Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  Then there were many other days of bright sunlight and of smooth breezy sailing; and still other times of windy, starry nights, when the watch would sit smoking up under the lee sail, and Jack would sit or maybe lie stretched at length listening to them as they spun their yarns — yarns, which, if the truth must be told, were not always fit for the ears of a boy like Jack.

  So the days came and went without any distinct definition of time, as they always do in a long voyage such as this, and then, one soft warm afternoon, Jack saw that there were sea-gulls hovering and circling around the wake of the brig. One of the crew told him that they had come within soundings again, and when he looked over the side of the vessel he saw that the clear, tranquil green of the profounder depths of the ocean had changed to the cloudy, opalescent gray of shoaler waters.

  Then it was the next morning and Jack felt some one shaking him awake. “What is it?” said he, opening his eyes heavily and looking up into the lean face of Sim Tucker that was bent over him.

  The little man was all in a quiver of excitement. “’Tis land!” he cried in a shrill, exultant voice—”’tis land! We’re in sight of land! Don’t you want to get up and see it? You can see it from the deck.” His voice piped shriller and shriller with the straining of his excitement.

  Jack was out of his berth in an instant; and, almost before he knew it, up on deck, barefoot, in the cool brightness of the early day.

  The deck was wet and chill with the dew of the early morning. The sun had not yet risen, but the day was bright, and as clear as crystal. The land lay stretched out sharp and clear-cut in the early morning light — a pure white, thread-like strip of sandy beach, a level strip of green marsh, and, in the far distance, a dark, ragged line of woodland standing against the horizon.

  Jack had seen nothing but the water for so long, and his eyes had become so used to the measureless stretch of ocean all around him, that the land looked very near, although it must have been quite a league away. He stood gazing and gazing at it. The New World! The wonderful new world of which he had heard so much! And now he was really looking at it with his very living eyes. Virginia! That, then, was the New World. He stood gazing and gazing. In the long line of the horizon there was an open space free of trees. He wondered whether that was a tobacco-plantation. There was a single tree standing by itself — a straight, thin trunk, and a spread of foliage at the top. He wondered if it was a palm-tree. He did not then know that there were no palm-trees in Virginia, and that single, solitary tree seemed to him to be very wonderful in its suggestion of a strange and foreign country.

  Then, as he stood gazing, a sudden recollection of the fate that now, in a little while, awaited him in this new world — of his five years of coming servitude. The recollection of this came upon him, gripping him with an almost poignant pang; and he bent suddenly over, clutching the rail tightly with both hands. How would it be with him then? What was in store for him in this new world upon which he was looking? Was it hope or despair, happiness or misery?

  Captain Butts and Mr. Dyce were standing on the poop-deck, the Captain with a glass held to his eye looking out at the land. By and by he lowered the glass, and said something to the mate. Then he handed the glass to the other, who also took a long, steady look at the distant thread of shore.

  Some of the crew were standing in a little group forward. Among the others was Dred, the red bandana handkerchief around his head blazing like a flame in the crystal brightness of the morning. As Jack, still possessed by that poignant remembrance of his coming fate, went up to where they stood, Dred turned and looked at him, almost smiling. The light of the rising sun glinted in his narrow black eyes, and cut in a sharp seam the crooked, jagged scar that ran down his cheek. He nodded at Jack ever so slightly; but he did not say anything, and then he turned and looked out again toward the land. Just then the mate shouted an order, and then the group of sailors broke asunder, some of them running across the deck in their bare feet, throwing loose the ropes from the belaying-pins, others scrambling up the ratlines higher and higher, until they looked like little blots in the mazy rigging against the blue, shining sky overhead.

