University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

Shakspeare.

The next day John Effingham made no allusion to
the conversation of the previous night, though the
squeeze of the hand he gave Paul, when they met, was

an assurance that nothing was forgotten. As he had
a secret pleasure in obeying any injunction of Eve's,
the young man himself sought Captain Truck, even
before they had breakfasted, and, as he had made an
acquaintance with `the commodore,' on the lake, previously
to the arrival of the Effinghams, that worthy
was summoned, and regularly introduced to the honest
ship-master. The meeting between these two distinguished
men was grave, ceremonious and dignified,
each probably feeling that he was temporarily the
guardian of a particular portion of an element that
was equally dear to both. After a few minutes passed,
as it might be, in the preliminary points of etiquette,
a better feeling and more confidence was established,
and it was soon settled that they should fish in company,
the rest of the day; Paul promising to row the
ladies out on the lake, and to join them in the course
of the afternoon.

As the party quitted the breakfast-table, Eve took
an occasion to thank the young man for his attention
to their common friend, who, it was reported, had
taken his morning's repast at an early hour, and was
already on the lake, the day by this time having advanced
within two hours of noon.

“I have dared even to exceed your instructions,
Miss Effingham,” said Paul, “for I have promised the
Captain to endeavour to persuade you, and as many
of the ladies as possible, to trust yourselves to my seamanship,
and to submit to be rowed out to the spot
where we shall find him and his friend the commodore
riding at anchor.”

“An engagement that my influence shall be used to
see fulfilled. Mrs. Bloomfield has already expressed
a desire to go on the Otsego-Water, and I make no
doubt I shall find other companions. Once more let
me thank you for this little attention, for I too well
know your tastes, not to understand that you might
find a more agreeable ward.”

“Upon my word, I feel a sincere regard for our old
Captain, and could often wish for no better companion.
Were he, however, as disagreeable as I find him, in
truth, pleasant and frank, your wishes would conceal
all his faults.”

“You have learned, Mr. Powis, that small attentions
are as much remembered as important services,
and after having saved our lives, wish to prove that
you can discharge les petits devoirs socials, as well as
perform great deeds. I trust you will persuade Sir
George Templemore to be of our party, and at four
we shall be ready to accompany you; until then I am
contracted to a gossip with Mrs. Bloomfield in her
dressing-room.”

We shall now leave the party on the land, and follow
those who have already taken boat, or the fishermen.
The beginning of the intercourse between the
salt-water navigator and his fresh-water companion
was again a little constrained and critical. Their professional
terms agreed as ill as possible, for when the
Captain used the expression `ship the oars,' the commodore
understood just the reverse of what it had been
intended to express; and, once, when he told his companion
to `give way,' the latter took the hint so literally
as actually to cease rowing. All these professional
niceties induced the worthy ship-master to undervalue
his companion, who, in the main, was very skilful in
his particular pursuit, though it was a skill that he
exerted after the fashions of his own lake, and not
after the fashions of the ocean. Owing to several
contre-tems of this nature, by the time they reached
the fishing-ground the Captain began to entertain a
feeling for the commodore, that ill comported with the
deference due to his titular rank.

“I have come out with you, commodore,” said Captain
Truck, when they had got to their station, and
laying a peculiar emphasis on the appellation he used,
“in order to enjoy myself, and you will confer an

especial favour on me by not using such phrases as
`cable-rope,' `casting anchor,' and `titivating.' As
for the two first, no seaman ever uses them; and I
never heard such a word on board a ship, as the last.
D—e, sir, if I believe it is to be found in the dictionary,
even.”

“You amaze me, sir! `Casting anchor,' and `cable-rope'
are both Bible phrases, and they must be right.”

“That follows by no means, commodore, as I have
some reason to know; for my father having been a
parson, and I being a seaman, we may be said to have
the whole subject, as it were, in the family. St. Paul—
you have heard of such a man as St. Paul, commodore?—”

“I know him almost by heart, Captain Truck; but
St. Peter and St. Andrew were the men most after my
heart. Ours is an ancient calling, sir, and in those two
instances you see to what a fisherman can rise. I do
not remember to have ever heard of a sea-captain who
was converted into a saint.”

