The Red Rover Part 18

"The villain!" continued the enraged termagant, catching her breath like a person that had just been submerged in water longer than is agreeable to human nature, and forcing her way through the crowd, with such vigour as soon to be in a situation to fly to her secret hordes, in order to ascertain the extent of her misfortune; "the sacrilegious villain! to rob the wife of his bosom, the mother of his own children, and"--

"Well, well," again interrupted the landlord of the 'Foul Anchor,' with his unseasonable voice, "I never before heard the good-man suspected of roguery, though the neighbourhood was ever backward in calling him chicken-hearted."

The old seaman looked the publican full in the face, with much meaning in his eye, as he answered,--

"If the honest tailor never robbed any but that virago, there would be no great thieving sin to be laid to his account; for every bead he had about him wouldn't serve to pay his ferryage. I could carry all the gold on his neck in my eye, and see none the worse for its company. But it is a shame to stop the entrance into a licensed tavern, with such a mob, as if it were an embargoed port; and so I nave sent the woman after her valuables, and all the idlers, as you see, in her wake."

Joe Joram gazed on the speaker like a man enthralled by some mysterious charm; neither answering nor altering the direction of his eye, for near a minute. Then, suddenly breaking out in a deep and powerful laugh, as if he were not backward in enjoying the artifice, which certainly had produced the effect of removing the crowd from his own door to that of the absent tailor, he flourished his arm in the way of greeting, and exclaimed,--"Welcome, tarry Bob; welcome, old boy, welcome! From what cloud have you fallen? and before what wind have you been running, that Newport is again your harbour?"

"Too many questions to be answered in an open roadstead, friend Joram; and altogether too dry a subject for a husky conversation. When I am birthed in one of your inner cabins, with a mug of flip and a kid of good Rhode Island beef within grappling distance, why, as many questions as you choose, and as many answers, you know, as suits my appet.i.te."

"And who's to pay the piper, honest Bob? whose ship's purser will pay your check now?" continued the publican, showing the old sailor in, however, with a readiness that seemed to contradict the doubt, expressed by his words, of any reward for such extraordinary civility.

"Who?" interrupted the other, displaying the money so lately received from Wilder, in such a manner that it might be seen by the few by-standers who remained, as though he would himself furnish a sufficient apology for the distinguished manner in which he was received; "who but this gentleman? I can boast of being backed by the countenance of his Sacred Majesty himself, G.o.d bless him!"

"G.o.d bless him!" echoed several of the loyal lieges; and that too in a place which has since heard such very different cries, and where the words would now excite nearly as much surprise, though far less alarm, than an earthquake.

"G.o.d bless him!" repeated Joram, opening the door of an inner room, and pointing the way to his customer, "and all that are favored with his countenance! Walk in, old Bob, and you shall soon grapple with half an ox."

Wilder, who had approached the outer door of the tavern as the mob receded, witnessed the retreat of the two worthies into the recesses of the house, and immediately entered the bar-room himself. While deliberating on the manner in which he should arrive at a communication with his new confederate, without attracting too much attention to so odd an a.s.sociation, the landlord returned in person to relieve him. After casting a hasty glance around the apartment, his look settled on our adventurer, whom he approached in a manner half-doubting, half-decided.

"What success, sir, in looking for a ship?" he demanded now recognizing, for the first time, the stranger with whom he had before held converse that morning. "More hands than places to employ them?"

"I am not sure it will so prove. In my walk on the hill, I met an old seaman, who"--

"Hum!" interrupted the publican, with an intelligible though stolen, sign to follow. "You will find it more convenient, sir, to take your breakfast in another room." Wilder followed his conductor, who left the public apartment by a different door from that by which he had led his other guest into the interior of the house, wondering at the air of mystery that the innkeeper saw fit to a.s.sume on the occasion. After leading him by a circuitous pa.s.sage. The latter showed Wilder, in profound silence, up a private stair-way, into the very attic of the building. Here he rapped lightly at a door, and was bid to enter, by a voice that caused our adventurer to start by its deepness and severity. On finding him self, however, in a low and confined room, he saw no other occupant than the seaman who had just been greeted by the publican as an old acquaintance and by a name to which he might, by his attire, well lay claim to be ent.i.tled--that of tarry Bob. While Wilder was staring about him, a good deal surprised at the situation in which he was placed, the landlord retired, and he found himself alone with his confederate. The latter was already engaged in discussing the fragment of the ox, just mentioned, and in quaffing of some liquid that seemed equally adapted to his taste, although sufficient time had not certainly been allowed to prepare the beverage he had seen fit to order. Without allowing his visiter leisure for much further reflection, the old mariner made a motion to him to take the only vacant chair in the room, while he continued his employment on the surloin with as much a.s.siduity as though no interruption had taken place.

"Honest Joe Joram always makes a friend of his butcher," he said, after ending a draught that threatened to drain the mug to the bottom. "There is such a flavour about his beef, that one might mistake it for the fin of a halibut. You have been in foreign parts, shipmate, or I may call you 'messmate,' since we are both anch.o.r.ed nigh the same kid--but you have doubtless been in foreign countries?"

"Often; I should else be but a miserable seaman."

"Then, tell me frankly, have you ever been in the kingdom that can furnish such rations--fish, flesh, fowl, and fruits--as this very n.o.ble land of America, in which we are now both moored? and in which I suppose we both of us were born?"

