Henry Briggs

“ Lieutenant Briggs, my first, by a splinter in the arm, whom I beg leave to recommend to your Lordship’s notice; Lieutenant Pearse, who has been acting three years and a half in this vessel; and one seaman. The loss of the enemy must be great. The wounded from the ship, 9 in all, are doing well. ”

“ One smash of the fist and Bevans went staggering toward the forward companion ladder, near the foot of which a little knot of seamen, white, brown and yellow, had gathered in cheerful expectation of seeing murder done.
Briggs balanced himself, a strange figure in his [8] dandified silk and polished boots, with his topi hat awry, head thrust forward, brows scowling, massive neck swollen with rage and drink. Under the smudgy gleam of the lantern on the mizzen, his crimson face, muffled in jetty beard, and the evil-glowering eyes of him made a picture of wrath. ”

“ The Kapellmeister watched the door grimly as it shut behind the miller, and then he glanced about the garret. "Poor," he said, "Humph! A place for a beggar!" His eyes roved from the pallet in the corner to the pitcher and the basin, the clothes on the pegs, the cobwebs hanging, the geraniums crushed on the sill.
Then he lifted the girl's head and held it between his hands, looking down at her face, supporting her in his arms. The lashes lay heavy on her cheeks and the tendrils of hair, curly and golden, lay on her neck and her forehead. Her throat was bare; it was white and full. ”

“ He peered at the lotus-bud handle, the wavy blade of steel, the dark groove where still lay the poison, the curaré.
“Merciful God!” whispered Captain Briggs, and covered his eyes with a shaking hand. He suddenly stretched out hands that shook. “Oh, haven’t I suffered enough and repented enough? Haven’t I labored enough and paid enough?” He pressed a hand to his forehead, moist and cold. “He’s all I’ve got, Lord—the boy is all I’ve got! Take me, me—but don’t let vengeance come through him! The sin was mine! Let me pay! Don’t drag him down to hell! Take me—but let him live and be a man!” ”

“ Very spruce and fine was Captain Briggs; very much content with life and with the strength that in him lay, that excellent May morning, as with firm stride and clear eye he walked up State Street, in Boston Town. The wounds which would have killed a weaker man had long since healed on him. Up from the water-front he walked, resplendent in his best blue suit, and with a gold-braided cap on his crisp hair. His black beard was carefully trimmed and combed ”

“ Briggs ceremoniously took it, and set huge slices of bread and jam before the gaunt mountaineer, who found his feet in an instant; received a slice on the palm of his outspread hand; lifted it cautiously, his yellow teeth showing hungrily; smelled it suspiciously, thrust forth his tongue, and slowly tasted the strange mixture on the surface; then, with confidence established, finished it in four gulps, and, like a greyhound, looked eagerly for more. Briggs laughed and pointed to the tray on the steps, but the Hualpai shook his head and drew back shyly. ”

“ Men, when she clears, we’ll box her off with the fores’l—we’ll beat ’em yet!”
Once more allegiance knit itself to Briggs. Despite that double murder (as surely done by him as if his own hand had wielded the kris that had beheaded Mr. Scurlock and the boy) , the drums and shoutings of the war-fleet, added to this new hope of getting clear of Ulu Salama, fired every white man’s heart with sudden hope.
The growl that had begun to rise against Briggs died away.
“Mr. Crevay,” he commanded, striding aft, “livelier there with those pigs! They’re not doin’ half a trick o’ work!” ”

“ Ritter stirred against the cushions; his hand lay limp in her clasp. "Yes, little one," he said, "Yes. Your heart is like your voice, fathomless and pure. The carriage has stopped now, and there is the candle, burning up yonder under the eaves. Can you find your way alone, without help? I am strangely weary."
His voice was low, and the words came slowly, with an effort. He passed his hand over his face:
"Good-night—Brünnhild'!"
He held her hands and drew her towards him: "Good-night, little one. There are shadows under your eyes, and your lip quivers; you are pale.—Good-night." ”

“ Briggs tried to excuse himself for his recklessness on the plea of desperate remedies; he must get rid of Franklin West and, in order to [Pg 192] maintain his independence, and, to keep afloat, he must at times take risks. Guy used occasionally to notice a curious elation in his employer’s manner; it showed itself most conspicuously at the close of the day, when they sat at dinner; it sometimes caused Briggs to tell Guy to order something especially good to eat. But even on the days when he felt depressed, Briggs managed to display an artificial gayety that deceived the boy. ”

