University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Winter's Tale.

As Wilder approached the “Foul Anchor,” he
beheld every symptom of some powerful excitement
existing within the bosom of the hitherto peaceful
town. More than half the women, and perhaps one
fourth of all the men, within a reasonable proximity
to that well known inn, were assembled before its
door, listening to one of the former sex, who declaimed,
in tones so shrill and penetrating, as not to
leave the proprietors of the curious and attentive
countenances, in the outer circle of the crowd, the
smallest rational ground of complaint on the score
of impartiality. Our adventurer hesitated, with the

sudden consciousness of one but newly embarked
in such enterprises as that in which he had so recently
enlisted, when he first saw these signs of
commotion; nor did he determine to proceed until
he caught a glimpse of his aged confederate, elbowing
his way through the mass of bodies, with a perseverance
and energy that promised to bring him
right speedily into the very presence of her who uttered
such loud and piercing plaints. Encouraged
by this example, the young man advanced, but was
content to take his position, for a moment, in a situation
that left him entire command of his limbs,
and, consequently, in a condition to make a timely
retreat, should the latter measure prove at all expedient.

“I call on you, Earthly Potter, and you, Preserved
Green, and you, Faithful Wanton,” cried Desire,
as he came within hearing, pausing to catch a morsel
of breath, before she proceeded in her affecting
appeal to the neighbourhood; “and you too, Upright
Crook, and you too, Relent Flint, and you,
Wealthy Poor, to be witnesses and testimonials in
my behalf. You, and all and each of you, can qualify,
if need should be, that I have ever been a slaving
and loving consort of this man who has deserted me
in my age, leaving so many of his own children on
my hands, to feed and to rear, besides”—

“What certainty is it,” interrupted the landlord
of the “Foul Anchor” most inopportunely, “that
the good-man has absconded? It was a merry day,
the one that is just gone, and it is quite in reason to
believe your husband was, like some others I can
name—a thing I shall not be so unwise as to do—
a little of what I call how-come-ye-so, and that
his nap holds on longer than common. I'll engage
we shall all see the honest tailor creeping out
of some of the barns shortly, as fresh and as ready
for his bitters as if he had not wet his throat with

cold water since the last time of general rej'icing.”

A low but pretty general laugh followed this effort
of tavern wit, though it failed in exciting even a
smile on the disturbed visage of Desire, which, by
its doleful outline, appeared to have taken leave of
all its risible properties for ever.

“Not he, not he,” exclaimed the disconsolate
consort of the good-man; “he has not the heart to
get himself courageous, in loyal drinking, on such an
occasion as a merry-making on account of his Majesty's
glory; he was a man altogether for work; and
it is chiefly for his hard labour that I have reason to
complain. After being so long used to rely on his
toil, it is a sore cross to a dependant woman to be
thrown suddenly and altogether on herself for support.
But I'll be revenged on him, if there's law to
be found in Rhode Island, or in the Providence
Plantations! Let him dare to keep his pitiful
image out of my sight the lawful time, and then,
when he returns, he shall find himself, as many a
vagabond has been before him, without wife, as he
will be without house to lay his graceless head in.”[1]
Then, catching a glimpse of the inquiring face of the
old seaman, who by this time had worked his way
to her very side, she abruptly added, “Here is a
stranger in the place, and one who has lately arrived!
Did you meet a straggling runaway, friend, in your
journey hither?”

“I had too much trouble in navigating my old
bulk on dry land, to log the name and rate of every

craft I fell in with,” returned the other, with infinite
composure; “and yet, now you speak of such a
thing, I do remember to have come within hail of a
poor fellow, just about the beginning of the morning-watch,
somewhere hereaway, up in the bushes
between this town and the bit of a ferry that carries
one on to the main.”

“What sort of a man was he?” demanded five or
six anxious voices, in a breath; among which the
tones of Desire, however, maintained their supremacy,
rising above those of all the others, like the
strains of a first-rate artist flourishing a quaver above
the more modest thrills of the rest of the troupe.

“What sort of a man! Why a fellow with his
arms rigged athwart ship, and his legs stepped like
those of all other Christians, to be sure: but, now
you speak of it, I remember that he had a bit of a
sheep-shank in one of his legs, and rolled a good
deal as he went ahead.”

