The Story of Jack Ballister's Fortunes

The other sat looking intently at Mr. Parker as he spoke. “D’ ye mean,” said he, “that you and I shall go into some venture together?”

“I mean something of that sort,” said Mr. Parker, and as he spoke there was more than the usual haughtiness in his tone and bearing.

“Well, what is it you have to propose, then?” said the visitor, in no way overawed. Again there was a little time of silence, and then Mr. Parker suddenly said: “I have a mind to be plain with you, Pirate, and I will be so, for I am driven to it. The case is just this” – and then, as with some effort – “I am a ruined and a desperate man. I am pushed fairly to the wall, and know of nowhere to get a single farthing of money to help me out of my pinch.” Even with his back to the candles the other could see that his handsome, florid face had flushed to a redder red than usual, and that he frowned a little as he spoke. “I will tell you plain,” he said, “I am in such straits that only some desperate chance can set me to rights again. So far as I can tell, I owe some five or six thousand pounds to one and another here in Virginia, besides something in Maryland, and something more in South Carolina. ’Tis not so very much, but ’tis enough to give you and others a chance to push me hard. The time was – that was when I was living in England – that my father would send me that much money in a lump, and did so two or three times. But now my brother Birchall hath everything and I have nothing; and ten thousand pounds is more to me now than fifty thousand pounds was to me then. If I could by some chance get seven thousand pounds, methinks I could set myself to rights. But where can a desperate man get seven thousand pounds except by some desperate chance?”

He did not say all this sequentially, but with many breaks and pauses, and it was so he continued, pausing every now and then, and then speaking suddenly again as though with an effort. Now he had stopped in his speech and was playing, fiddling with a pen. Then he began his broken talk again: “Well, I’d as leave say this to a rascal like you as to any other man – I am a ruined, desperate man. Day before yesterday I sent a letter to my brother Birchall asking for an immediate loan of five hundred pounds, and offering any sort of security that he might demand, and that I could give, if he would loan me five thousand pounds. I set forth to him how desperate were my circumstances, but no, he would not consider or think of anything, but sent me a letter – “ He ceased and sat frowning at the other. “You see,” he said, resuming, “when I came back from England four years ago I came a ruined man. My father had given me all that I had asked for while I was living in England, but when he died he left everything to my brother Birchall, and nothing to me except this plantation, which is not a tenth part, I may say, of what had been the estate. He said that he had given me my share, and more than that, while he lived, and so he gave the estate to my brother, who had married a great heiress and needed it not. I had to run away from England to escape my debts, and still they followed me up. Then I was forced into asking my brother for help. I spoke pretty roundly to him, telling him what I thought of such injustice, that gave him everything and me nothing, and so in the end he paid my debts for me. But he talked to me in such a way as showed plainly enough that he thought, in paying my debts, he had bought me body and soul, and might treat me as he chose, and say things to me as he pleased. I bore from him what I would not have borne from any other man in all the world. Well, this letter which he hath sent me in answer to my request for a loan of money, is such as hath driven me clean to the wall, and with no help left to me, and I am a desperate man. He comes as near to calling me a rogue as he dares to do, and tells me in so many words that I am a disgrace and a dishonor to him. Well, then, if he thinks that I am a dishonor to him, I may as well be so.”

All this time the stranger had been sitting motionlessly listening to what the other said, his eyes fixed intently upon the shadowed face of the master of the Roost. Presently Mr. Parker resumed:

“His letter is of the kind that makes me feel easy to do what I can to get from him what he will not give me, and what, if my father had but been just to me, would have been mine by rights. ‘Twould have cost him nothing to have spared me five hundred pounds, or five thousand pounds, either; but now I will get it from him if I can, let him suffer from it ever so much.” He checked himself suddenly, and then said, “Why, do you suppose, am I telling you all this that I would not tell to any other man in all the world.”

“Why, that is the very thing I’m waiting for you to let me know,” said the other.

Mr. Parker hesitated for a moment, and then he said, “Will you have something to drink?”

“Why, yes,” said the other. “If you have it handy here, I would like right well to have a glass of grog.”

Mr. Parker turned as though to summon Jack, then, as if thinking better of it, he himself arose, went to the closet at the side of the fireplace, and brought thence a bottle of rum and a glass. “Can you do without water?” said he.

