 | CHAPTER III. Nix's mate |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
So full of valor, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces.”
Shak. The Tempest.
“A bold, bad man.”
Dana.
After Fitzvassal had retired from the mansion-house
of the Wilmers, he hurried rapidly toward the
northern precincts of the town, with his mind more
distracted than ever. For the first time in his life he
realized the truth that man is not intended to live
principally for himself, but for others; and the very
radiance of this revelation, disconnected from any
thing else, gave him a thrill of mixed emotion which
he had never before known. He felt, and the recognition
of the feeling surprised him, that there are
ties which bind us to one another, stronger than the
chains of avarice and sensuality; and he perceived
the law of our being, half developed only, in his
that for the first time in his life he loved? Such
was, indeed, the case; nor was it remarkable that he
whose life had been one scene of tortured pride, restraint,
and poverty, and in its best phase one of hard
and unremitting servitude; that he who had never
been thrown, even by accident, in the path of a female
of purity and refinement, other than that
of his forlorn and heart-sick mother; and had had
no opportunity, therefore, of calling forth those sentiments
which lie buried in darker natures than his,
and are always susceptible of being vivified by the
sweet influences of woman, should have felt in his
situation as did Fitzvassal when he found the flood-gates
of his pent feelings suddenly opened, and the
iron of his stern nature melted.
He had sustained in his arms the most beautiful
girl imagination had ever presented to the vision of
a poet; he had seen the roses fade away on her
cheeks, and her angelic face assume the habiliment
of death; he had chafed her temples, ah, how delicate!
till the own hue of loveliness came back to its
alabaster rest;—he had watched the long, dark lashes
as they pressed upon her cheek, and he had seen the
bright revelation when they were lifted like the curtains
of heaven; he had felt a sigh from that bosom
whose beauty was not to tell, but to be the dream of her
worshipper. He fancied that those eyes looked on
him with gratitude and interest, and he fed his
his own created heaven with the progeny of hope.
With what rapture did he press to his lips that ring
which had encircled her graceful finger! Why had
he robbed her of that rich treasure? Nay rather,
why had she robbed him of his heart of hearts, and
given him no equivalent? At that moment he resolved
to restore the ring, and to peril every thing
for the merchandise of her affection.
Fitzvassal now wandered toward Winnissimmit
Ferry, with his mind principally occupied with the
events of the morning, when he came to a small tavern
with a sign of a sea-gull on the wing, and the
name underneath, A. Classon, painted in badly executed
characters.
His astonishment may easily be conceived when
he made this singular discovery. Instead of entering
the house, he made the best of his way from it;
and coming to a lumber-yard in the vicinity, strolled
therein, and gave loose to his thick-coming fancies.
The name on the tavern sign he was confident was
his stepfather's,—there was no other person of his
name in Boston or in its neighborhood, he was certain;
and he could not doubt for a moment that it
was in reality the same.
But why, if this, indeed, were his abode, had he
deserted his house in Dorchester, and relinquished the
occupation he had so successfully followed for years?
Could it be that his mother was dead?
As if at this thought, the heart of Fitzvassal,
which had suddenly been humanized by the transcendant
influence of Grace Wilmer, melted; and the
sturdy mariner bowed his head in secret, half suffocated
with vainly suppressed emotion. Had he entered
the portal of the sanctuary, and bowed down
in the belief that his mother was no more; or were
his emotions of a blended texture, interwoven with
which the idea of an adored woman was most prominent?
It would have been a hard task for an ordinary
pschycologist to analyse his feelings. It was
not the first time the man had ever wept; but never
before had he wept in such a cause, and never before
was he not ashamed of his emotions. He had within a
few hours found his parental hearth deserted, and
the very weeds growing on the door-stone; he had,
as he had reason to believe, saved the lives of two
human beings, one of them the cousin of the loveliest
creation of heaven; and he now reviewed the
event with delight, associated as it was with sensations
so entirely new and delicious. In the almost
hopeless search for his mother he had found her
worthless husband; and a thousand suspicions arose
at once to affect his feelings of filial reverence and
give agitation to his passions.
In some degree relieved by the crisis which had
passed, Fitzvassal retraced his steps toward the Sea-Gull,
which, on narrowly examining, he discovered to
be a common sailor boarding-house. His long absence
must have disguised him effectually; he therefore entered
without any apprehension of discovery, it being
his desire to remain unknown for the purpose of
eliciting the whole truth about his mother in case she
were alive.
