Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase Part 35

"Indeed, no. This would be to discredit my own tastes and knowledge. In a hundred things, I think London quite the finest town of Christendom. It is not Rome, certainly, and were it in ruins fifteen centuries, I question if people would flock to the banks of the Thames to dream away existence among its crumbling walls; but, in conveniences, beauty of verdure, a mixture of park-like scenery and architecture, and in magnificence of a certain sort, one would hardly know where to go to find the equal of London."

"You say nothing of its society, Miss Effingham?"

"It would be presuming, in a girl of my limited experience to speak of this. I hear so much of the good sense of the nation, that I dare not say aught against its society, and it would be affectation for me to pretend to commend it; but as for your females, judging by my own poor means, they strike me as being singularly well cultivated and accomplished; and yet---"

"Go on, I entreat you. Recollect we have solemnly decided in a general congress of states to be cosmopolites, until safe within Sandy Hook, and that _la franchise_ is the _mot d'ordre_."

"Well, then, I should not certainly describe you English as a talking people," continued Eve, laughing. "In the way of society, you are quite as agreeable as a people, who never laugh and seldom speak, can possibly make themselves."

"_Et les jeunes Americaines_?" said Mademoiselle Viefville, laconically.

"My dear mademoiselle, your question is terrific! Mr. Blunt has informed me that _they_ actually giggle!"

"_Quelle horreur_!"

"It is bad enough, certainly; but I ascribe the report to calumny. No; if I must speak, let me have Paris for its society, and Naples for its nature. As respects New York, Mr. Blunt, I suspend my judgment."

"Whatever may be the particular merit which shall most attract your admiration in favour of the great emporium, as the grandiloquent writers term the capital of your own state, I think I can venture to predict it will be neither of those just mentioned. Of society, indeed, New York has positively none: like London, it has plenty of company, which is disciplined something like a regiment of militia composed of drafts from different brigades, and which sometimes mistakes the drum-major for the colonel."

"I had fancied you a New Yorker, until now," observed Mr. Sharp.

"And why not now? Is a man to be blind to facts as evident as the noon-day sun, because he was born here or there? If I have told you an unpleasant truth, Miss Effingham, you must accuse _la franchise_ of the offence. I believe _you_ are not a Manhattanese?"

"I am a mountaineer; having been born at my father's country residence."

"This gives me courage then, for no one here will have his filial piety shocked,"

"Not even yourself?"

"As for myself," returned Paul Blunt, "it is settled I am a cosmopolite in fact, while you are only a cosmopolite by convention. Indeed, I question if I might take the same liberties with either Paris or London, that I am about to take with palmy Manhattan. I should have little confidence in the forbearance of my auditors: Mademoiselle Viefville would hardly forgive me: were I to attempt a criticism on the first, for instance."

"_C'est impossible_! you could not, Monsieur Blunt; _vous parlez trop bien Francais_ not to love _Paris_."

"I _do_ love _Paris_, mademoiselle; and, what is more, I love _Londres_, or even _la Nouvelle Yorck_. As a cosmopolite, I claim this privilege, at least, though I can see defects in all. If you will recollect, Miss Effingham, that New York is a social bivouac, a place in which families encamp instead of troops, you will see the impossibility of its possessing a graceful, well-ordered, and cultivated society. Then the town is commercial; and no place of mere commerce can well have a reputation for its society. Such an anomaly, I believe, never existed. Whatever may be the usefulness of trade, I fancy few will contend that it is very graceful."

"Florence of old?" said Eve.

"Florence and her commerce were peculiar, and the relations of things change with circ.u.mstances. When Florence was great, trade was a monopoly, in a few hands, and so conducted as to remove the princ.i.p.als from immediate contact with its affairs. The Medici traded in spices and silks, as men traded in politics, through agents. They probably never saw their ships, or had any farther connexion with their commerce, than to direct its spirit. They were more like the legislator who enacts laws to regulate trade, than the dealer who fingers a sample, smells at a wine, or nibbles a grain. The Medici were merchants, a cla.s.s of men altogether different from the mere factors, who buy of one to sell to another, at a stated advance in price, and all of whose enterprise consists in extending the list of safe customers, and of doing what is called a 'regular business.'

Monopolies do harm on the whole, but they certainly elevate the favoured few. The Medici and the Strozzi were both princes and merchants, while those around them were princ.i.p.ally dependants. Compet.i.tion, in our day, has let in thousands to share in the benefits; and the pursuit, while it is enlarged as a whole, has suffered in its parts by division."

"You surely do not complain that a thousand are comfortable and respectable to-day, for one that was _il magnifico_ three hundred years since?"

"Certainly not. I rejoice in the change; but we must not confound names with things. If we have a thousand mere factors for one merchant, society, in the general signification of the word, is clearly a gainer; but if we had one Medici for a thousand factors, society, in its particular signfication, might also be a gainer. All I mean is, that, in lowering the pursuit, we have necessarily lowered its qualifications; in other words, every man in trade in New York, is no more a Lorenzo, than every printer's devil is a Franklin."

"Mr. Blunt cannot be an American!" cried Mr. Sharp; "for these opinions would be heresy."

"_Jamais, jamais_" joined the governess.

"You constantly forget the treaty of cosmopolitism. But a capital error is abroad concerning America on this very subject of commerce. In the way of merchandise alone, there is not a Christian maritime nation of any extent, that has a smaller portion of its population engaged in trade of this sort than the United States of America. The nation, as a nation, is agricultural, though the state of transition, in which a country in the course of rapid settlement must always exist, causes more buying and selling of real property than is usual. Apart from this peculiarity, the Americans, as a whole people, have not the common European proportions of ordinary dealers."

