Par. "Mars dote on you for his novices."
_All's Well that ends Well._
No one, who is familiar with the bustle and activity of an American
commercial town, would recognize, in the repose which now reigns in the
ancient mart of Rhode Island, a place that, in its day, has been ranked
amongst the most important ports along the whole line of our extended
coast. It would seem, at the first glance, that nature had expressly
fashioned the spot to anticipate the wants and to realize the wishes of
the mariner. Enjoying the four great requisites of a safe and commodious
haven, a placid basin, an outer harbour, and a convenient roadstead, with
a clear offing, Newport appeared, to the eyes of our European ancestors,
designed to shelter fleets and to nurse a race of hardy and expert seamen.
Though the latter anticipation has not been entirely disappointed, how
little has reality answered to expectation in respect to the former. A
successful rival has arisen, even in the immediate vicinity of this
seeming favourite of nature, to defeat all the calculations of mercantile
sagacity, and to add another to the thousand existing evidences "that the
wisdom of man is foolishness."
There are few towns of any magnitude, within our broad territories, in
which so little change has been effected in half a century as in Newport.
Until the vast resources of the interior were developed the beautiful
island on which it stands was a chosen retreat of the affluent planters of
the south, from the heats and diseases of their burning climate. Here they
resorted in crowds, to breathe the invigorating breezes of the sea.
Subjects of the same government, the inhabitants of the Carolinas and of
Jamaica met here, in amity, to compare their respective habits and
policies, and to strengthen each other in a common delusion, which the
descendants of both, in the third generation, are beginning to perceive
and to regret.
The communion left, on the simple and unpractised offspring of the
Puritans, its impression both of good and evil. The inhabitants of the
country, while they derived, from the intercourse, a portion of that bland
and graceful courtesy for which the gentry of the southern British
colonies were so distinguished did not fail to imbibe some of those
peculiar notions, concerning the distinctions in the races of men, for
which they are no less remarkable Rhode Island was the foremost among the
New England provinces to recede from the manners and opinions of their
simple ancestors. The first shock was given, through her, to that rigid
and ungracious deportment which was once believed a necessary concomitant
of true religion, a sort of outward pledge of the healthful condition of
the inward man; and it was also through her that the first palpable
departure was made from those purifying principles which might serve as an
apology for even far more repulsive exteriors. By a singular combination
of circumstances and qualities, which is, however, no less true than
perplexing, the merchants of Newport were becoming, at the same time, both
slave-dealers and gentlemen.
Whatever might have been the moral condition of its proprietors at the
precise period of 1759, the island itself was never more enticing and
lovely. Its swelling crests were still crowned with the wood of
centuries; its little vales were then covered with the living verdure of
the north; and its unpretending but neat and comfortable villas lay
sheltered in groves, and embedded in flowers. The beauty and fertility of
the place gained for it a name which, probably, expressed far more than
was, at that early day, properly understood. The inhabitants of the
country styled their possessions the "Garden of America." Neither were
their guests, from the scorching plains of the south, reluctant to concede
so imposing a title to distinction. The appellation descended even to our
own time; nor was it entirely abandoned, until the traveller had the means
of contemplating the thousand broad and lovely vallies which, fifty years
ago, lay buried in the dense shadows of the forest.
The date we have just named was a period fraught with the deepest interest
to the British possessions on this Continent. A bloody and vindictive war,
which had been commenced in defeat and disgrace, was about to end in
triumph. France was deprived of the last of her possessions on the main,
while the immense region which lay between the bay of Hudson and the
territories of Spain submitted to the power of England. The colonists had
shared largely in contributing to the success of the mother country.
Losses and contumely, that had been incurred by the besotting prejudices
of European commanders were beginning to be forgotten in the pride of
success. The blunders of Braddock, the indolence of Loudon, and the
impotency of Abercrombie, were repaired by the vigour of Amherst, and the
genius of Wolfe. In every quarter of the globe the arms of Britain were
triumphant. The loyal provincials were among the loudest in their
exultations and rejoicings; wilfully shutting their eyes to the scanty
meed of applause that a powerful people ever reluctantly bestows on its
dependants, as though love of glory, like avarice, increases by its means
of indulgence.
