I. Jonathan Rugg
You may never know what romantic aspirations may lie hidden
beneath the most sedate and sober demeanor.
To have observed Jonathan Rugg, who was a tall, lean,
loose-jointed young Quaker of a somewhat forbidding aspect, with
straight, dark hair and a bony, overhanging forehead set into a
frown, a pair of small, deep-set eyes, and a square jaw, no one
would for a moment have suspected that he concealed beneath so
serious an exterior any appetite for romantic adventure.
Nevertheless, finding himself suddenly transported, as it were,
from the quiet of so sober a town as that of Philadelphia to the
tropical enchantment of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, the
night brilliant with a full moon that swung in an opal sky, the
warm and luminous darkness replete with the mysteries of a
tropical night, and burdened with the odors of a land breeze, he
suddenly discovered himself to be overtaken with so vehement a
desire for some unwonted excitement that, had the opportunity
presented itself, he felt himself ready to embrace any adventure
with the utmost eagerness, no matter whither it would have
conducted him.
At home (where he was a clerk in the counting-house of a leading
merchant, by name Jeremiah Doolittle), should such idle fancies
have come to him, he would have looked upon himself as little
better than a fool, but now that he found himself for the first
time in a foreign country, surrounded by such strange and unusual
sights and sounds, all conducive to extravagant imaginations, the
wish for some extraordinary and altogether unusual experience
took possession of him with a singular vehemence to which he had
heretofore been altogether a stranger.
In the street where he stood, which was of a shining whiteness
and which reflected the effulgence of the moonlight with an
incredible distinction, he observed, stretching before him, long
lines of white garden walls, overtopped by a prodigious
luxuriance of tropical foliage.
In these gardens, and set close to the street, stood several
pretentious villas and mansions, the slatted blinds and curtains
of the windows of which were raised to admit of the freer
entrance of the cool and balmy air of the night. From within
there issued forth bright lights, together with the exhilarating
sound of merry voices laughing and talking, or perhaps a song
accompanied by the tinkling music of a spinet or of a guitar. An
occasional group of figures, clad in light and summer-like
garments, and adorned with gay and startling colors, passed him
through the moonlight; so that what with the brightness and
warmth of the night, together with all these unusual sights and
sounds, it appeared to Jonathan Rugg that he was rather the
inhabitant of some extraordinary land of enchantment and
unreality than a dweller upon that sober and solid world in which
he had heretofore passed his entire existence.
Before continuing this narrative the reader may here be informed
that our hero had come into this enchanted world as the
supercargo of the ship SUSANNA HAYES, of Philadelphia; that he
had for several years proved himself so honest and industrious a
servant to the merchant house of the worthy Jeremiah Doolittle
that that benevolent man had given to his well-deserving clerk
this opportunity at once of gratifying an inclination for foreign
travel and of filling a position of trust that should redound to
his individual profit. The SUSANNA HAYES had entered Kingston
Harbor that afternoon, and this was Jonathan's first night spent
in those tropical latitudes, whither his fancy and his
imagination had so often carried him while he stood over the desk
filing the accounts of invoices from foreign parts.
It might be finally added that, had he at all conceived how soon
and to what a degree his sudden inclination for adventure was to
be gratified, his romantic aspirations might have been somewhat
dashed at the prospect that lay before him.
