Jack and his island; a boy's adventures along the Chesapeake in the war of 1812

Front matter

LUCY

• H H

£ 1

Prologue

TN the stress of war, characters form -*■ quickly. So it has been in the histories of all countries. Boys, youths, pressed by circumstances, do the deeds of manhood and play the part of men. So it was with me. The decisive years whose tale is herein set forth ran from the early age of thirteen to nigh my sixteenth birthday. They set the course of my life. For a quarter of a century that course has lain straightforward, sun-bright with joy, shadowed with sorrow, sometimes ; but ever straightforward. I have writ the tale of these years.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“ In all good fortune it was Marshall ” . . Frontispiece

“ ‘ And . . . this is Miss Elizabeth Rousby ’ ” Page 108

“ There in full view, . . . was the whole

British fleet ” “ 184

“ * Give — the — order — to — retreat ! ’ the

Commodore gasped ” “ 227

“ As we ran the crowd grew ” “

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Chapter I

T HOUGH I was stiffened from long driving and cold with the unwonted chill of the June evening, I was never more wide awake and alert than when Rob came dashing up before the bright lights and swinging sign of the Golden Horse.

All the way he had found me a quiet lad (I was ever fonder of action than of speech) ; his ringing laugh had waked few echoes from the pale-faced boy by his side on the driver’s seat, and his fund of stories had fallen on listless ears. Yet I think he was not hurt thereby. He knew that my father had died in Boston and that I went my way to lukewarm relatives in Georgia ; and that by the counsel of that dear father, given when he knew his boy would be left alone among strangers, I was making my

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way with all speed to Baltimore by the overland route, which was the speediest and safest, now that England strove to keep a blockade along our coast, and our own government placed so many hindrances that no packet dared show her nose outside her harbor.

In Baltimore I would meet Tom Marshall, a young man well known and loved of all, and hailing from his old neighborhood in Georgia, and together we would seek his old home ; for though my father could not bear to dwell amidst its scenes, and sought refuge in travel from its bitter sweet memories of my mother, yet when illness stole upon him and he saw he must make provision for me, his desire was to send me home.

Could anything have moved me from my deep grief it would have been the huge wagon belonging to the “ land marines ” in which I must travel. But neither the sleek horses with their crests of tinkling bells, nor the great blue wagon stored to its white top with merchandise, nor the staring black letters printed on white cloth and fastened on either side to tell to all the wagon’s title

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in the new marines, “ The Maryland Clipper/' and its motto “ No Impressment/' roused more than a passing interest. In Boston lay all I loved. Before me were but vague memories and hopes that would take no rosy tinge.

So Rob had used his best endeavors and fared but badly. For surely it must have vexed him that I had no eye for the sleekness of his horses, nor his triumph when we passed some slower ship, nor no elation when we browbeat our way royally and were first over some ferriage when many another wagon had to lay by and bide its time, and no cheer at the bountiful meals the wayside inns provided us. Still he never lost heart, and now that we were nearing Baltimore there was naught that he left unsaid to rouse me to an interest in the bustling, growing place, which he boasted would soon excel the best of our coast cities. He told me of the fair glimpse of it nestling about its harbor we would have as we breasted the high hills over which the road wound ; yet we came upon it at last at night, and in the clear glittering starlight following the storm

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which had caused us to lay by far up the road.

For hundreds of yards ere we reached the inn the road was lined with wagons and champing horses, slowly mouthing the last oats in the long troughs fastened to the front of the huge wagons. Nor had I ever seen aught like the number of them on our twenty-five days’ journey from Boston, for here, as Rob had already told me, we struck likewise the trade from the West, even unto Ohio.

Every window of the inn was alight, in the fresh breeze after the storm the trees along the pavement’s edge were bending and swaying, and the gilded horse before the house, creaking upon his post, seemed rearing and prancing in the star-lit and lamppierced dusk of the summer night. Yet I gave but a thought to it, well as I remember the scene. It was the people who drew me — teamsters from the West and North, travellers biding a time at the inn, citizens of the town gathering in knots and groups, with eager tongues and earnest faces.

I swung myself silently down from my

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high perch, for Rob must drive with clatter right up to the door, and I left him grumbling on his seat.

“In God’s name,” I heard him say, “ what ’s the cry now ? Ahoy there ! ” he shouted in the sea fashion the teamsters affected. “ Ahoy, there ! Has the Golden Horse no welcome for Rob Ruxton ? ”

At that I saw a big man, stockless and coatless, making his bustling way out of the door, and I slipped away.

