University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

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
take 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 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 hogshed 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 class, he held practical force in much
greater respect than the abstractions of books. He deemed
it prudent, therefore, to be silent, though greatly doubting
the efficacy of a quotation from any authority on board,
when fairly put in opposition to a written order from the
admiral at Portsmouth, or even to a signal sent down from
the Admiralty at London.

The day wore away, making a gradual change in the

relative positions of the two ships, though so slowly, as to
give Captain Truck strong hopes of being able to dodge
his pursuer in the coming night, which promised to be dark
and squally. To return to Portsmouth was his full intention,
but not until he had first delivered his freight and passengers
in New-York; for, like all men bound up body and
soul in the performance of an especial duty, he looked on
a frustration of his immediate object as a much greater
calamity than even a double amount of more remote evil.
Besides, he felt a strong reliance on the liberality of the
English authorities in the end, and had little doubt of being
able to extricate himself and his ship from any penalties to
which the indiscretion or cupidity of his subordinates might
have rendered him liable.

Just as the sun dipped into the watery track of the Montauk,
most of the cabin passengers again appeared on deck,
to take a look at the situation of the two vessels, and to
form their own conjectures as to the probable result of the
adventure. By this time the Foam had tacked twice, once
to weather upon the wake of her chase, and again to resume
her line of pursuit. The packet was too good a ship
to be easily overtaken, and the cruiser was now nearly hull-down
astern, but evidently coming up at a rate that would
bring her alongside before morning. The wind blew in
squalls, a circumstance that always aids a vessel of war,
as the greater number of her hands enables them to make
and shorten sail with ease and rapidity.

“This unsettled weather is as much as a mile an hour
against us,” observed Captain Truck, who was far from
pleased at the fact of his being outsailed by anything that
floated; “and, if truth must be said, I think that fellow has
somewhere about half a knot the best of it, in the way of
foot, on a bowline and with this breeze. But he has no
cargo in, and they trim their boats like steel-yards. Give
us more wind, or a freer, and I would leave him to digest
his orders, as a shark digests a marling-spike, or a ring-bolt,
notwithstanding all his advantages; for little good
would it then do him to be trying to run into the wind's
eye, like a steam-tug. As it is, we must submit. We are
certainly in a category, and be d—d to it!”

It was one of those wild-looking sunsets that are so frequent

in the autumn, in which appearances are worse,
perhaps, than the reality. The ships were now so near the
Chops of the Channel that no land was visible, and the
entire horizon presented that chill and wintry aspect that
belongs to gloomy and driving clouds, to which streaks of
dull light serve more to give an appearance of infinite space
than any of the relief of brightness. It was a dreary
night-fall to a landsman's eye; though they who better understood
the signs of the heavens, as they are exhibited on
the ocean, saw little more than the promise of obscurity,
and the usual hazards of darkness in a much-frequented sea.

“This will be a dirty night,” observed John Effingham,
“and we may have occasion to bring in some of the flaunting
vanity of the ship, ere another morning returns.”

“The vessel appears to be in good hands,” returned Mr.
Effingham: “I have watched them narrowly; for, I know
not why, I have felt more anxiety on the occasion of this
passage than on any of the nine I have already made.”

As he spoke, the tender father unconsciously bent his eyes
on Eve, who leaned affectionately on his arm, steadying
her light form against the pitching of the vessel. She understood
his feelings better than he did himself, possibly,
since, accustomed to his fondest care from childhood, she
well knew that he seldom thought of others, or even of
himself, while her own wants or safety appealed to his unwearying
love.

“Father,” she said, smiling in his wistful face, “we
have seen more troubled waters than these, far, and in a
much frailer vessel. Do you not remember the Wallenstadt
and its miserable skiff? where I have heard you say
there was really danger, though we escaped from it all with
a little fright.”

“Perfectly well do I recollect it, love, nor have I forgotten
our brave companion, and his good service, at that
critical moment. But for his stout arm and timely succour
we might not, as you say, have been quit for the fright.”

