



Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)






[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
text is surrounded by _underscores_.]



Within the Capes

    By
    HOWARD PYLE

    New York
    International Association of Newspapers and Authors
    1901




    COPYRIGHT, 1885,
    BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.


    NORTH RIVER BINDERY CO.
    PRINTERS AND BINDERS
    NEW YORK




        TO HIS FRIEND

     ALFRED LEIGHTON HOWE

    THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

             BY

        THE AUTHOR




WITHIN THE CAPES.




CHAPTER I.


CERTAIN members of Captain Tom Granger’s family have asked him, time
and time again, why he did not sit down and write an account of those
things which happened to him during a certain period of his life.

These happenings, all agree, are of a nature such as rarely fall to the
lot of any man, crowding, as they did, one upon the heels of another,
so that in two years’ time more happened to Tom Granger than happens to
most men in a lifetime.

But Captain Granger has always shaken his head, and has answered that
he was no writer and that a pen never did fit nicely betwixt his stiff
fingers, as Mrs. Granger can tell them if they will ask her.

Beside this, he has hitherto had his affairs to look after, so that he
may be able to leave behind him enough of the world’s goods to help his
children and his children’s children easily along the road that he
himself found not over smooth.

Now, however, he has given up much of his business to the care of his
sons, who are mostly men well on in years, with families of their own,
and who are discreet in the management of things. Therefore, having
much more leisure time upon his hands than he has ever had in his life
before, he will undertake to do as he has been asked, and to write a
plain, straightforward story of his adventures. This he does with much
diffidence, for, as I have said, he is no very good hand with the pen
and the ink-horn. The story may be told in a rough way; nevertheless, I
believe that many of those that read it will think well of it, having a
certain tenderness for the writer thereof.

I am furthermore inclined to thus take upon myself the transcribing of
the history of these things, because that Captain Tom Granger is coming
fast to the ending of his life; and, though his latter days may be
warm and sunny, like a late Indian summer, there are those yet to come
in a few years who will not have the chance to hear of these things
from his own lips. Therefore, as there has been much gossip about
certain adventures that befell him, I would rather that they should
learn of them under mine own hand than from hearsay. Truly, things get
monstrously twisted in passing from mouth to mouth, and by the time
that the story of these doings has passed down through three or four
generations, the old gentleman might be turned into a pirate and a
murderer, for all that I know, which would be a pretty state of affairs.

I do not know how it was that Tom Granger got the title of captain, for
the highest grade that he ever reached was that of second mate of the
Privateersman _Nancy Hazlewood_. However, as no one in Eastcaster ever
had held so high a grade of the like nature up to that time, I suppose
that the wonder really is that he was not called commodore, or even
admiral.

Any one in Eastcaster can tell you where he lives; it is the large
white house, with the porch in front, that stands well back from the
road under the shadow of three broad maple trees. It is just across
the way from the Hicksite Meeting-house. You can easily tell it as you
go along the street, because there is a ship in full sail chiseled in
relief on the stone gate-post, which is very well done indeed, and was
carved by William Johnson, the stone-cutter, under mine own direction
and supervision.

I will say here, that Captain Granger will be always glad to see you
if, at any time, you should chance to come to Eastcaster. If he is not
at home, you will be likely to find him playing chequers or backgammon
at the Black Horse Tavern, just around the corner of Market street, and
nearly opposite to the court-house.

However, that is neither here nor there, and I find that I am wandering
from the point. But you must excuse and overlook that, bearing in mind
that it is the way of an old man, who has done a great deal of talking
in his day. I thank goodness that I am old enough now to know better
than to gossip and talk as much as I used to do, and am rather silent
than otherwise.

Nevertheless, I promise now that I will heave ahead with my yarn,
though it may be that I