The system of oppression and misrule, which hastened a separation that
sooner or later must have occurred, had not yet commenced. The mother
country, if not just, was still complaisant. Like all old and great
nations, she was indulging in the pleasing, but dangerous, enjoyment of
self-contemplation. The qualities and services of a race, who were
believed to be inferior, were, however, soon forgotten; or, if remembered,
it was in order to be misrepresented and vituperated. As this feeling
increased with the discontent of the civil dissensions, it led to still
more striking injustice, and greater folly. Men who, from their
observations, should have known better, were not ashamed to proclaim, even
in the highest council of the nation, their ignorance of the character of
a people with whom they had mingled their blood. Self-esteem gave value to
the opinions of fools. It was under this soothing infatuation that
veterans were heard to disgrace their noble profession, by boastings that
should have been hushed in the mouth of a soldier of the carpet; it was
under this infatuation that Burgoyne gave, in the Commons of England, that
memorable promise of marching from Quebec to Boston, with a force he saw
fit to name--a pledge that he afterwards redeemed by going over the same
ground, with twice the number of followers, as captives; and it was under
this infatuation that England subsequently threw away her hundred thousand
lives, and lavished her hundred millions of treasure.
The history of that memorable struggle is familiar to every American.
Content with the knowledge that his country triumphed, he is willing to
let the glorious result take its proper place in the pages of history. He
sees that her empire rests on a broad and natural foundation, which needs
no support from venal pens; and, happily for his peace of mind, no less
than for his character, he feels that the prosperity of the Republic is
not to be sought in the degradation of surrounding nations.
Our present purpose leads us back to the period of calm which preceded the
storm of the Revolution. In the early days of the month of October 1759,
Newport, like every other town in America, was filled with the mingled
sentiment of grief and joy. The inhabitants mourned the fall of Wolfe
while they triumphed in his victory. Quebec, the strong-hold of the
Canadas, and the last place of any importance held by a people whom they
had been educated to believe were their natural enemies, had just changed
its masters. That loyalty to the Crown of England, which endured so much
before the strange principle became extinct, was then at its height; and
probably the colonist was not to be found who did not, in some measure,
identify his own honour with the fancied glory of the head of the house of
Brunswick. The day on which the action of our tale commences had been
expressly set apart to manifest the sympathy of the good people of the
town, and its vicinity, in the success of the royal arms. It had opened,
as thousands of days have opened since, with the ringing of bells and the
firing of cannon; and the population had, at an early hour, poured into
the streets of the place, with that determined zeal in the cause of
merriment, which ordinarily makes preconcerted joy so dull an amusement.
The chosen orator of the day had exhibited his eloquence, in a sort of
prosaic monody in praise of the dead hero, and had sufficiently manifested
his loyalty, by laying the glory, not only of that sacrifice, but all that
had been reaped by so many thousands of his brave companions also, most
humbly at the foot of the throne.
Content with these demonstrations of their allegiance the inhabitants
began to retire to their dwellings as the sun settled towards those
immense regions which then lay an endless and unexplored wilderness but
which now are teeming with the fruits and enjoyments of civilized life.
The countrymen from the environs, and even from the adjoining main were
beginning to turn their faces towards their distant homes, with that
frugal care which still distinguishes the inhabitants of the country even
in the midst of their greatest abandonment to pleasures, in order that the
approaching evening might not lead them into expenditures which were not
deemed germain to the proper feelings of the occasion. In short, the
excess of the hour was past, and each individual was returning into the
sober channels of his ordinary avocations, with an earnestness and
discretion which proved he was not altogether unmindful of the time that
had been squandered in the display of a spirit that he already appeared
half disposed to consider a little supererogatory.
The sounds of the hammer, the axe, and the saw were again heard in the
place; the windows of more than one shop were half opened, as if its owner
had made a sort of compromise between his interests and his conscience;
and the masters of the only three inns in the town were to be seen
standing before their doors, regarding the retiring countrymen with eyes
that plainly betrayed they were seeking customers among a people who were
always much more ready to sell than to buy. A few noisy and thoughtless
seamen, belonging to the vessels in the haven, together with some half
dozen notorious tavern-hunters were, however, the sole fruits of all their
nods of recognition, inquiries into the welfare of wives and children,
and, in some instances, of open invitations to alight and drink.
