The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea by James Fenimore Cooper (best e books to read txt) 📗

south of this, in a small port, where she is riding out the gale as snugly as if she were in a corner of this room.”

One of the men affected to gaze at the money with longing eyes, while he asked, as if weighing the terms of the engagement:

“Whether the Alacrity was called a good sea-boat, and was thought to give a comfortable berth to her crew?”

“Comfortable!” echoed Borroughcliffe; “for that matter, she is called the bravest cutter in the navy. You have seen much of the world, I dare say; did you ever see such a place as the marine arsenal at Carthagena, in old Spain?”

“Indeed I have, sir,” returned the seaman, in a cool, collected tone.

“Ah! you have! well, did you ever meet with a house in Paris that they call the Tuileries? because it's a dog-kennel to the Alacrity.”

“I have even fallen in with the place you mention, sir,” returned the sailor; “and must own the berth quite good enough for such as I am, if it tallies with your description.”

“The deuce take these blue-jackets,” muttered Borroughcliffe, addressing himself unconsciously to Miss Plowden, near whom he happened to be at the time; “they run their tarry countenances into all the corners of the earth, and abridge a man most lamentably in his comparisons. Now, who the devil would have thought that fellow had ever put his sea-green eyes on the palace of King Louis?”

Katherine heeded not his speech, but sat eying the prisoners with a confused and wavering expression of countenance, while Colonel Howard renewed the discourse, by exclaiming:

“Come, come, Borroughcliffe, let us give the lads no tales for a recruit, but good, plain, honest English—God bless the language, and the land for which it was first made, too! There is no necessity to tell these men, if they are, what they seem to be, practical seamen, that a cutter of ten guns contains all the room and accommodation of a palace.”

“Do you allow nothing for English oak and English comfort, mine host?” said the immovable captain; “do you think, good sir, that I measure fitness and propriety by square and compass, as if I were planning Solomon's temple anew? All I mean to say is, that the Alacrity is a vessel of singular compactness and magical arrangement of room. Like the tent of that handsome brother of the fairy, in the Arabian Nights, she is big or she is little, as occasion needeth; and now, hang me, if I don't think I have uttered more in her favor than her commander would say to help me to a recruit, though no lad in the three kingdoms should appear willing to try how a scarlet coat would suit his boorish figure.”

“That time has not yet arrived, and God forbid that it ever should, while the monarch needs a soldier in the field to protect his rights. But what say ye, my men? you have heard the recommendation that Captain Borroughcliffe has given of the Alacrity, which is altogether true—after making some allowances for language. Will ye serve? shall I order you a cheering glass a man, and lay by the gold, till I hear from the cutter that you are enrolled under the banners of the best of kings?”

Katherine Plowden, who hardly seemed to breathe, so close and intent was the interest with which she regarded the seamen, fancied she observed lurking smiles on their faces; but if her conjectures were true, their disposition to be merry went no further, and the one who had spoken hitherto replied, in the same calm manner as before:

“You will excuse us if we decline shipping in the cutter, sir; we are used to distant voyages and large vessels, whereas the Alacrity is kept at coast duty, and is not of a size to lay herself alongside of a Don or a Frenchman with a double row of teeth.”

“If you prefer that sort of sport, you must to the right about for Yarmouth; there you will find ships that will meet anything that swims,” said the colonel.

“Perhaps the gentlemen would prefer abandoning the cares and dangers of the ocean for a life of ease and gayety,” said the captain. “The hand that has long dallied with a marlinspike may be easily made to feel a trigger, as gracefully as a lady touches the keys of her piano. In short, there is and there is not a great resemblance between the life of a sailor and that of a soldier. There are no gales of wind, nor short allowances, nor reefing topsails, nor shipwrecks, among soldiers; and, at the same time, there is just as much, or even more, grog-drinking, jollifying, care-killing fun around a canteen and an open knapsack, than there is on the end of a mess-chest, with a full can and a Saturday-night's breeze. I have crossed the ocean several times, and I must own that a ship, in good weather, is very much the same as a camp or comfortable barracks; mind, I say only in very good weather.”

“We have no doubt that all you say is true, sir,” observed the spokesman of the three; “but what to you may seem a hardship, to us is pleasure. We have faced too many a gale to mind a capful of wind, and should think ourselves always in the calm latitudes in one of your barracks, where there is nothing to do but to eat our grub and to march a little fore and aft a small piece of green earth. We hardly know one end of a musket from the other.”

“No!” said Borroughcliffe, musing; and then advancing with a quick step toward them, he cried, in a spirited manner: “Attention! right! dress!”

The speaker, and the seaman next him, gazed at the captain in silent wonder; but the third individual of the party, who had drawn himself a little aside, as if willing to be unnoticed, or perhaps pondering on his condition, involuntarily started at this unexpected order, and erecting himself, threw his head to the right as promptly as if he had been on a parade-ground.

“Oho! ye are apt scholars, gentlemen, and ye can learn, I see,” continued Borroughcliffe. “I feel it to be proper that I detain these men till to-morrow morning, Colonel Howard; and yet I would give them better quarters than the hard benches of the guard-room.”

“Act your pleasure. Captain Borroughcliffe,” returned the host, “so you do but your duty to our royal master. They shall not want for cheer, and they can have a room over the servants' offices in the south side of the abbey.”

“Three rooms, my colonel, three rooms must be provided, though I give up my own.”

“There are several-small empty apartments there, where blankets might be taken, and the men placed for safe-keeping, if you deem it necessary; though, to me, they seem like good, loyal tars, whose greatest glory it would be to serve their prince, and whose chief pleasure would consist in getting alongside of a Don or a Monsieur.”

“We shall discuss these matters anon,” said Borroughcliffe, dryly. “I see Miss Plowden begins to look grave at our abusing her patience so long, and I know that cold coffee is, like withered love, but a tasteless sort of a beverage. Come, gentlemen, en avant! you have seen the Tuileries, and must have heard a little French. Mr. Christopher Dillon, know you where these three small apartments are 'situate, lying,