My First Cruise Part 3

"What do you mean?" exclaimed the Yankee, changing colour.

"I expect I can show thee," answered Israel. Then, stepping up to the back of the cart, and putting in his hands, he pulled out the black child, and held her up before him, saying, "Now, if thee offers to touch this girl, I think we shall be apt to differ."

The tinman then advanced towards Israel, and, with a menacing look, raised his whip; but the fearless young Quaker (having consigned the little girl to his sisters, who held her between them) immediately broke a stick from a tree that grew near, and stood on the defensive, with a most steadfast look of calm resolution.

The Yankee went close up to him, brandishing his whip, but, before he had time to strike, Israel, with the utmost coolness, and with great strength and dexterity, seized him by the collar, and swinging him round to some distance, flung him to the ground with such force as to stun him, saying, "Mind I don't call myself a fighting character, but if thee offers to get up I shall feel free to keep thee down."

The tinman began to move, and the girls ran shrieking to the house for their father, dragging with them the little black girl, whose screams (as is usual with all of her colour) were the loudest of the loud.

In an instant the stout old farmer was at the side of his son, and notwithstanding the struggle of the Yankee, they succeeded by main force in conveying him to the stable, into which they fastened him for the night.

Early next morning, Israel and his father went to the nearest magistrate for a warrant and a constable, and were followed home by half the township. The county court was then in session; the tinman was tried, and convicted of having kidnapped a free black child, with the design of selling her as a slave in one of the Southern States; and he was punished by fine and imprisonment.

The Warner family would have felt more compa.s.sion for him than they did, only that all the mended china fell to pieces again the next day, and his tins were so badly soldered that all their bottoms came out before the end of the month.

Mrs Warner declared that she had done with Yankee tinmen for ever, and in short with all other Yankees. But the storekeeper, Philip Thompson, who was the sensible man of the neighbourhood, and took two Philadelphia newspapers, convinced her that some of the best and greatest men America can boast of, were natives of the New England States; and he even a.s.serted, that in the course of his life (and his age did not exceed sixty-seven) he had met with no less than five perfectly honest Yankee tinmen; and besides being honest, two of them were not in the least impudent. Amongst the latter, however, he did not of course include a very handsome fellow, that a few years since made the tour of the United States with his tin-cart, calling himself the Boston Beauty, and wearing his own miniature round his neck.

To conclude:--An advertis.e.m.e.nt having been inserted in several of the papers to designate where Dinah, the little black girl, was to be found, and the tinman's trial having also been noticed in the public prints, in about a fortnight her father and mother (two very decent free negroes) arrived to claim her, having walked all the way from their cottage at the extremity of the next county. They immediately identified her, and the meeting was most joyful to them and to her. They told at full length every particular of their anxious search after their child, which was ended by a gentleman bringing a newspaper to their house, containing the welcome intelligence that she was safe at Micajah Warner's.

Amy and Orphy were desirous of retaining little Dinah in the family, and as the child's parents seemed very willing, the girls urged their mother to keep her instead of Chloe, who, they said, could very easily be made over to Israel. But to the astonishment of the whole family, Israel on this occasion proved refractory, declaring that he would not allow his wife to be plagued with such an imp as Chloe, and that he chose to have little Dinah herself, if her parents would bind her to him till she was eighteen.

This affair was soon satisfactorily arranged.

Israel was married at the appointed time, and took possession of the house near the saw-mill. He prospered; and in a few years was able to buy a farm of his own, and to build a stone-house on it. Dinah turned out extremely well, and the Warner family still talk of the night when she was discovered in the cart of the travelling tinman.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER 1.

THE BEAUTIFUL GATE.

One morning, by break of day, old Josiah, who lived in the little cottage he had built, on the borders of the Great Forest, found his wife awake long before him--indeed she had scarcely closed her eyes that night; and she was ready to speak the moment his eyes opened; for she had promised their dear Tiny, their only child, that she would have a private talk with his father. So she said in a low, but distinct voice, as though she were talking to herself:

"I have nursed him, and watched over him year after year. He has been like the sun shining in my path, and precious as a flower. There is not another like him. I love him better than I do my eyes. If he were away I might as well be blind."

"That puts me in mind of what I've been dreaming," said the old man.

"If I was only sure that he would come at last to the Beautiful Gate, I wouldn't say another word. But who can tell? And it it actually happened that he lost his sight--poor Tiny!"

Josiah did not finish what he had begun to say, but hid his face in the bed-clothes, and then the good wife knew that he was weeping, and her own tears began to fall, and she could not say a word.

After breakfast, when Josiah had gone off into the woods, the mother told Tiny of this bit of a conversation, but of course she could not explain about the dream. She knew no more what the boy's father had dreamed than you or I do, only she knew it was something curious and fanciful about the Beautiful Gate.

Tiny listened with great interest to his mother's words, and he smiled as he kissed her when she had done speaking; and he said, "Wait till this evening, mother dear, and you shall see."

And so she waited till the evening.

When they were gathered around the kitchen-fire at night, Tiny took down the harp that hung on the kitchen wall.

It had hung there ever since the day that Tiny was born. A poor old pilgrim gave it on that very day to Josiah in exchange for a loaf of bread. By that I do not mean that Josiah sold the loaf to the poor old hungry pilgrim. Josiah was too charitable to make a trade with a beggar. But the stranger said this strange thing to Josiah:--"I am near to death--I shall sing no more--I am going home. Keep my harp for me until a singer asks you for it, and promises you that he will sing unto the Lord a New Song. Give it to _him_; but be sure before you do so that he is worthy to sing the song unto the Lord."

So Josiah had taken the harp home with him, and hung it on the wall, as I said, on the day that Tiny was born. And he waited for the coming of the poet who should have that wondrous song to sing.

