Yankee Privateer

by Andre Norton

  But, by several times asking directions, he was at last able to reach his port of call—the Sign of the Lighted Candle—and stepped down into the main room, where a thick fog of tobacco smoke gave notice that a number of patrons were already in residence. Slipping into the nearest vacant seat, he laid a twopence on the table, and the hurrying waiter brought him a cup of the house beverage.

  Crofts had told him enough about these informal London clubs so that he was now able to make the next move. It was perfectly permissible here to speak to one's neighbor without introduction. He studied the six or seven men who were reading, talking, or just sitting, and wondered if any might be Mr. Norwood.

  None were young, and two were quite elderly. They all had a sort of settled look as if the Sign of the Lighted Candle were a ploughed field into which they had put their roots, not easily to be removed therefrom. Fitz turned at last to the man who shared his table.

  "I am seeking Mr. George Norwood, sir. Is he present?"

  "Norwood?" his table companion repeated abstractedly. "Norwood—no—I fear you must be disappointed, sir. He has but yesterday gone into the country. As to when he shall return But perhaps

  Isaac will know that. Isaac!" He raised his voice and the aproned waiter came up to them. "Isaac, did Mr. Norwood chance to say when he would return?"

  "No, sir." Isaac shifted from one foot to the other, eager to be off again. "He did ask that all letters be held against his comin'. But he never stays long away, sir. Leastways he hasn't never before. Mayhap by the end of the week he'll be back. Message for him, sir?"

  "I wish to see him," Fitz answered. "And as I haven't quarters in London as yet "

  His hand went to the money belt about his middle. It was too light now. He had tipped Godfrey lavishly and left a neat sum with Mr. Lodge for the parish charities. For the first time he thought of what it might mean to be in London without funds. There was always Sir Hew—but he could hardly call upon the squire's purse.

  "If it is a room you seek, sir," his table mate began hesitantly, perhaps I could be of assistance. Not commodious quarters "

  Fitz laughed. 'I've the purse of a service officer without high connections, sir."

  The other brightened at such frank confession.

  "This is a meeting place for exiles, sir, as you doubtless already know. Here we are of the slender-purse fraternity and not like to rise out of that state. But my landlady has recently lost a lodger to the debtor's ward. She will be pleased to let his share of space—providing that this time she be paid in advance. As for dining— if you wish I can introduce you to a very good fish ordinary—patronized by the cits—but none the less tasty because of the talk of pounds and pence which flies about the board between bites."

  "It seems to me that I have fallen into very excellent company, sir, and I’ll say yes to both your offers. I am Fitzhugh Lyon, very much at your service."

  The other showed white and even teeth in a quick flash of smile, which took away some of the careworn lines of strain about eyes and mouth. He held out his hand.

  "I am Captain Alan Robinson, late of the King's American Dragoons."

  A Tory Officer! But Fitz's hand was already in the other's grasp. And no horns sprouted from the smooth head across from him, nor did he sniff brimstone when Robinson spoke.

  "You are from the colonies then, Captain Robinson?"

  "Yes, just as yourself, Mr. Lyon."

  Fitz was very still, but Robinson continued easily, "Your voice gives you away, my friend. But you must have influence to wear the navy coat. Colonials are not so esteemed—in either service." His mouth was a bitter line. "We can fight and be killed for the King—well out of the sight of the court, of course. But we backwoods clowns had best remain where we can be conveniently forgotten. Look about you, Lyon. There by the fireplace is Justice Bragg of Boston, an old man nearer sixty than fifty. He had to flee from a mob who had the tar ready and boiling. Five years ago he was worth perhaps twenty thousand pounds. Now he exists —or tries to—on twenty pounds a year. Every man in this room lost all he possessed for a principle and then discovered that he was deemed a traitor if he tried to get enough sustenance to keep life within his body! We are true loyalists, sir—and this is our reward!"