The Sea-Gull was one of those remarkable specimens
of architecture, hardly an individual of which
now remains in this country It looked like a cluster
of houses fantastically grouped together, each successive
story projecting over that below it,—the
whole terminating above by half a dozen gable-ends.
The walls were rough cast with small fragments of
glass, and over the front door were carved the figures
M.D.CXL, showing that the edifice had been erected
nearly fifty years already. The doorway was closed
by a sort of shutter divided into four parts, and after
ascending one step, it was necessary for the visitor
to descend two more. As Fitzvassal came up, a
sailor, who was leaning over the lower section of the
door, enjoying a Dutch pipe of tobacco, gave way
for him to enter, and he immediately found himself
in the bar-room of a tavern.
The apartment was only sufficiently lofty to accommodate
a tall man without stooping. On one
side was a large fireplace occupied by two sailors,
who were sitting opposite each other between the
jambs, on blocks of wood, regaling themselves with
the fumes of tobacco and blistering their legs before
were half a dozen long iron bars terminating with a
one pound ball, appropriately denominated logger-heads,
the use of which formidable instruments, a
little varied in shape till they have degenerated to a
sort of poker, has descended from father to son in a
succession of generations for the perpetuation of
mulled wine and flip, and for the due exhilaration
of New England sleighing parties.
On the hearth, a half-gallon pewter vessel was
very deliberately evolving the motive power of modern
boat and rail-road engines, little suspecting its
own importance, which, however, was partially acknowledged
by the thirsty tars, who occasionally interrupted
its solitary musings by transferring the
fumes to their own brains.
Within the bar, our new comer, without much
difficulty, recognized his step-father. He was engaged
in the very laudable occupation of mixing rum-bitters
for two wicked-looking truckmen, who had
just come in, and who now stood leaning in their
dirty frocks on the still more dirty counter of the bar.
One of them, as he rested on his left elbow, amused
himself by trying to hit with his whip-lash the head
of a nail which projected its shining head above the
sanded floor, and in doing this he recklessly scattered
the gritty particles too near the steaming flip, for the
satisfaction of the sons of Neptune.
“Mind your eye there, you fresh-beef-eating land-lubber,
d'ye hear!” Shouted one of the sailors, who was distinguished
by the enormous size of his black beard
and whiskers, and by the massive proportions of his
queue, “or, shiver my timbers,” he continued, “if I
don't carry away some of your dirty canvass, and
be hanged to you.”
“I tell you what it is, bully slush-bucket,” replied
he of the whip, taking his bitters from the landlord
and tossing it off at a single gulp, while he eyed the
sailor with a shake of the head in regular cadence
with his words, “I'll tell you what it is, bully slush-bucket,
if ye drive that are team this ere way, ye'd
better not turn down our worf, if ye know what's
good for ye, no how.”
The only rejoinder which the sailor condescended
to make to this reply, was by instantly springing on
his feet, and dashing his tarpaulin on the floor as his;
glove of defiance. The truckman immediately
made towards him, as if to anticipate his attack; but
the other, with inconceivable rapidity, threw his feet
into the air, and striking both of them at once with
the entire weight of his body, full on the truckman's
stomach, hurled him against the door, which, giving
way with the momentum, sent the fellow headlong
into the street.
The sailor would have followed the man had it
not been for the other truckman, who hit the former
such a blow behind the ear, that he was immediately
and a general fight seemed to be inevitable.
The truckman having come to from the effects of
the blow and fall, had gathered together several others
of his white-frocked brotherhood, who seemed
determined to have an out-and-out row, and revenge
the disgrace that had been cast on their fraternity.
Accordingly, they marched up to the house, and
were about to commence a bombardment, when
Fitzvassal, turning aside the others with such singular
force and authority as at once commanded their
acquiescence, placed himself alone at the door-way.
“Get out of the way,” exclaimed the fellow who had
floored the sailor, “or I will make you swallow just
such a dose of jalap as I gave that other sick monkey
yonder; clear out, I say!”
So saying, he endeavored to thrust Fitzvassal
aside, and failing to do that, made a pass at him for
a black eye; when the latter, seizing him by the collar
with his right hand, and suddenly grasping his
right leg with the other, lifted him up with as much
ease as an ordinary man would raise a child, and
hurled him over the heads of the others far into the
street.
Such an exhibition of muscular power elicited an
involuntary shout from the by-standers,—the truckmen
fell back astonished, and unwilling to enter the
lists with such an opponent, while those within the
Sea-Gull sent up a yell of wonder and delight. At
as well as most men, came forward when he
thought mediation could be best effected, and exclaimed
to the crowd that had meanwhile gathered
round his door;
“Hallo, my hearties, where's the use of all this
squabbling? One would think that old Admiral
Tromp had raised his broomstick, and opened his
Dutch metal among us. Haul in your guns and belay.