“It was he!” added the same chorus of voices.
Five or six of the speakers instantly stole slyly out
of the throng, with the commendable intention of
hurrying after the delinquent, in order to secure the
payment of certain small balances of account, in
which the unhappy and much traduced good-man
stood indebted to the several parties. Had we leisure
to record the manner in which these praiseworthy
efforts, to save an honest penny, were conducted,
the reader might find much subject of amusement in
the secret diligence with which each worthy tradesman
endeavoured to outwit his neighbour, on the
occasion, as well as in the cunning subterfuges which
were adopted to veil their real designs, when all met
at the ferry, deceived and disappointed in their object.
As Desire, however, had neither legal demand
on, nor hope of favour from, her truant husband, she
was content to pursue, on the spot, such further inquiries
in behalf of the fugitive as she saw fit to make.

It is possible the pleasures of freedom, in the shape
of the contemplated divorce, were already floating
before her active mind, with the soothing perspective
of second nuptials, backed by the influence of
such another picture as might be drawn from the
recollections of her first love; the whole having a
manifest tendency to pacify her awakened spirit, and
to give a certain portion of directness and energy to
her subsequent interrogatories.

“Had he a thieving look?” she demanded, without
attending to the manner in which she was so
suddenly deserted by all those who had just expressed
the strongest sympathy in her loss. “Was he a
man that had the air of a sneaking runaway?”

“As for his head-piece, I will not engage to give
a very true account,” returned the old mariner;
“though he had the look of one who had been kept,
a good deal of his time, in the lee scuppers. If I
should give an opinion, the poor devil has had too
much”—

“Idle time, you would say; yes, yes; it has been
his misfortune to be out of work a good deal latterly,
and wickedness has got into his head, for want of
something better to think of. Too much”—

“Wife,” interrupted the old man, emphatically.
Another general, and far less equivocal laugh, at the
expense of Desire, succeeded this blunt declaration.
Nothing intimidated by such a manifest assent to the
opinion of the hardy seaman, the undaunted virago
resumed,—

“Ah! you little know the suffering and forbearance
I have endured with the man in so many long
years. Had the fellow you met the look of one who
had left an injured woman behind him?”

“I can't say there was any thing about him which
said, in so many words, that the woman he had left
at her moorings was more or less injured;” returned
the tar, with commendable discrimination, “but there

was enough about him to show, that, however and
wherever he may have stowed his wife, if wife she
was, he had not seen fit to leave all her outfit at
home. The man had plenty of female toggery around
his neck; I suppose he found it more agreeable than
her arms.”

“What!” exclaimed Desire, looking aghast; “has
he dared to rob me! What had he of mine? not the
gold beads!”

“I'll not swear they were no sham.”

“The villain!” continued the enraged termagant,
catching her breath like a person that had just been
submerged in water longer than is agreeable to human
nature, and forcing her way through the crowd,
with such vigour as soon to be in a situation to fly to
her secret hordes, in order to ascertain the extent of
her misfortune; “the sacrilegious villain! to rob the
wife of his bosom, the mother of his own children,
and”—

“Well, well,” again interrupted the landlord of
the `Foul Anchor,' with his unseasonable voice, “I
never before heard the good-man suspected of roguery,
though the neighbourhood was ever backward in
calling him chicken-hearted.”

The old seaman looked the publican full in the
face, with much meaning in his eye, as he answered,—

“If the honest tailor never robbed any but that
virago, there would be no great thieving sin to be
laid to his account; for every bead he had about
him wouldn't serve to pay his ferryage. I could
carry all the gold on his neck in my eye, and see
none the worse for its company. But it is a shame
to stop the entrance into a licensed tavern, with such
a mob, as if it were an embargoed port; and so I
have sent the woman after her valuables, and all the
idlers, as you see, in her wake.”

Joe Joram gazed on the speaker like a man enthralled
by some mysterious charm; neither answering,
nor altering the direction of his eye, for near a
minute. Then, suddenly breaking out in a deep and
powerful laugh, as if he were not backward in enjoying
the artifice, which certainly had produced the
effect of removing the crowd from his own door to
that of the absent tailor, he flourished his arm in the
way of greeting, and exclaimed,—

“Welcome, tarry Bob; welcome, old boy, welcome!
From what cloud have you fallen? and before
what wind have you been running, that Newport
is again your harbour?”

