 | CHAPTER IV. The Red Rover |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
“They fool me to the top of my bent.”
—Hamlet.
The party below consisted of four individuals, all
of whom were females. One was a lady in the decline
of her years; another was past the middle age;
the third was on the very threshold of what is called
“life,” as it is applied to intercourse with the world;
and the fourth was a negress, who might have seen
some five-and-twenty revolutions of the seasons.
The latter, at that time, and in that country, of course
appeared only in the character of a humble, though
perhaps favoured domestic.
“And now, my child, that I have given you all
the advice which circumstances and your own excellent
heart need,” said the elderly lady, among
the first words that were distinctly intelligible to the
listeners, “I will change the ungracious office to one
more agreeable. You will tell your father of my
continued affection, and of the promise he has given,
that you are to return once again, before we separate
for the last time.”
This speech was addressed to the younger female,
and was apparently received with as much tenderness
and sincerity as it was uttered. The one who
was addressed raised her eyes, which were glittering
with tears she evidently struggled to conceal, and
answered in a voice that sounded in the ears of the
two youthful listeners like the notes of the Syren, so
very sweet and musical were its tones.
“It is useless to remind me of a promise, my beloved
aunt, which I have so much interest in remembering,”
she said. “I hope for even more than you
have perhaps dared to wish; if my father does not
return with me in the spring, it shall not be for want
of urging on my part.”
“Our good Wyllys will lend her aid,” returned
the aunt, smiling and bowing to the third female,
with that mixture of suavity and form which was
peculiar to the stately manners of the time, and
which was rarely neglected, when a superior addressed
an inferior. “She is entitled to command
some interest with General Grayson, from her fidelity
and services.
“She is entitled to every thing that love and heart
can give!” exclaimed the niece, with a haste and
earnestness that proclaimed how willingly she would
temper the formal politeness of the other by the
warmth of her own affectionate manner; “my father
will scarcely refuse her any thing.”
“And have we the assurance of Mrs Wyllys that
she will be in our interests?” demanded the aunt,
without permitting her own sense of propriety to be
overcome by the stronger feelings of her niece;
“with so powerful an ally, our league will be invincible.”
“I am so entirely of opinion, that the salubrious
air of this healthful island is of great importance
to my young charge, Madam, that, were all other
considerations wanting, the little I can do to aid your
wishes shall be sure to be done.”
Wyllys spoke with dignity, and perhaps with some
portion of that reserve which distinguished all the
communications between the wealthy and high-born
aunt and the salaried and dependent governess of
her brother's heiress. Still her manner was gentle,
and the voice, like that of her pupil, soft and strikingly
feminine.
“We may then consider the victory as achieved,
as my late husband the Rear-Admiral was accustomed
to say. Admiral de Lacey, my dear Mrs Wyllys,
adopted it in early life as a maxim, by which all his
future conduct was governed, and by adhering to
which he acquired no small share of his professional
necessary to be determined one would be so;—a
noble and inspiriting rule, and one that could not fail
to lead to those signal results which, as we all know
them, I need not mention.”
Wyllys bowed her head, in acknowledgment of the
truth of the opinion, and in testimony of the renown
of the deceased Admiral; but did not think it necessary
to make any reply. Instead of allowing the
subject to occupy her mind any longer, she turned
to her young pupil, and observed, speaking in a voice
and with a manner from which every appearance of
restraint was banished,—
“Gertrude, my love, you will have pleasure in
returning to this charming island, and to these cheering
sea breezes.”
“And to my aunt!” exclaimed Gertrude. “I wish
my father could be persuaded to dispose of his estates
in Carolina, and come northward, to reside the whole
year.”
“It is not quite as easy for an affluent proprietor
to remove as you may imagine, my child,” returned
Mrs de Lacey. “Much as I wish that some such
plan could be adopted, I never press my brother on
the subject. Besides, I am not certain, that, if we
were ever to make another change in the family, it
would not be to return home altogether. It is now
more than a century, Mrs Wyllys, since the Graysons
came into the colonies, in a moment of dissatisfaction
with the government in England. My great-grandfather,
sir Everard, was displeased with his second
son, and the dissension led my grandfather to the
province of Carolina. But, as the breach has long
since been healed, I often think my brother and myself
may yet return to the halls of our ancestors.