You've each on you lost a man; and now, suppose
you parley. You'll have the selectmen arter you as
sure as codhook, if you don't stop. Who's for flip
and a quiet life? Come in all hands of you, the Sea-Gull
will treat the company;—who speaks for flip
gratis?”
This agreeable challenge was answered by a salute
from the crowd “half whistle and half groan”—
for Classon was very unpopular, and the people did
not much care to be indebted to his hospitality who
was such a favorite of the odious governor's; however,
omnipotent rum carried the day, and, after looking
at each other, as if to say “If you will, I will,”
they turned into the grogery.
Beer and rum are pacificators as well as quarrelbreeders,
and “a hair of the same dog” is often found
to contain much practical philosophy. Though we
might say a word for the principles of homœpathy,
which the sagacious Classon practised in allaying
doses the better.
Classon now brought out all his stone and pewter
pitchers, and filling them with the proportionate
quantities of rum, beer, and sugar, made a requisition
on the scorching fire-place for the red-hot logger
heads which were buried there like ostriches in the
hot sands of the desert. And now the sizzling of
the iron, the steaming of the flip, and the gabbling of
tongues made an uproar to which there is fortunately
nothing in the nature of things for a simile; while
the quantity of fire-water that Classon sacrificed as
a libation to the vox populi would have paid the
rent of his house for a month. But he was not so
low in the estimation of the powers that were, as not
to have a reason for what he did; and he consoled
himself, moreover, with the reflection, that he had
perhaps saved his house from being pulled about
his ears, and had given some fifty Bostonians a taste
of his flip; which circumstance might, in the course
of human events, serve as a sheet anchor for the
coming winter, and help to reinstate him in the fair
opinion of the people. Nor did he much misjudge;
for more trivial occurrences sometimes conspire to
give a reputation to as humble an establishment as
Abner Classon's, and to turn the tide of public odium
which beats against a man's affairs, into a current
which shall set in every way for his advantage.
The peace-offering having been accepted, the parties
glistening eyes, red noses, and heated brains, to diversify
the different scenes of life, in which their
daily business now called them to take a part.
While the treat was going on in the bar-room
of the Sea-Gull, Fitzvassal had an opportunity of observing
his step-father, who, though much changed
from what he had been a few years before, retained
all those distinctive characteristics which constituted
his individuality. He was a man about five feet six
inches in height, who stooped a good deal about the
shoulders, probably from the constant habit of rowing;
certainly in part, from his dissipated course of
life. His forehead was very low, narrow, and square,
over which his reddish, curling hair pressed in matted
tangles. His cheek-bones were high, his mouth
large and bent down at the corners; his nose, which
had been tolerably regular, was misshapen and sunken
in at the bridge, from a diseased cartilage; his
eyes of a greenish brown, small and near together;
and his complexion very red and sunburnt. His
skull, from the occipital to the frontal bone, was
scooped out in a hollow, and it was far more largely
developed behind the ear than in the region of the
intellect.
Fitzvassal had been observing this man, his mother's
husband, with amazement. He had met with
all sorts of men abroad in the countries he had visited;
he had seen drunkards of every description;
crossed his path. The quantity of liquor which he
had swallowed within the last two hours was incredible;
and though the occasion was extraordinary, it
showed plainly enough that the man was in the
habit of indulging to a most insane excess in the
maddening contents of the decanter.
Classon's evil passions had always overswayed his
better nature. Had the alternative of a virtuous or
a vicious course of life been presented to him in the
pliant and ductile years of childhood, there can be
little question that the tranquil delights of the former
would have been preferred by him. Bad as he was,
profligate and reckless as he might now be, there was
a visible spark of goodness glittering in the dark recesses
of his rocky, antral bosom, which might
have been even then kindled into a sacred monitor.
“Who cares for Abner Classon?” was his daily
ejaculation; and the dark spirit within him whispered,
“Why, then, should Abner Classon care for any
human being?” Thus it is that the vilest of the iniquitous
yearn for human sympathy; and it is only
for want of this divine principle properly directed,
that so many follow up one bad step, by precipitating
themselves into the direst and most hopeless gulph
of degradation. Classon, from a long course of
vicious indulgence, had so completely broken down
the will, that the most acute sufferings which sometimes
followed his delirious debauches, had no other
which he had not power to keep. On an occasion
like the one which had just happened, he would follow
up his potations to such an extent, that he could
not contain the dearest secret of his heart; and all
the while he was conscious of his infirmity, he
would go on pouring out the very matters it was
most important for him to keep to himself.
