University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

`It is one of the singular properties of Sweetbrier, gentlemen,'
said Mr. Clyde, as he presented his sister to the three
or four young men who were variously disposed about the
drawingroom; `that while seeming to be one of the meekest
and sweetest of the rose tribe, it is yet armed at all points,
and capable of making war with considerable fierceness.'

“`'Tis excellent to have a giant's strength!'” said one of
the guests, who was given to quoting Shakspeare.

`And it is safe enough, lodged in such delicate hands,'
said another who came forward with the air of an old acquaintance.
`We all know that Miss Clyde is never
tyrannical, except in the way which is every lady's prerogative.

`What a pleasant image!' said Rosalie smiling. `It
reminds one, Mr. Clinton, of the Bill of Mortality in the
Spectator; where you find “Will Simple, smitten at the
Opera by the glance of an eye that was aimed at one who
stood by him.'”

`I think I need no further explanation of Sweetbrier,
after that,' said the gentleman.

`Mr. Raynor—' said Tom, suddenly throwing open the
door; and more than one of the party looked round with a
little start, which subsided as quickly when they found themselves
mistaken.

The new comer was a most flourishing combination of
youth, good looks, imperturbable good nature, a gay dress,
and a most jaunty manner. As if the air were buoyant under
his feet, so did he come forward, and his face was radiant as
if Miss Clyde had been the sunshine of his existence.

`My dear Miss Clyde!—it is ages!—two whole ages—
and a half—since I had the pleasure of seeing you. And
how in the world I didn't get here as soon as I came home,
I can't imagine; but the first thing I knew I found myself
at Washington.'

`The power of attraction, Mr. Penn,' said Rosalie. `Did
you suppose that you of all people could resist its power?'

`I never did think so before,' said Penn, `but it really
seems to me that I must have resisted it pretty strongly
when I went to Washington. I feel remarkably drawn, to-night.'

`Drawn and quartered—in a pleasant sense,' said one of
the gentlemen, as Mr. Penn threw himself down on the sofa
by Rosalie.

`Mr. Talbot is apparently one of the people who think
sense is everything,' said Mr. Clinton.

`Ah that's a mistake,' said Penn. `But my dear Miss
Clyde, is there anything remarkable about your appearance
to-night?'

`I hope not,' said Rosalie, while the others laughed and
Mr. Clinton remarked,

`You ought to be able to answer that yourself, Penn.'

`Couldn't trust myself, that's all,' replied Mr. Penn, `for
in the present state of my eyesight it really strikes me with
astonishment how anybody could go to Europe. And do
you know Miss Clyde, that do all I would I couldn't make
Harry come with me to-night? Positively couldn't—and
he went somewhere else.'

`Probably for the same reason that you went to Washington,'
said Thornton.

`No, it couldn't have been that,' said Penn, `because he
has seen Miss Clyde since he came home, which I had not.
But I never knew him resist the power of attraction before.'

`You seem to be fairly entangled, Penn,' said Mr.
Clinton.

`Certainly,' said Penn,—`revolving. Miss Clyde, it
confuses my ideas in an extraordinary manner to see you
again. And it's only by the merest chance in the world
that I am here to-night, myself.'

`What unhappy corner of the world has just missed the
pleasure of your company?' said Mr. Clinton.

`You may well call it an unhappy corner,' said Penn,
`for if a man is bound to be wretched anywhere, I suppose
it is in a prison ship in a hot climate. I escaped pretty well
though.'

`From the wretchedness or the ship?' said Rosalie.

`Both, Miss Clyde, I assure you. I'll tell you about it.'

`What nonsense you do talk, Penn,' said Thornton.
You came home only three months ago from Europe.'

`Certainly,' said Penn, `but that's quite long enough to
stay in some places. Have you any idea where I have been
since then?'

`Not much,' said Thornton,—`at Washington and here
I suppose.'

`Tout au contraire,' replied Mr. Penn. `I have been at
the West Indies and a prisoner.'

`Were you one of the men who ran away with the
Bermuda?' said Rosalie.

`My dear Miss Clyde, with your usual acuteness you
have stated the case precisely. In fact I may say I was
the man, the rest being highly gifted with timidity. But I
thought a little interlude of running away would be refreshing,
even if we were taken again, and was by no means of
the opinion that H.B.M.'s cruisers had a natural right to
everything they laid hands on. Holla—who comes here?'

“Enter a fairy at one door,” said the Shakspearian.

