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

by this time all on board felt a sort of personal interest in their escape.

"It does indeed, Captain Truck," added the pilot; "and if she make a signal, it will become my duty to heave-to the Montauk."

"Then bundle out of her, my fine fellow, as fast as you can for not a brace or a bowline shall be touched here, with my consent, for any such purpose. The ship is cleared--my hour is come--my passengers are on board--and America is my haven.--Let them that want me, catch me. That is what I call Vattel ."

The pilot and the master of the Montauk were excellent friends, and understood each other perfectly, even while the former was making the most serious professions of duty. The beat was hauled up, and, first whispering a few cautions about the shoals and the currents, the worthy marine guide leaped into it, and was soon seen floating astern--a cheering proof that the ship had got fairly in motion. As he fell out of hearing in the wake of the vessel, the honest fellow kept calling out "to tack in season."

"If you wish to try the speed of your boat against that of the pilot, Mr. Grab," called out the captain, "you will never have a better opportunity. It is a fine night for a regatta, and I will stand you a pound on Mr. Handlead's heels. For that matter, I would as soon trust his head, or his hands, in the bargain."

The officer continued obstinately on board, for he saw that the six-oared boat was coming up with the ship, and, as he well knew the importance to his client of compelling a settlement of the accounts, he fancied some succour might be expected in that quarter. In the mean time, this new movement on the part of their pursuers attracted general attention, and, as might be expected, the interest of this little incident increased the excitement that usually accompanies a departure for a long sea-voyage, fourfold. Men and women forgot their griefs and leave-takings in anxiety, and in that pleasure which usually attends agitation of the mind that does not proceed from actual misery of our own.


Chapter IV.


Whither away so fast?
O God save you!
Even to the hall to hear what shall become
Of the great Duke of Buckingham.

HENRY VIII.


The assembling of the passengers of the large packet-ship is necessarily an affair of coldness and distrust, especially with those who know the world, and more particularly still when the passage is from Europe to America. The greater sophistication of the old than of the new hemisphere, with its consequent shifts and vices, the knowledge that the tide of emigration sets westward, and that few abandon the home of their youth unless impelled by misfortune at least, with other obvious causes, unite to produce this distinction. Then come the fastidiousness of habits, the sentiments of social castes, the refinements of breeding, and the reserves of dignity of character, to be put in close collision with bustling egotism, ignorance of usages, an absence of training, and downright vulgarity of thought and practices. Although necessity soon brings these chaotic elements into something like order, the first week commonly passes in reconnoitring, cool civilities, and cautious concessions, to yield at length to the never-dying charities; unless, indeed, the latter may happen to be kept in abeyance by a downright quarrel, about midnight carousals, a squeaking fiddle, or some incorrigible snorer.

Happily, the party collected in the Montauk had the good fortune to abridge the usual probation in courtesies, by the stirring events of the night on which they sailed. Two hours had scarcely elapsed since the last passenger crossed the gangway, and yet the respective circles of the quarter-deck and steerage felt more sympathy with each other than the boasted human charities ordinarily quicken in days of common-place intercourse. They had already found out each other's names, thanks to the assiduity of Captain Truck, who had stolen time, in the midst of all his activity, to make half-a-dozen more introductions, and the Americans of the less trained class were already using them as freely as if they were old acquaintances. We say Americans, for the cabins of these ships usually contain a congress of nations, though the people of England, and of her ci-devant colonies, of course predominate in those of the London lines. On the present occasion, the last two were nearly balanced in numbers, so far as national character could be made out; opinion (which, as might be expected, had been busy the while,) being suspended in reference to Mr. Blunt, and one or two others whom the captain called "foreigners," to distinguish them from the Anglo-Saxon stock.

This equal distribution of forces might, under other circumstances, have led to a division in feeling; for the conflicts between American and British opinions, coupled with a difference in habits, are a prolific source of discontent in the cabins of packets. The American is apt to fancy himself at home, under the flag of his country; while his Transatlantic kinsman is strongly addicted to fancying that when he has fairly paid his money, he has a right to embark all his prejudices with his other luggage.

