 | CHAPTER IV. The pilot |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
He's like to be a cold soldier.”
Falstaff.
Barnstable lingered on the sands for a few minutes,
until the footsteps of Dillon and the cockswain
were no longer audible, when he ordered
his men to launch their boat once more into the
surf. While the seamen pulled leisurely towards
the place he had designated, as the point where he
would await the return of Tom, the lieutenant
first began to entertain serious apprehensions
concerning the good faith of his prisoner. Now,
that Dillon was beyond his control, his imagination
presented, in very vivid colours, several
little circumstances in the other's conduct,
which might readily excuse some doubts
of his good faith, and, by the time they had
reached the place of rendezvous, and had cast a
light grapnel into the sea, his fears had rendered
him excessively uncomfortable. Leaving the
lieutenant to his reflections, on this unpleasant
subject, we shall follow Dillon and his fearless
and unsuspecting companion, in their progress
towards St. Ruth.
The mists, to which Tom had alluded, in his
discussion of the state of the weather with his
commander, appeared to be settling nearer to the
earth, and assuming, more decidedly, the appearance
sluggish volumes, but little agitated by the air.
The consequent obscurity added deeply to the
gloom of the night, and it would have been difficult
for one, less acquainted than Dillon with
the surrounding localities, to have found the path
which led to the dwelling of Colonel Howard.
After some little search, this desirable object was
effected, and the civilian led the way, with rapid
strides, towards the Abbey.
“Ay, ay!” said Tom, who followed his steps,
and equalled his paces, without any apparent effort,
“you shore-people have an easy way to find
your course and distance, when you get into the
track. I was once left by the craft I belonged to,
in Boston, to find my way to Plymouth, which is
a matter of fifteen leagues, or thereaway; and,
so finding nothing was bound up the bay, after
lying-by for a week, I concluded to haul aboard
my land tacks. I spent the better part of another
week in a search for some hooker, on board
which I might work my passage across the country,
for money was as scarce then with old Tom
Coffin as it is now, and is likely to be, unless the
fisheries get a good luff soon; but it seems that
nothing but your horse-flesh, and horned cattle,
and jack-asses, are privileged to do the pulling
and hauling in your shore-hookers; and I was
forced to pay a week's wages for a birth, besides
keeping a banyan on a mouthful of bread and
cheese, from the time we hove-up in Boston, 'till
we came-to in Plymouth town.”
“It was certainly an unreasonable exaction,
on the part of the stage-owners, from a man in
your situation,” said Dillon, in a friendly, soothing
tone of voice, that denoted a willingness to
pursue the conversation.
“My situation was that of a cabin passenger,”
returned the cockswain; “for there was but one
hand forward, beside the cattle I mentioned—that
was he who steered—and an easy birth he had
of it; for there his course lay a-tween walls of
stone, and fences; and, as for his reckoning, why,
they had stuck up bits of stone on-end, with his
day's work footed up, ready to his hand, every
half league or so. Besides, the land-marks were
so plenty, that a man, with half-an-eye, might
steer her, and no fear of getting to leeward.”
“You must have found yourself, as it were, in
a new world,” observed Dillon.
“Why, to me, it was pretty much the same as
if I had been set afloat in a strange country,
though I may be said to be a native of those
parts, being born on the coast. I had often
heard shore-men say, that there was as much
'arth as water in the world, which I always set
down as a rank lie, for I've sailed with a flowing
sheet months an-end, without falling in with as
much land or rock as would answer a gull to lay
its eggs on; but I will own, that a-tween Boston
and Plymouth, we were out-of-sight of water for
as much as two full watches.”
Dillon pursued this interesting subject with
great diligence, and, by the time they reached the
wall, which enclosed the large paddock that surrounded
the Abbey, the cockswain was deeply
involved in a discussion of the comparative magnitude
of the Atlantic Ocean and the Continent
of America.