“Too many questions to be answered in an open
roadstead, friend Joram; and altogether too dry a
subject for a husky conversation. When I am birthed
in one of your inner cabins, with a mug of flip
and a kid of good Rhode Island beef within grappling
distance, why, as many questions as you choose,
and as many answers, you know, as suits my appetite.”

“And who's to pay the piper, honest Bob? whose
ship's purser will pay your check now?” continued
the publican, showing the old sailor in, however,
with a readiness that seemed to contradict the doubt,
expressed by his words, of any reward for such extraordinary
civility.

“Who?” interrupted the other, displaying the
money so lately received from Wilder, in such a
manner that it might be seen by the few by-standers
who remained, as though he would himself furnish
a sufficient apology for the distinguished manner in
which he was received; “who but this gentleman?
I can boast of being backed by the countenance of
his Sacred Majesty himself, God bless him!”

“God bless him!” echoed several of the loyal
lieges; and that too in a place which has since

heard such very different cries, and where the same
words would now excite nearly as much surprise,
though far less alarm, than an earthquake.

“God bless him!” repeated Joram, opening the
door of an inner room, and pointing the way to his
customer, “and all that are favoured with his countenance!
Walk in, old Bob, and you shall soon grapple
with half an ox.”

Wilder, who had approached the outer door of
the tavern as the mob receded, witnessed the retreat
of the two worthies into the recesses of the house,
and immediately entered the bar-room himself.
While deliberating on the manner in which he should
arrive at a communication with his new confederate,
without attracting too much attention to so odd an
association, the landlord returned in person to relieve
him. After casting a hasty glance around the
apartment, his look settled on our adventurer, whom
he approached in a manner half-doubting half-decided.

“What success, sir, in looking for a ship?” he demanded,
now recognizing, for the first time, the
stranger with whom he had before held converse
that morning. “More hands than places to employ
them?”

“I am not sure it will so prove. In my walk on
the hill, I met an old seaman, who”—

“Hum!” interrupted the publican, with an intelligible,
though stolen, sign to follow. “You will
find it more convenient, sir, to take your breakfast
in another room.” Wilder followed his conductor,
who left the public apartment by a different door
from that by which he had led his other guest into
the interior of the house, wondering at the air of
mystery that the innkeeper saw fit to assume on the
occasion. After leading him by a circuitous passage,
the latter showed Wilder, in profound silence, up
a private stair-way, into the very attic of the building.

Here he rapped lightly at a door, and was bid
to enter, by a voice that caused our adventurer to
start by its deepness and severity. On finding himself,
however, in a low and confined room, he saw
no other occupant than the seaman who had just
been greeted by the publican as an old acquaintance,
and by a name to which he might, by his attire, well
lay claim to be entitled—that of tarry Bob. While
Wilder was staring about him, a good deal surprised
at the situation in which he was placed, the landlord
retired, and he found himself alone with his
confederate. The latter was already engaged in
discussing the fragment of the ox, just mentioned,
and in quaffing of some liquid that seemed equally
adapted to his taste, although sufficient time had not
certainly been allowed to prepare the beverage he
had seen fit to order. Without allowing his visiter
leisure for much further reflection, the old mariner
made a motion to him to take the only vacant chair
in the room, while he continued his employment on
the surloin with as much assiduity as though no interruption
had taken place.

“Honest Joe Joram always makes a friend of his
butcher,” he said, after ending a draught that threatened
to drain the mug to the bottom. “There is
such a flavour about his beef, that one might mistake
it for the fin of a halibut. You have been in foreign
parts, shipmate, or I may call you `messmate,' since
we are both anchored nigh the same kid—but you
have doubtless been in foreign countries?”

“Often; I should else be but a miserable seaman.”

“Then, tell me frankly, have you ever been in
the kingdom that can furnish such rations—fish,
flesh, fowl, and fruits—as this very noble land of
America, in which we are now both moored? and
in which I suppose we both of us were born?”

“It would be carrying the love of home a little

too far, to believe in such universal superiority,”
returned Wilder, willing to divert the conversation
from his real object, until he had time to arrange his
ideas, and assure himself he had no other auditor but
his visible companion. “It is generally admitted
that England excels us in all these articles.”

