Chapter IV: Part 4

The mother spoke fondly between smiles and tears; the old book lay open on her knee, and something dropped to the floor,--a twig of faded witch-hazel blossoms that her son had held in his fingers as he read, and left between the leaves for a marker; a twig of witch-hazel, perhaps from the same bough that Mary had broken as she came. It were easy to count it for a message where some one else might think of but a pretty accident. Mary stooped and picked the withered twig of blossoms from the floor, and played with it, smiling as Madam Wallingford talked on, and they sat together late into the autumn twilight. The poor lady was like one who, by force of habit, takes up the life of every day again when death has been in the house. The familiar presence of her young neighbor had cured her for the moment of the pain of loneliness, but the sharp words she had spoken in her distress would ache for many a day in Mary's heart.

Mary could not understand that strange moment when she had been forgiven. Yet the hardest soul might have compassion for a poor woman so overwrought and defeated; she was still staggering from a heavy blow.

It was dark when they parted, and Madam Wallingford showed a strange solicitude after her earlier reproaches, and forbade Mary when she would have crossed the river alone. She took a new air of rightful command, and Rodney must send two of the men with their own boat, and put by the canoe until morning. The stars were bright and quick as diamonds overhead, and it was light enough on the water, as they crossed. The candlelight in the upper chamber on the hill looked dim, as if there were illness in the house.

Indeed, Madam Wallingford was trembling with cold since her young guest had gone. Susan wrapped her in an old cloak of soft fur, as she sat beside the fire, and turned often to look at her anxiously, as she piled the fagots and logs on the hearth until their flame towered high.

"Dear child, dear child," the poor lady said over and over in her heart. "I think she does not know it yet, but I believe she loves my son."

That night old Susan hovered about her mistress, altering the droop of the bed curtains and untwisting the balls of their fringe with a businesslike air; then she put some heavy knots of wood on the fire for the night, and built it solidly together, until the leaping lights and shadows played fast about the room. She glanced as often as she dared at the tired face on the pillow.

"'T is a wild night, Susan," said Madam Wallingford. "I thought the wind was going down with the sun. How often I have watched for my dear man such nights as this, when he was kept late in Portsmouth! 'T was well we lived in town those latest winters. You remember that Rodney always kept the fire bright in the dining parlor ('t is a cosy place in winter), and put a tankard of mulled wine inside the fender; 't would bring back the color to his face all chilled with winter rain, and the light into his eyes. And Roger would come in with him, holding his father's hand; he would ever run out bareheaded in the wet, while I called to them from the door to come in and let the horse go to stable, and they laughed at me for my fears. Where is Roger to-night, I wonder, Susan? They cannot be in port for a long time yet. I hate to think of him on the sea!"

"Maybe 't is morning there, and the sun out, madam."

"Susan," said Madam Wallingford, "you used to sing to him when he was a baby; sit near the fire awhile,--there is no more for you to do. Sing one of your old hymns, so that I may go to sleep; perhaps it will quiet his heart, too, if we are quiet and try to be at peace."

The very shadows grew stiller, as if to listen, as the patient old handmaiden came and sat beside the bed and began to sing, moving her foot as if she still held the restless baby who had grown to be a man. There were quavering notes in her voice, but when she had sung all her pious verses of the Cradle Hymn to their very end Madam Wallingford was fast asleep.

*XII*

*BETWEEN DECKS*

"'But when shall I see Athens and the Acropolis again?'

"'Wretched man! doth not that satisfy thee which thou seest every day? Hast thou aught better or greater to see than the sun, the moon, the stars, the common earth, the sea?'"

"Who would Hercules have been if he had sat at home?"

The Ranger was under full sail, and ran like a hound; she had cleared the Banks with all their snow squalls and thick nights, without let or hindrance. The captain's boast that he would land his dispatches and spread the news of Burgoyne's surrender in France in thirty days seemed likely to come true. The men were already beginning to show effects of constant vigilance and overwork; but whatever discomforts might arrive, the splendid seamanship of Paul Jones could only be admired by such thorough-going sailors as made up the greater portion of his crew. The younger members of the ship's company were full of gayety if the wind and work eased ever so little, and at any time, by night or day, some hearty voice might be heard practicing the strains of a stirring song new made by one of the midshipmen:--

"That is why we Brave the Blast
To carry the news to Lon-don."

There were plenty of rival factions and jealousies. The river men were against all strangers; and even the river men had their own divisions, their warm friendships and cold aversions, so that now and then some smouldering fire came perilously near an outbreak. The tremendous pressure of work alow and aloft, the driving wind, the heavy tumbling seas, the constant exposure and strain in such trying duty and incessant service of the sails, put upon every man all that he could well bear, and sent him to his berth as tired as a dog.

It takes but little while for a good shipmaster to discover who are the difficult men in his crew, the sea lawyers and breeders of dissatisfaction. The captain of the Ranger was a man of astonishing readiness both to blame and praise; nobody could resist his inspiriting enthusiasm and dominating presence, but in absence he was often proved wrong, and roundly cursed, as captains are, with solid satisfaction of resentment. Everybody cheered when he boldly declared against flogging, and even tossed that horrid sea-going implement, the cat, lightly over the ship's side. Even in this surprising moment, one of the old seamen had growled that when you saw a man too good, it was the time to look out for him.

