Toward the close of a glorious day in September, 1683, William Phipps beheld a smart brig nose her way up the harbor of Boston, and drop in her anchor in the field of water wherein his ship-yard thrust its toes. A small boat then presently put forth and made straight for the ship-yard landing, where three men calmly alighted, throwing ashore a small heap of shabby-genteel-looking baggage.
Somewhat annoyed, thus to have his precincts employed by any Tom, Dick and Harry of chance, Phipps stepped from between the ribs of a ship’s skeleton, which was being daily articulated, and strode toward the intruders. Then a rumble, which ought to have been a shout, broke from his lips, about the same second that a roar of joy appeared to leap out of the foremost of the strangers, who had landed and who were coming boldly forward.
William Phipps and the leader of the invading trio then rushed hotly together and collided, giving each other a bear-like hug from which the ship-builder presently extricated himself at a thought of how he might be shocking all or any good Puritans who might chance to be witnessing the scene.
“Well, shatter my hilt! and God bless you! if it isn’t your same old beloved self!” said the stranger, heartily.
“My boy! Bless your eyes, Adam, I never thought to see you again!” said bluff William Phipps. “You big young rascal! You full-rigged ship! Where have you come from? What do you mean by making me swear myself into purgatory at your carelessness in getting yourself killed? You twenty-gun frigate—you—you big——”
He left off for very constraint, for his throat blocked up, despite his most heroic efforts. He and Adam Rust began to roar with laughter, the tears in their eyes needing some excuse. Meantime the two companions who had come with the young rover, stood gazing about them, in patience, and likewise looking in wonder on the two men before them.
There was reason enough to look, for Adam and Phipps were a pair to command attention. It seemed as if a founder had used the big ship-builder as a pattern on which to refine his art in casting the younger man. Adam’s back was a trifle narrower; his chest was a bit wider; he was trimmer at the waist, neater at the thigh, longer-armed. His hands were smaller, just as his movements were quicker and lighter.
Although Adam’s hair crowned him with tawny ringlets of gold, while that of Phipps was browner, and though the young fellow wore a small mustache, in contrast, to the smooth-shaved face of his friend, it might yet be said that the two men looked alike. Both were bronzed by weather, both had steadfast eyes with the same frank expression, the same blue tint and the same integrity about them.
In their dress the two men differed. William Phipps, whatsoever he might indulge himself in doing when away on the sea, conformed to the dark-brown simplicity of the Puritans when in Boston. Adam, on the other hand, wore a brown velvet coat which, though at present somewhat faded and moulting, had once been fine feathers in England. His waistcoat had been of royal purple, before its nap fled before the onslaughts of the clothes-brush, while his breeches were of a time-tanned forest green which disappeared into the maw of his wide-topped leather boots. He wore at his hip a veteran blade of steel, in a scabbard as battered as the outer gate of a stronghold. When not in his fighting fist, the hilt of this weapon contented itself with caresses from his softer hand, the left.
The two men having shaken hands for the third time, and having looked each other over from head to foot, and laughed and asked each other a dozen questions, to which neither had returned any answers, Adam suddenly remembered his comrades, waiting in the background. He turned to them now, not without affection.