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

the fever too, and a project was set a-foot to send a craft to China for a sample of what they wanted."

"China!" exclaimed Eve, this time looking the captain fairly in the face.

"China, certain; it lies off hereaway, you know, round on the other side of the earth. Well, whom should they choose to go on the errand but old Joe Bunk. The old man had been so often to the islands and back, without knowing anything of navigation, they thought he was just their man, as there was no such thing as losing him."

"One would think he was the very man to get lost," observed Mr. Effingham, while the captain fitted a fresh cigar; for smoke he would, and did, in any company, that was out of the cabin, although he always professed a readiness to cease, if any person disliked the fragrance of tobacco.

"Not he, sir; he was just as well off in the Indian Ocean as he would be here, for he knew nothing about, either. Well, Joe fitted up the brig; the Seven Dollies was her name; for you must, know we had seven ladies in the town, who were cally Dolly, and they each of them used to send a colt, or a steer, or some other delicate article to the islands by Joe, whenever he went; so he fitted up the Seven Dollies, hoisted in his dollars, and made sail. The last that was seen or heard of the old man for eight months, was off Montauk, where he was fallen in with, two days out, steering south-easterly, by compass."

"I should think," observed John Effingham, who began to arouse himself as the story proceeded, "that Mrs. Bunk must have been very uneasy all this time?"

"Not she; she stuck to the bohea in hopes the souchong would arrive before the restoration of the Jews. Arrive it did, sure enough, at the end of eight months, and a capital adventure it proved for all concerned. Old Joe got a great name in the river for the exploit, though how he got to China no one could say, or how he got back again; or, for a long time, how he got the huge heavy silver tea-pot, he brought home with him."

"A silver tea-pot?"

"Exactly that article. At last the truth came to be known; for it is not an easy matter to hide anything of that nature down our way; it is aristocratic, as Mr. Dodge says, to keep a secret. At first they tried Joe with all sorts of questions, but he gave them 'guess' for 'guess.' Then people began to talk, and finally it was fairly whispered that the old man had stolen the tea-pot. This brought him before the meeting.--Law was out of the question, you will understand, as there was no evidence; but the meeting don't stick much at particulars, provided people talk a good deal."

"And the result?" asked John Effingham, "I suppose the parish took the tea-pot and left Joe the grounds."

"You are as far out of the way as we are here, down on the coast of Spain! The truth is just this. The Seven Dollies was lying among the rest of them, at anchor, below Canton, with the weather as fine as young girls love to see it in May, when Joe began to get down his yards, to house his masts, and to send out all his spare anchors. He even went so far as to get two hawsers fastened to a junk that had grounded a little ahead of him. This made a talk among the captains of the vessels, and some came on board to ask the reason. Joe told them he was getting ready for the typhoon; but when they inquired his reasons for believing there was to be a typhoon at all, Joe looked solemn, shook his head, and said he had reasons enough, but they were his own. Had he been explicit, he would have been laughed at, but the sight of an old grey-headed man, who had been at sea forty years, getting ready in this serious manner, set the others at work too; for ships follow each other's movements, like sheep running through a breach in the fence. Well, that night the typhoon came in earnest, and it blew so hard, that Joe Bunk said he could see the houses in the moon, all the air having blown out of the atmosphere."

"But what has this to do with the tea-pot, Captain Truck?"

"It is the life and soul of it. The captains in port were so delighted with Joe's foreknowledge, that they clubbed, and presented him this pot as a testimony of their gratitude and esteem. He'd got to be popular among them, Mr. Dodge, and that was the way they proved it."

"But, pray, how did he know the storm was approaching?" asked Eve, whose curiosity had been awakened in spite of herself. "It could not have been that his 'foreknowledge' was supernatural."

"That no one can say, for Joe was presbyterian-built, as we say, kettle-bottomed, and stowed well. The truth was not discovered until ten years afterwards, when the old fellow got to be a regular cripple, what between rheumatis', old age, and steaming. One day he had an attack of the first complaint, and in one of its most severe paroxysms, when nature is apt to wince, he roared three times, 'a typhoon! a typhoon! a typhoon!' and the murder was out. Sure enough, the next day we had a regular north-easter; but old Joe got no sign of popularity that time. And now, when you get to America, gentlemen and ladies, you will be able to say you have heard the story of Joe Bunk and his tea-pot."