“Ay, ay, there is always too much to do on board
ship to have time to be much more than a beginner in
religion. There was my mate, v'y'ge before last, Tom
Leach, who is now master of a ship of his own, had
he been brought up to it properly, he would have made
as conscientious a parson as did his grandfather before
him. Such a man would have been a seaman, as
well as a parson. I have little to say against St. Peter
or St. Andrew, but, in my judgment, they were none
the better saints for having been fishermen; and, if the
truth were known, I dare say they were at the bottom
of introducing such lubberly phrases into the Bible, as
casting-anchor,' and `cable-rope.”

“Pray, sir,” asked the commodore, with dignity,
“what are you in the practice of saying, when you
speak of such matters; for, to be frank with you, we
always use these terms on these lakes.”

“Ay, ay, there is a fresh-water smell about them.

We say `anchor,' or `let go the anchor,' or `dropped
the anchor,' or some such reasonable expression, and
not `cast anchor,' as if a bit of iron, weighing two or
three tons, is to be jerked about like a stone big
enough to kill a bird with. As for the `cable-rope,' as
you call it, we say the `cable,' or `the chain,' or `the
ground tackle,' according to reason and circumstances.
You never hear a real `salt' flourishing his
`cable-ropes,' and his `casting-anchors,' which are
altogether too sentimental and particular for his manner
of speaking. As for `ropes,' I suppose you have
not got to be a commodore, and need being told how
many there are in a ship.”

“I do not pretend to have counted them, but I have
seen a ship, sir, and one under full sail, too, and I
know there were as many ropes about her as there
are pines on the Vision.”

“Are there more than seven of these trees on your
mountain? for that is just the number of ropes in a
merchant-man; though a man-of-war's-man counts
one or two more.”

“You astonish me, sir! But seven ropes in a ship?
—I should have said there are seven hundred!”

“I dare say, I dare say; that is just the way in
which a landsman pretends to criticise a vessel. As
for the ropes, I will now give you their names, and
then you can lay athwart hawse of these canoe
gentry, by the hour, and teach them rigging and
modesty, both at the same time. In the first place,”
continued the captain, jerking at his line, and then
beginning to count on his fingers — “There is the
`man-rope;' then come the `bucket-rope,' the `tiller-rope,'
the `bolt-rope,' the `foot-rope,' the `top-rope,'
and the `limber-rope.' I have followed the seas, now,
more than half a century, and never yet heard of a
`cable-rope,' from any one who could hand, reef, and
steer.”

“Well, sir, every man to his trade,” said the commodore,

who just then pulled in a fine pickerel, which
was the third he had taken, while his companion
rejoiced in no more than a few fruitless bites. “You
are more expert in ropes than in lines, it would
seem. I shall not deny your experience and knowledge;
but in the way of fishing, you will at least
allow that the sea is no great school. I dare say,
now, if you were to hook the `sogdollager,' we should
nave you jumping into the lake to get rid of him.
Quite probably, sir, you never before heard of that
celebrated fish?”

Notwithstanding the many excellent qualities of
Captain Truck, he had a weakness that is rather
peculiar to a class of men, who, having seen so much
of this earth, are unwilling to admit they have not seen
it all. The little brush in which he was now engaged
with the commodore, he conceived due to his own dignity,
and his motive was duly to impress his companion
with his superiority, which being fairly admitted,
he would have been ready enough to acknowledge
that the other understood pike-fishing much
better than himself. But it was quite too early in the
discussion to make any such avowal, and the supercilious
remark of the commodore's putting him on his
mettle, he was ready to affirm that he had eaten `sogdollagers'
for breakfast, a month at a time, had it
been necessary.

“Pooh! pooh! man,” returned the captain, with an
air of cool indifference, “you do not surely fancy that
you have any thing in a lake like this, that is not to be
found in the ocean! If you were to see a whale's
flukes thrashing your puddle, every cruiser among you
would run for a port; and as for `sogdollagers,' we
think little of them in salt-water; the flying-fish, or
even the dry dolphin, being much the best eating.”