“Yes, I can if I must,” said the other.

Mr. Parker pushed the papers aside on the desk and set the bottle and glass within reach of his visitor, who poured out nearly half a tumblerful of the liquor.

Mr. Parker looked coldly on as he filled his glass. “Well, then, my plan is, as I said, to get from my brother Birchall by force what he would not give me of his own free will. Are you listening?” The other nodded briefly, raised the glass to his lips, and drank off the rum he had poured out. “You know perhaps that my brother has only one living child?”

The visitor seemed struck by Mr. Parker’s sudden question. He looked at him for a second or two in an almost startled silence, and then again nodded briefly.

“His child is a daughter,” said Mr. Parker, “and a very beautiful and charming young lady, and one of whom I am very fond. Now, if some desperate pirate – one, for example, like yourself” – and he looked his visitor steadily almost scornfully in the face as he spoke – “should kidnap this young lady, and carry her away, say to somewhere in North Carolina, I know very well that my brother would give ten, yes, maybe twenty thousand pounds by way of ransom to have her safe back again.”

A pause of perfect and unbroken silence followed. “I never did anything of that kind before,” said Mr. Parker’s visitor at last, “and I wouldn’t know how to manage it.”

“Why, as for managing it,” said Mr. Parker, “it could be managed easily enough. You would only have to go up the river some time when my brother was away from home and when nobody was there, and carry off the young lady. You live down in North Carolina, and you could take her home until her father could ransom her.” Then, after a moment or two of brooding silence, he continued almost with a flash: “But, understand, she is my niece, and if anything of the kind is done she is to be treated in every way as befits a lady of such rank and quality in the world. There shall be no needless roughness, nor anything said or done after she is taken away from home that may be unfit for her to hear or to see. I have naught against my niece. I am very fond of her. If her father suffers, ’tis his own fault, but I will not have her suffer. D’ ye understand?”

“Yes,” said the other with a sort of sullen acquiescence, “I understand.”

“You have a home down in Bath and you have a wife there, I understand. The young lady shall be taken to your wife and waited upon by her.”

The other nodded his head, but made no reply. Presently he asked: “But how is the rest to be managed? How is your brother to be approached, and how is the money to be handled that is to redeem the young lady?”

“I am about to tell you that,” said Mr. Parker, curtly. “I understand that Mr. Knight, the Colonial Secretary in North Carolina, is a friend of yours. Now it shall be arranged that Mr. Knight shall send, by some decent, respectable merchant-captain, a letter addressed to me. The letter will be of a kind to tell me that my niece hath been taken by some of the Pamlico pirates, who hold her for ransom. Then I will approach my brother, and the matter will be arranged – I acting as my brother’s agent and Mr. Knight as the agent of the pirates.”

The other listened closely and attentively. “And what share of the money might you expect when the matter is settled?” he asked.

“I shall expect,” said Mr. Parker, “to have the half of it. You and Mr. Knight can settle the balance betwixt yourselves.”

The other whistled and then arose, pushing back the chair noisily. “Why, Mr. Parker,” said he, “I am not used to doing business that way. If the thing is done at all, I take it, it is done at the risk of my neck and not at the risk of your neck. The danger falls all upon me and none of it upon you, and yet you expect the half of all the gain for yourself. My terms are these: I shall have half of what comes of the venture, and not you; and you and Mr. Knight, as agents, shall share the balance betwixt you.”

Mr. Parker also pushed back his chair and rose. “Then, sir,” said he, “if you choose to quibble so, the business is all over between us, for I tell you plainly that I shall not abate one single jot or tittle. I shall have the half of what is made of this venture for my share, or there shall be no venture and nothing to share at all. As for that paper of mine you hold, you will get not a farthing upon it as it stands, and you may send it to my brother if you choose, for, after all, I can’t be worse ruined than I am now,” and he shrugged his shoulders.

The other looked into his face for a moment or two, but there was not a shade or sign of yielding in it. Then he burst out laughing. “Well, Mr. Tobacco-Planter-Gambler,” said he, “you do drive a mightily hard bargain, to be sure. Well, as you won’t come to me I must come to you. I tell you what it is, I will think over all that you have said, and then let you know your answer.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Parker, “and when will that be?”

