F. J. STIMSON

(J. S. OF DALE)

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1896

Copyright, 1895 and 1896, By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

Copyright, 1896, By F. J. STIMSON.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

CONTENTS.

[Pg 1]

I.

It consisted of a few hundred new American eagles and a few times as many Spanish doubloons; for pirates like good broad pieces, fit to skim flat-spun across the waves, or play pitch-and-toss with for men's lives or women's loves; they give five-dollar pieces or thin British guineas to the boy who brings them drink, and silver to their bootblacks, priests, or beggars.

It was contained—the gold—in an old canvas bag, a little rotten and very brown and mouldy, but tied at the neck by a piece of stout and tarnished braid of gold. It had no name or card upon it nor letters on its side, and it lay for nearly thirty years high on a shelf, in an old chest, behind three tiers of tins of papers, in the deepest corner of the[Pg 2] vault of the old building of the Old Colony Bank.

Yet this money was passed to no one's credit on the bank's books, nor was it carried as part of the bank's reserve. When the old concern took out its national charter, in 1863, it did not venture or did not remember to claim this specie as part of the reality behind its greenback circulation. It was never merged in other funds, nor converted, nor put at interest. The bag lay there intact, with one brown stain of blood upon it, where Romolo de Soto had grasped it while a cutlass gash was fresh across his hand. And so it was carried, in specie, in its original package: "Four hundred and twenty-three American eagles, and fifteen hundred and fifty-six Spanish doubloons; deposited by —— De Soto, June twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine; for the benefit of whom it may concern."

And it concerned very much two people with whom our narration has to do,—one, James McMurtagh, our hero; the other, Mr. James Bowdoin, then called Mr. James, member of the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons. For De Soto, having escaped with his neck, took good pains never to call for his money.

[Pg 3]

II.

A very real pirate was De Soto. None of your Captain Kidds, who make one voyage or so before they are hanged, and even then find time to bury kegs of gold in every marshy and uncomfortable spot from Maine to Florida. No, no. De Soto had better uses for his gold than that. Commonly he traveled with it; and thus he even brought it to Boston with him on that unlucky voyage in 1829, when Mr. James Bowdoin was kind enough to take charge of it for him. One wonders what he meant to do with a bag of gold in Boston in 1829.

This happened on Thursday, the 24th of June. It was the day after Mr. James Bowdoin's (or Mr. James's, as Jamie McMurtagh and others in the bank always called him; it was his father who was properly Mr. James Bowdoin, and his grandfather who was Mr. Bowdoin)—after Mr. James's Commencement Day; and it was the day after Mr. James's engagement as junior clerk in the counting-room; and it was the day after Mr. James's engagement to be married; and it was the day but one after Mr. James's class's supper at[Pg 4] Mr. Porter's tavern in North Cambridge. Ah, they did things quickly in those days; ils savoient vivre.

They had made him a Bachelor of Arts, and a Master of Arts he had made himself by paying for that dignity, and all this while the class punch was fresher in his memory than Latin quantities; for these parchment honors were a bit overwhelming to one who had gone through his college course non clam, sed vi et precario, as his tutor courteously phrased it. And then he had gotten out of his college gown into a beautiful blue frock coat and white duck trousers, and driven into town and sought for other favors, more of flesh and blood, carried his other degree with a rush—and Miss Abigail Dowse off to drive with him. And that evening Mr. James Bowdoin had said to him, "James!"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. James.

"Now you've had your four years at college, and I think it's time you should be learning something."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. James.

"So I wish you to come down to the counting-room at nine o'clock and sort the letters."

[Pg 5] "Yes, sir," said Mr. James.

Mr. James Bowdoin looked at him suspiciously over his spectacles. "At eight o'clock; do you hear?"

"I hear, sir," said Mr. James.

Mr. James Bowdoin lost his temper at once. "Oh, you do, do you?" said he. "You don't want to go to Paris, to Rome,—to make the grand tour like a gentleman, in short, as I did long before I was your age?"

"No, sir," said Mr. James.

"Then, sir, by gad," said Mr. James Bowdoin, "you may come down at half past seven—and—and—sweep out the office!"

III.

