Part 31 (2/2)
If I am to command this craft, it must be done, if you please, without holding any councils of war with the cook and cabin-boy. A s.h.i.+p-master is a s.h.i.+p-master, and he must have an opinion of his own, even if it be a wrong one. I suppose you know service well enough to understand that it is better in a commander to go wrong than to go nowhere. At all events, the Lord High Admiral couldn't command a yawl with dignity, if he consulted the c.o.c.kswain every time he wished to go ash.o.r.e. No sir, if I sink, I sink! but, d---me, I'll go down s.h.i.+p-shape and with dignity.”
”But, brother Cap, I have no wish to go down anywhere, unless it be to the station among the Thousand Islands whither we are bound.”
”Well, well, Sergeant, rather than ask advice--that is, direct, barefaced advice--of a foremast hand, or any other than a quarter-deck officer, I would go round to the whole thousand, and examine them one by one until we got the right haven. But there is such a thing as coming at an opinion without manifesting ignorance, and I will manage to rouse all there is out of these hands, and make them think all the while that I am cramming them with my own experience! We are sometimes obliged to use the gla.s.s at sea when there is nothing in sight, or to heave the lead long before we strike soundings. When a youngster, sailed two v'y'ges with a man who navigated his s.h.i.+p pretty much by the latter sort of information, which sometimes answers.”
”I know we are steering in the right direction at present,” returned the Sergeant; ”but in the course of a few hours we shall be up with a headland, where we must feel our way with more caution.”
”Leave me to pump the man at the wheel, brother, and you shall see that I will make him suck in a very few minutes.”
Cap and the Sergeant now walked aft, until they stood by the sailor who was at the helm, Cap maintaining an air of security and tranquillity, like one who was entirely confident of his own powers.
”This is a wholesome air, my lad,” Cap observed, in the manner that a superior on board a vessel sometimes condescends to use to a favored inferior. ”Of course you have it in this fas.h.i.+on off the land every night?”
”At this season of the year, sir,” the man returned, touching his hat, out of respect, to his new commander and Sergeant Dunham's connection.
”The same thing, I take it, among the Thousand Islands? The wind will stand, of course, though we shall then have land on every side of us.”
”When we get farther east, sir, the wind will probably s.h.i.+ft, for there can then be no particular land-breeze.”
”Ay, ay; so much for your fresh water! It has always some trick that is opposed to nature. Now, down among the West India Islands, one is just as certain of having a land-breeze as he is of having a sea-breeze. In that respect there is no difference, though it's quite in rule it should be different up here on this bit of fresh water. Of course, my lad, you know all about these said Thousand Islands?”
”Lord bless you, Master Cap, n.o.body knows all about them or anything about them. They are a puzzle to the oldest sailor on the lake, and we don't pretend to know even their names. For that matter, most of them have no more names than a child that dies before it is christened.”
”Are you a Roman Catholic?” demanded the Sergeant sharply.
”No, sir, nor anything else. I'm a generalizer about religion, never troubling that which don't trouble me.”
”Hum! a generalizer; that is, no doubt, one of the new sects that afflict the country,” muttered Mr. Dunham, whose grandfather had been a New Jersey Quaker, his father a Presbyterian, and who had joined the Church of England himself after he entered the army.
”I take it, John--” resumed Cap. ”Your name is Jack, I believe?”
”No, sir; I am called Robert.”
”Ay, Robert, it's very much the same thing, Jack or Bob; we use the two indifferently. I say, Bob, it's good holding ground, is it, down at this same station for which we are bound?”
”Bless you, sir! I know no more about it than one of the Mohawks, or a soldier of the 55th.”
”Did you never anchor there?”
”Never, sir. Master Eau-douce always makes fast to the sh.o.r.e.”
”But in running in for the town, you kept the lead going, out of question, and must have tallowed as usual.”
”Tallow!--and town, too! Bless your heart, Master Cap! there is no more town than there is on your chin, and not half as much tallow!”
The Sergeant smiled grimly, but his brother-in-law did not detect this proof of humor.
<script>