University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Frank Winter, the embryo Midshipman, was on his way from his house
to his boat, for the purpose of crossing the river to take his usual twilight
trysting with the lovely daughter of the old Commodore, when the report
of the first heavy gun from the corvette fell upon his ear. He started with
trembling suspicion and listened for another! Perhaps, he thought, it is not
from my ship! Another followed, and then a third, and he knew that the
time had come when he must part from Grace Ellingwood! He had anticipated
longer delay, at least a week, and his disappointment at suddenly
hearing the signal summoning him to duty was proportionably great. But
Frank was not a person to give way to annoyances. He was light-hearted
and buoyant, and he reflected that if he was called now to part from Grace,
he would the sooner return to her an officer, and sooner claim her as his
bride. He hastened forward to the place where he kept his boat, threw
himself into it, and swiftly crossed to the foot of the lawn. Mrs. Winter
had also heard the signal, and the heavy reports fell upon her ear like a knell.
She felt that she might be parting on that night from her only son forever.
She watered with her involuntary tears the clothes she was packing in her
trunks and chest, and placing in it a Bible, on which, with trembling fingers,
she wrote his name and her own beneath it. She knelt over it, and
prayed that the Spirit of God might accompany that blessed word to the
conversion of her thoughtless boy.

Grace was stranding pensively in the trellised portico of her father's house,
looking towards the river, shining glimpses of which she could get through
the trees, and thinking whether, as it was so late, Francis would come that
night. In the open doorway, behind, sat the commodore smoking a Turkish
pipe; the bowl of crystal set upon a silver stand, and the tube, which
was wound with scarlet silk, was several feet in length. At the side of the

pipe-bowl, which was set upon the floor, full two yards off from the smoke,
was the East Indian lad already spoken of by Caleb. He was a slender,
pliant boy, with a soft skin, yellow as gold, and large expressive eyes, black
as a rattle-snake's. His hair, which was black as a raven's, was long and
braided down his back in two braids. He wore ear-rings and bracelets of
gold upon his wrists. His costume was a pair of white Oriental drawers,
gathered at the ancle, a green jacket, yellow slippers and yellow turban. He
sat like a statue save that at intervals, with a long silver pin which he held
in his hand, he would stir the ignited tobacco in the bowl of his master's pipe.

The commodore, who was a hale, sailor like old man, with a Bardolphian
nose and a cherry cheek, which promised, if a needle were let into it, to
let out rich flavored fourth proof brandy, was wrapped in a Chinese dressing
gown, and wore white drilling pantaloons, cut loose and large at the bottom,
a white Valencia vest garnished with the navy button, and a black silk handkerchief,
knotted once in front, the ends hanging down in regular man-of-war
fashion.

`Gazy, darling, what are you looking out so sharp over the bows for, as
if you were looking for land through a George's Bank fog?'

`I was merely looking father!' answered the lovely watcher with a deep
blush.

`You will hurt your sweet eyes, girl! It is near four bells in the dog-watch,
and it's time light sail were taken in and the hatches down! Come,
Ben, close the windows and doors, and pipe hammocks down!'

`Yes, your honor,' answered an old tar of fifty or more years, with a gray
head, and a huge pair of black and gray whiskers, dressed in a blue jacket
with a double row of navy buttons on each wing, white duck trowsers as
wide as a flannel petticoat, a shirt faced with blue, and adorned with the
anchor worked in the blue ground, and a black handkerchief knotted about
his neck after the fashion of the commodore's, only that the ends of Ben's
were passed through a dolphin's ring. Ben wore pumps with large flaunting
bows of black ribbon, and on his hands, the backs of which were covered
with strange figures in blue ink, were two gold rings; one plain, the
other representing two hearts fastened together by a true love knot.

`What o'clock is it, Ben?'

`Most four bells your honor,' answered Ben, pulling at his forelock.
`Shall I go and strike 'em before I close the hatches?'