"I dasen't say but it's about time to get a fuss going," said one of these mariners to a friend, later on. "Ginerally takes about ten days to start a row atween decks, 'less you 're extra eased off with good weather."

"This bad weather's all along o' Dickson," ventured his comrade; "if they'd known what they was about, he 'd been the fust man they'd hasted to set ashore. I know him; I 've knowed him ever since he was a boy. I see him get a black stripe o' rage acrost his face when he seen Mr. Wallin'ford come aboard, that mornin'. Wallin'ford's folks cotched him thievin' when he had his fat chance o' surveyor up country, after the old judge died. He cut their growth on his own account and done a sight o' tricks, and Madam dismissed him, and would ha' jailed him but for pity of his folks. I always wished she'd done it; 't would ha' stamped him plain, if he'd seen the inside o' old York jail for a couple o' years. As 't was, he had his own story to tell, and made out how he was the injured one; so there was some o' them fools that likes to be on the off side that went an' upheld him. Oh, Dickson 's smart, and some calls him pious, but I wish you'd seen him the day Madam Wallin'ford sent for him to speak her mind! That mornin' we was sailin' out o' Porchmouth, I see him watch the young man as if he was layin' for him like a tiger! There he is now, comin' out o' the cabin. I guess the cap'n 's been rakin' him fore an' aft. He hates him; an' Simpson hates him, too, but not so bad. Simpson don't jibe with the cap'n hisself, so he demeans himself to hark to Dickson more 'n he otherwise would. Lord, what a cur'ous world this is!"

"What's that n'ise risin' out o' the fo'c's'le now, Cooper? Le' 's go see!" and the two old comrades made haste to go below.

Paul Jones gave a hearty sigh, as he sat alone in his cabin, and struck his fist into the empty air. He also could hear the sound of a loud quarrel from the gun deck, and for a moment indulged a fierce hope that somebody might be well punished, or even killed, just to lessen the number of citizens in this wrangling village with which he had put to sea. They had brought aboard all the unsettled rivalries and jealousies of a most independent neighborhood.

He looked about him as he sat; then rose and impatiently closed one of his lockers where there was an untidy fold of crumpled clothing hanging out. What miserable surroundings and conditions for a man of inborn fastidiousness and refinement of nature!

Yet this new ship, so fast growing toward the disgusting squalor of an old one; these men, with their cheap suspicions and narrow ambitions, were the strong tools ready to his hand. It was a manly crew as crews go, and like-minded in respect to their country's wrongs.

"I feel it in my breast that I shall some day be master in a great sea fight!" said the little captain as he sat alone, while the Ranger labored against the waves, and the light of heroic endurance came back to his eyes as he saw again the splendid vision that had ever led him on.

"Curse that scoundrel Dickson!" and his look darkened. "Patience, patience! If I were a better sleeper, I could face everything that can come in a man's day; I could face the devil himself. The wind's in the right quarter now, and the sea's going down. I 'll go on deck and give all hands some grog,--I 'll give it them myself; the poor fellows are cold and wet, and they serve me like men. We 're getting past the worst," and again Paul Jones fell to studying his charts as if they were love letters writ by his lady's hand.

Cooper and Hanscom had come below to join the rest of their watch, and still sat side by side, being old shipmates and friends. There was an easy sort of comfort in being together. Just now they spoke again in low voices of young Mr. Wallingford.

"Young master looks wamble-cropped to me," said Hanscom. "Don't fancy privateerin' so well as ridin' a blood horse on Porchmouth Parade, and bein' courted by the Tory big-bugs. Looks wintry in the face to me."

"Lord bless us, when he's old 's we are, he 'll l'arn that spring al'ays gets round again long's a creatur' 's alive," answered Cooper, who instinctively gave a general turn to the discussion. "Ary thing that's livin' knows its four seasons, an' I 've long maintained that after the wust o' winter, spring usu'lly doos come follerin' right on."

"I don't know but it's so," agreed his mate politely. Cooper would have these fanciful notions, while Hanscom was a plain-spoken man.

"What I'd like to know," said he, "yes, what I 'd like to ascertain, is what young Squire Wallin'ford ever come for; 't ain't in his blood to fight on our side, an' he's too straight-minded to play the sneak. Also, he never come from cowardice. No, I can't make it out noway. Sometimes folks mistakes their duty, and risks their all. Bain't spyin' round to do no hurt, is he?--or _is_ he?"

There was a sharp suggestion in the way this question was put, and Cooper turned fiercely upon his companion.

"Hunscom, I be ashamed of you!" he said scornfully, and said no more. There was a dull warmth of color in his hard, sea-smitten face; he was an elderly, quiet man, with a round, pleasant countenance unaltered in the worst of weather, and a look of kindly tolerance.

"There's b'en some consid'able changin' o' sides in our neighborhood, as you know," he said, a few moments later, in his usual tone. "Young Wallin'ford went to school to Master Sullivan, and the old master l'arnt everybody he could l'arn to be honest an' square, to hold by their word, an' be afeard o' nothin'."

