blades in a row, and I
will pull in to your assistance. Three oars on
end, and a pistol, will bring the fire of my muskets,
and the signal repeated from the barge will
draw a shot from the ship.”

“I thank you, I thank you,” said Barnstable,
carelessly; “I believe I can fight my own battles
against all the enemies we are likely to fall in with
on this coast. But the old man is surely mad. I
would—”

“You would obey his orders if he were here,
and you will now please to obey mine,” said
Griffith, in a tone that the friendly expression of
his eye contradicted. “Pull in, and keep a look
out for a small man in a drab pea-jacket; Merry
will give you the word; if he answer it bring him
off to the barge.”

The young men now nodded familiarly and
kindly to each other, and the boy, who was called
Mr. Merry, having changed his place from the
barge to the whale-boat, Barnstable threw himself
into his seat, and making a signal with his hand,
his men again bent to their oars. The light vessel
shot away from her companion, and dashed in
boldly towards the rocks; after skirting the shore
for some distance in quest of a favourable place,
she was suddenly turned, and, dashing over the
broken waves, was run upon a spot where a landing
could be effected in safety.

In the mean time the barge followed these
movements, at some distance, with a more measured

progress, and when the whale-boat was observed
to be drawn up along side of a rock, the
promised grapnel was cast into the water, and her
crew deliberately proceeded to get their firearms
in a state for immediate service. Every thing
appeared to be done in obedience to strict orders
that must have been previously communicated;
for the young man, who has been introduced to
the reader by the name of Griffith, seldom spoke,
and then only in the pithy expressions that are
apt to fall from those who are sure of obedience.
When the boat had brought up to her grapnel, he
sunk back at his length on the cushioned seats of
the barge, and drawing his hat over his eyes in a
listless manner, he continued for many minutes apparently
absorbed in thoughts altogether foreign to
his present situation. Occasionally he rose, and
would first bend his looks in quest of his companions
on the shore, and then, turning his expressive
eyes towards the ocean, the abstracted and
vacant air that so often usurped the place of animation
and intelligence in his countenance, would
give place to the anxious and intelligent look of
a seaman gifted with an experience beyond his
years. His weather-beaten and hardy crew, having
made their dispositions for offence, sat in profound
silence, with their hands thrust into the bosoms
of their jackets, but with their eyes earnestly
regarding every cloud that was gathering in the
threatening atmosphere, and exchanging looks of
deep care, whenever the boat rose higher than
usual on one of those long, heavy ground-swells
that were heaving in from the ocean with increasing
rapidity and magnitude.