four days of listless waiting go by, and captain paul jones again finds himself and mr. morris closeted with general washington.
“captain jones,” says the latter, speaking with a kindly gravity, “mr. morris and i have so pushed your affairs with the marine committee that to-morrow congress will pass a double resolution, adopting a new flag, the stars and stripes, and appointing you to command the ranger.”
“the ranger!” exclaims captain paul jones, beginning to glow. “thanks, general; a thousand thanks! and to you also, mr. morris, whom i shall never forget! the ranger! i know her! she is being sparred and rigged at portsmouth! new, three hundred tons; a beauty, too, they tell me! gentlemen, i am off at once to portsmouth! i must see to stepping her masts and mounting her batteries myself.”
captain paul jones, all eagerness, is on his feet, and even the wise, age-cold mr. morris begins to catch his fire.
“right!” cries mr. morris; “you shall start to-morrow!”
“captain jones,” interrupts the general, laying a large detaining hand on the other’s arm, “you will go to portsmouth and look after your ship. also, while your destination is france, you must wait for orders to sail. i may have weighty despatches for the french king—news that will shake europe.”
june is as cool in portsmouth as it is in philadelphia. cooler; for the new hampshire breeze has in it the chill smell of those snows that lie unmelted in the mountains. captain paul jones comes unannounced, eyes dancing like those of a child with a new toy, and seeks the wharf where the __ranger__ is being fitted to her spars. from a convenient coign he looks the ranger over, and evinces a master’s appreciation.
“nose sharp! plenty of dead-rise! lean lines!” he murmurs. “with the wind anywhere abaft the beam, she should race like a greyhound! all, she’s a beauty, fit to warm the cockles of a sailor’s heart! see to the sheer of her!—as delicate as the lines of a woman’s arm!”
up comes a sturdy figure with an air of command, an officer’s hat on his head, a ship-carpenter’s adz in his hand.
“this is captain jones?”
“captain paul jones, sir.”
“pardon me for not first giving my name. i’m elijah hall, who is to sail second officer with you in yon ranger.”
captain paul jones and lieutenant hall fall into instant and profound confab of a deeply nautical complexion, a confab quite beyond a landsman’s comprehension, wherein such phrases as “flush-decks,” “short poop-deck,” “bilges,” “futtocks,” and “knees” abound, and are reeled off as though their use gives our two ship-enthusiasts unbridled satisfaction. at last lieutenant hall remarks, pointing to three long sticks:
“there’re her masts, sir. they were taken out of a four-hundred-ton indiaman, and are too long for a three-hundred-ton ship like the ranger. i was thinking i’d cut’em off four feet in the caps.”
“that would be a sin!” exclaims captain paul jones, voice almost religious in its fervent zeal. “three as fine pieces of pine as ever came out of norway, too! i’d be afraid to cut’em, mr. hall; it would give the ship bad luck. i’ll tell you what! fid them four feet lower in the hounds; it will amount to the same thing, and at the same time save the sticks.”
captain paul jones goes at the congenial task of fitting out the ranger with his usual day-and-night energy. when he finds her over-sparred, with her masts too long, he still refuses to cut them down, but shortens yard and bowsprit, jib-boom and spankerboom. he doesn’t like the marine committee’s armament of twenty six-pounders, and proceeds to mount four six-pounders and fourteen long nines.
“one nine-pounder is equal to two six-pounders,” says captain paul jones; “and, since it’s i who must put to sea in the ranger, and not the marine committee, nine-ponnders i’ll have, and say no more about it.”
the new hampshire girls, on the fourth of july, come down to the ranger, and present captain paul jones a flag—red, white, and blue—quilted of cloth ravished from their virgin petticoats. the gallant mariner makes the new hampshire girls a speech.
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“that flag,” cries he, “that flag and i, as captain of the ranger, were born on the same day. we are twins. we shall not be parted life or death; we shall float together or sink together!”
these brave words, in the long run, find amendment. the petticoat flag of the pretty new hampshire girls is the flag which, two years later, flies from the richard’s indomitable peak when captain paul jones cuts down the gallant pierson and his serapis. after that fight off scarborough head, captain paul jones writes to the pretty new hampshire girls—for he ever remembers the ladies—recounting the last destiny of their petticoat ensign. he is telling of the richard’s death throes, as viewed from the blood-slippery decks of the conquered serapis:
“no one was now left aboard the richard but my dead. to them i gave the good old ship to be their coffin; in her they found a sublime sepulcher. she rolled heavily in the swell, her gun-deck awash to the port-sills, settled slowly by the head, and sank from sight. the ensign gaff, shot away in the action, had been fished and put in place; and there your flag was left flying when we abandoned her. as she went down by the head, her taffrail rose for a moment; and so the last that mortal eye ever saw of the gallant richard was your unconquered ensign. i couldn’t strip it from the brave old ship in her last agony; nor could i deny my dead on her decks, who had given their lives to keep it flying, the glory of taking it with them. and so i parted with it; so they took it for their winding sheet.”
at last the ranger is ready for sea; and still those belated despatches from general washington for the french king do not come. one cold october day a horseman, worn and haggard, rides into portsmouth. stained, dust-caked, reeling in his saddle, he calls for captain paul jones.