And the door softly opened and Hulda came in. Just
enough awake to get off the bed and brush her hair, she had
found her way down stairs, and now stood by the door with
her ideas in a most puzzled state.

`What do you want, Hulda?' said her brother.

`I want—Rosalie,' said the child abstractedly, and taking
another survey of the room.

`The Queen, my dear,' said Penn Raynor walking up to
her, `is at present sitting in state upon the sofa. Shall I
have the honour of conducting you to her? And by what
title will you be made known? Is this the little prime
minister?'

`What sir?' said Hulda raising her childish eyes to his
face, while everybody laughed.

`You are the Flying Squirrel, my dear, and I am his
majesty's sloop of war Wild Cat,' said Penn, as he gave her
one jump to his shoulder; and then carrying her to the sofa
permitted her to kneel in his lap. `Now who have I got for
a prisoner?'

`You have got me,' said Hulda.

`And it strikes me that I have heard of you before,' said
Penn. `Isn't my cousin a great friend of yours?'

`I don't know, sir,' said Hulda.

`Why yes you do,' said Penn giving her a little shake.
`You spent the day with him yesterday, and he was off with
you somewhere when I got home.'

`But I was at Mr. Raynor's yesterday,' said Hulda, `and
he isn't your cousin.'

`He is my cousin.'

`Is he?' said Hulda, leaning back and taking a complete
survey of the questioner. `He don't look a bit like you. I
love Mr. Raynor very much.'

`Well so do I,' said Penn, who was highly delighted
with the unconscious emphasis Hulda had bestowed upon her
friend's name.

`But I thought you were going to tell us of your great
adventures,' said Thornton impatiently,—`and you sit there
talking to that child!'

`I perceive that you are still subject to your old periodical
fits of insanity, Mr. Clyde,' said Penn. `When you
have sojourned for a short lifetime among the Quakers, you
will learn that impatience is one of the useless luxuries of
life. Though indeed if you had been in our prison-ship—
But I was going to tell you about it. You see my dear
Miss Clyde, when I got to Washington I fell in with some
friends—not of the Society, you may be sure—that were
bound to try their hand at privateering. Of course they
invited me to go, and of course I went.'

`To benefit the country or yourself?' said Thornton.

`Whichever might be,' said Penn, `and I think in the
long run we came out about equal. However, when we
first started from Baltimore the thing paid pretty well. We
cruised about, took a variety of vessels smaller than ourselves,
and had more prisoners than we knew what to do
with: which was all very pleasant, except that the prisoners
had as good appetites as our own.'

`Remarkably inconsiderate of them,' said Mr. Clinton.

`Yes, it was,' said Penn, `when you take into the account
that the Flying Squirrel's capacity for provisions was
by no means unlimited. It came to this point at last—
whether we should all starve together as human beings, or
the upperhand live and the rest go overboard.'

`Difficult point to round, that,' said Thornton.

`It did look so in the distance,' said Mr. Penn; `but
after all it's astonishing how many points the tide of circumstance
carries one round—as our Captain poetically expressed
it. When we did reach the point there was a ship
in the offing—an Englishman she looked to be and was.'

`And she carried you round the point?' said Rosalie.

`Precisely, Miss Clyde—round more than one. She was
a sloop of war—or a frigate—I don't know which,—only I
know that she carried four times as many guns as we did.
The game was up, of course, but we chose to let the enemy
cry checkmate, and so ran—but what could the Squirrel do
so far from land? for the storms had driven us out so far
that we were near coming up on the other side. I don't
know to this day whether our guns were heard in England
or America. But we ran as I said—skimmed over the
water like the cannon ball the Wild Cat sent after us.'

`Did it strike?' said Rosalie.

`Yes, Miss Clyde—it struck us—that if she was going
to spit fire at that rate we had better stop,—just to save her
from spontaneous combustion. So we did stop, and gave
her as good as she sent.'

`But not quite so suggestive.'

`Not quite,' said Penn,—`our arguments were not quite
so weighty. And you see the Wild Cat had set her mouth
for our poor Squirrel,—and what could four guns do against
eighteen, after all?'

`So the long and short of it was, that you had to strike
your colours,' said Thornton.

`Even so,' said Penn,—`I had that pleasure myself.
Struck 'em so they fell overboard too—gave the Eagle
my own choice,—death instead of dishonour. But we were
all sent to Kingston and cooped up on board the Goree.
Such a place!—such bread and such rats!'

`You wished for the Wild Cat again, didn't you Penn?'
said Thornton laughing.