`Go, Ben!' answered the commodore, nodding with familiar dignity.

The old tar made his usual obeisance and left the hall with a rolling gait,
like a lumber brig, broad in the beam, making way before a norther. In a
moment after, four loud strokes of a ship's bell, swung over the kitchen,
announced to the household that it was eight o'clock!

`Count them bells you little rascal!' cried the commodore to the lad.

`Wunny, fivy forty!'

`Wunny, fivy, forty, you little Hindoo!' repeated the commodore with a
lurking smile. `Begin and try again. One!'

`Wunny.'

`One—wun!'

`Wun, wunny, wun!'

`Vast there! take a round turn! let us try another. Two!'

`Dooy,' answered the little Hindoo, in his gentle voice.

`Dooy! cut your y's adrift and bring up short so! two!'

`Doo'

`That's a scholar. Three!'

`Dee,'

`Dee, no! Three!'

`Me no speak him, massy!'

`Yes you can! try again!'

`Dreey!'

`Cast off your y's, and don't sing it as if I was teaching you to boxhaul a
methodist tune. Three!'

`Dree!'

`That is better! You'll improve, Jack, as you get used to the soundings!'

`Please yer honor, he wants his jaw-tackle overhauled a bit and reset with
English sarvings,' said Ben respectfully. `It stands to reason he shouldn't
speak Christian.'

`You are right, Ben; Jack!'

`Sar, massy!'

`Have you got your catechism?'

`Yis, massy.'

`Please yer honor, I have been teaching him the log marks these, last
seven Sundays, and if he don't know 'em it's none o' my fault, yer honor.
He's a curous craft to navigate through Christian larnin', commodore. I
axed him who made him, and he answers me Bug-boo!'

`Let us try him. Jack!'

`Massa Commydory.'

`Do you know you are a little heathen?'

`Yis, massy,' answered the lad in a musical tone of voice, and with exceeding
simplicity.

`Do you know I took you off the beach where your wicked mother left
you tied to be eaten up by a great alligator that was coming out of the water
after you? Do you know that, Jack?'

`Yis massy, I know him!'

`Did'nt I take you aboard my ship, and havn't I treated you as if you
were a Yankee born boy?'

`Yes, me Yanky—me!'

`Avast there, younker, not quite!' interposed Ben, indignantly.

`He means, Ben, he would like to be if he hadn't such a saflron hide.
He can't mean he is one, Ben!'

`Perhaps not your honor! But I likes to have every thing ship-shape, it
stand to reason I should, yer honor!'

`Well, Jack, as I've done all this for you, you ought to study your catechism,
coz I mean to make a Christian of you!'

`Yis, I learn him. Bug-boo no makee me—Godee make me!'

`Ben!'

`Your honor!'

`What can be done to keep him from sing-singing all his words at the end
this way?'

`I don't know yer honor 'cept we rig a lanyard to his tongue, and one
hold the end of it behind, and when he gets the word all out to the proper
eend, give a sharp twitch afore he lets off the slack of the sing-song! It
stands to reason it'll help him, yer honor!'

`That's a capital notion, Ben. But it'll slip off his tongue, so it better be
reaved through the bights of his ear-rings, and you hold both lines astern.
When he gets the word fairly out, you can fetch him up with a round turn
before he begins to pay off with the sing-singy!'

`Shall I go and fetch a lanyard, yer honor?'

`Get it ready for to-morrow, and then we'll see if we can't teach him
honest English, without this — sing-singy! Now close the hatches and
shut the dead lights. Come in Gazy, dear! You'll get a cold staying on
deck there so late?'

`In a moment, father!' answered Grace, who had been earnestly watching
the river, for she thought she saw Frank's boat upon it; but it proved
to be a salmon fisher's. She was about to turn away disappointed, when
upon her ears also fell the distant report of the corvette's guns! She knew
that they were the signal for the officers to be on board and for getting underweigh.