I wanted to see and understand it all, and I had no time now for Rob and his jests. What meant all these groups, these earnest faces and excited voices ? I strolled eagerly near them, but could hear nothing that I could understand. The gate leading to the great yard beside the inn and the stables at the side of it was flung wide open and was choked with men, as I made my way through them. Here in the soft dusk I could see the dark forms of cattle, driven in that day and resting for the Monday’s sale. I heard voices far away near the stable, and, as I went hurrying across the yard, hot with the animals’ heat and foul with

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their smell, I tripped, where I had noted no object, and went headlong into a soft fluttering mass. The air rang with goblin cries. I would have been sadly frightened had not my arms caught something as I fell, something I knew on the instant was nothing more and no worse than a big live turkey ; but I remembered what Rob had told me of the great droves of them the men brought into the town from the West, and I stumbled to my feet, half ashamed to face Rob himself.

“ Why, Jack,” he cried, astonished, “ have you lost your way ? ” It was hard for him not to twit me, I know, still be it said to his credit, quick as he ever was to turn the joke on any one, he never laughed when his laughter would make one tingle for it.

“ Here comes the light ! It takes an old hand and one wiser than I to make his way here.”

He pulled me aside, as a hostler, lantern in one hand and with the other leading our horses, came quickly through the yard.

“ I must see the beasts well tended to,” he declared, “ else they will not be ready

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for the journey back, and I must be going Tuesday. Two days’ rest for the beasts and one for myself. Monday the wagon must be unloaded and refilled with her new cargo.”

What else he said I heard not. I had paused at the stable door. Behind me in the dark I could hear the trampings of many horses, and far down the stable aisles could see the faint twinkle of the lantern, where the hostler guided our beasts to their stalls ; before me were the restless moving and the deep breathing of the cattle, and now and then the startled turkeys rent the air with their cries ; but above all this was that hum of voices, that sound of human movement, something was abroad in the street.

I found it not yet. Rob, with his hand on my shoulder, led me across the yard another way and to the door of the great kitchen, where fare for us had been spread, and he was overflowing with his good humor and the enjoyment of his meal, for there were oysters fresh from their shell on the board before us and biscuits and corn-pone

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yet hot, to say naught of cold capon and venison.

“Aye, give me the good hot bread of Maryland,” he was saying at the close of the hearty meal, “ none of your hard brown bread and week-old bakings for me; ’tis why the men are so lean and so dyspeptic, and the beer” — he drained his mug — “ there ’s none can touch it,” and he held it laughingly to the black who waited on us.

“ Come, lad, drain thy mug.”

But I shook my head. I had not come to love the frothing drink, nor though I was consumed with curiosity had I questioned ; a lad of 1812 , even though he listened to men’s talk and was well grounded in public affairs, knew yet another thing — to hold his tongue. So my father taught me. Rob would have told me quickly enough had 1 questioned him, but Rob was used to thinking first of himself. His beasts well cared for, himself well fed, he was ready for the gossip of the town.

“ Bring me the ‘ Federal Republican,’ ” he commanded, and noted not that the negro’s face turned ashy as he spoke. “ I have not

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seen a paper since I left the ferriage of New York/’ he went on, carelessly drumming his finger points upon the board.

“ What ! ” as the negro came back empty handed, “ go and bring me the ‘ Federal Republican ’ ! ” and Rob’s tanned face turned red with anger.

The negro was gone many minutes, while I, my supper done, fidgeted in my chair and looked restlessly about me.

“ Nay, lad,” said Rob kindly, noting my mood, “bide but a minute and I will go with you ; ” and he laughed and reached carelessly for the crumpled sheet the negro laid before him. “ ’Fore God,” he swore, “ it looks as if it had been well read. Let me see first the Marine news ; ” and he laughed again good-naturedly and pulled the candle nearer him.

“Come, lad, and see the news,” he added craftily, and I knew what those words meant. Rob was a slow and painstaking reader, but he would own it to no such youth as I ; nay, we only read together, so I pulled my heavy chair nearer his, and put my head nearer his curly poll in the

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candle light. Nor did we heed that the kitchen was left to us alone. Out in the dining room were a great hum of voices and clinking of mugs, yet here, where Rob had elected to have his supper, there was quiet. The coals smouldered in the great fireplace, skillets from whence had come our flaky biscuits stood on the ashy hearth, the crane hung an idle arm across the chimney-mouth, and even the black who had tended us was outside.