`I nearly turned one myself,' said Penn. `For if the
bread was uneatable, that didn't make it pleasant to have
rats and cockroaches running over you all night to get at it.
I tell you what, I came near hating my ancestors for having
come from England.'

`If they had not come you would have been an Englishman
yourself,' said Rosalie smiling.

`I don't know about that,' said Mr. Penn; `but if I were
a Turk I'd have respectable prison ships. Why even the
Hindoos put nobody but beggars in the animal asylums—
and pay them!'

`I think you were paid for privateering,' said Thornton.

`We did not view it in that light,' said Penn. `In fact
all the light we had was reflected into a focus upon our
plan of escape. The States or the bottom of the sea,—we
soon made up our minds to have one or t'other. It's a
pretty enough place there, too,' said Mr. Penn, who was
warming to his subject; `and bread fruits and cocoanuts
look very nice, waving about in the wind; but they don't
make your sour brown bread any sweeter. I think to people
broiling on the Goree's deck, or smothering under her
hatches, it was rather tantalizing to think of green trees
anywhere. But it strengthened our plans.'

`What did you have to do there?' said Thornton.
`Anything?'

`Not much,' said Penn,—`what we had was done, I do
assure you. Wishing and grumbling was pretty much the
whole of it—and then planning. Those of us that were
given to swearing kept themselves in good practice; but as
I had been brought up by the Quakers I hadn't even that
resource. I remember one night I was too melancholy to
sleep—or too hot—I forget which; and just as early as the
prisoners were allowed to go on deck, up I went.'

`Didn't throw yourself overboard, did you?' said
Thornton. `That would have answered for either heat or
melancholy.'

`Yes, but it wouldn't have answered for me, though,'
said Penn, `so I only leaned over the side of the ship and
wished myself a fish; for the water was still enough to give
one the fidgets. Presently the rest began to gather about
me, and we exchanged a few looks and words as we got a
chance, in a kind of desperate way that said we wouldn't
wait much longer. Which sentiment we all endorsed by
flinging our breakfast overboard. `What's that for?' said
the boatswain. But we gave him no reply; and after a few
not very sweet words he ordered eleven of the prisoners into
the launch to go for water.'

`And you refused to go?' said Thornton.

`No we didn't—we went, with only a look at each other;
and the boatswain and two soldiers went along for company.
The bay was quite spotted with vessels that morning, but
all sleepy, apparently, with the warm day; there was nobody
astir. The frigates shewed their teeth and that was
all; and the smaller vessels had both crew and cargo
stowed away out of sight. Only one, the Bermuda, had her
deck lumbered with buoys which she was to take out and
lay in the channel. But we rowed on past them all to the
shore, and filled our six water casks in less time than they
ever were filled before.'

`And upset them coming back,' said Mr. Clinton.

`You would have been a help if you had been there,'
said Penn. `No—we upset nothing but the calculations of
the boatswain; for the minute we were far enough from
shore I gave the signal that we had always agreed upon.
`Squirrel!' I said—and we pounced upon both soldiers and
boatswain and disarmed them in a trice. Then we rowed
quietly along to the Bermuda.

`Now you see, Miss Clyde, we had two forts on our
right hand and the Bermuda on our left; and beyond the
Bermuda lay the sloop of war Nimrod, and the frigates
Chaser and Charlemagne, but all as I said asleep. So
when we reached the Bermuda we boarded her at once, and
put her five men under hatches; and in less time than you
can think the cables were cut and we pushing out.'

`And after that the time seemed long.'

`Indeed yes,' said Penn. `I never saw a thing creep so
in my life as she did for a few minutes. When we had
made a little headway we set the launch adrift, with the
boatswain and soldiers and two of our party that didn't
bring their courage along, and then overhauled the schooner
to see what we had to work with. We knew nothing about
the channel, and there was no chart on board; but we found a
compass, forty gallons of water, and provisions enough to
keep us alive for ten days.'

`How about the rats?' said Thornton.

`Never saw one, all the time we were in the Bermuda—
they were sent to the prison ships. Well, it was eleven
o'clock by the time we were fairly off—sails set and arrangements
made; and we threw over all the buoys but one,
keeping that till we knew the trim of the vessel. I can't
tell you how pleasant it was. The wind was a true American,
and favoured us all it could; and we sat on deck and

eat some bread that had not been once eaten already, with
great satisfaction. I know I looked at my watch, and it
was just one o'clock; but as I was replacing it in a leisurely
kind of way, that smacked of enjoyment, the wind came
sweeping along the deck and brought us the booming of two
or three alarm guns.'

