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

have not been so much roused for a long time as they have been on account of these poor people. There is something inexpressibly painful in being disappointed as one is setting out in the morning of life, as it were, in this cruel manner; and rather than see this state of things protracted, I would prefer paying a trifle out of my own pocket. If this wretched attorney will consent, now to take a hundred pounds and quit us, and carry back with him that annoying cutter with the lug-sails, I will give him the money most cheerfully,--most cheerfully, I protest."

There is something so essentially respectable in practical generosity, that, though Eve and all the curious auditors of what was massing; felt an inclination to laugh at the whole procedure up to this declaration, eye met eye in commendation of the liberality of the baronet. He had shown he had a heart, in the opinion of most of those who heard him though his previous conversation had led several of the observers to distrust his having the usual quantum of head.

"Give yourself no trouble about the attorney, Sir George," returned the captain, shaking the other cordially by the hand: "he shall not touch a pound of your money, nor do I think he is likely to touch Robert Davis. We have caught the tide on our lee bow, and the current is wheeling us up to windward, like an opposition coach flying over Blackheath. In a few minutes we shall be in blue water; and then I'll give the rascal a touch of Vattel that will throw him all aback, if it don't throw him overboard."

"But the cutter?"

"Why, if we drive the attorney and Grab out of the ship, there will be no process in the hands of the others, by which they can carry off the man, even admitting the jurisdiction. I know the scoundrels, and not a shilling shall either of the knaves take from this vessel with my consent Harkee, Sir George, a word in your ear: two of as d----d cockroaches as ever rummaged a ship's bread-room; I'll see that they soon heave about, or I'll heave them both into their boat, with my own fair hands."

The captain was about to turn away to examine the position of the cutter, when Mr. Dodge asked permission to make a short report in behalf of the minority of the comity (committee), the amount of which was, that they agreed in all things with the majority, except on the point that, as it might become expedient for the ship to anchor again in some of the ports lower down the Channel, it would be wise to keep that material circumstance in view, in making up a final decision in the affair. This report, on the part of the minority, which, Mr. Dodge explained to the baronet, partook rather of the character of a caution than of a protest, had quite as little influence on Captain Truck as the opinion of the majority, for he was just one of those persons who seldom took advice that did not conform with his own previous decision; but he coolly continued to examine the cutter, which by this time was standing on the same course as the ship, a short distance to windward of her, and edging a little off the wind, so as to bring the two nearer to each other, every yard they advanced.

The wind had freshened to a little breeze, and the captain nodded his head with satisfaction when he heard even where he stood on the quarter-deck, the slapping of the sluggish swell, as the huge bows of the ship parted the water. At this moment those in the cutter saw the bubbles glide swiftly past them, while to those in the Montauk the motion was still slow and heavy; and yet, of the two, the actual velocity was rather in favour of the latter, both having about what is technically termed "four-knot way" on them. The officer of the boat was quick to detect the change that was acting against him, and by easing the sheets of his lug-sails, and keeping the cutter as much off the wind as he could, he was soon within a hundred feet of the ship, running along on her weather-beam. The bright soft moonlight permitted the face of a young man in a man-of-war cap, who wore the undress uniform of a sea lieutenant, to be distinctly seen, as he rose in the stern-sheets, which contained also two other persons.

"I will thank you to heave-to the Montauk," said the lieutenant civilly, while he raised his cap, apparently in compliment to the passengers who crowded the rail to see and hear what passed. "I am sent on the duty of the king, sir."

"I know your errand, sir," returned Captain Truck, whose resolution to refuse to comply was a good deal shaken by the gentleman-like manner in which the request was made; "and I wish you to bear witness, that if I do consent to your request, it is voluntarily; for, on the principles laid down by Vattel and the other writers on international law, the right of search is a belligerent right, and England being at peace, no ship belonging to one nation can have a right to stop a vessel belonging to another."

"I cannot enter into these niceties, sir," returned the lieutenant, sharply: "I have my orders, and you will excuse me if I say, I intend to execute them."

"Execute them, with all my heart, sir: if you are ordered to heave-to my ship, all you have to do is to get on board if you can, and let us see the style in which you handle yards. As to the people now stationed at the braces, the trumpet that will make them stir is not to be spoken through at the Admiralty. The fellow has spirit in him, and I like his principles as an officer, but I cannot admit his conclusions as a jurist. If he flatters himself with being able to frighten us into a new category, now, that is likely to impair national rights, the lad has just got himself into a problem that will need all his logic, and a good deal of his spirit, to get out of again."

