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    The Launching of the Huntress: The Money Ship, #1
    The Launching of the Huntress: The Money Ship, #1
    The Launching of the Huntress: The Money Ship, #1
    Ebook117 pages1 hour

    The Launching of the Huntress: The Money Ship, #1

    By Joan Druett

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    About this ebook

    Money ships were wrecks of treasure-galleons that were belched up from the bottom of the sea after tremendous storms, yielding doubloons and all other kinds of precious treasure ... gold bars and bullion, chests of brilliant gems. Though just a story Jerusha Gardiner heard in childhood, it led to a strange and convoluted quest in far-off and exotic seas, triggered by the launching of the ship Huntress...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOld Salt Press
    Release dateDec 26, 2017
    ISBN9781386286097
    The Launching of the Huntress: The Money Ship, #1
    Author

    Joan Druett

    Joan Druett's previous books have won many awards, including a New York Public Library Book to Remember citation, a John Lyman Award for Best Book of American Maritime History, and the Kendall Whaling Museum's L. Byrne Waterman Award.

    Read more from Joan Druett

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      Book preview

      The Launching of the Huntress - Joan Druett

      THE MONEY SHIP

      Joan Druett

      opslogohrblack1.png

      THE LAUNCHING OF THE HUNTRESS

      THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE MONEY SHIP SERIES, published by Old Salt Press, a Limited Liability Company registered in New Jersey, U.S.A.

      For more information about our titles, go to www.oldsaltpress.com

      First published in 2017

      © 2017 Joan Druett

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

      The Money Ship

      dragon.jpg

      Book One

      The Launching of the Huntress

      dragon.jpg

      1

      Jerusha scuttled along the cobbles on cold bare feet, dragging her little cart behind her. Its wooden wheels clattered, and her shoes jumped up and down inside it. The strings of her muslin cap slapped back and forth across her sweaty face, along with flaxen strands of hair.

      It was very early in the morning, but the street was crowded already, as this was the morning of November Fifth, the most important night of the year in Lewes, Sussex. For more than two hundred years now, the wild young men of Lewes had staged a great procession on the night of November Five. Disguised in strange costumes, wearing fantastic gaudy masks that glittered with the reflections of their flaring fires, the Bonfire Boys — for so the young men in the pageant were called by the people of Lewes — paraded through the streets and alleys and twittens as soon as full dark had fallen, accompanied by drummers and bands of musicians, holding flaming crosses high into the smoky night.

      Jerusha guessed she had seen every procession since the year she’d been born, but her only vivid memories were of last year’s, because her father had come to Lewes from East Grinstead last year, and had carried her on his shoulders. She remembered how the Bonfire Boys chanted as they swung their fiery staffs through the sharp-smelling smoke, while their younger brothers and cousins dragged blazing tar barrels through the gutters alongside the procession, yelling and clanging and making a terrible din.

      Still, though, she didn’t know how the pageant finished. Last year, in a long drawn-out finale, the Bonfire Boys had ceremoniously paraded into the distant hills, where great bonfires were lying ready to be lit, followed by giggling crowds of girls. Jerusha had wondered about that, for she had noticed that the young men and women stayed up there all night. Next morning, as they straggled down at dawn, all languorous and sleepy-eyed, she had wondered how they could dance so long, but people had only laughed when she asked. People did say, however, that this year’s procession promised to be wilder and more magical than ever, all the young men having trickled back home, the Wars with General Boney being over at last. 

      Women sweeping pavements straightened to cry out, Jess! as she clattered by, but she ignored them all, dashing on regardless with her cart leaping behind her, more often than not with two wheels in the air. Then she was on School Hill, and the cart surged forward, dealing a vicious nip to her heels. Jerusha muttered a word her father occasionally used, but limped on down to the bridge and the docks beyond, where the masts of the incoming hoggies progressed grandly up the river.

