XIII
THE Chesapeake lay in the upper harbor in the still June twilight, her lofty spars and rigging traced against the sky. The unlucky frigate was all bustle and confusion.
Even at this late hour, with her antagonist cruising in the lower harbor, fresh levies were being put aboard of her, and the old Constitution’s men shook their heads as they saw the dark-browed, scowling Portuguese and the raw youths picked up at random to piece out the crew.
But Lawrence had sent a taunting challenge to the Bonne Citoyenne, and he could not afford to baulk a British ship of a fight at the very gates of the Puritan mother-town. Down this harbor, in 1776, the British fleet had sailed, bearing the last evidence of King George’s power over the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It should never be said that a Yankee ship had faltered when the meteor flag of Britain waved defiance at the very mouth of the famous “tea-pot.”
“Then all cavaliers who love honor and me,” was the burden of the gallant Lawrence’s song. Honor it was indeed to win; honor even to lose in this duel on the sea.
Everywhere the officers were busy assigning men to the guns and appointing temporary warrant officers. Cheever, an old hand, if somewhat of a free lance, had been assigned to the mizzen-top under Midshipman Berry, a handsome young fellow who would in less stirring times have been playing “rounders” in the school-yard; but was now set to command grown men in a desperate contest.
Before the fair-haired youngster were standing the foretop men, going through a hurried setting-up drill and instruction in the use of the musket. A lieutenant came up, followed by a young sailor.
“Mr. Berry,” said the officer, “here is a greenhorn to complete your squad.”
The sailor saluted and took his place in the squad. As Berry handed him a musket, Cheever looked at the newcomer from the corner of his eye, and recognized his nephew. The boy looked up and caught his eye and started as he saw who was looking at him.
“What has brought him here?” Cheever asked himself as he mechanically obeyed the orders of the midshipman.
Presently the squad was dismissed and Cheever drew his nephew aside out of the hurly-burly of warlike preparation.
“How now, lad!” he asked, “what does this mean? How come you here?”
The words came out with difficulty from his convulsed throat.
“I have been walking from Oldbury for the last two days. I—”
“You’re in trouble on my account. The silver,—tell me.”
“I returned it as I promised you.”
“You found it then under the lilac-bush?” asked Cheever.
James nodded assent.
“While I was putting it back upon the sideboard, the old man came down from his chamber and fired at me with a pistol.”
“Did he recognize you?”
“I don’t know. As he fired, I heaved the heavy tankard at him, and it hit him and he fell like a log.”
“Ay, that’s the ticket, lad,” said Cheever. “I have always said that. I wouldn’t give a red cent for pistol in a fight. There’s not one chance in five of hitting your man. Your hand will shake when you are excited unless a cooler head than mine is on your shoulders. The slightest tremor will make you lose your aim. But for accidental killing, recommend me to the pistol. ’Twill always fail to meet your expectation. If you think it is not loaded, it will be, and while it will not protect you from your enemy, it will be sure to hit your friend.”
“I ran out of the house as fast as I could and made right over the hill, back of his house to the Boston turnpike.”
“You don’t know whether you really hurt him, then?”
“I think now that I could only have knocked him senseless. At the time, though, I was chased by fears and walked all the rest of the night as fast as I could. I had no idea except to escape from Oldbury—and my father is lying there ill,” exclaimed the boy, with a sudden twinge of conscience. “I have been on the road ever since, sleeping in haymows; and I have eaten what the farmers’ wives would give me; but the weather was fine, and if I could have shut out recollection, I should have enjoyed it.”
“However did the whim to have the silver returned come into my head?” said Cheever. “I would not have had this happen for the world, boy. I seem to bring misfortune on all I touch—and your father ill. He will have a big tally to put on my old score. But it may not be as black as it looks. Perhaps the old Deacon’s crown is not cracked and he will rejoice more over the return of his silver than he will grieve over his bruises. But you shouldn’t have run away. That will arouse their suspicions. They know that you have been at home, that you are not there now, and that you have taken no place on any coach leaving Oldbury. Hence, they will conclude that you have taken French leave, and that, too, on the night of the breaking and entering of the Deacon’s house.”
“I know all that,” replied James. “I have thought it over a thousand times as I walked along the turnpike and keeping my eyes well out for the Oldbury coach. But it is too late to turn back now. I am an apprentice on a Yankee frigate and it’s the day before an action.”
