USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume II > Part 27
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of hair would send the boy a beard." In the main Will bore their jokes without flinching, and returned them with even measure, but some- times when they verged to rudeness, his rising blush or a tear stealing from his downcast eye, expressed an instinctive and unsullied modesty, whose appeal touched the best feelings of these coarse men.
The ship made a prosperous voyage; and in due time arrived off the American coast. It is a common custom with sailors to greet the first sight of land with a sacrifice to Bacchus. The natural and legalized revel was as extravagant on this, as it usually is on similar occasions. The captain with unwonted good humor dealt out the liquor most liberally to the crew, and bade William sing them his best songs. Will obeyed, and song after song, and glass after glass carried them, as they said, far above high water mark. Their language and manners became intoler- able to William, and he endeavored to steal away with the intention of hiding himself in the cabin till the revel was over. One of the sailors suspecting his design, caught him rudely and swore he would detain him in his arms. William struggled, freed himself, and darted down the companion way, the men following and shouting.
The captain stood at the entrance of the cabin door. William sunk down at his feet terrified and exhausted, and screaming "protect me- oh! for the love of heaven, protect me."
The captain demanded the occasion of the uproar, and ordered the men to stand back. They however, stimulated to reckless courage, and in sight of land, and independence, no longer feared his authority, and they swore that they would not be baulked in their frolic. Poor Will, already feeling their hands upon him, clung in terror to the captain, and one fear overcoming another, confessed that his masculine dress was a disguise, and wringing his hands with shame and anguish, supplicated protection as a helpless girl.
The sailors, touched with remorse and pity, retreated; but the brutal captain spurned the trembling supplicant with his foot, swearing a round oath that it was the first time he had been imposed on, and it should be the last. Unfortunately the old man, priding himself on his sagacity, was as confident of his own infallibility as the most devoted Catholic is of the Pope's. This was his last voyage, and after playing Sir Oracle for forty years-to have been palpably deceived-incontro- vertibly outwitted by a girl of fifteen, was a mortification that his vanity could not brook. He swore he would have his revenge, and most strictly did he perform his vow. He possessed a plantation in the vicinity of Oxford; thither he conveyed the unhappy girl, and degraded her to the rank of a common servant among the negro slaves in his kitchen.
The captain's wrath was magnified by the stranger's persisting in re- fusing to disclose the motive of her deception, to reveal her family, or even to tell her name. Her new acquaintances were at a loss what to call her, till the captain's daughter, who had been on a visit to Phila- delphia, and seen the Winter's Tale performed there, bestowed on her the pretty appellative of Hermione's lost child, Perdita.
The captain, a common case, was the severest sufferer by his own pas-
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sions. His wife complained that his "venture," as she provokingly styled poor Perdita, was a useless burden on her household-a "fine lady born and bred, like feathers and flowers and French goods, pretty to look at, but fit for no use in the world. The captain's daughters, partly instigated by compassion, and partly by the striking contrast between the delicate graces of the stranger and their own buxom beauty, inces- santly teased their father to send her back to her own country; and neighbors and acquaintances were forever letting fall some observation on the beauty of the girl, or some allusion to her story, that was as a spark of fire to the captain's gun-powder temper.
.. Weeks and months rolled heavily on without a dawn of hope to poor Perdita. She was too young and inexperienced herself to contrive any mode of relief, and no one was likely to undertake voluntarily the difficult enterprise of rescuing her from her thraldom. Her condition was thus forlorn, when her story same to the ears of Frank Stuart, a gallant young sailor on board the Hazard, a vessel lying in the stream off Oxford, and on the eve of sailing for Cowes in the Isle of Wight. Frank stood deservedly high in the confidence of his commander, and on Sunday, the day preceding that intended for the departure of the ship, he obtained leave to go on shore. His youthful imagination was excited by the story of the oppressed stranger, and he strolled along the beach in the direction of her master's plantation, in the hope of gratifying his curiosity by a glimpse of her. As he approached the house he perceived that the front blinds were closed, and inferring thence that the family were absent, he ventured without the bounds of the plantation, and saw at no great distance from him a young female sitting on a bench beneath a tree. She leaned her head against its trunk, with an air of dejected- ness and abstraction, that encouraged the young man to hope he had already attained his object. As he approached nearer, the girl started from her musings and would have retreated to the house, but suddenly inspired by her beauty and youth with a resolution to devote himself to her service, he besought her to stop for one instant to listen to him. She turned and gazed at him as if she would have perused his heart. Frankness and truth were written on his face by the finger of heaven. She could not fear any impertinence from him, and farther assured by his respectful manner, when he added, "I have something particular to say to you-but we must luff and bear away, for we are in too plain sight of the look out there," and he pointed to the house-she smiled and followed him to a more secluded part of the grounds. As soon as he was sure of being beyond observation, "Do you wish," he asked with professional directness, "to return to old England."
