CHAPTER I.
THE VICTORY AT PORT ROYAL.
“Hurrah for the navy!” shouted John Somers, as he rushed into the house, threw his cap upon the floor in the entry, and bolted into the room where the family were just sitting down to supper. “Hurrah for the navy!”
“What is the matter now, John?” demanded Mrs. Somers, placing the teapot on the table, and suspending all further proceedings till the excited young man had told the news.
“‘The army and navy forever! Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!’” added John, swinging his handkerchief, and singing lustily the words of the patriotic song.
“Why don’t you tell us what the news is, John? You act just like a madman when anything has happened.”
“Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard captured! The navy gave ’em fits down there,” replied John, pulling the “Boston Journal” from his pocket, and tossing it upon the table, to the imminent peril of the milk pitcher, which, however, maintained this gravity, in spite of the rude assault.
“Massy sake! I thought the whole Southern consarn had broke down,” added Gran’ther Greene.
“It will break down and cave in now. Our folks have got a footing in South Carolina now, and they’ll soon bring the rebels to terms,” said John, who was fully imbued with the enthusiasm, as well as the spirit of prophecy, which pervaded the earlier period of the great American Rebellion. “Let me tell you, gran’ther, the navy has done a big thing down there. Commodore Dupont will bring ’em to their senses in double-quick time. Charleston will have to take it next.”
“Eat your supper, John, and talk about it afterwards,” interposed Mrs. Somers.
“Supper!” exclaimed John: “who can eat with such news as this? Let me read it to you.”
Mrs. Somers and the rest of the family were quite willing to hear what the navy had done at Port Royal; and John was permitted to read the stirring account of the action, which he interpolated with comments of his own, expressive of his admiration of the flag-officer and the blue-jackets generally, who had achieved the glorious victory.
“I wish I had been there!” exclaimed John, when he had completed the reading of the narrative. “How I wish I had been there!”
“You had better eat your supper now,” quietly remarked Mrs. Somers, who did not seem to relish the turn which the conversation had taken.
“Here I am rotting on the stocks, lying round like a lubber, when the ship’s in a gale of wind,” said John, as he stuffed half a hot biscuit into his mouth, apparently to mollify the dissatisfaction with which he regarded his position.
“Have some apple-sauce, John?” added Mrs. Somers.
The young aspirant for distinction took some apple-sauce, and continued to eat, for a few moments, with a desperation dangerous to the well-being of his digestive organs, and which might reasonably have awakened a fear in the mind of his anxious mother that he would choke himself to death, instead of being killed by a splinter or a shell on board a man-of-war. John was silent for a time; but he kept up a vigorous thinking, and it is doubtful if he could have told whether he was eating hot biscuit or “salt-horse.” It would not have required a conjurer, either, to tell what he was thinking about; and the poor mother, with her husband far away in the rebel country (if, indeed, he was still living), and one son exposed to the perils of battle and march, walked mechanically from the table to the closet, as she proceeded to clear off the table, looking as sad as a vision of sorrow; and it needed no conjurer to tell what she was thinking about.
She was a patriotic woman; but no doubt she wished the glowing news from Port Royal had never reached the ears of her son. She had endured all the agonizing suspense which only the wife of an absent husband and the mother of an absent soldier-boy can comprehend; and she would fain keep this remaining son by her side to sustain and soothe her by his presence. She hoped he was not needed; she tried to persuade herself that John belonged to her, now that his twin-brother had joined the army: yet the New England blood in her veins would not let her be selfish, if the country needed his services.
She knew what John was thinking about, and she knew that the oft-repeated question was about to be proposed with more emphasis than ever before: Would she consent to his entering the navy? He had asked her permission twenty times during the summer and autumn, and she had as often silenced him by pointing to the work required to be done upon the little farm. But now the corn and cabbages, the potatoes and the apples, had all been harvested, and she could no longer detain him upon the plea that his services were needed at home; for there was hardly work enough about the place to give Gran’ther Greene, who was now in better health than usual, the exercise which was needed to keep him alive.
“Mother, aren’t you ashamed of me?” said John, suddenly dropping his knife and biscuit, and looking steadily at Mrs. Somers, who was gathering up the dishes on the other side of the table.
“Ashamed of you, my son? What ails the boy?” exclaimed she, pausing in her occupation, and gazing at him with all a mother’s pride visible in her expression.
“Aren’t you ashamed to have a son loafing about home when the navy is short of sailors? I can hand, reef, and steer, and I know the mainmast from the jolly-boat. I’ve been one voyage with father in a square-rigged vessel, and two in a ‘fore-and-after.’ I can make a long splice, a short splice, an eye-splice, a Turk’s head, or a Jacob’s ladder. I know where to find the halyards and braces, the clewlines, buntlines, and gowlines. I know all about it, mother. Now, aren’t you ashamed to have me lubbering round here like a dandy in a hay-field?”
“No: I’m sure I am not,” replied Mrs. Somers with emphasis. “You have been a good boy, and worked hard all summer.”
“But I haven’t had anything to do for a week but stow my grub and pick my teeth.”
“It won’t hurt you to lie still for a week or two.”
“Well, mother, I want to go into the navy; and I think I shall be just as safe there as I shall at home, and be earning something all the time, too.”
“I should think you’d rather be at home than off to sea this winter. Don’t you hear the wind howl outdoors?”