Her heart failed within her, and the color left her cheeks. The
time of parting with him to whom she had surrendered her young heart
had arrived. Could he have gone! Would he leave without seeing her?
No. The thought was rejected the instant it passed across her mind. The
commodore had put down the tube of his pipe and stepped upon the portico
to see what detained his child, when the guns reached his ear.

`There go three 32's,' he said with animation. `It is the signal for the
Corvette in the harbor, Ben, to get underweigh. The tide will serve at
twelve, when she will tow down with it to sea!'

`Where is she bound, father,' asked Grace, for this Frank did not know.'

`Her orders are secret, girl. But I think I can guess. She sails for the
Gulf of Mexico on a special cruise.'

`And when will she return, sir?' she asked anxiously, and yet endeavoring
to conceal the deep interest she felt in her absence.

`Perhaps in four months; perhaps she may be ordered to the Mediterranean
afterwards, and not to be here again for three years. She is a fine vessel,
Ben.'

`Yes, your honor. I was in her one cruise, yer honor remembers. She
has a fine set of swabs, and her skipper is a gentleman and a sailor!'

`Douse the gentleman part, Ben. Sailor means every thing. The rest
only weakens it and leaves room for leaks.'

`Yer honor is right,” answered Ben, with a pull at his waistband; for neither
Ben nor the commodore used the effeminate support of suspenders.

At this moment the quick eyes of Grace caught sight of her lover's boat,
gliding upon the shadowy river, and she involuntarily started to meet him.

`Where are you steering now, Gracy?' asked the commodore.

`No—no where, sir!'

`Well, let us inboard and give Ben a chance to make all fast.'

`In one minute, sir! Go in, dear father, I will come in by and by. I
wish to walk a little.'

`Well, child, keep a short watch and don't get off soundings, for there
are cruisers about here, said the fond old man, who was ruled wholly by his
daughter's wishes. He then took Ben's arm, and the two went rolling as if
walking a quarter deck in a gale, into the hall.

As soon as they disappeared, Grace flew along the avenue towards the
water side, and met Frank as he came rapidly up the path.

`Dearest Grace! The signal has been fired and I hasten to take leave of
you!'

`I heard it, Frank, and it went to my very heart!' she said, suffering him
to take and press her hand to his lips, while he enfolded her waist with his
arm. They stood a moment in silence, each for a while too deeply moved
to speak. They were a noble pair. His manly form, a head taller than
hers, bending over her in tenderness and with eyes of love; she half shrinking
from, yet suffering his embrace, with a countenance of gentle sorrow;
her pale cheek and eyes suffused with tears, speaking cloquently her love
and grief! He was now within a few days of his nineteenth year, she just
entering upon her eighteenth: in age nearly equal, in heart one!

The twilight deepened; time flew; each moment became precious to
both; yet neither could find language to open the full fountain of thoughts
that rushed to their lips. Both wished to say so much that neither could
utter a word! Language seemed incompetent. Silently Frank drew her
to his heart, and again and again pressed kisses upon her pure brow.

`Grace, must we part! Is the hour—the moment of our separation at
hand? I cannot realise it!'

`We shall meet again, dear Frank; she said, rallying; `you will write me
often, when you write to your mother?'

`Yes, Grace.'

`I will answer your letters faithfully!'

`You are too kind. But I fear you will not always remember me, Grace.
I may be very absent. Many officers visit your father; you know several
intimately; I am but a midshipman! You will forget me. You will—'

`Frank, if I thought you believed what you utter, I should deeply grieve!
You know me better than to harbor a thought so unworthy. You, dear
Frank, are the first who unfolded to me the wealth of love and joy in my
own heart. To you those treasures have been given, and yours they shall
ever be!'

`I did not doubt, dearest Grace. I only wished my confidence in you
confirmed; for it is happiness to hear you say that I am dear to you! But
your father, the commodore! I fear he will, if he discovers your attachment
to me, forbid it. You know since the time he saw us walking together,
and asked you who I was, and you told him how we had first met and
spoken, that he forbade you to speak to me saying that you should have no
acquaintances who were not in the navy!'