She could not speak, but she clasped her hands, and the tears gushed like an opened fountain from her eyes-"you need not say any more, you need not say any more," he exclaimed, for he felt every fear to be a word spoken to his heart-"If you will trust me," he continued, "I swear, and so God help me as I speak the truth, I will treat you as if you were my sister. Our ship sails tomorrow morning at day light, make a
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tight bundle of your rigging, and meet me at twelve o'clock tonight at the gate of the plantation. Will you trust me?"
"Heaven has sent you to me," replied the poor girl, her face brighten- ing with hope, "and I will not fear to trust you."
They then separated-Perdita to make her few preparations and Frank to contrive the means of executing his romantic enterprise.
Precisely at the appointed hour the parties met at the place of ren- dezvous. Perdita was better furnished for her voyage than could have been anticipated, from the durance she had suffered. A short notice and a scant wardrobe, were never known to oppose an obstacle to a heroine's compassing sea and land, but as we have dispensed with the facilities of fiction, we are bound to account for Perdita's being in pos- session of the necessaries of life, and it is due to the captain's daughter to state that her feminine sympathy had moved her from time to time to grant generous supplies to Perdita, which our heroine did not fail to acknowledge on going away, by a letter enclosing a valuable ring.
A few whispered sentences of caution, assurance and gratitude, were reciprocated by Frank and Perdita, as they bent their hasty steps to the landing place where he had left his boat; and when he had handed her into it, and pushed from the shore on to his own element, he felt the value of the trust which this beautiful young creature had reposed in him. Never in the days of knightly deeds was there a sentiment of purer chivalry than that which inspired the determined resolution and romantic devotion of the young sailor. He was scarcely twenty, the age of fearless project and self-confidence. How soon is the one checked by disappointments-the other humbled by experience of the infirmity of human virtue!
Stuart had not confided his designs to any of his shipmates. He was therefore obliged warily to approach the ship, and to get on board with the least possible noise. He had just time to secrete Perdita amidst bales of tobacco in the darkest place in the hold of the vessel, when a call of 'all hands on deck,' summoned him to duty. He was foremost at his post, and all was stir and bustle to get the vessel under way. The sails were hoisted-the anchor weighed, and all in readiness, when a signal was heard from the shore, and presently a boat filled with men seen approaching. The men proved to be Perdita's master, a sheriff, and his attendants. They produced a warrant empowering them to search the vessel. The old captain affirmed that the girl had been seen on the preceding day talking with a young spark, who was known to have come on shore from the Hazard. In his fury he foamed at the mouth, swore he would have the runaway dead or alive, and that her aider and abettor should be given over to condign punishment. The master of the Hazard declared that if any of his men were found guilty he would resign them to the dealings of land law, and to prove that if there were a plot, he was quite innocent, he not only freely abandoned his vessel to the search, but himself was most diligent in the inquest. The men were called up, confronted and examined; not one appeared
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more cool and unconcerned than Frank Stuart, and after every inquiry, after ransacking as they believed every possible place of concealment, the pursuers were compelled to withdraw, baffled and disappointed.
