Authors: James Fenimore Cooper
Rupert entered a door, and then reappeared with a letter in his
hand. He, too, had gone to the post-office, and I no longer hesitated
about joining him.
"Is it from Clawbonny?" I asked, eagerly. "If so, from Lucy,
doubtless?"
"From Clawbonny—but from Grace," he answered, with a slight change of
colour. "I desired the poor girl to let me know how things passed off,
after we left them; and as for Lucy, her pot-hooks are so much out of
the way, I never want to see them."
I felt hurt, offended, that my sister should write to any youngster
but myself. It is true, the letter was to a bosom friend, a
co-adventurer, one almost a child of the same family; and I had come
to the office expecting to get a letter from Rupert's sister, who had
promised, while weeping on the wharf, to do exactly the same thing for
me; but there
is
a difference between one's sister writing to
another young man, and another young man's sister writing to
oneself. I cannot even now explain it; but that there
is
a
difference I am sure. Without asking to see a line that Grace had
written, I went into the office, and returned in a minute or two, with
an air of injured dignity, holding Lucy's epistle in my hand.
After all, there was nothing in either letter to excite much
sensibility. Each was written with the simplicity, truth and feeling
of a generous-minded, warm-hearted female friend, of an age not to
distrust her own motives, to a lad who bad no right to view the favour
other than it was, as an evidence of early and intimate friendship.
Both epistles are now before me, and I copy them, as the shortest way
of letting the reader know the effect our disappearance had produced
at Clawbonny. That of Grace was couched in the following terms:
DEAR RUPERT:
Clawbonny was in commotion at nine o'clock this morning, and well it
might be! When your father's anxiety got to be painful, I told him the
whole, and gave him the letters. I am sorry to say, he wept. I wish
never to see such a sight again. The tears of two such silly girls as
Lucy and I, are of little account—but, Rupert, to behold an aged man
we love and respect like him, a minister of the gospel too, in tears!
It was a hard sight to bear. He did not reproach us for our silence,
saying he did not see, after our promises, how we could well do
otherwise. I gave your reasons about "responsibility in the premises;"
but I don't think he understood them. Is it too late to return? The
boat that carried you down can bring you back; and oh! how much
rejoiced shall we all be to see you! Wherever you go, and whatever you
do, boys, for I write as much to one as to the other, and only address
to Rupert because he so earnestly desired it; but wherever you go, and
whatever you do, remember the instructions you have both received in
youth, and how much all of us are interested in your conduct and
happiness.
Affectionately, yours,
GRACE WALLINGFORD.
To Mr. Rupert Hardinge.
Lucy had been less guarded, and possibly a little more honest. She
wrote as follows:
DEAR MILES:
I believe I cried for one whole hour after you and Rupert left us,
and, now it is all over, I am vexed at having cried so much about two
such foolish fellows. Grace has told you all about my dear, dear
father, who cried too. I declare, I don't know when I was so
frightened! I thought it
must
bring you back, as soon as you
hear of it. What will be done, I do not know; but
something
, I
am certain Whenever father is in earnest, he says but little. I know
he is in earnest
now
. I believe Grace and I do nothing but
think of you; that is, she of
you
, and I of Rupert; and a
little the other way, too—so now you have the whole truth. Do not
fail, on any account, to write before you go to sea, if you
do
go to sea, as I hope and trust you will not.
Good-bye.
LUCY HARDINGE.
To Mr. Miles Wallingford.
P.S. Neb's mother protests, if the boy is not home by Saturday night,
she will go after him. No such disgrace as a runaway ever befel her or
hers, and she says she will not submit to it. But I suppose we shall
see
him
soon, and with him
letters
.
Now, Neb had taken his leave, but no letter had been trusted to his
care. As often happens, I regretted the mistake when it was too late;
and all that day I thought how disappointed Lucy would be, when she
came to see the negro empty-handed. Rupert and I parted in the street,
as he did not wish to walk with a sailor, while in his own long-togs.
