Yankee Ships and Yankee Sailors: Tales of 1812 Part 14

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Over fence and hedge."]

It was a great run, that man-hunt, and one remembered to this day. Over fence and hedge, across ditch and stream, the Narragansett led them. No trained hurdler that ever ran across country in the county of Devonshire could have held the pace that Vance kept up. Twice he threw them off the scent by running up a stream and doubling on his tracks.

But the whole countryside was out and after him. The dogs were gaining on him swiftly, and at last at the foot of a great oak they had him cornered. He fought them off with a broken branch, and soon the pack surrounded him in a yelping circle, not daring to come nearer.

Up came the huntsmen. They halted at some distance and talked among themselves. Who among them was brave enough to go up and lay hold of this strange wild man? They called off the dogs and waited for the soldiers. Eight or ten yokels and some farmer folks joined the gaping crowd. Five men appeared with muskets, and one with a long coil of rope. But all this time the Narragansett had stood there with his back against an oak tree, with a sneer on his thin lips. They talked aloud as to how they should capture him. Some were for shooting him down at once; but as yet no one had addressed a word to him direct. Surely, he must speak an outlandish foreign tongue! Suddenly, the fugitive took a step forward and raised his hand.

"Englishmen," he said, "listen to me."

All started back in astonishment. Why, this wild man spoke their own language!

"Who is the chief here? Who is the captain?" Every one looked at a middle-aged man astride a st.u.r.dy brown cob. He was the Squire, and magistrate of the neighborhood.

"Well, upon my soul," he began, "I suppose----"

But the Narragansett interrupted him. "To you I give myself," he said, advancing. He glanced at the others with supreme contempt. As he came forward, he held out his hand, and involuntarily the man on horseback stretched forth his. It was a strange sight, that greeting. The crowd gave way a little, and three or four mounted dragoons came tearing up hill. They stopped in astonishment.

"You gave us a good run," said the Squire, with some embarra.s.sment, not knowing what to say.

"You are too many; I am your prisoner," was the answer.

No one laid hands on him. Walking beside the Squire's horse down to the road, followed by the gaping, gabbling crowd, who still, however, kept aloof, the Narragansett walked proudly erect. When he reached the highway, he turned. There was a cart standing there. The Squire dismounted from his horse and spoke a few words to the driver. Then he mounted to the seat. John Vance sprang up beside him. At a brisk pace they started down the road towards Portsmouth, the soldiers and the hors.e.m.e.n trailing on behind them. At the landing where the boat from the old _Spartan_ met them--for a horseman had ridden on with the news--was waiting a sergeant of marines. He advanced with a pair of handcuffs.

"None of that!" exclaimed the Squire. "This man has given me his word."

"The word of a chief's son," put in the Narragansett. The two men shook hands again; then proudly John Vance stepped into the boat, and unmanacled sat there in the stern sheets.

In twenty minutes he was once more down in the close, foul-smelling 'tween decks.

The only notice taken of the Narragansett's break for liberty was the fact that he was numbered among the next detail bound for Dartmoor; but the tradition of the man-hunt of Squire Knowlton's hounds, and its curious ending, lives in Devonshire to-day.

FIGHTING STEWART

An old sailor sat on the _Const.i.tution's_ forecastle, with his back against the carriage of one of the forward carronades. He was skilfully unwinding a skein of spun yarn which he held over his two bare feet, while at the same time he rolled the ball deftly with his stubby, jointless fingers. A young boy, not over fourteen years of age, lay sprawled flat on the deck beside him, his chin supported in the hollows of his two hands, his elbows on the deck.

"It comes all along o' drinkin' rum, says I," went on the old sailor, continuing some tale he had been telling. "That, I claims, is the reason for many unfortunate doin's; and that is why all them men I was tellin' you about was eat by the cannibals."

"I don't see as it made any difference," broke in the boy, "except perhaps in the taste. If they were bent on going where they did, they'd have been eaten anyhow, wouldn't they?"

"As to that," returned the old sailor, "I contradict ye. Rum sometimes makes a fellow want to fight when it's a tarnel sight braver to run; that is, upon some occashuns."

