University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

The sun had just set behind a terrace of purple clouds, edged with silver
and lined with ermine, and gently the shadows of a mellow twilight were
stealing over the bright blue waters of the harbor of Portsmouth. Not a
zephyr stirred the pendulous leaf of the feathery elm, or mottled the placid
surface of the waters of the small but beautiful bay, with its islands like emeralds
in a setting of turquoise, rivalling the sunny green of its pleasant
shores. The sun had been down some minutes, yet the skies were as rich
with the beautiful dyes as the inner surface of an Indian pearl shell. The
waters, like a mirror of steel, caught the rosy colors, and blending and softening
them, reflected them back more beautiful still. The roofs and turrets
and spires of the old town were yet glowing and rich from the lavish treasures
of painted light, which the sun scattered behind him as he departed,
and the cot of the poor man was for awhile more gorgeously decorated with
mingled orange and crimson, than an eastern palace of pearls and rubies.
But the glories of twilight gradually faded as the gray shadows of evening
rose up from the sea, and crept upon the land, and covered the green hill
tops, till a quiet, sober hue rested upon water and land, and veiling the sky
let the stars be seen. Yet it was not night, but twilight lingering between
sunset and night; for the outlines of the roofs, the spires, the distant villas,
the remote hills, were all clear and defined. It was day arrayed in a quaker
garb. The tradesmen in the town closed their shutters and locked their
doors to go homeward, yet stopping awhile to chat with their neighbors opposite,
or ask the news of the day of some townsmen they meet, look up at
the sky and prophecy about the weather tomorrow, and wonder if the wind'll
be likely to be fair to bring the craft into port! The cows were all in from
pasture and snugly yoked to their stalls, the milk-maid having done her
snowy task; the tap-room groups gather about the stoops to smoke their
evening pipe and talk politics till it shall grow dark enough to go home;
the cart-horse and his master, the stout drayman, both have rest; and the

poor sewing girl relinquishes her hated needle, meekly receives her daily
pittance, puts on her cheap straw hat and cheaper shawl, and hurries thro'
the gathering darkness to her lodging room. The calm repose of evening
had settled upon land and water! Suddenly a flash reddened the atmosphere,
and a heavy gun fired from a corvette of twenty guns at anchor in
the stream, broke upon the sober quiet of the hour with startling distinctness.
The blue volumes of smoke had rolled sluggishly away from her
bows on the breezeless air and settled upon the water, ere a second gun was
discharged, which, like the other, reverberated through the close streets of
the town. A third report followed; and slowly and heavily the compact
mass of smoke moved towards the quay and covered the streets, tainting
the air breathed by the peaceful citizens with the warlike smell of powder.

The unusual report of cannon at this time, the sun having been set full
half an hour, drew many an idler to the piers, and led many an honest
craftsman to thrust his head from his door and glance with wondering looks
in the direction of the harbor; while divers were the speculations which
were started among neighbors as to the cause of this firing after night-fall.

The reports of the cannon were heard not only by the dwellers in the
town, but they awoke the echoes of hill-side, dell and dale for a league distant,
penetrating the humble cot of the farmer, and the stately villa of the
merchant, along the banks of the river. There were two dwellings within
reach of the sound, the inmates of which heard it with feelings deeper than
those of mere surprise. They were situated not far distant from each other,
but on opposite sides of the pleasant river about two miles from the corvette.
One of these edifices was stately and elegant in its apperance and
position. It crowned a gentle green eminence, sloping to the water-side,
and half hid amid sable oaks and elms of gigantic size. It was ornamented
by a colonnade in front, and a cupola rose proudly from the spacious level
roof from which was an extensive prospect of the town of Portsmouth, its
suburbs, its bay and islands, its navy yard and the blue sea in the distance.
An extensive lawn surrounded this abode of taste and wealth, and here and
there in a sunny afternoon, beneath the shade of its trees, might be seen a
few deer at play or browsing the short grass. A winding walk covered
with small pebbles led from the portico to the water-side, where was a picturesque
bathing-house, nearly hid by a water-oak, and a gaily painted and
well-appointed sail-boat besides a very light built, handsome skiff. The river
was less than a quarter of a mile in width and flowed past dark and still
and ever beautiful. On its opposite bank stood one of those old-fashioned
abodes with gable ends, small windows, and a low balustrade constructed
between the massive chimneys to protect those who ventured upon the roof
to look down the river. The house was large and square, and had once
been red, but was now a venerable gray color. Its shingles were all edged
with soft thick moss as green as a maple bud, and a few spears of grass had
fairly taken foothold in one of the chimney stacks. The old house had a
respectable look about it that was not to be mistaken for anything upstart.
It looked as if when the cry of the outrage at Lexington and Concord flew
over the land, an old man and half a dozen stalwart sons, each dressed in
homespun and shouldering a stout gun, might have sallied from its door and
hastened to join the army of Washington! This was, indeed, the case. The
grandsire and his sons, of the present proprietor, had done service in all the
battles that followed, and won a name for their children after them that an
English noble might be proud to transmit to his posterity.

