The Pilot (61 page)

Cecilia no longer hesitated, but she arose slowly from her knees, and
offered her hand to Griffith with an air of forced resignation.
Katherine submitted to be led by Barnstable to her side; and the
chaplain, who had been an affected listener to the dialogue, in
obedience to an expressive signal from the eye of Griffith, opened the
prayer-book from which he had been gleaning consolation for the dying
master, and commenced reading, in trembling tones, the marriage service.
The vows were pronounced by the weeping brides in voices more distinct
and audible than if they had been uttered amid the gay crowds that
usually throng a bridal; for though they were the irreclaimable words
that bound them forever to the men whose power over their feelings they
thus proclaimed to the world, the reserve of maiden diffidence was lost
in one engrossing emotion of solemnity, created by the awful presence in
which they stood. When the benediction was pronounced, the head of
Cecilia dropped on the shoulder of her husband, where she wept
violently, for a moment, and then resuming her place at the couch, she
once more knelt at the side of her uncle. Katherine received the warm
kiss of Barnstable passively, and returned to the spot whence she had
been led.

Colonel Howard succeeded in raising his person to witness the ceremony,
and had answered to each prayer with a fervent "Amen." He fell back with
the last words; and a look of satisfaction shone in his aged and pallid
features, that declared the interest he had taken in the scene.

"I thank you, my children," he at length uttered, "I thank you; for I
know how much you have sacrificed to my wishes. You will find all my
papers relative to the estates of my wards, gentlemen, in the hands of
my banker in London; and you will also find there my will, Edward, by
which you will learn that Cicely has not come to your arms an
unportioned bride. What my wards are in persons and manners your eyes
can witness, and I trust the vouchers in London will show that I have
not been an unfaithful steward to their, pecuniary affairs!"

"Name it not—say no more, or you will break my heart," cried Katherine,
sobbing aloud, in the violence of her remorse at having ever pained so
true a friend. "Oh! talk of yourself, think of yourself; we are
unworthy—at least I am unworthy of another thought!"

The dying man extended a hand to her in kindness, and continued, though
his voice grew feebler as he spoke:

"Then to return to myself—I would wish to lie, like my ancestors, in
the bosom of the earth—and in consecrated ground."

"It shall be done," whispered Griffith, "I will see it done myself."

"I thank thee, my son," said the veteran; "for such thou art to me in
being the husband of Cicely—you will find in my will that I have
liberated and provided for all my slaves—except those ungrateful
scoundrels who deserted their master—they have seized their own
freedom, and they need not be indebted to me for the same. There is,
Edward, also an unworthy legacy to the king; his majesty will deign to
receive it—from an old and faithful servant, and you will not miss the
trifling gift." A long pause followed, as if he had been summing up the
account of his earthly duties, and found them duly balanced, when he
added, "Kiss me, Cicely—and you, Katherine—I find you have the genuine
feelings of honest Jack, your father.—My eyes grow dim—which is the
hand of Griffith? Young gentleman, I have given you all that a fond old
man had to bestow—deal tenderly with the precious child—we have not
properly understood each other—I had mistaken both you and Mr.
Christopher Dillon, I believe; perhaps I may also have mistaken my duty
to America—but I was too old to change my politics or my religion—I-I-
I loved the king—God bless him—"

His words became fainter and fainter as he proceeded; and the breath
deserted his body with this benediction on his livid lips, which the
proudest monarch might covet from so honest a man.

The body was instantly borne into a stateroom by the attendants; and
Griffith and Barnstable supported their brides into the after-cabin,
where they left them seated on the sofa that lined the stern of the
ship, weeping bitterly, in each other's arms.

No part of the preceding scene had been unobserved by Boltrope, whose
small, hard eyes were observed by the young men to twinkle, when they
returned into the state apartment; and they approached their wounded
comrade to apologize for the seeming neglect that their conduct had
displayed.

"I heard you were hurt, Boltrope," said Griffith, taking him kindly by
the hand; "but as I know you are not unused to being marked by shot, I
trust we shall soon see you again on deck."

