Captain Adam (35 page)

The boniface leaned close to him, carefully taking him bv an arm, the left arm. He held something out.

"Excuse me, your worship. I was told to give this to you." It was the bill for the wine.

Magistrate Nixon had a ferret's face, which because of the length of his periwig looked even more lank than in truth it was. The periwig was cocked slightly to the left. The steel-rimmed spectacles were cocked to the right. Notwithstanding these and a few allied oddities, Magistrate Nixon presented an appearance sufficiently terrifying as he studied Adam Long.

Adam was sore. He wanted to be back in the Hearth Cricket, relaxed among friends, where he'd had as yet no fitting chance to discuss in detail the events of the previous night. It was there, at the inn, that he'd remembered the legal paper, and had examined it.

A good part of the Hearth Cricket clientele, and also the proprietor, indignant, had trailed Adam here. They stood in back of the courtroom now, their hats oflf, silent, yet frowning, for like Adam himself they were sore.

"What am I here for?" Adam demanded.

"Say your honor' when you address the judge," said a tipstaff.

"Your honor, what'm I here for?"

Magistrate Nixon hawked, and spat.

"You can't read?" he asked.

"I can read all right, my lord. Sure I can read. But only English. This thing"—he rattled the summons—"I don't know what language it's writ in."

"Lawyers must live," the magistrate said mildly.

"I don't see why."

A titter escaped from the spectators. The tipstaf? wheeled, gripping his truncheon. Magistrate Nixon, however, paid no heed.

"What are you here for? Why, murder, I should think. How manv men did you kill last night, Captain?"

"Only two that I can count for sure."

"You're a saucy fellow."

"This is the first time I've ever been in a court."

"If I am any judge of physiognomy. Captain, it won't prove to be the last."

"I sure hope it will, my lord."

"You don't call me 'my lord.' I'm not a lord, only a beak. You call me ■your honor.'"

"Your honor."

Magistrate Nixon leaned forward. 216

"I sent for you for two reasons, Captain."

"Because of the duel, too?"

"Have you been dueling? Damn it, man, then don't tell me! That happens to be against the law, too, just like murder is."

"I know it, my lord. I mean, your honor."

"Two reasons," the magistrate resumed. "The first was, to thank you for saving the Crown a very considerable hangman's fee. The second was, I wanted to see what you look like."

"Well— Well, here I am, your honor."

"Your honor, sir!" The magistrate came down off his bench, down to where Adam was, and he grasped Adam's hand. "Your honorl Damn me. Captain, if we had a few more like you in this city there'd be no need for so many of me! I want to hear about last night, every little thing about it. But we'll not have the tale here in court. We'll go to some more quiet place, eh?"

"We could go to the Hearth Cricket."

"Good! But right now I want to thank you. I want to congratulate you. I only hope you're staying with us here in London?"

"Thank you, sir, but I'm sailing tomorrow."

"Good luck. Captain." He put his left hand on Adam's right forearm. "And a good voyage. Come back whenever— Oh, Lord! I've pressed one of your wounds!"

No doubt Adam had winced involuntarily. He smiled now.

"That one don't hurt, your honor. Not any more."

Mistress Bingham had baked a partridge pie—a special pie, as Adam had promised Lil—and they had it, with trimmings, washing-downs, too, not in the ordinary, where they might be intruded upon by any customers, but in the kitchen, which was more private.

It was one of the best times Adam Long ever had in his life. They treated him like a member of the family, and he had to blink hard to keep the tears from breaking out of his eyes. When anybody spoke to him he had to swallow several times before he could be sure that his answer would come out clear. He grinned foolishly and fondly at everyone. Lillian sat on his lap, and if she spilled food now and then it did no great harm, for he wasn't wearing his fancy clothes now, only his freedom suit.

It was mid-afternoon when a drawer came in from the ordinary with a message that Mr. Chumley was waiting outside with two sedan chairs and asked that Captain Long go with him to Clark's coffee house.

"No," said Adam. "I don't have to go there any more, and why any-body'd go there who didn't have to is more than I can see."

But the drawer was soon back.

"He says to tell you, sir, that after the way you handled yourself in that affair of honor off Birdcage Walk this morning they're clamoring to meet you. He says to tell you you'll be the toast of the place."