The vessel proceeded on her voyage. Frank requested the Captain's permission to swing a hammock alongside his berth on the pretence that the berth was rendered damp and unwholesome by a leak in the deck above it. This reasonable petition was of course granted, and when night had closed watchful eyes, and dropped her friendly veil, so essen- tial to the clandestine enterprises of the most ingenious, Frank rescued Perdita from a position, in which she had suffered not only the incon- veniences, but the terrors of an African slave; and wrapping her in his own dreadnaught, and drawing his watchcap over her bright luxuri- ant hair, he conducted her past the open door of the captains' stateroom, and past his sleeping companions, to his own berth; then whispering to her that she was as safe as a ship in harbour, he gave her some bread and a glass of wine, for which he had bartered his allowance of spirits, and laid himself down in his own hammock to the companionship of such thoughts as are ministering angels about the pillow of the virtuous.
The following day a storm arose-a storm still remembered as the most terrible and disastrous that ever occurred in Chesapeake Bay. There were several passengers of consequence on board the Hazard, among others two deacons who were going to the mother country to receive orders-for then, we of the colonies, who have since taken all rights into our own hands, dared not exercise the rights God has given us, without the assent of the Lords Bishops. Night comes on, the storm increased, and then, when the ship was in extremity, when death howled in every blast, when "the timid shrieked and the brave stood still"- then was the unwearied activity, the exhaustless invention and uncon- querable resolution of Frank Stuart, the last human support and help of the unhappy crew. The master of the Hazard was advanced in life, and unnerved by the usual feebleness and timidity of age. He had but just enough presence of mind left to estimate the masterly conduct of young Stuart, and he abandoned the command of the vessel to him, and retired to what is too often only a last resource-to prayers with the churchmen.
Once or twice Stuart disappeared from the deck, ran to whisper a word of encouragement to his trembling charge, and then returned with renewed vigor to his duty. Owing, under Providence, to his exertions, the Hazard rode out a storm which filled the seaman's annals with many a tale of terror. Gratitude is too apt to rest in second causes, in the vis- ible means of deliverance, and perhaps an undue portion was now felt towards the intrepid youth. The passengers lavished their favours on him-they supplied his meals with the most delicate wines and fruits, and the choicest viands from their own stores; he with the superstition characteristic of his profession, firmly believed that heaven had sent the storm to unlock their hearts to him, and thus afford him the means of furnishing Perdita with the dainties suited to her delicate appetite, so
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that she fared, as he afterwards boasted, like the daughter of a king in her father's palace.
Stuart was kept in a state of perpetual alarm by the mate of the vessel. He knew that this fellow, one of those imbeciles that bent like a reed before a strong blast had been hostile to him ever since the storm, when the accidental superiority of his station had been compelled to bow to Frank's superior genius. He was aware that the mate had, by malicious insinuations, estranged the captain from him, and he was but too cer- tain that he should have nothing to hope, if his secret was discovered by this base man. Perhaps this apprehension gave him an air of un- wonted constraint in the presence of his enemy; certain it is, the mate's eye often rested on him with an expression of eager watchfulness and suspicion, and Stuart, perceiving it, would contract his brow and com- press his lips, in a way that betrayed how hard he strove with his rising passion. The difficulty of concealment was daily increasing, as one after another of his messmates, either from some inevitable accident, or from a communication becoming necessary on his part, obtained pos- session of his secret. But his ascendancy over them was complete, and by threats or persuasions, he induced them all to promise invi- olable secrecy. There is an authority in a determined spirit, to which men naturally do homage. It is heaven's own charter of a power to which none can refuse submission.
Frank never permitted his comrades to approach Perdita, or to speak a word to her; but in the depths of the night when the mate's and the old captain's senses were locked in sleep, he would bring her forth to breath the fresh air. Seated on the gunwale, she would bestow on him the only reward in her gift-the treasures of her sweet voice, and Frank said the winds sat still in the sails to listen. There were times when not a human sound was heard in the ship, when these two beings, borne gently by the tides in mid ocean, felt as if they were alone in the universe.
It was at such times that Frank felt an irrepressible curiosity to know something more of the mysterious history of Perdita, whose destiny heaven, he believed, had committed to his honour, and once he ventured to introduce the topic nearest his heart by saying, "you bade me call you Perdita, but I do not like the name; it puts me too much in mind of those rodomontade novels, that turn the girls' heads and set them a-sailing, as it were, without chart or compass in quest of unknown worlds." He hesitated; it was evident he had taken himself to a figure, to avoid an explicit declaration of his wishes-after a moment's pause he added, "it suits me best to be plain-spoken-it is not the name that I object to so much, but-but, hang it-I think you know Frank Stuart well enough to trust him with your real name."