Rob was all complacency. “ We ’ll have a few words to add to these,” he boasted, as he folded the sheet down to the items he sought. “ We’ve left the Teaser behind and the Sailors’ Misery was floundering in the swamps of the Susquehanna. Ha ! ha ! the Maryland Clipper, twenty-five days out from Boston ! ’T will sound well ; twice has it been printed thus, and once again will it so stand. ’Tis a tale few captains have equalled.”

“ Horse-Marine Intelligence,” I read, while Rob chuckled as he never failed to at the joke; “ arrived this day, the threehorse ship Dreadnought, Captain David

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Allen, eighteen days out from New York, spoke in the latitude of Weathersfield the Aspen, Friend Alley master, from New York bound homeward to Lynn/’ and so on, Rob making a running comment on each.

“ Now, lad, we ’ll to the office and write a few lines more for them.” He pushed back his chair, humming the chorus I had heard on many a long and weary day of that early summer:

“ Our march is on the turnpike road,

Our home is at the inn.”

But I, turning the soiled and crumpled paper carelessly, had caught sight of lines whose heading chained me to my seat. “ Listen ! ” I cried, as I hurriedly began to read. The article was heralded with a quotation :

“ Without funds, without taxes, without a navy or adequate fortifications, with one hundred and fifty millions of our property in the hands of the declared enemy, without any of his in our power, and with a vast commerce afloat, our rulers have

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promulgated a war against the clear and decided sentiments of the vast majority of the nation. As the consequences will soon be felt, there is no need of pointing them out to the few who have not the sagacity to apprehend them. Instead of employing our pen in this dreadful detail, we think it more apposite to delineate the course we are determined to pursue as long as the war lasts. We mean to represent in as strong colors as we are able that it is unnecessary, inexpedient, and entered into from a partial, personal, and, as we believe, motives bearing upon their front marks of undisguised foreign influence which cannot be mistaken. We mean to use constitutional argument and every legal means to render as odious and suspicious to the American people, as they deserve to be, the patrons of this highly impolitic and destructive war, in the fullest persuasion that we shall be supported and ultimately applauded by ninetenths of our countrymen, and that our silence would be treason to them.”

“ Zounds ! ” cried Rob, as he pushed back his chair and jolted the heavy board till the dishes clattered, “ treason, why — ”

“ It ’s treason, rank treason, he writes, 1 ” I exclaimed, aghast at such language.

For in spite of my hurried reading, the

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meaning was clear enough to us. That article printed that day, June 20, 1812, in a Baltimore paper, had maddened the populace. This was the meaning of the angry groups.

CHAPTER II. W E hastened out from the quiet kitchen

Porch and street were thronged. The crowd in the streets grew to a mob. Down Market Street fierce cries and threats could be heard above the hum of angry voices ; but the mob, though fierce, did no violence that night. We made our way through it, Rob and I, as far down the main street as the great market and the marshy sides of the Falls ; and so I first saw the city. But when we turned aside, not far from the water s edge, and went a square or two, we found the street (Hanover, Rob called it) as peaceful as the villages we had thundered through. The women were sitting at their doors, the young girls were strolling arm in arm, and the children were playing in the street. We turned and came again to Market Street and across to the new sheds of the Lexington market, where there were sights enough to make us forget all else. Then in spite of my deep eagerness

Eob would have it, we must go back to the Golden Horse and go to bed.

The morrow, the Sabbath within the town, I shall never forget, though my waking thought was one of dismay. I had not remembered even to ask for Tom Marshall. Was he here, as my father thought he would be? Was his expedition from the West ended, and would he be ready to journey southward ? If he were, when should we find a wagon thither, or might we adventure out of the bay, stealing down the long fringe of islands and inlets ?

Up to this time I had had no fears ; now I was beset with uncertainty. Eob must be gone in two days. I knew not a soul within the town. I writhed and turned and twisted in the hole my body had made in the feather bed, and my restlessness roused Eob from his deep slumber.

My troubled face met his waking eyes. “ Faith, lad, you look as if your late hours last night had sickened you,” he said, as he gave himself a turn in the soft feathers and pillowed his tousled head upon his sinewy arm.