So it happened that Mr. James was in the counting-room that day; but that he happened also to be alone requires further explanation. Two glasses of the old Governor Bowdoin white port had been left untasted on the dinner-table the night before,—the one, that meant for Mr. James Bowdoin, who had himself swept out of the room as he made that last remark about sweeping out the office; the other, that of his son, Mr. James, who had[Pg 6] instantly gone out by the other door, and betaken himself for sympathy to the home of Miss Abigail Dowse, which stood on Fort Hill, close by, where the sea breezes blew fresh through the white June roses, and Mr. James found her walking in the garden path.

"You must tell him," said Miss Dowse, when Mr. James had recounted his late conversation to her, after such preliminary ceremonies as were proper—under the circumstances.

So Mr. James walked down to the head of India Wharf the next morning, determined to make a clean breast of his engagement. The ocean air came straight in from the clear, blue bay, spice-laden as it swept along the great rows of warehouses, and a big white ship, topgallant sails still set, came bulging up the harbor, not sixty minutes from deep water. Mr. James found McMurtagh already in the office and the mail well sorted, but he insisted on McMurtagh finding him a broom, and, wielding that implement on the second pair of stairs (for the counting-room of James Bowdoin's Sons was really a loft, two flights up in the old granite building), was discovered there[Pg 7] shortly after by Mr. James Bowdoin. The staircase had not been swept in some years, and the young man's father made his way up through a cloud of aromatic dust that Mr. James had raised. He could with difficulty see the door of his counting-room. This slammed behind him as he entered; and a few seconds after, Mr. James received a summons through McMurtagh that Mr. James Bowdoin wished to see him.

"An' don't ye mind if Mr. James Bowdoin is a bit sharp-set the morn," said Jamie McMurtagh.

Mr. James nodded; then he went in to his father.

"So, sir, it was you kicking up that devil of a dust outside there, was it?"

"Yes, sir," says Mr. James. (I have this story from McMurtagh.) "You told me to sweep out the counting-room."

"Precisely so, sir. I am glad your memory is better than your intelligence. I told you to sweep it out, and not all outdoors in."

Mr. James bowed, and wondered how he was to speak of Miss Dowse at this moment. The old gentleman chuckled for some minutes;[Pg 8] then he said, "And now, James, it's time you got married."

Mr. James started. "I—I only graduated yesterday, sir," says he.

"Well, sir," answers the old gentleman testily, "you may consider yourself devilish lucky that you weren't married before! I have got a house for you"—

"Perhaps, sir, you have even got me a wife?"

"Of course I have; and a devilish fine girl she is, too, I can tell you!"

"But, sir," says Mr. James, "I—I have made other arrangements."

"The devil you have! Then damme, sir, not a house shall you have from me,—not a house, sir, not a shingle,—nor the girl, either, by gad! I'll—I'll"—

"Perhaps, sir," says Mr. James, "you'll wait and marry her yourself?"

"Perhaps I will, sir; and if I do, what of it? Older men than I have married, I take it! Insolent young dog!"

"May I tell my mother, sir?"

Now, Mrs. James Bowdoin was an august person; and here McMurtagh's anxiety led[Pg 9] him to interfere at any cost. An ill-favored, slight man was he, stooping of habit; and he came in rubbing his hands and looking anxiously, one eye on the father, the other on the son, as his oddly protuberant eyes almost enabled him to do.

"There is a ship coming up the harbor, sir, full-laden, and I think she flies the signal of James Bowdoin's Sons."

"Damn James Bowdoin's Sons, sir!" says Mr. James Bowdoin. "And as for you, sir, not a stick or shingle shall you have"—

"If you'll only take the girl, you're welcome to the house, sir," says Mr. James.

"Oh, I am, am I? Then, by gad, sir, I'll take both houses, and Sam Dowse's daughter'll live in one, and your mother and I in the other!"

"Sam Dowse's daughter?"

"Yes, sir, Miss Abby Dowse. Have you any objections?"

"Why, she—she's the other arrangement," says Mr. James.

"Oh, she is, is she?"

Mr. James Bowdoin hesitated a moment, as if in search of some withering reply, but failed to find it.

[Pg 10] "Humph! I thought it was time you came to your senses. Now, here's the keys, d'ye see? And the house was old Judge Allerton's; it's too large for his daughter, and, now that you'll marry the girl I've got for you, I'll let you have it."

"I shall marry what girl I like," says Mr. James; "and as for the house, damme if I'll take it,—not a stick, sir, not a shingle!"

Mr. James Bowdoin looked at his son for one moment, speechless; then he slammed out of the room. Mr. James put his foot on the desk and whistled. McMurtagh rubbed his hands.