"Ay, ay," returned the master, "you'll want no spy glasses to see the
old hulk as you launch it into the sea. I have had shot, as you say,
before now to tear my running-gear, and even to knock a splinter out of
some of my timbers; but this fellow has found his way into my bread-
room; and the cruise of life is up!"

"Surely the case is not so bad, honest David," said Barnstable; "you
have kept afloat, to my knowledge, with a bigger hole in your skin than
this unlucky hit has made!"

"Ay, ay," returned the master, "that was in my upper works, where the
doctor could get at it with a plug; but this chap has knocked away the
shifting-boards, and I feel as if the whole cargo was broken up. You may
say that Tourniquet rates me all the same as a dead man; for after looking
at the shot-hole, he has turned me over to the parson here, like a piece
of old junk which is only fit to be worked up into something new. Captain
Munson had a lucky time of it! I think you said, Mr. Griffith, that the
old gentleman was launched overboard with everything standing, and that
Death made but one rap at his door, before he took his leave!"

"His end was indeed sudden!" returned Griffith; "but it is what we
seamen must expect."

"And for which there is so much the more occasion to be prepared," the
chaplain ventured to add, in a low, humble, and, perhaps, timid voice.

The sailing-master looked keenly from one to the other as they spoke;
and, after a short pause, he continued, with an air of great submission:

"'Twas his luck; and I suppose it is sinful to begrudge a man his lawful
luck. As for being prepared, parson, that is your business, and not
mine; therefore, as there is but little time to spare, why, the sooner
you set about it the better: and, to save unnecessary trouble I may as
well tell you not to strive to make too much of me; for, I must own it
to my shame, I never took learning kindly. If you can fit me for some
middling berth in the other world, like the one I hold in this ship, it
will suit me as well, and, perhaps, be easier to all hands of us."

If there was a shade of displeasure blended with the surprise that
crossed the features of the divine at this extraordinary limitation of
his duties, it entirely disappeared when he considered more closely the
perfect expression of simplicity with which the dying master uttered his
wishes. After a long and melancholy pause, which neither Griffith or his
friend felt any inclination to interrupt, the chaplain replied:

"It is not the province of man to determine on the decrees of the
merciful dispensations of the Deity; and nothing that I can do, Mr.
Boltrope, will have any weight in making up the mighty and irrevocable
decree. What I said to you last night, in our conversation on this very
subject, must still be fresh in your memory, and there is no good reason
why I should hold a different language to you now,"

"I can't say that I logg'd all that passed," returned the master; "and
that which I do recollect fell chiefly from myself, for the plain reason
that a man remembers his own better than his neighbor's ideas. And this
puts me in mind, Mr. Griffith, to tell you that one of the forty-two's
from the three-decker traveled across the forecastle, and cut the best
bower within a fathom of the clinch, as handily as an old woman would
clip her rotten yarn with a pair of tailor's shears! If you will be so
good as to order one of my mates to shift the cable end-for-end, and
make a new bend of it, I'll do as much for you another time."

"Mention it not," said Griffith; "rest assured that everything shall be
done for the security of the ship in your department-I will superintend
the whole duty in person; and I would have you release your mind from
all anxiety on the subject, to attend to your more important interests
elsewhere."

"Why," returned Boltrope, with a little show of pertinacity, "I have an
opinion that the cleaner a man takes his hands into the other world, of
the matters of duty in this the better he will be fitted to handle
anything new.—Now, the parson, here, undertook to lay down the doctrine
last night that it was no matter how well or how ill a man behaved
himself, so that he squared his conscience by the lifts and braces of
faith; which I take to be a doctrine that is not to be preached on
shipboard; for it would play the devil with the best ship's company that
was ever mustered."

"Oh! no—no—dear Mr. Boltrope, you mistook me and my doctrine
altogether!" exclaimed the chaplain; "at least you mistook—"

"Perhaps, sir," interrupted Griffith, gently, "our honest friend will
not be more fortunate now. Is there nothing earthly that hangs upon your
mind, Boltrope? no wish to be remembered to any one, nor any bequest to
make of your property?"