As Classon's temporary guests retired, the sailors
who had been seated within the fire-place, resumed
their blocks, and being a good deal excited by the
stimulant they had so liberally indulged in, began to
sing fragments of love-ballads, while the other roared
out with that hysterical laughter which belongs
to the peculiar kind of insanity produced by excessive
intoxication. While they were in this mood,
the man with the big whiskers, who had been so
prominent in the row, casting his blood-injected eyes
on Fitzvassal, who was endeavoring to decypher the
inscription on an old worn-out engraving that hung
in a black frame over the mantle-piece, cried out to
him as follows:
“Throw us your hawser, Jack, and come to anchor
alongside, will you—I like the cut of your jib,
if I don't blow me!”
“Ay, ay,” answered Fitzvassal, who thought the
opportunity a favorable one to pursue his investigations,
as Classon had now retired to replenish his
decanters, “I like a snug harbor after a hard blow,
his button-hole.”
So saying, he placed an additional block within
the jambs, and seated himself without further ceremony
beside his jovial companion.
The rough sailor who invited Fitzvassal to the
merry junketing, touched his tarpanlin as the latter
placed himself alongside, evidently perceiving that
he had some time since graduated at the forecastle.
“I thought as how,” resumed the sailor with an air
of blunt deference, “by the way in which you heaved
that rotten spar overboard, you might be one of his
majesty's man-o'-war's-men;—but you'll excuse an
old sea-dog for any blunder o' the like, seeing as how
d'ye see, flip's good and man's dry: p'rhaps you've
no objection to trying a pull at the same windlass?”
At the same time he gave a hitch at his waistband,
and with the other hand passed the beverage to Fitzvassal:
the latter, however, only pretended to taste
it; so, smacking his lips as a prelude to his praises,
he returned the jug to the sailor, and said:
“Why, this is something like: your landlord is
an old hand at the oar, I see; one would think he
he had been the king's chaplain by the way in which
he mixes.”
“Ah, I see, you knows a thing or two of the secret
service;—maybe you never was a man-o'-war's-man,”
—replied the sailor, cutting his eye over the way at
his fellow voyager,—“never mind—all I can say is,
see a mixer in right earnest. You've no objection I
see,” continued the man in whiskers, “to a drop of the
creature when ashore; nor I neither, as for that are
matter. They keep a fellow infernal short of grog
though on board these ere frigates.”
And having uttered the foregoing with some vehemence,
he added to his other creature comforts a
huge piece of pig-tail, which he twisted off with his
grinders.
“Ah?” exclaimed Fitzvassal in a tone of inquiry,
“then you are hands of that goverment ship lying
off there in the channel?”
“Ay, ay, Sir!” responded both the sailors, simultaneously.
“And she's as nice a sea-boat, Bill Grummet, as
ever you sailed in, I know,—isn't she?” inquired
the other man of him in the big whiskers, while he
rested his elbows on his knees and his cheeks on his
hands, his bright eyes glistening in the hollows.
“For that are,” answered Grummet, taking a long
intermittent pull at the flip, and wiping his mouth
with his sleeve preparatory to the resumption of
the quid which he had hauled out of his mouth for
the occasion—“for that are matter, I can't say but
as how she's trig enough, and clean in the run too,
and one of the best sailers in the service.—The king
has reason to like her, any how.”
“The king!” exclaimed Fitzvassal—“what special
reason has he to prefer your vessel to any other?”
“I thought everybody had heard of his voyage a
few years ago, to Scotland, and how he was shipwrecked
and all that”—said whiskers.
“Certainly,” replied Fitzvassal, “every body has
heard of that accident; but I don't yet understand
what your Rose frigate had to do with it.”