“Sir,” said the commodore, with some heat, and a
great deal of emphasis, “there is but one `sogdollager'
in the world, and he is in this lake. No man has ever

seen him, but my predecessor, the `Admiral,' and myself.”

“Bah!” ejaculated the captain, “they are as plenty
as soft clams, in the Mediterranean, and the Egyptians
use them as a pan-fish. In the East, they catch them
to bait with, for hallibut, and other middling sized
creatures, that are particular about their diet. It is a
good fish, I own, as is seen in this very circumstance.”

“Sir,” repeated the commodore, flourishing his hand,
and waxing warm with earnestness, “there is but
one `sogdollager' in the universe, and that is in Lake
Otsego. A `sogdollager' is a salmon trout, and not a
species; a sort of father to all the salmon trout in this
part of the world; a scaly patriarch.”

“I make no doubt your `sogdollager' is scaly enough;
but what is the use in wasting words about such a
trifle? A whale is the only fish fit to occupy a gentleman's
thoughts. As long as I have been at sea, I
have never witnessed the taking of more than three
whales.”

This allusion happily preserved the peace; for, if
there were any thing in the world for which the commodore
entertained a profound, but obscure reverence,
it was for a whale. He even thought better of a man
for having actually seen one, gambolling in the freedom
of the ocean; and his mind became suddenly
oppressed by the glory of a mariner, who had passed
his life among such gigantic animals. Shoving back
his cap, the old man gazed steadily at the captain a
minute, and all his displeasure about the `sogdollagers'
vanished, though, in his inmost mind, he set down all
that the other had told him on that particular subject,
as so many parts of a regular `fish story.'

“Captain Truck,” he said, with solemnity, “I acknowledge
myself to be but an ignorant and inexperienced
man, one who has passed his life on this lake,
which, broad and beautiful as it is, must seem a pond
in the eyes of a seaman like yourself, who have passed
your days on the Atlantic—”

“Atlantic!” interrupted the captain contemptuously,
“I should have but a poor opinion of myself, had I
seen nothing but the Atlantic! Indeed, I never can
believe I am at sea at all, on the Atlantic, the passages
between New-York and Portsmouth being little
more than so much canalling along a tow-path. If
you wish to say any thing about oceans, talk of the
Pacific, or of the Great South Sea, where a man may
run a month with a fair wind, and hardly go from
island to island. Indeed, that is an ocean in which
there is a manufactory of islands, for they turn them
off in lots to supply the market, and of a size to suit
customers.”

“A manufactory of islands!” repeated the commodore,
who began to entertain an awe of his companion,
that he never expected to feel for any human being
on Lake Otsego; “are you certain, sir, there is no
mistake in this?”

“None in the least; not only islands, but whole
Archipelagos are made annually, by the sea insects in
that quarter of the world; but, then, you are not to
form your notions of an insect in such an ocean, by
the insects you see in such a bit of water as this.”

“As big as our pickerel, or salmon trout, I dare
say?” returned the commodore, in the simplicity of his
heart, for by this time his local and exclusive conceit
was thoroughly humbled, and he was almost ready to
believe any thing.

“I say nothing of their size, for it is to their numbers
and industry that I principally allude now. A solitary
shark, I dare say, would set your whole Lake in
commotion?”

“I think we might manage a shark, sir. I once saw
one of those animals, and I do really believe the sogdollager
would outweigh him. I do think we might
manage a shark, sir.”

“Ay, you mean an in-shore, high-latitude fellow.

But what would you say to a shark as long as one of
those pines on the mountain?”

“Such a monster would take in a man, whole?”

“A man! He would take in a platoon, Indian file.
I dare say one of those pines, now, may be thirty or
forty feet high!”

