  Jack Bell very promptly got his appointment as a watchman, and soon every night he paraded the streets of Newport with a stick and a lantern, calling out the hours as the night slipped away. He never could bring himself, though, to calling as the other watchmen did,—the hour, and then, “All’s well!”—but sung out every half-hour the time according to the ship’s bells, always adding what the weather was, and where the wind lay, such as, “Six bells! Wind sou’-sou’-east!” The townspeople soon got used to the old sailor’s way and he was not molested in his peculiar ideas of the time. At all events, evil characters who prowled by night had great respect for him after having once felt the force of his stick, because in spite of his age Jack’s arm was still stalwart, and he was not given to arguing with offenders. At that time there was a large British fleet under Admiral Wallace lying off Newport, besides a large land force under General Prescott. It was impossible for Jack not to have a great many more acquaintances than he desired among the sailors of the fleet. But although his true story was more than suspected, it was perfectly well known that he had a powerful protector in Captain Forrester. Jack’s bold dive into the icy water had turned out a good thing for him. So Jack walked his beat all night, and went back at daylight to the Widow Stubbs’ cottage where he slept in the loft until midday, and was as little unhappy as he could be on shore. The Widow Stubbs had spoken quite confidently to Captain Forrester of Dicky’s capacity to make a living, but it turned out not so easy as she fancied in spite of the fact that Dicky was strong and bright and willing to work. But he was only a twelve-year-old boy, and the war times made business of all sorts dull. Dicky worked around the wharves, but there were scarcely any merchant vessels plying, and the waterfront was almost deserted except by the British warships and crews. The Americans held the opposite shore of Narragansett Bay, and Dicky imagined that on fine days he could see the American flag flying there, and the sight always made him feel very well disposed to run away again, but he never did. Dicky, however, discovered very unexpectedly that he possessed a means of livelihood in his beautiful young voice, and in the songs that Jack Bell had taught him. But the treasure of Dicky’s life was a little dog’s-eared, ill-printed book of patriotic songs, all predicting the speedy overthrow of John Bull, and the certainty that the patriots would soon drive every British soldier and sailor off American soil. The book had been smuggled over from the Narragansett side, and was rather a dangerous possession. But as Dicky soon learned the songs all by heart, it would not have mattered if it had been found and destroyed. It was the dream of Dicky’s life though, as well as of Jack Bell’s, to compose a song themselves. They had no scruples about adapting somebody else’s music, but they burned with ambition to create a new set of words which rhymed. Many a night before it was time for Jack’s watch to begin, would he and Dicky struggle over a slate on which they had marked lines, something like this:— ____sea ____be ____shore ____gore ____sail ____hail But they never got any farther. “Seems to me, young ’un,” said Jack, scratching his head, “we’re beginnin’ at the wrong end. It’s stern foremost, d’ye see?” “Yes, sir,” Dicky would reply, “but in poetry I believe you are obliged to begin stern foremost—because if you begin at the beginning you never get any poetry—just as if it was makin’ a song like this:— “The ’Mericans are gallant lads; they’re bound to whip Johnny Bull. It don’t make no matter if Johnny Bull has got more ships and soldiers. We’re goin’ to whip him. Now that ain’t poetry, because I begun at the beginning.” “That’s so,” Jack would reluctantly admit; “but if it ain’t poetry, it’s mighty good sense, and I hope it’ll all come true.” In those days tavern kitchens were very respectable resorts of the humbler classes of people and Jack Bell was very fond of the kitchen of the Eagle Tavern. The proprietor, Jacob Dyer, was a patriot at heart; but his house was so much the resort of British sailors and soldiers that he dared not avow the full extent of his sympathies. In the kitchen Dicky made most of his pennies—and he made so many that they soon grew into shillings. It might have been rather a dangerous place to trust a weak or a vicious boy; but Dicky was neither weak nor vicious. He went to the tavern to sing his songs, and when he got through he scampered off home to his mother with his money and was very glad to get there. Besides, at the time when he usually turned up at the tavern to sing, Jack Bell was comfortably established in the chimney-corner and he kept a sharp eye on Dicky and promptly