Worldly care, with a constant, though sometimes an oblique, look at the
future state, formed the great characteristic of all that people who then
dwelt in what were called the provinces of New-England. The business of
the day, however, was not forgotten though it was deemed unnecessary to
digest its proceedings in idleness, or over the bottle. The travellers
along the different roads that led into the interior of the island formed
themselves into little knots, in which the policy of the great national
events they had just been commemorating, and the manner they had been
treated by the different individuals selected to take the lead in the
offices of the day, were freely handled, though still with great deference
to the established reputations of the distinguished parties most
concerned. It was every where conceded that the prayers, which had been in
truth a little conversational and historical, were faultless and searching
exercises; and, on the whole, (though to this opinion there were some
clients of an advocate adverse to the orator, who were moderate
dissenters) it was established, that a more eloquent oration had never
issued from the mouth of man, than had that day been delivered in their
presence. Precisely in the same temper was the subject discussed by the
workmen on a ship, which was then building in the harbour, and which, in
the same spirit of provincial admiration that has since immortalized so
many edifices, bridges, and even individuals, within their several
precincts, was confidently affirmed to be the rarest specimen then extant
of the nice proportions of naval architecture!
Of the orator himself it may be necessary to say a word, in order that so
remarkable an intellectual prodigy should fill his proper place in our
frail and short-lived catalogue of the worthies of that day. He was the
usual oracle of his neighbourhood, when a condensation of its ideas on any
great event, like the one just mentioned, became necessary. His learning
was justly computed, by comparison, to be of the most profound and erudite
character; and it was very truly affirmed to have astonished more than one
European scholar, who had been tempted, by a fame which, like heat, was
only the more intense from its being so confined, to grapple with him on
the arena of ancient literature. He was a man who knew how to improve
these high gifts to his exclusive advantage. In but one instance had he
ever been thrown enough off his guard to commit an act that had a tendency
to depress the reputation he had gained in this manner; and that was, in
permitting one of his laboured flights of eloquence to be printed; or, as
his more witty though less successful rival, the only other lawyer in the
place, expressed it, in suffering one of his _fugitive_ essays to be
_caught._ But even this experiment, whatever might have been its effects
abroad, served to confirm his renown at home. He now stood before his
admirers in all the dignity of types; and it was in vain for that
miserable tribe of "animalculæ, who live by feeding on the body of
genius," to attempt to undermine a reputation that was embalmed in the
faith of so many parishes. The brochure was diligently scattered through
the provinces, lauded around the tea-pot, openly extolled in the
prints--by some kindred spirit, as was manifest in the striking similarity
of style--and by one believer, more zealous or perhaps more interested
than the rest, actually put on board the next ship which sailed for
"home," as England was then affectionately termed, enclosed in an envelope
which bore an address no less imposing than the Majesty of Britain. Its
effect on the straight-going mind of the dogmatic German, who then filled
the throne of the Conqueror, was never known, though they, who were in the
secret of the trans mission, long looked, in vain, for the signal reward
that was to follow so striking an exhibition of human intellect.
Notwithstanding these high and beneficent gifts, their possessor was now
as unconsciously engaged in that portion of his professional labours which
bore the strongest resemblance to the occupation of a scrivener, as though
nature, in bestowing such rare endowments had denied him the phrenological
quality of self-esteem. A critical observer might, however, have seen, or
fancied that he saw, in the forced humility of his countenance, certain
gleamings of a triumph that should not properly be traced to the fall of
Quebec. The habit of appearing meek had, however, united with a frugal
regard for the precious and irreclaimable minutes, in producing this
extraordinary diligence in a pursuit of a character that was so humble,
when compared with his recent mental efforts.
