"No!" as loudly commanded the cool and prudent captain, adding to his friend: "Not just now, my boy. Call all hands to quarters. It"ll be hold hard, in a few minutes. Ease her! Ease her! Starboard your helm! Steady all! Here it comes!"
He was a prime good seaman, that captain of the _Clyde_, and he was at that moment looking aloft to see his maintopsail blown to leeward.
"I"m glad it went!" he exclaimed. "Good luck! since they couldn"t get it in. That"ll relieve the strain on the topmast. It wouldn"t ha"
stood it."
Other sails threatened to follow, however, and the frigate was beginning to reel and pitch unpleasantly, although no very heavy sea had yet risen. The sky overhead was all one whiteness, but low down, northeasterly, it was blackening. The wind that came was bitterly cold and cutting, as well as resistlessly strong. On board the _Noank_ all had been made ready for its arrival, and the schooner showed at once the excellence of her modelling. She leaned over, under her closely reefed mainsail, with a mere ap.r.o.n of a jib, and sped away southerly at a rate which her square-rigged pursuer was not at all likely to rival.
The captain of the _Clyde_ watched her, as he clung tightly to his lashings at the foot of his mizzenmast, using his telescope as best he could, and making remarks as calmly as if he had been contemplating a horse-race.
"I"ll say one thing for the Yankees," he said. "We can take lessons from them in light ship building. That"s a good one. I wish I had the sailors that are handling her. They turn out some o" the best seamen afloat. Worth twenty apiece of some that were sent to me."
He was himself a fine specimen of the race of vikings who have made England the queen of the seas. Nowhere have they ever been more highly appreciated than among their cousins of the New World, and their many achievements are a part of our own ancestral inheritance.
For the immediate present, at least, the _Noank_ was safe, so far as the British navy might be concerned.
"Guert!" said Up-na-tan, when their watch below brought them together.
"Look ole brack man! Coco no like cole wind. Like "em warm.
Up-na-tan no care! Ugh! Want _Noank_ run south. No freeze hard."
Poor Coco had indeed been shivering pitifully when he came down from the deck. Not all the experiences he had had during many northern winters had prepared his Ashantee const.i.tution to enjoy a norther.
In fact, moreover, there was not an old whale catcher on board who did not now and then congratulate himself that the schooner was steering toward the tropics, and would soon leave behind her that fierce, destructive river of dry, penetrating polar air.
CHAPTER VIII.
CONTRABAND GOODS.
It was greatly to the advantage of the swift _Noank_ that her larger and even swifter enemy was having a battle of its own. The burly commander of the _Clyde_ was compelled to surrender, for the time, to the imperious demands of the polar gale. If it would have been at all safe to have thrown open any of his ports, nothing worth while could have been done with his guns. All that was left for him to do, therefore, was to follow on as best he could in the wake of his American prize. This could be done fairly well, for a while, although he was not gaining upon her. Then, however, another of her natural allies interfered, for darkness came over the sea, and his best hope for catching the _Noank_ went out like an extinguished lantern.
Meantime, the captain had to listen, with undisguised vexation, to his steward"s dolorous account of the damage done to the delicacies in the storeroom.
Far away, northerly, that very evening, a patriotic company of Americans had gathered in a large and pretty well-lighted room.
Adjoining this were several other rooms, large and small, which were occupied in very much the same manner. The house was the old Ledyard mansion at New London, and all these women and girls had gathered there, with one accord, for work, and not for fun. The brave owner of the homestead, Colonel William Ledyard, was absent upon an errand to Boston, and there were hardly any grown-up men in the a.s.sembly. There were boys, indeed, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with patriotism, and these were evidently feeling more than ordinarily warlike as they helped their grandmothers, and mothers, and sisters, and aunts at the peculiar industry which had brought them together.
It was neither a sewing society, nor a quilting bee, nor an apple paring. There could not, however, have been more activity or cheerfulness, even at a corn husking, and yet the cause of all this enthusiasm and energy was serious indeed. All the busy fingers in these rooms were putting up ball cartridges with the powder and lead captured by Lyme Avery in the _Windsor_.
"What a pity it is that we cannot send them to Washington," said one of the workers. "He will need them all pretty soon."
"I hope we"ll never need them here," responded another, "but I suppose the forts must be provided. The British may come. They have good reasons for hating New London."
"It hath many bad people in it," came sarcastically from beyond the table in the middle of the room. "I fear there is very little love here for our good king. We think too little of all that he is trying to do for us."
"Rachel Tarns," exclaimed Mrs. Ten Eyck, near her, "there"s more news from New York just in. Your good king is stirring up the Six Nations again. There will be more trouble on that frontier."
"Not right away, I think," replied the Quakeress. "I have much faith that the peaceful red men will remain in their wigwams during such weather as this is. Should they not do so, I fear lest some of them might be hurt by the frontiersmen, even if they are not frost-bitten."
"That"s what I"m afraid of," said one of the larger boys. "Old Put ought to be there. Washington used to be an Indian fighter. Killed lots of "em. I guess there won"t any of "em trouble us folks in Connecticut."
