 | CHAPTER XVI. The pilot |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day;
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Bryant.
When the young seaman, who now commanded
the frigate, descended from the quarter-deck in
compliance with the often repeated summons, he
found the vessel restored to the same neatness as if
nothing had occurred to disturb its order. The
gun-deck had been cleansed of its horrid stains, and
the smoke of the fight had long since ascended
through the hatches, and mingled with the clouds
that flitted above the ship. As he walked along the
silent batteries, even the urgency of his visit could
not prevent him from glancing his eyes towards the
splintered sides, those terrible vestiges, by which
the paths of the shot of their enemy might be traeed;
and by the time he tapped lightly at the door
of the cabin, his quick look had embraced every
material injury the vessel had sustained in her
principal points of defence. The door was opened
by the surgeon of the frigate, who, as he stepped
aside to permit Griffith to enter, shook his
head with that air of meaning, which, in one of
his profession, is understood to imply the abandonment
of all hopes, and then immediately quitted
might profit by his services.
The reader is not to imagine that Griffith had
lost sight of Cecilia and her cousin during the occurrences
of that eventful day; on the contrary,
his troubled fancy had presented her terror and distress,
even in the hottest moments of the fight,
and the instant that the crew were called from
their guns, he had issued an order to replace the
bulk-heads of the cabin, and to arrange its furniture
for their accommodation, though the higher
and imperious duties of his station had precluded
his attending to their comfort in person. He expected,
therefore, to find the order of the rooms
restored, but he was by no means prepared to
encounter the scene he was now to witness.
Between two of the sullen cannon, which gave
such an air of singular wildness to the real comfort
of the cabin, was placed a large couch, on which
the Colonel was lying, evidently near his end.
Cecilia was weeping by his side, her dark ringlets
falling in unheeded confusion around her pale features,
and sweeping in their rich exuberance the
deck on which she kneeled. Katherine leaned
tenderly over the form of the dying veteran, while
her dark, tearful eyes seemed to express self-accusation
blended with deep commiseration. A few
attendants of both sexes surrounded the solemn
scene, all of whom appeared to be under the influence
of the hopeless intelligence which the medical
officer had but that moment communicated. The
servants of the ship had replaced the furniture
with a care that mocked the dreadful struggle
that so recently disfigured the warlike apartment,
and the stout, square frame of Boltrope occupied
the opposite settee, his head resting on the lap of
the Captain's Steward, and his hand gently held
in the grasp of his friend the Chaplain. Griffith
own eyes now conveyed the first intelligence of
the situation of Colonel Howard. When the
shock of this sudden discovery had a little subsided,
the young man approached the couch of
the latter, and attempted to express his regret
and pity, in a voice that afforded an assurance of
his sincerity.
“Say no more, Edward Griffith,” interrupted
the Colonel, waving his hand feebly for silence;
“it seemeth to be the will of God that this rebellion
should triumph, and it is not for vain man to
impeach the acts of Omnipotence! To my erring
faculties, it wears an appearance of mystery, but
doubtless it is to answer the purpose of his own
inscrutable providence! I have sent for you, Edward,
on a business that I would fain see accomplished
before I die, that it may not be said old
George Howard neglected his duty, even in his
last moments. You see this weeping child at my
side; tell me, young man, do you love the maiden?”
“Am I to be asked such a question?” exclaimed
Griffith.
“And will you cherish her—will you supply to
her the places of father and mother, will you become
the fond guardian of her innocence and
weakness?”
Griffith could give no other answer than a fervent
pressure of the hand he had clasped.
“I believe you,” continued the dying man;
“for however he may have forgotten to inculcate
his own loyalty, worthy Hugh Griffith could never
neglect to make his son a man of honour. I
had weak, and perhaps evil wishes in behalf of my
late unfortunate kinsman, Mr. Christopher Dillon;
but they have told me that he was false to his
faith. If this be true, I would refuse him the hand
British realms! But he has passed away, and I am
about to follow him into a world where we shall
find but one Lord to serve, and it may have been
better for us both had we more remembered our
duty to Him, while serving the Princes of the earth.