Much will, however, depend on the manner in which
we dispose of our treasure on this side of the Atlantic.”
As the really well-meaning, though, perhaps, a
little too much self-satisfied lady concluded her remark,
she glanced her eye at the perfectly unconscious
subject of the close of her speech. Gertrude
had, as usual, when her aunt chose to favour her
governess with any of her family reminiscences,
turned her head aside, and was now offering her
cheek, burning with health, and perhaps a little with
shame, to the cooling influence of the evening breeze.
The instant the voice of Mrs de Lacey had ceased,
she turned hastily to her companions; and, pointing
to a noble-looking ship, whose masts, as it lay in the
inner harbour, were seen rising above the roofs of
the town, she exclaimed, as if glad to change the
subject in any manner,—
“And yonder gloomy prison is to be our home,
dear Mrs Wyllys, for the next month!”
“I hope your dislike to the sea has magnified the
time,” mildly returned her governess; “the passage
between this place and Carolina has been often made
in a shorter period.”
“That it has been so done, I can testify,” resumed
the Admiral's widow, adhering a little pertinaciously
to a train of thoughts, which, once thoroughly
awakened in her bosom, was not easily diverted into
another channel, “since my late estimable and (I
feel certain all who hear me will acquiesce when I
add) gallant husband once conducted a squadron of
his Royal Master, from one extremity of his Majesty's
American dominions to the other, in a time less than
that named by my niece: It may have made some
difference in his speed that he was in pursuit of the
enemies of his King and country, but still the fact
proves that the voyage can be made within the
month.”
“There is that dreadful Henlopen, with its sandy
shoals and shipwrecks on one hand, and that stream
with a shudder, and a burst of natural female
terror, which makes timidity sometimes attractive,
when exhibited in the person of youth and beauty.
“If it were not for Henlopen, and its gales, and its
shoals, and its gulfs, I could think only of the pleasure
of meeting my father.”
Mrs Wyllys, who never encouraged her pupil in
those natural weaknesses, however pretty and becoming
they might appear to other eyes, turned with
a steady mien to the young lady, as she remarked,
with a brevity and decision that were intended to put
the question of fear at rest for ever,—
“If all the dangers you appear to apprehend existed
in reality, the passage would not be made daily,
or even hourly, in safety. You have often, Madam,
come from the Carolinas by sea, in company with
Admiral de Lacey?”
“Never,” the widow promptly and a little drily
remarked. “The water has not agreed with my
constitution, and I have never neglected to journey
by land. But then you know, Wyllys, as the consort
and relict of a flag-officer, it was not seemly
that I should be ignorant of naval science. I believe
there are few ladies in the British empire who are
more familiar with ships, either singly or in squadron,
particularly the latter, than myself. This information
I have naturally acquired, as the companion
of an officer, whose fortune it was to lead fleets.
I presume these are matters of which you are profoundly
ignorant.”
The calm, dignified countenance of Wyllys, on
which it would seem as if long cherished and painful
recollections had left a settled, but mild expression
of sorrow, that rather tempered than destroyed the
traces of character which were still remarkable in
her firm collected eye, became clouded, for a moment,
hesitating, as if willing to change the subject, she
replied,—
“I have not been altogether a stranger to the sea.
It has been my lot to have made many long, and
some perilous voyages.”
“As a mere passenger. But we wives of sailors
only, among our sex, can lay claim to any real
knowledge of the noble profession! What natural
object is there, or can there be,” exclaimed the nautical
dowager, in a burst of professional enthusiasm,
“finer than a stately ship breasting the billows, as I
have heard the Admiral say a thousand times, its
taffrail ploughing the main, and its cut-water gliding
after, like a sinuous serpent pursuing its shining
wake, as a living creature choosing its path on the
land, and leaving the bone under its fore-foot, a beacon
for those that follow? I know not, my dear
Wyllys, if I make myself intelligible to you, but, to
my instructed eye, this charming description conveys
a picture of all that is grand and beautiful!”