"I don't like being a toast," said Adam. "It costs too much money."

"What shall I tell Mr. Chumley then, sir?"

"Tell him to go jump head-first down a jakes. Excuse me," added Adam. "I mean, down a necessary."

PART EIGHT

A Man in the Middle

hr O An aspen, a poplar, a beech will get to whispering in any

kJ O old breeze that should saunter past; but it takes something to make a maple talk, even more for an oak. The Queen's majesty as represented in New England was perturbed. Adam Long sensed this the moment he faced the new custos.

Mr. Macgregor was a far more effective official than Captain Wing-field. He had none of Wingfield's bowwow. Blusterless, never sneering, he went over Adam's papers with the painstaking thoroughness of a weevil.

Adam sat at a window, the same window he'd once jumped out of. Today as on the previous occasion a crowd had collected; but the other time the men had been caught by the sound of angry voices and the possibility of a fight, whereas today Mr. Macgregor was not going to make the mistake his predecessor had made. Mr. Macgregor had been selected indeed in large measure because he was a different kind of man —watchful, wary, above all thorough. He checked every figure, then checked his own check.

The other time it had been raining. Today it was bright; the sun was out; the town glittered, cold, windy, but somehow gay.

Adam paid little attention to the custos. He'd heard of the change as soon as he landed, an hour ago. That man Colonel Dudley up there in Boston, folks said, was a slick one. He never should have sent Wingfield in the first place, for what he wanted was a functionary who would keep his eyes open and his mouth shut, collecting not only the duties but information as well—information that might enable the royal governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, vice admiral of all New England, to prove to those highly placed in London that this Rhode Island was too brazen a breaker of laws to be permitted to keep its charter as an independent colony. Mr. Macgregor was that. It was not astounding that he was here. What astounded was the swiftness with which he had been sent, the abruptness with which Wingfield had been recalled once

the news of his brabble with Captain Long had reached Boston. Joseph Dudley was keeping his eye on Newport.

Adam nodded, smiled, or waved to acquaintances. His fame, granted, was only local; and it was vulgar, being based on nothing more than luck in a street fight; but he enjoyed it all the same. This morning his hand had been pumped and his shoulder clapped at least a dozen times in the hundred-odd yards to the customs house. That warmed him.

Mr. Macgregor handed back the papers.

"They're in perfect order," he said, a man amazed.

This riled Adam, who was proud of his bookkeeping.

"What'd you expect?" sourly.

"Is your vessel in as good order. Captain?"

"Come aboard and find out for yourself."

"Well, I might do that."

And, by thunder, he did! He climbed over Goodwill to Men from astern to stempost, scrutinizing, poking things, his fox's eyes alert. The skipper, slightly asmile, for a time wondered if this curiosity might not be rather more personal than professional: Mr. Macgregor as a newcomer would have heard of the schooner. However, when the custos went below, it became evident that he was in truth seeking something. He'd displayed little enough interest in the only-slightly-steeved bowsprit, the almost-level deck; but the hold, the sail closets, the lockers, forecasde, cabin, Mr. Macgregor sifted as though through linen. What in Tophet was he looking for? Whatever it was, he didn't find it. So far as Adam was aware, the only hiding place aboard the schooner was that in a beam just above his own bunk, where he kept the Quatre Moulins affidavit, Everard van Bramm's deposition that Zephary Evans had been the Newport agent of Tom Hart the pirate, and some extra let-passes Seth Selden had made out for him before deserting—a Dutch one, a French one, to keep against capture. Mr. Macgregor did not find that hiding place, which had been made by Adam himself, quiedy and alone: even Resolved Forbes, who shared the cabin with Adam, did not know of the existence of that secret panel.

"Satisfied, sir?"

"For now."

The first person Adam met when he took Mr. Macgregor ashore was Obadiah Selden.

These two, weeks before, had agreed without word of mouth never to mention the scene that night back by Ben Blake's well. The truth is, they were embarrassed by the memory. When Adam—all in the flush of his triumph over Captain Wingfield, hot with the knowledge that he had done a good piece of business in the islands, and determined that these money men should not again dictate sailing terms—when Adam

had pounded the Adventurers' Table and shouted that he'd have none of coasting, he was for England, Obadiah Selden had voiced no objection. Had Obadiah demurred, Adam might have been overruled.