Leaving this gifted favourite of fortune and nature, we shall pass to an
entirely different individual, and to another quarter of the place. The
spot, to which we wish now to transport the reader, was neither more nor
less than the shop of a tailor, who did not disdain to perform the most
minute offices of his vocation in his own heedful person. The humble
edifice stood at no great distance from the water, in the skirts of the
town, and in such a situation as to enable its occupant to look out upon
the loveliness of the inner basin, and, through a vista cut by the element
between islands, even upon the lake-like scenery of the outer harbour. A
small, though little frequented wharf lay before his door, while a certain
air of negligence, and the absence of bustle, sufficiently manifested that
the place itself was not the immediate site of the much-boasted commercial
prosperity of the port.
The afternoon was like a morning in spring, the breeze which occasionally
rippled the basin possessing that peculiarly bland influence which is so
often felt in the American autumn; and the worthy mechanic laboured at his
calling, seated on his shop board, at an open window, far better satisfied
with himself than many of those whose fortune it is to be placed in state,
beneath canopies of velvet and gold. On the outer side of the little
building, a tall, awkward, but vigorous and well-formed countryman was
lounging, with one shoulder placed against the side of the shop, as if his
legs found the task of supporting his heavy frame too grievous to be
endured with out assistance, seemingly in waiting for the completion of
the garment at which the other toiled, and with which he intended to adorn
the graces of his person, in an adjoining parish, on the succeeding
sabbath.
In order to render the minutes shorter, and, possibly in indulgence to a
powerful propensity to talk, of which he who wielded the needle was
somewhat the subject, but few of the passing moments were suffered to
escape without a word from one or the other of the parties. As the subject
of their discourse had a direct reference to the principal matter of our
tale, we shall take leave to give such portions of it to the reader as we
deem most relevant to a clear exposition of that which is to follow. The
latter will always bear in mind, that he who worked was a man drawing into
the wane of life; that he bore about him the appearance of one who, either
from incompetency or from some fatality of fortune, had been doomed to
struggle through the world, keeping poverty from his residence only by the
aid of great industry and rigid frugality; and that the idler was a youth
of an age and condition that the acquisition of an entire set of
habiliments formed to him a sort of era in his adventures.
"Yes." exclaimed the indefatigable shaper of cloth, with a species of
sigh which might have been equally construed into an evidence of the
fulness of his mental enjoyment, or of the excess of his bodily labours;
"yes, smarter sayings have seldom fallen from the lips of man, than such
as the squire pour'd out this very day. When he spoke of the plains of
father Abraham, and of the smoke and thunder of the battle, Pardon, it
stirred up such stomachy feelings in my bosom, that I verily believe I
could have had the heart to throw aside the thimble, and go forth myself,
to seek glory in battling in the cause of the King."
The youth, whose Christian or 'given' name, as it is even now generally
termed in New-England, had been intended, by his pious sponsors, humbly to
express his future hopes, turned his head towards the heroic tailor, with
an expression of drollery about the eye, that proved nature had not been
niggardly in the gift of humour, however the quality was suppressed by the
restraints of a very peculiar manner, and no less peculiar education.
"There's an opening now, neighbour Homespun, for an ambitious man," he
said, "sin' his Majesty has lost his stoutest general."
"Yes, yes," returned the individual who, either in his youth or in his
age, had made so capital a blunder in the choice of a profession, "a fine
and promising chance it is for one who counts but five-and-twenty; most of
my day has gone by, and I must spend the rest of it here, where you see
me, between buckram and osnaburghs--who put the dye into your cloth,
Pardy? it is the best laid-in bark I've fingered this fall."
"Let the old woman alone for giving the lasting colour to her web; I'll
engage, neighbour Homespun, provided you furnish the proper fit, there'll
not be a better dress'd lad on the island than my own mother's son! But,
sin' you cannot be a general good-man, you'll have the comfort of knowing
there'll be no more fighting without you. Every body agrees the French
won't hold out much longer, and then we must have a peace for want of
enemies."
"So best, so best, boy; for one, who has seen so much of the horrors of
war as I, knows how to put a rational value on the blessings of
tranquillity!"
"Then you ar'n't altogether unacquainted, good-man, with the new trade you
thought of setting up?"