"Pity 't was that Dickson could n't ha' got a term o' such schoolin'," said Hanscom, as they beheld that shipmate's unwelcome face peering down the companion.

"Sometimes I wish I was to home again," announced Cooper, in an unexpected fit of despondency. "I don' know why; 'tain't usual with me to have such feelin's in the outset of a v'y'ge. I grow sicker every day o' this flat, strivin' sea. I was raised on a good hill. I don' know how I ever come to foller the sea, anyway!"

The forecastle was a forlorn abiding-place at best, and crowded at any hour almost past endurance. The one hint of homeliness and decency was in the well-made sea chests, which had not been out of place against a steadier wall in the farmhouses whence most of them had come. They were of plain wood, with a touch of art in their rude carving; many of them were painted dull green or blue. There were others with really handsome escutcheons of wrought iron, and all were graced with fine turk's-heads to their rope handles, and every ingenuity of sailors' fancywork.

There was a grumbling company of able seamen, their owners, who had no better place to sit than the chest tops, or to stretch at idle length with these treasuries to lean against. The cold sea was nearer to a man than when he was on deck and could reassure himself of freedom by a look at the sky. The hammocks were here and there sagging with the rounded bulk of a sleeping owner, and all jerked uneasily as the vessel pitched and rolled by turns. The air was close and heavy with dampness and tobacco smoke.

At this moment the great sea boots of Simon Staples were seen descending from the deck above, and stumbling dangerously on the slippery straight ladder.

"Handsomely, handsomely," urged a spectator, with deep solicitude.

"She 's goin' large now, ain't she? How's she headin' now?" asked a man named Grant.

"She's full an' by, an' headin' east by south half east,--same 's we struck out past the Isles o' Shoals," was the mirthful answer. "She can't keep to nothin', an' the cap'n 's got to make another night on't. But she 's full an' by, just now, all you lazy larbowlines," he repeated cheerfully, at last getting his head down under decks as 'his foot found the last step. "She 's been on a good leadin' wind this half hour back, an' he 's got the stu'n'sails set again; 'tis all luff an' touch her, this v'y'ge."

There was a loud groan from the listeners. The captain insisted upon spreading every rag the ship could stagger under, and while they admired his persistent daring, it was sometimes too much for flesh and blood.

Staples was looking ruefully at his yarn mittens. They were far beyond the possibility of repair, and he took off first one and then the other of these cherished reminders of much logging experience, and, sitting on his sea chest, began to ravel what broken gray yarn was left and to wind it into a ball.

"Goin' to knit you another pair?" inquired Hanscom. "That's clever; empl'y your idle moments."

"Mend up his stockin's, you fool!" explained Grant, who was evidently gifted with some sympathetic imagination.

"I wish they was thumbs up on the stakes o' my old wood-sled," said Staples. "There, when I'm to sea I wish 's how I was lumberin', an' when I'm in the woods I'm plottin' how to git to sea again; ain't no suitin' of me neither way. I al'ays wanted to be aboard a fast sailer, an' here I be thrashin' along, an' lamentin' 'cause my mittins is wore out the fust fortnight."

"My! I wish old Master Hackett that built her could see how she runs!" he exclaimed next moment, as if a warm admiration still had power to cheer him. "I marked her lines for a beauty the day I see her launched: 't was what drove me here. There was plenty a-watchin' her on Lungdon's Island that hoped she'd stick in the stays, but she took the water like a young duck."

"He'd best not carry so much sail when she's clawin' to wind'ard close hauled," growled James Chase, an old Nantucket seaman, with a warning shake of the head. "'T won't take much to lay her clear down, I can tell him! I never see a ship drove so, in my time. Lord help every soul aboard if she wa'n't so weatherly!"

Fernald and Sherburne, old Portsmouth sailors, wagged their sage heads in solemn agreement; but William Young, a Dover man, with a responsible look, was waiting with some impatience for Chase to stand out of the poor supply of light that came down the narrow hatchway. Young was reading an old copy of the New Hampshire Gazette that had already been the solace of every reading man aboard.

"What in time 's been the matter amongst ye?" Staples now inquired, with interest. "I heard as how there was a fuss goin' down below; ain't ary bully-raggin' as I can see; dull as meetin'!" Hanscom and Cooper looked up eagerly; some of the other men only laughed for answer; but Chase signified that the trouble lay with their messmate Starbuck, who appeared to be surly, and sat with his back to the company. He now turned and displayed a much-disfigured countenance, but said nothing.

"What's the cap'n about now?" Chase hastened to inquire pointedly.

"He's up there a-cunnin' the ship," answered Staples. "He 's workin' the life out o' Grosvenor at the wheel. I just come from the maintop; my arms aches as if they'd been broke with a crowbar. I lost my holt o' the life line whilst we was settin' the stu'n's'l there on the maintops'l yard, an' I give me a dreadful wrench. He had n't ought to send them green boys to such places, neither; pore little Johnny Downes was makin' out to do his stent like a man, but the halyards got fouled in the jewel blocks, an' for all he's so willin'-hearted the tears was a-runnin' down his cheeks when he come back. I was skeert the wind'd blow him off like a whirligig off a stick, an' I spoke sharp to him so 's to brace him, an' give him a good boxed ear when I got him in reach. He was about beat, an' half froze anyway; his fingers looked like the p'ints o' parsnips. When he got back he laid right over acrost the cap. I left him up there a-clingin' on."

