Howard Pyle

“ A moment or two, and the agent followed, and then immediately the boat was cast loose. As it pulled away toward the shore, Jack gave one look back across the widening stretch of water. It was almost like a dream; it seemed to him as though that which was passing was not really happening to him. Dred’s red handkerchief gleamed like a flame against the blue sky as he stood on the rail looking after the departing boat. Then Jack turned his face quickly away. He could not trust himself to look again, lest he should break down before all the boat-full of men. ”

“ He shuddered darkly. Was this always the end of everything?—of the rushing breeze, the dazzling sunlight, the beautiful world in which men lived? Death is terrible, terrible to the eyes of youth.
“Do you know,” said the young lady, suddenly, breaking upon the silence, “it does not seem possible that I am really to see my father again, and maybe so soon. I’m trying to feel that it is so, but I can’t. I wonder what they will all say and do! Oh, it seems as though I couldn’t wait! I wonder how much further ’tis to Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” said Jack; “but it can’t be much further. ”

“ IT was the next day after Jack had returned from Marlborough. The night was still and sultry, with just a breath of hot breeze blowing. Jack and Little Coffee were sitting together on the door-step, and Jack was telling about Miss Eleanor Parker. The moon had risen full and round, and bathed all the dark, hot, panting earth with a flood of shimmering silver. The fireflies, which were now just beginning to illuminate the night, flashed and twinkled here and there in clusters out over the damper places. Jack’s coat lay upon the step beside him, and now he sat in his shirt sleeves. ”

“ No one knew what he was doing, and he was as much alone as though he stood all by himself in the midst of the empty universe, instead of aboard a brig with footsteps passing around him and the grumbling [51] growl of men’s voices as they talked together sounding in his ears.
It had seemed to Jack at that time, when he stood there crying out into the face of the sea and the sky, as though life had no hope and no joy, and as though he never could be happy again. It was not so, however, and it never is so. We grow used to every sorrow and trouble that comes to us. ”

“ IT seemed to Jack as he sat in the darkness with the watch upon the deck of the sloop, that the time passed away very, very slowly. The vessel lay pretty close to the shore, and myriad sounds from the dark, woody wilderness seemed to fill the air—the sharp quivering rasp of multitudinous insects, the strange noise of the night birds, and now and then the snapping and cracking of a branch, and always the lapping gurgle of water. ”

“ The woods brooded dark and still. Millions of fireflies spangled its blackness with quick pulsing sparkles of light, and a multitudinous whisper and murmur of woodland life breathed out from the dark, mysterious depths. He [170] unshipped his oars, rattling loudly in the dark stillness, and stood up in the boat, looking first up the stream and then down, then up again. He thought he saw a dim outline that looked like a group of houses and the sloop far away up the river, and then he sat down, replaced the oars, and began rowing up the shore. ”

“ Parker’s flaming face did not change a shade in the heavy haughtiness of its expression. “A pirate you are,” said he, “and what’s more, you’re at your tricks again. I’ve heard all about you, and I know all about you, d’ ye see? Well, you’ve been losing at your cards all night, Mr. Pirate. You may do well enough in your villainy afloat, stabbing poor coasting captains and murdering young gentlemen of blood like my nephew Ned, but what a poor figure do you make ashore when you try your luck with the gentlemen at play. ”

“ One of the crew told him that they had come within soundings again, and when he looked over the side of the vessel he saw that the clear, tranquil green of the profounder depths of the ocean had changed to the cloudy, opalescent gray of shoaler waters.
Then it was the next morning and Jack felt some one shaking him awake. “What is it?” said he, opening his eyes heavily and looking up into the lean face of Sim Tucker that was bent over him.
The little man was all in a quiver of excitement. “’Tis land!” he cried in a shrill, exultant voice—“’tis land! We’re in sight of land! ”

“ Then, as it came upon him to know that that was what Dred did mean and that he was earnest in meaning it, he reached out, hardly knowing what he did, and caught at the other as though to hug him. “O Dred!” he cried.
“Get away!” whispered Dred, pushing him off with his elbow. “What d’ ye mean, ye young fool—hugging at me that way?” Then he began laughing. “D’ye think I’m your sweetheart to try to hug me like that? ’Tis my belief the young lady up-stairs is your sweetheart, else you wouldn’t be so anxious to have your head blowed off for her sake.”
Jack knew that he was blushing fiery red. ”

“ How singularly dull and blank is the interval of waiting that follows all rude bustle of preparation—when the boxes have been corded and carried away down to the landing, and the house has again relapsed into its former quietude, and yet the time has not quite come to say farewell. There is something singularly trying in that period of passive waiting.
It was late that last afternoon at Marlborough, and Jack and Nelly Parker stood at the window, in the slant of the winter’s day, looking out down toward the landing. ”