Avoiding the principal entrance to the building,
through the great gates which communicated
with the court in front, Dillon followed the windings
of the wall until it led them to a wicket,
which he knew was seldom closed for the night,
until the hour for general rest had arrived. Their
and soon conducted them to the confused pile
which contained the offices. The cockswain followed
his companion, with a confiding reliance
on his knowledge and good faith, that was a good
deal increased by the freedom of communication
that had been maintained during their walk from
the cliffs. He did not perceive any thing extraordinary
in the other's stopping at the room,
which had been provided as a sort of barracks
for the soldiers of Captain Borroughcliffe. A
conference which took place between Dillon and
the sergeant, was soon ended, when the former
beckoned to the cockswain to follow, and, taking
a circuit round the whole of the offices, they entered
the Abbey together, by the door through
which the ladies had issued, when in quest of the
three prisoners, as has been already related.
After a turn or two among the narrow passages
of that part of the edifice, Tom, whose faith in
the facilities of land navigation began to be a
little shaken, found himself following his guide
through a long, dark gallery, that was terminated
at the end to which they were approaching,
by a half-open door, that admitted a glimpse into
a well-lighted and comfortable apartment. To this
door, Dillon hastily advanced, and, throwing it
open, the cockswain enjoyed a full view of the
very scene that we described, in introducing Col.
Howard to the acquaintance of the reader, and
under circumstances of great similitude. The
cheerful fire of coal, the strong and glaring
lights, the tables of polished mahogany, and the
blushing fluids, were still the same in appearance,
while the only perceptible change was in
the number of those, who partook of the cheer.
The master of the mansion, and Borroughcliffe,
were seated opposite to each other, employed in
pushing to and fro the glittering vessel, that
contained a portion of the generous liquor they
both loved so well; a task which each moment
rendered lighter.
“If Kit would but return,” exclaimed the
veteran, whose back was to the opening door,
“bringing with him his honest brows encircled,
as they will be, or ought to be, with laurel, I
should be the happiest old fool, Borroughcliffe, in
his majesty's realm of Great Britain!”
The captain, who felt the necessity for the
unnatural restraint he had imposed on his thirst,
to be removed by the capture of his enemies, pointed
towards the door with one hand, while he grasped
the sparkling reservoir of the “south side”
with the other, and answered—
“Lo! the Cacique himself! his brow inviting
the diadem—ha! who have we in his highness'
train? By the Lord, sir Cacique, if you travel
with a body guard of such grenadiers, old Frederic
of Prussia himself will have occasion to
envy you the corps! a clear six-footer in nature's
stockings! and the arms as unique as the armed!”
The colonel did not, however, attend to half of
his companion's exclamations, but turning, he beheld
the individual he had so much desired, and
received him with a delight proportioned to the
unexpectedness of the pleasure. For several
minutes, Dillon was compelled to listen to the
rapid questions of his venerable relative, to all of
which he answered with a prudent reserve, that
might, in some measure, have been governed by
the presence of the cockswain. Tom stood with
infinite composure, leaning on his harpoon, and
surveying, with a countenance where wonder was
singularly blended with contempt, the furniture
and arrangements of an apartment that was far
the mean time, Borroughcliffe entirely disregarded
the private communications that passed between
his host and Dillon, which gradually became
more deeply interesting, and finally drew
them to a distant corner of the apartment, but
taking a most undue advantage of the absence of
the gentleman, who had so lately been his boon
companion, he swallowed one potation after another,
as if a double duty had devolved on him,
in consequence of the desertion of the veteran.
Whenever his eye did wander from the ruby tints
of his glass, it was to survey, with unrepressed
admiration, the inches of the cockswain, about
whose stature and frame there were numberless
excellent points to attract the gaze of a recruiting
officer. From this double pleasure, the captain
was, however, at last summoned, to participate in
the councils of his friends.
