Atlantic Monthly - - (free e books to read txt) 📗

“I expect, Long, you sailors hev a drefful hard, onsartain time navigatin’, don’t ye?”

“Well, skipper! that are depen’s on folks. I don’t calk’late to hev no sort of a hard time, ef I don’t get riled with it; but these times I doo rile easy.”

“What onsettles ye, Snapps?”

“Well, there’s a squall to wind’ard, skipper; ‘ta’n’t no cat’s-paw neither; good no-no-east, ef it’s a flaw. And you landlubbers are a-goin’ to leeward, some on ye.”

“You don’t say! what be you a hintin’ at?”

“Well, there’s a reel blow down to Bostin, Zekle; there’s no more gettin’ out o’ harbour with our old sloop; she’s ben an’ gone, an’ got some ‘tarnal lawyer’s job spliced to her bows, an’ she’s laid up to dry; but that’s a pesky small part o’ judgment. Bostin’s full o’ them Britishers, sech as scomfishkated the Susan Jane, cos our skipper done suthin’ he hedn’t oughter, or didn’t do suthin’ he hed oughter; and I tell yew the end o’ things is nigh about comin’ on here!”

Sally, in the chimney corner, heard Long Snapps with open eyes, and hitching her wooden chair nearer, inquired solemnly,—

“What do you mean, Mister Snapps? Is the end of the world comin’ here?”

“Bless your pooty little figger-head, Sally! I don’t know as ‘tis, but suthin’ nigh about as bad is a-comin. Them Britishers is sot out for to hev us under hatches, or else walk the plank; and they’re darned mistook, ef they think men is a-goin’ to be steered blind, and can’t blow up the cap’en no rate. There a’n’t no man in Ameriky but what’s got suthin’ to fight for, afore he’ll gin in to sech tyrints; and it’ll come to fightin’, yet, afore long!”

“Oh my! oh goody! the land’s sakes! yew don’t mean ter say that, Long?” wofully screeched Aunt Poll, whose ideas of war were derived in great measure from the tattered copy of Josephus extant in the Parsons family; and who was at present calculating the probable effect of a battering-ram on their back buttery, and thinking how horrid it would be to eat up Uncle ‘Zekiel in case of famine,—even after long courses of rats and dogs.

“Well, I dew, Aunt Poll; there’ll be some poppin’ an’ stickin’ done in these parts, afore long!”

“The Lord deliver us! an’ the rest on’t!” devoutly ejaculated Poll, whose piety exceeded her memory; whereat ‘Zekiel, pulling on the other blue stocking that had hung suspended in his fingers, while the sailor discoursed, exhorted a little himself.

“Well, the Lord don’t deliver nobody, without they wriggle for themselves pretty consider’ble well fust. This a’n’t the newest news to me; I’ve been expectin’ on’t a long spell, an’ I’ve talked consider’ble with Westbury folks about it; and there a’n’t nobody much, round about here, but what’ll stand out agin the Britishers, exceptin’ Tucker’s folks; they’re desp’rit for Church an’ King; they tell as ef the Lord gin the king a special license to set up in a big chair an’ rewl creation; an’ they think it’s perticular sin to speak as though he could go ‘skew anyhow. Now I believe the Lord lets folks find out what He does, out o’ Scriptur; and I han’t found nothin’ yet to tell about kings bein’ better than their neighbours, and it don’t look as ef this king was so clever as common. I s’pose you ha’n’t heerd what our Colony Congress is a-doin’, hev ye, Snapps?”

“Well, no, I ha’n’t. They was a-layin’ to, last I heerd, so’s to settle their course, I ‘xpect they’ve heaved up an’ let go by this, but I han’t seen no signals.”

“Dear me!” interrupted Sally, “a real war coming! and I a’n’t any thing but a woman!”

Her cheeks and eyes glowed with fervent feeling, as she said this; and the old sailor, turning round, surveyed her with a grin of honest admiration.

“Well said, gal! but you’re out o’ your reckonin’, ef you think women a’n’t nothin’ in war-time. I tell yew, them is the craft that sails afore the wind, and docs the signallin’ to all the fleet. When gals is full-rigged an’ tonguey, they’re reg’lar press-gangs to twist young fellers round, an’ make ‘em sail under the right colors. Stick to the ship, Miss Sally; give a heave at the windlass now’n then, an’ don’t let nary one o’ them fellers that comes a buzzin’ round you the hull time turn his back on Yankee Doodle; an’ you won’t never hanker to be a man, ef ‘tis war-time!”

Sally’s eyes burned bluer than before. “Thank you kindly, Mister Snapps. I’m obleeged to you for putting the good thought into my head. (If I don’t pester George Tucker! the plaguy Tory!)”

This parenthesis was mental, and Sally went off to bed with a busy brain; but the sleep of youth and health quieted it; and if she dreamed of George Tucker in regimentals, I am afraid they were of flagrant militia scarlet;—the buff and blue were not distinctive yet. However, for the next week Sally heard enough revolutionary doctrine to revive her Sunday-night enthusiasm; the flame of “successful rebellion” had spread; the country began to stir and hum ominously; people assembled in groups, on corners, by church steps, around tavern-doors, with faces full of portent and expectance; ploughs stood idly in the fields; and the raw-boned horses, that should of right have dragged the reluctant share through heavy clay and abounding stones, now, bestridden by breathless couriers, scoured the country hither and yon, with news, messages, and orders from those who had taken the right to order out of the hands of sleek and positive officials.