John did hear the wind howl, and he had heard it before, and it did not disturb his bright vision of life on the wave: on the contrary, he rather liked its music. He suggested, in reply, that the coast of South Carolina or the mouth of the Mississippi would be a warmer and pleasanter place to spend the winter than the cold hills of New England. While they were debating the question, a loud knock at the front door interrupted the discussion; and John bolted the balance of his supper, while his mother went to answer the summons.
“Does Captain Somers live here?” inquired a gentleman at the door.
“Yes, sir, he does; but he is away from home now,” replied Mrs. Somers. “Won’t you walk in, sir?”
“Thank you: I wish to see his son, John Somers,” added the stranger, as he followed Mrs. Somers into the little front parlor.
“Yes, sir: I’ll call him,” said she, as she glanced nervously at the shoulder-straps which the gentleman wore; for the “foul anchor” on them indicated that he was an officer in the navy.
Leaving the lamp in the parlor, she returned to the kitchen, where John had just swallowed his second cup of tea, and was at that moment thinking, that, on board a man-of-war, he should drink his “slops” out of a tin cup, and not indulge in the luxury of plates, knives, and forks.
“There’s a gentleman wants to see you, John,” said his mother; and her heart was full of misgivings, and that foul anchor still haunted her imagination; and she could not persuade herself that the officer had not come to carry off her boy, and ship him in the navy.
“Wants to see me?” exclaimed John, who was not in the habit of receiving many visitors through the front door.
“Yes, and he is an officer in the navy.”
“What can he want of me?”
“Don’t you know who he is, John?” asked the anxious mother, who had more than half suspected that there was a plot to rob her of her remaining son.
“I don’t; I haven’t the least idea, mother.”
“Well, don’t keep him waiting, John, whatever he wants; but I hope you won’t do anything without consulting me?”
“Of course not, mother,” replied John, as he left the room.
Mrs. Somers sat down in a chair near the parlor-door, and tried to hear what the stranger said; for she was very nervous and uneasy. She could not make out what the gentleman wanted: so she concluded that the small lamp she had left in the parlor would not afford sufficient light on the subject of the meeting; and she lighted a large kerosene lamp, and carried it into the apartment herself. The conversation did not seem to be interrupted by her appearance; and she therefore concluded that the officer and her son were not engaged in any plot or conspiracy against the peace and comfort of the present head of the Somers Family.
“Madam, perhaps I ought to speak to you as well as to your son about the object of my visit,” said the officer, as Mrs. Somers deposited the lamp on the mantel-piece.
“Well, I don’t know, sir,” replied she, fully expecting to hear a proposition for John to go into the navy that very night.
“Captain Barney sent me after your son,” he continued.
“That was not very kind of Captain Barney,” thought the poor mother, now fully convinced that John was doomed to the navy; but she did not say anything.
“I reside in the next town to this, and am at home for a short time on a furlough. My father was suddenly taken very ill this forenoon; and about an hour ago, the doctor declared he could not live till to-morrow morning.”
“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Somers, beginning to be deeply interested in the sad story of the stranger; “and, if I can do anything to help you, I’ll go right over.”
“Thank you: we do not need any assistance at home. My brother is a captain in the garrison down at Fort Warren, and my father has expressed a very strong desire to see him. I hastened over to Pinchbrook to take the cars for Boston; but I was too late. All I could do then was to take a boat, and go down to the fort. Captain Barney, who is a friend of mine, offered to let me have his boat; but I don’t know anything about Pinchbrook Harbor, and must have a skipper. I am informed that your son is one of the best boatmen in the place, and knows every rock and shoal in the bay.”
“I think I do, sir,” replied John quietly.
“But it is an awful night to go upon the water,” added Mrs. Somers, as she glanced at the windows, the loose sashes of which were beating a tattoo against the frame.
“I know it is a bad night, Mrs. Somers; but I have been afloat in many a worse one. It is not a pleasure excursion; and I would not ask such a favor with a less reasonable excuse than that which I have offered.”
“John knows best about such things; and, if he is willing to go, I shall not object,” added Mrs. Somers.
“Of course I am willing to go, mother. But you are not going yourself, are you, sir?”
“I feel that I must.”
“I thought you would want to go back to your father.”
“I do; but I am afraid you would not be able to gain admission to the fort without me.”
“I guess they would let me in.”
“I am afraid not; and if my brother should fail to reach home in time to see my father, through any neglect of mine, I should never cease to reproach myself. I will go with you.”
“Dress yourself warm, John, before you go: it is an awful night on the sea,” added his mother.
Leaving Mrs. Somers with the stranger, John hastened to put on his “sea-rig,” and in a few moments returned to the parlor, with an oil-cloth coat on his arm, and a fisherman’s hat in his hand.
“All ready, sir,” said he.
“Ay, ay, my lad,” replied Lieutenant Bankhead, as he rose, and bade adieu to Mrs. Somers.
“Now be careful, John,” added Mrs. Somers, as she followed them to the door.
“I’m always careful, mother. Don’t be a bit scared about me,” replied the young salt confidently.
“I wish that man didn’t belong to the navy,” said Mrs. Somers to herself as she closed the door: “he will be certain to fill the boy’s head full of notions afore he gits back, and he’ll be more’n ever for going. Well, well, it can’t be helped. I hope the poor soldier will see his father afore it’s too late;” and she resumed her household duties in the kitchen.