The house had been enlarged as generations grew up, and L's and T's,
and long rambling sheds, not to mention the dairy, the cow-house, the cattle
shed, the great hay barn and the red grain barn, castles in size, had given
the premises a very imposing appearance. This aspect of farmer-like
thrift and competence, was sustained by fields and meadows and uplands

that surrounded it on all sides, and by the flocks and herds that were visible
in the fine pasture lands.

The present occupant of this noble farm was a widow, who had an only
son. This young man, at the period of our tale, was just entering his nineteenth
year. He had inherited from his father and grandfather a noble name.
The blood of a revolutionary patriot and soldier flowed in his veins; and
when he was of age to appreciate this distinction, he felt prouder of it than
of a title coeval with the days of William the Conqueror. He was left an
orphan at the age of thirteen, and shortly afterwards went to Exeter Academy.
His mother, who indulged his every wish, destined him for the bar.
He finished his course at Exeter at the age of eighteen and returned home
to surprise his mother by informing her of his resolution not to enter the
University.

`I wish,' he said, in answer to her inquiries as to his motive in changing
his determination; `I wish to become a man of action and bold enterprise.
I wish to see the world and meet with adventure. I wish to encounter danger
and mingle with men of spirit and courage. I detest study, mother!—
and the idea of spending four years in Cambridge, and then three more in
a law-school is unendurable! I mean to enter the navy, and in seven years
time, instead of just taking out a license to defend thieves and burglars and
rogues of all dyes, I should be in command as a lieutenant perhaps of a brig
of war! In ten years I may be a captain, in fifteen in command of a sloop!
I have resolved to apply for a midshipman's warrant at once!'

Mrs. Winter had no will but her son's, and using her influence with the
member of Congress from the district, she applied for a warrant in the navy,
and after a delay of four or five months the document arrived duly franked
by the Secretary of the Navy, and was placed by Mrs. Winter in her delighted
son's hands.

During the interval, while waiting for the arrival of the warrant, Frank
Winter had been beguiling the time by falling in love. The maiden was
Grace Ellingwood, and the only daughter of Commodore Ellingwood, who
resided in the handsome mansion on the opposite side of the river. Frank
had not seen Grace before he went to Exeter, as the commodore had but
recently moved to the residence on Grove Lawn, which he now occupied.
Their first meeting was the very evening of his return from Exeter, and
before he had yet reached home to surprise his mother with his intention to
become a sailor instead of a lawyer; an intention all at once formed between
the bridge where he met Grace and the old farm house, the distance
between the two points being something less than a mile. He was on
horseback, and was just emerging from a shady part of the road to cross a
short bridge thrown across a rivulet that emptied into the river, when he observed
a young female in a boat beneath, intently engaged in fishing in a
dark deep pool that lay under a shady tree just before the brook wheeled into
the open river. She was not thirty feet below the bridge and not more
than twelve feet beneath him. He reined in his horse with surprise and
pleasure; for the young gentleman was very susceptible of beauty, and the
side face of the young girl was exquisite. He gazed upon her between the
posts of the railing, and the more he gazed the more fascinated he became.
Unconscious of being observed, for the gurgling and murmuring of the water
among the stones and pebbles deadened the stop of his horse's hoofs to
her ear, she sat in her little boat, bending gracefully over the water and
watching her sport with the intensity of a practised angler. The motion
of her arms and body as she would cast the fly, and then the movement of
her snow-white, dimpled hand, as she would play it upon the surface of the
water, were singularly graceful. Frank was bewildered. He sat still in his
saddle entranced. He recollected reading of nymphs of water brooks, and
he half conceived that she must be the naiad of this stream. She was attired

in simple white, gathered in folds about her slender waist by a blue
belt; her brown hair was loose and flowing, the sun-boat which had shaded
it lying upon the seat behind her. By her side was a small basket in which
glittered two or three fine trout, and in a little box that looked like an old
gentleman's snuff, or tobacco box, she kept her bait and flies. Frank gazed
enraptured. He turned his every way to get a full sight of her features.
But he could only see the profile. This did not satisfy him, faultlesss as it
was. He made up his mind to dismount and throw a pebble into the pool
so that it should cause her to look up, when all at once she sprung to her
feet with a glad exclamation! the little rod in her hand bent like a coach-whip,
and was half drawn beneath the surface. Then it relaxed and up!
high out of the water leaped a large speckled trout, his scales flashing in the
light like gold. The hook was in his mouth for the line went into the air
with him. He disappeared again beneath the surface, and sought to hide
himself far distant under the roots of the tree. With graceful skill the lovely
girl managed her unruly game, suffering him to take what line he would;
when she saw that he was quiet she began to wind up again, gently at first
and then more rapidly; now letting him have a few feet again and now
stealing from him a dozen! In this manner she shortened her line and drew
him quietly to within a few feet of the surface, when all at once he began
to struggle. Her pole almost doubled with his efforts, and it took all her
strength to hold her grasp, while she each moment drew him, in spite of
his plunges, nearer and nearer to the boat. All the while she was merrily
laughing at her spirited contest, her cheeks flushed with the exercise, and
her figure bold and spirited in all its attitudes. One more vain effort to escape,
and the beautiful fish was captured and drawn into the boat.