“Well, I will let you know it on Wednesday next.”

“Very well,” said Mr. Parker, “I will be down at Parrott’s on Wednesday next, and then we can settle the matter one way or the other.”

“At Parrott’s, on Wednesday next,” repeated the other. “That will suit me very well indeed.”

“And now, is there anything more?”

“Why, yes, there is,” said the other. “How about this note of hand that you was to settle this evening?” and he tapped the breast of his coat.

“That,” said Mr. Parker, “must go without settlement. You shall keep it for the present as an assurance of good faith upon my part. But when Mr. Knight sends the letter to me, as I have planned for him to do, the paper must be inclosed in it and sent to me.”

“And how about settlement upon it?”

“It must,” said Mr. Parker, “go, as I told you, without settlement, for I tell you plainly that I won’t conclude this business with you if you hold any paper with my name signed to it. I don’t choose so to put myself into the hands of any man, much less into your hands.”

Then once more the other burst out laughing. He clapped Mr. Parker upon the shoulder. Mr. Parker drew himself a little back, though he chose to show no resentment at his visitor’s familiarity. “Methinks you had better go now,” said he.

“Very well,” said the other, “very well, I’ll go.”

He stopped only long enough to pour for himself another half-glass of rum while Mr. Parker stood by watching him; then he opened the door and walked across the hall and out of the house. Mr. Parker followed him and stood upon the door-step watching him as he stalked away through the white moonlight toward the bluff overlooking the misty distance of the river beyond.

CHAPTER XX

THE WILD TURKEY

THE ending to that strange and unsettled life that Jack led at the Roost came as suddenly and as sharply as though the one part of his existence had been severed from the other part by the keen cut of the knife of fate.

Mr. Parker had been away from home for nearly a couple of weeks. He had not taken Jack with him, so that during that time the lad had little or nothing to do excepting such light work about the house as Peggy Pitcher demanded of him.

A great deal of his time he spent in or about Dennis’s cabin, maybe sitting in the great sooty fireplace talking ramblingly to the overseer, while the negro wife pattered about the bare earthen floor in her naked feet, her face always stolid and expressionless as with a sort of savage, almost resentful reserve.

When the master was away from home, Dennis, as has been said, sometimes went off fishing or hunting. He had an old musket hidden away in his cabin, and now and then he would fetch home a raccoon, an opossum, a half-dozen squirrels, or some other such bit of fresh meat from the forest or the clearing. One hot and sultry afternoon during this memorable time of the master’s absence, he and Jack started off to a clearing about a mile away, where of a morning or in the slant of the day a flock of turkey-cocks, banished now from the company of their hens, would gather together to feed in the long, shaggy grass.

Peggy Pitcher was very angry at Jack’s going with Dennis instead of staying at home to attend to his work. She and Jack were very good friends, but there were times when she would become very provoked with him. “I just wish his honor would come home and find you gone,” she said. “I’d just like him to give you a good leathering some fine day. Then maybe you’d learn to stay at home and ‘tend to your own work.”

She was very angry, and Jack burst out laughing at her as he ran away out of the house and into the hot yellow afternoon sunshine.

Dennis, with his musket balanced over his shoulder, was waiting for Jack, and the two struck off together across a shaggy field of last year’s Indian corn, toward a dark belt of pine woods in the distance. There were some half-dozen negroes hoeing in a neighboring field under guard of a half-breed overseer, and they stopped from their work and stood looking as the two passed by. Before they reached the woodland, Little Coffee came running after them. He reached them panting, the sweat running down his black face in bright drops. Dennis did not order him home again, but without seeming to perceive his presence, walked away, straight across the shaggy field, striking into the edge of the clearing that bounded the deeper growth of woods beyond, Jack keeping pace with him on one side and Little Coffee upon the other.

“When I rode over to Marlborough t’other day,” said Jack, “there was a great big turkey came out and crossed over the road just in front of me. I believe I could have knocked it over with a stick or a stone if I’d had one in my hand.”

“Aye,” said Dennis, “there be a many of them through the woods.” He was chewing upon a piece of spice-wood which he had broken off from one of the bushes as he passed by.