"Thee is only a boy," laughed Rachel. "Thy Old Put could tell thee of troubles with the red men not so very far away from this place. Thy own house is upon land that once belonged to them. What would thee do if they should come to take it away from thee?"
"I"d fight!" said the youngster. "My father"s with Washington and my brother"s with Putnam. Mother and I are ready to shoot if any of "em come near our house."
"Rachel," said Mrs. Ten Eyck, "how is thy conscience this evening? How is it that a Quaker can make cartridges?"
"I will tell thee," said Rachel. "I have it upon my mind that the more cartridges we make, if they are used well, also, the sooner will this wicked war be brought to an end. Thou knowest that the testimony of the Friends is given for peace. Therefore do I rely much upon that good friend, George Washington. He gave a strengthening testimony at Trenton and Princeton."
Everybody had become accustomed to the dry and often bitter sayings of the old Quakeress, and now a white-haired woman across the room suddenly exclaimed:--
"Hear that wind! O dear! I wasn"t thinking of redskins. So many of our boys are at sea. Mine are with Lyme Avery. What wouldn"t I give to know just how they"re doing!"
"Why, they are sailing south," replied Mrs. Avery. "If this storm reaches "em, it"ll send "em along. Lyme is used to rough weather."
Brave was she, and very brave were they all, and the "cartridge bee,"
as they called it, was a good ill.u.s.tration of the stubborn spirit of freedom which made it impossible to conquer the colonies.
"The forts"ll be safer," they said, as they packed up their dangerous work and prepared to scatter to their homes through the icy storm. "We must come and roll cartridges two evenings every week. Some of the boys are putting in all their time to moulding bullets."
All of those boys were growing, too, and some who were only fit to melt lead and run bullets at fourteen or fifteen would be in the ranks before the end of the war. They would be Continental soldiers, for instance, at such fights as that at Yorktown. Any country becomes safer while its boys are eager to grow up for its defence, and are all the while taking lessons that will prepare them for efficiency.
The next morning dawned quietly upon both land and sea. The norther had blown itself out, and it had brought no great amount of snow with it anywhere. It had been severe while it lasted, and then it had departed, like any other unwelcome guest.
The streets of New London were cold and snowy, but they were not by any means dreary or deserted that morning.
One more ocean prize had been brought in, and the report of it had gone out in all directions. The sleighing was good over the country roads, and the number of teams. .h.i.tched along the sides of the lower streets testified to the general hunger for news as well as for trade. The sociability of all these arriving sleighing parties was tremendous, and they seemed to be all of one mind concerning the events of the day.
That is, the one-mindedness here was exactly like, and yet exactly opposed, to the one-mindedness which ruled upon Manhattan Island, not so far away. Whigs here, Tories there, were equally earnest, determined, and hopeful.
In New York as in New London, it was currently reported that a number of the more active business men were actually making fortunes by the war. Not a great many rebel vessels had been brought into New York harbor as prizes, but all that did come in, and that were condemned and sold, offered opportunities for speculation. The best of the town trade came from the army and navy, but there were still a few small driblets coming in from the interior. It was worthy of note, perhaps, that furs, for instance, should sometimes reach New York from the north, from regions beyond Albany. These were smuggled down the Hudson River, n.o.body knew how. It had been suggested, of course, by sharp people, that American commanders might be willing to shut their eyes while a fur trader went in, provided they were to have a talk with him on his return.
In like manner, it was said, the British generals had no objections whatever to the arrival of fellows who were certified to them as "well-known Tories," who could give them abundant information concerning the ragged, starving, worthless condition of the rebel forces in and above the Hudson highlands.
No doubt, too, it was encouraging to the military and other servants of the king to hear, from honest and loyal fur traders, how the rebels of the Mohawk Valley were dispirited by the defeats of Washington"s army, and how they were preparing to turn against the Continental Congress.
Best of all, perhaps, was the a.s.surance thus brought that all the Six Nations and the Hurons of the woods were ready to take the war-path in the spring as the allies of England.
If there were sailors ash.o.r.e on leave that morning, from many of the other ships in the harbor, there were none from the _Termagant_, for she was under orders to sail. Captain Luke Watts himself had a call of ceremony to make, at an early hour, relating to those very orders, for he was to give in his last report of the condition of his ship and crew. The "port captain," to whom his report was to be made, was the commander of a lordly seventy-four. In the absence of any admiral he was the "commodore" of all the naval forces in and about the harbor.
Captain Watts was kept on deck in waiting for a few minutes only, and when he was summoned to the cabin he found the commodore by no means alone. The mere skipper of a transport was not asked to take a seat in such a presence, and Luke stood, hat in hand, respectfully, while his presented papers were read and approved.
"Now, Watts," said the commodore, "what course do you take, homeward bound?"
"As far no"th as I can get, sir," replied Luke, "for good reasons."
"Give your reasons."
"Well, sir, from what I heard at New London, the rebel pirates are aimin" at our West Injy trade. They"ll hang "round the reg"lar course, too, the southern track. I jest mean to steer out o" their way."