"It would be carrying the love of home a little too far, to believe in such universal superiority," returned Wilder, willing to divert the conversation from his real object, until he had time to arrange his ideas, and a.s.sure himself he had no other auditor but his visible companion. "It is generally admitted that England excels us in all these articles."

"By whom? by your know-nothings and bold talkers. But I, a man who has seen the four quarters of the earth, and no small part of the water besides, give the lie to such empty boasters. We are colonies, friend, we are colonies; and it is as bold in a colony to tell the mother that it has the advantage, in this or that particular, as it would be in a foremast Jack to tell his officer he was wrong, though he knew it to be true. I am but a poor man, Mr--By what name may I call your Honour?"

"Me! my name?--Harris."

"I am but a poor man, Mr Harris; but I have had charge of a watch in my time, old and rusty as I seem, nor have I spent so many long nights on deck without keeping thoughts at work, though I may not have overhaul'd as much philosophy, in so doing, as a paid parish priest, or a fee'd lawyer.

Let me tell you, it is a disheartening thing to be nothing but a dweller in a colony. It keeps down the pride and spirit of a man, and lends a hand in making him what his masters would be glad to have him. I shall say nothing of fruits, and meats, and other eatables, that come from the land of which both you and I have heard and know too much, unless it be to point to yonder sun, and then to ask the question, whether you think King George has the power to make it shine on the bit of an island where he lives, as it shines here in his broad provinces of America?"

"Certainly not: and yet you know that every one allows that the productions of England are so much superior"--

"Ay, ay; a colony always sails under the lee of its mother. Talk does it all, friend Harris. Talk, talk, talk; a man can talk himself into a fever, or set a ship's company by the ears. He can talk a cherry into a peach, or a flounder into a whale. Now here is the whole of this long coast of America, and all her rivers, and lakes, and brooks, swarming with such treasures as any man might fatten on, and yet his Majesty's servants, who come among us, talk of their turbots, and their sole, and their carp, as if the Lord had only made such fish, and the devil had let the others slip through his fingers, without asking leave."

Wilder turned, and fastened a look of surprise on the old man, who continued to eat, however, as if he had uttered nothing but what might be considered as a matter of course opinion.

"You are more attached to your birth-place than loyal, friend," said the young mariner, a little austerely.

"I am not fish-loyal at least. What the Lord made, one may speak of, I hope, without offence. As to the Government, that is a rope twisted by the hands of man, and"--

"And what?" demanded Wilder, perceiving that the other hesitated.

"Hum! Why, I fancy man will undo his own work, when he can find nothing better to busy himself in. No harm in saying that either, I hope?"

"So much, that I must call your attention to the business that has brought us together. You have not go soon forgotten the earnest-money you received?"

The old sailor shoved the dish from before him, and, folding his arms, he looked his companion full in the eye, as he calmly answered,--

"When I am fairly enlisted in a service, I am a man to be counted on. I hope you sail under the same colors, friend Harris?"

"It would be dishonest to be otherwise. There is one thing you will excuse, before I proceed to detail my plans and wishes: I must take occasion to examine this closet, in order to be sure that we are actually alone."

"You will find little there except the toggery of some of honest Joe's female gender. As the door is not fastened with any extraordinary care, you have only to look for yourself, since seeing is believing."

Wilder did not seem disposed to wait for this permission; he opened the door, even while the other was speaking, and, finding that the closet actually contained little else than the articles named by his companion, he turned away, like a man who was disappointed.

"Were you alone when I entered?" he demanded, after a thoughtful pause of a moment.

"Honest Joram, and yourself."

"But no one else?"

"None that I saw," returned the other, with a manner that betrayed a slight uneasiness; "if you think otherwise, let us overhaul the room.

Should my hand fall on a listener, the salute will not be light."

"Hold--answer me one question; who bade me enter?"

Tarry Bob, who had arisen with a good deal of alacrity, now reflected in his turn for an instant, and then he closed his musing, by indulging in a low laugh.

"Ah! I see that you have got your ideas a little jammed. A man cannot talk the same, with a small portion of ox in his mouth, as though his tongue had as much sea-room as a ship four-and-twenty hours out."

"Then, you spoke?"

"I'll swear to that much," returned Bob, resuming his seat like one who had settled the whole affair to his entire satisfaction; "and now, friend Harris, if you are ready to lay bare your mind, I'm just as ready to look at it."

Wilder did not appear to be quite as well content with the explanation as his companion, but he drew a chair, and prepared to open his subject.

"I am not to tell you, friend, after what you have heard and seen, that I have no very strong desire that the lady with whom we have both spoken this morning, and her companion, should, sail in the 'Royal Caroline.' I suppose it is enough for our purposes that you should know the fact; the reason why I prefer they should remain where they are, can be of no moment as to the duty you are to undertake."

"You need not tell an old seaman how to gather in the slack of a running idea!" cried Bob, chuckling and winking at his companion in a way that displeased the latter by its familiarity; "I have not lived fifty years on blue water, to mistake it for the skies."

"You then fancy, sir, that my motive is no secret to you?"

"It needs no spy-gla.s.s to see, that, while the old people say, 'Go,' the young people would like to stay where they are."

"You do both of the young people much injustice then; for, until yesterday, I never laid eyes on the person you mean."