"Some folks get so they can't even wiggle, let alone run," observed the boy. "I saw our bo'sun----"

"Don't speak uncharitable of your neighbors, son," observed the old man. "All I can say is that I don't take no stock in grog; thereby being' the peculiarest man in the service, I dessay. I've seen lessons, as I was tellin' ye. You see, all those friends of mine would been livin' to-day if they hadn't taken on cargoes of that thar African wine. Yes, they got to suppose that they could lick about twenty times their weight of black n.i.g.g.e.rs, and so they started in, and never come back. But I, not drinkin' nothin', jes' kep' by the boat, an' when them savages come after me, I warn't there. Had a terrible time gettin' off to the ship all alone; but I done it, an' thar's the best temperance lecture I know of. I got a hull lot of texts out of the Good Book; but most people won't listen to 'em; leastways on board of this ship."

"I reckon you are the only man what don't take his grog here," said the boy.

"That I be," returned the old sailor, "and, by Sal, I'm proud of it!

'No, thankee, messmate,' says I when it comes around, 'I don't need that to keep my chronometer goin'.' Then they all laughs generally, and calls me a fresh-water moss-back. Some day 'an I'll git even with 'em."

Old Renwick, although somewhat of a b.u.t.t of the crew, was respected nevertheless because of his being a good seaman, and because he also had made a record for himself in the old days during the war with France and the adventurous times with Preble in the Mediterranean. He was a great favorite with Captain Stewart, then the Commander of the old frigate, and by him he had been promoted to the position of quartermaster. He would never have succeeded in qualifying for the position of boatswain or for any higher grade than that which he now held, for the simple reason that the old fellow was too lenient in his discipline and too ready to condole with the faults of others except where rum was concerned.

It was Renwick's greatest delight to secure a solitary and attentive listener and spin a long yarn to him. He spoke without the usual profane punctuation,--the habit of most seamen,--and when off watch he read his Bible most a.s.siduously. He had had many adventures in his forty-four years at sea, and his memory being a most retentive one, it required little excuse for him to start on a long mental peregrination through the laden fields of his memory.

Many were the occasions when the boy found time to become Renwick's solitary auditor. The lad was bright, and this was but his second voyage at sea. He was one of those children who, although born inland and away from the smell of the ocean, still must inherit from their ancestors the keen desire to seek adventures and see strange countries--he dreamed of ships and the deep. Once firmly rooted, this feeling never dies; despite hardships, wrecks, and disasters, the sailor returns to his calling.

The boy had never seen an action. But he had rejoiced with the rest at America's many victories; he had joined with the crowd that had followed the parading sailors in New York after Hull's great victory, and he had peeped in at the window of the hotel upon the occasion of the dinner given to Decatur and to Bainbridge and to the _Guerriere's_ conqueror--all this while on a visit to the city from his home in the mountains of New Jersey. And thus inflamed with the idea, he had run away to sea, and had made his first voyage, eight or ten months previous to the opening of the story, in a little privateer that had an uneventful cruise and returned to port after taking two small prizes that had offered no resistance. His entering on board the _Const.i.tution_ had been with the permission of his parents, who saw that the only way to hold him from following his bent would be to keep him at home forever under their watchful eyes.

A great war-ship is a small floating world, and, like the world, the dangers that beset a young man starting alone on his career are many.

There are the good and the bad, the leaders and the led; the people who lift up others, and those who lean. It was rather well for the boy that he had met with old Renwick and conceived a friendship for him. From the old sailor the lad had learned much. He was an expert at tying knots already, and he had learned to hand, reef, and steer after a fashion on board the privateer schooner. The royal yards on a man-of-war are always manned by boys, because of their agility and lightness. This boy was a born topman; he exulted in the sense of freedom that comes to one when laying out upon a swaying yard; the bounding exhilaration of the heart, the exciting quickening of the pulse as the great ma.s.s describes arcs of huge circles as the vessel far below swings and rises through the seas.

The attention of the officers had been called to him more than once, and if there was a ticklish job aloft above the cross-trees, the boy was sent to perform it. On one occasion he had excited a reprimand for riding down a backstay head foremost, the First Lieutenant observing, and speaking to him thus: "While that would do for a circus, it wasn't the thing for shipboard." But he was a perfect monkey with the ropes, and nothing delighted him better than scampering up the shrouds, or shinning to the main truck to disengage the pennant halliards. He used to sing, in his shrill, high voice, even when struggling to get in the stiffened canvas in a gale.

