 | CHAPTER XVII. My brother's keeper |  |
17. CHAPTER XVII.
With his pipe in his mouth,
And watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke, now west, now south.
—Longfellow.
The Fourth of July fell on Sunday, and of course all celebration
thereof was deferred until the next day.
But when Monday morning had but faintly broken
through the gloom of Sunday night, the still air was enlivened
with a roar of guns from the Battery; and again
from the Hook, and then from Staten Island, and then from
every other point and place that was happy enough to have
a gun. And the hills sent back a roar as their part of the
celebration,—and if the younger members of society were
not heard above all, it certainly was not their fault. And
from every hotel and public building, from every fort, and
from every mast that rose into the clear air about the harbour,
there floated a host of flags, streamers, pendants and
pennons, that for variety of colour outshone the very tints of
the morning.
While the citizens were thus variously engaged with
gunpowder and bunting—fire crackers or cannon, hoisting
flags or pocket-handkerchiefs, according to their age and
ability,—while independence was noisily declaring itself on
shore, a British flotilla lay off the Hook, and New York
harbour was blockaded.
As the morning came on, a little fishing smack lying in
Mosquito Cove began to cast off her ropes and unfurl her
sail, and then quietly stood out from the Cove into the open
water. For figurehead, the little vessel carried an image
which the skill of the carver had quite failed to render as
clear as he meant it to be. A pipe was the most self-evident
thing about it; but except that the figure was tall and gaunt
instead of short and thick, it might as well have graced the
Flying Dutchman as any other craft that sailed. The stern
of the vessel, however, made all plain; for there was inscribed
in jaunty black characters,
“The Yankee.”
And if the craft was Yankee, so seemingly were her
crew. Three men in buff caps and fishing dress were on
her deck,—one attending strictly to the helm, though looking
as if he attended to nothing; another lounging off on the
bowsprit, by way of keeping a sharp look-out; and the third
taking many an elaborate measurement of the deck, to the
tune and time of first Washington's March and then a jig.
Midway on the deck of the little vessel were three remarkable
passengers—a calf, a sheep, and a goose. The two
quadrupeds were tied vis-à-vis, with however no check upon
their feet or their vocal powers; while the goose, detained
within a large and very open coop, thrust her head and neck
through the bars and screamed and hissed incessantly,—most
of all when the unoccupied one of the crew paused in his
walk to enjoin silence.
`I say Mr. Percival!' said this man approaching the
helmsman with an air of great disgust, `what an unendurable
noise those creatures make! If you could have got
some sort of live stock now that don't feel obliged to say all
Quaker barnyard, suppose—wouldn't it have served your
turn just as well?'
`Quaker fetching up don't change all natures,' said the
helmsman, with one of those quick looks which shewed him
wide awake in the midst of his apparent sluggishness.
`No, that's a fact,' said the other man with a laugh.
`Though if you mean that all the unchanged ones are akin
to these respectable animals, my opinion is about as far from
yours as the Eagle down yonder is from the 74.'
The helmsman sent another quick glance down the bay,
and then slowly moving the tiller so as to turn the vessel a
little further off shore, he answered,
`We don't fly so far apart as that, Mr. Penn, not by two
or three points. But you spoke of silence.'
`There's a delicate hint,' said the other, laughing again
and pushing back his buff cap—to the disclosure of more
ambrosially curled locks than fishermen are wont to wear.
`Never mind, Mr. Percival—the cackle of your live stock
will either drown my voice or blend. When shall we be at
the banks?'
`Late enough for a hot dinner first,' said Mr. Percival.
`Hot?' said Penn.
`Aye,' said the skipper.
`Curious what an amount of cold materials appear at
such dinners,' said Mr. Penn. `However—
“How sleep the brave who sink to rest”—
alacrity in sinking.' And he began his whistle and his
walk again.
The sun was rising higher and higher, nor did the flood
tide itself make swifter progress than the flood of sunlight.
over the green shores of Staten Island and New Jersey,—
most of all upon the waters of the bay, did the sunlight
come down and call forth beauty. The sails of the different
vessels shone white and glistering, and the blue water sparkled
and rippled and curled as if it were disporting itself. By
means of a fresh north wind the little fishing smack went
steadily on against the tide—courtesying along, and now
and then dipping her bow that some fair wave might break
over it. If the lookout had been a pilot he would but have
said to the helmsman `Thus!'—so unerring a course did the
Yankee's wooden pipe point out.
Sailing quietly along `thus,' the little smack had come
within full sight of a British sloop, the Eagle, then cruising
about the hook in the capacity of tender to the Poictiers—
a 74 gun ship and one of the blockading vessels. And as
the Eagle's lookout did not belie her name, she was not long
in discovering the little Yankee, and that her head was towards
the fishing banks.
Swift sail made the Eagle; but as her white canvass
came flying towards the Yankee, that imperturbable craft
neither fled nor fainted—neither ran in shore nor towards
home, but went courtesying on as before, towards the
banks.
`The fish bite well to-day,' remarked the skipper, when
one of his keen looks had taken the latest news from the
Eagle.
`Sizeable fish, too,' remarked Mr. Penn, who was now
rocking lazily against the mast. `Easy to catch and easy
to land—hey, Mr. Percival?'
`Thereafter as may be,' replied the skipper. `But the
race is not always to the swift.'
`On the wing, I declare she is,' said Mr. Penn after
another pause. `Swoops—don't she!'