The father, when he saw what it was the boy would do, made a little move as if he would prevent him; but the mother playfully caught the old man's hand, and held it in hers, while she said aloud, "Only one song, Tiny. Your father's rest was disturbed last night--so get through with it as quickly as you can."

At these last words the old man looked well pleased, for he fancied that his wife agreed with him, because he would not yet allow himself to believe that it was for his boy Tiny that the old pilgrim left the harp.

And yet never was a sweeter voice than that of the young singer--old Josiah acknowledged that to himself, and old Josiah knew--he was a judge of such things, for all his life he had been singing songs in his heart.

Yes! though you would never have imagined such a thing, that is, if you are in the habit of judging folks from their outward appearance--he had such a rough, wrinkled face, brown with freckles and tan, such coa.r.s.e, s.h.a.ggy grey hair, and such a short, crooked, awkward figure, you never would have guessed what songs he was for ever singing in his heart with his inward voice--they were songs which worldly people would never hear--only G.o.d and the angels heard them. Only G.o.d and the holy angels!--for as to Kitty, though she was Josiah's best earthly friend, though she knew he was such an excellent man, though she believed that there was not a better man than he in all the world, though year by year he had been growing lovelier and lovelier in her eyes--yes! though his hair, of course, became rougher and greyer, and his figure more bent, and his hands harder, and his teeth were nearly all gone!--growing lovelier because of his excellence, which increased with age as good wine does--still even she, who knew him better than any person on earth, even she knew him so little that she never so much as dreamed that this wonderful voice of Tiny's was but the echo of what had been going on in Josiah's heart and mind ever since he was himself a child!

It was because he understood all this so very well that Josiah was troubled when he thought about his son.

But to go back to the singer in the chimney-corner. Tiny sat alone on his side of the fire-place, in the little chair fashioned out of knotted twigs of oak which his father had made for him long ago. Opposite him were the old folks--the father with his arms folded on his broad chest, the mother knitting beside him, now and then casting a sidelong glance at the old man to see how it went with him.

Wonderful was that song which Tiny sung!

Even the winter wind seemed hushing its voice to hear it, and through the little windows looked the astonished moon.

Josiah lifted up his eyes in great amazement as he heard it, as if he had altogether lost himself. It was nothing like his dream that Tiny sang, though to be sure it was all about a Beautiful Gate.

Altogether about the Beautiful Gate! and of the young poet, who, pa.s.sing through it, went his way into the great Temple of the World, singing his great songs, borne like a conqueror with a golden canopy carried over him, and a golden crown upon his head! Riding upon a white horse splendidly caparisoned, and crowds of people strewing mult.i.tudes of flowers before him! And of the lady who placed the victor's crown upon his head! She was by his side, more beautiful than any dream, rejoicing in his triumph, and leading him on towards her father's palace, the Beautiful Pearl Gates of which were thrown wide open, and the king himself with a bare head stood there on foot, to welcome the poet to the great feast.

With this the song ended, and with a grand sweep of the silver strings Tiny gently arose, and hung the harp against the wall, and sat down again with folded hands and blushing cheek, half frightened, now when all was over, to think what he had done. The fire had vanished from his eyes, and the red glow of his cheek went following after; and if you had gone into Josiah's kitchen just then, you never would have guessed that _he_ was the enchanter who had been raising such a storm of splendid music.

At first the old man could not speak--tears choked his words. "Ahem,"

said he once or twice, and he cleared his voice with the intention of speaking; but for a long time no words followed. At length he said, shaking his head,--"It isn't like what I dreamed--it isn't like what I dreamed;" and one would have supposed that the old man felt himself guilty of a sin by the way he looked at Tiny, it was with so very sad a look.

"But beautifuller," said the mother, "beautifuller, isn't it, Josiah!"

"Yes," answered Josiah; but still he spoke as if he had some secret misgiving--as if he were not quite sure that the beauty of the song had a right to do away with the sadness of his dream.

"But," said Tiny, timidly, yet as if determined that he would have the matter quite settled now and for ever--"_am_ I a singer, father? _am_ I a poet?"

Slowly came the answer--but it actually came, "Yes," with a broken voice and troubled look, and then the old man buried his face in his hands, as if he had p.r.o.nounced some dreadful doom upon his only son.

"Then," said Tiny boldly, rising from his seat, "I must go into the world. It says it needs me; and father, shall _your_ son hide himself when any one in need calls to him for help? I never would have gone, father, if you and mother had not said that I was a singer and a poet.

For you I know would never deceive me; and I made a vow that if ever a time came when you should say that to me, then I would go. But this is my home, father and mother; I shall never get another. The wide world could not give me one. It is not rich enough to build me a home like this."

"Don't speak in that way," said the old man; and he turned away that Tiny should not see his face, and he bent his head upon the back of his chair.

Presently Tiny went softly up to him and laid his hand upon Josiah's arm, and his voice trembled while he said, "Dear father, are you angry with me?"

"No, Tiny," said Josiah; "but what are you going to do with the world?

You! ... my poor boy."

"Good!" said Tiny with a loud, courageous voice--as if he were prepared, single handed, to fight all the evil there was in the world--"Good, father, or I would not have dared to take the pilgrim's harp down from the wall. I will sing," continued he still more hopefully, and looking up smiling into the old man's face--"I will sing for the sick and the weary, and cheer them; I will tell the people that G.o.d smiles on patient labour, and has a reward in store for the faithful, better than gold and rubies. I will get money for my songs, and feed the hungry; I will comfort the afflicted; I will--"

"But," said Josiah solemnly, lifting his head from the back of the chair, and looking at Tiny as if he would read every thought there was in the boy's heart, "What did all that mean about the Beautiful Gate?