On the 20th of February (the year was 1815) the First Lieutenant made the early morning inspection of the ship. He had hoped that the clouds and thickness that had prevailed for a few days would disappear, for it seemed as if for once "Old Ironsides" was pursued by the demon of bad luck in the way of weather. At one P.M., after a fruitless attempt to catch a glimpse of the sun for a noonday sight, the clouds broke away and the breeze freshened. The boy and his companions jumped at the orders to "shorten sail and take in the royals." Quickly they climbed the shrouds, pa.s.sed one great yard after another in their upward journey, and came at last to the royals. The boy was first. He looked down at the narrow deck below him, and at the curved surfaces of the billowing sails. It seemed as if his weight alone would suffice to overturn the vessel. The lightness and delicacy of the entire fabric were never so apparent to him. He could see his companions crawling up, their faces lifted, and panting from their exertions. The sunlight cast dark blue shadows on the sails below. Two great ridges of foam stretched out from the _Const.i.tution's_ bows. The taut sheets had begun to hum under the stress of the increasing breeze. The boy began to chant his strange song--a song of pure exhilaration.

With so many light kites flying, something might carry away at any moment, however, and he heard the officer of the deck shout up for them to hasten. Then he let his eyes rove toward the horizon line as he took his position in the bunt.

Far away against the sky where the clouds shut down upon the water, he saw a speck of white! Leaning back from the yard, he drew a long breath; those on deck stopped their work for an instant, the officer took a step sideways in order the better to see the masthead.

"Sail ho!" clear and distant had come down from the royal yard.

"Where away?" called the officer, making a trumpet of his hands.

"Two points off the larboard bow, sir," was the reply.

"Clew up and clew down," was now the order. The steersman climbed the wheel, and with a great bone in her teeth the _Const.i.tution_ hauled her wind and made sail in chase of the distant stranger. In a quarter of an hour she was made out to be a ship, and then came the cry a second time: "Sail ho!" There was another vessel ahead of the first! A half an hour more, and both were discovered to be ships standing close-hauled, with their starboard tacks on board. At eight bells in the afternoon they were in plain sight from the deck, little signal flags creeping up and down their halliards--ship fashion, they were holding consultation.

Then the weathermost bore up for her consort, who was about ten miles distant and to leeward; and crowding on everything she could carry again, the _Const.i.tution_ boiled along after her. The lower, topmast, topgallant, and royal studding-sails were thrown out, and hand over hand she overhauled them.

The boy was aloft again. He had caught the fever of excitement that even the old hands felt, as they saw that the magazine was open and that powder and shot were being dealt out for the divisions. The half-ports to leeward had to be kept closed to prevent the water from flooding the decks.

The boy stayed after the other youngsters had descended. He could feel the royal mast swaying and whipping like a fishing-rod--the stays were as tight as the strings of a fiddle. They felt like iron to the grasp; they had narrowed under the tension. The wind in the deep sails below played a sonorous ba.s.s to the high treble of their singing. The ship was murmuring like a hive, now and then creaking as she lurched under the pressure.

How it happened the boy never knew; but as suddenly as winking there came a report as of a cannon aloft; the main royal, upon the yard of which he was leaning, flew off, and caught by the tacks and sheets, fell down across the yard below. The main-topgallant mast had been carried clean away. No one, not even the boy himself, knew how it all occurred. Perhaps he had laid hold of one of the reef points. Perhaps he had made a lucky jump. But there he lay in the bight made by the folds of the royal, softly resting against the bosom of the sail below, unhurt, but slightly dizzy. From the hamper of wreckage above hung one of the loosened clew-lines. The end of it reached down to the cross-trees. Reaching forth, the young topman tested it, and seeing it would hold, emerged from his hanging nest, and swinging free for an instant, managed with his monkey-like powers to lay hold of a stay and reach the shrouds. There was a cheer from below, as he sprang to the deck, and this time there was no reprimand.

The loss of her upper sails appeared to impede the speed of the frigate but little. It would not be long now before the bow-chasers might be expected to begin. The men were mustered on the deck. Along came the stewards and the mess-men with the customary grog.

The officers all this time had been busy surveying the two ships. An hour ago they had been p.r.o.nounced to be English.

Old Renwick grumbled as he watched the men pour down the half pannikin of scalding liquor.

"Well, here's to us," chuckled a tall, red-nosed sailor, emptying the stuff down his throat as if it had been spring water. "Here's to us, and every stick in the old ship."

"We ought to get double allowance," put in another man just before it was his turn to take his portion. "There are two of 'em to fight, which makes me twice as thirsty. Here's to the best thing in the world,--grog."

Quartermaster Renwick did not like to hear all this, and overcome by a sudden impulse, he stepped out from behind the bitts. There were two buckets full of the strong-smelling drink resting on the deck. With a sweep of his foot he upset them both! A howl of rage went up from all sides. One of the men loosened a belaying-pin and advanced threateningly. The old sailor stood his ground.