“here,” responds that gentleman. “what would you have?”
“i come from general washington,” cries the man. “burgoyne has surrendered! here are your despatches for france!”
captain paul jones takes the packet, stunned for the moment by the mighty news.
“and now for food and drink,” says the man faintly, as with difficulty he slips to the ground. “one hundred and eighty miles have i rode in thirty hours. it was the brave news kept me going; the thought of those beaten english held me up like wine.”
“one hundred and eighty miles!” cries captain paul jones. “thirty hours!”
the man points to his mount, where it stands with drooping head and quivering flank.
“that is the tenth i’ve had. horse flesh and hard riding did it!”
ten minutes after the despatches are put in his hands, captain paul jones is aboard the ranger. then comes the tramp of forty feet about the capstan. twenty powerful breasts are pressed against the capstan bars, and the ranger is walked up to its anchors, while aloft the brisk top-men are shaking out the sails.
“anchor up and down, sir!” reports boatswain jack robinson, who has left his polly at home, while he sails with the ranger.
“anchor up and down!” repeats captain paul jones. “bring her home!”
with a “heave ho!” the ranger’s anchors are pulled out of portsmouth sands. captain paul jones himself takes the wheel and pays off its head before the breeze, already bellying the foresails.
“give her every stitch you have, mr. hall,” says captain paul jones. “we must be clear of the isles of shoals by daybreak.”
“and then?” asks lieutenant hall.
“east, by south, half east! and mr. hall, day and night, blow high, blow low, spread every rag you’ve got. burgoyne has surrendered. either i shall tear the sticks out of the ranger, or spread that news in france in thirty days.”
“more haste, less speed!” murmurs the prudent lieutenant hall; and so, having eased his mind like a true seaman, he goes forward heatedly to spread sail.
the top-heavy little ranger, with her acre of canvas, heels over until, with decks awash, she glides eastward like a ghost.
“pipe all hands aft, mr. bo’sen!” commands captain paul jones.
boatswain jack robinson puts his whistle to his lips, and sends a shrill call singing through the ship. the crew come scampering aft; all save a contingent aloft, who race down by the backstays, claw under claw, as might so many cats. some of our old friends of the providence are there—the aquatic scipio and cato, with the little red indian port-fire, anthony jeremiah.
“my men,” cries captain paul jones, “we’re off for france. we shall meet nasty weather, for it’s the beginning of winter, and i shall steer the northern course. it is to be a case of crack-on canvas, foul weather or fair: and, since the ship is oversparred and cranky, we must mind her day and night. to make all safe, the watch shall be lap-watched, so as to keep plenty of hands on deck. this will double your work, but i shall also double your grog. now, my hearties, let every man among you do his duty by flag and ship. burgoyne has surrendered, and it’s for us to carry the word to france.”
“shipmates,” observes boatswain jack robinson, judgmatically, as the hands go tumbling forward, “shipmates, the old ranger is a damned comfortable ship. ‘double watches, double work!’ says the skipper; but also ‘double grog!’ says he. wherefore, i says again, the old ranger is a damned comfortable ship.”
eight bells now, breakfast; and the isles of shoals are vanishing over the ranger’s stern. suddenly a boyish voice strikes up:
“so now we had him hard and fast,
burgoyne laid down his arms at last,
and that is why we brave the blast,
to carry the news to france.”
captain paul jones pauses in his short quarterdeck walk, cocks his ear, and listens. the hoarse crew take up the chorus:
“heigh ho! carry the news!
go carry the news to london,
tell old king george how he’s undone.
oh, ho! carry the news!”
boatswain jack robinson, observing captain paul jones listening, becomes explanatory.
“only a bit of a ditty, cap’n; the same composed by midshipman hill, d’ye see, in honor of this here cruise. a right good ballid, too, i calls it; and amazin’ fine for a lad of twenty, who hardly knows a reef-point from a gasket.”
vouchsafing this, boatswain jack robinson rolls forward with walrus gait, chanting as he goes in a voice tuned by storms and broken across capstan bars, the hoarse refrain:
“oh, ho! carry the news!”
and so the good ship ranger plows eastward on her course. eighteen hours out of twenty-four, captain paul jones holds the deck. in the end he has his reward. just thirty days after the ranger’s anchors kissed the portsmouth sands good-by, they go splashing into the dull waters of the loire.
