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

say I have met no gentleman who is better supplied with necessaries, than my friend, Sir George. But English gentlemen are curious in such things, and I admit that I admire their ingenuity."

"Particularly in breeches, Mr. Dodge. Have you coats to match, Sir George?"

"Certainly, sir. One would be a little absurd in his shirt sleeves. I wish, captain, we could make Mr. Dodge a little less of a republican. I find him a most agreeable room-mate, but rather annoying on the subject of kings and princes."

"You stick up for the people, Mr. Dodge, or to the old category?"

"On that subject, Sir George and I shall never agree, for he is obstinately monarchial; but I tell him we shall treat him none the worse for that, when he gets among us. He has promised me a visit in our part of the country, and I have pledged myself to his being unqualifiedly well received; and I think I know the whole meaning of a pledge."

"I understand Mr. Dodge," pursued the baronet, "that he is the editor of a public journal, in which he entertains his readers with an account of his adventures and observations during his travels, 'The Active Inquirer,' is it not, Mr. Dodge?"

"That is the name, Sir George. 'The Active Inquirer' is the present name, though when we supported Mr. Adams it was called 'The Active Enquirer,' with an E."

"A distinction without a difference; I like that," interrupted Captain Truck. "This is the second time I have had the honour to sail with Mr. Dodge, and a more active inquirer never put foot in a ship, though I did not know the use he put his information to before. It is all in the way of trade, I find."

"Mr. Dodge claims to belong to a profession, captain, and is quite above trade. He tells me many things have occurred on board this ship, since we sailed, that will make very eligible paragraphs."

"The d---- he does!--I should like particularly well, Mr. Dodge, to know what you will find to say concerning this category in which the Montauk is placed."

"Oh! captain, no fear of me, when you are concerned. You know I am a friend, and you have no cause to apprehend any thing; though I'll not answer for everybody else on board; for there are passengers in this ship to whom I have decided antipathies, and whose deportment meets with my unqualified disapprobation."

"And you intend to paragraph them?"

Mr. Dodge was now swelling with the conceit of a vulgar and inflated man, who not only fancies himself in possession of a power that others dread, but who was so far blinded to his own qualities as to think his opinion of importance to those whom he felt, in the minutest fibre of his envious and malignant system, to be in every essential his superiors. He did not dare express all his rancour, while he was unequal to suppressing it entirely.

"These Effinghams, and this Mr. Sharp, and that Mr. Blunt," he muttered, "think themselves everybody's betters; but we shall see! America is not a country in which people can shut themselves up in rooms, and fancy they are lords and ladies."

"Bless my soul!" said Captain Truck, with his affected simplicity of manner; "how did you find this out, Mr. Dodge? What a thing it is, Sir George, to be an active inquirer!"

"Oh! I know when a man is blown up with notions of his own importance. As for Mr. John Effingham, he has been so long abroad that he has forgotten that he is a going home to a country of equal rights!"

"Very true, Mr. Dodge; a country in which a man cannot shut himself, up in his room, whenever the notion seizes him. This is the spirit, Sir George, to make a great nation, and you see that the daughter is likely to prove worthy of the old lady! But, my dear sir, are you quite sure that Mr. John Effingham has absolutely so high a sentiment in his own favour. It would be awkward business to make a blunder in such a serious matter, and murder a paragraph for nothing. You should remember the mistake of the Irishman!"

"What was that?" asked the baronet, who was completely mystified by the indomitable gravity of Captain Truck, whose character might be said to be actually formed by the long habit of treating the weaknesses of his fellow-creatures with cool contempt. "We hear many good things at our club; but I do not remember the mistake of the Irishman?"

"He merely mistook the drumming in his own ear, for some unaccountable noise that disturbed his companions."

Mr. Dodge felt uncomfortable; but there is no one in whom a vulgar-minded man stands so much in awe as an immovable quiz, who has no scruple in using his power. He shook his head, therefore, in a menacing manner, and affecting to have something to do he went below, leaving the baronet and captain by themselves.

"Mr. Dodge is a stubborn friend of liberty," said the former, when his room-mate was out of hearing.

"That is he, and you have his own word for it. He has no notion of letting a man do as he has a mind to! We are full of such active inquirers in America, and I don't care how many you shoot before you begin upon the white bears, Sir George."

"But it would be more gracious in the Effinghams, you must allow, captain, if they shut themselves up in their cabin less, and admitted us to their society a little oftener. I am quite of Mr. Dodge's way of thinking, that exclusion is excessively odious."