`There sir, lie still and be good!' she said in a merry tone as she placed
him in her basket! `You are a rude fellow and would have been glad to
have pulled me into the water, I dare say.' Lay still, sirrah! I am not going
to take the hook out of your mouth which you have been so awkward
as to swallow with three inches of the line! You must go home so, and
Ben will take care of you!'

As she spoke she threw her hair back from her forehead, and exposed her
full countenance to the eyes of Frank, who had been watching her management
of the trout with the eye of an amateur, his attention divided between
the motions of the fish and the spirited movements of its fair captor. As
he now caught sight of her face, upturned to the bridge, he was entranced
with its faultless beauty. He had listened to her sweet playful voice as she
addressed her restless captive, and every note made his blood tingle with a
pleasure never before experienced by him; though young, handsome and
winning, he had oft listened to many a voice of sweetness and love, breathed
forth underneath the fire of glances full of tenderness and admiration.

As she raised her face she discovered the youth gazing down upon her
from the bridge. There was no possibility of her misunderstanding the
look of admiring surprise with which he regarded her. She returned his
gaze but for an instant as if to ascertain if she knew him, and then coloring
deeply, she laughed between embarrassment and annoyance, and catching
up her sun-hat, enveloped her face from his view. She then hurriedly
gathered up her line, caught up the light pair of oars, and the next moment
had shot out of the rivulet and was flying like a fairy bark across the open
river. The trees overhanging the bridge shut her from his sight, and dismounting,
he descended to the shore to watch her progress. She landed at
the foot of the water-oak, over-arching with its limbs the bathing house, and
taking up her basket of trout turned to ascend the walk to the house. As
she did so she lingered to look for a moment across the water. Frank waved
his hand with respectful gallantry. She did not notice the bold act; but
after she had proceeded up the walk a few steps, to a point where it entered

a copse she stopped, turned half round, waved her hand slightly in acknowledgment
and disappeared!

He looked after her for several minutes; and when she did not reappear,
that he could not get a glimpse of her dress through the foliage, he sighed
very heavily as all young lovers do, and came to the very plausible conclusion
that he was in love, and that the capture of the trout which he had
witnessed was but a figure of his own captivity by the fair fisher!

He slowly turned from the river-side, and ascending the bank to the bridge
was about to remount his horse, when he saw one of his mother's hired
farm men advancing with a yoke of oxen.

`Ah, mister Frank, I am plaguey glad to see you back again,' said the
man touching the brim of his old white hat. `The old lady is looking for
you every pesky minute! You've growed tall since you were last home,
mister Frank!'

`Who was that beautiful young lady, Caleb?' asked the young heir of
`Meadow Farm,' without heeding his remark.

`Faith! I havn't seen any young lady, sir, 'cept the darter of the mill-right
I met away back. She's got red hair and a snaggle tooth!'

`You are a fool, Caleb! I mean her who who was in the boat?'

`I didn't see no purty gal in a boat, sir!'

`No, you didn't,' he answered, recollecting himself and speaking more
calmly. `But there was one here just now fishing in the pool in the brook
there beneath that sycamore!'

`Oh, aye!' answered Caleb with a look of intelligence. `Whoa! who-o-oh!
ye old torments! can't ye keep quiet without hookin' one anuther?' and inflicting
a kick upon one of his oxen, and hitting the other over the head with
his goad he added, `was it a green skift she was in?'

`Yes.'

`Had she curly hair jist the color of a hazel-nut in the sunshine?'

`Precisely.'

`Had she eyes the color of her hair, only with a diamond sparklin' rite in
the middle of each?'

`Yes.'

`Did her hand look like—like butter cream?'

`Yes. Who is she?' he demanded laughing.

`Wall, prehaps I can guess! Did she smile just as you've seen the moonlight
glimpse over the water when the wind stirred it the softest bit in the
world?'

`Who is she, Caleb?'

`Wall, did she wear a white gownd, master Frank?' asked the poetical
Caleb.

`Yes, man of words! Do you know anything of her?'

`Guess I do, mister Frank!' answered Caleb, crossing one foot over the
other, and resting his chin easily on his goad. `Do you see that are big
house on the t'other side o' the water?'