“Me see heaps of turkeys lots of times,” said Little Coffee, but neither Jack nor Dennis paid any attention to him.

To Jack the woods presently became an impenetrable maze of trees and undergrowth, but Dennis walked straight on without any hesitation. It was very warm under the still shadows of the pines. Now and then there were patches of underbrush, and now and then they had to stoop low to pass through the thickets; Little Coffee was sometimes obliged to pick his way so carefully through the cat-briers that he was left far behind. At a certain place they came to a morass in the woods which seemed to be the head waters of some creek – a cluster of smooth, glassy pools, surrounded by trees and bushes. Here the ground was soft and spongy under foot, and Dennis picked his way carefully along, Jack following in his footsteps.

“Look at that snake!” cried out Dennis sharply, and Jack started violently at the quick words breaking upon the silence. Dennis made a thrust at the reptile with the butt of his gun, but it slipped quickly into the water and was gone.

“‘Twas a moccasin-snake,” said Dennis.

Jack laughed. “I’m glad I haven’t Little Coffee’s bare legs, anyhow,” he said. Dennis grinned and looked at Little Coffee where he stood with rolling eyes, seeing another snake in every coil of roots.

Jack never forgot these minute particulars of that day’s adventures; that which happened afterward seemed to stamp them indelibly upon his memory.

So, at last, they came out into an open space of some twenty or thirty acres in extent where the trees had been cleared away. Here and there were little patches of bushes, and here and there the tall trunk of a tree, blackened and seared by fire, stood stark and erect. Across, beyond the clearing, was a strip of blue river, the distant further shore hazy in the hot sunlight.

“Is this the place where the turkeys feed?” Jack asked.

“Aye,” said Dennis. “Phew!” he continued, wiping his streaming face with his shirt-sleeve, “it surely be mortal hot this day.”

Jack looked all around the wide spread of clearing. There was not a sign of life in all the vast shimmering expanse, except a few turkey-buzzards sailing smoothly through the air and two or three others perched upon a blackened limb of a tree.

“There’s something dead over yonder,” observed Dennis.

“Where do you find the turkeys, Dennis?” said Jack.

“Find ‘em!” said Dennis. “Why, you find ‘em here. Where else should you find ‘em?” Jack did not ask further questions, and presently Dennis explained: “They won’t come out of the woods till toward the cool of the afternoon, when they come out to feed. Then we’ve got to creep upon ‘em or lay by till they come to us.” As he spoke he wiped his face again with his sleeve.

By and by he began loading his musket, measuring the powder very carefully, wrapping the bullet in a piece of greasy cloth, and ramming it down with some difficulty into the gun.

Jack sat upon a fallen log, watching him, and Little Coffee sat squatted upon his hams, also looking on. After Dennis had loaded his musket, he propped it carefully upon the log and then stretched himself out at length upon a little grassy place under the shade of a tree. “By smoke!” he said, “I wish I had a drink of water.”

Jack had not realized until Dennis spoke how thirsty he himself was. “I wish I had one, too,” he said.

“Well, you can just wish for it,” said Dennis, “and so can I, and that’s the best we can do. You keep a sharp lookout now,” he said, “and the best pair of eyes sees the turkeys first.”

He stretched himself out as he spoke and closed his eyes, as though to sleep.

The sun had sunk further and further toward the west, and the shadows of the trees were growing longer and longer. Jack sat listening and enjoying the warm solitude. How strange and wonderful it all was; how far remote from that old life he had left behind in England. England! his mind went backward feeling around amid the things of the past, and measuring them with the present. That was England – this was America.

“Yan de turkey, Massa Dennis!” Little Coffee whispered, suddenly, and Jack came sharply back to the consciousness of things about him with a sudden keen thrill that was almost painful in its intensity.

Dennis had started up from where he lay and was looking in the direction in which Little Coffee was pointing. Jack raised himself cautiously and also looked in the same direction. His heart was beating very quickly. The turkeys had come out from the woods without any one of the three having seen them until that moment. They were feeding in the open about a furlong away, and maybe fifty or sixty yards from the edge of the woods.