“By whom? by your know-nothings and bold-talkers.
But I, a man who has seen the four quarters
of the earth, and no small part of the water besides,
give the lie to such empty boasters. We are colonies,
friend, we are colonies; and it is as bold in a colony
to tell the mother that it has the advantage, in this or
that particular, as it would be in a foremast Jack to
tell his officer he was wrong, though he knew it to
be true. I am but a poor man, Mr— By what name
may I call your Honour?”

“Me! my name?—Harris.”

“I am but a poor man, Mr Harris; but I have had
charge of a watch in my time, old and rusty as I
seem, nor have I spent so many long nights on deck
without keeping thoughts at work, though I may not
have overhaul'd as much philosophy, in so doing, as
a paid parish priest, or a fee'd lawyer. Let me tell
you, it is a disheartening thing to be nothing but a
dweller in a colony. It keeps down the pride and
spirit of a man, and lends a hand in making him what
his masters would be glad to have him. I shall say
nothing of fruits, and meats, and other eatables, that
come from the land of which both you and I have
heard and know too much, unless it be to point to
yonder sun, and then to ask the question, whether
you think King George has the power to make it
shine on the bit of an island where he lives, as it
shines here in his broad provinces of America?”

“Certainly not: and yet you know that every one
allows that the productions of England are so much
superior”—

“Ay, ay; a colony always sails under the lee of

its mother. Talk does it all, friend Harris. Talk,
talk, talk; a man can talk himself into a fever, or
set a ship's company by the ears. He can talk a
cherry into a peach, or a flounder into a whale. Now
here is the whole of this long coast of America,
and all her rivers, and lakes, and brooks, swarming
with such treasures as any man might fatten on, and
yet his Majesty's servants, who come among us, talk
of their turbots, and their sole, and their carp, as if
the Lord had only made such fish, and the devil had
let the others slip through his fingers, without asking
leave.”

Wilder turned, and fastened a look of surprise on
the old man, who continued to eat, however, as if he
had uttered nothing but what might be considered as
a matter-of-course opinion.

“You are more attached to your birth-place than
loyal, friend,” said the young mariner, a little austerely.

“I am not fish-loyal at least. What the Lord made,
one may speak of, I hope, without offence. As to
the Government, that is a rope twisted by the hands
of man, and”—

“And what?” demanded Wilder, perceiving that
the other hesitated.

“Hum! Why, I fancy man will undo his own
work, when he can find nothing better to busy himself
in. No harm in saying that either, I hope?”

“So much, that I must call your attention to the
business that has brought us together. You have not
so soon forgotten the earnest-money you received?”

The old sailor shoved the dish from before him;
and, folding his arms, he looked his companion full
in the eye, as he calmly answered,—

“When I am fairly enlisted in a service, I am a
man to be counted on. I hope you sail under the
same colours, friend Harris?”

“It would be dishonest to be otherwise. There

is one thing you will excuse, before I proceed to detail
my plans and wishes: I must take occasion to
examine this closet, in order to be sure that we are
actually alone.”

“You will find little there except the toggery of
some of honest Joe's female gender. As the door
is not fastened with any extraordinary care, you have
only to look for yourself, since seeing is believing.”

Wilder did not seem disposed to wait for this permission;
he opened the door, even while the other
was speaking, and, finding that the closet actually
contained little else than the articles named by his
companion, he turned away, like a man who was
disappointed.

“Were you alone when I entered?” he demanded,
after a thoughtful pause of a moment.

“Honest Joram, and yourself.”

“But no one else?”

“None that I saw,” returned the other, with a
manner that betrayed a slight uneasiness; “if you
think otherwise, let us overhaul the room. Should
my hand fall on a listener, the salute will not be
light.”

“Hold—answer me one question; who bade me
enter?”

Tarry Bob, who had arisen with a good deal of
alacrity, now reflected in his turn for an instant, and
then he closed his musing, by indulging in a low
laugh.

“Ah! I see that you have got your ideas a little
jammed. A man cannot talk the same, with a small
portion of ox in his mouth, as though his tongue had
as much sea-room as a ship four-and-twenty hours
out.”

“Then, you spoke?”

“I'll swear to that much,” returned Bob, resuming
his seat like one who had settled the whole affair
to his entire satisfaction; “and now, friend Harris,

if you are ready to lay bare your mind, I'm just
as ready to look at it.”