The latent smile, on the countenance of the governess,
might have betrayed that she was imagining
the deceased Admiral had not been altogether devoid
of the waggery of his vocation, had not a slight noise,
which sounded like the rustling of the wind, but
which in truth was suppressed laughter, proceeded
from the upper room of the tower. The words, “It
is lovely!” were still on the lips of the youthful
Gertrude, who saw all the beauty of the picture her
aunt had essayed to describe, without descending to
the humble employment of verbal criticism. But
her voice became hushed, and her attitude that of
startled attention:—
“Did you hear nothing?” she said.
“The rats have not yet altogether deserted the
mill,” was the calm reply of Wyllys.
“Mill! my dear Mrs Wyllys, will you persist in
calling this picturesque ruin a mill?”
“However fatal it may be to its charms, in the
eyes of eighteen, I must call it a mill.”
“Ruins are not so plenty in this country, my dear
governess,” returned her pupil, laughing, while the
ardour of her eye denoted how serious she was in
defending her favourite opinion, “as to justify us in
robbing them of any little claims to interest they may
happen to possess.”
“Then, happier is the country! Ruins in a land
are, like most of the signs of decay in the human
form, sad evidences of abuses and passions, which
have hastened the inroads of time. These provinces
are like yourself, my Gertrude, in their freshness and
their youth, and, comparatively, in their innocence
also. Let us hope for both a long, an useful, and a
happy existence.”
“Thank you for myself, and for my country; but
still I can never admit this picturesque ruin has been
a mill.”
“Whatever it may have been, it has long occupied
its present place, and has the appearance of continuing
where it is much longer, which is more than can
be said of our prison, as you call yonder stately ship,
in which we are so soon to embark. Unless my eyes
deceive me, Madam, those masts are moving slowly
past the chimnies of the town.”
“You are very right, Wyllys. The seamen are
towing the vessel into the outer harbour, where they
will warp her fast to the anchors, and thus secure
her, until they shall be ready to unmake their sails,
in order to put to sea in the morning. This is a
manœuvre often performed, and one which the Admiral
has so clearly explained, that I should find little
difficulty in superintending it in my own person,
were it suitable to my sex and station.”
“This is, then, a hint that all our own preparations
are not completed. However lovely this spot
may seem, Gertrude, we must now leave it, for some
months at least.”
“Yes,” continued Mrs de Lacey, slowly following
the footsteps of the governess, who had already moved
from beneath the ruin; “whole fleets have often
been towed to their anchors, and there warped, waiting
for wind and tide to serve. None of our sex
know the dangers of the Ocean, but we who have
been bound in the closest of all ties to officers of
rank and great service; and none others can ever
truly enjoy the real grandeur of the ennobling profession.
A charming object is a vessel cutting the
waves with her taffrail, and chasing her wake on the
trackless waters, like a courser that ever keeps in
his path, though dashing madly on at the very top of
his speed!—”
The reply of Mrs Wyllys was not audible to the
covert listeners. Gertrude had followed her companions;
but, when at some little distance from the
tower, she paused, to take a parting look at its mouldering
walls. A profound stillness succeeded for
more than a minute.
“There is something in that pile of stones, Cassandra,”
she said to the jet-black maiden at her elbow,
“that could make me wish it had been something
more than a mill.”
“There rat in 'em,” returned the literal and simple-minded
black; “you hear what Misse Wyllys
say?”
Gertrude turned, laughed, patted the dark cheek
of her attendant, with fingers that looked like snow
by the contrast, as if to chide her for wishing to destroy
the pleasing illusion she would so gladly harbour,
and then bounded down the hill after her aunt
and governess, like a joyous and youthful Atalanta.
The two singularly consorted listeners in the tower
as the smallest glimpse of the flowing robe of her
light form was to be seen; and then they turned to
each other, and stood confronted, the eyes of each
endeavouring to read the expression of his neighbour's
countenance.
