James Fenimore Cooper Homeward Bound [txt]

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ship. Captain Truck had thrown cold water on the last proposal, however,
by adding to it what, among legislators, is called a "rider;" he having
drily suggested that one of the duties of the said society should be to
ascertain also the practicability of wading across the Atlantic.
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Chapter VII.
When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks,
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth:
All may be well; but if God sort it so,
'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.
RICHARD III.
These conversations, however, were mere episodes of the great business
of the passage. Throughout the morning, the master was busy in rating his
mates, giving sharp reprimands to the stewards and cooks, overhauling the
log line, introducing the passengers, seeing to the stowage of the
anchors, in getting down the signal-pole, throwing in touches of Vattel,
and otherwise superintending duty, and dispensing opinions. All this time,
the cat in the grass does not watch the bird that hops along the ground
with keener vigilance than he kept his eye on the Foam. To an ordinary
observer, the two ships presented the familiar spectacle of vessels
sailing in the same direction, with a very equal rate of speed; and as the
course was that necessary to clear the Channel, most of the passengers,
and, indeed, the greater part of the crew, began to think the cruiser,
like themselves, was merely bound to the westward. Mr. Truck, on the
contrary, judging by signs and movements that more naturally suggested
themselves to one accustomed to direct the evolutions of a ship, and to
reason on their objects, than to the mere subjects of his will, thought
differently. To him, the motive of the smallest change on board the
sloop-of-war was as intelligible as if it had been explained in words, and
he even foresaw many that were about to take place. Before noon, the Foam
had got fairly abeam, and Mr. Leach, pointing out the circumstance,
observed, that if her wish was to overhaul them, she ought then to tack;
it being a rule among seamen, that the pursuing vessel should turn to
windward as often as she found herself nearest to her chase. But the
experience of Captain Truck taught him better; the tide was setting into
the Channel on the flood, and the wind enabled both ships to fake the
current on their lee-bows, a power that forced them up to windward;
whereas, by tacking, the Foam would receive the force of the stream on her
weather broadside, or so nearly so, as to sweep her farther astern than
her difference in speed could easily repair.
"She has the heels of us, and she weathers on us, as it, is," grumbled the
master; "and that might satisfy a man less modest. I have led the
gentleman such a tramp already that he will be in none of the best humours
when he comes alongside, and we may make up our minds on seeing Portsmouth
again before we see New-York, unless a slant of wind, or the night, serve
us a good turn. I trust, Leach, you have not been destroying your
prospects in life by looking too wistfully at a tobacco-field?"
"Not I, sir; and if you will give me leave to say it, Captain Truck, I do
not think a plug has been landed from the ship, which did not go ashore in
a _bona-fide_ tobacco-box, that might appear in any court in England. The
people will swear, to a man, that this is true."
"Ay, ay! and the Barons of the Exchequer would be the greatest fools in
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England not to believe them. If there has been no defrauding the revenue,
why does a cruiser follow this ship, a regular packet, to sea?"
"This affair of the steerage passenger, Davis, sir, is probably the cause.
The man may be heavily in debt, or possibly a defaulter; for these rogues,
when they break down, often fall lower than the 'twixt decks of a ship
like this."
"This will do to put the quarter-deck and cabin in good humour at sailing,
and give them something to open an acquaintance with; but it is sawdust to
none but your new beginners. I have known that Seal this many a year, and
the rogue never yet had a case that touched the quarter-deck. It is as the
man and his wife say, and I'll not give them up, out here in blue water,
for as much foam as lies on Jersey beach after an easterly blow. It will
not be any of the family of Davis that will satisfy yonder wind-eater; but
he will lay his hand on the whole family of the Montauk, leaving them the
agreeable alternative of going back to Portsmouth in his pleasant society,
or getting out here in mid-channel, and wading ashore as best they can.
D--- me! If I believe, Leach, that Vattel will bear the fellow out in it,
even if there has been a whole hogshead of the leaves trundled into his
island without a permit!"
To this Mr. Leach had no encouraging answer to make, for, like most of his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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