      The first two-masted boat was mooring as she arrived. Jerusha could hear the guttural calls of the two fishermen as they counted out their fish — "One and twenty, two and twenty and so on up to sixty, and then — one-two-three-four in a rhythm that was all their own. The fish were so fresh that some were still alive, flopping hopelessly about in the tubs with their blank eyes staring up at Jerusha in panic, blundering out a smell of the sea. Housewives were jostling each other, calling the fishermen by name, and Jerusha joined the crush, digging in sharp elbows to get to the front, jumping up and down in her determination not to be overlooked. Doan git yerself so excited, mairt, said one of the fishermen sourly. Ye’ll do yer viscery a mischief." But he gave in, and sold to her first.

      Triumphantly, Jerusha set to hauling her fish-heavy cart back up the hill. Behind her, she could hear Way ho! as yet another lugger came pulling into port. Then, as she crested School Hill, she suddenly had to force her way along the street. The air was full of shouting, cursing, the crack of whips, and laughter. All of Sussex was coming to town, it seemed, grand gentry in their carriages up from Brighton, shepherds in half-high hats painted gray, prim and priddy housewives in their red cloaks and fanciest aprons. It was a noisy confusion, punctuated with slamming as carpenters covered street-facing windows with boards. The procession of the Bonfire Boys might be twelve hours off, but the people were excited already.

      Jerusha pushed on doggedly, dragging her load through the arch of the White Hart Inn, where the tall walls enclosed a huge cobbled yard. She kept her head down, concentrating on hauling her cart through steaming piles of muck, intent on reaching the kitchen step before her grandfather could catch sight of her, but the loud rumble of her little cart betrayed her. Suddenly two dung-smeared bootleg-gaiters loomed up in front, and she came to an unwilling stop.

      Grandfather Hook had a wizened-up face, and he bore a carping grudge against the world. Jerusha often thought that no one could be more different from her jovial sea-captain father. He said, Bin a-fishin’, mairt?

      He didn’t laugh and neither did Jerusha. She waited, eyes cast down, her heart thumping as she heard his knees creak. Herring for dinner, a tidy fresh mess and thankee kindly, he grunted, poking around.

      "Please, Granfer — please, no. They’re for the feast. Ma trusted me to bring them to her."

      Did she indeed? he said, his fingers nipping about in the fish. Grief and mayhem all abroad in there. Yer Ma has a job and a half.

      Yes! cried Jerusha, hopping from one cold foot to the other. And she...

      And all on account of the mistus having threw the vapors, on account of the gent in number six throwing hisself out the winder yistiddy morn, he being summat half-a-pint otherwhile.

      Window? echoed Jerusha, ghoulishly distracted. The mistus, she knew, was Master Ryder’s second wife, a fat, cooing, silly woman with a baby, who had fascinated and embarrassed Jerusha by feeding the infant on one huge, wobbling, naked breast in public. She also knew that summat half-a-pint otherwhile meant drunk, in tactful Lewes fashion, and thought nothing of it. But the window business was a novelty.

      Is he dead? she asked.

      Wa-al, I dunno of that, bein’ as what he were a-groanin’ when they a-carried him off on an unhinged door, but the mistus saw it all with her very own e’en. And then she got the vapors and lost what wits God gave her, and she held high words with the cook. Which cook gave her a flea in her ear, along with her notice, and so off she went, and on the eve of November Five and all. Not, the sour old man added ruminatively, that she weren’t the merest fire-spannel.

      Oh! said Jerusha. Oh, I see!

      While much of this had gone over her head, she did understand now why Innkeeper Ryder had sent such an urgent message to the Crown tavern in East Grinstead, begging her mother’s assistance. But for such a shocking reason! Young as she was, Jess knew how bone-headed it was for any tavern-keeper’s wife to upset the cook on the eve of a feast, and on such a poor excuse as seeing a guest drop drunk from a window!

      And on the eve of November Five, too!  It was little wonder that her mother had been desperate enough to send her off on the fish-errand, thought Jerusha. She returned her anxious gaze to her grandfather’s dirty fingers a-rummaging, and cried, "Please don’t take my fish, Granfer! Ma will notice that they’re not all there. But she was forced to watch as four warps of herring — sixteen fish! — disappeared two by two into his capacious pockets. Fambly comes first," he said, and then his mouth snapped shut tight as a trap.

      Trembling with outrage, Jerusha set

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