________________________________________________
_ I was picked up and thrown into the brigantine's long-boat with a head
and stomach full of salt water, and a heart as light as spray with the
joy of it all. A big, red-bearded man lifted my heels to drain me.
"The mon's deid," said he.
"Dead!" cried I, from the bottom-board. "No more dead than you!"
I turned over so lustily that he dropped my feet, and I sat up, something
to his consternation. And they had scarce hooked the ship's side when I
sprang up the sea-ladder, to the great gaping of the boat's crew, and
stood with the water running off me in rivulets before the captain
himself. I shall never forget the look of his face as he regarded my
sorry figure.
"Now by Saint Andrew," exclaimed he, "are ye kelpie or pirate?"
"Neither, captain," I replied, smiling as the comical end of it came up
to me, "but a young gentleman in misfortune."
"Hoots!" says he, frowning at the grinning half-circle about us, "it's
daft ye are--"
But there he paused, and took of me a second sizing. How he got at my
birth behind my tangled mat of hair and wringing linsey-woolsey I know
not to this day. But he dropped his Scotch and merchant-captain's
manner, and was suddenly a French courtier, making me a bow that had done
credit to a Richelieu.
"Your servant, Mr.--"
"Richard Carvel, of Carvel Hall, in his Majesty's province of Maryland."
He seemed sufficiently impressed.
"Your very humble servant, Mr. Carvel. 'Tis in faith a privilege to be
able to serve a gentleman."
He bowed me toward his cabin, and then in sharp, quick tones he gave an
order to his mate to get under way, and I saw the men turning to the
braces with wonder in their eyes. My own astonishment was as great. And
so, with my clothes sucking to my body and a trail of water behind me
like that of a wet walrus, I accompanied the captain aft. His quarters
were indeed a contrast to those of Griggs, being so neat that I paused at
the door for fear of profaning them; but was so courteously bid to enter
that I came on again. He summoned a boy from the round house.
"William," said he, "a bottle of my French brandy. And my compliments to
Mr. MacMuir, and ask him for a suit of clothes. You are a larger man
than I, Mr. Carvel," he said to me, "or I would fit you out according to
your station."
I was too overwhelmed to speak. He poured out a liberal three fingers of
brandy, and pledged me as handsomely as I had been an admiral come
thither in mine own barge, instead of a ragged lad picked off a piratical
slaver, with nothing save my bare word and address. 'Twas then I had
space to note him more particularly. His skin was the rich colour of a
well-seasoned ship's bell, and he was of the middle height, owned a
slight, graceful figure, tapering down at the waist like a top, which had
set off a silk coat to perfection and soured the beaus with envy. His
movements, however, had all the decision of a man of action and of force.
But his eye it was took possession of me--an unfathomable, dark eye,
which bore more toward melancholy than sternness, and yet had something
of both. He wore a clean, ruffled shirt, an exceeding neat coat and
breeches of blue broadcloth, with plate burnished buttons, and white
cotton stockings. Truly, this was a person to make one look twice, and
think oftener. Then, as I went to pledge him, I, too, was caught for his
name.
"Paul," said he; "John Paul, of the brigantine John, of Kirkcudbright, in
the West India trade."
"Captain Paul--" I began. But my gratitude stuck fast in my throat and
flowed out of my eyes. For the thought of the horrors from which he had
saved me for the first time swept over me; his own kind treatment
overcame me, and I blubbered like a child. With that he turned his back.
"Hoots," says he, again, "dinna ye thank me. 'Tis naething to scuttle a
nest of vermin, but the duty of ilka man who sails the seas." By this,
having got the better of his emotion, he added: "And if it has been my
good fortune to save a gentleman, Mr. Carvel, I thank God for it, as you
must."
Save for a slackness inside the leg and in the hips, Macbluir's clothes
fitted me well enough, and presently I reappeared in the captain's cabin
rigged out in the mate's shore suit of purplish drab, and brass-buckled
shoes that came high over the instep, with my hair combed clear and tied
with a ribbon behind. I felt at last that I might lay some claim to
respectability. And what was my surprise to find Captain Paul buried to
his middle in a great chest, and the place strewn about with laced and
broidered coats and waistcoats, frocks and Newmarkets, like any tailor's
shop in Church Street. So strange they looked in those tropical seas
that he was near to catching me in a laugh as he straightened up. 'Twas
then I noted that he was a younger man than I had taken him for.
"You gentlemen from the southern colonies are too well nourished, by
far," says he; "you are apt to be large of chest and limb. 'Odds bods,
Mr. Carvel, it grieves me to see you apparelled like a barber surgeon.
