Homeward Bound - James Fenimore Cooper (free e books to read .txt) 📗

desire, and strolled carelessly towards the faithful old domestic. He addressed her indifferently at first, until believing he might go further, he smilingly observed that he believed he had seen her in Italy. To this Nanny quietly assented, and when he indirectly added that it was under another name, she smiled, but merely intimated her consciousness of the fact, by a quick glance of the eye.

"You know that travellers assume names for the sake of avoiding curiosity," he added, "and I hope you will not betray me."

"You need not fear me, sir; I meddle with little besides my own duty, and so long as Miss Eve appears to think there is no harm in it, I will venture to say it is no more than a gentleman's caprice."

"Why, that is the very word she applied to it herself! You have caught the term from Miss Effingham."

"Well, sir, and if I have, it is caught from one who deals little harm to any."

"I believe I am not the only one on board who travels under a false name, if the truth were known?"

Nanny looked first at the deck, then at her interrogator's face, next towards Mr. Blunt, withdrawing her eye again, as if guilty of an indiscretion, and finally at the sails. Perceiving her embarrassment, respecting her discretion, and ashamed of the task he had undertaken, Mr. Sharp said a few civil things suited to the condition of the woman, and sauntering about the deck for a short time, to avoid suspicion, soon found himself once more alongside of Eve. The latter inquired with her eyes, a little exultingly perhaps, concerning his success.

"I have failed," he said; "but something must be ascribed to my own awkward diffidence; for there is so much meanness in tampering with a servant, that I had not the heart to push my questions, even while I am devoured by curiosity."

"Your fastidiousness is not a disease with which all on board are afflicted, for there is at least one grand inquisitor among us, by what I can learn; so take heed to your sins, and above all, be very guarded of old letters, marks, and other tell-tales, that usually expose impostors."

"To all that, I believe, sufficient care has already been had, by that other Dromio, my own man."

"And in what way do you share the name between you? Is it Dromio of Syracuse, and Dromio of Ephesus? or does John call himself Fitz-Edward, or Mortimer, or De Courcy?"

"He has complaisance enough to make the passage with nothing but a Christian name, I believe. In truth, it was by a mere accident that I turned usurper in this way. He took the state-room for me, and being required to give a name, he gave his own, as usual. When I went to the docks to look at the ship, I was saluted as Mr. Sharp, and then the conceit took me of trying how it would wear for a month or six weeks. I would give the world to know if the Geheimer Rath got his cognomen in the same honest manner."

"I think not, as his man goes by the pungent title of Pepper. Unless poor John should have occasion for two names during the passage, you are reasonably safe. And still, I think," continued Eve, biting her lips, like one who deliberated, "if it were any longer polite to bet, Mr. John Effingham would hazard all the French gloves in his trunks, against all the English finery in yours, that the inquisitor just hinted at gets at your secret before we arrive. Perhaps I ought rather to say, ascertains that you are not Mr. Sharp, and that Mr. Blunt is."

Her companion entreated her to point out the person to whom she had given the sobriquet she mentioned.

"Accuse me of giving nicknames to no one. The man has this title from Mademoiselle Viefville, and his own great deeds. It is a certain Mr. Steadfast Dodge, who, it seems, knows something of us, from the circumstance of living in the same county, and who, from knowing a little in this comprehensive manner, is desirous of knowing a great deal more."

"The natural result of all useful knowledge."

"Mr. John Effingham, who is apt to fling sarcasms at all lands, his native country included, affirms that this gentleman is but a fair specimen of many more it will be our fortune to meet in America. If so, we shall not long be strangers; for according to Mademoiselle Viefville and my good Nanny, he has already communicated to them a thousand interesting particulars of himself, in exchange for which he asks no more than the reasonable compensation of having all his questions concerning us truly answered."

"This is certainly alarming intelligence, and I shall take heed accordingly."

"If he discover that John is without a surname, I am far from certain he will not prepare to have him arraigned for some high crime or misdemeanour; for Mr John Effingham maintains that the besetting propensity of all this class is to divine the worst the moment their imaginations cease to be fed with fact. All is false with them, and it is flattery or accusation."

