Pirate Gold Part 1

Pirate Gold.

by Frederic Jesup Stimson.

PART ONE: DISCOVERY.

I.

It consisted of a few hundred new American eagles and a few times as many Spanish doubloons; for pirates like good broad pieces, fit to skim flat-spun across the waves, or play pitch-and-toss with for men's lives or women's loves; they give five-dollar pieces or thin British guineas to the boy who brings them drink, and silver to their bootblacks, priests, or beggars.

It was contained--the gold--in an old canvas bag, a little rotten and very brown and mouldy, but tied at the neck by a piece of stout and tarnished braid of gold. It had no name or card upon it nor letters on its side, and it lay for nearly thirty years high on a shelf, in an old chest, behind three tiers of tins of papers, in the deepest corner of the vault of the old building of the Old Colony Bank.

Yet this money was pa.s.sed to no one's credit on the bank's books, nor was it carried as part of the bank's reserve. When the old concern took out its national charter, in 1863, it did not venture or did not remember to claim this specie as part of the reality behind its greenback circulation. It was never merged in other funds, nor converted, nor put at interest. The bag lay there intact, with one brown stain of blood upon it, where Romolo de Soto had grasped it while a cutla.s.s gash was fresh across his hand. And so it was carried, in specie, in its original package: "Four hundred and twenty-three American eagles, and fifteen hundred and fifty-six Spanish doubloons; deposited by ---- De Soto, June twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine; _for the benefit of whom it may concern_."

And it concerned very much two people with whom our narration has to do,--one, James McMurtagh, our hero; the other, Mr. James Bowdoin, then called Mr. James, member of the firm of James Bowdoin's Sons. For De Soto, having escaped with his neck, took good pains never to call for his money.

II.

A very real pirate was De Soto. None of your Captain Kidds, who make one voyage or so before they are hanged, and even then find time to bury kegs of gold in every marshy and uncomfortable spot from Maine to Florida. No, no. De Soto had better uses for his gold than that.

Commonly he traveled with it; and thus he even brought it to Boston with him on that unlucky voyage in 1829, when Mr. James Bowdoin was kind enough to take charge of it for him. One wonders what he meant to do with a bag of gold in Boston in 1829.

This happened on Thursday, the 24th of June. It was the day after Mr.

James Bowdoin's (or Mr. James's, as Jamie McMurtagh and others in the bank always called him; it was his father who was properly Mr. James Bowdoin, and his grandfather who was Mr. Bowdoin)--after Mr. James's Commencement Day; and it was the day after Mr. James's engagement as junior clerk in the counting-room; and it was the day after Mr.

James's engagement to be married; and it was the day but one after Mr.

James's cla.s.s's supper at Mr. Porter's tavern in North Cambridge. Ah, they did things quickly in those days; _ils savoient vivre_.

They had made him a Bachelor of Arts, and a Master of Arts he had made himself by paying for that dignity, and all this while the cla.s.s punch was fresher in his memory than Latin quant.i.ties; for these parchment honors were a bit overwhelming to one who had gone through his college course _non clam, sed vi et precario_, as his tutor courteously phrased it. And then he had gotten out of his college gown into a beautiful blue frock coat and white duck trousers, and driven into town and sought for other favors, more of flesh and blood, carried his other degree with a rush--and Miss Abigail Dowse off to drive with him. And that evening Mr. James Bowdoin had said to him, "James!"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. James.

"Now you've had your four years at college, and I think it's time you should be learning something."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. James.

"So I wish you to come down to the counting-room at nine o'clock and sort the letters."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. James.

Mr. James Bowdoin looked at him suspiciously over his spectacles. "At eight o'clock; do you hear?"

"I hear, sir," said Mr. James.

Mr. James Bowdoin lost his temper at once. "Oh, you do, do you?" said he. "You don't want to go to Paris, to Rome,--to make the grand tour like a gentleman, in short, as I did long before I was your age?"

"No, sir," said Mr. James.

"Then, sir, by gad," said Mr. James Bowdoin, "you may come down at half past seven--and--and--sweep out the office!"

III.

So it happened that Mr. James was in the counting-room that day; but that he happened also to be alone requires further explanation. Two gla.s.ses of the old Governor Bowdoin white port had been left untasted on the dinner-table the night before,--the one, that meant for Mr.

James Bowdoin, who had himself swept out of the room as he made that last remark about sweeping out the office; the other, that of his son, Mr. James, who had instantly gone out by the other door, and betaken himself for sympathy to the home of Miss Abigail Dowse, which stood on Fort Hill, close by, where the sea breezes blew fresh through the white June roses, and Mr. James found her walking in the garden path.

"You must tell him," said Miss Dowse, when Mr. James had recounted his late conversation to her, after such preliminary ceremonies as were proper--under the circ.u.mstances.

So Mr. James walked down to the head of India Wharf the next morning, determined to make a clean breast of his engagement. The ocean air came straight in from the clear, blue bay, spice-laden as it swept along the great rows of warehouses, and a big white s.h.i.+p, topgallant sails still set, came bulging up the harbor, not sixty minutes from deep water. Mr. James found McMurtagh already in the office and the mail well sorted, but he insisted on McMurtagh finding him a broom, and, wielding that implement on the second pair of stairs (for the counting-room of James Bowdoin's Sons was really a loft, two flights up in the old granite building), was discovered there shortly after by Mr. James Bowdoin. The staircase had not been swept in some years, and the young man's father made his way up through a cloud of aromatic dust that Mr. James had raised. He could with difficulty see the door of his counting-room. This slammed behind him as he entered; and a few seconds after, Mr. James received a summons through McMurtagh that Mr.

James Bowdoin wished to see him.

"An' don't ye mind if Mr. James Bowdoin is a bit sharp-set the morn,"

said Jamie McMurtagh.

Mr. James nodded; then he went in to his father.

"So, sir, it was you kicking up that devil of a dust outside there, was it?"

"Yes, sir," says Mr. James. (I have this story from McMurtagh.) "You told me to sweep out the counting-room."

"Precisely so, sir. I am glad your memory is better than your intelligence. I told you to sweep _it out_, and not all outdoors in."

Mr. James bowed, and wondered how he was to speak of Miss Dowse at this moment. The old gentleman chuckled for some minutes; then he said, "And now, James, it's time you got married."

Mr. James started. "I--I only graduated yesterday, sir," says he.

"Well, sir," answers the old gentleman testily, "you may consider yourself devilish lucky that you weren't married before! I have got a house for you"--

"Perhaps, sir, you have even got me a wife?"

"Of course I have; and a devilish fine girl she is, too, I can tell you!"

"But, sir," says Mr. James, "I--I have made other arrangements."

"The devil you have! Then damme, sir, not a house shall you have from me,--not a house, sir, not a s.h.i.+ngle,--nor the girl, either, by gad!

I'll--I'll"--

"Perhaps, sir," says Mr. James, "you'll wait and marry her yourself?"

"Perhaps I will, sir; and if I do, what of it? Older men than I have married, I take it! Insolent young dog!"

"May I tell my mother, sir?"