A gleam of intelligence and of exultation shot across
the weather-beaten face of the old fisherman, for he
detected a weak spot in the other's knowledge. The
worthy Captain, with that species of exclusiveness
which accompanies excellence in any one thing, was
quite ignorant of most matters that pertain to the
land. That there should be a tree, so far inland, that
was larger than his main-yard, he did not think probable,
although that yard itself was made of part of a
tree; and, in the laudable intention of duly impressing
his companion with the superiority of a real seaman
over a mere fresh-water navigator, he had inadvertently
laid bare a weak spot in his estimate of heights
and distances, that the Commodore seized upon, with
some such avidity as the pike seizes the hook. This
accidental mistake alone saved the latter from an abject
submission, for the cool superiority of the Captain
had so far deprived him of his conceit, that he was almost
ready to acknowledge himself no better than a
dog, when he caught a glimpse of light through this
opening.

“There is not a pine, that can be called of age, on
all the mountain, which is not more than a hundred
feet high, and many are nearer two,” he cried in exultation,
flourishing his hand. “The sea may have its
big monsters, Captain, but our hills have their big trees.
Did you ever see a shark of half that length?”

Now, Captain Truck was a man of truth, although
so much given to occasional humorous violations of
its laws, and, withal, a little disposed to dwell upon the
marvels of the great deep, in the spirit of exaggeration,
and he could not, in conscience, affirm any thing so extravagant

as this. He was accordingly obliged to admit
his mistake, and from this moment, the conversation
was carried on with a greater regard to equality.
They talked, as they fished, of politics, religion, philosophy,
human nature, the useful arts, abolition, and
most other subjects that would be likely to interest a
couple of Americans who had nothing to do but to
twitch, from time to time, at two lines dangling in the
water. Although few people possess less of the art of
conversation than our own countrymen, no other nation
takes as wide a range in its discussions. He is
but a very indifferent American that does not know, or
thinks he knows, a little of every thing, and neither of
our worthies was in the least backward in supporting
the claims of the national character in this respect.
This general discussion completely restored amity between
the parties; for, to confess the truth, our old
friend the Captain was a little rebuked about the affair
of the tree. The only peculiarity worthy of notice, that
occurred in the course of their various digressions, was
the fact, that the commodore insensibly began to style
his companion “General;” the courtesy of the country,
in his eyes, appearing to require that a man who had
seen so much more than himself, should, at least, enjoy a
title equal to his own in rank, and that of Admiral being
proscribed by the sensitiveness of republican principles.
After fishing a few hours, the old laker pulled
the skiff up to the Point so often mentioned, where he
lighted a fire on the grass, and prepared a dinner.
When every thing was ready, the two seated themselves,
and began to enjoy the fruits of their labours
in a way that will be understood by all sportsmen.

“I have never thought of asking you, general,” said
the commodore, as he began to masticate a perch,
“whether you are an aristocrat or a democrat. We
have had the government pretty much upside-down,
too, this morning, but this question has escaped me.”

“As we are here by ourselves under these venerable
oaks, and talking like two old messmates,” returned the
general, “I shall just own the truth, and make no bones
of it. I have been captain of my own ship so long,
that I have a most thorough contempt for all equality.
It is a vice that I deprecate, and, whatever may be the
laws of this country, I am of opinion, that equality is
no where borne out by the Law of Nations; which,
after all, commodore, is the only true law for a gentleman
to live under.”

“That is the law of the strongest, if I understand
the matter, general.”

“Only reduced to rules. The Law of Nations, to
own the truth to you, is full of categories, and this will
give an enterprising man an opportunity to make use
of his knowledge. Would you believe, commodore,
that there are countries, in which they lay taxes on
tobacco?”

“Taxes on tobacco! Sir, I never heard of such an
act of oppression under the forms of law! What has
tobacco done, that any one should think of taxing it?”

“I believe, commodore, that its greatest offence is
being so general a favourite. Taxation, I have found,
differs from most other things, generally attacking that
which men most prize.”

“This is quite new to me, general; a tax on tobacco!
The law-makers in those countries cannot chew. I
drink to your good health, sir, and to many happy returns
of such banquets as this.”

