Chapter Fifteen--An Old Acquaintance Turns Up
A year had stolen by since the death of Binny Wallace--a year of which Ihave nothing important to record.
The loss of our little playmate threw a shadow over our young lives formany and many a month. The Dolphin rose and fell with the tide at thefoot of the slippery steps, unused, the rest of the summer. At the closeof November we hauled her sadly into the boat-house for the winter; butwhen spring came round we launched the Dolphin again, and often wentdown to the wharf and looked at her lying in the tangled eel-grass,without much inclination to take a row. The associations connected withthe boat were too painful as yet; but time, which wears the sharp edgefrom everything, softened this feeling, and one afternoon we brought outthe cobwebbed oars.
The ice once broken, brief trips along the wharves--we seldom cared togo out into the river now--became one of our chief amusements. MeanwhileGypsy was not forgotten. Every clear morning I was in the saddlebefore breakfast, and there are few roads or lanes within ten miles ofRivermouth that have not borne the print of her vagrant hoof.
I studied like a good fellow this quarter, carrying off a couple offirst prizes. The Captain expressed his gratification by presenting mewith a new silver dollar. If a dollar in his eyes was smaller than acart-wheel, it wasn't so very much smaller. I redeemed my pencil-casefrom the treasurer of the Centipedes, and felt that I was getting on inthe world.
It was at this time I was greatly cast down by a letter from my fathersaying that he should be unable to visit Rivermouth until the followingyear. With that letter came another to Captain Nutter, which he did notread aloud to the family, as usual. It was on business, he said, foldingit up in his wallet. He received several of these business letters fromtime to time, and I noticed that they always made him silent and moody.
The fact is, my father's banking-house was not thriving. Theunlooked-for failure of a firm largely indebted to him had crippled"the house." When the Captain imparted this information to me I didn'ttrouble myself over the matter. I supposed--if I supposed anything--thatall grown-up people had more or less money, when they wanted it. Whetherthey inherited it, or whether government supplied them, was not clearto me. A loose idea that my father had a private gold-mine somewhere orother relieved me of all uneasiness.
I was not far from right. Every man has within himself a gold-mine whoseriches are limited only by his own industry. It is true, it sometimeshappens that industry does not avail, if a man lacks that somethingwhich, for want of a better name, we call Luck. My father was a personof untiring energy and ability; but he had no luck. To use a Rivermouthsaying, he was always catching sculpins when everyone else with the samebait was catching mackerel.
It was more than two years since I had seen my parents. I felt that Icould not bear a longer separation. Every letter from New Orleans--wegot two or three a month--gave me a fit of homesickness; and when it wasdefinitely settled that my father and mother were to remain in the Southanother twelvemonth, I resolved to go to them.
Since Binny Wallace's death, Pepper Whitcomb had been my fidus Achates;we occupied desks near each other at school, and were always togetherin play hours. We rigged a twine telegraph from his garret window tothe scuttle of the Nutter House, and sent messages to each other ina match-box. We shared our pocket-money and our secrets--those amazingsecrets which boys have. We met in lonely places by stealth, and partedlike conspirators; we couldn't buy a jackknife or build a kite withoutthrowing an air of mystery and guilt over the transaction.
I naturally hastened to lay my New Orleans project before PepperWhitcomb, having dragged him for that purpose to a secluded spot in thedark pine woods outside the town. Pepper listened to me with a gravitywhich he will not be able to surpass when he becomes Chief Justice, andstrongly advised me to go.
"The summer vacation," said Pepper, "lasts six weeks; that will give youa fortnight to spend in New Orleans, allowing two weeks each way for thejourney."
I wrung his hand and begged him to accompany me, offering to defrayall the expenses. I wasn't anything if I wasn't princely in those days.After considerable urging, he consented to go on terms so liberal. Thewhole thing was arranged; there was nothing to do now but to adviseCaptain Nutter of my plan, which I did the next day.
The possibility that he might oppose the tour never entered my head. Iwas therefore totally unprepared for the vigorous negative which metmy proposal. I was deeply mortified, moreover, for there was PepperWhitcomb on the wharf, at the foot of the street, waiting for me to comeand let him know what day we were to start.
"Go to New Orleans? Go to Jericho!" exclaimed Captain Nutter. "You'dlook pretty, you two, philandering off, like the babes in the wood,twenty-five hundred miles, 'with all the world before you where tochoose!'"
And the Captain's features, which had worn an indignant air as he beganthe sentence, relaxed into a broad smile. Whether it was at the felicityof his own quotation, or at the mental picture he drew of Pepper andmyself on our travels.
I couldn't tell, and I didn't care. I was heart-broken. How could I facemy chum after all the dazzling inducements I had held out to him?
My grandfather, seeing that I took the matter seriously, pointed outthe difficulties of such a journey and the great expense involved. Heentered into the details of my father's money troubles, and succeededin making it plain to me that my wishes, under the circumstances, weresomewhat unreasonable. It was in no cheerful mood that I joined Pepperat the end of the wharf.