  It was after sunset when the brig, half sailing, half drifting, floated with the insweep of the tide up into the York River. Jack stood with the other redemption servants gazing silently and intently at the high bluff shores. Above the crest of the bluff they could see the roofs and brick chimneys of the little town. A half-dozen vessels of various sorts were riding at anchor in the harbor, looming darkly against the bright face of the water, just ruffled by the light breeze. The line of a long, straggling wharf reached some distance out across the water to a frame shed at the end. Along the shore toward the bluff were two or three small frame-houses and a couple of big brick buildings. Somebody had told Jack that they were the tobacco warehouses, and they appeared very wonderful to him. A boat was pulling off from the wharf — it was the custom officer’s boat. Other boats were following it, and a sail-boat came fluttering out from the shore into the bright stretch of water. Suddenly there was a thunderous splash. It was the anchor dropped. There was a quick rattling of the cable and a creaking as it drew taut. Then the Arundel swung slowly around with the sweep of the tide, and the voyage was ended.

  A minute later the boat with the custom officer came alongside. Captain Butts met him at the gangway and took him into the cabin. In a little while boats, canoes, and dug-outs came clustering about the Arundel. They all seemed strange and foreign to Jack. Nearly everybody wanted to come aboard, but the mate, who stood at the gangway, allowed only a few to come up on deck. These he directed to the cabin, whither Captain Butts had taken the custom officer. The others remained in their boats below, looking up at the redemption servants who stood crowded at the rail, staring down at them. A ceaseless volley of questions and answers was called back and forth from those below to those above. “Where d’ye come from?” “Gravesend and Southampton.” “What craft is this?” “The Arundel of Bristol.” “Comes from Gravesend, d’ye say?” “Be there any man aboard that comes from Southwark?” “Hey, Johnnie Stivins, here be a man asks of Southwark.” “Hi, there! what are ye doin’, d’ye want to stave us in?” — a babel of a dozen voices at a time.

  Jack stood looking down through the now falling twilight to the figures below, dim and shadowless in the pallid light. Just beneath where he stood was a dug-out that had come off from the shore among the first. It was rowed by a negro naked to the waist. A white man sat in the stern. He appeared to have a kind of hat of woven grasses upon his head. He wore loose cotton trousers and was smoking a leaf of tobacco rolled into a cigarro, the lighted tip of which alternately glowed and faded in the dimming light. How strange and wonderful it all was!

  Just then Captain Butts came out of the cabin with the custom officer. He did not then pay any attention to the group of redemptioners gathered at the rail. He stood looking at the custom officer as he climbed down into the boat. Then he turned sharply around. “Here, Dyce!” he roared to the mate, “send those men down into the steerage. We’ll have half on ’em running away in the dark next we knows on.”

  The transports grumbled and growled among themselves as they were driven below. One or two of them were disposed to joke, but the others swore as they climbed stumblingly down the forecastle ladder.

  The day had been warm, and the steerage was close and hot; a lantern hung from the deck above, and in the dim, dusky light the men stood crowded together. Presently one of them began singing a snatch of a scurrilous song. Other voices joined in the refrain, and gradually the muttering and grumbling began to change into a noisy and rebellious turbulence. The singing grew louder and louder, breaking now and then into a shout or yell.

  Jack had crept into his berth. It was close and stuffy and it smelt heavy and musty after the fresh air above. He felt very dull and numb, and the noises and tumult in the close confines of the steerage stunned and deafened him.

  Suddenly Captain Butts’s voice sounded from the open
scuttle of the forecastle companion way. “What d’ ye mean below there?” he roared; “are ye all gone drunk or crazy? Stop that there noise or I’ll put a stopper on ye that’ll be little enough to your liking! D’ ye hear?”