If the good Lord had but made you smaller, now," and he sighed, "how well
this skyblue frock had set you off."
"Indeed, I am content, and more, captain," I replied with a smile,
"and thankful to be safe amongst friends. Never, I assure you,
have I had less desire for finery."
"Ay," said he, "you may well say that, you who have worn silk all your
life, and will the rest of it, and we get safe to port. But believe me,
sir, the pleasure of seeing one of your face and figure in such a coat as
that would not be a small one."
And disregarding my blushes and protests, he held up the watchet blue
frock against me, and it was near fitting me but for my breadth,--the
skirts being prodigiously long. I wondered mightily what tailor had
thrust this garment upon him; its fashion was of the old king's time,
the cuffs slashed like a sea-officer's uniform, and the shoulders made
carefully round. But other thoughts were running within me then.
"Captain," I cut in, "you are sailing eastward."
"Yes, yes," he answered absently, fingering some Point d'Espagne.
"There is no chance of touching in the colonies?" I persisted.
"Colonies! No," said he, in the same abstraction; "I am making for the
Solway, being long overdue. But what think you of this, Mr. Carvel?"
And he held up a wondrous vellum-hole waistcoat of a gone-by vintage,
and I saw how futile it were to attempt to lead him, while in that state
of absorption, to topics which touched my affair. Of a sudden the
significance of what he had said crept over me, the word Solway repeating
itself in my mind. That firth bordered England itself, and Dorothy was
in London! I became reconciled. I had no particle of objection to the
Solway save the uneasiness my grandfather would come through, which was
beyond helping. Fate had ordered things well.
Then I fell to applauding, while the captain tried on (for he was not
content with holding up) another frock of white drab, which, cuffs and
pockets, I'll take my oath mounted no less than twenty-four: another
plain one of pink cut-velvet; tail-coats of silk, heavily broidered with
flowers, and satin waistcoats with narrow lace. He took an inconceivable
enjoyment out of this parade, discoursing the while, like a nobleman with
nothing but dress in his head, or, perhaps, like a mastercutter, about
the turn of this or that lapel, the length from armpit to fold, and the
number of button-holes that was proper. And finally he exhibited with
evident pride a pair of doeskins that buttoned over the calf to be worn
with high shoes, which I make sure he would have tried on likewise had he
been offered the slightest encouragement. So he exploited the whole of
his wardrobe, such an unlucky assortment of finery as I never wish to see
again; all of which, however, became him marvellously, though I think he
had looked well in anything. I hope I may be forgiven the perjury I did
that day. I wondered greatly that such a foible should crop out in a man
of otherwise sound sense and plain ability.
At length, when the last chest was shut again and locked, and I had
exhausted my ingenuity at commendation, and my patience also, he turned
to me as a man come out of a trance.
"Od's fish, Mr. Carvel," he cried, "you will be starved. I had forgot
your state."
I owned that hunger had nigh overcome me, whereupon he became very
solicitous, bade the boy bring in supper at once, and in a short time we
sat down together to the best meal I had seen for a month. It seemed
like a year. Porridge, and bacon nicely done, and duff and ale, with the
sea rushing past the cabin windows as we ate, touched into colour by the
setting sun. Captain Paul did not mess with his mates, not he, and he
gave me to understand that I was to share his cabin, apologizing
profusely for what he was pleased to call poor fare. He would have
it that he, and not I, were receiving favour.
"My dear sir," he said once, "you cannot know what a bit of finery is to
me, who has so little chance for the wearing of it. To discuss with a
gentleman, a connoisseur (I know a bit of French, Mr. Carvel), is a
pleasure I do not often come at."
His simplicity in this touched me; it was pathetic.
"How know you I am a gentleman, Captain Paul?" I asked curiously.
"I should lack discernment, sir," he retorted, with some heat, "if I
could not see as much. Breeding shines through sack-cloth, sir.
Besides," he continued, in a milder tone, "the look of you is candour
itself. Though I have not greatly the advantage of you in age, I have
seen many men, and I know that such a face as yours cannot lie."
Here Mr. Lowrie, the second mate, came in with a report; and I remarked
that he stood up hat in hand whilst making it, very much as if Captain
Paul commanded a frigate. The captain went to a locker and brought forth
some mellow Madeira, and after the mate had taken a glass of it standing,
he withdrew. Then we lighted pipes and sat very cosey with a lanthorn
swung between us, and Captain Paul expressed a wish to hear my story.
