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Midshipman Paulding
By Molly Elliot Seawell
Chapter II
A VICTORY OVER A DUTCH LUGGER
NEXT morning, about nine o'clock, when every soldier and officer had cleared out of the village, and Peter, wearing a large pair of horn spectacles and his invariable great white apron, was busy before his ledger in the dining-room, the door was dashed open and a very disheveled and angry little midshipman, with his hair tumbled over his eyes, bounced into the room. "Landlord! Landlord!" he shouted at the top of his lungs; and then seeing Peter before him, he burst out furiously: "You lazy, good-for-nothing Dutchman, why didn't you wake me at daylight, as I ordered you, when the other officers left? There you let me lie and snooze when very other officer has had four hours' start of me! Explain your conduct, sir, or—" "Egsplain my coonduct!" said Peter coolly, and straightening his horn spectacles, as he looked at Hiram with infinite scorn.
Now Peter was very kindly disposed toward "der leedle boy," but this unlucky allusion to him as a Dutchman cooked Hiram's goose, so to speak. And as for the respect due a midshipman and a gentleman, Peter had no more idea of it than a Dutch windmill. He was very obsequious to a real live colonel with a regiment at his back, but he was a thoroughly independent person with a fourteen-year old midshipman who had only a dozen sailors rolling along after him. "Veil," said he, with a snort of indignation, "I dells you. I didn't think it mattered a bawbee whether a leedle shaver like you is shleepin' hard at Peter Gansevoort's davern, or is marching along, to got under der heels of der big officers and trip dem oop, so I says to mine vrow, 'Let der leedle shaver shleep.' But I dells you, Hiram, don't you gall me no Dootchman; don't you do it, leedle boy!"
Hiram stood perfectly purple with rage. His father, who had been a revolutionary soldier, had drilled him well in the etiquette of an officer; and, besides, he had been on board the ships in New York harbor. A midshipman who has once stepped upon the quarter-deck is not likely to underrate the respect due him by a civilian, and Hiram considered the slightest familiarity toward a gentleman with an officer's commission in his pocket was a mortal affront, to say nothing of the extreme danger to the civilian. But how to enforce this respect due his uniform, he was entirely at a loss. He knew perfectly well that no Dutch tavern-keeper had a right to call him by his first name, but he did not know how to prevent it when the emergency actually came to pass. However, he felt for his sword, and touched it, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'll have you to understand, sir," he said, "that I am an officer, and I wear a sword."
"And mine vrow, she haf a bodkin, but she don't be proud about it," answered Peter stoutly. "Very well, sir," said Hiram, boiling over with rage, but trying to be cool and composed." It is not in the power of a Dutch tavern-keeper to insult an officer and a gentleman, and I'll thank you for my bill at once, and breakfast, too." And just at this minute Danny Dixon's head appeared at the door, and he saluted Hiram. Danny was a gray-haired old man-of-war's man that was as unhappy on shore, except for an occasional spree, as a pickerel in a graveled walk. "I come to report, sir, and say the men is ready to be piped up," he said. Hiram turned pale. Was Danny Dixon to be the witness of his discomfiture by Dutch Peter? "Now, did you say I was Dootch?" said Peter, advancing angrily, and blowing like a porpoise. "I did," said Hiram, taking a step forward, and conscious that Danny Dixon's eye, and through him that of every sailor in the navy, was fixed upon him. "I said you were Dutch, and you are Dutch. You talk Dutch, and you look Dutch; and I wonder somebody hasn't planted you in the ground for a Dutch tulip root before this. You're just the shape of one." "Veil, den—veil, den," roared Peter, in a rage, "you got no breakfast from me eef you galls me a Dootchman!" "All right," answered Hiram coolly; " then you get no money for my bill without breakfast." "Hooray!" chuckled Danny Dixon to himself; "Cap'n Paul Jones hisself couldn't 'v answered better!"