“I am ready to make an affidavit before my Lord
High Chancellor,” suddenly exclaimed the barrister,
“that this has never been a mill!”
“Your opinion has undergone a sudden change!”
“I am open to conviction, as I hope to be a judge.
The case has been argued by a powerful advocate,
and I have lived to see my error.”
“And yet there are rats in the place.”
“Land rats, or water rats?” quickly demanded
the other, giving his companion one of those startling
and searching glances, which his keen eye had so
freely at command.
“Both, I believe,” was the dry and caustic reply;
“certainly the former, or the gentlemen of the long
robe are much injured by report.”
The barrister laughed; nor did his temper appear
in the slightest degree ruffled at so free an allusion at
his learned and honourable profession.
“You gentlemen of the Ocean have such an honest
and amusing frankness about you,” he said, “that
I vow to God you are overwhelming. I am a down-right
admirer of your noble calling, and something
skilled in its terms. What spectacle, for instance,
can be finer than a noble ship `stemming the waves
with her taffrail,' and chasing her wake, like a racer
on the course!”
“Leaving the `bone in her mouth' under her stern,
as a light-house for all that come after!”
Then, as if they found singular satisfaction in
dwelling on these images of the worthy relict of the
gallant Admiral, they broke out simultaneously into
a fit of clamorous merriment, that caused the old
barrister was the first to regain his self-command, for
the mirth of the young mariner was joyous, and
without the least restraint.
“But this is dangerous ground for any but a seaman's
widow to touch,” the former observed, as suddenly
causing his laughter to cease as he had admitted
of its indulgence. “The younger, she who is no
lover of a mill, is a rare and lovely creature! it
would seem that she is the niece of the nautical
critic.”
The young mariner ceased laughing in his turn,
as though he were suddenly convinced of the glaring
impropriety of making so near a relative of the fair
vision he had seen the subject of his merriment.
Whatever might have been his secret thoughts, he
was content with replying,—
“She so declared herself.”
“Tell me,” said the barrister, walking close to the
other, like one who communicated an important secret
in the question, “was there not something remarkable,
searching, extraordinary, heart-touching,
in the voice of her they called Wyllys?”
“Did you note it?”
“It sounded to me like the tones of an oracle—
the whisperings of fancy—the very words of truth!
It was a strange and persuasive voice!”
“I confess I felt its influence, and in a way for
which I cannot account!”
“It amounts to infatuation!” returned the barrister,
pacing up and down the little apartment, every
trace of humour and irony having disappeared in a
look of settled and abstracted care. His companion
appeared little disposed to interrupt his meditations,
but stood leaning against the naked walls, himself
the subject of deep and sorrowful reflection. At
length the former shook off his air of thought, with
that startling quickness which seemed common to
the attention of Wilder to the ship in the outer
harbour, abruptly demanded,—
“Has all your interest in yon vessel ceased?”
“Far from it; it is just such a boat as a seaman's
eye most loves to study!”
“Will you venture to board her?”
“At this hour? alone? I know not her commander,
or her people.”
“There are other hours beside this, and a sailor
is certain of a frank reception from his messmates.”
“These slavers are not always willing to be boarded;
they carry arms, and know how to keep strangers
at a distance.”
“Are there no watch-words, in the masonry of
your trade, by which a brother is known? Such
terms as `stemming the waves with the taffrail,' for
instance, or some of those knowing phrases we have
lately heard?”
Wilder kept his own keen look on the countenance
of the other, as he thus questioned him, and
seemed to ponder long before he ventured on a
reply.
“Why do you demand all this of me?” he coldly
asked.
“Because, as I believe that `faint heart never won
fair lady,' so do I believe that indecision never won
a ship. You wish a situation, you say; and, if I were
an Admiral, I would make you my flag-captain. At
the assizes, when we wish a brief, we have our
manner of letting the thing be known. But perhaps
I am talking too much at random for an utter
stranger. You will however remember, that, though
it is the advice of a lawyer, it is given gratuitously.”
“And is it the more to be relied on for such extraordinary
liberality?”