“Then I can tell you all about it, and maybe a
little more than any body that you know of has
heared yet. His royal highness that then was, the
Duke of York, d'ye see, took it into his royal head, a
few years ago, to make a voyage to Scotland. So
what must the Admiralty do, but equip the Grampus
frigate. I was in the forecastle of that are crank old
hulk,—devil take the Friday in which she was lunched,
I say;—but that is neither here nor there, for as I
was saying, the Duke got on board at Plymouth, and
with half a dozen as slick, oily-looking Catholic
priests as ever a Portuguese man-o'-war's-man set
eyes on; and by the jingoes! the way they crossed
themselves, beat the reefers;—well, we got under
way smooth enough, but the next morning, afore day,
running ten knots an hour, with studding-sails all
set, we brought up smack on a sand-bank, and began
to leak like a cullender. The sea made a clean
breach over us, and carried away the quarter-boats as
slick as a boatswain's whistle. As soon as it was light,
we had the long boat out, and in jumped the Duke;
with him but the priests and a parcel of pointer dogs,
blast 'em! When the crew found that his royal
highness was safe, they sent up a roar of joy, as if
they had all of 'em a twenty years' reprieve from old
Davy Jones's locker.
“Is this is all true?” asked Fitzvassal with great
earnestness.
“It's all as true as a log-book,” resumed the sailor;
“and by the soul that's to go aloft when this old
hull's waterlogged, it was too much loyalty for my
tonnage, I tell'y.”
“And what became of the Grampus?” inquired
Fitzvassal, deeply interested in the narrative, which
he soon discovered to be something more than a mere
sailor's yarn.
“Oh, she went to pieces in an hour or so, and a
couple of hundred as fine fellows as ever you saw,
to say nothing of the women and children, went to
the bottom in a giffy.”
“Women and children?” exclaimed Fitzvassal;
“is it possible that a sailor like the Duke of York,
his present majesty, a man who has fought so well
for his country, that he should suffer women and
children to perish before his eyes, while he saved
himself and his pointer dogs from drowning.”
“It's as true as preaching,” said the sailor.
“Then,” added Fitzvassal, “you may mark my
word; he will inevitably be the last king of his family;
baseness, is as bad as bad could be. How
did you escape, Grummet?” continued he.
“God knows!” replied the man; “but I recollect
lashing myself to a spare royal-yard, and I found
myself on board the Rose as a man wakes up from
a dream—and who should I find there but this same
cargo of privileged man and dog flesh in the same
quarters. The Duke and his friends were lucky
enough to fall in with our craft. And it was for the
reason of that, d'ye see, that I said that the king had
cause to like our trig little vessel lying off there in
the stream, that's all. The Rose is well enough,
but I don't much fancy the way they have got into of
treating a fellow in his majesty's service.”
“The fact is,” said Fitzvassel, who was any thing
but a royalist, and whom the story about the Duke
of York put in a humor for decrying the government
of England, “the fact is, that things have come
to such a pass, that the very name of king is inseparable
from tyranny.”
“The king's bad enough,” said the sailor, “Charley
loved the galls at such a rate, that he gave the helm
to the old dog-saver, which just finished the spoiling
of him.”
“Whenever tyranny rules ashore,” exclaimed Fitzvassal,
musing, you may be sure to find plenty of it
at sea. In these times you may find it wherever the
British flag waves in the wind.”
Grummet looked steadily at the speaker, with an
undisguised expression of suspicion, for he began to
think that the officer-like looking man with whom he
had been so communicative, might be tempting htm
with an insidious show of frankness, and so entrap
him to his disadvantage. His penetration had already
satisfied him that he was no ordinary man,
and the thought occurred to him that there was danger
of committing himself by too great a freedom of
expression.
Fitzvassal instantly comprehended him, and continued,
lowering his voice and looking full into the
eyes of each sailor by turns; “Ay, you doubt what I
say, seeing that I may be the master of a vessel myself;
but I tell you what it is, I can drink a can with
a ship's crew ashore, and make them mind their eye
too when abroad; and yet I never whip'd or betrayed
a sailor.”
The men stared at him with astonishment, and by
the manner in which they ducked and scraped, while
he now looked at, and spoke to them, seemed to admit
that the authority of such a man could never be
disputed.
“I hate tyranny, however,” resumed the speaker,
who wished to further his design without any more
delay; “I loathe it in every shape, from a king on
this throne to the landlord of a sailor boarding-house”—and
with this remark Fitzvassal pretended
to look cautiously around, as if the person to whom
the severity of his reflection.
“I must allow,” said Grummet, taking from his
pocket, in which he thrust his arm to the elbow,
a few pieces of silver, and pondering over them in
his hand, “that these landlords are a set of sharks.”
“But this landlord here of the Sea-Gull seems to
be an exception to the rule,” suggested Fitzvassal;
“by the manner in which he treated the people just
now, one would suppose that he had been a partner
of some lucky buccaneer. That man is too geneous
to rob an honest tar of his wages!”
