10 Another Side of a Puritan

It was my intention to leave the next morning for New York. Philadelphia had its attractions for me, but I had stayed long enough on the northward journey, and then New York would most likely offer pleasures, too, and I would have another chance at Philadelphia on the return trip.

I presented one of my letters to Hezekiah Broadbent, a rich merchant of the Quaker persuasion, by whom I was entertained most hospitably, though he seemed to think that the Western people were rough and wanting in a due respect for the richer and older East, and after a pleasant evening I strolled back to the tavern, where I found both Mercer and Courtenay waiting for me, much to my surprise and my equal pleasure. Mercer explained that legal business in Washington being so dull he had decided to take a northern journey, and Courtenay, who was doing nothing, readily agreed to come with him. They had arrived at the tavern in the evening stagecoach, and, hearing that I was there too, concluded to travel with me. Of course I was glad to have them, and asked them the news of Washington, was everybody well? and thus asking after each I came to Marian Pendleton.

“She is still the handsomest woman in Washington,” said Mercer.

“Did she send any word to me?” I asked.

“No,” he replied, a trifle shortly.

I took no offence, for a moment’s reflection showed me that if she intended any message to me she would be likely to choose some other messenger.

I was delighted at the arrival of Mercer and Courtenay. I would now have comrades in seeing the world, and if the right of choice had been left to me I would have chosen these very two. Before going to breakfast in the morning I made an announcement.

“Boys,” I said, “I have seen enough already to know that the tour of the North and the East in this good year 1811 is not without danger; remember that, whatever happens, we are to stick by each other.”

“We three together!” we said, and, having pledged our faith as comrades in all sincerity, we took breakfast.

Major Northcote, who seemed to have become my shadow, or I his, was standing beside the stagecoach when we arrived there.

“You see you can not shake me off,” he said jestingly.

He nodded to Mercer and Courtenay, whom he knew, and we took our places, as the driver cracked his whip for the start.

Now that we were on the high road between the largest two cities of the country we noticed that the travel was growing heavier, and we met people in their own coaches and others on horseback. Some of our passengers seemed to be men of note, substantial merchants of New York and Philadelphia travelling on business, and their talk was all of the prospective war and its effects upon trade. There were no women or children in the coach.

We made the acquaintance of these men very easily, and, at their suggestion, joined in the conversation with them. In the West we seldom looked beyond our own continent, and that had once been my own outlook, but I soon noticed that these Eastern merchants took a wider view, and included all the lands and seas in their calculations.

I paid special attention to one of the merchants, a man of fifty or more, very staid and sober of countenance, and clothed in sombre garb, like a Quaker or Puritan. He asked me many sharp questions about the West, and I noticed that he used scriptural texts very freely. I set him down as a pious man from Boston or Salem. He seemed to be horrified at the thought of war.

“A war with Great Britain will be fatal to our seaboard towns,” he said.

I did not think we should sacrifice everything for the sake of the seaboard towns, and said so, but he was aghast at the suggestion, thus giving me a good idea of the timidity with which wealth views all political disturbances.

Finding that we were from Washington, and that I had been in the Government service, they put us to as searching a cross-examination as a lawyer ever inflicts upon a witness. But we were in nowise loath, and answered all their questions about the disposition of the Government, and the pressure put upon it by others, as directly and promptly as we could. The puritanical looking man was the shrewdest of our questioners, and I soon discovered that he was really a merchant of Boston, and that his name was Jonathan Starbuck.

Thus talking, we became well acquainted with each other, all except Major Northcote, whose silence the others respected, for they saw at once that he was not an American, and we three did not even say that we knew him.

I did not notice until we were far on the road to New York that the fair weather with which we had started was not to accompany us all the way. In fact, the warmth had been a little too great for that time of the year. The atmosphere soon became close, and the wind ceased. One breathed then with difficulty, as if the heaviness of the air clogged the lungs. The conversation began to lag, for it was an effort to talk. In the southeast a little cloud appeared, just peeping over the rim of the earth.