Here the commodore raised a large silver punch-bowl,
which Pierre had furnished, to his lips, and fastening
his eyes on the boughs of a knarled oak, he
looked like a man who was taking an observation, for
near a minute. All this time, the captain regarded him
with a sympathetic pleasure, and when the bowl was
free, he imitated the example, levelling his own eye at
a cloud, that seemed floating at an angle of forty-five
degrees above him, expressly for that purpose.

“There is a lazy cloud!” exclaimed the general, as
he let go his hold to catch breath; “I have been
watching it some time, and it has not moved an inch.”

“Tobacco!” repeated the commodore, drawing a long
breath, as if he was just recovering the play of his
lungs, “I should as soon think of laying a tax on punch.
The country that pursues such a policy must, sooner
or later, meet with a downfall. I never knew good
come of persecution.”

“I find you are a sensible man, commodore, and
regret I did not make your acquaintance earlier in life.
Have you yet made up your mind on the subject of
religious faith?”

“Why, my dear general, not to be nibbling like a
sucker with a sore mouth, with a person of your liberality,
I shall give you a plain history of my adventures,
in the way of experiences, that you may judge for
yourself. I was born an Episcopalian, if one can say
so, but was converted to Presbyterianism at twenty. I
stuck to this denomination about five years, when I
thought I would try the Baptists, having got to be fond
of the water, by this time. At thirty-two I fished a
while with the Methodists; since which conversion, I
have chosen to worship God pretty much by myself,
out here on the lake.”

“Do you consider it any harm, to hook a fish of a
Sunday?”

“No more than it is to eat a fish of a Sunday. I go
altogether by faith, in my religion, general, for they
talked so much to me of the uselessness of works, that
I've got to be very unparticular as to what I do. Your
people who have been converted four or five times, are
like so many pickerel, which strike at every hook.”

“This is very much my case. Now, on the river—
of course you know where the river is?”

“Certain,” said the commodore; “it is at the foot
of the lake.”

“My dear commodore, when we say `the river,'

we always mean the Connecticut; and I am surprised
a man of your sagacity should require to be told this.
There are people on the river who contend that a ship
should heave-to of a Sunday. They did talk of getting
up an Anti-Sunday-Sailing-Society, but the ship-masters
were too many for them, since they threatened
to start a society to put down the growing of inyens,
(the captain would sometimes use this pronunciation)
except of week-days. Well, I started in life, on the platform
tack, in the way of religion, and I believe I shall
stand on the same course till orders come to `cast anchor,'
as you call it. With you, I hold out for faith, as
the one thing needful. Pray, my good friend, what
are your real sentiments concerning `Old Hickory.'

“Tough, sir;—Tough as a day in February on this
lake. All fins, and gills, and bones.”

“That is the justest character I have yet heard of
the old gentleman; and then it says so much in a few
words; no category about it. I hope the punch is to
your liking?”

On this hint the old fisherman raised the bowl a
second time to his lips, and renewed the agreeable
duty of letting its contents flow down his throat, in a
pleasant stream. This time, he took aim at a gull that
was sailing over his head, only relinquishing the draught
as the bird settled into the water. The `general' was
more particular; for selecting a stationary object, in
the top of an oak, that grew on the mountain near
him, he studied it with an admirable abstruseness of
attention, until the last drop was drained. As soon as
this startling fact was mentioned, however, both the
convives set about repairing the accident, by squeezing
lemons, sweetening water, and mixing liquors, secundem
artem. At the same time, each lighted a cigar,
and the conversation, for some time, was carried on
between their teeth.

“We have been so frank with each other to-day, my
excellent commodore,” said Captain Truck, “that did

I know your true sentiments concerning Temperance
Societies, I should look on your inmost soul as a part
of myself. By these free communications men get
really to know each other.”

“If liquor is not made to be drunk, for what is it
made? Any one may see that this lake was made for
skiffs and fishing; it has a length, breadth, and depth,
suited to such purposes. Now, here is liquor distilled,
bottled, and corked, and I ask if all does not show that
it was made to be drunk. I dare say your temperance
men are ingenious, but let them answer that if they
can.”

