An Old Sailor's Yarns Part 10

The appointed day at length arrived; but the destinies, who had hitherto spun the thread of the two lovers' fate as smooth and even as a whale-line yarn, now began to fill it full of _kinks_. Well did the ancients represent them as three haggard, blear-eyed, wrinkled, spiteful, old maids, who would not allow any poor mortal to live or die comfortably, and who took a malicious pleasure in disturbing "the course of true love." The inexorable Atropos brandished her scissors, and at one snip severed the thread asunder.

Daring the night there had been a tremendous thunder-squall, and the morning showed huge "double-headed" clouds, mustering in different parts of the horizon, and, apparently, waiting some signal to bid them commence operations; others, dark and suspicious looking, but of a less dense consistence, were seen scampering across the firmament in all directions, like aids-de-camp before a general engagement; the land-breeze had been interrupted by the night-squall, and the wind, what little there was, blew from every point of the compa.s.s but the usual one; the s.h.a.gs, that tenanted the top of Pedro Blanco, seemed unusually busy, as if antic.i.p.ating a change of weather; and, in short, every thing announced that the delightful, salubrious, dry season had come to an end, and the empire of continual rain, and drizzle, and cloud, and mud, and putrid fevers, and rheumatism, and every thing disagreeable, had commenced. Still the day was delightful after ten o'clock, and the weather as clear as ever.

Morton had seen these indications of the approach of wet weather with no small anxiety; he knew full well that the governor and his family would pa.s.s the rainy season at Tepic, a city about ninety miles from the coast, or at some of the other large towns, in the more elevated and healthy regions inland. With Captain Hazard's permission, he hastened to the town, and to Juanita's house, but Isabella was not to be seen. After waiting for some time, a little girl brought him a short note, simply saying that she would see him in the evening, but could not before. With this promise he was obliged to content himself, and rode slowly back to the Porte. He was punctually on sh.o.r.e again at sunset, and once more hastened to town, having hired another horse, and directed his boat's crew not to go away from the quay. Having secured his horses at a certain place near the zig-zag descent towards the harbor already mentioned, he pa.s.sed into the plaza, and was struck with consternation and despair, at seeing a.s.sembled before Don Gaspar's door, horses and mules in abundance, caparisoned for a journey. In fact, there was indisputable proof that the family were, in military parlance, on the route.

He hastened to the good dame Juanita's, and, in a few minutes, Isabella entered the room, and, throwing off, in her distress, all unnecessary reserve, threw herself weeping into his arms.

"All is over, dear Charles, all is lost--I set out to-night for Tepic, and we shall never meet again but in heaven."

"All is _not_ lost, my own Isabella; every thing is in readiness--fly then with me--while your family are in confusion you will not immediately be missed, and, before an hour pa.s.ses, you shall be safe on board."

"No, no; I dare not, I cannot."

To all his entreaties she seemed deaf, positively refusing to consent to escape with him; but whether from fear of being overtaken, or from maidenly timidity, it would be, perhaps, difficult to decide. At last, Morton, who was nearly beside himself with disappointment and vexation, relapsed into a short and stupified silence.

"Isabella," said he, at length, and with composure that startled her, "reflect for one moment upon your situation; you know your uncle's temper; you know he is not a man that will easily give up any of his plans--this is your only chance for escape from the fate you dread; do not then reject it."

She only answered with tears, and continued to repeat, as if mechanically, "I dare not; no, no, I cannot." Morton was silent a few moments, when a sudden ray of hope enlivened his gloomy reverie.

"Hear me, dearest; there is one, and only one, chance left yet. If your uncle urges you to marry, entreat him for one year's delay. Before that time expires, I trust to be here again. Vessels are constantly fitting out from the United States to this part of the world--if such a thing can be effected by mere human agency, I will be on board one of them, if not, I both can and will purchase and fit out a vessel myself. Promise me then, my love, that you will use all possible means to defer any matrimonial schemes your uncle may form for at least two years. But I trust, if my life and health are spared, that, before half that time has expired, I shall be here, to claim your first promise."