The unhappy girl cast down her eyes, and said that Perdita suited her better than any other name.
"Then you will not trust me?"
"Say not so, my noble, generous friend," she exclaimed, "trust you! have I not trusted you! you know that I would trust you with anything that was my own, but my name, I have forfeited by my folly."
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"Oh no, that you shall not say, a brave ship is not run down with a light breeze, and a single folly of a young girl cannot sink a good name- a folly!" he continued thus indirectly pushing his enquiries, "if it is a folly, it's a common one-there's many a stouter heart than yours that's tried to face a gale of love, and been obliged to bear about and scud before the wind."
"Who told you ?- how did you discover?" demanded Perdita in a hurried, alarmed manner.
Frank's generous temper disdained to surprise the unwary girl into confidence, and he immediately surrendered the advantage he had gained. "Nobody has told me," he said, "I have discovered nothing -I only guessed, as the Yankees say-now wipe away your tears, the sea wants no more salt water, and believe me Frank Stuart has not such a woman's spirit in him, that he cannot rest content without know- ing a secret."
In spite of Frank's manly resolution he did afterwards repeatedly intimate the longings of his curiosity, but they were always met with such unaffected distress on the part of Perdita, that he said he had not the heart to press them.
As the termination of the voyage approached, Stuart became more intently anxious lest his secret should be discovered. The mildest con- sequences would be that he should forfeit his wages-that he cared not for. Like Goldsmith's poor soldier, he could lie on a bare board, and thank God he was so well off. "While he had youth and health," he said, "and there was a ship afloat on the wide sea, he was provided for." But his companions who had been true to him might forfeit their pay; for, by their fidelity to him, they had in some measure become his accessories. But he feared consolation even under this apprehension; "the honest lads," he said, "would soon make a full purse empty, but the memory of a good action was a treasure gold could not buy-a treasure that would stick by them forever-a treasure for the port of heaven." There was, however, one apprehended evil, for which his philosophy offered no antidote.
He was sure the captain would deem it his duty or make it his will (even Frank's slight knowledge of human nature told him that will and duty were too often convertible terms), to return the fugitive to her soi- disant master in Maryland. Nothing could exceed the vigilance with which he watched every movement and turn that threatened a detection, or the ingenuity with which he evaded every circumstance that tended to it-but alas! the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
One night, when it was blowing a gale a particular rope was wanted, which the mate remembered to have stowed away in the steerage. Frank eagerly offered to search for it, but the mate was certain that no one but himself could find it, and taking a lantern, he went in quest of it, Frank followed him with fear and trembling. He has since been in many a desperate sea-fight, but he declares he never felt so much like a coward as at that moment. The mate's irritable humour had been
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somewhat stirred by Frank's persisting in his offer to go for the rope, and when he turned and saw him at his heels he asked him, angrily, what he was dogging him for? "The ship rolls so heavily," replied Frank in a subdued tone, "that I thought you might want me to hold the lantern for you." Frank's unwonted meekness quite conciliated the mate, and though he rejoined, "I think I have been used to the roll- ing of a ship a little longer than you, young man," he spoke good- naturedly, and Frank ventured to proceed.
Most fortunate as Frank thought, the mate directed his steps to the side of the ship opposite Perdita, but making a little circuit in his return, he paused between Frank's hammock and Perdita's berth. At this moment the poor lad's heart, as he afterwards averred, stopped beating. The ship rolled on that side, and the mate catching hold of the berth to save himself from falling, exclaimed. "In heaven's name what lazy devil is there, when every hand is wanted on deck," and raising his lan- tern to identify the supposed delinquent sailor, he discovered the beauti- ful girl. For a moment he was dumb with amazement, but soon recall- ing the search at Oxford, the whole truth flashed upon him; he turned to Frank and shaking his fist in his face, "Ah, this is you, Stuart!" he said, and enforced his gesture with a horrible oath.
