Afloat and Ashore (60 page)

"I have not told you, Miles," Grace answered, after a brief delay,
"because it would not be proper to communicate the secrets of my
friend to a young man, even to you, were it in my power, as it is not,
since Lucy never has made to me the slightest confidential
communication, of any sort or nature, touching love."

"Never!" I exclaimed—reading my fancied doom in the startling fact;
for I conceived it impossible, had she ever really loved me, that the
matter should not have come up in conversation between two so closely
united—"Never! What, no girlish—no childish preference—have you
never had no mutual preferences to reveal?"

"Never"—answered Grace, firmly, though her very temples seemed
illuminated—"Never. We have been satisfied with each other's
affection, and have had no occasion to enter into any unfeminine and
improper secrets, if any such existed."

A long, and I doubt not a mutually painful pause succeeded.

"Grace," said I, at length—"I am not envious of this probable
accession of fortune to the Hardinges, but I think we should all have
been much more united—much happier—without it."

My sister's colour left her face, she trembled all over, and she
became pale as death.

"You may be right, in some respects, Miles," she answered, after a
time. "And, yet, it is hardly generous to think so. Why should we wish
to see our oldest friends; those who are so very dear to us, our
excellent guardian's children, less well off than we are ourselves?
No doubt, no doubt, it may seem better to
us
, that Clawbonny
should be the castle and we its possessors; but others have their
rights and interests as well as ourselves. Give the Hardinges money,
and they will enjoy every advantage known in this country—more than
money can possibly give us—why, then, ought we to be so selfish as to
wish them deprived of this advantage? Place Lucy where you will, she
will always be Lucy; and, as for Rupert, so brilliant a young man
needs only an opportunity, to rise to anything the country possesses!"

Grace was so earnest, spoke with so much feeling, appeared so
disinterested, so holy I had almost said, that I could not find, in my
heart, the courage to try her any farther. That she began to distrust
Rupert, I plainly saw, though it was merely with the glimmerings of
doubt. A nature as pure as her's, and a heart so true, admitted with
great reluctance, the proofs of the unworthiness of one so long
loved. It was evident, moreover, that she shrunk from revealing her
own great secret, while she had only conjectures to offer in regard to
Lucy; and even these she withheld, as due to her sex, and the
obligations of friendship. I forgot that I had not been ingenuous
myself, and that I made no communication to justify any confidence on
the part of my sister. That which would have been treachery in her to
say, under this state of the case, might have been uttered with
greater frankness on my own part. After a pause, to allow my sister to
recover from her agitation, I turned the discourse to our own more
immediate family interests, and soon got off the painful subject
altogether.

"I shall be of age, Grace." I said, in the course of my explanations,
"before you see me again. We sailors are always exposed to more
chances and hazards than people ashore; and, I now tell you, should
anything happen to me, my will may be found in my secretary; signed
and sealed, the day I attain my majority. I have given orders to have
it drawn up by a lawyer of eminence, and shall take it to sea with me,
for that very purpose."

"From which I am to infer that I must not covet Clawbonny," answered
Grace, with a smile that denoted how little she cared for the
fact—"You give it to our cousin, Jack Wallingford, as a male heir,
worthy of enjoying the honour."

"No, dearest, I give it to
you
. It is true, the law would do
this for me; but I choose to let it be known that I wish it to be
so. I am aware my father made that disposition of the place, should I
die childless, before I became of age; but, once of age, the place is
all mine; and that which is all mine, shall be all thine, after I am
no more."

"This is melancholy conversation, and, I trust, useless. Under the
circumstances you mention, Miles, I never should have expected
Clawbonny, nor do I know I ought to possess it. It comes as much from
Jack Wallingford's ancestors, as from our own; and it is better it
should remain with the name. I will not promise you, therefore, I will
not give it to him, the instant I can."

This Jack Wallingford, of whom I have not yet spoken, was a man of
five-and-forty, and a bachelor. He was a cousin-german of my father's,
being the son of a younger brother of my grandfather's, and somewhat
of a favourite. He had gone into what was called the new countries,
in that day, or a few miles west of Cayuga Bridge, which put him into
Western New York. I had never seen him but once and that was on a
visit he paid us on his return from selling quantities of pot and
pearl ashes in town; articles made oh his new lands. He was said to be
a prosperous man, and to stand little in need of the old paternal
property.

