Jack Tier; Or, The Florida Reef

Tempest.

“D'ye here there, Mr. Mulford?” called out Capt. Stephen Spike, of the half-rigged, brigantine Swash, or Molly Swash, as was her registered name, to his mate--“we shall be dropping out as soon as the tide makes, and I intend to get through the Gate, at least, on the next flood. Waiting for a wind in port is lubberly seamanship, for he that wants one should go outside and look for it.”

This call was uttered from a wharf of the renowned city of Manhattan, to one who was in the trunk-cabin of a clipper-looking craft, of the name mentioned, and on the deck of which not a soul was visible. Nor was the wharf, though one of those wooden piers that line the arm of the sea that is called the East River, such a spot as ordinarily presents itself to the mind of the reader, or listener, when an allusion is made to a wharf of that town which it is the fashion of the times to call the Commercial Emporium of America--as if there might very well be an emporium of any other character. The wharf in question had not a single vessel of any sort lying at, or indeed very near it, with the exception of the Molly Swash. As it actually stood on the eastern side of the town, it is scarcely necessary to say that such a wharf could only be found high up, and at a considerable distance from the usual haunts of commerce. The brig lay more than a mile above the Hook (Corlaer's, of course, is meant--not Sandy Hook) and quite near to the old Alms House--far above the ship-yards, in fact. It was a solitary place for a vessel, in the midst of a crowd. The grum top-chain voice of Captain Spike had nothing there to mingle with, or interrupt its harsh tones, and it instantly brought on deck Harry Mulford, the mate in question, apparently eager to receive his orders.

“Did you hail, Captain Spike?” called out the mate, a tight, well-grown, straight-built, handsome sailor-lad of two or three-and-twenty--one full of health, strength and manliness.

“Hail! If you call straining a man's throat until he's hoarse, hailing, I believe I did. I flatter myself, there is not a man north of Hatteras that can make himself heard further in gale of wind than a certain gentleman who is to be found within a foot of the spot where I stand. Yet, sir, I've been hailing the Swash these five minutes, and thankful am I to find some one at last who is on board to answer me.”

“What are your orders, Capt. Spike?”

“To see all clear for a start as soon as the flood makes. I shall go through the Gate on the next young flood, and I hope you'll have all the hands aboard in time. I see two or three of them up at that Dutch beer-house, this moment, and can tell'em; in plain language, if they come here with their beer aboard them, they'll have to go ashore again.”

“You have an uncommonly sober crew, Capt. Spike,” answered the young man, with great calmness. “During the whole time I have been with them, I have not seen a man among them the least in the wind.”

“Well, I hope it will turn out that I've an uncommonly sober mate in the bargain. Drunkenness I abominate, Mr. Mulford, and I can tell you, short metre, that I will not stand it.”

“May I inquire if you ever saw me, the least in the world, under the influence of liquor, Capt. Spike?” demanded the mate, rather than asked, with a very fixed meaning in his manner.

“I keep no log-book of trifles, Mr. Mulford, and cannot say. No man is the worse for bowsing out his jib when off duty, though a drunkard's a thing I despise. Well, well--remember, sir, that the Molly Swash casts off on the young flood, and that Rose Budd and the good lady, her aunt, take passage in her, this v'y'ge.”

“Is it possible that you have persuaded them into that, at last!” exclaimed the handsome mate.

“Persuaded! It takes no great persuasion, sir, to get the ladies to try their luck in that brig. Lady Washington herself, if she was alive and disposed to a sea-v'y'ge, might be glad of the chance. We've a ladies' cabin, you know, and it's suitable that it should have some one to occupy it. Old Mrs. Budd is a sensible woman, and takes time by the forelock. Rose is ailin'--pulmonary they call it, I believe, and her aunt wishes to try the sea for her constitution--”

“Rose Budd has no more of a pulmonary constitution than I have myself,” interrupted the mate.

“Well, that's as people fancy. You must know, Mr. Mulford, they've got all sorts of diseases now-a-days, and all sorts of cures for'em. One sort of a cure for consumption is what they tarm the Hyder-Ally--”

“I think you must mean hydropathy, sir--”

“Well it's something of the sort, no matter what--but cold water is at the bottom of it, and they do say it's a good remedy. Now Rose's aunt thinks if cold water is what is wanted, there is no place where it can be so plenty as out on the ocean. Sea-air is good, too, and by taking a v'y'ge her niece will get both requisites together, and cheap.”

“Does Rose Budd think herself consumptive, Capt. Spike?” asked Mulford, with interest.

“Not she--you know it will never do to alarm a pulmonary, so Mrs. Budd has held her tongue carefully on the subject before the young woman. Rose fancies that her aunt is out of sorts, and that the v'y'ge is tried on her account--but the aunt, the cunning thing, knows all about it.”