"Yes," retorted Frank, now standing boldly forth, "it is me, thank God," and then drawing a curtain that he had arranged before Perdita's berth, he bade her fear nothing
"Oh, Frank," she exclaimed, "I cannot fear where you are." This involuntary expression of confidence went to her protector's heart. There is no man so dead to sentiment, as not to be touched by the trust of woman, especially if she be young and beautiful. Frank was at that age when sentiment is absolute, and he was resolved to secure his treasure at any hazard. Perdita's declaration, while it stimulated his zeal, awakened the mean jealousies of the mate.
"And so my pretty miss," he said, "you fear nothing where this fellow is-I can tell you, for all that he may boast, and you may believe heis neither master nor mate yet, and please the Lord I'll prove as much for him this very night."
"And how will you prove it?" asked Stuart in a voice which, though as calm as he could make it, resembled the low growl of a bulldog before he springs on his victim.
"I'll prove it, my lad, by telling the whole story of the smuggled goods to the captain. A pretty piece of work this, to be carrying under the nose of your officers. It's no better than mutiny, for I'll warrant it the whole ship's crew are leagued with you."
Stuart reined in his passions, and condescended to expostulate. He represented to the mate that he could gain nothing by giving informa- tion to the captain. He described with his simple eloquence the oppres- sion the poor girl had already suffered; the cruelty of disappointing her present hopes, just as they were on the point of being realized, for the ship was not more than 24 hours sail from Cowes; he appealed to his compassion, his generosity, his manliness, but in vain, he found no
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assailable point. The mean pride of having discovered the secret, and the pleasure of humbling Stuart, mastered every good feeling of the mate, if indeed he possessed any, and he turned away, saying with a sort of chuckling exultation that he should go and do his duty.
"Stop," cried Frank, grasping his arm with a grip that threatened to crush it. "Stop and hear me-I swear by Himthat made me, if you dare so much as to hint by word, look or movement, the secret you have discovered here, you shall not cumber the earth another day; day, said I, no, not an hour, I'll send you to the devil as swift as a cannon ball ever went to the mark. Look," he continued, tearing away the curtain he had just drawn before Perdita, "could any thing short of the malice of Satan himself contrive to harm such helpless innocence as that-do you hear me," he added in a voice that out roared the storm, "in God's name look at me, and see I am in earnest."
The mate had no doubt to satisfy, he trembled like an aspen leaf, in vain he essayed to raise his eyes, the passion that glanced in Frank's face, and dilated his whole figure, affected the trembling wretch like a stroke of the sun. He reeled in Frank's iron grasp, his abject fear changed Stuart's wrath to contempt and giving him an impulse that sent him quite out of the door, he returned to soothe Perdita with the assurance that they had nothing to fear from the "cowardly dog." She was con- founded with terror, but much more frightened by the vehemence of Stuart's passion than by the threats of the mate. She had always seen her protector move like an unobstructed stream along its course, in calm and silent power. Now he was the torrent, that no human force could control or direct.
She saw before her calamities far worse than any she had endured. She believed that the mate, as soon as he was recovered from his paroxysm of terror, would communicate his discovery. She apprehended the most fatal issue from Frank's threats and determined resolution, and the possibility that his generous zeal for her might involve him in crime, was intolerable to her. Such thoughts do not become less terrible by solitary meditation-in the solemnity of night, and amidst the howling of a storm. Every blast spoke reproach and warning to Perdita; and tortured by those harpies remorse and fear, she took a sudden resolution to reveal herself to the captain, feeling at the moment that if she warded off evil from her protector, she could patiently hide the worst conse- quences to herself. She sprang from her berth, as if afraid of being checked in a second thought, and rushed from the steerage to the cabin. All was perfect stillness there-the passengers had retired to their beds. The captain was sitting by the table; he had been reading, but his book had fallen to the floor, his head had sunk on his breast, and he was in a profound sleep. The light shone full on his weather-beaten face- on large uncouth features-on lines deepened to furrows-and muscles stiffened by time. Never was there an aspect more discouraging to one who needed mercy, and poor Perdita stood trembling before him, and close to him, and dared not, could not, speak. She heard a foot- step approaching, and still her tongue was glued to the roof of her
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