The approach of Mr. Blunt caused a cessation of the discourse, Eve betraying a slight degree of sensitiveness about admitting him to share in these little asides, a circumstance that her companion observed, not without satisfaction. The discourse now became general, the person who joined them amusing the others with an account of several proposals already made by Mr. Dodge, which, as he expressed it, in making the relation, manifested the strong community-characteristics of an American. The first proposition was to take a vote to ascertain whether Mr. Van Buren or Mr. Harrison was the greatest favourite of the passengers; and, on this being defeated, owing to the total ignorance of so many on board of both the parties he had named, he had suggested the expediency of establishing a society to ascertain daily the precise position of the ship. Captain Truck had thrown cold water on the last proposal, however, by adding to it what, among legislators, is called a "rider;" he having drily suggested that one of the duties of the said society should be to ascertain also the practicability of wading across the Atlantic.


Chapter VII.


When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks,
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth:
All may be well; but if God sort it so,
'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.

RICHARD III.


These conversations, however, were mere episodes of the great business of the passage. Throughout the morning, the master was busy in rating his mates, giving sharp reprimands to the stewards and cooks, overhauling the log line, introducing the passengers, seeing to the stowage of the anchors, in getting down the signal-pole, throwing in touches of Vattel, and otherwise superintending duty, and dispensing opinions. All this time, the cat in the grass does not watch the bird that hops along the ground with keener vigilance than he kept his eye on the Foam. To an ordinary observer, the two ships presented the familiar spectacle of vessels sailing in the same direction, with a very equal rate of speed; and as the course was that necessary to clear the Channel, most of the passengers, and, indeed, the greater part of the crew, began to think the cruiser, like themselves, was merely bound to the westward. Mr. Truck, on the contrary, judging by signs and movements that more naturally suggested themselves to one accustomed to direct the evolutions of a ship, and to reason on their objects, than to the mere subjects of his will, thought differently. To him, the motive of the smallest change on board the sloop-of-war was as intelligible as if it had been explained in words, and he even foresaw many that were about to take place. Before noon, the Foam had got fairly abeam, and Mr. Leach, pointing out the circumstance, observed, that if her wish was to overhaul them, she ought then to tack; it being a rule among seamen, that the pursuing vessel should turn to windward as often as she found herself nearest to her chase. But the experience of Captain Truck taught him better; the tide was setting into the Channel on the flood, and the wind enabled both ships to fake the current on their lee-bows, a power that forced them up to windward; whereas, by tacking, the Foam would receive the force of the stream on her weather broadside, or so nearly so, as to sweep her farther astern than her difference in speed could easily repair.

"She has the heels of us, and she weathers on us, as it, is," grumbled the master; "and that might satisfy a man less modest. I have led the gentleman such a tramp already that he will be in none of the best humours when he comes alongside, and we may make up our minds on seeing Portsmouth again before we see New-York, unless a slant of wind, or the night, serve us a good turn. I trust, Leach, you have not been destroying your prospects in life by looking too wistfully at a tobacco-field?"

"Not I, sir; and if you will give me leave to say it, Captain Truck, I do not think a plug has been landed from the ship, which did not go ashore in a bona-fide tobacco-box, that might appear in any court in England. The people will swear, to a man, that this is true."

"Ay, ay! and the Barons of the Exchequer would be the greatest fools in England not to believe them. If there has been no defrauding the revenue, why does a cruiser follow this ship, a regular packet, to sea?"

"This affair of the steerage passenger, Davis, sir, is probably the cause. The man may be heavily in debt, or possibly a defaulter; for these rogues, when they break down, often fall lower than the 'twixt decks of a ship like this."

"This will do to put the quarter-deck and cabin in good humour at sailing, and give them something to open an acquaintance with; but it is sawdust to none but your new beginners. I have known that Seal this many a year, and the rogue never yet had a case that touched the quarter-deck. It is as the man and his wife say, and I'll not give them up, out here in blue water, for as much foam as lies on Jersey beach after an easterly blow. It will not be any of the family of Davis that will satisfy yonder wind-eater; but he will lay his hand on the whole family of the Montauk, leaving them the agreeable alternative of going back to Portsmouth in his pleasant society, or getting out here in mid-channel, and wading ashore as best they can. D--- me! If I believe, Leach, that Vattel will bear the fellow out in it, even if there has been a whole hogshead of the leaves trundled into his island without a permit!"

To this Mr. Leach had no encouraging answer to make, for, like most of his class, he held practical force in much greater respect than the abstractions of books. He deemed it prudent, therefore, to be silent, though greatly doubting the efficacy of a quotation from any authority on board, when fairly put in opposition to a written order from the admiral at Portsmouth, or