“Oh! he is free enough with his money, and
well he may be if all's true that's said of him,—but
num's the word for that,” replied Grummet, “yet
the man who would treat his own wife as he
does”—
“His wife!” interrupted Fitzvassal, who had inadvertently
struck the very key for which he had
been sounding, “his wife! and how has he treated
her, pray?”
“Bad enough, but that's no affair of mine, d'ye
see.”
“Where is his wife? what of her? who knows
any thing of Classon's wife?” exclaimed her son,
who was so hurried away by this miserable gleam
of intelligence about his mother, that he was completely
thrown off his guard.
“This lubberly landlord lets her be supported in
told me the other day; but people along-shore beat
the marines for tough yarns; p'rhaps its a lie after
all.”
“The Poor-House?” exclaimed Fitzvassal; “how,
in the name of mercy, could she be suffered to go to
the Poor-House while her drunken husband is rioting
here on the fat of the land?”
“Why, they tell me as how,” said the man of hair,
“that this here landlord, Abner Classon, is chief rigger
to the governor, and that he lets him do as he
likes for reasons best known to himself. If he will
do dirty jobs for Sir Edmund, why, I suppose Sir
Edmund won't be outdone in obligations, that's all.”
“The scoundrel!” ejaculated Fitsvassal; “but—
and he checked himself, remembering, after a moment's
hesitation, that he had already expressed himself
too warmly, “but it is no affair of our's, as you
truly enough remarked just now; it is no affair of
our's; come,” said he, taking up the jug and passing
it along, “let us drink confusion to all tyranny and
rascality on sea and on shore.”
The men rose from their seats, doffed their tarpaulins,
and making a leg, drank one after the other,
and pledged the sentiment which had been offered.
After which, making a move for departure, Fitzvassal
insisted on settling the tavern score himself, and
having whispered in Grummet's ear that he would
good-morrows, and once more found himself alone.
Fitzvassal was more than ever determined not
to make himself known to his step-father. He saw
at a glance the exact position in which his mother
must be placed, and he resolved that his first business
should be, to relieve her, as soon as possible, at
all hazards. There were reasons, however,
for not doing so immediately. He did not doubt
that the extravagance, excesses, and villainy of Classon
had driven his mother to the last pass of distress
and poverty; but when he took into consideration
the flourishing appearance of the man's affairs,
and the hint just dropped by the sailor, of the kind of
service which it was reported this man performed for
the Governor, he felt every reasonable assurance
that the liability of the husband had been overruled
by the lawless dictator who governed the colonists.
He determined to sound Classon, but, if possible, not
to reveal himself; that he might procure information
respecting his father, and others who could be
useful to him in carrying out his designs.
While he was musing after the foregoing manner,
Classon entered the room, with his arms laden with
the replenished decanters; then turning to his unrecognized
step-son, whom he had not heard from for
so long a time he supposed him to be dead, he opened
the converation as follows:
“What, all alone, hic! my hearty? I hope you
ye did that bull-headed, piratical, big whiskered—
hic!—bully—hey?”—
“You mean the truckman, landlord,” responded
Fitzvassal—“that big-whiskered fellow was fighting
for the quarter-deck of the Sea-Gull, against a fleet of
dirty-rigged land-lubbers.”
“True—hic! true”—said Classon, his glazed
eyes rolling in their sockets, and his kness bending
under him, while they scarcely sustained the weight
of his body—“I'd forgotten—otten all about it—
I hate quar'ling ye know, as I hate witchcraft—hic!
and all abominations—didn't I get the weather-gage
of them ere chaps—hic!—just now; hey?”
“You managed like a jolly old Admiral!” replied
the other, clapping Classon on the shoulder with that
kind of familiarity which he knew to be agreeable to
such characters when in his condition—“old
Blake himself couldn't have done better.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” chuckled the flattered inebriate—
“do y'know now, hic! that I took a liking to ye
as soon as ye came into the Sea-Gull?—and when I
saw ye batter that chap—whew!”—And Classon
made a sort of drunken war-whoop, which plainly
indicated how steeped was his brain already in the
fumes of alcohol. The man then seemed to muse
awhile, and he shook his head as his eyes swam over
the floor, see-sawing his hand horizontally, as if he
were feeling for something in the dark.
“Ye see”—resumed he—“I am over-working
myself for the good of so—so—ciety—hic!—I am
peace-maker of the town—and so ye see I've got my
line all in a snarl this morning—hic! plague on this
sour stomach!—did ye ever have a sour stomach,
hey?”
