The Black Buccaneer

by Stephen W. Meader

Up the blue bay they cruised in the fine October weather and came in due time—a very long time it seemed to some aboard—to the roadstead opposite New Castle port. There was a boat over almost before the anchor was dropped and a picked crew rowed the Curtises, Job and Jeremy ashore as fast as they dared without breaking oars. They drew up across the swirling tidewater to the foot of a long pier. It was black with people who cheered continually, and somewhere above the town a cannon was fired in salute, but all Bob saw was a slender figure in white at the pier-edge and all he heard was a woman's happy crying. A message to his mother telling of his safety had been sent from Charles Town three weeks before, and there she was to welcome him. There was a ladder further in along the pier, but before they reached it some one had thrown a rope and Bob swarmed up hand over hand. Jeremy, stricken with a sudden shyness, watched the happy, tearful scene that followed from the boat below.

Women had had small part in his own life. Since his mother's death he had known a few in the frontier settlements, and they had been good to him in a friendly way, but this ecstatic mother-love was new and it made him feel awkward and lonely.

It seemed that all Delaware colony must be at the waterfront. Every soul in the little town and men from miles around had turned out to welcome the returning vessel, for the news of Bonnet's defeat had been brought in, days before, by a Carolina coaster. There was bunting over doorways and cheering in the streets as the Governor's coach with the party of honor drove up the main thoroughfare to the Curtis house.

When they were within and the laughing crowds had dispersed, Bob's mother came to Jeremy, put her hands on his shoulders and looked long into his face. She was a frail slip of a woman, dark like her son, with a sensitive mouth and big, black eyes full of courage. Jeremy flushed a slow scarlet under her gaze, but his eyes never flinched as he returned it.

"A fine boy," she said, at length, "and my own boy's good friend!" Then she smiled tenderly and kissed him on the forehead. Jeremy was then and there won over. All women were angels of light to him from that moment.

That night, alone in the white wilderness of his first four-poster, the poor New England boy missed his mother very hard, more perhaps than he had ever missed her before. He fell asleep on a pillow that was wet in spots—and he was not ashamed.

In the days that followed nothing in Delaware Colony was too good for the young heroes. Jeremy could never understand just why they were heroes, but was forced to give up trying to explain the matter to an admiring populace. As for Bob, he gleefully accepted all the glory that was offered and at last persuaded Jeremy to take the affair as philosophically as himself. They were in a fair way to be spoiled, but fortunately there was enough sense of humor between them to bring them off safe from the head-patting gentlemen and tearfully rapturous ladies who gathered at the brick house of afternoons.

Perhaps the thing that really saved them from the effects of too much petting was the trip up the Brandywine to the Curtis plantation. It was a fine ride of thirty miles and the trail led through woods just turning red and yellow with the autumn frosts. Jeremy, though he had been on a horse only half a dozen times in his life, was a natural athlete and without fear. He was quick to learn and imitated Bob's erect carriage and easy seat so well that long before they had reached their journey's end he backed his tall roan like an old-timer. With Job it was a different matter. He was all sailor, and though the times demanded that every man who travelled cross-country must do it in the saddle, the lank New Englander would have ridden a gale any day in preference to a steed. Even Jeremy could afford to laugh at the sorry figure his big friend made.

The trail they followed was no more than a rough cutting, eight or ten feet wide, running through the forest. Here and there paths branched off to right or left and up one of these Bob turned at noon. It led them over a wooded hill, then down a long slope into the valley of a stream. "John Cantwell's plantation. We'll stop here for a bite to eat," explained the boy. By the water side, in a wide clearing, was a group of log huts and farther along, a square house built of rough gray stone.

They rode up to the wide door which looked down upon the river. In answer to Bob's hail a colored boy in a red jacket ran out to take the horses' heads and four black and white fox terriers tore round the corner barking a chorus of welcome. Bob jumped down with a laughing, "Ah there, Rufus!" to the horse-boy, and proceeded to roll the excited little dogs on their backs. As Jeremy and Job dismounted, a big man in sober gray came to the doorway. His strong, kindly face broke into a smile as he caught sight of his visitors. "Well, Bob, I'm mightily glad to see thee back, lad! We got news from the town only yesterday." He strode down the steps and took the boy's hand in a hearty grip, then greeted the others, as Bob introduced them. Jeremy marvelled much at the cut of the man's coat, which was without a collar, and at his continual use of the plain thee and thy. But there was a direct simplicity about all his ways, and a gentleness in his eyes that won the boy to him instantly.