I gave him my early history briefly, dwelling but casually upon the
position enjoyed in Maryland by my family; but I spoke of my grandfather,
now turning seventy, gray-haired in the service of King and province.
The captain was indeed a most sympathetic listener, now throwing in a
question showing keen Scotch penetration, and anon making a most
ludicrous inquiry as to the dress livery our footmen wore, and whether
Mr. Carvel used outriders when he travelled abroad. This was the other
side of the man. As the wine warmed and the pipe soothed, I spoke at
length of Grafton and the rector; and when I came to the wretched
contrivance by which they got me aboard the Black Moll, he was stalking
hither and thither about the cabin, his fists clenched and his voice
thick, breaking into Scotch again and vowing that hell were too good for
such as they.
His indignation, which seemed real and generous, transformed him into
another man. He showered question after question upon me concerning my
uncle and Mr. Allen; declared that he had known many villains, but had
yet to hear of their equals; and finally, cooling a little, gave it as
his judgment that the crime could never be brought home to them. This
was my own opinion. He advised me, before we turned in, to "gie the
parson a Grunt" as soon as ever I could lay hands upon him.
The John made a good voyage for that season, with fair winds and clear
skies for the most part. 'Twas a stout ship and a steady, with generous
breadth of beam, and kept by the master as clean and bright as his
porringer. He was Emperor aboard her. He spelt Command with a large C,
and when he inspected, his jacks stood to attention like man-o'-war's
men. The John mounting only four guns, and but two of them ninepounders,
I expressed my astonishment that he had dared attack a pirate craft like
the Black Moll, without knowing her condition and armament.
"Richard," says he, impressively, for we had become very friendly, "I
would close with a thirty-two and she flew that flag. Why, sir, a bold
front is half the battle, using circumspection, of a course. A pretty
woman, whatever her airs and quality, is to be carried the same way, and
a man ought never to be frightened by appearances."
Sometimes, at our meals, we discussed politics. But he seemed lukewarm
upon this subject. He had told me that he had a brother William in
Virginia, who was a hot Patriot. The American quarrel seemed to interest
him very little. I should like to underscore this last sentence, my
dears, in view of what comes after. What he said on the topic leaned
perhaps to the King's side, tho' he was careful to say nothing that would
give me offence. I was not surprised, for I had made a fair guess of his
ambitions. It is only honest to declare that in my soberer moments my
estimate of his character suffered. But he was a strange man,--a genius,
as I soon discovered, to rouse the most sluggish nature to enthusiasm.
The joy of sailing is born into some men, and those who are marked for
the sea go down thither like the very streams, to be salted. Whatever
the sign, old Stanwix was not far wrong when he read it upon me, and
'twas no great while before I was part and parcel of the ship beneath my
feet, breathing deep with her every motion. What feeling can compare
with that I tasted when the brigantine lay on her side, the silver spray
hurling over the bulwarks and stinging me to life! Or, in the watches,
to hear the sea lashing along her strakes in never ending music! I gave
MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished Captain
Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman's boots, and
so became a sailor myself. I had no mind to sit idle the passage, and
the love of it, as I have said, was in me. In a fortnight I went aloft
with the best of the watch to reef topsails, and trod a foot-rope without
losing head or balance, bent an easing, and could lay hand on any lift,
brace, sheet, or haulyards in the racks. John Paul himself taught me to
tack and wear ship, and MacMuir to stow a headsail. The craft came to
me, as it were, in a hand-gallop.
At first I could make nothing of the crew, not being able to understand a
word of their Scotch; but I remarked, from the first, that they were sour
and sulky, and given to gathering in knots when the captain or MacMuir
had not the deck. For Mr. Lowrie, poor man, they had little respect.
But they plainly feared the first mate, and John Paul most of all. Of me
their suspicion knew no bounds, and they would give me gruff answers, or
none, when I spoke to them. These things roused both curiosity and
foreboding within me.
Many a watch I paced thro' with MacMuir, big and red and kindly, and I
was not long in letting him know of the interest which Captain Paul had
inspired within me. His own feeling for him was little short of
idolatry. I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the
captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that
John Paul was the son of a poor gardener.
"A gardener's son, Mr. MacMuir!" I repeated.
"Just that," said he, solemnly, "a guid man an' haly' was auld Paul.
Unco puir, by reason o' seven bairns. I kennt the daddie weel. I mak
sma' doubt the captain'll tak ye hame wi' him, syne the mither an'
sisters still be i' the cot i' Mr. Craik's croft."
"Tell me, MacMuir," said I, "is not the captain in some trouble?"