  A moment’s lull followed his voice; then one of the men gave a shrill cat-call. It was, as a signal, instantly followed by a burst of yells and whistles and jeers. Jack expected to see Captain Butts down among them bodily, but he did not come, and for a while the transports whistled and yelled and shouted unchecked. Presently there was the noise of some one coming down into the forecastle beyond. It was Joe Barkley — one of the sailors. He came into the steerage, and at his coming an expectant lull fell upon the tumult. He carried a cocked and loaded pistol in his hand. His face was stolid and expressionless, and he looked neither to the right nor to the left. “What be ye going to do, Joe,” called out one of the redemptioners. He did not answer; he went straight up to the lantern, opened it, blew out the light, closed it again, and then turned away without saying a word. He went into the forecastle and blew out the lantern there, and then everything was instantly engulfed in an impenetrable and pitchy darkness. A burst of derisive yells followed Joe as he climbed clattering up the forecastle ladder again, but he paid no attention to the jibes and jeers, and the next moment Jack heard the rattling of the slide of the scuttle as it was closed, and then the snapping of the lock. For a while after the lights were put out the uproar was louder than ever. The men thumped and banged and kicked. But in time the pitchy darkness quelled their spirits in spite of themselves, and little by little the turmoil ceased. It broke out intermittently, it quieted again, and then at last it subsided into a muffled grumbling.

  Jack lay in his berth staring into the darkness; his ears seemed to hum and tingle with the black stillness that surrounded him. He felt intensely wide awake as though he could never sleep again. Teeming thoughts passed vividly through his brain. Visions of all he had seen during the day — the sandy shore, the distant strip of pine woods, the restless, crawling waters between — he could almost see the water. But gradually thoughts and visions intermingled, and almost before he knew it he had drifted off into the ocean of sleep.

  CHAPTER IX

  IN VIRGINIA

  SINCE THE CAPITAL of Virginia had been removed from Jamestown to Williamsburg, and since the Governor’s palace and the Government House had been established there, it had become the center of fashion in the colony. Just now the Court was in session, and the Council sitting, and Governor Spottiswood was holding court every Thursday.

  The day was rather close and warm, but there was an unusually large representation of the provincial aristocracy present. It was still not late in the afternoon, but there had already been a good many arrivals, and the gabbling sound of talking filled the assembly room. The Governor, where he stood at the end of the room, was the center of a group of gentlemen who were clustered about him and in his immediate vicinity. It was almost difficult for one to get past them to pay respect to his Excellency. A group, perhaps, would move a little aside to make way for newly arriving ladies and gentlemen, but such as were now coming in could only get to the Governor with a sense of discomfort and of being crowded. In parts of the room more distant from the Governor the talk was, perhaps, more of social matters, but near his Excellency the knots of men discussed things relating to colonial affairs.

  Just then the talk was about a renewed trouble with pirates, who had begun again to infest the mouth of the bay and the North Carolina sounds.

  It was just about this time that Blackbeard had broken his pardon and was again stopping vessels sailing between Virginia and the Carolinas.

  The Pearl and the Lyme, ships of war, were then lying at Jamestown, and some of the officers had come over to pay their respects at the palace. Some of them were standing near listening to Councillor Page, who was just then speaking of the latest depredations of Blackbeard. “He was lying down at Ocracock,” said Mr. Page. “I had a sloop coming from the Tar River with some shingle thatch for my new warehouse. Well, the villains stopped her and came aboard of her. They overhauled her cargo, and I do believe if they’d known ‘t was for me they would have thrown it all overboard. But Williams said naught about that, and so they did not know whose ‘t was. There was nothing on board to serve the villains’ turn, and they might just as well have let the sloop go; but no, there that wretch, Blackbeard, held her for nearly two days, so that she might not give the alarm of his being there to any incoming vessels. Williams — he was the captain of my sloop — Williams said that while he was lying there under the pirates’ guns, he himself saw Blackbeard stop and levy upon some nine vessels of different sorts, rummaging all over their cargoes. He said it was chiefly rum and cloth the villain was after. Williams said that ‘t was reported the villains held every boat that came through the inlet, and would neither let them go in nor come out, but made ’em all lie at anchor under his guns. He hath two armed sloops now and a crew altogether of some forty or sixty men, and twice or thrice as many more to call upon if he chooses.”

  Lieutenant Maynard, of the Lyme, was standing by, listening to the talk.

  “Why, zounds!” said he, “Why then do you people here in the provinces put up with such a rascal as this Teach or Blackbeard or what-ye-call-him? I’d blow him out of the water, were I in his Excellency’s place. Aye, I would fit out an expedition and send it down there and blow the villain clean out of the water and have done with him.”