IV.

The office in which Mr. James found himself was a small, square, sunny corner room with four windows, in the third story of the upper angle of the long block of granite warehouses that lined the wharf. Below him was the then principal commercial street of the city, full of bustle, noisy with drays; at the side was the slip of the dock itself, with its warm, green, swaying water, upon which a jostled crowd of various craft was rocking[Pg 11] sleepily in the summer morning. The floor of the room was bare. Between the windows, on one side, was an open, empty stove; on the other were two high desks, with stools. An eight-day clock ticked comfortably upon the wall, and on either side of it were two pictures, wood-cuts, eked out with rude splashes of red and blue by some primitive process of lithography: the one represented the "Take of a Right Whale in Behring's Sea by the Good Adventure Barque out of New Bedford;" the other, the "Landing of H. M. Troops in Boston, His Majesty's Province of Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1766." In the latter picture, the vanes on the town steeples and

the ships in the bay were represented very big, and the town itself very small; and the dull black and white of the wood-cut was relieved by one long stream of red, which was H. M. troops landing and marching up the Long Wharf, and by several splotches of the same, where the troops were standing, drawn up in line, upon each frigate, and waiting to be ferried.

A quiet little place the office would have seemed to us; and yet there was not a sea on[Pg 12] earth, probably, that did not bear its bounding ship sent out from that small office. And if it was still, in there, it had a cosmopolitan, aromatic smell; for every strange letter or foreign sample with which the place was littered bespoke the business of the bright, blue world outside. From the street below came noise enough, and loud voices of sailors and shipmen in many a foreign tongue. For in those days we had freedom of the sea and dealings with the world, and had not yet been taught to cabin all our energies within the spindle-rooms of cotton-mills. As Mr. James looked out of the window he saw a full-rigged ship, whose generous lines and clipper rig bespoke the long-voyage liner, warping slowly up toward the dock, her fair white lower sails, still wet from the sea, hanging at the yards, the stiff salt sparkling in the sunlight.

Mr. James Bowdoin was already standing at the pier-head (for it was indeed their ship of which McMurtagh had been speaking), and Mr. James made bold to turn the key upon the counting-room and go to join his father. Here he was standing, side by side with him, swaying his body, with his thumbs in his[Pg 13] waistcoat pocket, in some unconscious imitation of ownership, when his father caught sight of him and ordered him sharply back. "Yes, sir," said Mr. James, and moved to the other angle of the wharf, for he had caught the word "pirates;" and now, for some reason, the ship had cast her anchor, a hundred yards outside the dock, while to it from her side a double-manned yawl was rowing. And amid the blue jackets, above a dark mass of men that seemed to be bound together by an iron chain, was some strange rippling of long yellow hair, that the young man had been first to see. Yet not quite the first, for Jamie McMurtagh was beside him.

Then word was passed rapidly down the pier how this ship of pirates had been captured, red-handed, her own captain still on board,—the good ship Alarm having seen a redness in the sky, and heard some firing in the night before; and how Captain How had put it to his crew, Would they fight or not? And they had fought, rushing in before the pirate's long-range guns could get to work, in the early dawn, and boarding; so now there was talk of prize money.

[Pg 14] Young James Bowdoin and McMurtagh were all eyes. The boat rowed up to the slippery wharf steps; in the bow were the two ringleaders and the ship's captain, in the waist of the boat the rowers, and in the stern the rank and file of the pirates, some eight or ten ill-looking fellows chained together. (The rest of them, the captain remarked casually, had been shot or lost in the battle; and not much was said about it.)

The boat was made fast, and the two leaders got up, with Captain How. The pirate captain, as Mr. James remarked, was a splendid-looking fellow. Captain How said something to him as the boat stopped, and he looked up and caught Mr. James's eye; and Bowdoin had time to remark that it was blue and very keen to look upon. Young Bowdoin and McMurtagh were standing on the very verge of the wharf, and the crowd around had made a little space for them, as the owners of the ship; Mr. James Bowdoin was standing farther back with the captain of a file of soldiers. But the second of the pirates was a swarthy Spaniard, with as evil-flashing eyes as you would care to see. And it was he who[Pg 15] held in his arms a little girl, almost a baby, whose long yellow hair had made that note of color in the boat.