`But he said also, in his blunt way, when I told him you were waiting
for a warrant, `let him get into the navy first, girl, and let us see what he is
made of!'

`Does he suspect our attachment?'

`No. Though I will not conceal from you that he knows I have met you
more than once. Ben has seen us together, and he feels it his duty, as he
says, to report every thing in sight to the commodore! He is in the cupola
or `aloft,' as he terms it, half his time, looking out as if he was at sea, and
I am confident he has reported `all strange craft,' she added, slightly smiling.
`I have noticed lately my father throws out hints and words that show
he suspects something. But he has not spoken with me about it; but I
have no doubt satisfies himself with keeping old Ben on the look-out to
watch me!'

`I fear another obstacle, Grace! The commodore is very wealthy, and
prides himself upon his aristocracy, being related to some of the best English
famleis among the nobility. I fear even if I should return a lieutenant,
if this could be, that I should be refused your hand!'

`What family is nobler than his, whose fathers aided in achieving the liberties
of the country. Let us not speak of such things, Frank. Let us
both hope!'

`Hope shall be my watchword! I will not let a doubt darken the bright
prospect in the future. Now, dear Grace, one embrace and I must leave you!'

The sweet parting of the lovers was delayed and lingering still and still
delayed, till the voice of Ben was heard hailing from the lawn.

`Miss Grace, ahoy! Where about's in the offing are you cruising?' The
commodore says you must wear ship and put back under convoy!'

`One last embrace! Farewell.'

`Farewell!

`God bless you, Grace!'

`God protect you, Frank!'

The next moment the lover was in his boat, shooting across the starry
water, and looking back as he receded from the shore to catch a last glimpse
of her from whom he had so bitterly torn himself. He soon reached the
landing-place at the Farm, and walked towards the house. But more than
once the thought tempted him, that as he had a competence, there was no
need he should fly from Grace, to enter upon a profession. He would resign
his warrant, remain on shore and pass his days in her sweet society.
But then his pride came to his aid, his high spirit resented the suggestion:

`No. I will join my ship! I will enter upon the career of honor before
me! I will bear up under this separation, and try to live over the past in
memory. If I should now repent and turn back, she would scorn me! her

high spirit would lead her to look upon me with contempt. Much as she
loves me, she would rather I should be absent from her than that I should
remain at home in inglorious ease, performing nothing to gain her esteem
or the homage of men. No! I will go forward. Her image shall go with
me to alleviate the interval of our separation! No, Grace, I will do nothing
that would render me unworthy of you. From some words of caution she
let fall as we parted, I know she thinks me a little unsteady and irresolute.
I will not confirm this idea by any act of folly now.'

As he came to this determination he reached his mother's house. Here
a second parting, less tender, but equally sad, took place. In a few minutes
afterwards, the young midshipman was in a boat with his baggage, on his
way down the river to join his ship, which was two miles distant. Already,
as he approached her, he heard the boatswain's whistle piping `anchor up,'
and when he reached the side, he found her already in motion. Three
boats were out ahead, filled with men, who had begun to tow her with the
turning tide. Frank got on deck and reported himself to the first lieutenant,
whom he saw standing upon a gun near the gangway.

`Glad to see you on board at last, sir,' said the officer. `I feared you would
be left behind. `Get your things below, and then come on deck, and I will
have you messed and shown your duty!' Frank did not like the authoritative
tone of the officer, but he obeyed without any reply.

He was soon upon deck again, after getting his things below, and finding
that he was not immediately called upon to do anything, he leaned over the
hammock netting and gazed towards the town, which was fast receding in
the distance. His thoughts were of Grace, and he could not prevent a sigh
or two escaping him, as he thought how long it would be before he should
behold her again. She, at the same time, having stolen from her chamber,
was in the cupola watching the distant ship through the spy-glass, her faint
outline, as she passed out of the harbor, being just visible through the indistinctness
of night.