Wilder did not appear to be quite as well content
with the explanation as his companion, but he drew
a chair, and prepared to open his subject.

“I am not to tell you, friend, after what you have
heard and seen, that I have no very strong desire
that the lady with whom we have both spoken this
morning, and her companion, should sail in the
`Royal Caroline.' I suppose it is enough for our
purposes that you should know the fact; the reason
why I prefer they should remain where they are, can
be of no moment as to the duty you are to undertake.”

“You need not tell an old seaman how to gather
in the slack of a running idea!” cried Bob, chuckling
and winking at his companion in a way that displeased
the latter by its familiarity; “I have not
lived fifty years on blue water, to mistake it for the
skies.”

“You then fancy, sir, that my motive is no secret
to you?”

“It needs no spy-glass to see, that, while the old
people say, `Go,' the young people would like to
stay where they are.”

“You do both of the young people much injustice,
then; for, until yesterday, I never laid eyes on
the person you mean.”

“Ah! I see how it is; the owners of the `Caroline'
have not been so civil as they ought, and you
are paying them a small debt of thanks!”

“That is possibly a means of retaliation that might
suit your taste,” said Wilder, gravely; “but which
is not much in accordance with mine. The whole
of the parties are utter strangers to me.”

“Hum! Then I suppose you belong to the vessel
in the outer harbour; and, though you don't hate
your enemies, you love your friends. We must contrive

the means to coax the ladies to take passage
in the slaver.”

“God forbid!”

“God forbid! Now I think, friend Harris, you set
up the backstays of your conscience a little too
taught. Though I cannot, and do not, agree with
you in all you have said concerning the `Royal Caroline,'
I see no reason to doubt but we shall have
but one mind about the other vessel. I call her a
wholesome looking and well proportioned craft, and
one that a King might sail in with comfort.”

“I deny it not; still I like her not.”

“Well, I am glad of that; and, since the matter
is fairly before us, master Harris, I have a word or
two to say concerning that very ship. I am an old
sea-dog, and one not easily blinded in matters of the
trade. Do you not find something, that is not in
character for an honest trader, in the manner in which
they have laid that vessel at her anchors, without the
fort, and the sleepy look she bears, at the same time
that any one may see she is not built to catch oysters,
or to carry cattle to the islands?”

“As you have said, I think her a wholesome and
a tight-built ship. Of what evil practice, however,
do you suspect her?—perhaps she robs the revenue?”

“Hum! I am not sure it would be pleasant to
smuggle in such a vessel, though your contraband is
a merry trade, after all. She has a pretty battery, as
well as one can see from this distance.”

“I dare say her owners are not tired of her yet,
and would gladly keep her from falling into the hands
of the French.”

“Well, well, I may be wrong; but, unless sight
is going with my years, all is not as it would be on
board that slaver, provided her papers were true,
and she had the lawful name to her letters of marque.
What think you, honest Joe, in this matter?”

Wilder turned, impatiently, and found that the

landlord had entered the room, with a step so light
as to have escaped his attention, which had been
drawn to his companion with a force that the reader
will readily comprehend. The air of surprise, with
which Joram regarded the speaker, was certainly
not affected; for the question was repeated, and in
still more definite terms, before he saw fit to reply.

“I ask you, honest Joe, if you think the slaver, in
the outer harbour of this port, a true man?”

“You come across one, Bob, in your bold way,
with such startling questions,” returned the publican,
casting his eyes obliquely around him, as if he would
fain make sure of the character of the audience to
which he spoke, “such stirring opinions, that really
I am often non-plushed to know how to get the ideas
together, to make a saving answer.”

“It is droll enough, truly, to see the landlord of
the `Foul Anchor' dumb-foundered,” returned the
old man, with perfect composure in mien and eye.
“I ask you, if you do not suspect something wrong
about that slaver?”

“Wrong! Good heavens, mister Robert, recollect
what you are saying. I would not, for the custom
of his Majesty's Lord High Admiral, have any discouraging
words be uttered in my house against the
reputation of any virtuous and fair-dealing slavers!
The Lord protect me from blacking the character of
any honest subject of the King!”

“Do you see nothing wrong, worthy and tender
Joram, about the ship in the outer harbour?” repeated
mister Robert, without moving eye, limb, or
muscle.

