Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/368

 Captain John Carter vs. The Province of MassacJinsetts Bay. 337 and gathered an appreciative crowd of sight seers as they went. Arrived at the place of execution, John Carter's coat, shirt and doub let were pulled off, and on his bare back he received the thirty-nine stripes. A wholesome remembrance of his rank softened the blows, which on his sturdy frame caused no great suffering. Nor did the experience have any very humiliating effect upon his spirit. Indeed, we find it hard to understand the equanimity with which our fathers took their floggings, ap parently feeling no more hurt about them than we did as boys when we were caned at school. Then too, if the whole truth must be told, in his younger days at sea John Car ter had been whipped several times before. So he bore the punishment stoutly, stifled a last damn that he longed to fling at the men who had so beset him, and, after his beating, walked away with his head erect and without showing any sign of chagrin. But it must not be supposed that he really was good-natured over the affair. Deep down in his heart he was as mad as he could be, and when Mollie learned of all that had happened, she shared his feelings with all the intensity of her hot southern nature. She was for challenging the chief magistrate, perhaps the governor himself, to mortal combat, a method much to John Carter's liking, but he said it probably was against the law in this strange province even to speak of pis tols, and that they would have to think out some other method of revenge. To what result their thinking led them, the sequel shows. The whole town was surprised that the Eagle gave no sign of haste to leave the harbor, after the strange reception accorded to her captain. Far from wishing to hurry away, John and Mollie appeared to hold no grudge against the community for what had happened. They were seen walking about the streets in evident peace with all men. The governor of the colony and some of its

leading men soon called upon them, and by the end of their first week in Boston they were social favorites. They were asked here and there to dinners, tea parties and picnics, which then were much in vogue, and they were made much of, just as foreign visitors are entertained among us to-day. Even Master Dunton was mollified by the good-natured way in which Captain Carter treated the matter of his arrest, and he went so far as to give a dinner at the Green Dragon in John's honor. But the Eagle was needed on His Majes ty's business elsewhere, and so after three weeks spent in social gaiety John Carter set the date for his departure and as a fitting close to the good times they had had together he asked a few of the leading men of the town to dine on board the frigate the day she was to sail. Mollie received the guests upon the quarter deck and showed them about with all the pride of ownership. To her thinking the Eagle was John Carter's, and as John Carter belonged wholly to her, the conclusion of the matter was obvious. And John Carter was as jolly a host as ever welcomed friends aboard a ship. He was proud of his wife, and proud of his frigate, and in the galley a good dinner was cooking, — conditions which cheer the hearts of men. The great sails, already unfurled, for the frigate was to sail with the ebb tide, flapped idly above the party as they moved about the decks, the fragrance of coming dainties occasionally reached them from the forward part of the ship, and these ten Puritans felt inclined toward a more genial view of life than they would have owned to on shore. Their cheer was not lessened when the dinner was served. Fancy courses, with some attempt at grandeur in the serving, above all the excellent wine which filled their hearts with its pleasant glow, were not every day experiences to these worthy men seated about the cabin table, and as the dishes came and went, they began to realize the depth of