THE TREASURE DIGGER OF CAPE ANN
“Oh, boys, let me smoke my pipe in peace. How the moon shines on the snow, far, far away, down the sea! That makes me think of Captain Kidd. Ah, he was a hard man, that same Captain Kidd, and he had a hard, hard heart, if he was the son of a Scotch preacher.”
Here the grandfather paused and shook his head.
The pause made an atmosphere. The natural story-teller lowered his voice, and the earth seemed to stand still as he said:
“My name was Captain Kidd,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
My name was Captain Kidd,
As I sailed.
“My name was Captain Kidd,
And wickedly I did,
God’s laws I did forbid,
As I sailed.
“I murdered William Moore,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
And left him in his gore,
As I sailed.
“I’d the Bible in my hand,
’Twas my father’s last command,
But I sunk it in the sand,
As I sailed.”
Here the old man paused, pressed down the tobacco in his pipe with a quick movement of his forefinger, and shook his head twice, leaving the impression that the said Captain Kidd was a very bad sea-rover.
The room was still. You could hear the sparks shoot out; the corn-sheller stopped in his work. The old maiden lady who had come in for snuff touched the pepper pods: the air grew peppery, but no one dared to sneeze.
The old man bobbed up his head, as making an atmosphere for highly wrought work of the imagination.
“There was once an old couple,” he said, “who lived down on Cape Ann, and beyond their cottage was a sandy dune, and on the dune there was a thatch-patch.
“They had grown old and were poor, and both thought that their lot had been hard, and the old woman said to the old man:
“‘It was you who made my life hard. I was once a girl, and what I might have been no one knows. Ah me, ah me!’
“One fall morning the old man got up, and frisked around in an unusual way.
“‘What makes you so spry?’ asked the old woman.
“‘I dreamed a dream last night in the morning.’
“‘And what did you dream?’
“‘I dreamed that Captain Kidd hid his treasure in an iron box under the thatch-patch, right in the middle of the patch, where the shingle goes round.’
“‘Then go out and dig. If you don’t, I will. Think what we might be, if we could find that treasure. We might have a chariot like the Pepperells, and fine horses like the Boston gentry, the Royalls, and the Vassals.’
“‘But I can have the treasure only on one condition.’
“‘What is that?’
“‘I must not speak a word while I am digging.’
“‘That would be hard for you. Your mouth is always open, answering your old wife back. I could dig without a word, now. Well, well, ah-a-me! If you should dream that dream a second time, it would be a sign.’
“The next morning the old man got up spryer than before. He clattered the shovel and the tongs.
“‘Wife, wife, I dreamed the same dream again this morning.’
“‘Well, if you were to dream it a third time, it would be a certainty—that is, if you could dig for the treasure without speaking a word, which a woman of my sense and wit could do. Go and dig.’
“‘But the voice that came to me in my dream told me to dig at midnight, at the rising of the moon.’
“That night as the great moon rose over the waters of Cape Ann, like the sun, the old man took his hoe and hung on to it his clam-basket, and put both of them over his shoulder. He went out of the door over which the dry morning-glory vines were rattling.
“‘Now, husband, you stop and listen to me,’ said the old wife. ‘Remember all the time that you are not to speak a word, else we will have no chariot to ride past the Pepperells, nor cantering horses, leaving the dust all in their eyes. Now, what are you to do?’
“‘Never to speak a word.’
“‘Under no surprise.’
“‘Not if the sea were to roar, nor the sky to fall, nor an earthquake to uproot the hills, nor anything!’
“‘Well, you may go now, and when you return we will be richer than the Governor himself. I have always been dreaming that such a day might come to us as a sort of reward for all that we have suffered. But they say that Captain Kidd tricks those who dig for his treasures. His ghost appears to them. Never you fear if he lays hands on you.’
“The old man went down to the sea. The moon rose so fast that he could see it rising.
“The old couple had a black cat, a very sleek, fat little animal, which lived much on the broken clams that the clam-diggers threw out of their piles of bivalves at low tides.
“When she saw that the old man was going down to the sea, she started after him, with still feet—still, still.
“The old man measured by his eye the center of the thatch-patch, and dug into the tough roots of the thatch lustily. He became exhausted at last and stopped to rest, looking up to the moon that glittered in the autumn sea. He pushed the handle of the hoe down into the sand. It struck something that sounded like iron. He felt sure of the treasure.
“Suddenly he felt something rubbing against his leg. It was like a hand. ‘Captain Kidd came back to disconcert me,’ thought he. ‘But I will never speak a word,’ thought he silently, ‘not for the moon herself, nor for a thousand moons.’
“The supposed hand again rubbed against his leg—still, still.
“He turned his head very slowly and cautiously. He saw something move. It was like a gloved hand. ‘Captain Kidd’s, sure,’ he thought, but did not speak a word. The thing had still feet or hands.
“He turned his head a little more and was humbled to discover that it was not Captain Kidd’s hand at all, but only Tommy, purring and purring—still, still.
“His pride fell. He was disconcerted. No one can tell what he may do when he finds a pirate’s ghost to be only the house cat, all so still.
“There are some situations that take away all one’s senses, little things, too.
“He inclined his head more, so to be certain, when the truth was in an instant revealed to him beyond a possibility of doubt, but everything was still, still, still.
“‘Scat!’”
The story-teller had been talking in a very low tone. He uttered the last word with an explosive voice when he had caused all ears to be strained. His hearers leaped at this electric ending of his Red Settle Tale.
