Part 13 (1/2)
So Israel departed; better clothed, but no wiser than before.
What to do next? He reckoned up his money, and concluded he had plenty to carry him back to Doctor Franklin in Paris. Accordingly, taking a turn to avoid the two nearest villages, he directed his steps towards London, where, again taking the post-coach for Dover, he arrived on the channel sh.o.r.e just in time to learn that the very coach in which he rode brought the news to the authorities there that all intercourse between the two nations was indefinitely suspended. The characteristic taciturnity and formal stolidity of his fellow-travellers--all Englishmen, mutually unacquainted with each other, and occupying different positions in life--having prevented his sooner hearing the tidings.
Here was another acc.u.mulation of misfortunes. All visions but those of eventual imprisonment or starvation vanished from before the present realities of poor Israel Potter. The Brentford gentleman had flattered him with the prospect of receiving something very handsome for his services as courier. That hope was no more. Doctor Franklin had promised him his good offices in procuring him a pa.s.sage home to America. Quite out of the question now. The sage had likewise intimated that he might possibly see him some way remunerated for his sufferings in his country's cause. An idea no longer to be harbored. Then Israel recalled the mild man of wisdom's words--”At the prospect of pleasure never be elated; but without depression respect the omens of ill.” But he found it as difficult now to comply, in all respects, with the last section of the maxim, as before he had with the first.
While standing wrapped in afflictive reflections on the sh.o.r.e, gazing towards the unattainable coast of France, a pleasant-looking cousinly stranger, in seamen's dress, accosted him, and, after some pleasant conversation, very civilly invited him up a lane into a house of rather secret entertainment. Pleased to be befriended in this his strait, Israel yet looked inquisitively upon the man, not completely satisfied with his good intentions. But the other, with good-humored violence, hurried him up the lane into the inn, when, calling for some spirits, he and Israel very affectionately drank to each other's better health and prosperity.
”Take another gla.s.s,” said the stranger, affably.
Israel, to drown his heavy-heartedness, complied. The liquor began to take effect.
”Ever at sea?” said the stranger, lightly.
”Oh, yes; been a whaling.”
”Ah!” said the other, ”happy to hear that, I a.s.sure you. Jim! Bill!” And beckoning very quietly to two brawny fellows, in a trice Israel found himself kidnapped into the naval service of the magnanimous old gentleman of Kew Gardens--his Royal Majesty, George III.
”Hands off!” said Israel, fiercely, as the two men pinioned him.
”Reglar game-c.o.c.k,” said the cousinly-looking man. ”I must get three guineas for cribbing him. Pleasant voyage to ye, my friend,” and, leaving Israel a prisoner, the crimp, b.u.t.toning his coat, sauntered leisurely out of the inn.
”I'm no Englishman,” roared Israel, in a foam.
”Oh! that's the old story,” grinned his jailers. ”Come along. There's no Englishman in the English fleet. All foreigners. You may take their own word for it.”
To be short, in less than a week Israel found himself at Portsmouth, and, ere long, a foretopman in his Majesty's s.h.i.+p of the line, ”Unprincipled,” scudding before the wind down channel, in company with the ”Undaunted,” and the ”Unconquerable;” all three haughty Dons bound to the East Indian waters as reinforcements to the fleet of Sir Edward Hughs.
And now, we might shortly have to record our adventurer's part in the famous engagement off the coast of Coromandel, between Admiral Suffrien's fleet and the English squadron, were it not that fate s.n.a.t.c.hed him on the threshold of events, and, turning him short round whither he had come, sent him back congenially to war against England; instead of on her behalf. Thus repeatedly and rapidly were the fortunes of our wanderer planted, torn up, transplanted, and dropped again, hither and thither, according as the Supreme Disposer of sailors and soldiers saw fit to appoint.
CHAPTER XVI.
IN WHICH ISRAEL IS SAILOR UNDER TWO FLAGS, AND IN THREE s.h.i.+PS, AND ALL IN ONE NIGHT.
As running down channel at evening, Israel walked the crowded main-deck of the seventy-four, continually brushed by a thousand hurrying wayfarers, as if he were in some great street in London, jammed with artisans, just returning from their day's labor, novel and painful emotions were his. He found himself dropped into the naval mob without one friend; nay, among enemies, since his country's enemies were his own, and against the kith and kin of these very beings around him, he himself had once lifted a fatal hand. The martial bustle of a great man-of-war, on her first day out of port, was indescribably jarring to his present mood. Those sounds of the human mult.i.tude disturbing the solemn natural solitudes of the sea, mysteriously afflicted him. He murmured against that untowardness which, after condemning him to long sorrows on the land, now pursued him with added griefs on the deep. Why should a patriot, leaping for the chance again to attack the oppressor, as at Bunker Hill, now be kidnapped to fight that oppressor's battles on the endless drifts of the Bunker Hills of the billows? But like many other repiners, Israel was perhaps a little premature with upbraidings like these.
Plying on between Scilly and Cape Clear, the Unprincipled--which vessel somewhat outsailed her consorts--fell in, just before dusk, with a large revenue cutter close to, and showing signals of distress. At the moment, no other sail was in sight.
Cursing the necessity of pausing with a strong fair wind at a juncture like this, the officer-of-the-deck shortened sail, and hove to; hailing the cutter, to know what was the matter. As he hailed the small craft from the lofty p.o.o.p of the bristling seventy-four, this lieutenant seemed standing on the top of Gibraltar, talking to some lowland peasant in a hut. The reply was, that in a sudden flaw of wind, which came nigh capsizing them, not an hour since, the cutter had lost all four foremost men by the violent jibing of a boom. She wanted help to get back to port.
”You shall have one man,” said the officer-of-the-deck, morosely.
”Let him be a good one then, for heaven's sake,” said he in the cutter; ”I ought to have at least two.”
During this talk, Israel's curiosity had prompted him to dart up the ladder from the main-deck, and stand right in the gangway above, looking out on the strange craft. Meantime the order had been given to drop a boat. Thinking this a favorable chance, he stationed himself so that he should be the foremost to spring into the boat; though crowds of English sailors, eager as himself for the same opportunity to escape from foreign service, clung to the chains of the as yet imperfectly disciplined man-of-war. As the two men who had been lowered in the boat hooked her, when afloat, along to the gangway, Israel dropped like a comet into the stern-sheets, stumbled forward, and seized an oar. In a moment more, all the oarsmen were in their places, and with a few strokes the boat lay alongside the cutter.
”Take which of them you please,” said the lieutenant in command, addressing the officer in the revenue-cutter, and motioning with his hand to his boat's crew, as if they were a parcel of carca.s.ses of mutton, of which the first pick was offered to some customer. ”Quick and choose. Sit down, men”--to the sailors. ”Oh, you are in a great hurry to get rid of the king's service, ain't you? Brave chaps indeed!--Have you chosen your man?”
All this while the ten faces of the anxious oarsmen looked with mute longings and appealings towards the officer of the cutter; every face turned at the same angle, as if managed by one machine. And so they were. One motive.