"This is not the prevalent opinion," said Mr. Sharp.

"It is not, and the reason is, that all American towns, or nearly all that are at all known in other countries, are purely commercial towns. The trading portion of a community is always the concentrated portion, too, and of course, in the absence of a court, of a political, or of a social capital, it has the greatest power to make itself heard and felt, until there is a direct appeal to the other cla.s.ses. The elections commonly show quite as little sympathy between the majority and the commercial cla.s.s as is consistent with the public welfare. In point of fact, America has but a very small cla.s.s of real merchants, men who are the cause and not a consequence of commerce, though she has exceeding activity in the way of ordinary traffic. The portion of her people who are engaged as factors,--for this is the true calling of the man who is a regular agent between the common producer and the common consumer,--are of _a_ high cla.s.s as factors, but not of _the_ high cla.s.s of merchants. The man who orders a piece of silk to be manufactured at Lyons, at three francs a yard, to sell it in the regular course of the season to the retailer at three francs and a half, is no more a true merchant, than the attorney, who goes through the prescribed forms of the court in his pleadings, is a barrister."

"I do not think these sentiments will be very popular at home, as Mr.

Dodge says," Eve laughingly remarked; "but when shall we reach that home!

While we are talking of these things, here are we, in an almost deserted ship, within a mile of the great Desert of Sahara! How beautiful are the stars, mademoiselle! we have never before seen a vault so studded with brilliants."

"That must be owing to the lat.i.tude," Mr. Sharp observed.

"Certainly. Can any one say in what lat.i.tude we are precisely?" As Eve asked this question, she unconsciously turned towards Mr. Blunt; for the whole party had silently come to the conclusion that he knew more of ships and navigation than all of them united.

"I believe we are not far from twenty-four, which is bringing us near the tropics, and places us quite sixteen degrees to the southward of our port.

These two affairs of the chase and of the gale have driven us fully twelve hundred miles from the course we ought to have taken."

"Fortunately, mademoiselle, there are none to feel apprehensions on our account, or, none whose interest will be so keen as to create a very lively distress. I hope, gentlemen, you are equally at ease on this score?"

This was the first time Eve had ever trusted herself to out an interrogatory that might draw from Paul Blunt any communication that would directly touch upon his connexions. She repented of the speech as soon as made, but causelessly, as it drew from the young man no answer.

Mr. Sharp observed that his friends in England could scarcely know of their situation, until his own letters would arrive to relieve their minds. As for Mademoiselle Viefville, the hard fortune which reduced her to the office of a governess, had almost left her without natural ties.

"I believe we are to have watch and ward to-night," resumed Eve, after the general pause had continued some little time. "Is it not possible for the elements to put us in the same predicament as that in which we found the poor Dane?"

"Possible, certainly, but scarcely probable," returned Mr. Blunt. "The ship is well moored, and this narrow ledge of rocks, between us and the ocean, serves admirably for a break-water. One would not like to be stranded, helpless as we are, at this moment, on a coast like this!"

"Why so particularly helpless? You allude to the absence of our crew?"

"To that, and to the fact that, I believe, we could not muster as much as a pocket-pistol to defend ourselves with, everything in the shape of fire-arms having been sent with the party in the boats."

"Might we not lie on the beach, here, for days, even weeks," inquired Mr.

Sharp, "without being discovered by the Arabs?"

"I fear not. Mariners have told me that the barbarians hover along the sh.o.r.es, especially after gales, in the hope of meeting with wrecks, and that it is surprising how soon they gain intelligence of any disaster. It is seldom there is even an opportunity to escape in a boat."

"I hope here, at least, we are safe?" cried Eve, in a little terror, and shuddering, as much in playfulness as in real alarm.

"I see no grounds of concern where we are, so long as we can keep the ship off the sh.o.r.e. The Arabs have no boats, and if they had, they would not dare to attack a vessel that floated, in one, unless aware of her being as truly helpless as we happen at this moment to be."

"This is a chilling consolation, but I shall trust in your good care, gentlemen. Mademoiselle, it is drawing near midnight, I believe."

Eve and her companion then courteously wished the two young men good night, and retired to their state-rooms; Mr. Sharp remained an hour longer with Mr. Blunt, who had undertaken to watch the first few hours, conversing with a light heart, and gaily; for, though there was a secret consciousness of rivalry between these two young men on the subject of Eve's favour, it was a generous and manly compet.i.tion, in which each did the other ample justice. They talked of their travels, their views of customs and nations, their adventures in different countries, and of the pleasure each had felt in visiting spots renowned by a.s.sociation or the arts; but not a word was hazarded by either concerning the young creature who had just left them, and whom each still saw in his mind's eye, long after her light and graceful form had disappeared. At length Mr. Sharp went below, his companion insisting on being left alone, under the penalty of remaining up himself during the second watch. From this time, for several hours, there was no other noise in the ship than the tread of the solitary watchman. At the appointed period of the night, a change took place, and he who had watched, slept; while he who had slept, watched.

Just as day dawned, however, Paul Blunt, who was in a deep sleep, felt a shake at his shoulder.

"Pardon me," cautiously whispered Mr. Sharp: "I fear we are about to have a most unpleasant interruption to our solitude."

"Heavenly powers!--Not the Arabs?"

"I fear no less: but it is still too dark to be certain of the fact. If you will rise, we can consult on the situation in which we are placed. I beg you to be quick."

Paui Blunt had hastily risen on an arm, and he now pa.s.sed a hand over his brow, as if to make certain that he was awake. He had not undressed himself, and in another moment he stood on his feet in the middle of the state-room.