“I wish, from my heart, my dear sir, we had known
each other fifty years since. That would have brought
you acquainted with salt-water, and left nothing to be
desired in your character. We think alike, I believe,
in every thing but on the virtues of fresh-water. If
these temperance people had their way, we should
all be turned into so many Turks, who never taste
wine, and yet marry a dozen wives.”

“One of the great merits of fresh-water, general, is
what I call its mixable quality.”

“There would be an end to Saturday nights, too,
which are the seamen's tea-parties.”

“I question if many of them fish in the rain, from
sunrise to sunset.”

“Or, stand their watches in wet pee-jackets, from
sunset to sunrise. Splicing the main brace at such
times, is the very quintessence of human enjoyments.”

“If liquors were not made to be drunk,” put in the
commodore, logically, “I would again ask for what
are they made? Let the temperance men get over that
difficulty if they can.”

“Commodore, I wish you twenty more good hearty
years of fishing in this lake, which grows, each instant,
more beautiful in my eyes, as I confess does the
whole earth; and to show you that I say no more than
I think, I will clench it with a draught.”

Captain Truck now brought his right eye to bear on
the new moon, which happened to be at a convenient
height, closed the left one, and continued in that attitude
until the commodore began seriously to think he
was to get nothing besides the lemon-seeds for his
share. This apprehension, however, could only arise
from ignorance of his companion's character, than
whom a juster man, according to the notions of shipmasters,
did not live; and had one measured the punch
that was left in the bowl when this draught was ended,
he would have found that precisely one half of it was
still untouched, to a thimblefull. The commodore now
had his turn; and before he got through, the bottom of
the vessel was as much uppermost as the butt of a clubbed
firelock. When the honest fisherman took breath
after this exploit, and lowered his cup from the vault
of heaven to the surface of the earth, he caught a view
of a boat crossing the lake, coming from the Silent
Pine, to that Point on which they were enjoying so
many agreeable hallucinations on the subject of temperance.

“Yonder is the party from the Wigwam,” he said,
“and they will be just in time to become converts to
our opinions, if they have any doubts on the subjects
we have discussed. Shall we give up the ground to
them, by taking to the skiff, or do you feel disposed to
face the women?”

“Under ordinary circumstances, commodore, I
should prefer your society to all the petticoats in the
State, but there are two ladies in that party, either of
whom I would marry, any day, at a minute's warning.”

“Sir,” said the commodore with a tone of warning,
“we, who have lived bachelors so long, and are wedded
to the water, ought never to speak lightly on so
grave a subject.”

“Nor do I. Two women, one of whom is twenty,
and the other seventy—and hang me if I know which
I prefer.”

“You would soonest be rid of the last, my dear general,
and my advice is to take her.”

“Old as she is, sir, a king would have to plead hard
to get her consent. We will make them some punch,
that they may see we were mindful of them in their
absence.”

To work these worthies now went in earnest, in
order to anticipate the arrival of the party, and as the
different compounds were in the course of mingling,
the conversation did not flag. By this time both the
salt-water and the fresh-water sailor were in that condition
when men are apt to think aloud, and the commodore
had lost all his awe of his companion.

“My dear sir,” said the former, “I am a thousand
times sorry you came from that river, for, to tell
you my mind without any concealment, my only objection
to you is that you are not of the middle states.
I admit the good qualities of the Yankees, in a general
way, and yet they are the very worst neighbours that
a man can have.”

“This is a new character of them, commodore, as
they generally pass for the best, in their own eyes. I
should like to hear you explain your meaning.”

“I call him a bad neighbour who never remains
long enough in a place to love any thing but himself.
Now, sir, I have a feeling for every pebble on the shore
of this lake, a sympathy with every wave,”—here the
commodore began to twirl his hand about, with the
fingers standing apart, like so many spikes in a chevaux-de-frise—“and
each hour, as I row across it, I
find I like it better; and yet, sir, would you believe me,
I often go away of a morning to pass the day on the
water, and, on returning home at night, find half the
houses filled with new faces.”

