Part 15 (1/2)
”Sence the little la.s.s and I got spliced!” roared Sailor Ben. ”There's another coincydunce for you!”
On hearing this we all clapped hands, and the Captain, with a degree of ceremony that was almost painful, drank a b.u.mper to the health and happiness of the bride and bridegroom.
It was a pleasant sight to see the two old lovers sitting side by side, in spite of all, drinking from the same little cup--a battered zinc dipper which Sailor Ben had unslung from a strap round his waist. I think I never saw him without this dipper and a sheath-knife suspended just back of his hip, ready for any convivial occasion.
We had a merry time of it. The Captain was in great force this evening, and not only related his famous exploit in the War of 1812, but regaled the company with a das.h.i.+ng sea-song from Mr. Shakespeare's play of The Tempest. He had a mellow tenor voice (not Shakespeare, but the Captain), and rolled out the verse with a will:
”The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I, The gunner, and his mate, Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery, But none of us car'd for Kate.”
”A very good song, and very well sung,” says Sailor Ben; ”but some of us does care for Kate. Is this Mr. Shawkspear a seafarin' man, sir?”
”Not at present,” replied the Captain, with a monstrous twinkle in his eye.
The clock was striking ten when the party broke up. The Captain walked to the ”Mariner's Home” with his guest, in order to question him regarding his future movements.
”Well, sir,” said he, ”I ain't as young as I was, an' I don't cal'ulate to go to sea no more. I proposes to drop anchor here, an' hug the land until the old hulk goes to pieces. I've got two or three thousand dollars in the locker, an' expects to get on uncommon comfortable without askin' no odds from the a.s.sylum for Decayed Mariners.”
My grandfather indorsed the plan warmly, and Sailor Ben did drop anchor in Rivermouth, where he speedily became one of the inst.i.tutions of the town.
His first step was to buy a small one-story cottage located at the head of the wharf, within gun-shot of the Nutter House. To the great amus.e.m.e.nt of my grandfather, Sailor Ben painted the cottage a light sky-blue, and ran a broad black stripe around it just under the eaves.
In this stripe he painted white port-holes, at regular distances, making his residence look as much like a man-of-war as possible. With a short flag-staff projecting over the door like a bowsprit, the effect was quite magical. My description of the exterior of this palatial residence is complete when I add that the proprietor nailed a horseshoe against the front door to keep off the witches--a very necessary precaution in these lat.i.tudes.
The inside of Sailor Ben's abode was not less striking than the outside.
The cottage contained two rooms; the one opening on the wharf he called his cabin; here he ate and slept. His few tumblers and a frugal collection of crockery were set in a rack suspended over the table, which had a cleat of wood nailed round the edge to prevent the dishes from sliding off in case of a heavy sea. Hanging against the walls were three or four highly colored prints of celebrated frigates, and a lithograph picture of a rosy young woman insufficiently clad in the American flag. This was labelled ”Kitty,” though I'm sure it looked no more like her than I did. A walrus-tooth with an Esquimaux engraved on it, a shark's jaw, and the blade of a sword-fish were among the enviable decorations of this apartment. In one corner stood his bunk, or bed, and in the other his well-worn sea-chest, a perfect Pandora's box of mysteries. You would have thought yourself in the cabin of a real s.h.i.+p.
The little room aft, separated from the cabin by a sliding door, was the caboose. It held a cooking-stove, pots, pans, and groceries; also a lot of fis.h.i.+ng-lines and coils of tarred twine, which made the place smell like a forecastle, and a delightful smell it is--to those who fancy it.
Kitty didn't leave our service, but played housekeeper for both establishments, returning at night to Sailor Ben's. He shortly added a wherry to his worldly goods, and in the fis.h.i.+ng season made a very handsome income. During the winter he employed himself manufacturing crab-nets, for which he found no lack of customers.
His popularity among the boys was immense. A jackknife in his expert hand was a whole chest of tools. He could whittle out anything from a wooden chain to a Chinese paG.o.da, or a full-rigged seventy-four a foot long. To own a s.h.i.+p of Sailor Ben's building was to be exalted above your fellow-creatures. He didn't carve many, and those he refused to sell, choosing to present them to his young friends, of whom Tom Bailey, you may be sure, was one.
How delightful it was of winter nights to sit in his cosey cabin, close to the s.h.i.+p's stove (he wouldn't hear of having a fireplace), and listen to Sailor Ben's yarns! In the early summer twilights, when he sat on the door-step splicing a rope or mending a net, he always had a bevy of blooming young faces alongside.
The dear old fellow! How tenderly the years touched him after this--all the more tenderly, it seemed, for having roughed him so cruelly in other days!
Chapter Seventeen--How We Astonished the Rivermouthians
Sailor Ben's arrival partly drove the New Orleans project from my brain.
Besides, there was just then a certain movement on foot by the Centipede Club which helped to engross my attention.
Pepper Whitcomb took the Captain's veto philosophically, observing that he thought from the first the governor wouldn't let me go. I don't think Pepper was quite honest in that.
But to the subject in hand.
Among the few changes that have taken place in Rivermouth during the past twenty years there is one which I regret. I lament the removal of all those varnished iron cannon which used to do duty as posts at the corners of streets leading from the river. They were quaintly ornamental, each set upon end with a solid shot soldered into its mouth, and gave to that part of the town a picturesqueness very poorly atoned for by the conventional wooden stakes that have deposed them.
These guns (”old sogers” the boys called them) had their story, like everything else in Rivermouth. When that everlasting last war--the War of 1812, I mean--came to an end, all the brigs, schooners, and barks fitted out at this port as privateers were as eager to get rid of their useless twelve-pounders and swivels as they had previously been to obtain them.