This turn of affairs evidently staggered Peter. He glared at Hiram for a moment, and then went out, and presently came back grumbling, bringing a very good breakfast. Hiram, recognizing that he had got the better of the tavern-keeper, sat down at the table, and, pushing his cap back, and clattering his sword tremendously, loftily directed Peter to wait on him. Peter might have rebelled at this, but outside the door, which opened on the broad tavern porch, the sailors were assembled, and Danny Dixon was giving them a highly characteristic account of the whole thing, of which he had heard all. "Mr. Paulding, he come bearin' down under all sail, and he hails the Dutch lugger, and he says, 'Dang your eyes, why didn't you call me for the morning watch?' —No, he didn't say 'Dang your eyes!' but he oughter. And the lugger was as sassy as you please, and he says, 'It don't make no matter about such a little jolly boat as you, nohow.' And then Mr. Paulding, he hove to, and lays aboard o' the lugger broadside on, and he says, as bold as Cap'n Paul Jones, 'I'll have you to understand I'm an officer and a gentleman, and when I gives you a taste o' my port battery here '—a-touchin' his sword—' you'll sing out for quarter loud enough.' And that's just what the lugger did. I tell you what, mates, if Mr. Paulding had been aboard o' the Bunnum Richard that 'ere time when I was a powder-monkey—"
A howl of protest from his mates checked Danny's eloquence. But they all agreed that "Mr. Paulding, he done right," and determined to stand by and be ready to make the Dutch lugger haul down his colors in case he should dare to hoist them again. This conversation was perfectly audible, and while listening to it Peter grew more and more respectful, while Hiram realized, with much satisfaction, that he had twelve good men and true behind him in settling with the Dutch lugger.
It took but a little while to dispose of his breakfast — the men had already had theirs—and then Peter presented his bill. It was not a modest one, and Hiram's pockets were no better lined than might be expected of a boy that had nineteen brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, having plainly got the better of Dutch Peter, he brought out the amount for the bill with a great air of magnanimity, and slapped it down on the table. This promptness and willingness to pay still further increased Peter's respect for the little midshipman, and he followed him to the door, saying obsequiously: "Good-by, Mr. Hiram. Good-by." "Paulding, if you please," answered Hiram haughtily, as he was now on the tavern porch with the sailors, who were ready to take up their bundles and march, and he did not wish to be addressed as "Mr. Hiram" before them. But Peter, obviously; misunderstanding him, cried out affably, "Veil, den, good-by, Paulding, if you likes it dot vay!" Hiram was about to march off, not deigning to notice Dutch Peter any further, but Danny Dixon, who disapproved of Peter from the start, now spoke aside to his mates: "Mates, jist hear his imperence. Landsmen ain't got no notion o' discipline. I've seen a man strung up at the yard-arm for less'n that 'ere—"
Meanwhile Hiram had gone down the steps, but hearing a scuffle behind him, he turned and saw Dutch Peter forced down on his knees by Danny's strong arm, while the old sailor bawled at him gruffly: "Take that 'ere back, you ornsightly Dutch lubber, or me and my mates 'll put a hankercher round your neck and rouse on it until we starts your peepers out o' your head! You pipe up now, 'Mr. Paulding,' as loud as you can hail!" which Peter immediately proceeded to do, yelling at the top of his lungs. "Good-by, Mr. Paulding. Mr. Paulding, good-by." "Let him up, Dixon," cried Hiram, laughing; and Dutch Peter, on being let up, waddled into the house as fast as his legs would carry him, shaking his fist behind Danny's back.
It was a glorious May morning—the April of colder climates. In the velvet wind there was a faint perfume of the coming leaves, and the branches of the great chestnut trees were full of pale-pink sheaths from which the flowers were bursting. The dogwood trees were already brave in their glory of white blossoms, and over the woods, the fields, and in the keen, bright air was the sweet intoxication of the spring-—the time when there seems to be a new heaven and a new earth. Hiram, who was a country boy and knew wood-craft perfectly, was delighted, and drank in the beauty and freshness around him eagerly. He was also a capital walker, and he legged it so briskly that the sailors, trudging behind him, soon began to puff and blow.
"I tell you what," groaned Jack Brown, one of the younger sailors, "if I could trade these 'ere ten miles between we and Sackett's Harbor for doin' duty night and day for a week, I'd do it cheerful. Lord! If I could shut my eyes and wake up and find myself on the tops'l yard, I'd give a week's grog. Legs weren't made for walkin', nohow — leastways, sailors' legs weren't." "You're right there," answered Danny Dixon, sighing deeply, "and I don't like the scent o' these 'ere flowers and trees. It kinder sickens me. A whiff o' tar and oakum from the hold would smell mighty good arter these here lubberly flowers and things."
Hiram, not wishing to hear what the sailors were talking about, struck off ahead. The ten miles were nothing to him; but they were a serious undertaking to sailors unused to marching. So, telling them to follow his wake, he went on at a brisk gait to enjoy the glory of the perfect day. Toward noon he halted, and had to wait nearly an hour for his men to come up. But when they did come up they were so fatigued that Hiram concluded to stop and let them eat the dinner they had brought with them. As he had considered it beneath his dignity to ask Dutch Peter for any luncheon, he was very glad to take a piece of bread and some bacon offered to him by Danny Dixon when Danny saw him sitting at a little distance without anything to eat. As soon as the sailors were through with their dinner, Jack Brown produced his fiddle, and some of the men, who ten minutes before had been complaining of being walked off their legs, now jumped up and began to dance a hornpipe with all the vigor in the world, while Jack occasionally varied his scraping by shaking a leg himself as he played.