He did not
say
as much; but I knew him well enough to ascertain
it, without his speaking. I was walking very fast in the direction of
the ship, and had actually reached the wharves, when, in turning a
corner, I came plump upon Mr. Hardinge. My guardian was walking
slowly, his face sorrowful and dejected, and his eyes fastened on
every ship he passed, as if looking for his boys. He saw me, casting a
vacant glance over my person; but I was so much changed by dress, and
particularly by the little tarpaulin, that he did not know me. Anxiety
immediately drew his look towards the vessels, and I passed him
unobserved. Mr. Hardinge was walking
from
, and I
towards
the John, and of course all my risk terminated as soon as out of
sight.
That evening I had the happiness of being under-way, in a real
full-rigged ship. It is true, it was under very short canvass, and
merely to go into the stream. Taking advantage of a favourable wind
and tide, the John left the wharf under her jib, main-top-mast
staysail, and spanker, and dropped down as low as the Battery, when
she sheered into the other channel and anchored. Here I was, then,
fairly at anchor in the stream, Half a mile from any land but the
bottom, and burning to see the ocean. That afternoon the crew came on
board, a motley collection, of lately drunken seamen, of whom about
half were Americans, and the rest natives of as many different
countries as there were men. Mr. Marble scanned them with a knowing
look, and, to my surprise, he told the captain there was good stuff
among them. It seems he was a better judge than I was myself, for a
more unpromising set of wretches, as to looks, I never saw grouped
together. A few, it is true, appeared well enough; but most of them
had the air of having been dragged through—a place I will not name,
though it is that which sailors usually quote when describing
themselves on such occasions. But Jack, after he has been a week at
sea, and Jack coming on board to duty, after a month of excesses on
shore, are very different creatures, morally and physically.
I now began to regret that I had not seen a little of the town. In
1797, New York could not have had more than fifty thousand
inhabitants, though it was just as much of a paragon then, in the eyes
of all good Americans, as it is today. It is a sound patriotic rule
to maintain that
our
best is always
the
best, for it
never puts us in the wrong. I have seen enough of the world since to
understand that we get a great many things wrong-end foremost, in this
country of ours; undervaluing those advantages and excellencies of
which we have great reason to be proud, and boasting of others that,
to say the least, are exceedingly equivocal. But it takes time to
learn all this, and I have no intention of getting ahead of my story,
or of my country; the last being a most suicidal act.
We received the crew of a Saturday afternoon, and half of them turned
in immediately. Rupert and I had a good berth, intending to turn in
and out together, during the voyage; and this made us rather
indifferent to the movements of the rest of our extraordinary
associates. The kid, at supper, annoyed us both a little; the notion
of seeing one's food in a round
trough
, to be tumbled over and
cut from by all hands, being particularly disagreeable to those who
have been accustomed to plates, knives and forks, and such other
superfluities. I confess I thought of Grace's and Lucy's little white
hands, and of silver sugrar-toogs, and of clean plates and glasses,
and table-cloths—napkins and silver forks were then unknown in
America, except on the very best tables, and not always on them,
unless on high days and holidays—as we were going through the
unsophisticated manipulations of this first supper. Forty-seven years
have elapsed, and the whole scene is as vivid to my mind at this
moment, as if it occurred last night. I wished myself one of the
long-snouted tribe, several times, in order to be in what is called
"keeping."
I had the honour of keeping an anchor-watch in company with a grum old
Swede, as we lay in the Hudson. The wind was light, and the ship had a
good berth, so my associate chose a soft plank, told me to give him a
call should anything happen, and lay down to sleep away his two hours
in comfort. Not so with me. I strutted the deck with as much
importance as if the weight of the State lay on my shoulders—paid a
visit every five minutes to the bows, to see that the cable had not
parted, and that the anchor did not "come home"—and then looked
aloft, to ascertain that everything was in its place. Those were a
happy two hours!