"I will, I will, dear Charles; I will not deceive you. I know my uncle loves me, and will grant me that delay. And now we must part; I shall be missed, and I dare not stay a moment longer. For heaven's sake, keep out of sight of--you can guess who I mean."

A parting scene between two lovers had always better be left to the imagination of the readers; because the author, unless he is gifted with the power of a Scott, a James, an Edgeworth, or a Sedgwick, is sure to disappoint the reader, and himself besides. My reader must therefore draw the picture, and color it, to his or her own peculiar taste, and fancy an interchange of kisses, locks of hair, rings, crooked sixpences, garters, or any thing else that const.i.tutes circulating medium or _stock_ in Love's exchange market.

The Orion had dropped out to the roads, and, with her anchor a short stay-peak, her topsails sheeted home but not hoisted, and her whole crew on deck, waited only for her first officer. Between nine and ten o'clock the sound of approaching oars was heard, but in a moment the practised ears of Captain Hazard and his second officer perceived that the advancing boat pulled very leisurely.

"Poor Charlie is coming off empty-handed," said Coffin.

"Yes, I was afraid the bird had flown, or the enemy was alarmed. I am sorry for it from my very heart, for he will be low spirited all the pa.s.sage home."

"Well, I aint so sure about that--I've always found salt water a sartain cure for love."

"I dare say you have, Mr. Coffin; but love is like strong grog, it operates differently upon different const.i.tutions and dispositions."

"Well, I s'pose that's pretty nigh the case. A good, stiff gla.s.s of grog, in a cold, rainy night, makes me feel as bright as a new dollar for a while, but then it soon pa.s.ses off."

"I am afraid poor Morton's love is too deep-seated to be worked off by salt water or absence. But here comes the boat--hail her, Mr. Coffin."

"Boat ahoy!"

"O-ri-on."

"Are you alone, Mr. Morton?" said the captain in a low voice, as that gentleman came over the side.

"Yes, sir, but not without hopes another time."

The two officers then descended to the cabin, and Morton explained the cause of his failure, and expressed his determination to make another attempt as soon as possible after his arrival in New England. Captain Hazard insisted upon his turning in immediately, to recover from the fatigue and anxiety he had undergone during the day, and to his remonstrances laughingly observed that he was not in a proper state of mind to be trusted with the charge of a night-watch, and that Robinson, the oldest boat-steerer, should take his place. Coffin earnestly recommended a gla.s.s of hot punch, as "composing to the nerves;" but the patient declined, though he permitted Captain Hazard to qualify a tumbler of warm wine and water with thirty drops of laudanum.

The topsails were now hoisted aloft, the topgallant-sails set, and the anchor weighed; and, with a fresh breeze off the land, the first officer sound asleep and dreaming of "the girl he left behind him," a press of sail, and the starboard watch under the charge of Mr. Coffin, spinning tough yarns on the forecastle and calculating the probable amount of their voyage, the stout Orion left the Bay of St. Blas at the rate of eleven geographical miles per hour.

[Footnote 3: Pulparia, a small shop, generally p.r.o.nounced _pulparee_.--_Diabolus Typographicus._]

CHAPTER VIII.

_Alexander._--They say he is a very man _per se_, And stands alone.

_Cressida._--So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

Charles Morton, whom we have somewhat abruptly introduced to our readers, and exhibited for two or three chapters, without much explanation, was the only surviving child of a wealthy merchant in one of the sea-ports in the southern part of Ma.s.sachusetts. He had received a liberal education, as a collegiate course of studies is at present, and in many instances most absurdly, called. Morton could, however, lay a just claim to be called liberally educated. He went to college without contemplating to pursue either of the three learned professions, but merely to acquire a more intimate acquaintance with the cla.s.sics, history, belles lettres, and mathematics, than it was then supposed he could obtain elsewhere. People begin to think differently at the present period, and have a faint sort of notion that a boy can become qualified for the every day duties of life, or for practice in the three professions, without having received a diploma from a college, exclusively controlled in all its att.i.tudes and relations by one particular sect of religion, or pa.s.sing four years of "toil and trouble"

in another university, where he is kept wallowing and smothering in the darkness of metaphysics or the more abstruse and _higher_! branches of mathematics; both sciences as utterly useless to him in any situation of life as a knowledge of the precise language that the devil tempted Eve in, and which some ecclesiastical writers have laboured to prove was High Dutch. I have been several times to different parts of the East Indies, and on more than one voyage have kept a reckoning out and home, a.s.sisted in taking lunar observations and those for determining the time and variation of the compa.s.s, and without knowing any more of algebra, fluxions, or conic sections, than a dog knows about his father.