One thing further—know you this officer of your
congress well; this Mr. Barnstable?”
“I have sailed with him for years,” returned
Griffith, “and can answer for him as myself.”
The veteran made an effort to rise, which in
part succeeded, and he fastened on the youth a
look of keen scrutiny that gave to his pallid features
an expression of solemn meaning, as he continued—
“Speak not now, sir, as the companion of his
idle pleasures, and as the unthinking associate
commends his fellow, but remember that your opinion
is given to a dying man who leans on your judgment
for advice. The daughter of John Plowden
is a trust not to be neglected, nor will my
death prove easy, if a doubt of her being worthily
bestowed shall remain!”
“He is a gentleman,” returned Griffith, “and
one whose heart is not less kind than gallant—he
loves your ward, and great as may be her merit,
he is deserving of it all—like myself, he has also
loved the land that gave him birth, before the
land of his ancestors, but—”
“That is now forgotten,” interrupted the Colonel;
“after what I have this day witnessed I am
forced to believe that it is the pleasure of Heaven
that you are to prevail! But, sir, a disobedient inferior
will be apt to make an unreasonable commander.
The recent contention between you—”
“Remember it not, dear sir,” exclaimed Griffith
with generous zeal—“ 'twas unkindly provoked,
and it is already forgotten and pardoned.
and my life on it, that he knows how to treat a
woman as a brave man should!”
“Then am I content!” said the veteran, sinking
back on his couch; “let him be summoned.”
The whispered message, which Griffith gave requesting
Mr. Barnstable to enter the cabin, was
quickly conveyed, and he had appeared before his
friend deemed it discreet to disturb the reflections
of the veteran by again addressing him. When the
entrance of the young sailor was announced, the
Colonel again roused himself, and addressed his
wondering listener, though in a manner much less
confiding and familiar, than that which he had
adopted towards Griffith.
“The declarations you made last night, relative
to my ward, the daughter of the late Captain John
Plowden, sir, have left me nothing to learn on the
subject of your wishes. Here, then, gentlemen,
you both obtain the reward of your attentions!
Let that reverend divine hear you pronounce the
marriage vows, while I have strength to listen,
that I may be a witness against ye, in heaven,
should ye forget their tenor!
“Not now, not now,” murmured Cecilia; “Oh
ask it not now, my uncle!”
Katherine spoke not, but deeply touched by the
tender interest her guardian manifested in her
welfare, she bowed her face to her bosom, in
subdued feeling, and suffered the tears that had
been suffusing her eyes to roll down her cheeks
in large drops, till they bathed the deck.
“Yes, now, my love,” continued the Colonel,
“or I fail in my duty. I go shortly to stand face
to face with your parents, my children; for the
man, who dying, expects not to meet worthy
Hugh Griffith and honest Jack Plowden in heaven,
can have no clear view of the rewards that belong
loyalty to the King! I trust no one can justly
say, that I ever forgot the delicacy due to your
gentle sex; but it is no moment for idle ceremony
when time is shortening into minutes, and heavy
duties remain to be discharged. I could not die
in peace, children, were I to leave you here in the
wide ocean, I had almost said in the wide world,
without that protection which becomes your tender
years and still more tender characters. If it
has pleased God to remove your guardian, let his
place be supplied by those he wills to succeed him!
Cecilia no longer hesitated, but she arose slowly
from her knees, and offered her hand to Griffith
with an air of forced resignation. Katherine submitted
to be led by Barnstable to her side, and the
chaplain who had been an affected listener to the
dialogue; in obedience to an expressive signal
from the eye of Griffith, opened the prayer book
from which he had been gleaning consolation for
the dying master, and commenced reading, in trembling
tones, the marriage service. The vows were
pronounced by the weeping brides in voices more
distinct and audible than if they had been uttered
amid the gay crowds that usually throng a bridal;
for though they were the irreclaimable
words that bound them forever to the men, whose
power over their feelings they thus proclaimed
to the world, the reserve of maiden diffidence
was lost in one engrossing emotion of solemnity,
created by the awful presence in which they
stood. When the benediction was pronounced,
the head of Cecilia dropped on the shoulder of
her husband, where she wept violently, for a moment,
and then resuming her place at the couch,
she once more knelt at the side of her uncle.