Although Mr. Effingham looked only at his daughter,
while speaking, Mr. Sharp, who listened with interest, saw
the quick, retreating, glance of Eve at Paul Blunt, and felt
something like a chill in his blood as he perceived that her
own cheeks seemed to reflect the glow which appeared on

that of the young man. He alone observed this secret evidence
of common interest in some event in which both had
evidently been actors, those around them being too much
occupied in the arrangements of the ship, and too little suspicious,
to heed the trifling circumstance. Captain Truck
had ordered all hands called, to make sail, to the surprise
of even the crew. The vessel, at the moment, was staggering
along under as much canvas as she could apparently
bear, and the mates looked aloft with inquiring eyes, as if
to ask what more could be done.

The master soon removed all doubts. With a rapidity
that is not common in merchant ships, but which is usual
enough in the packets, the lower studding-sails, and two top-mast-studding-sails
were prepared, and made ready for
hoisting. As soon as the words “all ready” were uttered,
the helm was put up, the sails were set, and the Montauk
was running with a free wind towards the narrow passage
between the Scilly Islands and the Land's End. Captain
Truck was an expert channel pilot, from long practice, and
keeping the run of the tides in his head, he had loosely calculated
that his vessel had so much offing as, with a free
wind, and the great progress she had made in the last
twenty-four hours, would enable him to lay through the
pass.

“'Tis a ticklish hole to run into in a dirty night, with a
staggering breeze,” he said, rubbing his hands as if the
hazard increased his satisfaction, “and we will now see if
this Foam has mettle enough to follow.”

“The chap has a quick eye and good glasses, even
though he should want nerve for the Scilly rocks,” cried
the mate, who was looking out from the mizzen rigging.
“There go his stun'-sails already, and a plenty of them!”

Sure enough the cruiser threw out her studding-sails, had
them full and drawing in five minutes, and altered her
course so as to follow the Montauk. There was now no
longer any doubt concerning her object; for it was hardly
possible two vessels should adopt so bold a step as this, just
at dark, and on such a night, unless the movements of one
were regulated by the movements of the other.

In the mean time, anxious faces began to appear on the
quarter-deck, and Mr. Dodge was soon seen moving

stealthily about among the passengers, whispering here,
cornering there, and seemingly much occupied in canvassing
opinions on the subject of the propriety of the step that
the master had just taken; though, if the truth must be
told, he rather stimulated opposition than found others prepared
to meet his wishes. When he thought, however, he
had collected a sufficient number of suffrages to venture on
an experiment, that nothing but an inherent aversion to
shipwreck and a watery grave could embolden him to
make, he politely invited the captain to a private conference
in the state-room occupied by himself and Sir George Templemore.
Changing the venue, as the lawyers term it, to
his own little apartment,—no master of a packet willingly
consenting to transact business in any other place—Captain
Truck, who was out of cigars at the moment, very willingly
assented.

When the two were seated, and the door of the room was
closed, Mr. Dodge carefully snuffed the candle, looked about
him to make sure there was no eave's-dropper in a room
eight feet by seven, and then commenced his subject, with
what he conceived to be a commendable delicacy and discretion.

“Captain Truck,” he said, in the sort of low confidential
tone that denotes equally concern and mystery, “I think
by this time you must have set me down as one of your
warm and true friends and supporters. I came out in your
ship, and, please God we escape the perils of the sea, it is
my hope and intention to return home in her.”

“If not, friend Dodge,” returned the master, observing
that the other paused to note the effect of his peroration, and
using a familiarity in his address that the acquaintance of
the former passage had taught him was not misapplied; “if
not, friend Dodge, you have made a capital mistake in getting
on board of her, as it is by no means probable an occasion
will offer to get out of her, until we fall in with a
news-boat, or a pilot-boat, at least somewhere in the latitude
and longitude of Sandy Hook. You smoke, I believe,
sir?”