"He worked as handsome a pair o' man-rope knots as I ever see, settin' here this mornin'," said Cooper, compassionately. "He 'll make a good smart sailor, but he needs to grow; he's dreadful small to send aloft in a spell o' weather. The cap'n don't save himself, this v'y'ge, nor nobody else."

"Come, you'd as good 's hear what Starbuck's b'en saying," said Chase, with a wink. He had been waiting impatiently for this digression to end.

"That spry-tempered admiral o' yourn don't know how to treat a crew!" Starbuck burst forth, at this convenient opportunity. "Some on us gits a whack ivery time he parades the deck. He's re'lly too outdacious for decent folks. This arternoon I was a-loungin' on the gratin's an' got sort o' drowsin' off, an' I niver heared him comin' nor knowed he was there. Along he come like some upstropelous poppet an' give me a cuff side o' my head. I dodged the next one, an' spoke up smart 'fore I knowed what I was doin'. 'Damn ye, le' me be!' says I, an' he fetched me another on my nose here; most stunded me.

"'I 'll l'arn ye to make yourself sca'ce! Keep to the port-hand side where ye belong! Remember you 're aboard a man-o'-war!' says he, hollerin' like a crowin' pullet. ''T ain't no fishin' smack! Go forrard! Out o' the way with ye!' says he, same 's I was a stray dog. I run to the side, my nose was a-bleedin' so, an' I fumbled arter somethin' to serve me for a hankicher.

"'Here 's mine,' says he, 'but you 've got to understand there's discipline on this frigate,' says he. Joseph Fernald knows where I was," continued the sufferer; "you see me, Joseph, when you come past. 'Twa'n't larboard nor starboard; 'twas right 'midships, 'less I may have rolled one way or t'other. I could ha' squinched him so all the friends he'd ever needed 'd be clargy an' saxon, an' then to pass me his linning handkicher 's if I was a young lady! I dove into my pockets an' come upon this old piece o' callamink I'd wropped up some 'baccy in. I never give a look at him; I d' know but he gallded me more when he was pleasant 'n when he fetched me the clip. I ketched up a lingum-vitae marlinspike I see by me an' took arter him. I should ha' hit him good, but he niver turned to look arter me, an' I come to reason. If I'd had time, I'd ha' hit him, if I'd made the rest o' this v'y'ge in irons."

"Lord sakes! don't you bluster no more!" advised old Mr. Cooper soothingly, with a disapproving glance at the pleased audience. "Shipmasters like him ain't goin' to ask ye every mornin' how seafarin' agrees with ye. He ain't goin' to treat hisself nor none on us like passengers. He ain't had three hours sleep a night sence this v'y'ge begun. He's been studyin' his charts this day, with his head set to 'em on the cabin table 's if they showed the path to heaven. They was English charts, too, 'long by Bristol an' up there in the Irish Sea. I see 'em through the skylight."

"I 'll bate he's figurin' to lay outside some o' them very ports an' cut out some han'some prizes," said Falls, one of the gunners, looking down out of his hammock. Falls was a young man full of enthusiasm, who played the fiddle.

"You 'll find 't will be all glory for him, an' no prizes for you, my young musicianer!" answered Starbuck, who was a discouraged person by nature. Now that he had a real grievance his spirits seemed to rise. "Up hammocks all! Show a leg!" he gayly ordered the gunner.

"Wall, I seldom seen so good a navigator as the cap'n in my time," insisted Staples. "He knows every man's duty well's his own, an' that he knows to a maracle."

"I 'll bate any man in this fo'c's'le that he 's a gre't fighter; you wait an' see the little wasp when he 's gittin' into action!" exclaimed Chase, who had been with Paul Jones on the Alfred. "He knows no fear an' he sticks at nothin'! You hold on till we 're safe in Channel, an' sight one o' them fat-bellied old West Injyinen lo'ded deep an' headed up for London. Then you 'll see Gre't Works in a way you niver expected."

This local allusion was not lost upon most members of the larboard watch, and Starbuck's wrongs, with the increasing size of his once useful nose, were quite disregarded in the hopeful laughter which followed.

"Hand me the keerds," said one of the men lazily. "Falls, there, knows a couple o' rale queer tricks."

"You keep 'em dowsed; if he thinks we ain't sleepin' or eatin', so 's to git our courage up," said Staples, "he 'll have every soul on us aloft. Le' 's set here where 't 's warm an' put some kecklin' on Starbuck; the cap'n 's 'n all places to once, with eyes like gimblets, an' the wind 's a-blowin' up there round the lubber holes like the mouth o' hell."

Chase, the Nantucket sailor, looked at him, with a laugh.