reported any bad manners or other small offences to the Widow Stubbs, who upon the few occasions that Dicky had transgressed always came down on him with the heavy hand of justice armed with a good birch switch. One afternoon Dicky turned up at the tavern, as usual, and found the kitchen full of sailors from several cruisers of Lord Howe’s fleet that had rendezvoused at Newport. “Here you are, you young rapscallion!” called out one jolly man-o’-war’s-man. “Come here and give us ‘Black-eyed Susan’ or I’ll give you the cat.” This being the usual form in which those requests were made, Dicky nodded his head, grinned, and perched himself on the kitchen dresser to be heard the better. Having trolled out “Black-eyed Susan,” “Strike Eight Bells,” and other nautical ditties in his sweet boyish treble, Dicky got down and began to hand his homespun hat around for pennies. The sailors were liberal and Dicky was beginning to think how his mother would smile as he upset the hat in her lap, when one of the sailors, a fellow with a great voice, seized him and, holding up a glass of rum, called out: “Here, you lubber! come and drink the king’s health.” “Much obliged, sir,” answered Dicky readily; “but my mother don’t on no account let me touch rum, and I’ve promised her I won’t.” How glad was Dicky at that moment that he had made the promise! His mother had asked him and he had done it without giving it any particular thought; but when it came to saving him from drinking the king’s health, Dicky’s patriotic soul rejoiced that he had so good an excuse. The man, rough as he was, could not ask the boy to break his word, but he was determined to get some British sentiment out of Dicky. “Then you pipe up ‘God Save the King’ as loud as you can,” he cried. “I c-c-can’t,” said Dicky, looking around at Jack Bell in the corner. Jack gave him an almost imperceptible wink and nod, which meant: “You’re right; stick to it.” “But you shall!” roared the sailor. “But I won’t!” shouted Dicky boldly, and making a dash for the rolling-pin on the dresser, which he seized and flourished stoutly. The sailor made a dash for Dicky, who, as alert as a monkey, pushed a chair in front of him, over which the sailor fell sprawling. The next minute Dicky gave the window a terrific whack that smashed sash and all, and, scrambling through, took to his heels and was almost home by the time the sailor had got through rubbing his bruised shins. The Widow Stubbs was scrupulously honest, and her first comment after she had praised Dicky for keeping his word about the rum and refusing to sing “God Save the King” was:— “But, son, we must pay for the window.” “Yes, mammy,” said Dicky ruefully; “and I lost three shillings and my hat too.” That night when Jack Bell came in for his usual chat on the settle, he told Dicky: “You’re right, boy, and if it’s too hard a pull for you and your mammy to pay for the winder, why, Jack Bell has got some of the rhino and you’re welcome to it, for I see how you stuck up to your promise and to your country.” Just at that minute a knock came at the door, and when Dicky opened it Jacob Dyer walked in. Both the widow and Dicky thought he had come for his money for the window, and the Widow Stubbs began: “Don’t you have any fear, sir, that I won’t pay for what my boy did to-day, and pay it cheerful, to know I’ve got a boy who can keep his word to me, and can’t be frightened into singing ‘God Save the King.’” “Widder,” said Jacob, “your boy is welcome to smash that winder. Maybe he’s got more courage than Jacob Dyer; for although I can’t sing ‘God Save the King,’ chiefly because I don’t know how to sing anything, I feel sometimes as if I ought to be more outspoken than I am for my country. But I have a wife and eight children to support, and if I got the redcoats down on me, they’d close my tavern and then I’d be on the town. But sometimes my blood biles when I hear ’em talk about lickin’ General Washington. I kem to-night to tell you that if I look cross at your boy the next time he comes to the tavern he needn’t mind. You sha’n’t pay a cent for the winder, and I’d be a good deal more of a ’Merican if my livin’ didn’t depend on the redcoats.” The very next day Dicky showed up in the tavern kitchen. As usual, redcoats were plenty. Jacob Dyer, in a huge white apron, was superintending the turning of the spit. As soon as he caught sight of Dicky he began to grumble. “Here comes that Stubbs boy as cost me five shilling for a glazier’s bill. If it warn’t that his mother’s a widder, I’d be after him, I can tell you. But look out, you young scamp, if ever you get to wreckin’ my premises again, I’ll get after you as sure as shootin’. Do you mind that?” “Yes, sir,” answered Dicky very meekly and not in the least alarmed. |
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