Mulford almost nauseated the expression of his commander's countenance while Spike uttered the last words. At no time was that countenance very inviting, the features being coarse and vulgar, while the color of the entire face was of an ambiguous red, in which liquor and the seasons would seem to be blended in very equal quantities. Such a countenance, lighted up by a gleam of successful management, not to say with hopes and wishes that it will hardly do to dwell on, could not but be revolting to a youth of Harry Mulford's generous feelings, and most of all to one who entertained the sentiments which he was quite conscious of entertaining for Rose Budd. The young man made no reply, but turned his face toward the water, in order to conceal the expression of disgust that he was sensible must be strongly depicted on it.

The river, as the well-known arm of the sea in which the Swash was lying is erroneously termed, was just at that moment unusually clear of craft, and not a sail, larger than that of a boat, was to be seen between the end of Blackwell's Island and Corlaer's Hook, a distance of about a league. This stagnation in the movement of the port, at that particular point, was owing to the state of wind and tide. Of the first, there was little more than a southerly air, while the last was about two-thirds ebb. Nearly everything that was expected on that tide, coast-wise, and by the way of the Sound, had already arrived, and nothing could go eastward, with that light breeze and under canvas, until the flood made. Of course it was different with the steamers, who were paddling about like so many ducks, steering in all directions, though mostly crossing and re-crossing at the ferries. Just as Mulford turned away from his commander, however, a large vessel of that class shoved her bows into the view, doubling the Hook, and going eastward. The first glance at this vessel sufficed to drive even Rose Budd momentarily out of the minds of both master and mate, and to give a new current to their thoughts. Spike had been on the point of walking up the wharf, but he now so far changed his purpose as actually to jump on board of the brig and spring up alongside of his mate, on the taffrail, in order to get a better look at the steamer. Mulford, who loathed so much in his commander, was actually glad of this, Spike's rare merit as a seaman forming a sort of attraction that held him, as it might be against his own will, bound to his service.

“What will they do next, Harry?” exclaimed the master, his manner and voice actually humanized, in air and sound at least, by this unexpected view of something new in his calling--“What will they do next?”

“I see no wheels, sir, nor any movement in the water astern, as if she were a propeller,” returned the young man.

“She's an out-of-the-way sort of a hussy! She's a man-of-war, too--one of Uncle Sam's new efforts.”

“That can hardly be, sir. Uncle Sam has but three steamers, of any size or force, now the Missouri is burned; and yonder is one of them, lying at the Navy Yard, while another is, or was lately, laid up at Boston. The third is in the Gulf. This must be an entirely new vessel, if she belong to Uncle Sam.”

“New! She's as new as a Governor, and they tell me they've got so now that they choose five or six of them, up at Albany, every fall. That craft is sea-going, Mr. Mulford, as any one can tell at a glance. She's none of your passenger-hoys.”

“That's plain enough, sir--and she's armed. Perhaps she's English, and they've brought her here into this open spot to try some new machinery. Ay, ay! she's about to set her ensign to the navy men at the yard, and we shall see to whom she belongs.”

A long, low, expressive whistle from Spike succeeded this remark, the colours of the steamer going up to the end of a gaff on the sternmost of her schooner-rigged masts, just as Mulford ceased speaking. There was just air enough, aided by the steamer's motion, to open the bunting, and let the spectators see the design. There were the stars and stripes, as usual, but the last ran perpendicularly, instead of in a horizontal direction.

“Revenue, by George!” exclaimed the master, as soon as his breath was exhausted in the whistle. “Who would have believed they could screw themselves up to doing such a thing in that bloody service?”

“I now remember to have heard that Uncle Sam was building some large steamers for the revenue service, and, if I mistake not, with some new invention to get along with, that is neither wheel nor propeller. This must be one of these new craft, brought out here, into open water, just to try her, sir.”

“You're right, sir, you're right. As to the natur' of the beast, you see her buntin', and no honest man can want more. If there's anything I do hate, it is that flag, with its unnat'ral stripes, up and down, instead of running in the true old way. I have heard a lawyer say, that the revenue flag of this country is onconstitutional, and that a vessel carrying it on the high seas might be sent in for piracy.”

Although Harry Mulford was neither Puffendorf, nor Grotius, he had too much common sense, and too little prejudice in favour of even his own vocation, to swallow such a theory, had fifty Cherry Street lawyers sworn to its justice. A smile crossed his fine, firm-looking mouth, and something very like a reflection of that smile, if smiles can be reflected in one's own countenance, gleamed in his fine, large, dark eye.

“It would be somewhat singular, Capt, Spike,” he said, “if a vessel belonging to any nation should be seized as a pirate. The fact that she is national in character would clear her.”

“Then let her carry a national flag, and be d--d to her,” answered Spike fiercely. “I can show you law for what I say, Mr. Mulford. The American flag has its stripes fore and aft by law, and this chap carries his stripes parpendic'lar. If I commanded a cruiser, and fell in with one of these up and down gentry, blast me if I wouldn't just send him into port, and try the question in the old Alms-House.”