"I! I have been through five long and bloody wars, and I've reason to
thank God that I've gone through them all without a scratch so big as this
needle would make. Five long and bloody, ay, and I may say glorious wars,
have I liv'd through in safety!"
"A perilous time it must have been for you, neighbour. But I don't
remember to have heard of more than two quarrels with the Frenchmen in my
day."
"You are but a boy, compared to one who has seen the end of his third
score of years. Here is this war that is now so likely to be soon
ended--Heaven, which rules all things in wisdom, be praised for the same!
Then there was the business of '45, when the bold Warren sailed up and
down our coasts; a scourge to his Majesty's enemies, and a safeguard to
all the loyal subjects. Then, there was a business in Garmany, concerning
which we had awful accounts of battles fou't, in which men were mowed down
like grass falling before the scythe of a strong arm. That makes three.
The fourth was the rebellion of '15, of which I pretend not to have seen
much, being but a youth at the time; and the fifth was a dreadful rumour,
that was spread through the provinces, of a general rising among the
blacks and Indians, which was to sweep all us Christians into eternity at
a minute's warning!"
"Well, I had always reckoned you for a home-staying and a peaceable man,
neighbour;" returned the admiring countryman; "nor did I ever dream that
you had seen such serious movings."
"I have not boasted, Pardon, or I might have added other heavy matters to
the list. There was a great struggle in the East, no longer than the year
'32, for the Persian throne. You have read of the laws of the Medes and
the Persians: Well, for the very throne that gave forth those unalterable
laws was there a frightful struggle, in which blood ran like water; but,
as it was not in Christendom, I do not account it among my own
experiences; though I might have spoken of the Porteous mob with great
reason, as it took place in another portion of the very kingdom in which I
lived."
"You must have journeyed much, and been stirring late and early, good-man,
to have seen all these things, and to have got no harm."
"Yes, yes, I've been something of a traveller too, Pardy. Twice have I
been over land to Boston, and once have I sailed through the Great Sound
of Long Island, down to the town of York. It is an awful undertaking the
latter, as it respects the distance, and more especially because it is
needful to pass a place that is likened, by its name, to the entrance of
Tophet."
"I have often heard the spot call'd 'Hell Gate' spoken of, and I may say,
too, that I know a man _well_ who has been through it twice; once in going
to York, and once in coming homeward."
"He had enough of it, as I'll engage! Did he tell you of the pot which
tosses and roars as if the biggest of Beelzebub's fires was burning
beneath, and of the hog's-back over which the water pitches, as it may
tumble over the Great Falls of the West! Owing to reasonable skill in our
seamen, and uncommon resolution in the passengers, we happily made a good
time of it, through ourselves; though I care not who knows it, I will own
it is a severe trial to the courage to enter that same dreadful Strait.
We cast out our anchors at certain islands, which lie a few furlongs this
side the place, and sent the pinnace, with the captain and two stout
seamen, to reconnoitre the spot, in order to see if it were in a peaceful
state or not. The report being favourable, the passengers were landed, and
the vessel was got through, by the blessing of Heaven, in safety. We had
all reason to rejoice that the prayers of the congregation were asked
before we departed from the peace and security of our homes!"
"You journeyed round the 'Gate' on foot?"--demanded the attentive boor.
"Certain! It would have been a sinful and a blasphemous tempting of
Providence to have done otherwise, seeing that our duty called us to no
such sacrifice. But all that danger is gone by, and so I trust will that
of this bloody war, in which we have both been actors; and then I humbly
hope his sacred Majesty will have leisure to turn his royal mind to the
pirates who infest the coast, and to order some of his stout naval
captains to mete out to the rogues the treatment they are so fond of
giving unto others. It would be a joyful sight to my old eyes to see the
famous and long-hunted Red Rover brought into this very port, towing at
the poop of a King's cruiser."
"And is it a desperate villain, he of whom you now make mention?"
"He! There are many he's in that one, lawless ship, and bloody-minded and
nefarious thieves are they, to the smallest boy. It is heart-searching and
grievous, Pardy, to hear of their evil-doings on the high seas of the
King!"