After Morton had had the sacred A. B. "tailed on" to his name at a grand sanhedrim of solemn blacked-gowned fools, sagely called a _commencement_, because a youngster there _finishes_ his studies, he felt a strong desire to visit "the round world and them that dwell therein," and, like many New England youth, not only then but within my own observation and time, and before the signature of the august "praeses" was dry on his sheep-skin diploma, was entered as an under graduate in a college of a somewhat different description--the forecastle of a large brig bound on a trading voyage up the Mediterranean--a school not one whit inferior to old Harvard itself for morality, and one where a man, with his eyes and ears open, might acquire information fifty times more valuable than any that could be drilled into him at any learned seminary whatever--a knowledge, namely, of the world and of human nature.

This habit, if it can be called one, of exchanging the quiet of a college room for the bustle and privations of a sea-life, is not near so prevalent now as it was several years since; and yet I have known many instances, and have repeatedly met, in merchantmen and men of war, men who have received a collegiate education, and have known one case, on board of an English line-of-battle ship, the Superb, of a dissenting minister, a foretopman, who could clear away a foul topsail-clewline, or explain an obscure pa.s.sage in Scripture, with equal facility and address, and was both a smart seaman and a smart preacher:

"As some rats, of amphibious nature, Are either for the land or water."

It is a pity our professional men do not travel more, especially clergymen, who, though generally learned men, are not deep in the knowledge of their own species. Of course I do not apply this remark to the Methodist clergy; as their vagabond life makes them but too well acquainted with the weaknesses of one portion of the human race, while the alarming and arbitrary dominion they thereby acquire over the minds, bodies, and estates of both s.e.xes, is beautifully ill.u.s.trated in the trial, not many years since, of a reverend gentleman of oil of tansy and hay-stack celebrity.

Morton's first voyage was rather a long one, but it introduced him to the most interesting portion of the world, the nations bordering upon the Mediterranean, while his knowledge of the Latin language was of no small advantage to him in acquiring a knowledge of the Spanish and Italian--an advantage that he certainly did not think of, when he was plodding through Virgil and Horace, Cicero and Tacitus. He returned from his first voyage a thorough practical seaman, and more than tolerably acquainted with European languages. He rose in his profession, and might at the time we introduced him have commanded a ship; but a sudden desire to go at least one whaling voyage seized him, and a whaling he accordingly went. In person Morton was above the middling height, some inches above it, in short he had attained the alt.i.tude of five feet eight inches--my own height to a fraction. Like most young men born in New England, and who choose a seafaring life, his frame had acquired a robustness and solidity, his countenance a healthy brown, his chest a depth, and his shoulders a breadth, that are each and all considered--and with justice--by the present generation, as irrefragable proofs and marks of vulgarity. But folks thought otherwise thirty years since, and, however incredible it may appear, there are actually now in existence a great many painters, sculptors, anatomists, and perhaps as many as a dozen women, who persist in thinking that a human being looks much better as G.o.d made him, after his own image, than as the tailor makes him, after no image in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. Forty years since, ladies did not by tight lacing crush and obliterate all symptoms of fulness in the front of the bust, nor did gentlemen stuff and pad their clothes till they resemble so many wet-nurses in coats and breeches.