The corvette, after getting near the light, began to feel a light air, when
the boats were called alongside, and the topsails and top-gallant-sails loosed.
The breeze strengthened, and royal after royal was unfolded above the top-gallant-sails,
the spanker and jibs were set, and with the wind four points
free, the ship of war went dashing over the curling waves at the rate of
seven knots.

Frank's manly and prepossessing appearance, his fine face, and generous
spirit, which spoke in every lineament, at once won him the confidence of
his fellow officers. He soon became familiar with his duties, and by the
time the corvette reached Vera Cruz, whither she was bound, he was scarcely
inferior to any of the midshipmen on board, in knowledge of the peculiar
service required of him. There was, however, one draw-back in his
character to success as an officer, where to command and obey have one
and the same meaning. Accustomed from boyhood to indulgence from his
money, to have his own will and way, and at Exeter seldom suffering himself
to be controled by his preceptors without showing quickness of spirit,
he was not well pleased with the manner in which he found himself addressed
by the lieutenants and ordered by the commander. He had not
been five days from harbor, before he found himself spoken to in a manner
that on shore he would have resented as an insult to his age, character and
standing in society. But here he felt compelled to submission, and did submit,
but with wounded feelings and a sense of deep resentment. In a word,
Frank soon learned that he was too high spirited, too quick and sensitive to
obey! The very idea had in it something degrading to his mind; and he
determined, that if the other midshipmen submitted to it he would not. He
expressed himself very freely upon the subject to one of his messmates,
one evening, as the corvette lay at the Sacrificios, waiting for a messenger
to return from Mexico.

`It is an outrage,' said Frank, indignantly speaking to Barton Ellis, a midshipman
older than himself, and whose face, handsome though it was, showed
the profligacy of his habits: `it is an outrage upon the feelings of a gentleman,
to be spoken to in the way Lieutenant —, spoke to you this
morning because you gave a wrong order, when the fault was his own, for
he stutters so no man can tell what he means to say!'

`Oh, Frank, I've got used to it.'

`I have not, nor shall I very soon, without degrading every noble sentiment.
I have been thrice damned by the officers for blunders. How could
I help them? Besides, if I could, what right has one gentleman to damnyour-eyes,
without being personally responsible for his words. I would not
certainly put up with it ashore, and I will do no more on board a ship.'

`You will find you'll have to and more than this,' answered Ellis, with a
smile and a shrug of the shoulder.

`I will not,' answered Frank, very positively. If I had considered, in
coming into the Navy, that I was to sacrifice my position as a gentleman
and young man of fortune, I would never have crossed the gang-way of this
or any other ship.'

`Well, it can't be helped, Frank. 'Tis hard I confess! I found it so
when I first mounted my dirk. I am from Virginia, and can as ill brook an
insult as you! But they don't look at it in that light here, and so I have
learned to put my dignity in my pocket; and when a luff damus me I damn
a sailor, and so pass the compliment. I made old Commander — laugh
once in that way. He called me on the quarter deck, and cursed me for a
lubber, because I let go a weather-earing to save being knocked from the
yard. I turned round and cursed a man who was quietly reeving a rope
through a dead-eye block. `What was that for, sir?' says old —. `I
was only passing along the compliment, sir,' says I. He laughed till his
sides shook, and after that didn'nt swear any more at me!'

`You take it lightly, Ellis. As for me, I am resolved not to submit to another
insult. Ever officer who speaks to me in a manner unworthy a gentleman,
I will hold responsible for it on shore!'

Thus speaking, Frank with a cheek burning from a sense of wounded
pride, turned and walked away.

`Winter will get himself into trouble if he follows that notion he has in
his head,' said Ellis to another midshipman, who had overheard what had
been said. `He is right in theory, but it's a theory that he'll find confounded
hard to practise on the deck of a ship of war.'