Dillon was spared the disagreeable duty of repeating
the artful tale he had found it necessary
to palm on the colonel, by the ardour of the veteran
himself, who executed the task in a manner
that gave to the treachery of his kinsman, every
appearance of a justifiable artifice and of unshaken
zeal in the cause of his prince. In substance,
Tom was to be detained as a prisoner, and the
party of Barnstable were to be entrapped, and of
course to share a similar fate. The sunken eye
of Dillon cowered before the steady gaze which
Borroughcliffe fastened on him, as the latter listened
to the plaudits the colonel lavished on his
cousin's ingenuity; but the hesitation that lingered
in the soldier's manner vanished, when he turned
to examine their unsuspecting prisoner, who was
continuing his survey of the apartment, while he
innocently imagined the consultations he witnessed
his admission to the presence of Mr. Griffith.
“Drill,” said Borroughcliffe, aloud, “advance
and receive your orders.” The cockswain turned
quickly, at this sudden mandate, and, for the first
time, perceived that he had been followed into the
gallery by the orderly, and two files of the recruits,
armed. “Take this man to the guard-room,
and feed him; and see that he dies not of
thirst.”
There was nothing alarming in this order, and
Tom was following the soldiers, in obedience to a
gesture from the captain, when their steps were
arrested in the gallery, by the cry of “Halt.”
“On recollection, Drill,” said Borroughcliffe,
in a tone from which all dictatorial sounds were
banished, “show the gentleman into my own
room, and see him properly supplied.”
The orderly gave such an intimation of his
comprehending the meaning of his officer, as the
latter was accustomed to receive, when Borroughcliffe
returned to his bottle, and the cockswain
followed his guide, with an alacrity and good
will that were not a little increased by the repeated
mention of the cheer that awaited him.
Luckily for the impatience of Tom, the quarters
of the captain were at hand, and the promised
entertainment by no means slow in making its
appearance. The former was an apartment that
opened from a lesser gallery, which communicated
with the principal one already mentioned; and
the latter was a bountiful but ungarnished supply
of that staple of the British isles, called roast
beef; of which the kitchen of Colonel Howard
was never without a due and loyal provision.
The sergeant, who certainly understood one of
the signs of his captain to imply an attack on the
citadel of the cockswain's brain, mingled, with his
grog, and which he thought would have felled
the animal itself that Tom was so diligently masticating,
had it been alive, and in its vigour.
Every calculation that was made on the infirmity
of the cockswain's intellect, under the stimulus
of Jamaica, was, however, futile. He swallowed
glass after glass, with prodigious relish, but, at
the same time, with immoveable steadiness; and
the eyes of the sergeant, who felt it incumbent
to do honour to his own cheer, were already
glistening in his head, when, happily for the credit
of his art, a tap at the door announced the presence
of his captain, and relieved him from the
impending disgrace of being drunk blind by a
recruit.
As Borroughcliffe entered the apartment, he
commanded his orderly to retire, adding—
“Mr. Dillon will give you instructions, which
you are implicitly to obey.”
Drill, who had sense enough remaining to
apprehend the displeasure of his officer, should
the latter discover his condition, quickened his
departure, and the cockswain soon found himself
alone with the captain. The vigour of Tom's
attacks on the remnants of the sirloin was now
much abated, leaving in its place that placid quiet
which is apt to linger about the palate, long after
the cravings of the appetite have been appeased.
He had seated himself on one of the trunks of Borroughcliffe,
utterly disdaining the use of a chair,
and, with the trencher in his lap, was using his own
jack-knife on the dilapidated fragment of the ox,
with something of that nicety with which the female
goule, of the Arabian Tales, might be supposed
to pick her rice with the point of her bodkin.
The captain drew a seat nigh the cockswain,
and, with a familiarity and kindness infinitely coft-descending,
conditions is considered, he commenced the following
dialogue:
“I hope you have found your entertainment to
your liking, Mr.—I must own my ignorance of
your name.”
“Tom,” said the cockswain, keeping his eyes
roaming over the contents of the trencher;
“commonly called long-Tom, by my shipmates.”