Dennis arose, and, without speaking, took up his gun. Then, partly crouching, he skirted back into the woods and along the edge of the clearing, Jack following him and Little Coffee following Jack. So they went on for some distance, and then Dennis turned sharply out again toward the edge of the woods. He went forward now very slowly and cautiously, and Jack still followed him, half crouching. He was intensely excited, his mouth was dry and clammy, and his pulse beat heavily in his ears. He did not notice the sweat trickling down his face. Would Dennis really shoot one of the turkeys?

“Wait a little,” said Dennis, without turning around, “till I see where I be.”

Jack could now see between the thickets that the clearing was just ahead. Dennis crept cautiously forward and Jack stood watching him. Presently he saw that the other was beckoning for him to come forward. He did so, approaching very carefully. Dennis was crouched down, looking out through the bushes, and Jack came close to him, Little Coffee following. He peered out from between the leaves; there were the turkeys, perhaps fifty or sixty yards away – a half a dozen or more great cock turkeys. To Jack’s eyes they looked very big and very near.

“’Tis like if we went on a little furder,” whispered Dennis, “’twould bring us nigher to them, but I have a mind to risk a shot from here.” He was crouched, gazing at the turkeys. Then he carefully raised the musket and thrust it out through a fork of the bush in front of him. He took a long, steady aim. Jack waited, hardly daring to breathe, every nerve tensely braced to meet the shock of the discharge.

Something must have alarmed the birds, for one great cock suddenly raised his head and looked sharply this way and that, and then they were all standing with their necks stretched high, looking intently about them. Then suddenly there came the stunning, deafening report of the musket. A cloud of pungent smoke hid everything for a little while; then it had dissolved.

Could Jack believe his eyes? One great turkey cock was flapping and struggling upon the ground.

He leaped up with a shout and ran out into the clearing. He heard Little Coffee shout behind him as he ran forward through the long, shaggy grass, jumping over the stumps, and he had a vision of the rest of the turkeys scattering with shrill, piping cries toward the woods – half-flying, half-running – then he was standing over the turkey cock where it lay upon the ground in the tall, brown grass. It was nearly motionless when he reached it, and its half-closed eyes were still bright with the life that was just leaving them. There it lay, and Jack looked down at it in an ecstasy. The sun shone upon the burnished, metallic luster of its neck-feathers – purple, blue, green. Its great horny foot gave a futile, scratching struggle, and then it was quite still.

Dennis was coming hurrying forward at a trot, carrying his musket hanging at his side. Little Coffee was capering around. Dennis came up to where Jack stood. He hid whatever exultation he might have felt under an assumed air of indifference. “‘Twas a pretty long shot,” he said, “and methought I’d miss it. But ’twas the only chance I had.”

As he spoke he wiped his face with his sleeve. He picked up the bird and held it out at arm’s length. Its wings fell open as he did so. Then he dropped it again heavily upon the ground. “Well,” he said, “there’s fresh meat for Nama, anyhow.”

“I’ll carry it home for you, Dennis,” said Jack.

“You may if you choose,” said Dennis.

The shadows were growing longer and longer as they plunged into the woods again with their faces turned homeward. Jack soon found his load was very heavy, and presently he was glad to share it with Little Coffee. He tied the feet of the great bird together with one of his shoe-strings; then he slung it over a branch, he taking one end upon his shoulder and Little Coffee the other. Then again they went onward, Dennis leading the way.

The sun had set and the first shade of twilight was beginning to fall when they came out again from the woods and in sight of the Roost. As they came up to the row of cabins Kala came out to meet them. “De master he came home while ago,” he said. “He be axing for you.”

Jack stood stock-still. “What’s that, Kala?” said he.

“De master he came home,” repeated Kala. “He been axing for you.”

Somehow Jack could not believe what he heard. “D’ye mean Mr. Parker’s come back?” he said.

“Hum-hum,” said Kala, nodding his head.

CHAPTER XXI

THE STRUGGLE

JACK and Little Coffee had laid the dead turkey down upon the ground. Without another word he ran away toward the house. He heard voices as he approached; they ceased at the sound of his footsteps as he entered the house. He found Mr. Parker standing in the middle of the hall with his hat upon his head; Peggy Pitcher stood leaning over the lean, rickety banister-rail, half-way up the stairs. “There he is now,” she said as Jack entered. “And ’tis no use to bluster and swear at me any more. I told you ’twas none of my doings that he went.”