"What a farmer you be," he exclaimed. "Makes me think of a countryman, shipmate o' mine on the brig Polly Dunn. We was whaling in the South Seas, an' it come on to blow like fury; we was rollin' rails under, an' I was well skeert myself; feared I could n't keep my holt; him an' me was on the fore yard together. He looked dreadful easy an' pleasant. I thought he'd be skeert too, if he knowed enough, an' I kind o' swore at the fool an' axed him what he was a-thinkin' of. 'Why, 't is the 20th o' May,' says he; 'all the caows goes to pastur' to-day, to home in Eppin'!'"

There was a cheerful chuckle from the audience. Grant alone looked much perplexed.

"Why, 't is the day, ain't it?" he protested. "What be you all a-laughin' at?"

At this moment there was a strange lull; the wind fell, and the Ranger stopped rolling, and then staggered as if she balked at some unexpected danger. One of the elder seamen gave an odd warning cry. A monstrous hammer seemed to strike the side, and a great wave swept over as if to bury them forever in the sea. The water came pouring down and flooded the forecastle knee-deep. There was an outcry on deck, and an instant later three loud knocks on the scuttle.

"All the larboard watch ahoy!" bawled John Dougall. "Hear the news, can't ye? All hands up! All hands on deck!"

*XIII*

*THE MIND OF THE DOCTOR*

"Or rather no arte, but a divine and heavenly instinct, not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned by both."

There was one man, at least, on board the Ranger who was a lover of peace: this was the ship's surgeon, Dr. Ezra Green. With a strong and hearty crew, and the voyage just beginning, his professional duties had naturally been but light; he had no more concern with the working of the ship than if he were sitting in his office at home in Dover, and eagerly assented to the captain's proposal that he should act as the Ranger's purser.

The surgeon's tiny cabin was stuffed with books; this was a good chance to go on with his studies, and, being a good sailor and a cheerful man, the whole ship's company took pleasure in his presence. There was an amiable seriousness about his every-day demeanor that calmed even the activities of the captain's temper; he seemed to be surgeon and purser and chaplain all in one, and to be fit, as one of his calling should be, to minister to both souls and bodies. It was known on board that he was unusually liberal in his views of religion, and was provided with some works upon theology as well as medicine, and could argue well for the Arminian doctrines against Dickson, who, like many men of his type, was pretentious of great religious zeal, and declared himself a Calvinist of the severest order. Dickson was pleased to consider the surgeon very lax and heretical; as if that would make the world think himself a good man, and the surgeon a bad one, which was, for evident proof and reason, quite impossible.

On this dark night, after the terrible sea of the afternoon had gone down, and poor Solomon Hutchings, the first victim of the voyage, had been made as comfortable as possible under the circumstances of a badly broken leg, the surgeon was sitting alone, with a pleasant sense of having been useful. He gave a sigh at the sound of Dickson's voice outside. Dickson would be ready, as usual, for an altercation, and was one of those men who always come into a room as if they expect to be kicked out of it.

Green was writing,--he kept a careful journal of the voyage,--and now looked over his shoulder impatiently, as if he did not wish to be interrupted.

Dickson wore a look of patient persistence.

The surgeon pointed to a seat with his long quill, and finished the writing of a sentence. He could not honestly welcome a man whom he liked so little, and usually treated him as if he were a patient who had come to seek advice.

"I only dropped in for a chat," explained the visitor reprovingly, as his host looked up again. "Have you heard how the captain blew at young Wallingford, just before dark? Well, sir, they are at supper together now. Wallingford must be a tame kitten. I suppose he crept down to the table as if he wanted to be stroked."

"He is a good fellow and a gentleman," said Ezra Green slowly. "The captain has hardly left the deck since yesterday noon, when this gale began." The surgeon was a young man, but he had a grave, middle-aged manner which Dickson's sneering smoothness seemed always to insult.

"You always take Jones's part," ventured the guest.

"We are not living in a tavern ashore," retorted the surgeon. "The officer you speak of is our captain, and commands an American man-of-war. That must be understood. I cannot discuss these matters again."

"Some of the best sailors vow they will desert him in the first French port," said Dickson.

"Then they make themselves liable to be shot for desertion whenever they are caught," replied Green coolly, "and you must take every opportunity to tell them so. Those who are here simply to make a little dirty money had better have stayed ashore and traded their country produce with the British ships. They say there was a fine-paying business on foot, out at the Isles of Shoals."

This advice struck home, as the speaker desired. Dickson swallowed hard once or twice, and then looked meek and stubborn; he watched the surgeon slyly before he spoke again.

"Yes, it is a very difficult crew to command," he agreed; "we have plenty of good loyal men aboard, but they want revenge for their country's wrongs, as you and I do, I hope!"

"War is one thing, and has law and order to dignify it; common piracy and thievery are of another breed. Some of our men need education in these matters, not to say all the discipline they can get. The captain is much wronged and insulted by the spirit that has begun to spread between decks. I believe that he has the right view of his duty; his methods are sometimes his own."

"As in the case of Mr. Wallingford," blandly suggested Dickson, swift to seize his opportunity. "Even you would have thought the captain outrageous in his choice of words."