"I have often heard mention made of the Rover," returned the countryman;
"but never to enter into any of the intricate particulars of his knavery."
"How should you, boy, who live up in the country, know so much of what is
passing on the great deep, as we who dwell in a port that is so much
resorted to by mariners! I am fearful you'll be making it late home,
Pardon," he added, glancing his eye at certain lines drawn on his
shop-board, by the aid of which he was enabled to note the progress of the
setting sun. "It is drawing towards the hour of five, and you have twice
that number of miles to go, before you can, by any manner of means, reach
the nearest boundary of your father's farm."
"The road is plain, and the people honest," returned the countryman, who
cared not if it were midnight, provided he could be the bearer of tidings
of some dreadful sea robbery to the ears of those whom he well knew would
throng around him, at his return, to hear the tidings from the port. "And
is he, in truth, so much feared and sought for, as people say?"
"Is he sought for! Is Tophet sought by a praying Christian? Few there are
on the mighty deep, let them even be as stout for, battle as was Joshua
the great Jewish captain, that would not rather behold the land than see
the top-gallants of that wicked pirate! Men fight for glory, Pardon, as I
may say I have seen, after living through so many wars, but none love to
meet an enemy who hoists a bloody flag at the first blow, and who is ready
to cast both parties into the air, when he finds the hand of Satan has no
longer power to help him."
"If the rogue is so desperate," returned the youth straightening his
powerful limbs, with a look of rising pride, "why do not the Island and
the Plantations fit out a coaster in order to bring him in, that he might
get a sight of a wholesome gibbet? Let the drum beat on such a message
through our neighbourhood and I'll engage that it don't leave it without
one volunteer at least."
"So much for not having seen war! Of what use would flails and pitch-forks
prove against men who have sold themselves to the devil? Often has the
Rover been seen at night, or just as the sun has been going down, by the
King's cruisers, who, having fairly surrounded the thieves, had good
reason to believe that they had them already in the bilboes; but, when the
morning has come, the prize was vanished, by fair means or by foul!"
"And are the villains so bloody-minded that they are called 'Red?'"
"Such is the title of their leader," returned the worthy tailor, who by
this time was swelling with the importance of possessing so interesting a
legend to communicate; "and such is also the name they give to his vessel;
because no man, who has put foot on board her, has ever come back to say
that she has a better or a worse; that is, no honest mariner or lucky
voyager. The ship is of the size of a King's sloop, they say, and of like
equipments and form; but she has miraculously escaped from the hands of
many a gallant frigate; and once, it is whispered for no loyal subject
would like to say such a scandalous thing openly, Pardon, that she lay
under the guns of a fifty for an hour, and seemingly, to all eyes, she
sunk like hammered lead to the bottom. But, just as every body was shaking
hands, and wishing his neighbour joy at so happy a punishment coming over
the knaves, a West-Indiaman came into port, that had been robbed by the
Rover on the morning after the night in which it was thought they had all
gone into eternity together. And what makes the matter worse, boy, while
the King's ship was careening with her keel out, to stop the holes of
cannon balls, the pirate was sailing up and down the coast, as sound as
the day that the wrights first turned her from their hands!"
"Well, this is unheard of!" returned the countryman, on whom the tale was
beginning to make a sensible impression: "Is she a well-turned and comely
ship to the eye? or is it by any means certain that she is an actual
living vessel at all?"
"Opinions differ. Some say, yes; some say, no. But I am well acquainted
with a man who travelled a week in company with a mariner, who passed
within a hundred feet of her, in a gale of wind. Lucky it was for them,
that the hand of the Lord was felt so powerfully on the deep, and that the
Rover had enough to do to keep his own ship from foundering. The
acquaintance of my friend had a good view of both vessel and captain,
therefore, in perfect safety. He said, that the pirate was a man maybe
half as big again as the tall preacher over on the main, with hair of the
colour of the sun in a fog, and eyes that no man would like to look upon a
second time. He saw him as plainly as I see you; for the knave stood in
the rigging of his ship, beckoning, with a hand as big as a coat-flap, for
the honest trader to keep off, in order that the two vessels might not do
one another damage by coming foul."