“How came you to ship?”
“I had hardly been in Boston five minutes before my eye fell upon one of the posters calling for sailors for the Chesapeake. I found the officer willing enough to take me. Indeed, I was put on board within an hour of my going into the shipping office.”
“And a bad lookout it is for us both. A half of the crew are good hands, but there are mutinous Dagoes aboard, who care no more for the Stars and Stripes than they do for an old sail, and the rest are a pack of youngsters like you, full of pluck and anxious to fight, but too green for much use. But the old man has his dander up, and by to-morrow night there may be such happenings that I may as well arrange my affairs decently and in good order to-night. We may both get out of this alive or one of us may be killed. If it’s I, I wish to tell you what to do. I have made a will which will give you all I have left. Isaac Tenney, who keeps the Bell-in-Hand tavern in Boston, has all the papers.
“I had rare luck in the privateering, James. Dame Fortune seems to have wearied of turning the cold shoulder upon me, and during the last year the sum which your father sent me has waxed as fast as a sailor’s wages wane when he first strikes a port. It’s all deposited in the bank, and that’s all for you if I don’t come out of the fight. If I do, you’ll never be the better for it. Good luck won’t stick to me long, I fear. I don’t know whether it would be good or ill fortune to be knocked on the head to-morrow. The money might give me a chance again. Nearly ten thousand dollars! What do you think of that for a man who had only a slim leather bag a year ago when he came up from the brig Tempest to your father’s house?”
James was not listening to his uncle’s monologue. He was by his father’s bedside and he was saying to himself, “I have brought his gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.”
“The Deacon has started the hue and cry before this,” said James.
“When it is known that you were returning the silver, the charge will drop to the ground,” replied Cheever.
“And the blow with the tankard!”
“That would never kill him, and, by the same token, he shot at you first. You have, after all, done well in shipping on this frigate. If we take the Shannon, we shall be the heroes of the day, and any little faults will be forgiven.”
“And if they take us?” said James.
“Then most of us will be summoned before a Higher Court, my boy, and will at least die fighting for our country. You’ve not forgotten where to go if you come out alive? The tavern Bell-in-Hand.”
“For your money, uncle? I don’t want it.”
“It’s yours, my boy, whether I live or die. You have earned all you wish to take of it. I have brought you into these toils and perhaps ruined your life, and have exposed you to awful danger, and you a minister to be. I was once to be a parson, too, and your grandfather was proud of me. I was quick at my books, too. He kept a tight hand on me, did your grandfather. On the surface I was pious; and I learned my catechism and went to Sabbath-school and to prayer-meetings and to church. They did everything for me that they could to make the holiest of ministers, and I—”
He laughed a little bitter laugh.
“I was not all bad, though, my boy; nobody is. There are oases in every desert, fresh, cool places where seeds grow to be plants and the birds sing. I have a natural taste for making sermons, you see. I have heard enough in my day. But the discipline was too rigid, and no allowance was made for the devil in me.”
For human nature did not change when it crossed the Atlantic with our Puritan forefathers, and it crops out even in ministers’ sons. “They brought me up piously,” continued Cheever, “but they did not cast the devil out. I went to church with due regularity, but the chances were that I had been cock-fighting on the Saturday night before, and I went to the tavern far oftener than I went to prayer-meetings. I was daft when I took that silver. I was not naturally a thief, but I was weak and owing money, and gave way to the temptation. I might as well have stolen an old Revolutionary cannon. I could not dispose of the stuff after I had possession of it. And I fled and lost everything.”
“As I have,” said James.
“No, you only run the risk of the fight. If you come out unhurt, you will go back crowned with glory, and tell the town just what happened. It’s not a serious crime to return a man’s property. You did it in an odd way, and at a late hour, but you had no evil intent, and if you did keel the old man over with the tankard, he had fired upon you first. Oh, you will get into no trouble on that account. We will show the British what a Yankee ship and a Yankee crew can do to-morrow, and you will go home with your pockets full of prize-money.”
“Or not at all,” said James.
Cheever looked grave.
“We have opened the wine, James,” he replied; “it must be drunk. Write your aunt now, tell her the whole story. Don’t mention that I am on board here. Tell the truth; for that will hold together against the world, and a lie is like a rat dead in a wall, sure to be found out before long.”