“I ask no better,” returned Steadfast, declining the offer;
“I have told every one on the Continent,”—Mr. Dodge
had been to Paris, Geneva, along the Rhine, and through

Belgium and Holland, and in his eyes, this was the Continest,—“that
no better ship or captain sails the ocean; and
you know captain, I have a way with me, when I please,
that causes what I say to be remembered. Why, my dear
sir, I had an article extolling the whole line in the most appropriate
terms, and this ship in particular, put into the
journal at Rotterdam. It was so well done, that not a soul
suspected it came from a personal friend of yours.”

The captain was rolling the small end of a cigar in his
mouth to prepare it for smoking, the regulations of the ship
forbidding any further indulgence below; but when he received
this assurance, he withdrew the tobacco with the
sort of mystifying simplicity that gets to be a second nature
with a regular votary of Neptune, and answered with a
coolness of manner that was in ridiculous contrast to the
affected astonishment of the words:—

“The devil you did!—Was it in good Dutch?”

“I do not understand much of the language,” said Mr.
Dodge, hesitatingly; for all he knew, in truth, was yaw and
nein, and neither of these particularly well;—“but it looked to
be uncommonly well expressed. I could do no more than
pay a man to translate it. But to return to this affair of
running in among the Scilly Islands such a night as this.”

“Return, my good fellow! this is the first syllable you
have said about the matter!”

“Concern on your account has caused me to forget myself.
To be frank with you, Captain Truck, and if I
wer'n't your very best friend I should be silent, there is
considerable excitement getting up about this matter.”

“Excitement! what is that like?—a sort of moral head-sea,
do you mean?”

“Precisely: and I must tell you the truth, though I had
rather a thousand times not; but this change in the ship's
course is monstrous unpopular!”

“That is bad news, with a vengeance, Mr. Dodge; I
shall rely on you, as an old friend, to get up an opposition.”

“My dear captain, I have done all I could in that way
already; but I never met with people so bent on a thing as
most of the passengers. The Effinghams are very decided,
though so purse-proud and grand; Sir George Templemore

declares it is quite extraordinary, and even the French lady
is furious. To be as sincere as the crisis demands, public
opinion is setting so strong against you, that I expect an
explosion.”

“Well, so long as the tide sets in my favour, I must
endeavour to bear it. Stemming a current, in or out of
water, is up-hill work; but with a good bottom, clean copper,
and plenty of wind, it may be done.”

“It would not surprise me were the gentlemen to appeal
to the general sentiment against you when we arrive, and
make a handle of it against your line!”

“It may be so indeed; but what can be done? If we
return, the Englishman will certainly catch us, and, in that
case, my own opinion would be dead against me!”

“Well, well, captain; I thought as a friend I would
speak my mind. If this thing should really get into the
papers in America, it would spread like fire in the prairies.
You know what the papers are, I trust, Captain Truck?”

“I rather think I do, Mr. Dodge, with many thanks for
your hints, and I believe I know what the Scilly Islands
are, too. The elections will be nearly or quite over by the
time we get in, and, thank God, they'll not be apt to make
a party question of it, this fall at least. In the mean time
rely on my keeping a good look-out for the shoals of popularity,
and the quicksands of excitement. You smoke
sometimes, I know, and I can recommend this cigar as fit
to regale the nose of that chap of Strasbourg—you read
your Bible, I know, Mr. Dodge, and need not be told whom
I mean. The steward will be happy to give you a light on
deck, sir.”

In this manner, Captain Truck, with the sang froid of
an old tar, and the tact of a packet-master, got rid of his
troublesome visiter, who departed, half suspecting that he
had been quizzed, but still ruminating on the expediency of
getting up a committee, or at least a public meeting in the
cabin, to follow up the blow. By the aid of the latter,
could he but persuade Mr. Effingham to take the chair, and
Sir George Templemore to act as secretary, he thought he
might escape a sleepless night, and, what was of quite as
much importance, make a figure in a paragraph on reaching
home.