He resumed his pipe, and merely added:
“There are some things that human nature can not stand. When a man finds out something to be nothing, for example, like the treasure digger of Cape Ann.”
After a long time, during which heart-beats became normal, some one might venture to ask:
“And what became of the old woman?”
“Oh, after the old man spoke the sea roared and came rushing into the thatch-patch and over it, and he and the cat ran, and I mind me that that cat didn’t have much peace and comfort in the house after that.”
CHAPTER V
THE WAR OFFICE IN THE CEDARS—AN INDIAN TALE—INCIDENTS
The old war office at Lebanon, Conn., is still to be seen. That war office is a relic room and a library now. The great cedars are gone that once surrounded it, and the old Alden Tavern, which was enlivened by colonial tales, and in later times by the queer Revolutionary tale of the humiliation of the captured Prescott, has now left behind it the borders of the village green. The ground where Washington reviewed the army of Rochambeau is still held sacred, and near by rises the church of the Revolution, and in a wind-swept New England graveyard, on the hillside, in a crumbling tomb, sleeps Governor Trumbull, Washington’s “Brother Jonathan,” whom the great leader of the soldier commoners used to consult in every stress of the war.
In the same lot of rude, mossy, zigzag headstones rests one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, William Williams, who married Governor Trumbull’s daughter.
This place of rare history stands apart from the main traveled roads. To reach it, go to Willimantic, and take a branch railroad to Lebanon, which town of hidden farms was so called from its cedars.
What a wonder to a lover of history this place is! The farms, with orchards, great barns and meadows, rise on the hill-slopes as beautiful as they are thrifty. The town is some two or more miles from the railroad, and the visitor wonders how a place that decided the greatest events of history could have been left to primitive life, simplicity, and country roads, amid all the industrial activities that circle round it in near great factory towns.
There may be seen the New England of old—the same bowery landscapes and walls that the rugged farmers knew, who left their plows for Bunker Hill, after the Lexington alarm. Putnam often rode over these hills, and young John Trumbull, as we have shown, began his historical pictures there.
The little gambrel-roofed house called the war office, where the greatest and most decisive events of the Revolution had their origin, or support, was probably the country store of Governor Trumbull’s father, and was erected near the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Why did this little building gain this great importance, an importance greater than any other, except, perhaps, the old State House, Boston, and Independence Hall, Philadelphia? Let us repeat some facts for clearness.
Lebanon of the cedars lay on the direct road to Boston, and was connected with the principal Connecticut towns. There was sounded the Lexington alarm. The Connecticut Assembly delegated great powers to a committee of public safety. Governor Trumbull, who was the leading spirit of it, and three other members, resided in Lebanon, and held the early sessions of the committee there. This committee continued its sessions here during the war.
The [house] occupied by Governor Trumbull still stands, as we have said, but the tavern is gone.
“Brother Jonathan’s” [war office] and [residence] in Lebanon, Connecticut.
The writer dined in the house a few months before beginning this story, and was shown the part of the house where the alarm-post, as we call the guard’s room, and overlook, were.
We give a picture of this most interesting house, one of the most significant in the country. The spirit of the Revolution dwelt there, and from this place it exercised a wonderful but unseen power.
The Connecticut Society of the Sons of the Revolution in the winter of 1890–’91 made provision for the preservation of the war office, as a notable relic of the Revolution.
The building was repaired. The oak framework was found to be sound, and the decayed sills were replaced by new timber, and the chimney was restored and furnished with colonial firepieces from old houses in Lebanon. Andirons made in the Revolution, old iron cranes, and primitive utensils were brought to the council room, and the place of the meetings of the Committee of Public Safety was thus made to resume the aspect of a bygone age of the farmer heroes.
The celebration of the restoration of the war office by the Sons of the Revolution took place May 14, 1891, on Flag-day, when there waved a flag with the motto of “Brother Jonathan” in company with the Star-Spangled Banner.
On that occasion the modern American flag was raised over the old war office for the first time, where
Jonathan Trumbull never failed
In his store on Lebanon Hill.
Jonathan Trumbull has well been called the Cedar of Lebanon. The story of his early life is that of one of nature’s independent noblemen, than which no title is higher. His own brains and hands caused him to be a powerful influence; he made character, and character made him; he became poor, but nothing lives but righteousness, and character is everything.
The origin of his family name is interesting.
A Scottish king was out hunting, and was attacked by a bull. A young peasant threw himself before the king, twisted the bull’s horns, and saved the king’s life. The king gave him the name of “Turnbull,” with a coat of arms and the motto, Fortuna favet audaci. Hence the name Trumbull.
The wife of Trumbull, as we have shown, came from a family equally noble. She was the great-granddaughter of Robinson of Leyden, the patriarch of the church of the Pilgrim Fathers in Holland. It was he who said to the Pilgrims on their departure: “Go ye forth into the wilderness, and new light shall break forth from the Word.”
He had intended to follow the Pilgrims to America, but died in Holland.
Jonathan Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Conn., 1710. He was a successful trader at sea for a time; he then lost his ships and property and became a poor man, when he was called into the public service, and from that time devoted himself to patriotic duties, without any thought of poverty or riches, but only to fulfil the duties into which he had been called. He lived not for himself, but for others; not for the present, but for the future; he forgot himself, and it was fame.
His son, John Trumbull, the famous historical painter, pictures by anecdotes some of the scenes of his early home. Among these incidents is the following story, which carries its own lesson: