Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table December 1 1896 by Various

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Ebook has 433 lines and 25583 words, and 9 pages

If Jack had made the least fuss at the prospect of having his leg cut off, or had let a single groan escape, there is hardly any doubt that he would be limping through life on one leg. But the brave way that he bore the pain and the doctor's verdict made him a powerful friend.

The Captain of a naval vessel cannot control his surgeon's treatment of a case; but the Captain's wishes naturally go a long way, even with the surgeon. So it was a great point for Jack when the Captain interceded for him.

"There's the making of an Admiral in that lad in the hospital," the Captain told the doctor later in the day. "I never saw a boy bear pain better. I wish you would save his leg if you possibly can."

"He'd be well much quicker to take it off," the surgeon retorted. "But I'll give him every chance I can. There is a bare possibility that I may be able to save it."

There was joy in the Radway family when it became known that there was a chance of saving Jack's leg; but all that Jack himself would say was, "Leave it all to the doctor; he will do what he can."

"It would be a great risk to take him ashore," the surgeon said to Mr. Radway. "The least movement of the leg would set him back to where we began. You had much better let him go north with us. The voyage will do him good; and even if we are not sent back here, he can easily make his way home when he is able to travel."

His mother would hardly have known him as he stepped into the hospital and waited till the surgeon had time to take a big splinter from his left arm.

"Where's your cane, young man?" the surgeon asked, when Jack's turn came.

"I don't know, sir!" Jack replied, surprised to find himself standing without it. "I must have forgotten all about it. I saw one of the gunners fall, and I took his place, and that's all I remember, sir, except seeing the enemy strike her colors."

That action made Jack a Midshipman in the United States navy, and gave him a share in the prize-money, and a year later he was an Ensign. For special gallantry in action in Mobile Bay he was made a Lieutenant before the close of the war, and in the long years since then he has risen more slowly to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.

A LOYAL TRAITOR.

Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 888.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.

A LAND VOYAGE.

As soon as breakfast had been finished I bade farewell to Captain Morrison, and to the mate and all of the crew, with whom I had somehow gained popularity, and then I was set on shore.

When I felt the solid ground beneath me and smelt the familiar odors of a seaport town, my fears almost gained the upper hand, and I was tempted to stay by the brig and return to Maryland in her. But finding that the town of Miller's Falls was distant only some thirty miles up in the country, and getting the right direction from the first person I asked, a blacksmith standing at the entrance to his forge, I set out bravely on foot with my belongings on a stick over my back, the way I had seen sailors start on a land voyage from Baltimore.

Hill country was new to me, and the stone walls and fences and neat white houses gave me much to wonder at, as I plodded along the road that was deep in dry dust, and such hard travelling that after I had made twelve miles, or such a matter of distance, I grew very tired, and determined to rest.

Although it was November the day was quite warm, and I sat down by the edge of a little brook and bathed my feet, that had blistered badly. The cold water felt very comforting, and I took my ease.

While drawing on my shoes I heard a strange sound, and saw coming down the road a two-wheeled cart drawn by a team of swaying oxen. Climbing up to the roadway and hailing the man who was walking at their heads, , I asked my whereabouts and the hour.

The farmer, even before he replied to my questionings, began to subject me to many of his own: "Where was I bound?" "Where did I come from?" and, "Who did I know in the parts?" To these I replied as best I could, and with a directness that seemed rather to disconcert him.

But he was a kindly man, and noticing that I limped, and that I was in no condition to travel, he proposed my stopping the night with him, and he would carry me part way on my journey on the morrow. To this I agreed, as I found I had wandered somewhat out of my way.

When I told of the affair of the severed hand, and the action of the English, the woman quoted a passage from the Bible that was quite as much as a curse on the heads of the offenders, it breathed so of vengeance. But we had not burned half a candle before we all were yawning. Well, to be short, I slept in a great feather bed that night, and the next morning I started northward, mounted astride, behind Farmer Lyman on a jolting gray nag.

When my friend put me down he bade me a farewell, and told me I had but five miles before me to the town of Miller's Falls.

It was up and down hill, slow going, and noon, I should judge by the shadows, before I saw the village, nestling at the bend of a small valley. On the wind came to me the shrieking and clanking of machinery and the jarring of a waterfall.

I sat down on the top rail of a fence, and surveyed the village for some time before I descended the hill. As I walked along I saw in a steep gorge, a sheer descent of some fifty feet to one side of the roadway, a rushing brook, and almost in the centre of the town itself a pond that spread back into the hills.

The mill that was raising such a clatter stood at one side of a dam built of stone and timber that had backed the water of the pond; and I walked up close to the building and looked with wonder at everything. A huge over-shot wheel was turning and plashing busily, and the water was roaring over the dam and breaking on the brown slippery rocks below. It fascinated me, and I stood for some time leaning over the rail watching it. I grew so interested, in fact, that I almost forgot my mission or where I was, and was recalled to myself by a voice hailing me from only a few feet above my head.

"Well, sonny," said a drawling voice, "be ye wondering where all that water is goin' to?"

A thin cadaverous face with a very pointed nose and chin was thrust out of a little window, and two long hands on either side gave the man the effect of holding himself in his position by the exercise of sheer strength.

"I suppose it goes into the sea," I replied, perceiving that he wished to chaff me.

"Correct," he answered. "Go to the head."

"May I come into the mill?" I asked, for I had never seen one, and the varied noises excited my curiosity.

"Why, certainly," the man said. "Pull the latch-string in the door yonder and come in."

The mill not only sawed the long pine trunks into planks and squared timbers, of which there was a profusion about, but also ground most of the grain for the neighborhood. As I entered, the stones were grumbling and the air was full of dust.

"What is it you're making?" I shouted into the tall man's ear. He had greeted me at the doorway.

"Buckwheat cakes," he replied, thrusting his hand into the top of an open sack. "Ye're a stranger here, ain't ye?"

I knew what to expect by this time, and that probably my appearance had determined the miller to find out all he could about me merely for his own satisfaction. So, half shouting in his ear, I related part of my story--at least I told him where I had come from and the why and wherefore of my trip. When it came to the asking for my uncle's place of residence I ran against trouble, and my heart sank.

"What is the name?" asked the thin man when I had first mentioned it.

"Monsieur Henri Amedee Lavalle de Brienne."

"Eh?"

I had to repeat it.

"No such person in these parts," the man answered, shaking his head positively. "And I ought to know," he added.

But here was an uncomfortable position. What was I to do? Somehow the hum and groaning and rumbling of the mill appeared to prevent my thinking, and I stepped to the door.

The village of Miller's Falls stretched down one wide road that curved about the edge of the mill-pond. It was not a cheerful-looking place taking it altogether, but it had a certain air of prosperity; there was some movement, and a number of horses and carts were on the streets.

All at once the chatter of voices and the familiarly shrill cries of boys at some rough merriment came up from the road at the right. I looked about the corner of the mill and saw that a half-dozen youngsters of about my own age were coming down the hill, and before them rode an odd figure on a small brown horse. It was a little man, who sat very erect, and who had a semi-military hat set aslant his gray hair, which was gathered in a long queue behind. His coat was of a very old fashion, made of velvet, and heavy riding-gaiters encased his thin legs.

The horse he was riding was by no means a bad one, and it was apparently all the old man could do to keep him from breaking into a run; and to accomplish this last was the evident intention of the crowd of small boys, for they were tickling the horse's heels, or giving him a cut now and then with some long switches; they varied this by pelting small pebbles at the rider. The latter, however, kept his seat and controlled the horse exceedingly well, although it was apparent that he was both angry and frightened, for he would stop and scold at the boys, and often turn his horse's head threateningly in their direction. This would excite a scattering and shouts of derision and laughter.

Some one spoke over my head at this moment, and I saw that the tall man and one of the mill hands, attracted by the noise, had perceived the approach of the old man and his tormentors.

"Why, it's old Debrin, from Mountain Brook," said the miller. "Come down to get his wheat ground, I reckon."

Slung across his saddle were two bags, and the rider was now headed toward the mill and restraining the horse with difficulty. When he drew up at the little platform it was all he could do to throw off the bags, and when he had lifted his legs from the stirrups and slid to ground I thought he would have fallen, and for the first time I perceived how old a man he was. Moved by some impulse, I jumped down from the door-sill and helped him tie the rope halter of the little horse fast to a post. The old man's hands were trembling so that I doubt if he could have accomplished it unaided.

My action had so surprised the boys that they had gathered in a circle about us in silence and astonishment. When I had finished, the old gentleman looked at me with his black beadlike eyes and raised his hat.

"Thank you, thank you very much," he said, in broken English, in which I recognized at once the manner in which my mother had spoken. The trace of the French tongue was there beyond all doubt. So I lifted my own cap, and answered in what I may well call my native tongue, and told him in French that I was very glad to have been able to help him.

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