"He has a mother, I know," said Barnstable in a low voice, "he often
spoke of her to me in the night-watches, I think she must still be
living."

The master, who distinctly heard his young shipmates continued for more
than a minute rolling the tobacco, which he still retained, from one
side of his mouth to the other, with an industry that denoted singular
agitation for the man; and raising one of his broad hands, with the
other he picked the worn skin from fingers which were already losing
their brownish yellow hue in the fading color of death, before he
answered:

"Why, yes, the old woman still keeps her grip upon life, which is more
than can be said of her son David. The old man was lost the time the
Susan and Dorothy was wrecked on the back of Cape Cod; you remember it,
Mr. Barnstable? you were then a lad, sailing on whaling voyages from the
island: well, ever since that gale, I've endeavored to make smooth water
for the old woman myself, though she has had but a rough passage of it,
at the best; the voyage of life, with her, having been pretty much
crossed by rugged weather and short stores."

"And you would have us carry some message to her?" said Griffith,
kindly.

"Why, as to messages," continued the master, whose voice was rapidly
growing more husky and broken, "there never has been many compliments—
passed between us, for the reason—that she is not more used to receive
them—than I am to make them. But if any one of you will overhaul—the
purser's books, and see what there is standing here—to my side of the
leaf—and take a little pains to get it to the old woman—you will find
her moored in the lee side of a house—ay, here it is, No. 10 Cornhill,
Boston. I took care—to get her a good warm berth, seeing that a woman
of eighty wants a snug anchorage—at her time of life, if ever."

"I will do it myself, David," cried Barnstable, struggling to conceal
his emotion; "I will call on her the instant we let go our anchor in
Boston harbor; and as your credit can't be large, I will divide my own
purse with her!"

The sailing-master was powerfully affected by this kind offer, the
muscles of his hard, weatherbeaten face working convulsively, and it was
a moment before he could trust his voice in reply.

"I know you would, Dicky, I know you would," he at length uttered,
grasping the hand of Barnstable with a portion of his former strength;
"I know you would give the old woman one of your own limbs, if it would
do a service—to the mother of a messmate—which it would not—seeing
that I am not the son of a—cannibal; but you are out of your own
father's books, and it's too often shoal water in your pockets to help
any one—more especially since you have just been spliced to a pretty
young body—that will want all your spare coppers."

"But I am master of my own fortune," said Griffith, "and am rich."

"Ay, ay, I have heard it said you could build a frigate and set her
afloat all a-taunt-o without thrusting your hand—into any man's purse—
but your own!"

"And I pledge you the honor of a naval officer," continued the young
sailor, "that she shall want for nothing; not eyes the care and
tenderness of a dutiful son."

Boltrope appeared to be choking; he made an attempt to raise his
exhausted frame on the couch; but fell back exhausted and dying, perhaps
a little prematurely, through the powerful and unusual emotions that
were struggling for Boltrope appeared to be choking; he made an attempt
to raise his 'exhausted frame on the couch; but fell back exhausted and
dying, perhaps a little prematurely, through the powerful and unusual
emotions that were struggling for utterance. "God forgive me my
misdeeds!" he at length said, "and chiefly for ever speaking a word
against your discipline; remember the best bower—and look to the slings
of the lower yards—and—and—he'll do it, Dicky, he'll do it! I'm
casting off—the fasts—of life—and so God bless ye all—and give ye
good weather—going large—or on a bowline!"

The tongue of the master failed him, but a look of heart felt
satisfaction gleamed across his rough visage, as its muscles suddenly
contracted, when the faded lineaments slowly settled into the appalling
stiffness of death.

Griffith directed the body to be removed to the apartment of the master,
and proceeded with a heavy heart to the upper deck. The Alacrity had
been unnoticed during the arduous chase of the frigate, and, favored by
daylight, and her light draught of water, she had easily effected her
escape also among the mazes of the shoals. She was called down to her
consort by signal, and received the necessary instructions how to steer
during the approaching night. The British ships were now only to be
faintly discovered like white specks on the dark sea; and as it was
known that a broad barrier of shallow water lay between them, the
Americans no longer regarded their presence as at all dangerous.