About ten next morning, being Sunday, and, as Mr. Marble expressed it,
"the better day, the better deed," the pilot came off, and all hands
were called to "up anchor." The cook, cabin-boy, Rupert and I, were
entrusted with the duty of "fleeting jig" and breaking down the coils
of the cable, the handspikes requiring heavier hands than ours. The
anchor was got in without any difficulty, however, when Rupert and I
were sent aloft to loose the fore-top-sail. Rupert got into the top
via the lubber's hole, I am sorry to say, and the loosing of the sail
on both yard-arms fell to my duty. A hand was on the fore-yard, and I
was next ordered up to loose the top-gallant-sail. Canvass began to
fall and open all over the ship, the top-sails were mast-headed, and,
as I looked down from the fore-top-mast cross-trees, where I remained
to overhaul the clew-lines, I saw that the ship was falling off, and
that her sails were filling with a stiff north-west breeze. Just as my
whole being was entranced with the rapture of being under-way for
Canton, which was then called the Indies, Rupert called out to me from
the top. Ha was pointing at some object on the water, and, turning, I
saw a boat within a hundred feet of the ship. In her was Mr.
Hardinge, who at that moment caught sight of us. But the ship's sails
were now all full, and no one on deck saw, or at least heeded, the
boat. The John glided past it, and, the last I saw of my venerated
guardian, he was standing erect, bare-headed, holding both arms
extended, as if entreating us not to desert him! Presently the ship
fell off so much, that the after-sails hid him from my view.
I descended into the top, where I found Rupert had shrunk down out of
sight, looking frightened and guilty. As for myself, I got behind the
head of the mast, and fairly sobbed. This lasted a few minutes, when
an order from the mate called us both below. When I reached the deck,
the boat was already a long distance astern, and had evidently given
up the idea of boarding us. I do not know whether I felt the most
relieved or pained by the certainty of this fact.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
Brutus—Julius Caesar.
In four hours from the time when Rupert and I last saw Mr. Hardinge,
the ship was at sea. She crossed the bar, and started on her long
journey, with a fresh north-wester, and with everything packed on that
she would bear. We took a diagonal course out of the bight formed by
the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey, and sunk the land entirely
by the middle of the afternoon. I watched the highlands of Navesink,
as they vanished like watery clouds in the west, and then I felt I was
at last fairly out of sight of land. But a foremast hand has little
opportunity for indulging in sentimen, as he quits his native shore;
and few, I fancy, have the disposition. As regards the opportunity,
anchors are to be got in off the bows, and stowed; cables are to be
unbent and coiled down; studding-gear is to be hauled out and got
ready; frequently boom-irons are to be placed upon the yards, and the
hundred preparations made, that render the work of a ship as ceaseless
a round of activity as that of a house. This kept us all busy until
night, when the watches were told off and set. I was in the larboard,
or chief-mate's watch, having actually been chosen by that
hard-featured old seaman, the fourth man he named; an honour for which
I was indebted to the activity I had already manifested aloft. Rupert
was less distinguished, being taken by the captain for the
second-mate's watch, the very last person chosen. That night
Mr. Marble dropped a few hints on the subject, which let me into the
secret of these two selections. "You and I will get along well
together, I see that plainly, Miles," he said, "for there's
quicksilver in your body. As for your friend in t'other watch, it's
all as it should be; the captain has got one hand the most, and such
as he is, he is welcome to him. He'll blacken more writing paper this
v'y'ge, I reckon, than he'll tar down riggin'." I thought it odd,
however, that Rupert, who had been so forward in all the preliminaries
of our adventure, should fall so far astern in its first practical
results.
It is not my intention to dwell on all the minute incidents of this,
my first voyage to sea, else would it spin out the narrative
unnecessarily, and render my task as fatiguing to the reader, as it
might prove to myself. One occurrence, however, which took place three
days out, must be mentioned, as it will prove to be connected with
important circumstances in the end. The ship was now in order, and was
at least two hundred leagues from the land, having had a famous run
off the coast, when the voice of the cook, who had gone below for
water, was heard down among the casks, in such a clamour as none but a
black can raise, with all his loquacity awakened.