Nor were Westbury people the last to wake up in the general réveille. Everybody in the pretty, tranquil village, tranquil now no more, declared themselves openly on one side or the other;—Peter Tucker and his son George for the king, of course; and this open avowal caused a sufficiently pungent scene in Miss Sally Parsons’s keeping-room the very next Sunday night, when the aforesaid George, in company with several of his peers, visited the farm-house for the laudable purpose of “sparkin’” Miss Sally.

There were three other youths there, besides George; all stout for the Continental side of the question, and full of eager but restrained zeal; ready to take up arms at a moment’s notice; equally ready to wait for the ripened time. Of such men were those armies made up that endured with a woman’s patience and fought with a man’s fury, righting a great wrong as much by moral as by physical strength, and going to death for the right, when death, pitiless and inevitable, stared them in the face.

Long Snapps had been, in his own phrase, “weather-bound” at Westbury, and was there still, safe in the chimney-corner, his shrewd face puckered with thought and care, his steady old heart full of resolute bravery, and longing for the time to come; flint and steel ready to strike fire on the slightest collision. On the other side of the hearth from Snapps sat Zekle in his butternut-colored Sunday suit; the four young men ranged in a grim row of high-backed wooden chairs; Sally, blooming as the roses on her chintz gown, occupying one end of the settle, while Aunt Poll filled the rest of that institution with her ample quilted petticoat and paduasoy cloak, trying hard to keep her hands still, in their unaccustomed idleness,—nay, if it must be told, surreptitiously keeping up a knitting with the fingers, in lieu of the accustomed needles and yarn.

An awful silence reigned after the preliminary bows and scrapes had been achieved,—first broken by George Tucker, who drew from under his chair a small basket of red-cheeked apples and handed them to Aunt Poll.

“Well, now, George Tucker!” exclaimed the benign spinster, “you dew beat all for sass out o’ season! Kep ‘em down sullar, I expect?”

“Yes’m, our sullar’s very dry.”

“Well, it hed oughter. What kind be they?”

“English pippins, ma’am.”

“Dew tell! be you a-goin to hev one, Sally?”

“No, Aunt Poll! I don’t want any thin’ English ‘round!”

The three young men grinned and chuckled. George Tucker turned red.

“Hooray for you, Sally!” sung out old Snapps. “You’re a three-decker, ef ever there was ‘un!”

Again George reddened, fidgeted on his chair, and at last said, in a disturbed, but quite distinct voice,—

“I think the apples are good, Miss Sally, if the name don’t suit you.”

“The name’s too bad to be good, sir!” retorted Sally, with a decided sniff and toss of the head. Old Zekle gave a low laugh and interfered.

“You see, George Tucker, these here times is curus! It wakes up the wimmen folks to hev no tea, nor no prospects of peace an’ quiet, so’s to make butter an’ set hens.”

“Oh, father!” burst out Sally, “do you think that’s all that ails women? I wouldn’t care if I eat samp forever, and had nothing but saxifrax tea; but I can’t stand by cool, and sec men driven like dumb beasts by another man, if he has got a crown, and never be let speak for themselves!”

Sally’s logic was rather confused, but George got at the idea as fast as was necessary.

“If ‘twas a common man, Miss Sally; but a king’s set up on high by the Lord, and we ought to obey what He sets over us.”

“I don’t see where in Scriptur you get that idee, George,” retorted Zekle.

“Well, it says in one place you’re to obey them that has the rule over you, sir.”

“So it do; but ef the king ha’n’t got no rewl over us, (an’ it looks mighty like it jes’ now,) why, I don’t see’s we’re bound to mind him!”

This astute little sophism confounded poor George for a minute, during which Sally began to giggle violently, and flirt in her rustic fashion with the three rebels in a row. At length George, recovering his poise and clear-sightedness, resumed,—

“But he did rule over us, Mister Parsons, and I can’t see how it’s right to rebel.”

“There don’t everythin’ come jest square about seein’ things,” interposed Long Snapps; “folks hed better steer by facts sometimes, than by yarns. It’s jest like v’yagin’; yew do’no’ sumtimes what’s to pay with a compass; it’ll go all p’ints to once; mebbe somebody’s got a hatchet near by, or some lubber’s throwed a chain down by the binnacle, or some darned thing’s got inside on’t, or it’s shipped a sea an’ got rusted; but there’s allers the Dipper an’ the North Star; they’re allers true to their bearin’s, and you can’t go to Davy Jones’s locker for want of a light’us so long’s they’re ahead. I calk’late its jes’ so about this king-talk; orders is very well when they a’n’t agin common sense an’ the rights o’ natur; but you see, George Tucker, folks will go ‘cordin to natur an’ reason, ef there’s forty parlamints an’ kings in tow. Natur’s jest like a no’west squall; you can’t do nothin’ but tack ag’inst it; and no men is goin’ to stan’ still and see the wind taken out o’ their sails, an’ their liberty flung to sharks, without one mutiny to know why!”

“No!” burst out Sally, who had stopped flirting, and been listening with soul and body to Long; “and no man, that is a man, will go against the right and the truth just because the wrong is strongest!”

This little feminine insult was too much for George Tucker, particularly as he had not the least idea how its utterance burned Sally’s lips, and made her heart ache. He got up from his chair with a very bitter look on his handsome face.

“I see,” said he, quite coldly, “I am likely to be scarce welcome here. I believe the king is my master, made so by