For I knew that something, whatever it was, hung heavy on John Paul's
mind as we drew nearer Scotland. At times his brow would cloud and he
would fall silent in the midst of a jest. And that night, with the stars
jumping and the air biting cold (for we were up in the 40's), and the
John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir
told me the story of Mungo Maxwell. You may read it for yourselves, my
dears, in the life of John Paul Jones.
"Wae's me!" he said, with a heave of his big chest, "I reca' as yestreen
the night Maxwell cam aboord. The sun gaed loon a' bluidy, an' belyve
the morn rose unco mirk an' dreary, wi' bullers(rollers) frae the west
like muckle sowthers(soldiers) wi' white plumes. I tauld the captain
'twas a' the faut o' Maxwell. I ne'er cad bide the blellum. Dour an'
din he was, wi' ae girn like th' auld hornie. But the captain wadna
hark to my rede when I tauld him naught but dool wad cooin o' taking
Mungo."
It seemed that John Paul, contrary to MacMuir'sadvice, had shipped as
carpenter on the voyage out--near seven months since--a man by the name
of Mungo Maxwell. The captain's motive had nothing in it but kindness,
and a laudable desire to do a good turn to a playmate of his boyhood. As
MacMuir said, "they had gaed barefit thegither amang the braes." The man
hailed from Kirkbean, John Paul's own parish. But he had within him
little of the milk of kindness, being in truth a sour and mutinous devil;
and instead of the gratitude he might have shown, he cursed the fate that
had placed him under the gardener's son, whom he deemed no better than
himself. The John had scarce cleared the Solway before Maxwell showed
signs of impudence and rebellion.
The crew was three-fourths made of Kirkcudbright men who had known the
master from childhood, many of them, indeed, being older than he; they
were mostly jealous of Paul, envious of the command he had attained to
over them, and impatient under the discipline he was ever ready to
inflict. 'Tis no light task to enforce obedience from those with whom
one has birdnested. But, having more than once felt the weight of his
hand, they feared him.
Dissatisfaction among such spreads apace, if a leader is but given; and
Maxwell was such a one. His hatred for John Paul knew no bounds, and,
having once tasted of his displeasure, he lay awake o' nights scheming to
ruin him. And this was the plot: when the Azores should be in the wake,
Captain Paul was to be murdered as he paced his quarterdeck in the
morning, the two mates clapt into irons, and so brought to submission.
And Maxwell, who had no more notion of navigation than a carpenter
should, was to take the John to God knows where,--the Guinea coast,
most probably. He would have no more navy regulations on a merchant
brigantine, he promised them, nor banyan days, for the matter o' that.
Happily, MacMuir himself discovered the affair on the eve of its
perpetration, overhearing two men talking in the breadroom, and he ran to
the cabin with the sweat standing out on his forehead. But the captain
would have none of the precautions he urged; declared he would walk the
deck as usual, and vowed he could cope single-handed with a dozen cowards
like Maxwell. Sure enough, at crowdie-time, the men were seen coming
aft, with Maxwell in the van carrying a bowl, on the pretext of a
complaint against the cook.
"John Paul," said MacMuir, with admiration in his voice and gesture,
"John Paul wasna feart a pickle, but gaed to the mast, whyles I stannt
chittering i' my claes, fearfu' for his life. He teuk the horns from
Mungo, priet(tasted) a soup o' the crowdie, an' wi' that he seiz't haut
o' the man by baith shouthers ere the blastie(scoundrel) raught for 's
knife. My aith upo't, sir, the lave(rest) o' the batch cowert frae his
e'e for a' the wand like thumpit tykes.'"
So ended that mutiny, by the brave act of a brave man. The carpenter was
clapt into irons himself, and given no less of the cat-o'-nine-tails than
was good for him, and properly discharged at Tobago with such as had
supported him. But he brought Captain Paul before the vice-admiralty
court of that place, charging him with gross cruelty, and this proceeding
had delayed the brigantine six months from her homeward voyage, to the
great loss of her owners. And tho' at length the captain was handsomely
acquitted, his character suffered unjustly, for there lacked not those
who put their own interpretation upon the affair. He would most probably
lose the brigantine. "He expected as much," said MacMuir.
"There be mony aboord," he concluded, with a sigh, "as'll muckle
gash(gossip) when we win to Kirkcudbright." _
Read next: VOLUME 4: CHAPTER XX. A Sad Home-coming
Read previous: VOLUME 3: CHAPTER XVIII. The Black Moll
.
Table of content of Richard Carvel
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