“ JACK wrote back to Marlborough from Jamestown, and again from Yorktown just before he sailed—letters full of homesickness and of longing. Perhaps the most unhappy hours of his life were those one or two when, from the poop-deck of the great ship, he saw the bluffs of Yorktown fall further and further astern while, one after another, the great square sails high overhead burst out to the swift cold wind that hummed away to the eastward, driving the water in white-capped ridges before it. ”

“ The afternoon sun was slanting when he was aroused by a thumping and bumping and a stir on board. He opened his eyes, and sat up to see that the boat had again stopped at a landing-place. It was a straggling, uneven wharf, at the end of which, upon the shore, was an open shed. Thence a rough and rugged road ran up the steep bluff bank, and then turned away into the woody wilderness beyond. A wagon with a nondescript team of oxen and mules, and half a dozen men, black and white, were waiting beside the shed at the end of the wharf for the coming of the flat-boat. ”

“ As they left the coaster, Jack sat in the stern of the boat not far from Colonel Parker and the young lady. As he looked back he could see the figures of Captain Dolls and his wife, of the barefoot mate with his knit cap, and of Mr. Jackson standing at the gangway. The yawl was towing behind them. His smarting palms throbbed and burned in pulsations of pain, and he looked furtively down into one of his hands. ”

“ I be a wonderful man at mending clothes, ben’t I? Lord! what a hole is here, to be sure.” There was a long time of silence, Dred busily sewing away at the coat. “There,” said he at last, “what d’ ye think of that for a bit of mending? Well, well, lad, the time comes to all on us to part some time, so what matters it soon or late? Harkee, Jack; don’t you go making trouble for yourself. You be a good boy, and you’ll be treated well enough, I dare say. You’re mightily young yet, and five or six year won’t matter so much to you, and then think o’ what a deal you’ll see in that time.” ”

“ The boom swung out, the sail filled, and the boat gave a swift lurch forward with the ripple and the gurgle of water about them. Then the swift wind was all around them, and the boat heeled over to it, and rushed rapidly away.
Jack was still rowing. The motion had grown habitual with him, and now he hardly noticed it. The sloop [312] seemed to be almost upon them; he could even see the men upon the decks. Dred sat grimly at the tiller, looking steadily out ahead, never moving a hair. ”

“ I’m going to write to Sir Henry Ballister myself, and tell him about the way I’m treated by you. You never give me a farthing to spend, and as for being your own flesh and blood—why, I might as well be a dog in this house as to be your own kin. You keep all my money and use it as your own, and yet you don’t speak six words to me in a month.” Jack was dimly surprised at his own boldness in speaking. Now that he had made a beginning, it seemed very easy to say his say and to speak out all that lay on his mind. ”

“ Jack had heard enough talk in Blackbeard’s house to feel sure that Mr. Richard Parker had been the prime mover in the outrage, but he did not dare to tell Colonel Parker about it. “I don’t know,” said he; “but they’re very desperate villains, your honor, and that’s the truth. You don’t think what desperate villains they are when you are with them, for they talk and act just like other men. But I do believe that there’s nothing they would stop at. They are very desperate villains.” ”

“ Even the Roost, with its bare, rambling rooms and hallways, never entirely lost this feeling of unfamiliarity.
Nearly always there was more or less company at the old house—the same sort of wild, roistering company that gathered at the other plantation houses; men who came riding fine high-bred horses, who fought cocks, who gambled, drinking deeply and swearing with loud voices, and with an accent that was not at all like the English speech that Jack had known at home. ”

“ Colonel Birchall Parker had arisen, and his servant was shaving him. He sat by the open window in his dressing-gown, and with slippers on his feet. His wig, a voluminous mass of finely curled black hair, hung from the block ready for him to put on. The sunlight came in at the open window, [86] the warm mellow breeze just stirring the linen curtains drawn back to either side and bringing with it the multitudinous sounds of singing birds from the thickets beyond the garden. ”

“ Jack “My hero,” and he began calling him so now when they met again. “Well, my hero,” he cried out, as he came aboard the schooner from the man-of-war’s boat, carrying his arm in a sling, “and how do you do by now! Well, your old friend, Blackbeard, has got his quietus. Look ye here, d’ ye see, he left me a remembrance before he went,” and he held out his bandaged hand so that Jack might see it. “A great big cutlass slash across the knuckles,” he said.
“I hear the pirates are all in jail over at Williamsburgh,” said Jack. ”

“ There was not a sign of life in all the vast shimmering expanse, except a few turkey-buzzards sailing smoothly through the air and two or three others perched upon a blackened limb of a tree.
“There’s something dead over yonder,” observed Dennis.
“Where do you find the turkeys, Dennis?” said Jack.
“Find ‘em!” said Dennis. “Why, you find ‘em here. Where else should you find ‘em?” Jack did not ask further questions, and presently Dennis explained: “They won’t come out of the woods till toward the cool of the afternoon, when they come out to feed. ”