Adam felt no tug to crow. Once he had been afraid of this man. Now he felt sorry for him.

Obadiah was large and cut square. Dignified, assuredly he was not graceful. When he moved he seemed to be pushing against a great weight. Habitually he kept his chin on his chest—not from truculence, as you might at first suppose, but from shyness.

They bowed but didn't shake hands. Adam wished that they had shaken hands, and he suspicioned that Selden wished this, too.

"You've had a prosperous voyage, Captain?"

"Aye, thank you, sir. And you've been well, I trust?"

"I have, thank you."

"And Mistress Deborah?"

Obadiah colored, and his bushy brows twitched.

"She—is in good health."

Out of sheer nervousness Adam took off his hat and looked into it, then clapped it hastily back on his head. It was a cocked hat, his first, the one with the ostrich feathers. He knew that a description of it was being bruited about. The first time the Long boy had returned as a skipper he wore a sword; the second time, a cocked hat. Well, well. Yet Adam did not wear his flame-colored coat.

"I'll meet with the owners this afternoon," he said suddenly. "I'm through customs now, and I'll be at Blake's in—say, two hours. Please tell the others."

It was not the way to talk to a person like Obadiah Selden. It was overheard, too. Persons passing dragged their feet.

"Will Mays has opened a tavern on the street the tannery's on," Obadiah answered meekly. "Most of the men meet there now."

"We'll meet at Blake's," said Captain Long.

^ A As he set out for Eaton's Point, the small sad voices of the

*~y Ji gulls above him, the bay clucking and sucking at his left,

Adam wished that he had been less abrupt. He had long ago resolved to check any move toward dominance on the part of the money men, being determined that he'd have no repeat performance of that night at Blake's when they had coldly voted to relieve him of his command. Pounding the table was the trick to use. It had worked before, it would work again.

But he believed that it was important that he pound before any of the other owners got a chance to. That should not be difficult. With Seth Selden and Zephary Evans bought out, there were, besides Obadiah Selden, only John Richardson and John Saye, who owned one-eighth each, and the cooper, Phineas Monk, who owned a sixteenth. Adam knew these men. They would ordinarily follow Obadiah Selden; but they'd been bullied before and could be bullied again.

All the same, Adam had been unneedfully harsh with Obadiah.

There was that which was crablike about the way Willis Beach scuttled off as Adam approached. Sharply Adam called him back. He'd never liked Beach, or trusted him.

"Where's Jeth Gardner living?"

Beach told him—up the hill a piece, back of Eaton's Point.

" 'E's 'ad a stroke. Don't talk much."

Adam all but winced. Even weeks of the howling North Atlantic had not washed from his ears the rasp of Cockney voices.

"Does he need anything?"

Beach shrugged. His eyes were searching the bay.

"Don't rightly know. Never see 'im. Cap'n, you didn't speak any Nivy ships on your way in, did you?"

"No."

"I'd 'ate to 'ave 'em come and tike me awie."

Jeth had had a stroke. Zeph Evans, as Adam had learned earher, was ailing. Yet here was a lovely chill day, bright with sunlight, a day for capering and cavorting, the kind that should make you prance. Adam Long had never felt better. He fairly ran up the hill.

The sight of the bosun was a shock. Jethro would never ship before the mast again, even if he got his leg sticked. He was, of course, an old man—he must have been near fifty—but in addition, now, he was slack, pale, actually unsteady. His hands shook. His lower jaw trembled, his lower lip.

It gave him joy to see Adam, even brought tears to his eyes. But Jeth had none of his old disagreeableness. The overweening air of disgust with which he had once surveyed the world was gone now. He tended to whimper.

" 'Tain't the leg, Cap'n. No, no! It's something else. Reckon I ain't got long to live."

They sat there in the sun, Jeth in a chair, Adam on a stool, and looked down over the bay and talked about folks and about vessels. Jeth approved the plan to carry flour down to the islands, rather than go Guineaing. But, he asked, would the owners?

"They'll approve," Adam said.

Jeth tired. He who had more than once kept the deck through thirty-