“You have sailed with discreet men, and able
navigators, it would seem, as they understand longitude
so well,” rejoined the captain; “but you
have a patronymick—I would say, another
name?”
“Coffin,” returned the cockswain; “I'm called
Tom, when there is any hurry, such as letting go
the haulyards, or a sheet; long-Tom, when they
want to get to windward of an old seaman, by
fair weather; and long-Tom Coffin, when they
wish to hail me, so that none of my cousins of
the same name, about the islands, shall answer;
for I believe the best man among them can't measure
much over a fathom, taking him from his
head-works to his heel.”
“You are a most deserving fellow,” cried Borroughcliffe,
“and it is painful to think to what a
fate the treachery of Mr. Dillon has consigned
you.”
The suspicions of Tom, if he ever entertained
any, were lulled to rest too effectually by the
kindness he had received, to be awakened by this
equivocal lament; he, therefore, after renewing
his intimacy with the rummer, contented himself
by saying, with a satisfied simplicity—
“I am consigned to no one, carrying no cargo
but this Mr. Dillon, who is to give me Mr. Griffith
in exchange, or to go back to the Ariel himself,
as my prisoner.”
“Ah! my good friend, I fear you will find,
when the time comes to make this exchange, that
he will refuse to do either.”
“But I'll be d—d if he don't do one of
them; my orders are to see it done, and back he
goes; or Mr. Griffith, who is as good a seaman,
for his years, as ever trod a deck, slips his cable
from this here anchorage.”
Borroughcliffe affected to eye his companion
with great commiseration; an exhibition of compassion
that was, however, completely lost on the
cockswain, whose nerves were strung to their
happiest tension, by his repeated libations, while
his wit was, if any thing, quickened by the
same cause, though his own want of guile rendered
him slow to comprehend its existence in others.
Perceiving it necessary to speak plainly, the captain
renewed the attack in a more direct manner—
“I am sorry to say that you will not be permitted
to return to the Ariel, and that your commander,
Mr. Barnstable, will be a prisoner within
the hour; and in fact, that your schooner will
be taken, before the morning breaks.”
“Who'll take her?” asked the cockswain, with
a grim smile, on whose feelings, however, this
combination of threatened calamities was beginning
to make some impression.
“You must remember, that she lies immediately
under the heavy guns of a battery that can
sink her in a few minutes; an express has already
been sent to acquaint the commander of the work
with the Ariel's true character; and as the wind has
already begun to blow from the ocean, her escape
is impossible.”
The truth, together with its portentous consequences,
now began to glare across the faculties of
the cockswain. He remembered his own prognostics
the schooner, deprived of more than half her crew,
and left to the keeping of a boy, while her commander
himself was on the eve of captivity. The
trencher fell from his lap to the floor, his head
sunk on his knees, his face was concealed between
his broad palms, and in spite of every effort
the old seaman could make to conceal his emotion,
he fairly groaned aloud.
For a moment, the better feelings of Borroughcliffe
prevailed, and he paused, as he witnessed
this exhibition of suffering in one whose
head was already sprinkled with the marks of
time; but his habits, and the impressions left by
many years passed in collecting victims for the
wars, soon resumed their ascendancy, and the recruiting
officer diligently addressed himself to an
improvement of his advantage.
“I pity, from my heart, the poor lads whom
artifice or mistaken notions of duty may have
led astray, and who will thus be taken in arms
against their sovereign; but, as they are found in
the very island of Britain, they must be made examples
to deter others. I fear, that unless they
can make their peace with government, they will
all be condemned to death.”
“Let them make their peace with God, then;
your government can do but little to clear the log-account
of a man whose watch is up for this
world.”
“But, by making their peace with those who
have the power, their lives may be spared,” said
the captain, watching, with keen eyes, the effect
his words produced on the cockswain.