“I'm not much troubled with ill health,” said his
step-son—
“I can't—hic! 'magine what it is,” resumed the
publican, “that is ruining my digestion”—and
he was going on to lecture on dietetics in a manner
consoling to his darling inclination, when Fitzvassal,
who was not disposed to breathe the pestilential atmosphere
of the man any longer than was necessary,
interrupted him—
“You had a fine jail-delivery of rum and beer
this morning, Admiral—you were liberal with your
grog.”—
“Yes, hic!”—cried the other—“it costs me a mint
of money to carry my, hic! schemes; but massa—
hic! pay for 'em, as the Indian said, hic!”
Fitzvassal was not at that time prepared to guess
that his step-father alluded to the strong box of the
governor, which his instrument could use on all
such occasions as suited his necessities with even
greater freedom that he had done that morning;
the concluding remark of Classon's passed him,
therefore, without particular attention, though he
distinctly remembered it afterward, when he became
other.
“But I thought,” said Fitzvassal, “that your colonial
laws did not allow your indulging in such
jollifications as I saw here this morning. Your people
have the reputation, on the other side of the water,
of being the most sober community on the face
of the globe. One in London would never believe
the story of what I witnessed this morning, here in
your too hospitable quarters.”
“Ye're a stranger in these ere parts,” replied Classon,
“any body—hic! might have known it—We
Boston folks—hic! have improved a quantity since
the days of the Rump—hurra for Jemmy and liberty!—
We used to be—hic!—the stiffest and most puritan—
tanical set of water-casks ye ever—hic!—laid yer
eyes on—I never see'd the—hic! like on it in my
born days—but, thanks to the spirit—hic! of what
d'ye call it, they have remoddled the old ship, and—
hic!—we are afloat again.”
“In what are your circumstances improved?” inquired
Fitzvassal.
“In the liberty of drinking, to be sure.” responded
the man of the bottles. “A few years ago—hic! a fellow
was limited to half a pint of wine—pshaw! and
that—hic! was half water—and if he called for more
than that—hic!—at a sitting—or for a reasonable
jorum of strong-waters—the commissioner—hic!
had power to countermand the order, and send it—
if ye—hic! will believe it, one of—hic! these fellows
was always—hic! at yer elbow—lest a man
should take too much liquor. A putty kind of—hic!
liberty of conscience, not to let a fellow get as drunk
—as drunk as Chloe, if he likes!”
Fitzvassal endeavored to keep the drunkard in good
humor by forcing a smile to his face, and he pursued
his object by giving another turn to the colloquy.
“What sort of magistrates have you here, in this
famous city of yours,” inquired the step-son—“it
seems to me they allow the people more leeway than
they do anywhere else.”
“They were—hic! as beggarly a set of puritanical
puppies, as ye—hic! would like to lay yer eyes
on—till, hic! the most ex—cellent Sir Edmund
Andros came over among us; hic! Jemmy—hic!
deserves the everlasting gratitude of this generation
—hic! for mending our manners.—Cranfield and
Dudley were well—hic! enough, but it will be all
the same hic! a hundred years hence.”
Whereupon he helped himself to a cup of rum, and
passed the decanter silently to the other, who as
silently declined, by removing it a short distance from
him.
“As I was—hic! going to say,” resumed Classon
—“now that Sir Edmund is governor—hic! he has
put into office a very decent, liberal—hic! set of
water-drinking knaves as—as Edward Vassal is”—
“Edward Vassal—did you say?” exclaimed the unknown
son of that man.
“Yes—Edward Vassal—and what—hic! of that,
pray?—ye have driven the idea I had—hic! out of
my hend.”
“I've heard of that man in England.”
“A pickled scamp—hic! that fellow,” said Classon
with great bitterness, and he ground his teeth as he
spoke.
“Who; Vassal?” exclaimed the mariner, following
up the idea which he knew would open the heart of
his step-father.
“Yes! Vassal—do ye doubt it? Does any
one doubt it? I thought every body knew that,”
cried the drunkard with a volubility he had not
shown before, and suddenly assuming a kind of mastery
over his debility.
“Having often heard his name mentioned,” said
Fitzvassal with a long-drawn breath of affected indifference,
“I was about to inquire of you if the man
were yet living?”
“Yes;” replied Classon with a smile of demoniacal
malice, “he is alive, and much good may his life do
him. We shall meet on equal ground one of these
days, when there will be at least three of us to curse
each other.”
This speech was uttered with a distinctness and
were working; his convulsions were cured by
the transition.
The decanter came again in requisition, and the
spirit seemed now to have absolutely no such effect
on him as it had had before.
