登陆注册
34548500000066

第66章 CAPTAIN SCARFIELD(2)

Mainwaring's mother and Eliza Cooper had always been intimate friends, and the coming and going of the young man during his leave of absence were looked upon in the house as quite a matter of course. Half a dozen times a week he would drop in to execute some little commission for the ladies, or, if Captain Cooper was at home, to smoke a pipe of tobacco with him, to sip a dram of his famous old Jamaica rum, or to play a rubber of checkers of an evening. It is not likely that either of the older people was the least aware of the real cause of his visits; still less did they suspect that any passages of sentiment had passed between the young people.

The truth was that Mainwaring and the young lady were very deeply in love. It was a love that they were obliged to keep a profound secret, for not only had Eleazer Cooper held the strictest sort of testimony against the late war--a testimony so rigorous as to render it altogether unlikely that one of so military a profession as Mainwaring practiced could hope for his consent to a suit for marriage, but Lucinda could not have married one not a member of the Society of Friends without losing her own birthright membership therein. She herself might not attach much weight to such a loss of membership in the Society, but her fear of, and her respect for, her uncle led her to walk very closely in her path of duty in this respect. Accordingly she and Mainwaring met as they could-- clandestinely--and the stolen moments were very sweet. With equal secrecy Lucinda had, at the request of her lover, sat for a miniature portrait to Mrs.

Gregory, which miniature, set in a gold medallion, Mainwaring, with a mild, sentimental pleasure, wore hung around his neck and beneath his shirt frill next his heart.

In the month of April of the year 1820 Mainwaring received orders to report at Washington. During the preceding autumn the West India pirates, and notably Capt. Jack Scarfield, had been more than usually active, and the loss of the packet Marblehead (which, sailing from Charleston, South Carolina, was never heard of more) was attributed to them. Two other coasting vessels off the coast of Georgia had been looted and burned by Scarfield, and the government had at last aroused itself to the necessity of active measures for repressing these pests of the West India waters.

Mainwaring received orders to take command of the Yankee, a swift, light- draught, heavily armed brig of war, and to cruise about the Bahama Islands and to capture and destroy all the pirates' vessels he could there discover.

On his way from Washington to New York, where the Yankee was then waiting orders, Mainwaring stopped in Philadelphia to bid good-by to his many friends in that city. He called at the old Cooper house. It was on a Sunday afternoon. The spring was early and the weather extremely pleasant that day, being filled with a warmth almost as of summer. The apple trees were already in full bloom and filled all the air with their fragrance. Everywhere there seemed to be the pervading hum of bees, and the drowsy, tepid sunshine was very delightful.

At that time Eleazer was just home from an unusually successful voyage to Antigua. Mainwaring found the family sitting under one of the still leafless chestnut trees, Captain Cooper smoking his long clay pipe and lazily perusing a copy of the National Gazette. Eleazer listened with a great deal of interest to what Mainwaring had to say of his proposed cruise. He himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and, singularly unbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began telling of what he knew, particularly of Captain Scarfield--in whom he appeared to take an extraordinary interest.

Vastly to Mainwaring's surprise, the old Quaker assumed the position of a defendant of the pirates, protesting that the wickedness of the accused was enormously exaggerated. He declared that he knew some of the freebooters very well and that at the most they were poor, misdirected wretches who had, by easy gradation, slid into their present evil ways, from having been tempted by the government authorities to enter into privateering in the days of the late war. He conceded that Captain Scarfield had done many cruel and wicked deeds, but he averred that he had also performed many kind and benevolent actions. The world made no note of these latter, but took care only to condemn the evil that had been done. He acknowledged that it was true that the pirate had allowed his crew to cast lots for the wife and the daughter of the skipper of the Northern Rose, but there were none of his accusers who told how, at the risk of his own life and the lives of all his crew, he had given succor to the schooner Halifax, found adrift with all hands down with yellow fever.

There was no defender of his actions to tell how he and his crew of pirates had sailed the pest-stricken vessel almost into the rescuing waters of Kingston harbor. Eleazer confessed that he could not deny that when Scarfield had tied the skipper of the Baltimore Belle naked to the foremast of his own brig he had permitted his crew of cutthroats (who were drunk at the time) to throw bottles at the helpless captive, who died that night of the wounds he had received. For this he was doubtless very justly condemned, but who was there to praise him when he had, at the risk of his life and in the face of the authorities, carried a cargo of provisions which he himself had purchased at Tampa Bay to the Island of Bella Vista after the great hurricane of 1818?