“ Briggs we’d think there was no such thing as home life in Washington.”
“Oh, there’s a lot of it,” Briggs asserted, jocularly. “Only they keep it dark.”
“It seems to me there’s nothing but wire-pulling, wire-pulling, everybody trying to get ahead of everybody else. It makes me sick. Still, I suppose I’m doing a little of that myself just now,” she went on, with a nervous laugh. “What do you suppose I come here for to-day, Mr. Briggs? I ought to be ashamed bothering your wife just when she’s going to have a big party. But I knew it would just break my girls’ hearts if they didn’t come to-night. ”

“ He should be tall,"—her eye fell on Briggs—"he should be handsome,"—still on Briggs—"he should be graceful, he should be athletic."—At this point her eye seemed fairly to feast on Briggs, and a curious lurid light lowered in it. She paused a moment. I was sitting next to Briggs, and I felt a shiver run through him. I looked at his face, and it was ghastly pale. I asked him in a whisper if he felt faint? He impatiently motioned me to be silent, and remained, as I thought, like a bird paralysed beneath the gaze of a serpent. ”

“ The knife-blade clicked on the planking, like the clicking of his teeth that showed black through slavering lips.
“Allah! il Allah!” he gulped, heaving himself up on one hand, slashing with the other.
Why do men, in a crisis, so often do stupid, unaccountable things? Why did Briggs kick at him, with a roaring oath, instead of shooting? Briggs felt the bite of steel in his leg. That broke the numbing spell of unreason. The captain’s pistol, at point-blank range, shattered the yellow man’s skull. Blood, smeared with an ooze of brain, colored the stewing deck. ”

“ God! If I come back, it’ll only be to cut his black heart out an’ throw it to the sharks. We’re done!”
A moment Briggs stood drunkenly peering, half minded to pursue, to match his belaying-pin against the mate’s dirk. Gurgling in his throat—for excess of rage had closed upon all speech—he panted, with froth upon his black beard, while dim figures along the rail and on shore waited great deeds. Then all at once he laughed—a horrible, deep-throated laugh, rising, swelling to mighty and bestial merriment; the laugh of a gorilla, made man. ”

“ In this same house, that son had grown to [95] manhood, and had himself taken a wife; and so for a few years there had been happiness again.
But not for long. The birth of Hal, the old man’s grandson, had cost the life of Hal’s mother, a daughter-in-law whom Captain Briggs had loved like his own flesh and blood; and, two years after, tragedy had once more entered Snug Haven. Edward Briggs, on his first voyage as master of a ship—a granite-schooner, between Rockport and Boston—had fallen victim of a breaking derrick-rope. ”

“ Among so many triumphs of art and sportsmanship, it is difficult to say which of the many excellent examples is to be preferred; all are admirable, but I think the one I have chosen for illustration is my favourite. Mr. Briggs is deer-stalking, and though he occasionally suffers, even to prostration, from the heat of the weather, and the difficulties presented by hills, rocks, and heather, he really enjoys creeping and hiding with his gillies, until the royal hart, which the forester has seen through his glass, is well within rifle shot. He fires, misses ”

“ Scurlock take the Silver Fleece back to Long Wharf, Boston, while you rot in Motomolo Straits—”
With a blasphemy, Briggs strode to his locker. The doctor smiled cannily as Briggs flung open the locker, tossed in the kris and, taking a square-shouldered bottle, returned to the table. This bottle the captain thumped down on the table, under the lamp-gleam.
“Best Old Jamaica,” boasted he. “Best is none too good, when I win my doctor’s entire pay. ”

“ The first man that loosens his tongue, I’ll split him like a herring!”
“Captain Briggs, just a moment, sir!” exclaimed a voice at his left. A short, well-knit figure in blue, advancing out of the shadows, ’round the aft companion, laid a hand on the drunken brute’s arm.
“You keep out of this, doctor!” cried Briggs. “They’re a mutinous, black lot o’ dogs that need lickin’, and I’m the man to give it to ’em!”
“Yes, yes, sir, of course,” Dr. Filhiol soothed the beast. “But as the ship’s physician, let me advise you to go to your cabin, sir. The heat and humidity are extremely bad. ”

