The Red Rover: A Tale. James Fenimore Cooper

to keep my bulkheads in their places."

      "I deny the judgment of heaving-to a boat under her after square-sails," retorted Dick. "Give her the stay-sails, if you will, and no harm done; but a true seaman will never get a bagful of wind between his mainmast and his lee-swifter, if-so-be he knows his business. But words are like thunder, which rumbles aloft, without coming down a spar, as I have yet seen; let us therefore put the question to some one who has been on the water, and knows a little of life and of ships."

      "If the oldest admiral in his Majesty's fleet was here, he wouldn't be backward in saying who is right and who is wrong. I say, brothers, if there is a man among you all who has had the advantage of a sea education, let him speak, in order that the truth of this matter may not be hid, like a marling-spike jammed between a brace-block and a blackened yard."

      "Here, then, is the man," returned Fid; and, stretching out his arm, he seized Scipio by the collar, and drew him, without ceremony, into the centre of the circle, that had opened around the two disputants "There is a man for you, who has made one more voyage between this and Africa than myself, for the reason that he was born there. Now, answer as if you were hallooing from a lee-earing, S'ip, under what sail would you heave-to a ship, on the coast of your native country, with the danger of a white squall at hand?"

      "I no heave-'em-to," said the black, "I make 'em scud."

      "Ay, boy; but, to be in readiness for the puff, would you jam her up under a mainsail, or let her lie a little off under a fore course?"

      "Any fool know dat," returned Scipio, grumly and evidently tired already of being thus catechised.

      "If you want 'em fall off, how you'm expect, in reason, he do it under a main course? You answer me dat, misser Dick."

      "Gentlemen," said Nightingale, looking about him with an air of great gravity, "I put it to your Honours, is it genteel behaviour to bring a nigger, in this out-of-the-way fashion, to give an opinion in the teeth of a white man?"

      This appeal to the wounded dignity of the company was answered by a common murmur. Scipio, who was prepared to maintain, and would have maintained, his professional opinion, after his positive and peculiar manner, against any disputant, had not the heart to resist so general an evidence of the impropriety of his presence. Without uttering a word in vindication or apology, he folded his arms, and walked out of the house, with the submission and meekness of one who had been too long trained in humility to rebel. This desertion on the part of his companion was not, however, so quietly acquiesced in by Fid, who found himself thus unexpectedly deprived of the testimony of the black. He loudly remonstrated against his retreat; but, finding it in vain, he crammed the end of several inches of tobacco into his mouth, swearing, as he followed the African, and keeping his eye, at the same time, firmly fastened on his adversary, that, in his opinion, "the lad, if he was fairly skinned, would be found to be the whiter man of the two."

      The triumph of the boatswain was now complete; nor was he at all sparing of his exultation.

      "Gentlemen," he said, addressing himself, with an air of increased confidence, to the motley audience who surrounded him, "you see that reason is like a ship bearing down with studding-sails on both sides, leaving a straight wake and no favours. Now, I scorn boasting, nor do I know who the fellow is who has just sheered off, in time to save his character, but this I will say, that the man is not to be found, between Boston and the West Indies, who knows better than myself how to make a ship walk, or how to make her stand still, provided I"--

      The deep voice of Nightingale became suddenly hushed, and his eye was riveted, by a sort of enchantment on the keen glance of the stranger in green, whose countenance was now seen blended among the more vulgar faces of the crowd.

      "Mayhap," continued the boatswain, swallowing his words, in the surprise of seeing himself so unexpectedly confronted by so imposing an eye, "mayhap this gentleman has some knowledge of the sea, and can decide the matter in dispute."

      "We do not study naval tactics at the universities," returned the other briskly, "though I will confess, from the little I have heard, I am altogether in favour of scudding."

      He pronounced the latter word with an emphasis which rendered it questionable if he did not mean to pun; the more especially as he threw down his reckoning and instantly left the field to the quiet possession of Nightingale. The latter, after a short pause, resumed his narrative, though, either from weariness or some other cause, it was observed that his voice was far less positive than before, and that his tale was cut prematurely short. After completing his narrative and his grog, he staggered to the beach, whither a boat was shortly after despatched to convey him on board the ship, which, during all this time, had not ceased to be the constant subject of the suspicious examination of the good-man Homespun.

      In the mean while, the stranger in green had pursued his walk along the main street of the town. Fid had given chase to the disconcerted Scipio, grumbling as he went, and uttering no very delicate remarks on the knowledge and seamanship of the boatswain. They soon joined company again, the former changing his attack to the negro, whom he liberally abused, for abandoning a point which he maintained was as simple, and as true, as "that yonder bit of a schooner would make more way, going wing-and-wing, than jammed up on a wind."

      Probably diverted with the touches of peculiar character he had detected in this singular pair of confederates, or possibly led by his own wayward humour, the stranger followed their footsteps. After turning from the water, they mounted a hill, the latter a little in the rear of his pilots, until he lost sight of them in a bend of the street, or rather road; for by this time, they were past even the little suburbs of the town. Quickening his steps, the barrister, as he had announced himself to be, was glad to catch a glimpse of the two worthies, seated under a fence several minutes after he had believed them lost. They were making a frugal meal, off the contents of a little bag which the white had borne under his arm and from which he now dispensed liberally to his companion, who had taken his post sufficiently nigh to proclaim that perfect amity was restored, though still a little in the back ground, in deference to the superior condition which the other enjoyed through favour of his colour. Approaching the spot, the stranger observed,--

      "If you make so free with the bag, my lads, your third man may have to go supperless to bed."

      "Who hails?" said Dick, looking up from his bone, with an expression much like that of a mastiff when engaged at a similar employment.

      "I merely wished to remind you that you had another messmate," cavalierly returned the other.

      "Will you take a cut, brother?" said the seaman, offering the bag, with the liberality of a sailor, the moment he fancied there was an indirect demand made on its contents.

      "You still mistake my meaning; on the wharf you had another companion."

      "Ay, ay; he is in the offing there, overhauling that bit of a light-house, which is badly enough moored unless they mean it to shew the channel to your ox-teams and inland traders; hereaway, gentlemen, where you see that pile of stones which seems likely to be coming down shortly by-the-run."

      The stranger looked in the direction indicated by the other, and saw the young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a ruined tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at no great distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of small change to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed the fence, with an apparent intention of examining the ruin also.

      "The lad is free with his coppers," said Dick, suspending the movements of his teeth, to give the stranger another and a better look; "but, as they will not grow where he has planted them, S'ip, you may turn them over to my pocket. An off-handed and a free-handed chap that, Africa; but then these law-dealers get all their pence of the devil, and they are sure of more, when the shot begins to run low in the locker."

      Leaving the negro to collect the money, and to transfer it, as in duty bound, to the hands of him who, if not his master, was at all times ready and willing to exercise the authority of one, we shall follow the stranger in his walk toward, the tottering edifice. There was little about the ruin itself to attract the attention of one who, from his assertions, had probably often enjoyed the opportunities of