“You speak of three of you,” insinuated Fitzvassal,
endeavoring, if possible, to draw his step-father
to the confessional, though he knew well enough
that he meant to include himself in the number
which he had devoted to the abodes of darkness;
“if you excite my curiosity thus, you must not be surprised
at my asking you extraordinary questions.”
“Not at all,” replied Classon, who began to warm
toward the other for his condescending manner—“I
had as lief let ye know all about it as not. It will
be all the same a hundred years hence.”
“No matter,” said Fitzvassal, “I don't care about
knowing.”
And, indeed, the young man began to dread what
he had just before so earnestly desired to hear: for a
narrative of all his mother's wretchedness and of his
father's crimes was appalling to think of.
“Don't be too modest, young man—modesty has
been the bane of many a man before you; if one
can't be frank with a sailor, where's the use of having
a tongue in his head? I have no secrets that I care
about. I don't care, for instance, who knows that I
married Vassal's mistress”—
Fitzvassal involuntarily shuddered.
“Ay,” resumed the man, “brat and all—but I do
care that I didn't make him pay dearer for it, that's
all.”
His step-son gazed on him with horror while he
spoke, and his eyes blazed with the impulse of revenge.
“The brat is dead long ago, I hope,” continued
the publican, “he had `gallows' written in his face
as clearly as his father had `villain;' as for that woman,
d—n her”—
“Hold, infamous scoundrel!” cried the infuriated
young man, who could command his temper no
longer; “if you utter the hellish slander which was
even now on your lips ready to blast my ears, you
shall not live another moment to curse the earth with
your presence!”
“And who, in the devil's name, are you?” responded
Classon, his cheeks glowing and his eyes flashing
with consuming fire, now blown almost into a flame
by a sudden gust of passion: “I should like to know
who you are, that have the audacity to confront me
in this manner, and insult me in my own house;
who in the devil are you, hey?”
“I am Edward Fitzvassal!” screamed the other:
and if a thunderbolt had burst through the roof of
the man's house at that moment, he could not have
been more astonished. He lifted both hands, and
the shelves of his tap-room in perfect amazement.
“And if ye are indeed the man ye say ye
are,” exclaimed he, “I had rather have seen the
devil come from hell than you across my threshold.
Ye come here for no good—I warrant.”
“What I come for, Classon,” rejoined his step-son,
“you may know hereafter;—I did not intend to discover
myself to you; but your scoundrel tongue has
forced me from my determination. Swear to me
that you will not reveal my name to Sir Edmund
Andros or any of the crown officers, and I will make
your fortune.”
“You make my fortune?” exclaimed Classon,
with undisguised contempt and incredulity—“Edward
Fitzvassal make my fortune? ha! ha! ha! that
is a good joke, truly.”
Fitzvassal made no other reply than by taking out
a handful of gold, and chinking it before the publican.
Classon gazed on him with astonishment—and
then, his countenance all of a sudden becoming serious,
said,
“But why are ye so anxious not to be known to
the governor? He is friendly to me, and perhaps for
my sake, who am of great service to him, and for
certain considerations—hey? would not molest
ye.”
“Classon!” said Fitzvassal sternly, “I am not
much less of you. Promise me that you will not
betray me! But no matter—you dare not do it. I
caution you though at your peril to keep a sharp lookout.
The moment you betray me, you lose an independent
fortune. I want no favors of you that
you will not be paid for a hundred-fold more than
Sir Edmund Andros pays you for your dirty work.
I am able to do it, and will do it. Do you hear me?”
“I hear ye,” replied Classon, musing.
Fitzvassal looked steadfastly at him, and placed a
purse heavy with gold in his hand.
“Classon!” said he, “the first act you must do is
to procure the release of my mother.—Who occupies
the old house—or rather who owns it; for I
know well enough that it has been vacant for a long
time?—No matter—if you have mortgaged it, redeem
it, and have every thing comfortably provided for
her. But be careful how you go there to live—”
“I have no wish to do so,” replied Classon, who
was so confounded with Fitzvassal's show of wealth,
that he hardly realized his own whereabout: “I will
do as ye desire, immediately.”
“I will double that purse when I see you again in
a few days,” said Fitzvassal—“and now good-bye
for the present. Do you have the house ready for
my mother before you release her, and when she is
there—but I will communicate with you before then.”
So saying, he left the Sea-Gull,—and Classon,
took an extraordinary cup of rum, and sat down
in his bar-room to meditate.
| CHAPTER III. Nix's mate | |