“ The Kapellmeister paced the narrow corridor impatiently. "Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed, "The matter is important, or I shouldn't have come. I must have an answer to-night. Try the door, and if it is unlocked, open it and shout. You have a voice like a saw; it would raise the dead."
The miller put his hand to the latch and it yielded: "Fräulein—!" The garret was in shadow, and across the floor lay the moonbeams glittering; the casement was open, and the geraniums were outlined dark against the sky, their colour dimmed. ”

“ Daddy will dandle the Darling,
And show him his beautiful toy.
Hushaby, Pet! Baby, don't fret!
Sleepery, Peepery Boy!"
Briggs had just reached the end of the second verse when his keenly sensitive ear caught the sound of a latchkey turning in the door. A look of terror crossed his face. "It's she! It's she!" he cried. "Oh, Robinson, if she finds you here! Oh, if you love me, fly!" I needed no second bidding. With a hasty grip of the hand I bade my friend farewell, and this is the last that has been seen of Briggs of Balliol. ”

“ If Miss Sophia Taunton learnt a new song, two of the Miss Briggses came out with a new duet. The Tauntons had once gained a temporary triumph with the assistance of a harp, but the Briggses brought three guitars into the field, and effectually routed the enemy. There was no end to the rivalry between them.
Now, as Mr. Samuel Briggs was a mere machine, a sort of self-acting legal walking-stick; and as the party was known to have originated, however remotely, with Mrs. Taunton, the female branches of the Briggs family had arranged that Mr. Alexander should attend, instead of his brother ”

“ Briggs looks so commonplace in every-day clothes, other men, even I perhaps, might be as splendid as he was if we put on spangled tights.”
I had to whisper because Mr. Briggs was near me, and I did not want to hurt his feelings. Mrs. Ascher may not have heard me. She certainly did not answer; I went on:
“Thus there may be far more beauty in the world than we suspect. We may be meeting men every day who have the figures of Greek gods underneath their absurd coats. It’s a most consoling thought.” ”

“ Whatever taste he has in art is, like his taste in letters, Flemish.
Mr. Briggs's personal appearance is not prepossessing. He is about five feet six inches in height, somewhat slightly framed, with a sharp, thin face, narrow and low forehead, pert-looking nose, mouth rather pleasant in expression, eyes not so good, gray and small, although occasionally brilliant. In dress he is apt to affect the artist, priding himself especially upon his personal acquaintance with artists and his general connoisseurship. He is a member of the Art Union. ”

“ I am sorry that my guardian has been wicked enough to attempt to cheat me out of it.”
“What sort of a man is Mr. Briggs?”
“At first I was not prepossessed in his favor; but he improved on acquaintance. When his wife and son spoke against me, he always took my part. When 332I was charged with dishonesty, he refused to believe it.”
“I think it quite possible that he is a naturally kind-hearted man,” said the sick man; “but human nature is sometimes inconsistent. ”

“ What does he look like?”
“I’m going to answer you in a peculiar way,” said Briggs. “That boy, sir, that grandson of mine, he’s the living spit and image of what I was, fifty-five or sixty years ago!”
“Eh, what? What’s that you say?”
“It’s wonderful, I tell you, to see the resemblance. His father—my son—didn’t show it at all. A fine, handsome man he was, doctor, and a good man, too. Everybody liked him; he never did a bad thing in his life. He sailed a straight course, and went under his own canvas, all the way; and I loved him for an honest, upright man. ”

“ Carefully tended beard, well-brushed coat and polished boots all proclaimed Alpheus Briggs a proud old man. Though the soul of him had utterly changed, still Captain Briggs held true to type. In him no laxity inhered, no falling away from the strict tenets of shipshape neatness.
The captain appeared to be waiting for something. Once in a while he raised the telescope and directed it toward the far blue sheet of the outer harbor, where the headland of Pigeon Cliff thrust itself against the gray-green of the ship channel, swimming in a distant set of haze. ”

“ Briggs was perceptible. I kept my patient on the platform until every other [Pg 242] passenger had gone: I marched him up and down the main area of the station. Each time I caught sight of a woman who looked a possible Mrs. Briggs I steered my charge into her vicinity. In spite of a piece of information which Briggs had imparted to me on the journey—namely, that he expected soon to become a father—I was surprised that his wife had not come to the station to welcome him. However, it was plain that Briggs himself was not particularly surprised, nor, what was more important, disappointed. ”