Altsheler, Joseph - [Novel 05]

by A Herald Of The West (lit)

  The groaning had swelled into a loud moaning, and the leaves and the grass began to flutter as they felt the first breath of the coming gale. Far off we could see the rain streaks borne toward us on the wind.

  We quickly pulled the leather flaps over the roof and sides of the coach, but by the time we had finished the

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  task the moaning had risen to a roar, and trees, bushes, and grass were whipped by the wind.

  Between the edges of the flaps I watched the coming of the rain, which moved toward us a dark bank, as dis tinct as a giant wave. Then, with a rush and a howl, wind and rain were upon us. If their coming was like a great wave, our coach was like a boat struck by it. It rocked under the force of the tempest, and for a mo ment I thought we would go over on our side. The horses, stung by the rain, which was driven against them like sleet, reared and twisted about in their gear, adding to the alarm of solid and respectable merchants, and in creasing the chance of an overturned coach.

  The driver sprang out and seized one of the horses by the head.

  " Here, some of you help me! " he shouted.

  Courtenay, Mercer, and I were out of the coach in a moment, making a man for each horse. Thus we held them steady while the storm shrieked over our heads, dashing fragments of boughs past us and howling through the woods like lean wolves after a buck. We were wet to the bone in half a minute, but we were the youngest and the duty was ours, and travellers who would see the world must expect hardships.

  " We'll lead them up by the side of that hill yonder," said the driver; " it will shelter us partly from the storm."

  We led the frightened horses forward. The water was pouring already along the road, and the mud was deepening under our feet. It splashed in lumps into our faces under the tread of the horses, but with a steep hill on the western side of us we were protected from the full force of the storm, and the horses became quiet.

  Then my comrades and I climbed back into the coach and watched the wild sweep of the rain over the lonesome country. There was some thunder, distant and low, and

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  now and then the lightning flickered across the sky, but it was too early in the season for much thunder and light ning, and the storm, after its first whoop and rush, set tled into a steady chilling rain, pouring out of a sky of solid leaden gray, unrelieved by the tiniest wisp of white. This discouraged us, for we saw now that it was not a storm of the kind soon come, soon gone, but one that would follow us long on our journey to New York.

  The horses shivered in the chilling pour. The air turned much colder, and Courtenay, Mercer, and I, who were wet through, managed to get a change of clothing out of our travelling bags and to transfer ourselves into the dry garments. The leather curtains of the coach were drawn as closely as possible, but the edge of the rain, driven by the wind like the spray of the ocean, penetrated the cracks now and then and stung our faces.

  We stayed there an hour, and, the tempest having abated, though the rain still fell, the driver announced that we must start again.

  "It'll be hard travelling," he said, "but there's no help for it."

  He gave the word to the horses, they strained at the gear, and the heavy vehicle lumbered slowly through the mud, which was now very deep in the road.

  " It's even harder than I expected," said the driver, " but I guess we can make it to Trenton to-night, though we'll be mighty late."

  On we crawled through the mud. The horses' feet sank in it with a plunk, and it flew high in the air at every step they took. Large deposits of New Jersey's richest soil gathered upon the horses, the coach, and even upon us, for the rain had abated so far now that we could dispense with the leather flaps.

  We settled into a solemn and gloomy silence, for we felt that the elements were treating us badly, and we had no desire to be cheerful. Of a sudden there was a snap

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  like a pistol shot, and the front end of the coach settled comfortably down toward the earth. The driver swore rich, profuse oaths. I knew what was the matter with out the telling of it. The front axle had unkindly broken, and the travels of that coach were over for the present.

  We climbed out and looked disconsolately about us. Then the driver spoke up. " As we can't get to Tren ton," he said, " we must pass the night somewhere else. Across those woods yonder there's a farm house that I know. Maybe we can get some kind of food and shelter there."

  He volunteered to go, if any one would go with him, and see what could be done for us at the farm house. I offered myself immediately, and so did Courtenay and Mercer. The others, being older, were willing to stay in the coach until we returned with our news.

  Off we went across a field, and then into the woods. The rain had now ceased and there were some breaks in the clouds, though a shadow far down on the western horizon told us of coming night. We tramped through the dripping woods, but we were cheerful again, for the tide of life rose too high in us three to be checked.

  " The house that we are going to," said the driver, " belongs to an old fellow named Moore, as sour as vine gar, but as rich as cream. He has neither child nor wife, and only two black servants live with him. He'll take us in if we pay him well."

  We reached the house, a solid two-story structure of heavy logs, standing in a small yard, inclosed by a high rail fence, staked and ridered. Moore, a hard-faced man of sixty, appeared in the doorway. He was short and crusty in his answers, but said he was willing to keep us for the night if we would pay his price, and show in advance that we had the money. We took out of our pockets gold enough to settle a night's lodging for a large party and jingled it in his face until his eyes glis-

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  tencd at- the mellow clink. Then we returned for the rest of our shipwrecked mariners.