It was the established rule with novel-writers, and that until very lately, to represent their heroes as tall grenadier-looking fellows, never _under_ six feet, and as much above as they dared to go, and keep within credible bounds. "Tall and slightly but elegantly formed," was the only approved recipe for making a hero. So that a black snake walking erect upon his tail, provided he had two of them, or an old-fashioned pair of kitchen tongs, with a face hammered out upon the k.n.o.b by the blacksmith, would convey a tolerably correct idea of the proportions of the Beverleys, and Mortimers, and Hargraves, of a certain cla.s.s of novels. Sir Walter Scott, Mr. James, and most of the best writers, have disbanded this formidable regiment of thread-paper giants, and we now see courage, manly beauty, talents, wit, and eloquence, reduced to a peace-establishment size, instead of those long-splice scoundrels, that used to go striding about our imaginations, like Jack the giant-killer in his seven-league boots, kicking the shins and treading on the toes of every common sized idea that came in their way.

It was also considered indispensably necessary, that the heroine should be "as long as the moral law," and accordingly we heard of nothing but "her tall and graceful figure," "her majestic and commanding height,"

&c. &c. Let those who prefer tall women take them; for my part, I wish to have nothing to say to such Anakim in petticoats: conceive the embarra.s.sment and confusion of a common sized bridegroom compelled, before a room-full of company, to request his t.i.tan of a bride to be seated, that he might greet her with the holy kiss of wedded love! On the other hand, it was by no means unusual to represent the heroine as a mere pigmy; so that the lovers whose destinies we were interested in, might be represented by the following lines from an old sea-song, which, for the benefit of musical readers I beg leave to observe, is generally "said or sung" to the tune of "The Bold Dragoons:"

"He looked like a pole-topgallant-mast, She like a holy-stone."

Thank Heaven! the taste for this species of writing has "had its day,"

and we have something better in the place of it. Bulwer has indeed tried very hard to compel the public to admire murderers and highwaymen, and our own dear, darling Cooper, the American Walter Scott, has held up for admiration and imitation sundry cut-throats, hangmen, pirates, thieves, squatters, and other scoundrels of different degrees, showing his partiality and fellow-feeling for the kennel; and, if he had not at last, as we say at sea, "blown his blast, and given the devil his horn,"

would have managed to set the whole female portion of the romance-reading community to whimpering and blowing their noses over the sorrows of Tardee and Gibbs--the wholesale pirates and murderers, the loves of Mina--the poisoner, the _trials_ of Malbone Briggs--the counterfeiter, or the buffetings in the flesh that Satan was permitted to bestow upon the old Adam of that G.o.d-fearing saint, Ephraim K. Avery.

The hero of a novel of the by-gone cla.s.s was always and _ex officio_ a duellist; and though the best English writers err against morality and religion in following this absurd track, it may be urged in extenuation of their offence, that duelling is generally considered in Europe as part of a gentleman's education and accomplishments, and in this country to refuse a challenge brands a man with everlasting infamy, though the crime is held in the most profound speculative abhorrence, and every state has a whole host of theoretical punishments, never inflicted, for the violation of its equally theoretical laws, that are daily evaded, outquibbled, or broken, with impunity.

Morton's countenance we have taken the liberty to describe elsewhere.

His disposition was naturally cheerful and mild, his temper even, and not easily provoked. Although somewhat inclined to taciturnity, yet when drawn out to converse upon any subject he was acquainted with, he was naturally fluent, and in his language pure and correct. He was a universal favorite with the youth of both s.e.xes in his native town, and, during the intervals between his voyages, was always in demand when a Thanksgiving ball was contemplated, or a sleigh-ride, or a "frolic," as all such parties of pleasure were and still are called in New England.

At sea he was always beloved, by both officers and seamen, for his nautical skill and good-nature. Notwithstanding the confinement that his duties made unavoidable, he had managed to make himself acquainted with men and manners, and, during the many leisure hours that those engaged in the whale-fishery always find, he had amused himself with drawing--for which he possessed a natural talent, reading, and keeping a sort of memorandum of different occurrences and his reflections upon the habits of the different nations he visited,--and was, in short, one of those somewhat rare but still existing prodigies, a well educated, well informed gentleman with a hard hand and short jacket, many individuals of which nearly extinct species of animals I have had the singular good fortune to fall in with during my voyage through life.

CHAPTER IX.