Thereupon Captain Truck took two or three hearty whiffs of the cigar, turned his face upwards, and permitted the smoke to issue forth in a continued stream until it was exhausted, but still keeping his head raised in the inconvenient position it had taken. The eye of the master, fastened in this manner on something aloft, was certain to draw other eyes in the same direction, and in a few seconds all around him were gazing in the same way, though none but himself could tell why.

"Turn up the watch below, Mr. Leach," Captain Truck at length called out, and Eve observed that he threw away the cigar, although a fresh one; a proof, as she fancied, that he was preparing for duty.

The people were soon at their places, and an effort was made to get the ship's head round to the southward. Although the frightful stillness of the atmosphere rendered the manoeuvre difficult, it succeeded in the end, by profiting by the passing and fitful currents, that resembled so many sighings of the air. The men were then sent on the yards, to furl all the canvas, with the exception of the three topsails and the fore-course, most of it having been merely hauled up to await the result. All those who had ever been at sea before, saw in these preparations proof that Captain Truck expected the change would be sudden and severe: still, as he betrayed no uneasiness, they hoped his measures were merely those of prudence. Mr. Effingham could not refrain from inquiring, however, if there existed any immediate motives for the preparations that were so actively, though not hurriedly, making.

"This is no affair for the rheumatis'," returned the facetious master, "for, look you here, my worthy sir, and you, my dear young lady,"--this was a sort of parental familiarity the honest Jack fancied he had a right to take with all his unmarried female passengers, in virtue of his office, and of his being a bachelor drawing hard upon sixty;--"look you here, my dear young lady, and you, too, ma'amselle, for you can understand the clouds, I take it, if they are not French clouds; do you not see the manner in which those black-looking rascals are putting their heads together? They are plotting something quite in their own way, I'll warrant you."

"The clouds are huddling, and rolling over each other, certainly," returned Eve, who had been struck with the wild beauty of their evolutions, "and a noble, though fearful picture they present; but I do not understand the particular meaning of it, if there be any hidden omen in their airy flights."

"No rheumatis' about you, young lady," said the captain, jocularly; "too young, and handsome, and too modern, too, I dare say, for that old-fashioned complaint. But on one category you may rely, and that is, that nothing in nature conspires without an object."

"But I do not think vapour whirling in a current of air is a conspiracy," answered Eve, laughing, "though it may be a category."

"Perhaps not,--who knows, however; for it is as easy to suppose that objects understand each other, as that horses and dogs understand each other. We know nothing about it, and, therefore, it behooves us to say nothing. If mankind conversed only of the things they understood, half the words might be struck out of the dictionaries. But, as I was remarking, those clouds, you can see, are getting together, and are making ready for a start, since here they will not be able to stay much longer."

"And what will compel them to disappear?"

"Do me the favour to turn your eyes here, to the nor'-west You see an opening there that looks like a crouching lion; is it not so?"

"There is certainly a bright clear streak of sky along the margin of the ocean, that has quite lately made its appearance; does it prove that the wind will blow from that quarter?"

"Quite as much, my dear young lady, as when you open your window it proves that you mean to put your head out of it."

"An act a well-bred young woman very seldom performs," observed Mademoiselle Viefville; "and never in a town."

"No? Well, in our town on the river, the women's heads are half the time out of the windows. But I do not pretend, ma'amselle, to be expert in proprieties of this sort, though I can venture to say that I am somewhat of a judge of what the winds would be about when they open their shutters. This opening to the nor'-west, then, is a sure sign of something coming out of the window, well-bred or not."

"But," added Eve, "the clouds above us, and those farther south, appear to be hurrying towards your bright opening, captain, instead of from it."

"Quite in nature, gentlemen; quite in nature, ladies. When a man has fully made up his mind to retreat, he blusters the most; and one step forward often promises two backward. You often see the stormy petterel sailing at a ship as if he meant to come aboard, but he takes good care to put his helm down before he is fairly in the rigging. So it is with clouds, and all other things in nature. Vattel says you may make a show of fight when your necessities require it, but that a neutral cannot fire a gun, unless against pirates. Now, these clouds are putting the best face on the matter, but in a few minutes you will see them wheeling as St. Paul did before them."

"St. Paul, Captain Truck!"

"Yes, my dear young lady; to the right about."

Eve frowned, for she disliked some of these nautical images, though it was impossible not to smile in secret at the queer associations that so often led the well-meaning master's discursive discourse. His mind was a strange jumble of an early religious education,--religious as to externals