I found that young gentleman leaning against the bulkhead gazingintently towards the islands in the harbor. He had formed a telescope ofhis hands, and was so occupied with his observations as to be obliviousof my approach.
"Hullo!" cried Pepper, dropping his hands. "Look there! Isn't that abark coming up the Narrows?"
"Where?"
"Just at the left of Fishcrate Island. Don't you see the foremastpeeping above the old derrick?"
Sure enough it was a vessel of considerable size, slowly beating up totown. In a few moments more the other two masts were visible above thegreen hillocks.
"Fore-topmasts blown away," said Pepper. "Putting in for repairs, Iguess."
As the bark lazily crept from behind the last of the islands, she let goher anchors and swung round with the tide. Then the gleeful chant ofthe sailors at the capstan came to us pleasantly across the water. Thevessel lay within three quarters of a mile of us, and we could plainlysee the men at the davits lowering the starboard long-boat. It no soonertouched the stream than a dozen of the crew scrambled like mice over theside of the merchantman.
In a neglected seaport like Rivermouth the arrival of a large ship is anevent of moment. The prospect of having twenty or thirty jolly tarslet loose on the peaceful town excites divers emotions among theinhabitants. The small shopkeepers along the wharves anticipate athriving trade; the proprietors of the two rival boarding-houses--the"Wee Drop" and the "Mariner's Home"--hasten down to the landing to securelodgers; and the female population of Anchor Lane turn out to a woman,for a ship fresh from sea is always full of possible husbands andlong-lost prodigal sons.
But aside from this there is scant welcome given to a ship's crew inRivermouth. The toil-worn mariner is a sad fellow ashore, judging him bya severe moral standard.
Once, I remember, a United States frigate came into port for repairsafter a storm. She lay in the river a fortnight or more, and every daysent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our country's gallant defenders,who spread themselves over the town, doing all sorts of mad things. Theywere good-natured enough, but full of old Sancho. The "Wee Drop" proveda drop too much for many of them. They went singing through the streetsat midnight, wringing off door-knockers, shinning up water-spouts, andfrightening the Oldest Inhabitant nearly to death by popping theirheads into his second-story window, and shouting "Fire!" One morning ablue-jacket was discovered in a perilous plight, half-way up the steepleof the South Church, clinging to the lightning-rod. How he got therenobody could tell, not even blue-
jacket himself. All he knew was, thatthe leg of his trousers had caught on a nail, and there he stuck, unableto move either way. It cost the town twenty dollars to get him downagain. He directed the workmen how to splice the ladders brought to hisassistance, and called his rescuers "butter-fingered land-lubbers" withdelicious coolness.
But those were man-of-war's men: The sedate-looking craft now lying offFishcrate Island wasn't likely to carry any such cargo. Nevertheless, wewatched the coming in of the long-boat with considerable interest.
As it drew near, the figure of the man pulling the bow-oar seemed oddlyfamiliar to me. Where could I have seen him before? When and where? Hisback was towards me, but there was something about that closely croppedhead that I recognized instantly.
"Way enough!" cried the steersman, and all the oars stood upright inthe air. The man in the bow seized the boat-hook, and, turning roundquickly, showed me the honest face of Sailor Ben of the Typhoon.
"It's Sailor Ben!" I cried, nearly pushing Pepper Whitcomb overboard inmy excitement.
Sailor Ben, with the wonderful pink lady on his arm, and the ships andstars and anchors tattooed all over him, was a well-known hero among myplaymates. And there he was, like something in a dream come true!
I didn't wait for my old acquaintance to get firmly on the wharf, beforeI grasped his hand in both of mine.
"Sailor Ben, don't you remember me?"
He evidently did not. He shifted his quid from one cheek to the other,and looked at me meditatively.
"Lord love ye, lad, I don't know you. I was never here afore in mylife."
"What!" I cried, enjoying his perplexity. "Have you forgotten thevoyage from New Orleans in the Typhoon, two years ago, you lovely oldpicture-book?"
Ah! then he knew me, and in token of the recollection gave my hand sucha squeeze that I am sure an unpleasant change came over my countenance.
"Bless my eyes, but you have growed so. I shouldn't have knowed you if Ihad met you in Singapore!"
Without stopping to inquire, as I was tempted to do, why he was morelikely to recognize me in Singapore than anywhere else, I invited him tocome at once up to the Nutter House, where I insured him a warm welcomefrom the Captain.
"Hold steady, Master Tom," said Sailor Ben, slipping the painter throughthe ringbolt and tying the loveliest knot you ever saw; "hold steadytill I see if the mate can let me off. If you please, sir," hecontinued, addressing the steersman, a very red-faced, bow-leggedperson, "this here is a little shipmate o' mine as wants to talk overback times along of me, if so it's convenient."
"All right, Ben," returned the mate; "sha'n't want you for an hour."