  He kept his voice low but it was savage, as savage is the fingers with which he shredded the edge of a paper he held. His thin face was only a palid frame for his burning, tormented eyes. Suddenly he threw himself back in his seat and laughed harshly.

  "Forgive me this unmannerly outburst, sir. But you will discover, if you linger long among us, that those who are not oversanguine are given to such bitter talk. However, you must be more interested in a lodging —if you will but come with me "

  Robinson reached out for a cane and got fumblingly to his feet. Once he must have been tall, but now he hunched forward, scraping along in a rocking gait which took him over the ground at a surprising rate. It was as if he resented his broken body so much that he drove it to the limit of its powers. Fitz kept up with him down the sweep of Pall Mall, until the Tory turned abruptly into a respectable looking house. In the hall they met the landlady, and Fitz, following Robinson's example, paid her the compliments due a lady of quality.

  For a gold piece, the last he had in his pocket, she showed him a small but neatly kept room on the first floor, and he was glad to put down the bundle which comprised his luggage. Then, with Robinson lurching along beside him, they sought out, through a maze of streets, the promised ordinary.

  The long table was set for twenty, and a good half of the seats were already occupied as the two Americans entered. At the head was the armchair held by the chairman whose small, wrinkled face bobbed not far above the board. The Tory introduced Fitz to him with some ceremony, naming the pro-tem host as Master Edmund Seedly.

  Master Seedly had presided at this same table daily for some forty odd years and was now one of the proudly touted features of the establishment. But he was also a shrewd man of business who did not intend to retire from the amusement of commerce until he was laid underground.

  When all the seats were filled, Master Seedly rapped for order and commanded that the cheese be brought. Robinson whispered an explanation to Fitz. The cheese, a mountain-sized wheel of red-yellow which must have been the master work of a dairy maid, was duly admired—two waiters carrying it about the table between them. Then a piece of paper was laid before each diner, and he guessed the weight of the cheese, their wager slips being passed to Master Seedly. Fitz jotted down a wild guess and added it to the nineteen others laid at the chairman's right hand.

  "It is the matter of winning a guinea for the man who guesses right," Robinson had said. He watched the pile of slips eagerly and Fitz knew, with a prick of pity, that to Robinson the wager might be very important indeed.

  The dish which Master Seedly served up to them, plate by steaming plate, was flavorsome. Fitz spooned it up hungrily. His breakfast had been the usual tea, butter, and bread, and he was honestly empty now. It appeared that his neighbors were as bad off—for there was little or no conversation to interrupt more serious work. But having swallowed the last bite of a really superlative apple tart, he leaned back in his chair to listen to those who had finished the race before him.

  And they had news worth hearing, considering his late occupation, for the two gentlemen to his left were much concerned about the depredations of those

  American privateers which had had the criminal audacity to strike down their prey even within the home waters of the greatest navy on earth. Honest indignation mingled with a real distaste for the war. Fitz had heard rumors that all was not well within the bosom of London when it came to raising funds for the King's suppression of rebellion overseas. But now he listened to talk which was only a thin shade removed from downright treason. King George might desire this dragging, impoverishing war—but the powerful "City" did not.

  Crofts, then, had been right. Strike the merchants in their pockets, and the end of the war would be in sight
. Especially a war which many Englishmen did not altogether believe in. He glanced at Robinson, wondering how an exile who had fought for a forgetful King would relish such notions. But the Tory showed no signs of dissent to the conversation about him.

  "The war seems to find small favor here," Fitz ventured.

  "Their trade suffers. But then the City has never favored it. They are for peace and full pockets. In the end they'll bring pressure to bear and the King's ministers will be forced into the path they choose."

  "You mean—the colonists will win?" This from a Tory rocked Fitz.

  "Like as not. They have managed to hold out against the worst the King has sent against them. I held to the Crown because I believed—and still believe—that the mob has no right to rule over men of intelligence and birth. Can I truthfully say that Justice Bragg is merely the equal of the howling scum who tried to hunt him down? I held true to my breeding and joined Thompson's regiment. We fought—fought when the British with us wouldn't go in! It was life or death for us. Why, all of us had kin on the other side. My own brother "

  He stopped and then continued, "Yes, we knew that it was life or death. Well—it's death, that's beginning to be plain now. When their privateers can sail at will in the Channel, and the French march along with the regiments of the American Line—our cause is finished!" He snapped a bread pill across the table.