  “What was that?” said the Governor, turning around smiling toward the speaker. “Tut, tut! Lieutenant, that shows how little you men of war know about civil affairs. How could I, as Governor of Virginia, fit out an expedition and send it down into North Carolina. Ocracock is under Governor Eden’s jurisdiction, not under mine, and ’tis his place to move against pirates in the waters of his own province. They’re inland waters, and under the jurisdiction of North Carolina.”

  “Well, your Excellency,” said Lieutenant Maynard, “to be sure I know naught about the law, and only about fighting. But if a villain stood at my neighbor’s door and stopped my own people from coming out and going in upon my business, and robbed them, By Zounds! your Excellency, I would have it out with him, even if I had to chase him into my neighbor’s house to do it.” The Governor laughed, and the little group around him joined in the laughter. Then his Excellency turned again to meet some new-comers who made their way toward him through the circle surrounding him.

  “I do declare,” said Mr. Dillworth, “methinks Governor Eden of North Carolina is as bad as ever was Fletcher of New York at his worst times. ’Twas through this Blackbeard that poor Ned Parker was murdered — the first young gentleman of Virginia. ’Tis currently known everywhere — and yet Eden grants the villain the King’s pardon as soon as he asks for it. ’Tis said his Excellency — Eden, I mean — has more than once had his share of the booty that the pirates have taken. Why, would you believe it, the villain pirate was only last year up here at Norfolk, coming and going as he pleased, carrying his Majesty’s pardon in his pocket and flaunting it in the eyes of everybody. Well, if ever we catch him, now he hath broken his pardon, ‘t will be a short enough shrift he’ll get of it, I’ll promise him.”

  “How is Colonel Parker now?” asked Mr. Page.

  “He’s about well now,” said Mr. Cartwright, a cousin of Colonel Parker’s. “I was at Marlborough last week, and his gout seems to have fairly left him.”

  “Methinks he hath never been the same man since poor Master Ned was murdered,” said Mr. Dillworth. “I never saw anybody so broken by trouble as he was at that time.”

  “His daughter, Miss Nelly, is a great beauty, I hear,” said Lieutenant Maynard.

  “The girl is well enough,” said Mr. Cartwright briefly.

  A group of some half dozen ladies and two gentlemen were gathered at one of the open windows, into which the warm air blew widely. One of the gentlemen was Mr. Harry Oliver, a young man about eighteen years old. He wore his own hair curled
and hanging to his shoulders, and he put it back with his hand every now and then as he talked. He showed his white teeth when he smiled, and his large, dark eyes moved restlessly hither and thither.

  “Yonder comes Dick Parker,” said he suddenly.

  “Why, so it is,” said Miss Peggy Oliver. They all looked toward the new comer. “Upon my word,” she continued, “he is a man I can’t abide for the life of me. As proud, haughty a man as ever I saw. He turns me to a block of ice whenever I am near him, and I can’t find a word to say for myself.”

  “Why, Peggy,” said Oliver, “that, then, must be why you can’t abide him,” and thereupon the group broke into a laugh.

  Mr. Richard Parker, who had just come into the room, was standing quietly waiting to speak to the Governor. He did not try to push his way through the circle that surrounded his Excellency, and for a while nobody saw him. His handsome, florid face, surrounded by a fine powdered wig, looked calmly and steadily in the direction of the Governor. He stood quite impassive, waiting an opportunity to go forward when he would not have to push his way through the crowd. Presently some one saw him and spoke to the others, and they made way for him almost as with deference. He went forward calmly and paid his respects in a few brief words. He spoke with the Governor for a little while, or rather the Governor spoke to him, and he replied. All the time the Governor was speaking, Mr. Parker was looking steadily and composedly around the room, glancing back toward his interlocutor every now and then to reply. Presently there was a pause, and then at last Mr. Richard Parker bowed and withdrew to a little distance.