"There is a poor fellow in the steerage, Sir George, to whom I have given a piece of canvas to repair a damage to his mainsail, who would say the same thing, did he know of your six-and-thirtys. Take a cigar, my dear sir, and smoke away sorrow."

"Thankee, captain: I never smoke. We never smoke at our club, though some of us go, at times, to the divan to try a chibouk."

"We can't all have cabins to ourselves, or no one would live forward. If the Effinghams like their own apartment, I do honestly believe it is for a reason as simple as that it is the best in the ship. I'll warrant you, if there were a better, that they would be ready enough to change. I suppose when we get in, Mr. Dodge will honour you with an article in 'The Active Inquirer?'"

"To own the truth, he has intimated some such thing."

"And why not? A very instructive paragraph might be made about the six-and-thirty pair of breeches, and the patent razors, and the dressing-case, to say nothing of the Rocky Mountains, and the white bears."

Sir George now began to feel uncomfortable, and making a few unmeaning remarks about the late accident, he disappeared.

Captain Truck, who never smiled except at the corner of his left eye, turned away, and began rattling off his people, and throwing in a hint or two to Saunders, with as much indifference as if he were a firm believer in the unfailing orthodoxy of a newspaper, and entertained a profound respect for the editor of the 'Active Inquirer,' in particular.

The prognostic of the master concerning the strange ship proved true, for about nine at night she came within hail, and backed her maintop-sail. This vessel proved to be an American in ballast, bound from Gibraltar to New York; a return store-ship from the squadron kept in the Mediterranean. She had met the gale to the westward of Madeira, and after holding on as long as possible, had also been compelled to scud. According to the report of her officers, the Foam had run in much closer to the coast than herself, and it was their opinion she was lost. Their own escape was owing entirely to the wind's abating, for they had actually been within sight of the land, though having received no injury, they had been able to haul off in season.

Luckily, this ship was ballasted with fresh water, and Captain Truck passed the night in negotiating a transfer of his steerage passengers, under an apprehension that, in the crippled state of his own vessel, his supplies might be exhausted before he could reach America. In the morning, the offer of being put on board the store-ship was made to those who chose to accept it, and all in the steerage, with most from the cabin, profited by the occasion to exchange a dismasted vessel for one that was, at least, full rigged. Provisions were transferred accordingly, and by noon next day the stranger made sail on a wind, the sea being tolerably smooth, and the breeze still ahead. In three hours she was out of sight to the northward and westward, the Montauk holding her own dull course to the southward, with the double view of striking the trades, or of reaching one of the Cape de Verdes.


Chapter XV.


Steph .--His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend; his
backward voice is to utter foul speeches, and to detract.

TEMPEST


The situation of the Montauk appeared more desolate than ever, after the departure of so many of her passengers. So long as her decks were thronged there was an air of life about her, that served to lessen disquietude, but now that she was left by all in the steerage, and by so many in the cabins, those who remained began to entertain livelier apprehensions of the future. When the upper sails of the store-ship sunk as a speck in the ocean, Mr. Effingham regretted that he, too, had not overcome his reluctance to a crowded and inconvenient cabin, and gone on board her, with his own party. Thirty years before he would have thought himself fortunate in finding so good a ship, and accommodations so comfortable; but habit and indulgence change all our opinions, and he had now thought it next to impossible to place Eve and Mademoiselle Viefville in a situation that was so common to those who travelled by sea at the commencement of the century.

Most of the cabin passengers, as has just been stated, decided differently, none remaining but the Effinghams and their party, Mr. Sharp, Mr. Blunt, Sir George Templemore, Mr. Dodge, and Mr. Monday. Mr. Effingham had been influenced by the superior comforts of the packet, and his hopes that a speedy arrival at the islands would enable the ship to refit, in time to reach America almost as soon as the dull-sailing vessel which had just left them. Mr. Sharp and Mr. Blunt had both expressed a determination to share his fortunes, which was indirectly saying that they would share the fortunes of his daughter. John Effingham remained, as a matter of course, though he had made a proposition to the stranger to tow them into port, an arrangement that failed in consequence of the two captains disagreeing as to the course proper to be steered, as well as to a more serious obstacle in the way of compensation, the stranger throwing out some pretty plain hints about salvage; and Mr. Monday staying from an inveterate attachment to the steward's stores, more of which, he rightly judged, would now fall to his share than formerly.

Sir George Templemore had gone on board the store-ship, and had given some very clear demonstrations of an intention to transfer himself and the thirty-six pair of breeches to that vessel; but on examining her comforts, and