Читать книгу The Young Marooners on the Florida Coast - Goulding Francis Robert - Страница 3

THE COMPANY AND THEIR EMBARKATION

On Saturday, the 21st of August, 1830, a small but beautiful brig left the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina, bound for Tampa Bay, Florida. On board were nine passengers; Dr. Gordon, his three children, Robert, Mary, and Frank; his sister's son, Harold McIntosh, and four servants.

Dr. Gordon was a wealthy physician, who resided, during the winter, upon the seaboard of Georgia, and during the summer upon a farm in the mountains of that beautifully varied and thriving State. His wife was a Carolinian, from the neighbourhood of Charleston. Anna Gordon, his sister, married a Col. McIntosh, who, after residing for twelve years upon a plantation near the city of Montgomery, in Alabama, died, leaving his widow with three children, and an encumbered estate. Soon after her widowhood, Dr. Gordon paid her a visit, for the two-fold purpose of condolence and of aiding in the settlement of her affairs. She was so greatly pleased with the gentlemanly bearing and the decided intelligence of Robert, who on this occasion accompanied his father, that she requested the privilege of placing her son Harold under her brother's care, until some other arrangement could be made for his education. Dr. Gordon was equally prepossessed with the frank manners and manly aspect of his nephew, and it was with peculiar pleasure that he acceded to the request. Harold had been with his uncle about a month previous to the period at which this history begins.

Mrs. Gordon was a woman of warm affections and cultivated mind, but of feeble constitution. She had been the mother of five children; but, during the infancy of the last, her health exhibited so many signs of decay as to convince her husband that the only hope of saving her life was to seek for her, during the ensuing winter, a climate even more bland than that in which she had spent her girlhood.

Tampa Bay is a military post of the United States. Dr. Gordon had formerly visited it, and was so delighted with its soft Italian climate, and with the wild beauty of its shores, that he had even then purchased a choice lot in the vicinity of the fort, and ever after had looked forward, almost with hope, to the time when he might have some excuse for removing there. That time had now come. And doubting not that the restorative powers of the climate would exert a happy influence upon his wife's health, he left her with her relatives, while he went to Tampa for the purpose of preparing a dwelling suitable for her reception.

The accompanying party was larger than he had at first intended. Robert and Harold were to go of course; they were old enough to be his companions; and, moreover, Harold had been sent by his mother for the express purpose of enjoying that excellent home education which had been so happily exhibited in Robert. But on mature reflection there appeared to Dr. Gordon special reasons why he should also take his eldest daughter, Mary, who was about eleven years of age, and his second son, Frank, who was between seven and eight. The addition of these younger persons to the party, however, did not cause him any anxiety, or any addition to the number of his servants; for he and his wife, although wealthy by inheritance, and accustomed all their lives to the help of servants, had educated their children to be as independent as possible of unnecessary help. Indeed, Mary was qualified to be of great assistance; for though only eleven years of age, she was an excellent housekeeper, and during the indisposition of her mother had presided with remarkable ability at her father's table. Little Frank was too young to be useful, but he was an obedient, merry little fellow, a great pet with everybody, and promised, by his cheerful good nature, to add much to the enjoyment of the party; and as to the care which he needed, Mary had only to continue that motherly attention which she had been accustomed already to bestow.

To say a word or two more of the youths; Robert Gordon, now nearly fourteen years of age, had a great thirst for knowledge. Stimulated continually by the instructive conversation of his father, who spared no pains in his education, he drew rapidly from all the sources opened to him by books, society, and nature. His finely developed mind was decidedly of a philosophic cast. Partaking, however, of the delicate constitution of his mother, he was oftentimes averse to those athletic exercises which became his age, and by which he would have been fitted for a more vigorous and useful manhood.

Harold McIntosh, a half year older than his cousin, was, on the contrary, of a robust constitution and active habit, with but little inclination for books. Through the inattention of a father, who seemed to care more for manly daring than for intellectual culture, his education had been sadly neglected. The advantages afforded him had been of an exceedingly irregular character, and his only incentive to study had been the gratification of his mother, whom he tenderly loved. For years preceding the change of his abode, a large portion of his leisure time had been spent in visiting an old Indian of the neighbourhood, by the name of Torgah, and gleaning from him by conversation and practice, that knowledge of wood-craft, which nothing but an Indian's experience can furnish, and which usually possesses so romantic a charm for Southern and Western (perhaps we may say for American) boys.

The cousins had become very much attached. Each admired the other's excellencies, and envied the other's accomplishments; and the parents had good reason to hope that they would prove of decided benefit to each other by mutual example.

Preparing for a winter's residence at such a place as Tampa, where, with the exception of what was to be obtained at the fort, they would be far removed from all the comforts and appliances of civilized life, Dr. Gordon was careful to take with him everything which could be foreseen as needful. Among these may be mentioned the materials already framed for a small dwelling-house, kitchen, and stable; ample stores of provisions, poultry, goats (as being more convenient than cows), a pair of horses, a buggy, and wagon, a large and beautiful pleasure boat, books for reading, and for study, together with such furniture as habit had made necessary to comfort.