  We left the broken coach in the road and all went to Moore's house, taking the horses with us. The animals were put in a stable in the rear of the dwelling, where the driver attended to them himself, while we gathered in a group in one of the rooms of the house and waited for supper. The two black servants, of whom the driver had spoken, a middle-aged man and his wife, both very sour and grim, appeared at intervals, passing through the room on their way to their duties, though neither spoke to us.

  But we were a merry party now, since we were warm and dry, and the pleasant odours that tickled our noses told of good things to come. Joke and story went around, even Major Northcote seeming to share in the general good humour, and the best story-teller was the favourite. It is not your pious men who prosper in their travels.

  We were in a large apartment, a kind of dining room, sitting room, and bedroom combined. At one end was a wide fireplace, in which a small fire was burning, for the evening was chill. Strings of red pepper and pop corn and small smoked hams hung over the mantel. This looked comfortable and homelike, despite the scanty fur niture of the room and its general slipshod appearance. The fireplace, with its smoked adornments, reminded me of our kitchen at home in Kentucky, and it was easy then to conjure up pleasant visions.

  The black woman came in and spread the table, and supper was brought to us bacon crisply fried, eggs turned over, hot biscuits with yellow butter, dried apples stewed, and extremely good coffee. It was a much better supper than we had expected, and though we were to pay for it nobly, which was so much extra in the cost of our journey, we did not mind it just then, and became as merry as kings, or as merry as kings ought to be, consid ering that they do little but try to enjoy themselves.

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  But an end must come to the play of knife and fork, and that end came for us at last. We leaned back in our chairs and sighed with content. The driver, who sat at the head of the table, a place that he deserved if ever man did, looked down at us with twinkling eyes.

  " Gentlemen," he said, " I have saved the best for the last. I have been in Mr. Moore's house before, and I know its resources. Mr. Moore, will you not sen
d Sam for the large brown jug? Eemember that we ex change gold for it."

  Our landlord nodded to the black man, and Sam went out, returning presently with a capacious jug, to which much dust and some straws clung. The driver pulled the stopper, and a penetrating odour of the most pleasant quality arose and permeated the room as he filled all our glasses with the precious old whisky. Then we drank, for we had been in the wet and cold, and the blood rose to our heads and we talked in loud voices; nor did we spare the rich liquor and content ourselves with a single drink. The jug went around once, twice, and again.

  Our elders were setting us an example of what kind I don't pretend to say. Talk and laugh grew louder, glass clinked^ against glass, and the big brown jug nobly gave up its contents.

  " A merry evening is not merry without a song," said some one.

  " A song! A song! " repeated the others.

  " Who can sing? " I asked.

  " I can," said Jonathan Starbuck, prim Puritan mer chant of Boston, standing up.

  We cheered with clap of hand and stamp of feet. He unbuttoned his coat and threw it back, to give his chest and lungs room. The ordinary sober brick-red of his face had brightened into crimson, and his eyes were gleaming.

  "Lads," he said, "did youever hear of a ship called

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  the Bon Homrae Kichard, and a captain named Paul Jones?"

  " Yes! yes! " we shouted.

  Every child in America knew how Paul Jones and the Bon llomme Richard had taken the Serapis. I looked around to see in what manner Major Northcote would take this, but he had quietly left the room.

  " I wish I'd been there," said Courtenay.

  "I was there!" said the old merchant. "I fought on the deck of the Bon Homme Eichard, when our shoes ran blood, and Paul Jones, whether to fight or to sail, was the best of all the captains that sailed the seas! A pirate, the English called him, but they would have been willing to pay their weight in gold for a few pirates like him! "

  " A cheer for the veteran of the Bon Homme Rich ard," called Courtenay.

  The roof quivered and the windows rattled.

  The old merchant stood before us, his face flushing with pride as the last echo of our cheer died. But he was not a merchant now, the fire in his eyes was not that of the trader of nearly sixty. It belonged to the wild boy of twenty, who fought while his ship sank under him, and, cutlass in teeth, climbed with Paul Jones, through the smoke and flame, to the enemy's deck and made it his own, by the right of the strongest and the bravest.

  " Yes," he said, " I was there, and I saw and I heard it all: a hell of blood and steel and blazing gunpowder and dripping flesh, but a hell in which I am proud to have had my part, old as I am. But I was with him, too, when we showed our heels to the hostile fleets, and it is of such a time that I'll sing you a song. Listen! It's like the sea now, when the night's dark and wild. Hear the shriek of the wind and the beat of the raindrops on the window panes! The old ship rides the waves now, and, with Paul Jones on the poop, she laughs at storms! "

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  I was on a ship sure enough, for the room was rock ing just like a ship in a sea, and did not the cry of the wind without tell of high waves chasing each other over the angry ocean?

  Eesting one hand upon the table, Starhuck sang, in a deep, mellow, and rolling bass voice that rose far above the whistle of the wind or the beat of raindrop on win dow pane:

  'Tis of a gallant Yankee ship that flew the Stripes and Stars,

  And the whistling wind from the west-nor'west blew through the

  pitch-pine spars.

