University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

Every thing at last being in readiness, the pilot came on
board, and all hands were called to up anchor. While I
worked at my bar, I could not help observing how haggard
the men looked, and how much they suffered from this violent
exercise, after the terrific dissipation in which they had
been indulging ashore. But I soon learnt that sailors
breathe nothing about such things, but strive their best to
appear all alive and hearty, though it comes very hard for
many of them.

The anchor being secured, a steam tug-boat with a
strong name, the Hercules, took hold of us; and away we
went past the long line of shipping, and wharves, and warehouses;
and rounded the green south point of the island
where the Battery is, and passed Governor's Island, and
pointed right out for the Narrows.

My heart was like lead, and I felt bad enough, Heaven
knows; but then, there was plenty of work to be done,
which kept my thoughts from becoming too much for me.

And I tried to think all the time, that I was going to
England, and that, before many months, I should have actually
been there and home again, telling my adventures to
my brothers and sisters; and with what delight they would
listen, and how they would look up to me then, and reverence
my sayings; and how that even my elder brother
would be forced to treat me with great consideration, as
having crossed the Atlantic Ocean, which he had never
done, and there was no probability he ever would.

With such thoughts as these I endeavored to shake off

my heavy-heartedness; but it would not do at all; for this
was only the first day of the voyage, and many weeks, nay,
several whole months must elapse before the voyage was
ended; and who could tell what might happen to me; for
when I looked up at the high, giddy masts, and thought
how often I must be going up and down them, I thought
sure enough that some luckless day or other, I would certainly
fall overboard and be drowned. And then, I thought
of lying down at the bottom of the sea, stark alone, with
the great waves rolling over me, and no one in the wide
world knowing that I was there. And I thought how
much better and sweeter it must be, to be buried under the
pleasant hedge that bounded the sunny south side of our
village grave-yard, where every Sunday I had used to walk
after church in the afternoon; and I almost wished I was
there now; yes, dead and buried in that church-yard. All
the time my eyes were filled with tears, and I kept holding
my breath, to choke down the sobs, for indeed I could not
help feeling as I did, and no doubt any boy in the world
would have felt just as I did then.

As the steamer carried us further and further down the
bay, and we passed ships lying at anchor, with men gazing
at us and waving their hats; and small boats with ladies
in them waving their handkerchiefs; and passed the green
shore of Staten Island, and caught sight of so many beautiful
cottages all overrun with vines, and planted on the
beautiful fresh mossy hill-sides; oh! then I would have
given any thing if instead of sailing out of the bay, we
were only coming into it; if we had crossed the ocean and
returned, gone over and come back; and my heart leaped
up in me like something alive when I thought of really entering
that bay at the end of the voyage. But that was so
far distant, that it seemed it could never be. No, never,
never more would I see New York again.

And what shocked me more than any thing else, was to
hear some of the sailors, while they were at work coiling

away the hawsers, talking about the boarding-houses they
were going to, when they came back; and how that some
friends of theirs had promised to be on the wharf when the
ship returned, to take them and their chests right up to
Franklin-square where they lived; and how that they
would have a good dinner ready, and plenty of cigars and
spirits out on the balcony. I say this kind of talking
shocked me, for they did not seem to consider, as I did, that
before any thing like that could happen, we must cross the
great Atlantic Ocean, cross over from America to Europe
and back again, many thousand miles of foaming ocean.

At that time I did not know what to make of these sailors;
but this much I thought, that when they were boys, they
could never have gone to the Sunday School; for they swore
so, it made my ears tingle, and used words that I never could
hear without a dreadful loathing.

And are these the men, I thought to myself, that I must
live with so long? these the men I am to eat with, and
sleep with all the time? And besides, I now began to see,
that they were not going to be very kind to me; but I will
tell all about that when the proper time comes.

Now you must not think, that because all these things
were passing through my mind, that I had nothing to do
but sit still and think; no, no, I was hard at work: for as
long as the steamer had hold of us, we were very busy coiling
away ropes and cables, and putting the decks in order; which
were littered all over with odds and ends of things that had
to be put away.

At last we got as far as the Narrows, which every body
knows is the entrance to New York Harbor from sea; and
it may well be called the Narrows, for when you go in or
out, it seems like going in or out of a door-way; and when
you go out of these Narrows on a long voyage like this of
mine, it seems like going out into the broad highway, where
not a soul is to be seen. For far away and away, stretches
the great Atlantic Ocean; and all you can see beyond is

where the sky comes down to the water. It looks lonely
and desolate enough, and I could hardly believe, as I gazed
around me, that there could be any land beyond, or any
place like Europe or England or Liverpool in the great
wide world. It seemed too strange, and wonderful, and altogether
incredible, that there could really be cities and towns
and villages and green fields and hedges and farm-yards
and orchards, away over that wide blank of sea, and away
beyond the place where the sky came down to the water.
And to think of steering right out among those waves, and
leaving the bright land behind, and the dark night coming
on, too, seemed wild and foolhardy; and I looked with a
sort of fear at the sailors standing by me, who could be so
thoughtless at such a time. But then I remembered, how
many times my own father had said he had crossed the
ocean; and I had never dreamed of such a thing as doubting
him; for I always thought him a marvelous being, infinitely
purer and greater than I was, who could not by any
possibility do wrong, or say an untruth. Yet now, how
could I credit it, that he, my own father, whom I so well
remembered, had ever sailed out of these Narrows, and sailed
right through the sky and water line, and gone to England,
and France, Liverpool, and Marseilles. It was too wonderful
to believe.