After a little more conversation on the subject of my will, Grace and
I separated, each more closely bound to the other, I firmly believed,
for this dialogue in the "family room." Never had my sister seemed
more worthy of all my love; and, certain I am, never did she possess
more of it. Of Clawbonny she was as sure, as my power over it could
make her.

The remainder of the week passed as weeks are apt to pass in the
country, and in summer. Feeling myself so often uncomfortable in the
society of the girls, I was much in the fields; always possessing the
good excuse of beginning to look after my own affairs. Mr. Hardinge
took charge of the Major, an intimacy beginning to spring up between
these two respectable old men. There were, indeed, so many points of
common feeling, that such a result was not at all surprising. They
both loved the church—I beg pardon, the Holy Catholic Protestant
Episcopal Church. They both disliked Bonaparte—the Major hated him,
but my guardian hated nobody—both venerated Billy Pitt, and both
fancied the French Revolution was merely the fulfilment of prophecy,
through the agency of the devils. As we are now touching upon times
likely to produce important results, let me not be misunderstood. As
an old man, aiming, in a new sphere, to keep enlightened the
generation that is coming into active life, it may be necessary to
explain. An attempt has been made to induce the country to think that
Episcopalian and tory were something like synonymous terms, in the
"times that tried men's souls." This is sufficiently impudent,
per
se
, in a country that possessed Washington, Jay, Hamilton, the
Lees, the Morrises, the late Bishop White, and so many other
distinguished patriots of the Southern and Middle States; but men are
not particularly scrupulous when there is an object to be obtained,
even though it be pretended that Heaven is an incident of that
object. I shall, therefore, confine my explanations to what I have
said about Billy Pitt and the French.

The youth of this day may deem it suspicious that an Episcopal
divine—
Protestant
Episcopal, I mean; but it is so hard to get
the use of new terms as applied to old thoughts, in the decline of
life!—may deem it suspicious that a Protestant Episcopal divine
should care anything about Billy Pitt, or execrate Infidel France; I
will, therefore, just intimate that, in 1802, no portion of the
country dipped more deeply into similar sentiments than the
descendants of those who first put foot on the rock of Plymouth, and
whose progenitors had just before paid a visit to Geneva, where, it is
"said or sung," they had found a "church without a bishop, and a state
without a king." In a word, admiration of Mr. Pitt, and execration of
Bonaparte, were by no means such novelties in America, in that day, as
to excite wonder. For myself, however, I can truly say, that, like
most Americans who went abroad in those stirring times, I was ready to
say with Mercutio, "a plague on both your houses;" for neither was
even moderately honest, or even decently respectful to ourselves.
Party feeling, however, the most inexorable, and the most
unprincipled, of all tyrants, and the bane of American liberty,
notwithstanding all our boasting, decreed otherwise; and, while one
half the American republic was shouting hosannas to the Great
Corsican, the other half was ready to hail Pitt as the "Heaven-born
Minister." The remainder of the nation felt and acted as Americans
should. It was my own private opinion, that France and England would
have been far better off, had neither of these worthies ever had a
being.

Nevertheless, the union of opinion between the divine and the Major,
was a great bond of union, in friendship. I saw they were getting on
well together, and let things take their course. As for Emily, I cared
very little about her, except as she might prove to be connected with
Rupert, and through Rupert, with the happiness of my sister. As for
Rupert, himself, I could not get entirely weaned from one whom I had
so much loved in boyhood; and who, moreover, possessed the rare
advantage of being Lucy's brother, and Mr. Hardinge's son. "Sidney's
sister, Pembroke's mother," gave him a value in my eyes, that he had
long ceased to possess on his own account.

"You see, Neb," I said, towards the end of the week, as the black and
I were walking up from the mill in company, "Mr. Rupert has altogether
forgotten that he ever knew the name of a rope in a ship. His hands
are as white as a young lady's!"