"You will scarcely think of resisting a king's officer in British waters!" said the young man with that haughtiness that the meekest tempers soon learn to acquire under a pennant.

"Resisting, my dear sir! I resist nothing. The misconception is in supposing that you sail this ship instead of John Truck. That is my name, sir; John Truck. Do your errand in welcome, but do not ask me to help you. Come aboard, with all my heart; nothing would give me more pleasure than to take wine with you; but I see no necessity of stopping a packet, that is busy on a long road, without an object, as we say on the other side of the big waters."

There was a pause, and then the lieutenant, with the sort of hesitation that a gentleman is apt to feel when he makes a proposal that he knows ought not to be accepted, called out that those in the boat with him would pay for the detention of the ship. A more unfortunate proposition could not be made to Captain Truck, who would have hove-to his ship in a moment had the lieutenant proposed to discuss Vattel with him on the quarter-deck, and who was only holding out as a sort of salve to his rights, with that disposition to resist aggression that the experience of the last forty years has so deeply implanted in the bosom of every American sailor, in cases connected with English naval officers, and who had just made up his mind to let Robert Davis take his chance, and to crack a bottle with the handsome young man who was still standing up in the boat. But Mr. Truck had been too often to London not to understand exactly the manner in which Englishmen appreciate American character; and, among other things, he knew it was the general opinion in the island that money could do any thing with Jonathan; or, as Christophe is said once to have sententiously expressed the same sentiment, "if there were a bag of coffee in h---, a Yankee could be found to go and bring it out."

The master of the Montauk had a proper relish for his lawful gains as well as another, but he was vain-glorious on the subject of his countrymen, principally because he found that the packets outsailed all other merchant-ships, and fiercely proud of any quality that others were disposed to deny them.

At hearing this proposal, or intimation, therefore, instead of accepting it, Captain Truck raised his hat with formal civility, and coolly wished the other "good night." This was bringing the affair to a crisis at once; for the helm of the cutter was borne up, and an attempt was made to run the boat alongside of the ship. But the breeze had been steadily increasing, the air had grown heavier as the night advanced, and the dampness of evening was thickening the canvas of the coarser sails in a way sensibly to increase the speed of the ship. When the conversation commenced, the boat was abreast of the fore-rigging; and by the time it ended, it was barely up with the mizzen. The lieutenant was quick to see the disadvantage he laboured under, and he called out "Heave!" as he found the cutter was falling close under the counter of the ship, and would be in her wake in another minute. The bowman of the boat cast a light grapnel with so much precision that it hooked in the mizzen rigging, and the line instantly tightened so as to tow the cutter. A seaman was passing along the outer edge of the hurricane-house at the moment, coming from the wheel, and with the decision of an old salt, he quietly passed his knife across the stretched cordage, and it snapped like pack-thread. The grapnel fell into the sea, and the boat was lossing in the wake of the ship, all as it might be while one could draw a breath. To furl the sails and ship the oars consumed but an instant, and then the cutter was ploughing the water under the vigorous strokes of her crew.

"Spirited! spirited and nimble!" observed Captain Truck, who stood coolly leaning against a shroud, in a position where he could command a view of all that was passing, improving the opportunity to shake the ashes from his cigar while he spoke; "a fine young fellow, and one who will make an admiral, or something better, I dare say, if he live;--perhaps a cherub, in time. Now, if he pull much longer in the back-water of our wake, I shall have to give him up, Leach, as a little marin- ish: ah! there he sheers out of it, like a sensible youth as he is! Well, there is something pleasant in the conceit of a six-oared boat's carrying a London liner by boarding, even admitting the lad could have got alongside."

So, it would seem, thought Mr. Leach and the crew of the Montauk; for they were clearing the decks with as much philosophy as men ever discover when employed in an unthankful office. This sang-froid of seamen is always matter of surprise to landsmen; but adventurers who have been rocked in the tempest for years, whose utmost security is a great hazard, and whose safety constantly depends on the command of the faculties, come in time to experience an apathy on the subject of all the minor terrors and excitements of life,