Now, on the right hand side of the Narrows as you go
out, the land is quite high; and on the top of a fine cliff is
a great castle or fort, all in ruins, and with the trees growing
round it. It was built by Governor Tompkins in the
time of the last war with England, but was never used, I
believe, and so they left it to decay. I had visited the place
once when we lived in New York, as long ago almost as I
could remember, with my father, and an uncle of mine, an
old sea-captain, with white hair, who used to sail to a place
called Archangel in Russia, and who used to tell me that
he was with Captain Langsdorff, when Captain Langsdorff
crossed over by land from the sea of Okotsk in Asia to St.

Petersburgh, drawn by large dogs in a sled. I mention this
of my uncle, because he was the very first sea-captain I had
ever seen, and his white hair and fine handsome florid face
made so strong an impression upon me, that I have never
forgotten him, though I only saw him during this one visit
of his to New York, for he was lost in the White Sea some
years after.

But I meant to speak about the fort. It was a beautiful
place, as I remembered it, and very wonderful and romantic,
too, as it appeared to me, when I went there with my uncle.
On the side away from the water was a green grove of trees,
very thick and shady; and through this grove, in a sort of
twilight you came to an arch in the wall of the fort, dark
as night; and going in, you groped about in long vaults,
twisting and turning on every side, till at last you caught a
peep of green grass and sunlight, and all at once came out
in an open space in the middle of the castle. And there
you would see cows quietly grazing, or ruminating under the
shade of young trees, and perhaps a calf frisking about, and
trying to catch its own tail; and sheep clambering among
the mossy ruins, and cropping the little tufts of grass sprouting
out of the sides of the embrasures for cannon. And once
I saw a black goat with a long beard, and crumpled horns,
standing with his fore-feet lifted high up on the topmost parapet,
and looking to sea, as if he were watching for a ship
that was bringing over his cousin. I can see him even now,
and though I have changed since then, the black goat looks
just the same as ever; and so I suppose he would, if I live
to be as old as Methusaleh, and have as great a memory as
he must have had. Yes, the fort was a beautiful, quiet,
charming spot. I should like to build a little cottage in the
middle of it, and live there all my life. It was noon-day
when I was there, in the month of June, and there was
little wind to stir the trees, and every thing looked as if it
was waiting for something, and the sky overhead was blue
as my mother's eye, and I was so glad and happy then.

But I must not think of those delightful days, before my
father became a bankrupt, and died, and we removed from
the city; for when I think of those days, something rises
up in my throat and almost strangles me.

Now, as we sailed through the Narrows, I caught sight
of that beautiful fort on the cliff, and could not help contrasting
my situation now, with what it was when with my
father and uncle I went there so long ago. Then I never
thought of working for my living, and never knew that there
were hard hearts in the world; and knew so little of money,
that when I bought a stick of candy, and laid down a sixpence,
I thought the confectioner returned five cents, only
that I might have money to buy something else, and not because
the pennies were my change, and therefore mine by
good rights. How different my idea of money now!

Then I was a schoolboy, and thought of going to college
in time; and had vague thoughts of becoming a great orator
like Patrick Henry, whose speeches I used to speak on the
stage; but now, I was a poor friendless boy, far away from
my home, and voluntarily in the way of becoming a miserable
sailor for life. And what made it more bitter to me,
was to think of how well off were my cousins, who were
happy and rich, and lived at home with my uncles and aunts,
with no thought of going to sea for a living. I tried to
think that it was all a dream, that I was not where I was,
not on board of a ship, but that I was at home again in the
city, with my father alive, and my mother bright and happy
as she used to be. But it would not do. I was indeed
where I was, and here was the ship, and there was the fort.
So, after casting a last look at some boys who were standing
on the parapet, gazing off to sea, I turned away heavily, and
resolved not to look at the land any more.

About sunset we got fairly “outside,” and well may it so
be called; for I felt thrust out of the world. Then the
breeze began to blow, and the sails were loosed, and hoisted;
and after a while, the steamboat left us, and for the first

time I felt the ship roll, a strange feeling enough, as if it
were a great barrel in the water. Shortly after, I observed
a swift little schooner running across our bows, and re-crossing
again and again; and while I was wondering what she
could be, she suddenly lowered her sails, and two men took
hold of a little boat on her deck, and launched it overboard
as if it had been a chip. Then I noticed that our pilot, a
red-faced man in a rough blue coat, who to my astonishment
had all this time been giving orders instead of the
captain; I noticed that he began to button up his coat to
the throat, like a prudent person about leaving a house at
night in a lonely square, to go home; and he left the giving
orders to the chief mate, and stood apart talking with the
captain, and put his hand into his pocket, and gave him
some newspapers.

And in a few minutes, when we had stopped our headway,
and allowed the little boat to come alongside, he shook
hands with the captain and officers and bade them good-by,
without saying a syllable of farewell to me and the sailors;
and so he went laughing over the side, and got into the boat,
and they pulled him off to the schooner, and then the schooner
made sail and glided under our stern, her men standing up
and waving their hats, and cheering; and that was the last
we saw of America.