  Just then Master Seedly called for order and opened the cheese wagers. To his open delight Robinson was the winner. But before the Tory arose to receive their applause and the guinea, he patted Fitz's coat-sleeve.

  "You are a piece of luck, famous luck! I have come here these good three months and this is the first time I have won. The blessings of an out-at-the-heels, broken-down dragoon are all yours, sir—for what they may be worth."

  And so set was Robinson in the belief that Fitz had brought him luck that he would hardly let the sailor out of his company. Perforce Fitz found himself borne about London the next few days, taken to see the sights as if he were any country cousin up to gawk at the great city.

  Necessary additions to his wardrobe and other expenses cut his small store of round pieces to a dangerously low level. But the hope that any day might bring Norwood back to the coffee house held him to the life he shared with Robinson.

  The wound which had deprived Robinson of both martial future and the hope of an active life had made the Tory bitter. But now he discovered in his younger countryman a companion who lifted him out of the depths of his brooding. And Fitz found that he could not be deliberately blind to the other's need.

  Alan Robinson was a man of parts and good education. During the past year he had spent in London pressing his claim for a pension, he had been able to eke out his slender means by writing articles on the American scene for some of the journals. And he admitted to Fitz that he had at times drawn lurid pictures of Indian warfare which were issued as chap-books for the edification of such of the ballad-reading public who were delighted to think shiveringly of being murdered in bed by Redskins. But crime and warfare—in writing—did not pay overmuch, and an aspiring author without a patron to bring him to the booksellers' attention had little hope of filling his purse.

  Although Robinson was a well-informed guide and the sights of London were many, Fitz began to be uneasy at Norwood's nonappearance. And one day he had a shock which added to his feeling of insecurity.

  He had accompanied the Tory to a printer where

  A name leaped out at him.

  Captain Robinson hoped to collect the few shillings owed him for a ballad lately written. And, as his companion argued over the true amount of this sum with the proprietor, Fitz wandered about the small outer shop, looking at the woodcuts of "wanted" men on the wall posters. From one such smudged strip a name leaped out at him.

  "The Notorious Pirate Daniel Crofts, lately fled from His Majesty's Prison at Plymouth. One hundred guineas Reward shall be paid " he read the words aloud just under his breath. So Crofts had not been taken! On impulse he turned to the printer's clerk.

  "This placard," he pointed to the woodcut which pictured a ferocious, blackbearded monster, not unlike his childish imagining of the Giant Fee-Fo-Fum, and having nothing in common with the slight, gentlemanly Crofts, "this placard may be given out to travelers, perhaps? To be posted in other parts of the country?"

  "Just so, sir. Do you desire to take one? A hundred guineas is a neat sum to earn by merely sighting the man " The clerk rummaged through a pile of papers. "And you being a naval gentleman, sir, might come nigher to it than the rest of us." He laughed, and Fitz echoed him coldly.

  The American hurriedly inspected the rest of the wall display. If Crofts was so posted, surely he must be there somewhere too. But the name Fitzhugh Lyon did not appear in the gallery of desperate rogues. With some relief he accepted the folded poster from the clerk and went out of the shop with Robinson.

  That afternoon he cornered Isaac at the coffee house and tried to learn the probable whereabouts of Norwood. But neither Isaac nor the manager of the establishment could give him any information. And when he continued to press the point, he thought that Barnes, the manager, began to eye him strangely.

  It shook him further that same evening when Robinson gave him a note which had been left at the lodging house. It was only an invitation to dine with Sir Hew. But the very fact that the baronet had been able to locate him in some fashion made him unhappy.