In this notable adventure he had barely escaped, after a two days' chase, the British frigate Ceres, whose captain, had a capture been effected, would instantly have hung the unfortunate man to the yardarm in spite of the beneficent mission he was in the act of conducting.

同类推荐
  • 藤阴杂记

    藤阴杂记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 大乘净土赞

    大乘净土赞

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 朝鲜纪事

    朝鲜纪事

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 秀野林禅师语录

    秀野林禅师语录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 大方等大集月藏经

    大方等大集月藏经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 天行

    天行

    号称“北辰骑神”的天才玩家以自创的“牧马冲锋流”战术击败了国服第一弓手北冥雪,被誉为天纵战榜第一骑士的他,却受到小人排挤,最终离开了效力已久的银狐俱乐部。是沉沦,还是再次崛起?恰逢其时,月恒集团第四款游戏“天行”正式上线,虚拟世界再起风云!
  • 天行

    天行

    号称“北辰骑神”的天才玩家以自创的“牧马冲锋流”战术击败了国服第一弓手北冥雪,被誉为天纵战榜第一骑士的他,却受到小人排挤,最终离开了效力已久的银狐俱乐部。是沉沦,还是再次崛起?恰逢其时,月恒集团第四款游戏“天行”正式上线,虚拟世界再起风云!
  • 霹雳之问道长生

    霹雳之问道长生

    霹雳世界流,一个平凡人见证霹雳世界之残酷历程。
  • 雨梦辰风

    雨梦辰风

    他和她因一次意外而认识,两人擦肩而过后以为再也不会相见,却因一次转学而把他们紧紧连在了一起.......他父母离异,从出生起就在国外和爷爷奶奶一起生活,直到两个老人都离开后,他才回国,却没想到回国的第一天就遇到了让他从此都放不下的女孩,而这是一辈子!她有一个温馨幸福的家,她活泼美丽,像天使一般动人,她的一颦一笑,都牵动着他的心,让他冰冷的心又恢复了温度......“对不起,我爱你......因为我爱你......所以......我们分手吧!”安雨梦说完,转过身,向前走了一步,“我们...再也不要见面了。”
  • 天空中陨落的星辰

    天空中陨落的星辰

    千年帝国的一个偏远地区,少年崔斯的小村子被魔兽摧毁,崔斯被帝国将军收留后来到了帝都。在帝都少年开始打拼,成为了帝国的士兵,正前途无量。可是在一次执行任务期间被反抗军俘虏,从此开始他渐渐的发现帝国的真相。
  • 红流纪事:东北大决战辽沈战役

    红流纪事:东北大决战辽沈战役

    丛书所选之“重大事件”,只选择了民主革命28年历史当中30件大事,力求通过这30件大事大体上涵盖中共党史基本问题的主要方面。这首先就遇到了选取哪些事件最为合适的问题。就我们的水平而言,很难说就一定能够选得那么准确、恰当。但总体设想是,应以讴歌中国共产党的丰功伟业为主,有的也可侧重总结某些历史经验或教训。
  • 第二十三空间

    第二十三空间

    最强少女历练都市,用自身术法,拯救周围的人。
  • 教师公文包-动物世界

    教师公文包-动物世界

    本书分“昆虫大家庭”、“珍惜的动物”、“动物界真奇妙”、“漫谈海洋动物”四部分,对动物的基本常识进行了介绍。
  • 课本里的童话王国

    课本里的童话王国

    董淑亮编著的《课本里的童话王国》围绕课本中的语文、数学、地理、历史、自然、科技等相关内容,以童话的形式和清新流畅、生动活泼的语言,介绍了许多科学知识。其内容丰富多彩,情节曲折多变,读来轻松、有趣、新颖,不但对小学生深化课内知识、补充课外知识会大有益处,而且也是难得的小学教学补充参考。
  • 明日方舟之源石计划

    明日方舟之源石计划

    雷恩:今天我又掉队了。身为整合运动的一个成员雷恩迷路加掉队已是家常便饭,某次整合运动准备袭击乌萨斯某军工厂时不出意外他又掉队了…………就是这样的他却有着悲惨的过去,源石病,感染者,天灾,在这么一个崩坏的泰拉世界身为感染者的雷恩究竟会有怎样的冒险呢。(前期有些黑暗,后期的雷恩就是个行为古怪的逗比)