Five and seventy years ago, when our story commences, this bay was even more shut out from the Atlantic than it is at present; for while now there is an inlet directly in its front, at that period the entrance was further to the south. Where, at present, vessels of considerable draught pass under full sail, was then a beach, elevated some distance above the water.
On an arm of this bay, or to speak more accurately, on an inconsiderable stream jutting into an arm of the bay, there stood, at the time of which we write, a small settlement, which, though its first beginnings dated back scarcely more than ten or fifteen years, already gave promise of becoming a thriving place. In the rude tavern of this incipient village, on the evening preceding the events detailed in the last chapter, quite a number of persons were gathered.
Most of the company appeared to belong to the various privateers then lying in the bay, and were merely boisterous tars; but there was one individual, whose bearing, not less than his dress, bespoke him of a higher rank. He was a man apparently about eight-and-twenty years of age, handsome in person, and with a face which, though by no means homely, was principally remarkable for the indications it gave of frankness, decision, a good heart, and a superior intellect. It was impossible, indeed, to look on that countenance, without feeling that, while its possessor was born to rule in public affairs, his destiny was to be equally fortunate in winning esteem and affection in private life. He wore the buff and blue of the American army. Sitting in one corner, where he was busily engaged in writing, he seemed to be entirely unconscious of what was going on around him, except when he occasionally intermitted the busy motion of his pen, and leaning his head on one hand, gazed with an abstracted smile on the sports of the crowd.
For, night having closed in, and the seamen being ashore on leave till morning, a black fiddler had been procured, and a dance begun. It is true there were none of the fairer sex present to participate in the amusement, but this, so far from checking the merriment, only gave it more freedom and boisterousness. Several countrymen, from small farms in the interior, who had come down with produce in the afternoon, and whom the exhilarating sounds of the violin had tempted to linger behind, when their sturdy dames were expecting them at home, joined heartily in the fun. Utterly heedless of the black looks awaiting them, when, repentant on the morrow, they should slink into the chimney corner, they laughed, and joked, and danced, and drank whiskey with Jack Tar, as if there had been, and never would be, a “gudewife” angry at neglect, and “nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”
As the hours wore on, and the wind outside began to rise, the mirth waxed louder and more contagious. Perhaps the landlord’s old whiskey contributed its mite also; but be this as it may, long before midnight the uproar was terrible. The floor shook under the feet of the performers; the rafters of the ceiling trembled with the shouts and laughter: and the shrill notes of the Cremona rose over all. The few tallow candles, which, from tin sconces, threw at best but a faint yellow radiance around, were almost obscured by the dust that rose from the floor and the smoke that ascended from innumerable pipes. The landlord, with a boy for an assistant, stood within the quadrant shaped bar, that occupied one corner of the apartment, looking out, from between the upright rails, with a well-pleased smile, for he knew that the louder the merriment, the greater would be his profits. Indeed, he had little leisure even to look, so frequent were the calls from his thirsty customers.
It may seem strange that the officer should select this apartment for the purpose of writing, or that he could abstract himself sufficiently to write at all in such a din. But, in truth, the inn afforded no place whither he might retreat. In the primitive fashion of that age and district, it had but one huge room, unless the loft overhead, where the guests slept in rows, could be dignified by that name. It was a matter of necessity for him, therefore, to turn this apartment, which alternately served for ball-room, bar-room, dining-saloon and town-hall, into a library. Fortunately, circumstances had early taught him that valuable discipline of mind, which enables the possessor to concentrate his thoughts on the subject before him, regardless of the confusion and noise around.
Toward midnight rain began to fall. Occasionally, in pauses of the merriment, the storm would be heard beating wildly against the window panes, while now and then, when the door was temporarily opened, the wind would dash the cold drops into the faces of those near the entrance. The trees, which overshadowed the house, moaned in the gale. Down the village street the tempest went howling wildly, till in the distance it sank to a low wail. The water in the neighboring bay, driven fiercely against the meadows, roared with an ever-increasing sound, as if threatening to inundate the low tongue of land whereon the hamlet was built.
But little cared the crowd of guests for the storm. A spirited contest was going on between two dancers, who, after having often been engaged in temporary trials of skill during the evening, had now apparently entered on a decisive struggle. One was a short, square-built sailor, in a pair of canvass trowsers thickly besprinkled with tar. He wore a tarpaulin on his head, and sported, in the fashion of the day, an immense queue behind, which, as he danced, worked up and down on his back like an iron pump-handle. His antagonist was a tall, lank countryman, with a body disproportionately small, legs that looked like a pair of stilts, and arms that, swinging in tune to his double-shuffle, resembled those of a windmill revolving without their sails. His yellow hair hung down lank all around his face. He had thrown off his coat, and now stood in his original shirtsleeves, with a deep waistcoat that reached almost to his knees. A pair of pinch-beck seals, attached to an enormous watch that was his especial pride, being almost the only one in his neighborhood, bobbed heavily up and down against his baggy breeches; while a few copper farthings jingled ostentatiously in his pockets, as he went vigorously through the figures of that time-honored dance, which is known to the initiated as a “Jersey Four.”
“Keep it up, Jack,” shouted the friends of the tar, and “Go it, Lively!” answered the backers of the other party; while the spectators laughed, clapped their hands, and kept time to the music; the fiddler nodded his head in sympathy with the motion; and the two rivals did their best to satisfy their patrons and win the laurels they coveted. The sailor danced away as stoutly as if worked by machinery, his feet, hands, limbs and portly paunch moving neither faster nor slower: it seemed for a while, as if he could continue to dance in the same impassive way forever, if necessary. The countryman, however, was less phlegmatic. Occasionally, the vigor of his saltatory action would fall perceptibly off, but becoming aware of this by some observation from the crowd, or through his own consciousness, he would suddenly give himself a jerk, as if his whole body had been moved, all at once, by pulling a string; and then away he would go, in and out, around and back, dancing to his partner as if life and death depended on his agility, his arms swinging, his legs going, and the perspiration rolling from his face.
“Jack’s got enough; he’s giving out,” cried one of the landsmen, triumphantly calling attention to the tar, after the countryman had, with another jerk, started off apparently as fresh as ever. “He’s blowing like a porpoise. Hoe it down right smart, Jim, and you have him. Hurrah for Jarsey!”