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I must have looked woe-begone, for after a sleepy, half-serious look at me, he began again : “ Where are your red cheeks ? ” and he actually pinched me, as if I were a girl, though he stopped quickly enough at the thrust I gave him.

“ Well ! well ! Truth, I thought last night the worst of your humors was over ! ”

I was silent, and Rob gave a long yawn or two, then sprang out of bed. The sun was already shining in the windows he pushed open. Looking upward through them I could see the sky, deep blue, and looking lower down, the roof tops and a slender spire. A chiming bell reminded me it was the Sabbath, and I set myself quickly to work to get into my clothes. One thing my father and I had ever observed in our wandering life — wherever we were to remember the Sabbath was the day of the Lord and to seek His house should it be near.

I was a silent lad by nature and heartsick, I fear, spite the lessons of courage and self-control I had laid to heart, so it was not till Rob had gotten his jug of hot water

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from without the door and had shaved his face as clean as a woman’s — Rob was unlike most teamsters in this, and withstood many a jest on his foppery — that I spoke of the matter which moved me.

“ Where,” I said, as I buttoned the fastenings of my bright blue coat across my chest, precisely as Rob was buttoning his, — “ where can we find Tom Marshall ? ”

“ At Gadsby’s ; that is where the swells stop. You did not look for him here ? This is for poor devils like me, and the drivers and stock men and such like; ” and he turned himself before the small swinging glass above the chest of drawers for a laughing look at his curly head, oiled and perfumed, his smooth cheek and high stock.

Rob went to his open bag and took out a flashing charm and black ribbon and thrust them and the watch he wore into his waistband, then he turned himself about in dandified enjoyment of his yellow trousers and blue coat, with shining buttons of brass.

“ Faith,” he declared, “ ’t is well to be dressed once in two whole months.”

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“But where did you get them, Rob ?” I asked innocently.

“ Right here ! ” and he pushed up a bureau drawer and snapped the lock, and put the key back upon his ring.

“ But — ”

“ But,” mimicked Rob, “ I am a good customer of the Golden Horse, lad, and why should I not have a drawer here locked with my own key in the room I always sleep in ? ”

“ You did n’t keep any in Boston.”

Rob’s tanned face went red so suddenly and his laugh was so queer I was about to ask some other thing of him, when he came up quickly and laid his hand upon my shoulder, and together we stood looking for a moment out into the street. The bright freshness of the night was yet abroad, the maples were bending to the wind, and the sky where we saw its arch above the chimney tops was deep and clear and blue.

Far up Paca Street we could see the huge wagons, the tethered horses, and the teamsters, rough-looking fellows for the main, gossiping together or leading the beasts to the big trough of the pump at the corner.

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Rob smiled as he looked at them. He thought of himself, I know, rested and dressed and dandified, and of the men there. I was beginning to see what foppish ways he had reserved for Baltimore.

A robin flitting about the maples lighted on a bough beneath us and began to sing his heartening counsel of “ Cheer up ! cheer up ! ”

“ Well said ! I believe you need it, Jack ; ’tis good advice. Come, we’ll get some breakfast and then go to Gadsby’s.”

But breakfast done, Rob began to fidget.

“ What will you do all day ? ” he asked. “ Perhaps you would like to go to church ; there are some fine churches and pretty girls.” Then he reddened a little and finally blurted out, “ If you will but wait here a few moments, I will go down to Gadsby’s and send Mr. Marshall up to you ; ” and then, as if pleased at his ready wit, he went quickly away.

I went out on the narrow porch fronting the street and waited and waited.

By and by many a person came strolling along the way, but none I could take for my father’s young friend, nor was there a

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glimpse of Rob till many wearisome moments were past. Then he came up the street alone. His face was full of light and laughter, though he looked chapfallen when he saw me.

“ Poor fellow, I had no idea, the time seemed so short ! ” he began embarrassedly, but I cut him short with one word.

“ Marshall ? ”

“ Not there ; nay, he is out of town for the day only. He stopped for a while at the tavern, and now makes his home on Charles Street with some French refugees newly come. He is gone for the day to some merchant’s house whose summer home is five miles without the city. He will return by sunset and seek you. They told me, his friends, he was on the lookout for you.”

“Well,” said I impatiently, “let’s go to church.” I picked up my pot hat and smoothed it quickly, put it on my head, and went down the steps, Rob lagging behind.

At the corner he caught up with me.

“ Which way? ” he asked.

“ I don’t know — anywhere.”