Leaving one man in charge of the boat, the mate and the rest of thecrew went off together. In the meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb had got out hiscunner-line, and was quietly fishing at the end of the wharf, as if togive me the idea that he wasn't so very much impressed by my intimacywith so renowned a character as Sailor Ben. Perhaps Pepper was a littlejealous. At any rate, he refused to go with us to the house.
Captain Nutter was at home reading the Rivermouth Barnacle. He wasa reader to do an editor's heart good; he never skipped over anadvertisement, even if he had read it fifty times before. Then the paperwent the rounds of the neighborhood, among the poor people, like thesingle portable eye which the three blind crones passed to each other inthe legend of King Acrisius. The Captain, I repeat, was wandering inthe labyrinths of the Rivermouth Barnacle when I led Sailor Ben into thesitting-room.
My grandfather, whose inborn courtesy knew no distinctions, receivedmy nautical friend as if he had been an admiral instead of a commonforecastle-hand. Sailor Ben pulled an imaginary tuft of hair on hisforehead, and bowed clumsily. Sailors have a way of using their forelockas a sort of handle to bow with.
The old tar had probably never been in so handsome an apartment in allhis days, and nothing could induce him to take the inviting mahoganychair which the Captain wheeled out from the corner.
The abashed mariner stood up against the wall, twirling his tarpaulinin his two hands and looking extremely silly. He made a poor show in agentleman's drawing-room, but what a fellow he had been in his day, whenthe gale blew great guns and the topsails wanted reefing! I thought ofhim with the Mexican squadron off Vera Cruz, where,
'The rushing battle-bolt sung from the three-decker out of the foam,'
and he didn't seem awkward or ignoble to me, for all his shyness.
As Sailor Ben declined to sit down, the Captain did not resume his seat;so we three stood in a constrained manner until my grandfather went tothe door and called to Kitty to bring in a decanter of Madeira and twoglasses.
"My grandson, here, has talked so much about you," said the Captain,pleasantly, "that you seem quite like an old acquaintance to me."
"Thankee, sir, thankee," returned Sailor Ben, looking as guilty as if hehad been detected in picking a pocket.
"And I'm very glad to see you, Mr.--Mr.--"
"Sailor Ben," suggested that worthy.
"Mr. Sailor Ben," added the Captain, smiling. "Tom, open the door,there's Kitty with the glasses."
I opened the door, and Kitty entered the room bringing the things ona waiter, which she was about to set on the table, when suddenly sheuttered a loud shriek; the decanter and glasses fell with a crash to thefloor, and Kitty, as white as a sheet, was seen flying through the hall.
"It's his wraith! It's his wraith!"' we heard Kitty shrieking in thekitchen.
My grandfather and I turned with amazement to Sailor Ben. His eyes werestanding out of his head like a lobster's.
"It's my own little Irish lass!" shouted the sailor, and he darted intothe hall after her.
Even then we scarcely caught the meaning of his words, but when we sawSailor Ben and Kitty sobbing on each other's shoulder in the kitchen, weunderstood it all.
"I begs your honor's parden, sir," said Sailor Ben, lifting histear-stained face above Kitty's tumbled hair; "I begs your honor'sparden for kicking up a rumpus in the house, but it's my own littleIrish lass as I lost so long ago!"
"Heaven preserve us!" cried the Captain, blowing his nose violently--atransparent ruse to hide his emotion.
Miss Abigail was in an upper chamber, sweeping; but on hearingthe unusual racket below, she scented an accident and came amblingdownstairs with a bottle of the infallible hot-drops in her hand.Nothing but the firmness of my grandfather prevented her from givingSailor Ben a table-spoonful on the spot. But when she learned what hadcome about--that this was Kitty's husband, that Kitty Collins wasn'tKitty Collins now, but Mrs. Benjamin Watson of Nantucket--the goodsoul sat down on the meal-chest and sobbed as if--to quote from CaptainNutter--as if a husband of her own had turned up!
A happier set of people than we were never met together in a dingykitchen or anywhere else. The Captain ordered a fresh decanter ofMadeira, and made all hands, excepting myself, drink a cup to the returnof "the prodigal sea-son," as he persisted in calling Sailor Ben.
After the first flush of joy and surprise was over Kitty grew silentand constrained. Now and then she fixed her eyes thoughtfully on herhusband. Why had he deserted her all these years? What right had he tolook for a welcome from one he had treated so cruelly? She had been trueto him, but had he been true to her? Sailor Ben must have guessed whatwas passing in her mind, for presently he took her hand and said--"Well,lass, it's a long yarn, but you shall have it all in good time. It wasmy hard luck as made us part company, an' no will of mine, for I lovedyou dear."
Kitty brightened up immediately, needing no other assurance of SailorBen's faithfulness.
When his hour had expired, we walked with him down to the wharf, wherethe Captain held a consultation with the mate, which resulted in anextension of Mr. Watson's leave of absence, and afterwards in hisdischarge from his ship. We then went to the "Mariner's Home" to engagea room for him, as he wouldn't hear of accepting the hospitalities ofthe Nutter House.
"You see, I'm only an uneddicated man," he remarked to my grandfather,by way of expla
nation.