`And how did you feel then?' said Rosalie as Mr. Penn
paused.

`Every man was on his feet, this way,' said Penn, putting
down Hulda and springing up; `but nobody spoke.
And so we stood for one hour till the Nimrod came in sight.
We had nothing but a foresail, mainsail, and jib, but we
made them work as hard as they could: still at sundown
the vessel was nearer and seemed to be looming up every
minute. As soon as it was dark we took a short tack and
sailed off in a different direction, but by eight o'clock there
were her lights again shining out as if to look after us; and
when the moon was up in the early morning, the Nimrod or
something else was after us as hard as ever. We stood and
watched for a while as the day came on—and the Nimrod
too, for that matter; and then a bright thought came into
my head. `Rutgers,' said I—(you know him Thornton,
he's one of your cronies); `we may just as well capsize ourselves
here as to be carried back to Kingston. I vote we
throw over this other buoy.' Which we did at once; and
only think, Miss Clyde,' said Penn planting himself before
her, `it trimmed the schooner precisely; and by eight
o'clock we had sunk the Nimrod, and she had her hunting
ground all to herself!'

`That was brave,' said Rosalie. `And what a pleasant
breakfast you must have had.'

`Indeed we did,' said Penn. `But that was not all. We
were chased several times more coming home, and got away

well enough till we neared Cape May; and there was a 74
in the channel, two other craft trying to cut us off from the
shore, and a pilot boat full of armed Englishmen in chase.'

`Then you felt like giving up the ship again,' said Mr.
Clinton.

`We did give it up—it was all we could do,' said Penn.
`We just steered for land, and by the time the boat was
within pistol shot, we beached our vessel on the Cape and
jumped ashore. Saved ourselves and lost the Bermuda,—
which was a pity, after such a week's voyage in her.'

`Lost your prisoners too,' said Thornton.

`Yes, but that didn't matter. They were not worth
much. We came pretty near being heroes, though,—I tell
you what, they made fuss enough for us in Philadelphia.
We should have been fêted and feasted till this time, if we
could have stayed and nobody else had come along.'

`Will you come so far as the next room and take a cup
of coffee, Mr. Penn?' said Rosalie when the little buzz of
comment and remark had died away.

`You had better,' said Thornton, `for you will get
nothing stronger in this house to-night, I warn you.'

`What new freak have you taken up, Thornton?' said
one of the guests with a laugh.

`No freak of mine,' he answered emphatically. `What
do you think was the last thing on which my Lady Sweetbrier
laid her ban?'

`Freaks?' suggested Penn.

`No truly,' said Thornton, `this being one. She has
lately found out by great study and research, that wine was
not meant to make glad the heart of man'—

`Nor oil to make his face to shine,' said Penn.

—`And therefore that men should not drink it,' said
Thornton with a slight frown; `and shall not, in her
presence.'

`It is no new freak, at least,' said his sister in a rather
low tone, while everybody else stood silent.

`No, that it is not,' said Penn Raynor; `for I do assure
you that when I went to Europe she would honour my
departure with no better libation than the pump could
furnish.'

`Threw cold water on the whole proceeding,' said Mr.
Clinton.

`Yes she did,' replied Penn,—`just as if I shouldn't see
enough on the way over.'

`Miss Clyde has probably studied those fine lines in
Milton about singularity,' said one of the young men who
had spoken but seldom. `Familiar with them, are you not,
Miss Clyde?'

`I hardly dare say I am familiar with all the fine lines
in Milton,' she answered quietly, though something in the
speaker's tone gave her cheeks a deep tinge. And Thornton's
caught it.

`I remember them,' he said, `if she does not—and she
might have sat for the picture.

`That is my sister precisely, Mr. Talbot! Now Alie
we are ready for your coffee—or for anything else you
choose to give us.'

It was spoken with flashing eyes; and was heard by
Rosalie with fluttering lip and heart, and in deep silence by
the rest.

`Whatever Hebe pours out is bound to be nectar,' said
Penn Raynor with a gay laugh. `My dear Miss Clyde,
if you will take my arm with half the pleasure with which I

shall take your coffee, my share in the felicity of the evening
will be filled up.'

Rosalie's coffee came as near being nectar that night as
human coffee could; and so far as she was better worth
looking at than the Queen of Spades—so far as her voice
and words were truer and purer than any toast that would
have been honoured with three times three—so far Thornton
could not help being satisfied. And what with coffee
and music, Mr. Penn's sallies and Rosalie's skill, the evening
was lively enough to satisfy anybody.