"Nebber mind dat, Masser Mile. Masser Rupert nebber feel a
saterfaction to be wracked away, or to be prisoner to Injin! Golly! No
gentleum to be envy, sir, 'em doesn't enjoy
dat!
"

"You have a queer taste. Neb, from all which I conclude you expect to
return to town with me, in the Wallingford, this evening, and to go
out in the Dawn?"

"Sartain, Masser Mile! How you t'ink of goin' to sea and leave nigger
at home?"

Here Neb raised such a laugh that he might have been heard a hundred
rods, seeming to fancy the idea he had suggested was so preposterous
as to merit nothing but ridicule.

"Well, Neb, I consent to your wishes; but this will be the last voyage
in which you will have to consult me on the subject, as I shall make
out your freedom papers, the moment I am of age."

"What dem?" demanded the black, quick as lightning.

"Why, papers to make you your own master—a free man—you surely know
what that means. Did you never hear of free niggers?"

"Sartin—awful poor debble, dey be, too. You catch Neb, one day, at
being a free nigger, gib you leave to tell him of it, Masser Mile!"

Here was another burst of laughter, that sounded like a chorus in
merriment.

"This is a little extraordinary, Neb! I thought, boy, all slaves pined
for freedom?"

"P'rhaps so; p'rhaps not. What good he do, Masser Mile, when heart and
body well satisfy as it is. Now, how long a Wallingford family lib,
here, in dis berry spot?"—Neb always talked more like a "nigger,"
when within hearing of the household gods, than he did at sea.

"How long? About a hundred years, Neb—just one hundred and seven, I
believe; to be accurate."

"And how long a Clawbonny family, at 'e same time, Masser Mile?"

"Upon my word, Neb, your pedigree is a little confused, and I cannot
answer quite as certainly. Eighty or ninety, though, I should think,
at least; and, possibly a hundred, too. Let me see—you called old
Pompey your grand-father; did you not, Neb?"

"Sart'in—berry good grandfader, too, Masser Mile. Ole Pomp a
won'erful black!"

"Oh! I say nothing touching the quality—I dare say he was as good as
another. Well, I think that I have heard old Pompey's grandfather was
an imported Guinea, and that he was purchased by my great-grandfather
about the year 1700."

"Dat just as good as gospel! Who want to make up lie about poor debble
of nigger? Well, den, Masser Mile, in all dem 1700 year, did he ebber
hear of a Clawbonny that want to be a free nigger? Tell me dat, once,
an' I hab an answer."

"You have asked me more than I can answer, boy; for, I am not in the
secret of your own wishes, much less in those of all your ancestors."

Neb pulled off his tarpaulin, scratched his wool, rolled his black
eyes at me, as if he enjoyed the manner in which he had puzzled me;
after which he set off on a tumbling excursion, in the road, going
like a wheel on his hands and feet, showing his teeth like rows of
pearls, and concluding the whole with roar the third, that sounded as
if the hills and valleys were laughing, in the very fatness of their
fertility. The physical
tour de force,
was one of those feats
of agility in which Neb had been my instructor, ten years before.

"S'pose I free, who do sich matter for you, Masser Mile?" cried Neb,
like one laying down an unanswerable proposition. "No, no, sir,—I
belong to you, you belong to me, and we belong to one anodder."

This settled the matter for the present, and I said no more. Neb was
ordered to be in readiness for the next day; and at the appointed
hour, I met the assembled party to take my leave, on this, my third
departure from the roof of my fathers. It had been settled the Major
and Emily were to remain at the farm until July, when they were to
proceed to the Springs, for the benefit of the water, after living so
long in a hot climate. I had passed an hour with my guardian alone,
and he had no more to say, than to wish me well, and to bestow his
blessing. I did not venture an offer to embrace Lucy. It was the first
time we had parted without this token of affection; but I was shy, and
I fancied she was cold. She offered me her hand, as frankly as ever,
however, and I pressed it fervently, as I wished her adieu. As for
Grace, she wept in my arms, just as she had always done, and the Major
and Emily shook hands cordially with me, it being understood I should
find them in New York, at my return. Rupert accompanied me down to the
sloop.