Katherine received the cold kiss of Barnstable,
passively, and returned slowly to the spot whence
she had been led.
Colonel Howard succeeded in raising his person,
to witness the ceremony, and had answered
to each prayer with a fervent `amen.' He
fell back with the last words, and a look of satisfaction
shone in his aged and pallid features, that
declared the interest he had taken in the scene.
“I thank you, my children,” he at length uttered,
“I thank you, for I know how much you have
sacrificed to my wishes. You will find all my papers
relative to the estates of my wards, gentlemen, in
the hands of my banker in London, and you will
also find there my will, Edward, by which you will
learn that Cicely has not come to your arms an
unportioned bride. What my wards are in persons
and manners your eyes can witness, and I
trust the vouchers in London will show that I have
not been an unfaithful steward to their pecuniary
affairs!”
“Name it not—say no more, or you will break
my heart,” cried Katherine, sobbing aloud, in the
violence of her remorse at having ever pained so
true a friend. “Oh! talk of yourself, think of
yourself; we are unworthy—at least I am unworthy
of another thought!”
The dying man extended a hand to her in kindness,
and continued, though his voice grew feebler
as he spoke—
“Then to return to myself—I would wish to lie,
like my ancestors, in the bosom of the earth—and
in consecrated ground.”
“It shall be done,” whispered Griffith; “I will
see it done myself.”
“I thank thee, my son,” said the veteran; “for
such thou art to me in being the husband of Cicely
—you will find in my will, that I have liberated
and provided for all my slaves—except those ungrateful
scoundrels who deserted their master—
they have seized their own freedom, and they need
Edward, also an unworthy legacy to the King; his
Majesty will deign to receive it—from an old and
faithful servant, and you will not miss the trifling
gift.” A long pause followed, as if he had been
summing up the account of his earthly duties, and
found them duly balanced, when he added, “kiss
me Cicely—and you, Katherine—I find you have
the genuine feelings of honest Jack, your father.—
My eyes grow dim—which is the hand of Griffith?
Young gentleman, I have given you all that a fond
old man had to bestow—deal tenderly with the precious
child—we have not properly understood each
other—I had mistaken both you and Mr. Christopher
Dillon, I believe; perhaps I may have also
mistaken my duty to America—but I was too old
to change my politics or my religion—I—I—I
lov'd the King—God bless him—”
His words became fainter and fainter as he proceeded,
and the breath deserted his body with
this benediction on his livid lips, which the proudest
monarch might covet from so honest a man.
The body was instantly borne into a state-room
by the attendants, and Griffith and Barnstable supported
their brides into the after-cabin, where they
left them seated on the sofa that lined the stern of
the ship, weeping bitterly, in each other's arms.
No part of the preceding scene had been unobserved
by Boltrope, whose small, hard eyes, were
observed by the young men to twinkle, when they
returned into the state apartment, and they approached
their wounded comrade to apologize for
the seeming neglect that their conduct had displayed.
“I heard you were hurt, Boltrope,” said Griffith,
taking him kindly by the hand; “but as I
know you are not unused to being marked by shot,
I trust we shall soon see you again on deck.
“Ay, ay,” returned the master, “you'll want no
spy-glasess to see the old hulk as you launch it
into the sea. I have had shot, as you say, before
now to tear my running gear, and even to knock a
splinter out of some of my timbers, but this fellow
has found his way into my bread-room; and the
cruise of life is up!”
“Surely the case is not so bad, honest David,”
said Barnstable; “you have kept afloat, to my
knowledge, with a bigger hole in your skin than
this unlucky hit has made!”
“Ay, ay,” returned the master, “that was in
my upper works, where the doctor could get at it
with a plug; but this chap has knocked away the
shifting-boards, and I feel as if the whole cargo
was broken up.—You may say, that Tourniquet
rates me all the same as a dead man, for after
looking at the shot-hole, he has turned me over to
the parson here, like a piece of old junk which is
only fit to be worked up into something new.