"He was a bold mariner, that trader, to go so nigh such a merciless
rogue."
"I warrant you, Pardon, it was desperately against his will! But it was on
a night so dark--"
"Dark!" interrupted the other; by what contrivance then did he manage to
see so well?"
"No man can say!" answered the tailor, "but see he did, just in the
manner, and the very things I have named to you. More than that, he took
good note of the vessel, that he might know her, if chance, or Providence,
should ever happen to throw her again into his way. She was a long, black
ship, lying low in the water, like a snake in the grass, with a desperate
wicked look, and altogether of dishonest dimensions. Then, every body says
that she appears to sail faster than the clouds above, seeming to care
little which way the wind blows, and that no one is a jot safer from her
speed than her honesty. According to all that I have heard, she is
something such a craft as yonder slaver, that has been lying the week
past, the Lord knows why, in our outer harbour."
As the gossipping tailor had necessarily lost many precious moments, in
relating the preceding history he now set about redeeming them with the
utmost diligence, keeping time to the rapid movement of his needle-hand,
by corresponding jerks of his head and shoulders. In the meanwhile, the
bumpkin, whose wondering mind was by this time charged nearly to bursting
with what he had heard, turned his look towards the vessel the other had
pointed out, in order to get the only image that was now required, to
enable him to do fitting credit to so moving a tale, suitably engraved on
his imagination. There was necessarily a pause, while the respective
parties were thus severally occupied. It was suddenly broken by the
tailor, who clipped the thread with which he had just finished the
garment, cast every thing from his hands, threw his spectacles upon his
forehead, and, leaning his arms on his knees in such a manner as to form a
perfect labyrinth with the limbs, he stretched his body forward so far as
to lean out of the window, riveting his eyes also on the ship, which still
attracted the gaze of his companion.
"Do you know, Pardy," he said, "that strange thoughts and cruel misgivings
have come over me concerning that very vessel? They say she is a slaver
come in for wood and water, and there she has been a week, and not a stick
bigger than an oar has gone up her side, and I'll engage that ten drops
from Jamaica have gone on board her, to one from the spring. Then you may
see she is anchored in such a way that but one of the guns from the
battery can touch her; whereas, had she been a real timid trader, she
would naturally have got into a place where, if a straggling picaroon
should come into the port, he would have found her in the very hottest of
the fire."
"You have an ingenious turn with you, good-man," returned the wondering
countryman; "now a ship might have lain on the battery island itself, and
I would have hardly noticed the thing."
"'Tis use and experience, Pardon, that makes men of us all. I should know
something of batteries, having seen so many wars, and I served a campaign
of a week, in that very fort, when the rumour came that the French were
sending cruisers from Louisburg down the coast. For that matter, my duty
was to stand sentinel over that very cannon; and, if I have done the thing
once, I have twenty times squinted along the piece, to see in what quarter
it would send its shot, provided such a calamity should arrive as that it
might become necessary to fire it loaded with real warlike balls."
"And who are these?" demanded Pardon, with that species of sluggish
curiosity which had been awakened by the wonders related by the other:
"Are these mariners of the slaver, or are they idle Newporters?"
"Them!" exclaimed the tailor; "sure enough, they are new-comers, and it
may be well to have a closer look at them in these troublesome times!
Here, Nab, take the garment, and press down the seams, you idle hussy; for
neighbour Hopkins is straitened for time, while your tongue is going like
a young lawyer's in a justice court. Don't be sparing of your elbow, girl;
for it's no India muslin that you'll have under the iron, but cloth that
would do to side a house with. Ah! your mother's loom, Pardy, robs the
seamster of many an honest job."
Having thus transferred the remainder of the job from his own hands to
those of an awkward, pouting girl, who was compelled to abandon her gossip
with a neighbour, she went to obey his injunctions, he quickly removed
his own person, notwithstanding a miserable limp with which he had come
into the world, from the shop-board to the open air. As more important
characters are, however, about to be introduced to the reader, we shall
defer the ceremony to the opening of another chapter.