“Well, since you press me so hard for an opinion,
and seeing that you are a customer who pays freely
for what he orders, I will say, that, if there is any
thing unreasonable, or even illegal, in the deportment
of the gentlemen”—

“You sail so nigh the wind, friend Joram,” coolly

interrupted the old man, “as to keep every thing
shaking. Just bethink you of a plain answer: Have
you seen any thing wrong about the slaver?”

“Nothing, on my conscience, then,” said the publican,
puffing not unlike a cetaceous fish that had
come to the surface to breathe; “as I am an unworthy
sinner, sitting under the preaching of good
and faithful Dr Dogma, nothing—nothing.”

“No! Then are you a duller man than I had rated
you at! Do you suspect nothing?”

“Heaven protect me from suspicions! The devil
besets all our minds with doubts; but weak, and evil
inclined, is he who submits to them. The officers
and crew of that ship are free drinkers, and as generous
as princes: Moreover, as they never forget to
clear the score before they leave the house, I call
them—honest!”

“And I call them—pirates!”

“Pirates!” echoed Joram, fastening his eye, with
marked distrust, on the countenance of the attentive
Wilder. “ `Pirate' is a harsh word, mister Robert,
and should not be thrown in any gentleman's face,
without testimony enough to clear one in an action
of defamation, should such a thing get fairly before
twelve sworn and conscientious men. But I suppose
you know what you say, and before whom you
say it.”

“I do; and now, as it seems that your opinion in
this matter amounts to just nothing at all, you will
please”—

“To do any thing you order,” cried Joram, very
evidently delighted to change the subject.

“To go and ask the customers below if they are
dry,” continued the other, beckoning for the publican
to retire by the way he entered, with the air of
one who felt certain of being obeyed. As soon as
the door was closed on the retiring landlord, he turned
to his remaining companion, and continued, “You

seem as much struck aback as unbelieving Joe himself,
at what you have just heard.”

“It is a harsh suspicion, and should be well supported,
old man, before you venture to repeat it.
What pirate has lately been heard of on this coast?”

“There is the well-known Red Rover,” returned
the other, dropping his voice, and casting a furtive
look around him, as if even he thought extraordinary
caution was necessary in uttering the formidable
name.

“But he is said to keep chiefly in the Caribbean
Sea.”

“He is a man to be any where, and every where.
The King would pay him well who put the rogue
into the hands of the law.”

“A thing easier planned than executed,” Wilder
thoughtfully answered.

“That is as it may be. I am an old fellow, and
fitter to point out the way than to go ahead. But
you are like a newly fitted ship, with all your rigging
tight, and your spars without a warp in them. What
say you to make your fortune by selling the knaves
to the King? It is only giving the devil his own a few
months sooner or later.”

Wilder started, and turned away from his companion
like one who was little pleased by the manner in
which he expressed himself. Perceiving the necessity
of a reply, however, he demanded,—

“And what reason have you for believing your
suspicions true? or what means have you for effecting
your object, if true, in the absence of the royal
cruisers?”

“I cannot swear that I am right; but, if sailing on
the wrong tack, we can only go about, when we find
out the mistake. As to means, I confess they are
easier named than mustered.”

“Go, go; this is idle talk; a mere whim of your
old brain,” said Wilder, coldly; “and the less said

the soonest mended. All this time we are forgetting
our proper business. I am half inclined to think,
mister Robert, you are holding out false lights, in order
to get rid of the duty for which you are already
half paid.”

There was a look of satisfaction in the countenance
of the old tar, while Wilder was speaking, that
might have struck his companion, had not the young
man risen, while speaking, to pace the narrow room,
with a thoughtful and hurried step.

“Well, well,” the former rejoined, endeavouring
to disguise his evident contentment, in his customary,
selfish, but shrewd expression, “I am an old
dreamer, and often have I thought myself swimming
in the sea when I have been safe moored on dry
land! I believe there must soon be a reckoning with
the devil, in order that each may take his share of
my poor carcass, and I be left the Captain of my
own ship. Now for your Honour's orders.”

Wilder returned to his seat, and disposed himself
to give the necessary instructions to his confederate,
in order that he might counteract all he had already
said in favour of the outward-bound vessel.