Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale. James Fenimore Cooper

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:

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      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.

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      To Mr. Rupert Hardinge.

      Lucy had been less guarded, and possibly a little more honest. She wrote as follows:

DEAR MILES:

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      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.

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      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