The affair of the attorney and the newly-married couple, however, was kept quite distinct from all feelings of nationality; the English apparently entertaining quite as lively a wish that the latter might escape from the fangs of the law, as any other portion of the passengers. The parties themselves were British, and although the authority evaded was of the same origin, right or wrong, all on board had taken up the impression that it was improperly exercised. Sir George Templemore, the Englishman of highest rank, was decidedly of this way of thinking,--an opinion he was rather warm in expressing,--and the example of a baronet had its weight, not only with most of his own countrymen, but with not a few of the Americans also. The Effingham party, together with Mr. Sharp and Mr. Blunt, were, indeed, all who seemed to be entirely indifferent to Sir George's sentiments; and, as men are intuitively quick in discovering who do and who do not defer to their suggestions, their accidental independence might have been favoured by this fact, for the discourse of this gentleman was addressed in the main to those who lent the most willing ears. Mr. Dodge, in particular, was his constant and respectful listener, and profound admirer:--But then he was his room-mate, and a democrat of a water so pure, that he was disposed to maintain no man had a right to any one of his senses, unless by popular sufferance.

In the mean while, the night advanced, and the soft light of the moon was playing on the waters, adding a semi-mysterious obscurity to the excitement of the scene. The two-oared boat had evidently been overtaken by that carrying six oars, and, after a short conference, the first had returned reluctantly towards the land, while the latter profiting by its position, had set two lug-sails, and was standing out into the offing, on a course that would compel the Montauk to come under its lee, when the shoals, as would soon be the case, should force the ship to tack.

"England is most inconveniently placed," Captain Truck dryly remarked as he witnessed this manoeuvre. "Were this island only out of the way, now, we might stand on as we head, and leave those man-of-war's men to amuse themselves all night with backing and filling in the roads of Portsmouth."

"I hope there is no danger of that little boat's overtaking this large ship!" exclaimed Sir George, with a vivacity that did great credit to his philanthropy, according to the opinion of Mr. Dodge at least; the latter having imbibed a singular bias in favour of persons of condition, from having travelled in an eilwagen with a German baron, from whom he had taken a model of the pipe he carried but never smoked, and from having been thrown for two days and nights into the society of a "Polish countess," as he uniformly termed her, in the gondole of a diligence , between Lyons and Marseilles. In addition, Mr. Dodge, as has just been hinted, was an ultra-freeman at home--a circumstance that seems always to react, when the subject of the feeling gets into foreign countries.

"A feather running before a lady's sigh would outsail either of us in this air, which breathes on us in some such fashion as a whale snores, Sir George, by sudden puffs. I would give the price of a steerage passage, if Great Britain lay off the Cape of Good Hope for a week or ten days."

"Or Cape Hatteras!" rejoined the mate.

"Not I; I wish the old island no harm, nor a worse climate than it has got already; though it lies as much in our way just at this moment, as the moon in an eclipse of the sun. I bear the old creature a great-grandson's love--or a step or two farther off, if you will,--and come and go too often to forget the relationship. But, much as I love her, the affection is not strong enough to go ashore on her shoals, and so we will go about, Mr. Leach; at the same time, I wish from my heart that two-lugged rascal would go about his business."

The ship tacked slowly but gracefully, for she was in what her master termed "racing trim;" and as her bows fell off to the eastward, it became pretty evident to all who understood the subject, that the two little lug-sails that were "eating into the wind," as the sailors express it, would weather upon her track ere she could stretch over to the other shoal. Even the landsmen had some feverish suspicions of the truth, and the steerage passengers were already holding a secret conference on the possibility of hiding the pursued in some of the recesses of the ship. "Such things were often done," one whispered to another, "and it was as easy to perform it now as at any other time."

But Captain Truck viewed the matter differently: his vocation called him three times a year into the roads at Portsmouth, and he felt little disposition to embarrass his future intercourse with the place by setting its authorities at a too open defiance. He deliberated a good deal on the propriety of throwing his ship up into the wind, as she slowly advanced towards the boat, and of inviting those in the latter to board him. Opposed to this was the pride of profession, and Jack Truck was not a man to overlook or to forget the "yarns" that were spun among his fellows at the New England Coffee-house, or among those farming hamlets on the banks of the Connecticut, whence all the packet-men are derived, and whither they repair for a shelter when their careers are run, as regularly as the fruit decays where it falleth, or the grass that has not been harvested or cropped withers on its native stalk.

"There is no question, Sir George, that this fellow is a man-of-war's man," said the master to the baronet, who stuck close to his side. "Take a peep at the creeping rogue through this night-glass, and you will see his crew seated at their thwarts with their arms folded, like men who eat the king's beef. None but your regular public servant ever gets that impudent air of idleness about him, either in England or America. In this respect, human nature is the same in