"The captain is a man easily provoked, and has suffered certain provocations such as no man of spirit could brook. I believe he was very wrong to vent his spite on Mr. Wallingford, who has proved as respectful of others and forgetful of himself as any man on board. I say this without knowing the present circumstances, but Wallingford has made a nobler sacrifice than any of us."

"He would have been chased to his own kind among the Tories in another week," sneered the other. "You know it as well as I. Wallingford hesitated just as long as he dared, and there's the truth! He's a good mate to Ben Thompson,--both of 'em courtiers of the Wentworths; and both of 'em had to hurry at the last, one way or the other, whichever served."

"Plenty of our best citizens clung to the hope that delay would bring some proper arbitration and concession. No good citizen went to war lightly and without a pang. A man who has seen carnage must always dread it; such glory as we win must reckon upon groans and weeping behind the loudest cheers. But war once declared, men of clear conscience and decent character may accept their lot, and in the end serve their country best," said the doctor.

"You are sentimental to-night," scoffed Dickson.

"I have been thinking much of home," said the surgeon, with deep feeling. "I may never see my home again, nor may you. We are near shore now: in a few days this ship may be smeared with blood, and these poor fellows who snarl and bargain, and discuss the captain's orders and the chance of prize money, may come under my hands, bleeding and torn and suffering their last agony. We must face these things as best we may; we do not know what war means yet; the captain will spare none of us. He is like a creature in a cage now, fretted by his bounds and all their petty conditions; but when the moment of freedom comes he will seek action. He is fit by nature to leap to the greatest opportunities, and to do what the best of us could never dream of. No, not you, sir, nor Simpson either, though he aims to supplant him!" grumbled the surgeon, under his voice.

"Perhaps his gift is too great for so small a command as this," Dickson returned, with an evil smile. "It is understood that he must be transferred to a more sufficient frigate, if France sees fit," he added, in a pious tone. "I shall strive to do my own duty in either case." At which Dr. Green looked up and smiled.

Dickson laughed back; he was quick to feel the change of mood in his companion. For a moment they were like two schoolboys, but there was a flicker of malice in Dickson's eyes; no one likes being laughed at.

"Shall we take a hand at cards, sir?" he asked hastily. "All these great things will soon be settled when we get to France."

The surgeon did not offer to get the cards, which lay on the nearest shelf. He was clasping his hands across his broad breast, and leaning back in a comfortable, tolerant sort of way in his corner seat. They both knew perfectly well that they were in for a long evening together, and might as well make the best of it. It was too much trouble to fight with a cur. Somehow, the current of general interest did not set as usual toward theological opinions.

"I was called to a patient down on Sligo Point, beyond the Gulf Road, just before we sailed," said Green presently, in a more friendly tone. "'T was an old woman of unsteady brain, but of no common-place fancy, who was under one of her wildest spells, and had mounted the house roof to sell all her neighbors at auction. She was amusing enough,--'t is a pretty wit when she is sane; but I heard roars of laughter as I rode up the lane, and saw a flock of listeners at the orchard edge. She had knocked off the minister and both deacons, the lot for ninepence, and was running her lame neighbor Paul to seventy thousand pounds."

"I heard that they called the minister to pray with her when her fit was coming on, and she chased him down the lane, and would have driven him into the river, if there had not been some men at fall ploughing in a field near by. She was a fixed Calvinist in her prime, and always thought him lax," said Dickson, with relish, continuing the tale. "They had told the good man to come dressed in his gown and bands, thinking it would impress her mind."

"Which it certainly seemed to do," agreed the doctor. "At any rate, she knocked him down for nine-pence. 'T was a good sample of the valuation most of us put upon our neighbors. She likes to hear her neighbor Paul play the fiddle; sometimes he can make her forget all her poor distresses, and fall asleep like a baby. The minister had somehow vexed her. Our standards are just as personal here aboard ship. The Great Day will sum up men at their true value,--we shall never do it before; 't would ask too much of poor human nature."

Dickson drummed on the bulkhead before he spoke. "Some men are taken at less than their true value."

"And some at more, especially by themselves. Don't let things go too far with Simpson. He 's a good man, but can easily be led into making trouble," said the surgeon; and Dickson half rose, and then sat down again, with his face showing an angry red.

"We must be patient," added the surgeon a moment later, without having looked again at his companion. "'T is just like a cage of beasts here: fierce and harmless are shut in together. Tame creatures are sometimes forced to show their teeth. We must not fret about petty things, either; 't is a great errand we have come out upon, and the honest doing of it is all the business we have in common."

"True, sir," said Dickson, with a touch of insolent flattery. "Shall we take a hand at cards?"

*XIV*

*TO ADD MORE GRIEF*

"O garlands, hanging by these doors, now stay, Nor from your leaves too quickly shake away My dew of tears. (How many such, ah me! A lover's eyes must shed!)"

Captain Paul Jones was waiting, a most affable and dignified host, to greet his guest. Wallingford stood before him, with a faint flush of anger brightening his cheeks.

"You commanded me, sir," he said shortly.

"Oh, come, Wallingford!" exclaimed the captain, never so friendly before, and keeping that pleasant voice and manner which at once claimed comradeship from men and admiring affection from women. "I 'll drop the commander when we 're by ourselves, if you 'll consent, and we 'll say what we like. I wanted you to sup with me. I 've got a bottle of good wine for us,--some of Hamilton's Madeira."