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We stood still a few moments, the hot sunlight blazing down upon us, and finally Rob said : “ As for churches, I ’m going to meeting.”

“ What ’s the difference ? ”

“ Meeting? Well, that’s the Quaker church, and a mighty fine new one they have near here, too.”

I plucked up interest. “ Let ’s go. I never saw a Quaker meeting.”

Rob hesitated a trifle more. “ Now see, if you could come back alone — ”

I nodded impatiently.

“ Well, watch the way you go, lad, and come on ; there ’s only one corner anyway, and I guess you can remember that.”

So off we went, I with a new interest now, and Rob with an interest too, judging by his stride, and soon we were swinging around Lombard Street, and there before us, with green trees at the pavement edge and green sward running up to the steps, was the new meeting house.

Rob hurried me in, and not till I was seated could I form much idea of the new scenes about me. Then I saw but little.

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The pews were high. We were in one half of the building with all the men of the congregation. Opened windows showed the other half and the women folk.

The rustling and whispering died away. Silence settled upon us more profound than that of any forest depth. It deepened, till I felt I could not stand it. I must move, speak. I turned to seek aid of Rob. The softened look of his face, the tender smile lurking about his mouth, his downcast eyes, helped me more than speech ; and, looking downward where he seemed to be gazing, I saw his watch charm, a crystal of many-sided glass, in his hand, the black ribbon folded at its back. As he held it, it caught the reflection of a face, a dainty miniature of a clear pink cheek and white forehead and wide curving eyebrows and lashes curled against the cheek, and half shrouded by the bonnet of gray. I drew myself high as I could in my seat and looked furtively through the open sashes. There were women pleased and content, there were children striving as I had been to be quiet and well mannered, and there in a pew corner was the girl at whose reflection Rob was gazing.

I had food now for thought. I understood his caution as to my way. I resolved to be off the moment we moved, but I knew not when it came. There was a murmur about me. Rob rose slowly to his feet ; the aisle had already filled and we must take our time, and the steps were crowded when we reached them.

I saw the girl's face at last, flushing as her blue eyes met Rob's, and I jumped from the step, remembered my corner, and turned tavernward.

I knew now why he had been so anxious as to his apparel, and why he played the spark with so high a hand in Baltimore. I knew, too, why I had been left alone ; still, to his credit be it said, he left me not that afternoon.

Dinner done, we must needs go wandering over the town. Down Market Street, to the Falls and to the harbor and the wharves, where the houses near them, with their many windowed gables turned waterward, gazed on an idle scene; idle not only

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because it was the Sabbath, but because the saucy ships lay with furled rigging in the harbor and dared not go coasting New England-ward nor sailing down the shining bay to West Indian port. Only the bay packets were busy. So Rob told me, as we loitered on the wharf and watched the June sunlight flashing on the water or shining on the white wings of the gulls as we leaned over the wharf’s edge to watch the crabs go scuttling by.

Then we must up along the Falls and cross the wooden bridge to Fell’s Point. There, at the wharves of the Point, was a tangle of masts, and there, too, Rob came upon a friend whose ship was to do me a service I little thought of on that bright June day.

The sun was sinking over the hills beyond the river ere we turned homeward.

Some one was awaiting us, the negro told us as we turned in at the Golden Horse ; and going quickly into the office, I came face to face with Tom Marshall. When I first saw him I held back as if for Rob, but Rob was gone. The tall, straight figure, the quiet, haughty face thatched with fair hair, looked forbidding to me who had been so long used to Rob’s merry eye and cheery speech. He greeted me kindly enough, and listened to my short tale of my father’s death, though he knew it all from a letter my father had caused to be sent to Gadsby’s.

“And he wished me to be your guardian,” he said, when I had finished my halting tale, and he smiled so kindly that I lost my first dread of him. “I am honored by your father’s trust, young as I am ; ” and he flushed at my wondering look. “ But I look old enough to you ; well, that is but right. I can double your years, so twenty-six must take care of — ”

“Thirteen,” said I respectfully, not noticing he had already spoken my age.

“ Ah, you are tall enough, but slim and somewhat pale.”

“ I have been long housed.”

“ Save for my journey here.”

“ Your father’s illness — ”

“ He had been ill for months.”

“ He never wrote it.”

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“ He never spoke of it. He kept up, gave me my lessons — ”

“ So he looked to your instructions himself, ’’ said Marshall, as if glad to turn to lighter topics.