“What becomes of the old ones?” demanded Captain
Truck; for this, it struck him, was getting the better
of him with his own weapons. “Do you mean
that the people come and go like the tides?”

“Exactly so, sir; just as it used to be with the herrings
in the Otsego, before the Susquehannah was
dammed, and is still, with the swallows.”

“Well, well, my good friend, take consolation.
You'll meet all the faces you ever saw here, one day,
in heaven.”

“Never; not a man of them will stay there, if there
be such a thing as moving. Depend on it, sir,” added
the commodore, in the simplicity of his heart, “heaven
is no place for a Yankee, if he can get farther west,
by hook or by crook. They are all too uneasy for any
steady occupation. You, who are a navigator, must
know something concerning the stars; is there such a
thing as another world, that lies west of this?”

“That can hardly be, commodore, since the points
of the compass only refer to objects on this earth.
You know, I suppose, that a man starting from this
spot, and travelling due west, would arrive, in time, at
this very point, coming in from the east; so that what
is west to us, in the heavens, on this side of the world,
is east to those on the other.”

“This I confess I did not know, general. I have
understood that what is good in one man's eyes, will
be bad in another's; but never before have I heard that
what is west to one man, lies east to another. I am
afraid, general, that there is a little of the sogdollager
bait in this?”

“Not enough, sir, to catch the merest fresh-water
gudgeon that swims. No, no; there is neither east nor
west off the earth, nor any up and down; and so we
Yankees must try and content ourselves with heaven.
Now, commodore, hand me the bowl, and we will get
it ready down to the shore, and offer the ladies our
homage. And so you have become a laker in your
religion, my dear commodore,” continued the general,
between his teeth, while he smoked and squeezed a
lemon at the same time, “and do your worshipping on
the water?”

“Altogether of late, and more especially since my
dream.”

“Dream! My dear sir, I should think you altogether
too innocent a man to dream.”

“The best of us have our failings, general. I do
sometimes dream, I own, as well as the greatest sinner
of them all.”

“And of what did you dream—the sogdollager?”

“I dreamt of death.”

“Of slipping the cable!” cried the general, looking
up suddenly. “Well, what was the drift?”

“Why, sir, having no wings, I went down below,
and soon found myself in the presence of the old gentleman
himself.”

“That was pleasant—had he a tail? I have always
been curious to know whether he really has a tail or
not.”

“I saw none, sir, but then we stood face to face, like
gentlemen, and I cannot describe what I did not see.”

“Was he glad to see you, commodore?”

“Why, sir, he was civilly spoken, but his occupation
prevented many compliments.”

“Occupation!”

“Certainly, sir; he was cutting out shoes, for his
imps to travel about in, in order to stir up mischief.”

“And did he set you to work?—This is a sort of
State-Prison affair, after all!”

“No sir, he was too much of a gentleman to set me
at making shoes as soon as I arrived. He first inquired
what part of the country I was from, and when I told
him, he was curious to know what most of the people
were about in our neighbourhood.”

“You told him, of course, commodore?”

“Certainly, sir, I told him their chief occupation
was quarrelling about religion; making saints of themselves,
and sinners of their neighbours. `Hollo!' says
the Devil, calling out to one of his imps, `boy, run and
catch my horse—I must be off, and have a finger in

that pie. What denominations have you in that quarter,
commodore?' So I told him, general, that we
had Baptists, and Quakers, and Universalists, and
Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, old-lights, new-lights,
and blue-lights; and Methodists—. `Stop,' said the
Devil, `that's enough; you imp, be nimble with that
horse.—Let me see, commodore, what part of the
country did you say you came from?' I told him the
name more distinctly this time —”

“The very spot?”

“Town and county.”

“And what did the Devil say to that?”

“He called out to the imp, again—`Hollo, you boy,
never mind that horse; these people will all be here
before I can get there.' ”

Here the commodore and the general began to
laugh, until the arches of the forest rang with their
merriment. Three times they stopped, and as often
did they return to their glee, until, the punch being
ready, each took a fresh draught, in order to ascertain
if it were fit to be offered to the ladies.