“Of that you must judge for yourself,” said the
stranger in green, very deliberately putting his foot
person but his head was seen. “Here I go, literally
cutting the waves with my taffrail,” he added, as he
descended backwards, and seeming to take great
pleasure in laying particular emphasis on the words.
“Adieu, my friend; if we do not meet again, I enjoin
you never to forget the rats in the Newport
ruin.”
He disappeared as he concluded, and in another
instant his light form was on the ground. Turning
with the most admirable coolness, he gave the bottom
of the ladder a trip with one of his feet, and laid the
only means of descent prostrate on the earth. Then,
looking up at the wondering Wilder, he nodded his
head familiarly, repeated his adieu, and passed with
a swift step from beneath the arches.
“This is extraordinary conduct,” muttered Wilder,
who was by the process left a prisoner in the
ruin. After ascertaining that a fail from the trap
might endanger his legs, the young sailor ran to one
of the windows of the place, in order to reproach
his treacherous comrade, or indeed to assure himself
that he was serious in thus deserting him. The barrister
was already out of hailing distance, and, before
Wilder had time to decide on what course to take,
his active footsteps had led him into the skirts of the
town, among the buildings of which his person became
immediately lost to the eye.
During all the time occupied by the foregoing
scenes and dialogue, Fid and the negro had been diligently
discussing the contents of the bag, under the
fence where they were last seen. As the appetite of
the former became appeased, his didactic disposition
returned, and, at the precise moment when Wilder
was left alone in the tower, he was intently engaged
in admonishing the black on the delicate subject of
behaviour in mixed society.
“And so you see, Guinea,” he concluded, “in order
never to throw all aback, and go stern foremost out
of a dispute, as you have this day seen fit to do.
According to my l'arning, that Master Nightingale is
better in a bar-room than in a squall; and if you had
just luffed-up on his quarter, when you saw me laying
myself athwart his hawse in the argument, you
see we should have given him a regular jam in the
discourse, and then the fellow would have been
shamed in the eyes of all the by-standers. Who
hails? what cook is sticking his neighbour's pig
now?”
“Lor'! Misser Fid,” cried the black, “here masser
Harry, wid a head out of port-hole, up dereaway
in a light-house, singing-out like a marine in a boat
wid a plug out!”
“Ay, ay, let him alone for hailing a top-gallant
yard, or a flying-jib-boom! The lad has a voice like
a French horn, when he has a mind to tune it! And
what the devil is he manning the guns of that weather-beaten
wreck for? At-all events, if he has to fight
his craft alone, there is no one to blame but himself,
since he has gone to quarters without beat of drum,
or without, in any other manner, seeing fit to muster
his people.”
As Dick and the negro had both been making the
best of their way towards the ruin, from the moment
they discovered the situation of their friend, by this
time they were within speaking distance of the spot
itself. Wilder, in those brief, pithy tones that distinguish
the manner in which a sea officer issues his
orders, directed them to raise the ladder. When he
was liberated, he demanded, with a sufficiently significant
air, if they had observed the direction in
which the stranger in green had made his retreat?
“Do you mean the chap in boots, who was for
shoving his oar into another man's rullock, a bit ago,
on the small matter of wharf, hereaway, in a range,
to bear in a line, with the mizen-top-gallant-mast-head
of that ship they are warping into the stream?”
“The very same.”
“He made a slant on the wind until he had weathered
yonder bit of a barn, and then he tacked and
stretched away off here to the east-and-by-south,
going large, and with studding sails alow and aloft,
as I think, for he made a devil of a head-way.”
“Follow,” cried Wilder, starting forward in the
direction indicated by Fid, without waiting to hear
any more of the other's characteristic explanations.
The search, however, was vain. Although they
continued their inquiries until long after the sun had
set, no one could give them the smallest tidings of
what had become of the stranger in green. Some
had seen him, and marvelled at his singular costume,
and bold and wandering look; but, by all accounts,
he had disappeared from the town as strangely and
mysteriously as he had entered it.
| CHAPTER IV. The Red Rover | |