Captain Munson had a lucky time of it! I
think you said, Mr. Griffith, that the old gentleman
was launched overboard with every thing
standing, and that Death made but one rap at his
door, before he took his leave!”
“His end was indeed sudden!” returned Griffith;
“but it is what we seamen must expect.
“And for which there is so much the more
occasion to be prepared,” the chaplain ventured
to add, in a low, humble, and, perhaps, timid
voice.
The sailing-master looked keenly from one to
the other as they spoke, and, after a short pause,
he continued with an air of great submission—
“ 'Twas his luck; and I suppose it is sinful to
begrudge a man his lawful luck. As for being prepared,
parson, that is your business and not mine;
therefore, as there is but little time to spare, why,
the sooner you set about it the better; and to save
to strive to make too much of me, for, I must own
it to my shame, I never took learning kindly.
If you can fit me for some middling birth in the
other world, like the one I hold in this ship, it
will suit me as well, and, perhaps, be easier to
all hands of us.”
If there was a shade of displeasure, blended with
the surprise, that crossed the features of the divine
at this extraordinary limitation of his duties,
it entirely disappeared when he considered, more
closely, the perfect expression of simplicity with
which the dying master uttered his wishes. After
a long and melancholy pause, which neither Griffith
nor his friend felt any inclination to interrupt,
the chaplain replied—
“It is not the province of man to determine
on the degrees of the merciful dispensations of
the Deity, and nothing that I can do, Mr. Boltrope,
will have any weight in making up the
mighty and irrevocable decree. What I said to
you last night, in our conversation on this very
subject, must still be fresh in your memory, and
there is no good reason why I should hold a different
language to you now.”
“I can't say that I log'd all that pass'd,” returned
the master, “and that which I do recollect
chiefly fell from myself, for the plain reason
that a man remembers his own, better than his
neighbor's ideas. And this puts me in mind, Mr.
Griffith, to tell you, that one of the forty-two's
from the three-decker, travelled across the forecastle,
and cut the best bower within a fathom of
the clinch, as handily as an old woman would clip
her rotten yarn with a pair of tailor's shears!—If
you will be so good as to order one of my mates
to shift the cable end-for-end, and make a new
bend of it, I'll do as much for you another time.”
“Mention it not,” said Griffith; “rest assured
that every thing shall be done for the security of
the ship in your department—I will superintend
the whole duty in person; and I would have you
release your mind from all anxiety on the subject,
to attend to your more important interests elsewhere.”
“Why,” returned Boltrope, with a little show
of pertinacity, “I have an opinion, that the
cleaner a man takes his hands into the other
world, of the matters of duty in this, the better
he will be fitted to handle any thing new.—Now
the parson, here, undertook to lay down the doctrine
last night, that it was no matter how well or
how ill a man behaved himself, so that he squared
his conscience by the lifts and braces of faith,
which I take to be a doctrine that is not to be
preach'd on shipboard, for it would play the devil
with the best ship's company that was ever mustered.”
“Oh! no—no—dear Mr. Boltrope, you mistook
me and my doctrine altogether!” exclaimed
the chaplain; “at least you mistook—”
“Perhaps, sir,” interrupted Griffith, gently,“our
honest friend will not be more fortunate now.
Is there nothing earthly that hangs upon your
mind, Boltrope? no wish to be remembered to
any one, nor any bequest to make of your property?”
“He has a mother, I know,” said Barnstable
in a low voice; “he often spoke of her to me in
the night watches; I think she must still be living.”
The master, who distinctly heard his young
shipmates, continued for more than a minute rolling
the tobacco, which he still retained, from one
side of his mouth to the other, with an industry
that denoted singular agitation for the man, and
he picked the worn skin from fingers, which
were already losing their brownish yellow hue in
the fading colour of death, before he answered—
“Why, yes, the old woman still keeps her grip
upon life, which is more than can be said of her
son David. The old man was lost the time the
Susan and Dorothy was wrecked on the back of
Cape Cod; you remember it, Mr. Barnstable? you
were then a lad, sailing on whaling voyages from
the island! well, ever since that gale, I've endeavoured
to make smooth water for the old woman
myself, though she has had but a rough passage
of it, at the best; the voyage of life, with
her, having been pretty much crossed by rugged
weather and short stores.”