“It matters but little when a man hears the
messenger pipe his hammock down for the last
time; he keeps his watch in another world, though
has been put together after such moulds as the
Ariel's, go into strange hands, is a blow that a
man may remember long after the purser's books
have been squared against his name for ever. I
would rather that twenty shot should strike my
old carcass, than one should hull the schooner
that didn't pass out above her water-line.”
Borroughcliffe replied, somewhat carelessly,
“I may be mistaken, after all; and, instead of
putting any of you to death, they may place you
all on board the prison-ships, where you may
yet have a merry time of it, these ten or fifteen
years to come.”
“How's that, shipmate!” cried the cockswain,
with a start; “a prison-ship, d'ye say? you may
tell them that they can save the expense of one
man's rations, by shooting him, if they please,
and that is old Tom Coffin.”
“There is no answering for their caprice; to-day,
they may order a dozen of you shot for rebels;
to-morrow they may choose to consider
you as prisoners of war, and send you to the
hulks for a dozen years.”
“Tell them, brother, that I'm a rebel, will ye?
and ye'll tell 'em no lie—one that has fout them
since Manly's time, in Boston bay, to this hour.
I hope the boy will blow her up! it would be the
death of poor Richard Barnstable, to see her in
the hands of the English!”
“I know of one way,” said Borroughcliffe,
affecting to muse, “and but one, that will certainly
avert the prison-ship; for, on second
thoughts, they will hardly put you to death.”
“Name it, friend,” cried the cockswain, rising
from his seat in evident perturbation, “and if it
lies in the power of man, it shall be done.”
“Nay,” said the captain, dropping his hand familiarly
on the shoulder of the other, who listened
with the most eager attention, “'tis easily
done, and no dreadful thing in itself; you are
used to gun-powder, and know its smell from otto
of roses?”
“Ay, ay,” cried the impatient old seaman; “I
have had it flashing under my nose by the hour;
what then?”
“Why, then, what I have to propose will be
nothing to a man like you—you found the beef
wholesome, and the grog mellow?”
“Ay, ay, all well enough; but what is that to
an old sailor?” asked the cockswain, unconsciously
grasping the collar of Borroughcliffe's
coat, in his agitation; “what then?”
The captain manifested no displeasure at this
unexpected familiarity, but smiled, with suavity,
as he unmasked the battery, from behind which
he had hitherto carried on his attacks.
“Why, then, you have only to serve your
King, as you have before served the Congress—
and let me be the man to show you your colours.”
The cockswain stared at the speaker intently,
but it was evident he did not clearly comprehend
the nature of the proposition, and the captain
pursued the subject—
“In plain English, enlist in my company, my
fine fellow,” he added, “and your life and liberty
are both safe.”
Tom did not laugh aloud, for that was a burst
of feeling in which he was seldom known to indulge,
but every feature of his weather-beaten
visage contracted into an expression of bitter,
ironical contempt. Borroughcliffe felt the iron
fingers, that still grasped his collar, gradually
tightening about his throat, like a vice, and, as the
power that it was in vain to resist, close to that of
the cockswain, who, when their faces were within
a foot of each other, gave vent to his emotions
in words:—
“A messmate, before a shipmate; a shipmate,
before a stranger; a stranger, before a dog; but
a dog before a soldier!”
As Tom concluded, his nervous arm was suddenly
extended to the utmost, the fingers relinquishing
their grasp at the same time, and, when
Borroughcliffe recovered his disordered faculties,
he found himself in a distant corner of the apartment,
prostrate among a confused pile of chairs,
tables, and wearing apparel. In endeavouring
to rise from this humble posture, the hand of the
captain fell on the hilt of his sword, which had
been included in the confused assemblage of articles
produced by his overthrow.
“How now, scoundrel!” he cried, baring the
glittering weapon, and springing on his feet;
“you must be taught your distance, I perceive.”
The cockswain seized the harpoon which leaned
against the wall, and dropped its barbed extremity
within a foot of the breast of his assailant,
with an expression of the eye that denoted
the danger of a nearer approach. The captain,
however, wanted not for courage, and, stung to
the quick by the insult he had received, he made
a desperate parry, and attempted to pass within
the point of the novel weapon of his adversary.