Wallingford hesitated; after all, what did it matter? The captain was the captain; there was a vigorous sort of refreshment in this life on shipboard; a man could not judge his associates by the one final test of their being gentlemen, but only expect of each that he should follow after his kind. Outside society there lies humanity.

The lieutenant seated himself under the swinging lamp, and took the glass that was held out to him. They drank together to the flag they carried, and to their lucky landfall on the morrow.

"To France!" said the captain gallantly. It was plainly expected that all personal misunderstandings should be drowned in the good wine. Wallingford knew the flavor well enough, and even from which cask in Hamilton's cellar it had been drawn. Then the captain was quickly on his feet again, and took the four steps to and fro which were all his cabin permitted. He did not even appear to be impatient, though supper was slow in coming. His hands were clasped behind him, and he smiled once or twice, but did not speak, and seemed to be lost in thought. As for the guest, his thoughts were with Mary Hamilton. The flavor of wine, like the fragrance of a flower, can be a quick spur to memory. He saw her bright face and sweet, expectant eyes, as if they were sitting together at Hamilton's own table.

The process of this evening meal at sea was not a long one; and when the two men had dispatched their food with businesslike haste, the steward was dismissed, and they were left alone with Hamilton's Madeira at better than half tide in the bottle between them, a plate of biscuit and some raisins, and the usual pack of cards. Paul Jones covered these with a forbidding hand, and presently pushed them aside altogether, and added a handful of pipes to the provisioning of the plain dessert. He wished to speak of serious things, and could not make too long an evening away from his papers. It seemed incredible that the voyage was so near its end. He refilled his own glass and Mr. Wallingford's.

"I foresee much annoyance now, on board this ship. I must at once post to Paris, and here they will have time to finish their machinations at their leisure, without me to drive them up to duty. Have you long known this man Dickson?" asked the captain, lowering his voice and fixing his eyes upon the lieutenant.

"I have always known him. He was once in our own employ and much trusted, but was afterward dismissed, and for the worst of reasons," said Wallingford.

"What reputation has he borne in the neighborhood?"

"He is called a sharp man of business, quick to see his own advantage, and generous in buying the good will of those who can serve his purpose. He is a stirring, money-getting fellow, very close-fisted; but he has been unlucky in his larger ventures, as if fortune did not much incline to favor him."

"I despised the fellow from the first," said the captain, with engaging frankness, "but I have no fear that I cannot master him; he is much cleverer than many a better man, yet 't is not well to forget that a cripple in the right road can beat a racer in the wrong. He has been sure these last days that he possesses my confidence, but I have made him serve some good turns. Now he is making trouble as fast as he can between Simpson and me. Simpson knows little of human nature; he would as soon have Dickson's praise as yours or mine. He cannot wait to supplant me in this command, and he frets to gather prizes off these rich seas. There 's no harm in prizes; but I sometimes think that no soul on board has any real comprehension of the larger duties of our voyage, and the ends it may serve in furthering an alliance with France. They all begin, well instructed by Dickson, to look upon me as hardly more than a passenger. 'T is true that I look for a French frigate very soon, as Dickson tells them; but he adds that it is to Simpson they must look for success, while if he could rid himself of Simpson he would do it. I must have a fleet if I can, and as soon as I can, and be master of it, too. I have my plans all well laid! Dickson is full of plots of his own, but to tell such a man the truth about himself is to give him the blackest of insults."

Wallingford made a gesture of impatience. The captain's face relaxed, and he laughed as he leaned across the table.

"Dickson took his commission for the sake of prize money," he said. "A pirate, a pirate, that's what he is, but oh, how pious in his speech!

"'Unpitying hears the captive's moans
Or e'en a dying brother's groans!'

"There 's a hymn for him!" exclaimed the captain, with bitter emphasis. "No, he has no gleam of true patriotism in his cold heart; he is full of deliberate insincerities; 'a mitten for any hand,' as they say in Portsmouth. I believe he would risk a mutiny, if he had time enough; and having gained his own ends of putting better men to shame, he would pose as the queller of it. A low-lived, self-seeking man; you can see it for yourself, Mr. Wallingford."

"True, sir. I did not need to come to sea to learn that man's character," and Wallingford finished his glass and set it down, but still held it with one hand stretched out upon the table, while he leaned back comfortably against the bulkhead.

"If our enterprise has any value in the sight of the nations, or any true power against our oppressors, it lies in our noble cause and in our own unselfishness," said Paul Jones, his eyes kindling. "This man and his fellows would have us sneak about the shores of Great Britain, picking up an old man and a lad and a squalling woman from some coastwise trading smack, and plundering what weak craft we can find to stuff our pockets with ha'pennies. We have a small ship, it is true; but it is war we follow, not thievery. I hear there 's grumbling between decks about ourselves getting nothing by this voyage. 'T is our country we have put to sea for, not ourselves. No man has it in his heart more than I to confront the enemy: but Dickson would like to creep along the coast forever after small game, and count up by night what he has taken by day, like a petty shopkeeper. I look for larger things, or we might have stopped at home. I have my plans, sir; the Marine Committee have promised me my proper ship. One thing that I cannot brook is a man's perfidy. I have good men aboard, but Dickson is not among them. I feel sometimes as if I trod on caltrops. I am outdone, Mr. Wallingford. I have hardly slept these three nights. You have my apology, sir."