They were marched up the steps matted with seaweed; for it was low tide, and only the barnacles made footing for them. And as the pirate captain passed young Bowdoin he said, in very good English, "You look like a gentleman," and rapidly drew from his breast, and placed in Bowdoin's hands, the bag of gold. So quickly was this done that the captain had passed and was closely surrounded by the file of soldiers before Bowdoin could reply; nor had he sought to do so, for, on looking to McMurtagh for advice, he saw him holding, and in awkward yet tender manner trying to caress and soothe, the little lady with the yellow hair. The second pirate had sought to hand her, too, to Bowdoin, but some caprice had made the little maiden shy, and she had run and buried her face in the arms of the young-old clerk.

V.

While young Bowdoin's father, with the file of soldiers, marched up State Street to a[Pg 16] magistrate's office, Mr. James and clerk McMurtagh retired with their spoils to the counting-room. Here these novel consignments to the old house of James Bowdoin's Sons were safely deposited on the floor; and the clerk and the young master, eased of their burdens, but not disembarrassed, looked at one another. The old clock ticked with unruffled composure; the bag of gold lay gaping on the wooden floor, where young Bowdoin had untied its mouth to see; and the little maid had climbed upon McMurtagh's stool, and was playing with the leaves of the big ledger familiarly, as if pirates' maids and pirates' treasure were entered on the debit side of every page.

"What shall I do with the money?" asked Bowdoin.

"Count it," said McMurtagh, with a gasp, as if the words were wrung from him by force of habit.

"And when counted?"

"Enter it in the ledger, Mr. James," said McMurtagh, with another gasp.

"To whose account?"

"For account—of whom it may concern."

Bowdoin began to count it, and the clock[Pg 17] went on ticking; one piece for each tick of the clock. He did not know many of the pieces; and McMurtagh, as they were held up to him, broke the silence only to answer arithmetically, "Doubloon,—value eight dollars two shillings, New England;" or, "Pistole,—value the half, free of agio." When they were all counted, McMurtagh opened a new page in the ledger, and a new account for the house: "June 24, 1829. To credit of Pirates, or Whom it may concern, sixteen thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven dollars."

"Pirates!" he muttered; "it's a new account for us to carry. I'll not be sorry the day we write it off."

Bowdoin, in the frivolity of youth, laughed.

"And now," said McMurtagh, "you must tie up the bag again and seal it, and I must take it up and put it in the vault of the bank."

"And the little girl?" asked Bowdoin. "We can hardly carry her upon the books."

"For the benefit of whom it may concern," said the clerk absently.

Bowdoin laughed again.

McMurtagh looked at her and gasped, but[Pg 18] this time silently. She had clambered down from the stool, and was gazing with delight at the old pictures of the ships; but, as if she understood that she was being talked about, she turned around and looked at them with large round eyes.

"What is your name?" said he; and then, "Como se llama V.?" (for we all knew a little Spanish in those days.)

"Mercedes," said the child.

"I suppose," ventured Bowdoin, "there is some asylum"—

McMurtagh looked dubious; and the little maid, divining that the discussion of her was unfavorable, fell to tears, and then ran up and dried them on McMurtagh's business waistcoat.

"You take the gold," said he dryly; "I'll carry the child myself."

"Where?" inquired young Bowdoin, astonished.

"Home," said McMurtagh sharply.

McMurtagh was known to have an old mother and a bedridden father (a retired drayman, run over in the service of the firm), whom he lived with, and with some difficulty[Pg 19] supported. Yet little could be said against the plan, as a temporary arrangement, if they were willing to assume the burden. At all events, before Mr. James could find speech for objection, McMurtagh was off with the child in his arms, seeking to soothe her with uncouth words of endearment as he bore her carefully down the narrow stairs.

James Bowdoin laughed a little, and then grew silent. Finally, his glance falling on the yellow piles still lying on the floor, he shoveled them into the bag again and shouldered it up to the bank. There the deposit of specie was duly made, the money put in the old chest and sealed, and he learned that the pirates had been committed to stand their trial. And he and his father talked it over, and decided that the child might as well stay with McMurtagh, for the present at any rate.

But that "present" was long in passing; for the pirates were duly tried, and all but one of them found guilty, sentenced to be hanged, and duly executed on an island in the harbor. There were no sentimentalists about in those days; and their gibbets were erected in the sand of that harbor island, and their bodies[Pg 20] swung for many days (as these same sentimentalists might now put it) near the sea they had loved so well; being a due encouragement to other pirates to leave Boston ships alone. Pity the town has not kept up those tactics with its railways!