“And you would have us carry some message
to her? said Griffith, kindly.
“Why, as to messages,” continued the master,
whose voice was rapidly growing more husky and
broken, “there never has been many compliments
—passed between us, for the reason—that she is
not more used to receive them—than I am to make
them. But if any one of you will overhaul—the
parser's books, and see what there is standing there
—to my side of the leaf—and take a little pains to
get it to the old woman—you will find her moor'd in
the lee side of a house—ay, here it is, No. 10
Cornhill, Boston. I took care—to get her a good
warm birth, seeing that a woman of eighty, wants
a snug anchorage—at her time of life, if ever.
“I will do it myself, David,” cried Barnstable,
struggling to conceal his emotion; “I will call on
her the instant we let go our anchor in Boston
harbor, and as your credit can't be large, I will
divide my own purse with her!”
The sailing-master was powerfully affected by
this kind offer, the muscles of his hard weatherbeaten
moment before he could trust his voice in reply.
“I know you would, Dickey, I know you
would,” he at length uttered, grasping the hand of
Barnstable with a portion of his former strength;
“I know you would give the old woman one of your
own limbs, if it would do a service—to the mother
of a messmate—which it would not—seeing that
I am not the son of a—cannibal; but you are out of
your own father's books, and it's too often shoal
water in your pockets to help any one—more especially
since you have just been spliced to a pretty
young body—that will want all your spare coppers.”
“But I am master of my own fortune,” said
Griffith, “and am rich.”
“Ay, ay, I have heard it said you could build a
frigate and set her afloat all a-taunt-o without
thrusting your hand—into any man's purse—but
your own!”
“And I pledge you the honor of a naval officer,”
continued the young sailor, “that she shall want
for nothing; not even the care and tenderness of
a dutiful son.”
Boltrope appeared to be choking; he made an
attempt to raise his exhausted frame on the couch,
but fell back exhausted and dying, perhaps a little
prematurely, through the powerful and unusual
emotions that were struggling for utterance. “God
forgive me my misdeeds!” he, at length, said, “and
chiefly for ever speaking a word against your
disciplyne; remember the best bower—and look
to the slings of the lower yards—and—and—he'll
do it Dickey, he'll do it! I'm casting off—the fasts
—of life—and so God bless ye all—and give ye
good weather—going large—or on a bowline!”
The tongue of the master failed him, but a look
of heart-felt satisfaction gleamed across his rough
visage, as its muscles suddenly contracted, when
stiffness of death.
Griffith directed the body to be removed to the
apartment of the Master, and proceeded with a
heavy heart to the upper deck. The Alacrity
had been unnoticed during the arduous chase of
the frigate, and favored by day-light, and her light
draught of water, she had easily effected her escape
also among the mazes of the shoals. She was
called down to her consort by signal, and received
the necessary instructions how to steer during
the approaching night. The British ships
were now only to be faintly discovered, like small
white specks on the dark sea, and as it was
known that a broad barrier of shallow water lay
between them, the Americans no longer regarded
their presence as at all dangerous.
When the necessary orders had been given, and
the vessels were fully prepared, they were once
more brought up to the wind, and their heads pointed
in the direction of the coast of Holland. The
wind, which freshened towards the decline of day,
hauled round with the sun, and when that luminary
retreated from the eye, so rapid had been the progress
of the mariners, it seemed to sink in the bosom
of the ocean, the land having long before settled
into its watery bed. All night the frigate continued
to dash through the seas with a sort of sullen
silence, that was soothing to the melancholy
of Cecilia and Katherine, neither of whom closed
an eye during that gloomy period. In addition
to the scene they had witnessed, their feelings
were harrowed by the knowledge that, in conformity
to the necessary plans of Griffith, and in
compliance with the new duties he had assumed,
they were to separate in the morning for an indefinite
period, and possibly forever.