The slight shock was followed by a sweeping
whirl of the harpoon, and Borroughcliffe found
himself without arms, completely at the mercy of
his foe. The bloody intentions of Tom vanished
with his success; for, laying aside his weapon,
he advanced upon his antagonist, and seized
him with an open palm. One more struggle, in
to make any defence against the strength of a
man who managed him as if he had been a child,
decided the matter. When the captain was passive
in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced
sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratlin-stuff,
from pockets, which appeared to contain as
great a variety of small cordage as a boatswain's
store-room, and proceeded to lash the arms of the
conquered to the posts of his bed, with a coolness
that had not been disturbed since the commencement
of hostilities, a silence that seemed inflexible,
and a dexterity that none but a seaman could
equal. When this part of his plan was executed,
Tom paused a moment, and gazed around him as
if in quest of something. The naked sword
caught his eye, and, with this weapon in his
hand, he deliberately approached his captive,
whose alarm prevented his discovering, that the
cockswain had snapped the blade asunder from
the handle, and that he had already encircled the
latter with marline.
“For God's sake,” exclaimed Borroughcliffe,
“murder me not in cold blood!”
The silver hilt entered his mouth as the words
issued from it, and the captain found, while the line
was passed and repassed, in repeated involutions
across the back of his neck, that he was in a condition
to which he often subjected his own men,
when unruly, and which is universally called, being
`gagged.' The cockswain now appeared to
think himself entitled to all the privileges of a
conqueror; for, taking the light in his hand, he
commenced a scrutiny into the nature and quality
of the worldly effects that lay at his mercy.
Sundry articles, that belonged to the equipments
of a soldier, were examined, and cast aside, with
great contempt, and divers garments of plainer
the victor. He, however, soon encountered two
articles, of a metal that is well understood by
all. But the uncertainty as to their use appeared
greatly to embarrass him. The circular prongs
of these curiosities were applied to either hand,
to the wrists, and even to the nose, and the little
wheels, at their opposite extremity, were turned
and examined with as much curiosity and care,
as a savage would expend on a watch, until the
idea seemed to cross the mind of the honest seaman,
that they formed part of the useless trappings
of a military man, and he cast them aside,
also, as utterly worthless. Borroughcliffe, who
watched every movement of his conqueror, with
a good humour that would have restored perfect
harmony between them, could he but have expressed
half what he felt, witnessed the safety of a
favourite pair of spurs, with much pleasure, though
nearly suffocated, by mirth that was unnaturally
repressed. At length, the cockswain found a pair
of handsomely mounted pistols, a sort of weapon,
with which he seemed quite familiar. They were
loaded, and the knowledge of that fact appeared
to remind Tom of the necessity of departing,
by bringing to his recollection the danger of his
commander and the Ariel. He thrust the weapons
into the canvass belt that encircled his body,
and, grasping his harpoon, approached the bed,
where Borroughcliffe was seated in duresse.
“Harkye, friend,” said the cockswain, “may
the Lord forgive you, as I do, for wishing to
make a soldier of a sea-faring man, and one who
has followed the waters since he was an hour old,
and one who hopes to die off soundings, and to
be buried in brine. I wish you no harm, friend,
but you'll have to keep a stopper on your conversation
'till such time as some of your messmates
get an offing as may be.”
With these amicable wishes, the cockswain departed,
leaving Borroughcliffe the light, and the
undisturbed possession of his apartment, though
not in the most easy or the most enviable situation
imaginable. The captain heard the bolt of
his lock turn, and the key rattle as the cockswain
withdrew it from the door—two precautionary
steps, that clearly indicated that the vanquisher
deemed it prudent to secure his retreat,
by insuring the detention of the vanquished, for
at least a time.
| CHAPTER IV. The pilot | |