The driver whipped his horses, and they broke into a trot. As they were a fresh relay, and we had a good bit of road before us, the coach spun along at a fine gait. It rattled much, and hub complained loudly to axle, but the increased speed created a breeze for us which cooled our faces, and to some extent the air came purer to our lungs.

On the heavy coach swept, and Felix called my attention to the cloud in the southwest. It was not now a baby cloud hugging the earth, but in the vigour of growing and increasing youth was creeping up the circle of the southwestern heavens, large enough to fling a gray shadow over that part of the earth.

When we stopped at a little brook to water the horses, the air became breathless again. Trees, twigs, blades of grass were as stiff as if they were made of immovable stone. The heat seemed to increase, and the air became denser and heavier.

The southwest began to groan, and the darkness spread from that quarter to all the heavens. The air was gray and misty. All of us were silent, watching the storm as it came. The western clouds turned from gray into a black, through which a dark blue tint shone. Suddenly they parted, as if beneath the stroke of a sword, and a long streak of fire, extending from the centre of the heavens to the western earth, cut the sky. Most of us started in our seats.

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 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 distinct 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 moment 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 increasing 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 now and then the lightning flickered across the sky, but it was too early in the season for much thunder and lightning, and the storm, after its first whoop and rush, settled 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 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 without 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 Trenton,” 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 vinegar, 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 glistened 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 popcorn and small smoked hams hung over the mantel. This looked comfortable and homelike, despite the scanty furniture 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, considering that they do little but try to enjoy themselves.

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 send Sam for the large brown jug? Remember that we exchange 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 merchant 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 you ever hear of a ship called the Bon Homme Richard, and a captain named Paul Jones?”

“Yes! yes!” we shouted.

Every child in America knew how Paul Jones and the Bon Homme 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 Richard, 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 Richard,” 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!”

I was on a ship sure enough, for the room was rocking 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?

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

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 rocking 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:

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 Portuguese 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 Richard, 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 battle!”

“You were a hero, fighting for 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 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.

Just at the moment when I had resigned myself to death, I awoke and found that I was wholly alive. No man was sitting on my chest, and all in the room except myself were sleeping well, if the sound of loud breathing could be taken as proof. The air there was still heavy and thick, and knowing very well what had ailed me I slipped my coat on, and passing into the hall opened the front door and breathed the fresh air of the night. It was still raining, and the darkness hung heavy, but I put my head out and let the wind dash the cold drops in my face. It was wonderfully refreshing after my nightmare and the close, hot room. I drew my head back, and the voice of Major Northcote asked:

“Do you feel better after your revel, Philip?”

He was standing there fully dressed, and in reply to my questioning look said:

“I could not sleep because of the noise you and your comrades made, being an old man and a light sleeper at the best.”

“Why do you call it a revel?” I asked in reply to his first question, which plainly had been asked with sarcastic intent.

“Was not that the name for it?” he replied, “or was it too mild? It would be better to say a common drinking bout. And that old Boston merchant, too, singing a wild song, as if he were a reckless boy. You have no dignity in this country.”

He was sneering now.

“Perhaps it was the best impulse in him that made him sing that song,” I retorted; “and if you call drinking a lack of dignity, then there is not much dignity to waste in your beloved England.”

“That is beside the mark,” he replied; “but I can tell you again, Cousin Philip, that I am sorry to see you in such company and liking it. I offered you other and greater opportunities once, a chance for a career among people who are not provincials. How can you live a full life here? Have you not begun to see yet the worth of what you have refused so lightly?”

I could not tell whether he was speaking from regard, or what he thought to be regard, of me, or because he believed he saw a chance to attack us.

“The people at whom you are sneering are quite good enough for me,” I said, “and, besides, they are my own. I wish no others.”

“As you choose,” he said. “A man has a right to his own opinion, however bad it may be. But lest you should wonder what has become of me, I tell you that I am to leave early in the morning by a private conveyance that I have obtained from the man who owns this house.”

Again I wished him a safe journey, but secretly I trusted that he would sail for England as soon as he could. Then I went back to the room, and soon fell into a sounder and better sleep.

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