With the appearance of light, the boatswain sent
crew were collected in solemn silence in her
gang-ways, to `bury the dead.' The bodies of Boltrope,
of one or two of her inferior officers, and of
several common men, who had died of their wounds
in the night, were, with the usual formalities,
committed to the deep; when the yards of the ship
were again braced by the wind, and she glided
along the trackless waste, leaving no memorial in
the midst of the ever-rolling waters, to mark
the place of their sculpture.
When the sun had gained the meridian the vessels
were once more hove-to, and the preparations
were made for a final separation. The body
of Colonel Howard was transferred to the Alacrity,
whither it was followed by Griffith and his
cheerless bride, while Katherine hung fondly from
a window of the ship, suffering her own scalding
tears to mingle with the brine of the ocean. After
every thing was arranged, Griffith waved his hand
to Barnstable, who had now succeeded to the command
of the frigate, and the yards of the latter
were braced sharp to the wind, when she proceeded
to the dangerous experiment of forcing her way
to the shores of America, by attempting the pass of
the streights of Dover, and running the gauntlet
through the English ships that crowded their own
channel; an undertaking, however, for which she
had the successful example of the Alliance frigate,
which had borne the stars of America along the
same hazardous path but a few months previously.
In the meanwhile the Alacrity, steering more to
the west, drew in swiftly towards the shores of Holland,
and about an hour before the setting of the sun,
had approached so nigh as to be once more hove into
the wind, in obedience to the mandate of Griffith,
A small light boat was lowered into the sea, when
the young sailor, and the pilot, who had found his
from the small cabin together. The stranger
glanced his eyes along the range of coast, as if he
would ascertain the exact position of the vessel,
and then turned them on the sea and the western
horizon to scan the weather. Finding nothing
in the appearance of the latter to induce him to
change his determination, he offered his hand
frankly to Griffith, and said—
“Here we part. As our acquaintance has not
led to all we wished, let it be your task, sir, to
forget we ever met.”
Griffith bowed respectfully, but in silence, when
the other continued, shaking his hand contemptuously
towards the land—
“Had I but a moiety of the navy of that degenerate
republic, the proudest among those haughty
islanders should tremble in his castle, and be
made to feel there is no security against a foe that
trusts his own strength and knows the weakness of
his enemy! But”, he muttered in a lower and
more hurried voice, “this has been like Liverpool,
and—Whitehaven—and Edinburgh, and fifty
more! it is past, sir; let it be forgotten.”
Without heeding the wondering crew, who were
collected as curious spectators of his departure, the
stranger bowed hastily to Griffith, and springing
into the boat, he spread her light sail with the
readiness of one who had nothing to learn even in
the smallest matters of his daring profession. Once
more, as the boat moved briskly away from the
cutter, he waved his hand in adieu, and Griffith
fancied, that even through the distance, he could
trace a smile of bitter resignation, lighting his calm
features with a momentary gleam. For a long
time the young man stood an abstracted gazer at
his solitary progress, watching the small boat as
to order the head sheets of the Alacrity
drawn, in order to put the vessel again in motion,
until the dark speck was lost in the strong glare
that fell, obliquely across the water, from the setting
sun.
Many wild and extraordinary conjectures were
uttered among the crew of the cutter, as she slowly
drew in towards her friendly haven, on the appearance
of the mysterious pilot, during their late
hazardous visit to the coast of Britain, and on his
still more extraordinary disappearance, as it were,
amid the stormy wastes of the North sea. Griffith
himself was not observed to smile, nor to manifest any
other evidence of his being a listener to their rude
discourse, until it was loudly announced that a
small boat was seen pressing for their own harbor,
across the fore foot of the cutter, under a single
lug-sail. Then, indeed, the sudden and cheerful
lighting of his troubled eye, might have betrayed
to more accurate observers, the vast relief that was
imparted to his feelings by the interesting discovery.
| CHAPTER XVI. The pilot | |