The lieutenant bowed with respectful courtesy, but said nothing. The captain opened his eyes a little wider, and looked amused; then he quickly grew grave and observed his guest with fresh attention. There was a fine unassailable dignity in Wallingford's bearing at this moment.

"Since you are aware that there is some disaffection, sir," he said deliberately, "I can only answer that it seems to me there is but one course to follow, and you must not overrate the opposition. They will always sit in judgment upon your orders, and discuss your measures, and express their minds freely. I have long since seen that our natural independence of spirit in New England makes individual opinion appear of too great consequence,--'t is the way they fall upon the parson's sermon ashore, every Monday morning. As for Lieutenant Simpson, I think him a very honest-hearted man, though capable of being influenced. He has the reputation in Portsmouth of an excellent seaman, but high-tempered. Among the men here, he has the advantage of great powers of self-command."

Wallingford paused, as if to make his words more emphatic, and then repeated them: "He has the mastery of his temper, sir, and the men fear him; he can stop to think even when he is angry. His gifts are perhaps not great, but they have that real advantage."

Paul Jones blazed with sudden fury. He sprang to his feet, and stood light and steady there beyond the table, in spite of the swaying ship.

"Forgive me, sir," said Roger Wallingford, "but you bade us speak together like friends to-night. I think you a far greater man and master than when we left Portsmouth; I am not so small-minded as to forget to honor my superiors. I see plainly that you are too much vexed with these men,--I respect and admire you enough to say so; you must not expect from them what you demand from yourself. In the worst weather you could not have had a better crew: you have confessed to that. I believe you must have patience with the small affairs which have so deeply vexed you. The men are right at heart; you ought to be able to hold them better than Dickson!"

The captain's rage had burnt out like a straw fire, and he was himself again.

"Speak on, Mr. Lieutenant; you mean kindly," he said, and took his seat. The sweat stood on his forehead, and his hands twitched.

"I think we have it in our power to intimidate the enemy, poorly fitted out as we are," he said, with calmness, "but we must act like one man. At least we all pity our countrymen, who are starving in filthy prisons. Since Parliament, now two years agone, authorized the King to treat all Americans taken under arms at sea as pirates and felons, they have been stuffing their dungeons with the innocent and guilty together. What man seeing his enemy approach does not arm himself in defense? We have made no retaliation such as I shall make now. I have my plans, but I cannot risk losing a man here and a man there, out of a crew like this, before I adventure a hearty blow; this cuts me off from prize-hunting. And the commander of an American man-of-war cannot hobnob with his sailors, like the leader of a gang of pirates. I am no Captain Kidd, nor am I another Blackboard. I can easily be blocked in carrying out my purposes. Dickson will not consent to serve his country unless he can fill his pockets. Simpson cannot see the justice of obeying my orders, and lets his inferiors see that he resents them. I wish Dickson were in the blackest pit of Plymouth jail. If I were the pirate he would like to have me, I'd yard-arm him quick enough!"

"We may be overheard, sir," pleaded Wallingford. "We each have our ambitions," he continued bravely, while his father's noble looks came to his face. "Mine are certainly not Dickson's, nor do I look forward to a life at sea, like yourself. This may be the last time we can speak together on the terms you commanded that we should speak to-night. I look for no promotion; I am humble enough about my fitness to serve; the navy is but an accident, as you know, in my career. I beg you to command my hearty service, such as it is; you have a right to it, and you shall not find me wanting. I know that you have been very hard placed."

And now the captain bowed courteously in his turn, and received the pledge with gratitude, but he kept his eyes upon the young man with growing curiosity. Wallingford had turned pale, and spoke with much effort.

"My heart leaps within me when I think that I shall soon stand upon the shore of France," Paul Jones went on, for his guest kept silence. "Within a few days I shall see the Duke of Chartres, if he be within reach. No man ever took such hold of my affections at first acquaintance as that French prince. We knew each other first at Hampton Roads, where he was with Kersaint, the French commodore. My only thought in boarding him was to serve our own young navy and get information for our ship-building, but I was rewarded by a noble gift of friendship. 'T is now two years since we have met, but I cannot believe that I shall find him changed; I can feel my hand in his already. He will give our enterprise what help he can. He met me on his deck that day like a brother; we were friends from the first. I told him my errand, and he showed me everything about his new ship, and even had copies made for me of her plans. 'T was before France and England had come to open trouble, and he was dealing with a rebel, but he helped me all he could. I had loaded my sloop with the best I had on my plantation; 't was May, and the gardens very forward. I knew their vessels had been long at sea, and could ship a whole salad garden. I would not go to ask for favors then without trying to make some pleasure in return, but we were friends from the first. He is a very noble gentleman; you shall see him soon, I hope, and judge for yourself."

Wallingford listened, but the captain was still puzzled by a look on the young man's face.