Suddenly above the merry music that floated out in the May sunshine, as the sailors gayly footed it, Hiram heard a queer sound. He went forward a little through the trees, and, putting his ear to the ground as he had seen the huntsmen do, listened intently. He had never heard musketry firing in his life; but it is a sound easily distinguishable—and then came at intervals the booming of a solitary big gun. Hiram remembered hearing Colonel Tuthill say the night before that the block-house at Sackett's Harbor was armed with a single long gun. He listened long enough to make sure, and then dashed through the underbrush to his men. "Come on, men," he cried, "they are fighting at Sackett's Harbor! Fighting, understand! Don't you hear the firing?" and at that minute, as the music of the violin suddenly stopped, they all heard distinctly the sullen booming of a heavy gun.
Some of the men who were lying down sprung to their feet in an instant, and as Hiram put out at a cracking pace for the main road, the sailors dropped into a sort of dog trot, and followed right after him. No grumbling or complaining now. The only thing Hiram heard as they dashed ahead was an occasional remark about a chance for prize money, and Danny Dixon's pious wish that "Cap'n Paul Jones could rise from the grave and take a hand in this 'ere scrimmage."
How Hiram got over the ground he scarcely knew. He was a boy of deep imagination and a born fighter, and he felt instinctively that if he were there he could give a good account of himself. At last they reached a rising ground over which the road passed, and all at once the view burst upon him—the great inland sea of Ontario shimmering in the midday sunlight, the British ships anchored in the harbor, their masts and yards standing out in black distinctness against the brilliant sky, the gunboats fighting close in shore, while amid the clouds of smoke the uniforms of the British gleamed redly. The rattle of musketry, the uproar of fighting, the sullen booming of the great gun in the block-house could be heard distinctly. Hiram threw his cap up in the air, and with a wild "Hurrah!" started off on a run, the sailors trotting after him.
The harbor was in full sight from the road, and the progress of the fight was plain. After several desperate assaults on the block-house, the British were forced back, step by step, to their gunboats, which now opened fire from their long eighteen-pounders upon the advancing Americans. The ships were rapidly weighing their anchors, and occasionally fired a tremendous but ineffective broadside, but the gunboats were evidently beaten back, and the effort was to get them off with as little loss as possible. "No prize-money for we, boys," gasped Jack Brown, "the Britishers is gittin' out o' the way too fast"; and so quickly was this accomplished that when the party, with Hiram still at the head, reached the main street of the straggling village of Sackett's Harbor the fleet was beating out of the harbor, and the only red coats in sight were those lying stark in death around the blockhouse. As they advanced, all was confusion. General Brown, with his five hundred regulars, had resisted the attack, in spite of the ignominious flight of the American militia and the absence of Commodore Chauncey's fleet, which was at the other end of the lake. Wounded and dying men were being borne by on stretchers as Hiram passed along. Some were groaning and weeping; others bore their agony with silent fortitude; others, again, were too far gone to feel anything. As Hiram made toward the blockhouse he stumbled over the body of a soldier, lying on his face and clutching his musket tightly. Hiram stooped and tried to raise him, thinking him wounded, but the man was dead, with a frightful wound in his breast. The young midshipman paled a little. He had never seen a dead man before. But he gazed steadily at the soldier as the sailors bore him off, resisting manfully the strong desire he had of looking away.
"This is war," he thought to himself. "An officer must learn to stand its terrible sights without flinching." While Hiram stood revolving these things in his mind, Colonel Tuthill ran across Danny Dixon, around a corner of the block-house. "Where did you leave Mr. Paulding?" he asked. "He's here, sir," answered Danny, touching his cap. "'Twarn't his fault that lubberly Dutchman didn't wake him up till the middle o' the watch. He's a mighty pretty little orficer, Mr. Paulding is, and he's got a good appetite for fightin'. I seen it in his eye." Hiram heard the last words, and this humble tribute delighted him. He had an instinctive confidence in his own courage, but he was glad to think that the sailors did not doubt it either; and in another minute he was shaking hands with Colonel Tuthill, and asking eagerly about the fight; and Danny Dixon was saying to his mates: "I tell you, this 'ere 'minds me of the time when I was on the Bunnum Richard, and we sighted the S'rapis—"
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