`Grove Lawn! Yes. She lives there! I knew it! I was satisfied she
could belong nowhere else in this vicinity. Besides, I saw her land on the
ground and proceed towards the house.

`She lives there with her father?'

`And who is he? My mother wrote me that a naval officer of rank had
taken the house. `Who is he?'

`Commodore Ellingwood, they call him. He is a fine old bluff man,—
swears by the main top—has a spey-glass in his buffalo—

`Buffalo?'

`Cupalo—I never can get the hanged thing right! He smokes a Turk's
pipe and sleeps in a bannock swung between two posts instead of in a bed.'

`A hammock you mean, Caleb.'

`Wall, its tantamount to the same thing. He never rides, but always
sails. If he goes to Portsmouth to Church he must go in his boat. He's
got a old maid sister lives with him and this darter, and old Ben, a double-fisted
tar as calls himself his vallyshamy, and that's all the family, 'cept two
hired gals and a hired man, and a shaggy Newfounlan' dog as is always with
the Commydore, and a little Injun Hottentot boy, the color o' lasses, he
brought home with him from the other eend o' the airth!'

`And this young lady? Does she often sail alone?'

`She is just like a duck to love the water, Mister Frank! I never go by
here of a pleasant arternoon, I don't see her a fishin' or rowin' or swimmin!'

`Swimming?'

`Lor yes! she swims like a mermaid! She has a long brownish kind o'
gown she wears, and I've seen her walk strait into the water jist as if she
was goin down to be baptised, and then swim out and round, and the New-foundland
dog with her, and splash the water, and she would laugh jist like
a whole tree full o' robins, it was music to hear her! Then she didn't
know I was watching her through the trees; coz she generally takes just at
twilight to play in the water, when people don't pass along this lone road
much. I reckon she is a chip o' the old block!'

`Does he swim?'

`No, I guess he's afraid he'd take in water. They say he is mity fond o'
brandy, and I guess he is by the color o' his nose, and the funny way he
has lookin' out o' his eyes.'

`Does he have many visitors?' nervously inquired Frank, who began to
think among young officers the lovely fisher might have some favored youth.

`Not many, and them's all captins and lieutenants and sich like. They
say he don't let any one visit him that can't tell every rope in the ship from
the stern railin' to the quarter deck jib-boom!'

`I don't think there are such ropes in a ship, Caleb,' laughingly said Frank;
who, born within two miles of a naval station, was pretty well versed in such
matters.

`Wall, p'raps thar beant, it's only what they tell!' said Caleb, a little discomfited.
`Gee-up! hull-line! why doan't you hull-line, I tell ye! Good
night, mister Frank. It's getting on to sort o' laterish, and I've got to haul
a drag o' stun back to the farm afore dark!'

Thus speaking, Caleb drove his oxen forward across the bridge, while
Frank rode on homeward, not at a fast pace like one long absent, but flinging
the reins over his horse's neck he let him walk along the wooded road
which led toward the homestead of Meadow Farm. It was in this ride from
the bridge homeward that he resolved to become a midshipman! Love sent
law by the board, and Vattel and Bowditch were to take the place of Coke
and Blackstone! How determinedly, on reaching home, he carried this
resolution into effect this has already been seen.

The interval of five months, which elapsed between the application for
his warrant and its reception, was passed in love's young dream! How he
became acquainted with the fair angler would, if fairly narrated, make a romance
in itself. He took to angling and boating, and was always in the
vicinity of her well known haunts. At length one day, as he was lying on
his oars under the shade of an elm waiting for her to come to the river to
row, with the internal resolution that he would boldly approach her boat, he
saw her advancing. The next moment she was skimming the water in her
light bark. Her conscious look and air betrayed her knowledge, or at least
her suspicion that she was observed by the handsome youth, whom she had
first seen on the bridge, and for the last three days had observed rambling
the shore, fishing in the brook, or boating alone upon the river.

Frank was about to emerge from his covert and pull alongside, and boldly
declare his desire to become acquainted with her, when one of the tholepins

in her boat broke, and one of her oars slipped into the river! In an
incredibly brief space of time Frank was at hand, rejoicing at the happy
accident in his heart. He recovered the oar and placed it blushing and
embarrassed in her hands! From this moment an acquaintance began among
them, which deepened into mutual love. Their interviews were upon the
water, or occasionally they would land and walk together in the sweet solitudes
along the river bank. At length the warrant arrived, and with it an
order to join the corvette then at anchor in Portsmouth harbor and ready
for sea. Frank had at once reported himself to the commander, and then
returned home to get ready with every possible despatch; for he was ordered
to be on board as soon after hearing three signal guns as he could
reach the vessel. The report, therefore, of the cannon which were fired
from the corvette, were heard with a deeper emotion than curiosity, both at
Grove Lawn and Meadow Farm.