  With her starboard tack aboard, my boys, she hung upon the gale. On an autumn night we raised the light on the old head of Kinsale.

  It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew steady and

  strong,

  As gayly over the sparkling deep our good ship bowled along ; With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery waves she spread, And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cathead.

  There was no talk of short'ning sail by him who walked the poop, And under the press of her pond'ring jib the boom bent like a hoop, And the groaning waterways told the strain that held her stout

  main tack. But he only laughed as he glanced abaft at a white and silvery

  track.

  The mid-tide meets in the channel waves that flow from shore to shore,

  And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone to Dun- more,

  And that sterling light on Tuskar rock, where the old bell tolls the hour,

  And the beacon light that shone so bright was quenched on Water- ford tower.

  What looms up on the starboard bow? What hangs upon the breeze? ? Tis time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the old Saltees ; For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts four, We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of-war.

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  Up spoke our noble captain then, as a shot ahead of us passed, " Haul snug your flowing courses, lay your topsail to the mast." The Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the deck of their

  covered ark And we answered back by a solid broadside from the deck of our

  patriot bark.

  " Out booms ! Out booms ! " our skipper cried. " Out booms and

  give her sheet." And the swiftest keel that was ever launched shot ahead of the

  British fleet. And amid a thundering shower of shot, with stunsails hoisting

  away, Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer, just at the break of

  day.

  The singer gathered enthusiasm and his song force and volume as he went, and when he turned back and sang it again, we joined him in the rousing lines, with such a chorus that it was not the beat of raindrop and the rush of wind alone that made the window panes rattle. I was sure I was at sea now, because I was rock ing more than ever and I could hear the shriek of the wind through the sails and see the flying foam that the ship left in her track as her nose took the waves, and even hear the guns of Paul Jones as the " swiftest keel that was ever launched shot ahead of the British fleet," giving it a leaden salute as it flew.

  "Now, all together," said the old Puritan, and we thundered out:

  The mid-tide meets in the channel waves that flow from shore to shore,

  And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone to Dun- more,

  And that sterling light on Tuskar rock, where the old bell tolls the hour,

  And the beacon light that shone so bright was quenched on Water- ford tower.

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  We stopped, for the old Puritan had put nis hands to his eyes, and I thought I saw a tear shining on the lid.

  " If I were only twenty again," he said, " money and everything else I have might go to the bottom of the sea! Make me twenty again, and put me on a Yankee deck with a captain like Paul Jones, and I ask no more! They boast themselves the rulers of the sea, lads, and so they are when it's French and Spaniard and Portu guese they have to fight, but in the days of Paul Jones we were as good as they, and now we are better, man for man, gun for gun, and ship for ship. I tell you, it's so, lads. And if the war comes, John Bull will get his face burned, and his heart will be made sick."

  Again the room resounded with our cheers. I had heard something like this from Charlton in Washington, but still, in my cooler moments, I did not believe that our twenty little ships could do anything against their thousand.

  Then we gave a cheer for Jonathan Starbuck, Puritan and veteran of the Bon Homme Eichard, and another for Paul Jones, and another for the Yankee navy, and another for ourselves, and another for everybody who liked us, and then we stopped because we had no more voices.

  Mr. Starbuck sank down in his chair and again put his hand over his face.

  " God forgive me," he groaned, " for letting myself be led off again by the lust of blood, the hell of bat tle! "

  " You were a hero, fighting f
or your country," I said.

  " I am more than fifty years old," he said, " and an enemy of war. God forgive me! "

  He slipped away from the table, and presently our little party broke up, it being full time. Besides, the dining room was now needed as a bedroom.

  Some of us were provided with beds, and some were not. I was one of the " some were not," and six and a

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  half feet of the dining-room floor were allotted to me. I did not mind, as I was used to roughing it, and to a man who had slept out under trees a hard floor for a bed is a small matter.

  I had two blankets from farmer Moore to put beneath me, and my heavy rough overcoat to spread over me. I took off my ordinary coat, and put it under my head as a pillow. Courtenay, Mercer, and two others also slept on the dining-room floor. The driver was the last to make ready for sleep, and he blew out the light and lay down.

  It was still raining. I could hear it as the drops were driven against the thin glass by the irregular bursts of wind. It seemed to be very dark, too, for when the two candles were blown out but little light came through the window. The reek of food and of the whisky that had been drunk impregnated the air of the room, but we were all too sleepy to care. Besides, I was still at sea, though the waves were not rolling so high as they were a half hour before. Some dogs outside howled at the moon, which they could not see. There was rhythm in their howls, and that and the gentle rocking of the room like a cradle lulled me. I went to sleep, and with great promptness proceeded to have a nightmare.

  A large man threw me down and sat upon my chest, crushing bone and body. My muscles became limp, and my breath seemed to cease. I could not make any effort, I could not even will to move, but I could feel the sweat rising upon my forehead, and I could see that the two eyes in the man's head were not eyes at all, but two coals of fire.