Mr. Dodge, whose Christian name, thanks to a pious ancestry,
was Steadfast, partook of the qualities that his two
appellations not inaptly expressed. There was a singular
profession of steadiness of purpose, and of high principle
about him, all of which vanished in Dodge at the close. A
great stickler for the rights of the people, he never considered
that this people was composed of many integral parts,
but he viewed all things as gravitating towards the great
aggregation. Majorities were his hobbies, and though singularly
timid as an individual, or when in the minority, put
him on the strongest side and he was ready to face the
devil. In short, Mr. Dodge was a people's man, because
his strongest desire, his “ambition and his pride,” as he
often expressed it, was to be a man of the people. In his
particular neighbourhood, at home, sentiment ran in veins,
like gold in the mines, or in streaks of public opinion; and
though there might be three or four of these public sentiments,
so long as each had its party, no one was afraid to
avow it; but as for maintaining a notion that was not thus
upheld, there was a savour of aristocracy about it that
would damn even a mathematical proposition, though regularly
solved and proved. So much and so long had Mr.
Dodge respired a moral atmosphere of this community-character,
and gregarious propensity, that he had, in many
things, lost all sense of his individuality; as much so, in
fact, as if he breathed with a pair of county lungs, ate with
a common mouth, drank from the town-pump, and slept in
the open air.

Such a man was not very likely to make an impression
on Captain Truck, one accustomed to rely on himself alone,
in the face of warring elements, and who knew that a ship
could not safely have more than a single will, and that the
will of her master.

The accidents of life could scarcely form extremes of
character more remote than that of Steadfast Dodge and
that of John Truck. The first never did anything beyond
acts of the most ordinary kind, without first weighing its
probable effect in the neighbourhood; its popularity or unpopularity;
how it might tally with the different public
opinions that were whiffling through the county; in what
manner it would influence the next election, and whether it

would be likely to elevate him or depress him in the public
mind. No Asiatic slave stood more in terror of a vindictive
master than Mr. Dodge stood in fear and trembling before
the reproofs, comments, censures, frowns, cavillings and
remarks of every man in his county, who happened to belong
to the political party that just at that moment was in
power. As to the minority, he was as brave as a lion,
could snap his fingers at them, and was foremost in deriding
and scoffing at all they said and did. This, however, was
in connexion with politics only; for, the instant party-drill
ceased to be of value, Steadfast's valour oozed out of his
composition, and in all other things he dutifully consulted
every public opinion of the neighbourhood. This estimable
man had his weak points as well as another, and what is
more, he was quite sensible of them, as was proved by a
most jealous watchfulness of his besetting sins, in the way
of exposure if not of indulgence. In a word, Steadfast
Dodge was a man that wished to meddle with and control
all things, without possessing precisely the spirit that
was necessary to leave him master of himself; he had a
rabid desire for the good opinion of every thing human,
without always taking the means necessary to preserve his
own; was a stout declaimer for the rights of the community,
while forgetting that the community itself is but a
means set up for the accomplishment of a given end; and
felt an inward and profound respect for everything that was
beyond his reach, which manifested itself, not in manly
efforts to attain the forbidden fruit, but rather in a spirit of
opposition and detraction, that only betrayed, through its
jealousy, the existence of the feeling, which jealousy, however,
he affected to conceal under an intense regard for
popular rights, since he was apt to aver it was quite intolerable
that any man should possess anything, even to qualities,
in which his neighbours might not properly participate.
All these, moreover, and many similar traits, Mr. Dodge
encouraged in the spirit of liberty!

On the other hand, John Truck sailed his own ship; was
civil to his passengers from habit as well as policy; knew
that every vessel must have a captain; believed mankind to
be little better than asses; took his own observations, and
cared not a straw for those of his mates; was never more

bent on following his own views than when all hands grumbled
and opposed him; was daring by nature, decided from
use and long self-reliance, and was every way a man fitted
to steer his bark through the trackless ways of life, as well
as those of the ocean. It was fortunate for one in his particular
position, that nature had made the possessor of so
much self-will and temporary authority, cool and sarcastic
rather than hot-headed and violent; and for this circumstance
Mr. Dodge in particular had frequent occasions for
felicitation.