  The day after his arrival in town, he had gone to the other's chambers for a courtesy visit and had been pleased to discover the squire out. Common politeness had dictated the regrets he had written and left with Sir Hew's man. But Fitz was sure that he had not mentioned his own dwelling or the Sign of the Lighted Candle.

  He sat in his room, the invitation in his hand, puzzled as to what to do about it. Bred in the tradition of the plantation country he simply could not force himself to be prudent and ignore it. Sir Hew had carried him to town. He owed the squire something for that. A quiet dinner in the baronet's own rooms was not too great a sacrifice of safety.

  Fitz grinned. There was another point to be considered—he would dine very well at Sir Hew's and be nothing out of pocket for it. And so forcefully did the gnawing of a healthy appetite goad him that he wrote an acceptance and sent it off by one of the coffee-house servants.

  Having smartened up his dress to the best of his ability he went to Sir Hew's rooms promptly at the stroke of four, and was shown up to the sitting room from which the booming voice of his host revealed that he was not the sole guest. Fitz hesitated at that, but the squire's man had he door open and he had to go in.

  Sir Hew's other guest was a tall man, well featured and pleasant of voice. He was plainly dressed, but his linen, Fitz noted with envy, was very fine, and the cloth and cut of his coat were both above the ordinary. Sir Hew introduced him as Mr. Hastings Burnette, a follower of the law from the Middle Temple. And Mr. Burnette speedily proved himself the best of dinner companions. He had a ready wit, which the squire rated highly, and all the most amusing tittle-tattle of the town at his tongue tip.

  But Fitz came to realize early in the hour that he was being skillfully pumped and, aroused to danger, he was as wary as an Indian on the war trail. After he had parried one or two carefully worded questions, Burnette relinquished the contest. But, warned, Fitz only sipped very sparingly of his wine, realizing that he must keep his head steady during the evening. A plea of his head injury from the tumble on the moor gave him an excellent excuse to refuse both port and burgundy. And he sat listening almost without answer to Burnette's smooth flow of talk until, with politeness, he could leave.

  The man of law offered to share in the protection of a linkboy, and since their paths lay together for a space, Fitz could not refuse without giving offense. It was just before they parted that Burnette asked bluntly the one question Fitz dreaded most.

  "You are of the Lyons of Starr, sir? I note the crest on your ring "

  That unlucky ring which he had only kept
by him because his mother had treasured it and because it was his single inheritance from his father! He resolved there and then to rid himself of it as soon as he could.

  "Not of the main family, no, sir. I come from a cadet branch in the north."

  Burnette nodded. "Yes. You have little of the Starr look, save the eyes. Well, this has been a most pleasant evening. If you remain long in the city perhaps we may repeat it."

  Fitz bowed politely; repeat such an evening they would not—if he had anything to say in the matter!

  14

  "I Am an American, Sir—"

  Yet boast not, haughty Britons, of power and dignity,

  By land thy conquering armies,

  Thy matchless strength at sea;

  Since taught by numerous instances

  Americans can fight,

  With valor can equip their stand,

  Your armies put to flight.

  —cruise of the Fair American

  The next morning Fitz invaded the room of the sleepy Robinson and demanded the address of the nearest pawnshop. Robinson frowned.

  “So you're one of us already, Lyon?" he asked with a yawn. "Well, you need not venture far. Due to a whim of our royal master the Sign of the Lighted Candle can serve you in this matter, and Isaac is probably as honest a bargainer as any."

  "But a coffee shop?"

  Robinson yawned again and lounged over to the mirror to regard with open disfavor his unshaven chin. "It is simple enough. The Prince of Wales chanced to be engaged in a wager on a main and his purse was flat. Knowing him too well—as all his followers got to know him in time—his companions wanted to see the color of his round pieces before the transaction. So he bobs into the nearest coffee house—in this instance the Lighted Candle—throws his watch at Isaac and demands a round sum in pawn. Within a few days thereafter Barnes gets a license as a pawnbroker. True, it's devilish handy for us poor exiles."