Even as he spoke the Eagle rounded to and hailed, her
brass howitzer glimmering in the sun.
`Smack Yankee, of New York,' returned the skipper.
`Live stock aboard?'
`Aye—' said the skipper, his words strongly borne out
by Mr. Penn, who by a timely insinuation had greatly increased
the wrath of the goose.
`What else?'
`Nothing.'
`All geese aboard?' was the next question, followed by
a peal of laughter.
`Birds of a feather,' replied Mr. Percival with an unmoved
face.
`Sail away then,' returned the man in the Eagle—`make
a straight line for the Commodore, five miles down.'
`Aye, aye, sir,' said the skipper, putting up the helm as
if to obey. This brought the smack alongside the Eagle, and
not more than three yards off; but the next word came
like a cannon-shot from the little vessel.
`Lawrence!'—shouted Mr. Percival; in a moment the
Yankee's deck was covered with armed men. Pouring forth
from the cabin and fore peak where they had been concealed,
the little band, some thirty in number, saluted the Eagle
with a fierce volley from their muskets, before which her
startled crew sank back into the hold without even attempting
to discharge their howitzer. The deck was clear.
`Cease firing!' called out Mr. Percival. And with that
a man cautiously emerging from the hold came forth and
struck the Eagle's colours. In another minute the stars and
stripes stretched off upon the breeze, and Mr. Percival and
Penn Raynor were on the deck.
It was no joyous thing to take possession of. The
master's mate of the Poictiers lay there dead, and near him
a midshipman mortally wounded; and of two marines that
had fallen one was also dead. Nine other seamen and
marines were in the hold. Briefly and gravely Mr. Percival
made known his orders.
The Eagle changed her course again and stood for
Sandy Hook. There the body of the mate was sent ashore
and buried with military honours. The wounded men were
carefully attended to; the prisoners secured: and the Eagle
set sail for New York.
`I call this a decided improvement on the Yankee,' said
Penn Raynor, as he stood by sailing-master Percival who
had taken his old place at the helm. `We shall make
quicker time to New York too, by something.'
`At the Battery before sundown,' was the reply.
`But why the mischief, Mr. Percival, don't you use that
howitzer for a speaking trumpet, and talk a little? The
quiet of your vessel has been unheard of, all day. Talk of
`darkness visible!'—Why don't you?'
The skipper's look for a moment betokened a stern reply,
but he only said,
`Your cousin would not have asked that question,
Mr. Penn.'
`Very likely,' said Penn; `and the same might be said of
all the questions I ever did ask, probably, but I like to have
'em answered nevertheless.'
`Go down in the cabin then,' said the sailing master
briefly.
`What's in the cabin?' said Penn. “`Silence more profound?”
I suppose if I went to the bottom of the sea it
might be deeper yet.'
Again Mr. Percival looked at him, and then forward to
half musingly half in answer, he said,
`I cannot fire rejoicings over my prisoners' heads, Mr.
Penn, nor one gun to reach a vessel that is bound on her
last voyage.'
`The prisoners' heads are intelligible,' said Penn,
`though I should think they might come on deck; but as
for your poetical effusion, it might go on the shelf with all
the Greek books I used at College. I say why not fire half
a dozen shots?'
`And I tell you,' said the master, speaking with an emphasis
that brought his voice down below its usual pitch,
`that there is one below who is nigh done with the world
for ever,—do you want to roar into his ears that the world
is all alive and kicking?'
`Is he so much hurt as that?' said Penn with a sobered
face. `You might have known that I didn't know what I
was talking about, Mr. Percival.'
`I knew it,' said the skipper. Then in a quieter voice
he added, `I wish we had your cousin here, Mr. Penn.'
`Here!' said Penn—`Henry Raynor on a privateering
expedition! Then will you see me chief confidant of the
Great Mogul and adviser extraordinary to the Kham of
Tartary.'
`He can fight,' said the skipper coolly. `There was not
a better man of all that the Paul Jones took from that
brig.'
`Fight—yes, with anybody,' said Penn, `but what do
you want of him now? There's no work for him now on
board the Eagle, that I see.'
`You don't see far, Mr. Penn,' said the master. `There
is work for him—and not one of us is fit to do it—work
below, to give that craft a chart and compass and set her
not a soul that can speak a word to him.'
`We shall be at the Battery by sundown, said' Penn,
who preferred to choose his own thoughts.
`Aye,' said Mr. Percival, and the conversation ceased.
It blew lightly from the south now, and the Eagle
skimmed along with a full sail and a motionless rudder. In
the west the sun was rapidly nearing the Jersey hills, and
light streaks and flakes of cloud bedecked the sky, and
embroidered its blue with their own gold and rose colour.
The bay caught the bright tints, and glowed and shone in
competition; and on shore everything glittered that could,
and those better things that could not, shone with a more
refreshing light.
In a perfect bath of sunbeams the Eagle came up the
bay; the American flag fluttering lightly out, and the
English colours which hung too low for the breeze, drooping
down and scarce stirring their folds. On and on—till she
neared the Battery—and from the crowds assembled there
went up a shout as from one voice.
Then every gun roared out its welcome, and the vessel
was made fast and her captors sprang ashore; and quiet
found but one resting-place—it was where the two wounded
men were gently carried through the crowd, and their nine
comrades came after as prisoners.
| CHAPTER XVII. My brother's keeper | |