The Sea Lions Part 17

Mary complied, delighted enough to hear all she could of Roswell's success.

"Why, uncle," said the deeply-interested girl, "all this oil is spermaceti! It is worth a great deal more than so much of that which comes of the right whale."

"More! Ay, nearly as three for one. Hunt me up the last Spectator, girl--hunt me up the last Spectator, and let me see at once at what they quote spalm."

Mary soon found the journal, and handed it to her uncle.

"Yes, here it is, and quoted $1.12-1/2 per gallon, as I live! That's nine shillings a gallon, Mary--just calculate on that bit of paper--thirty times one hundred and seventy-seven, Mary; how much is that, child?"

"I make it 5310, uncle--yes, that is right. But what are the 30 times for, sir?"

"Gallons, gal, gallons. Each barrel has 30 gallons in it, if not more.

There ought to be 32 by rights, but this is a cheating age. Now, multiply 5310 by 9, and see what that comes to."

"Just 47,790, sir, as near as I can get it."

"Yes, that's the shillings. Now, divide 47,790 by 8, my dear. Be actyve, Mary, be actyve."

"It leaves 5973, with a remainder of 6, sir. I believe I'm right."

"I dare say you are, child; yes, I dare say you are. This is the dollars.

A body may call them $6000, as the barrels will a little overrun the 30 gallons. My share of this will be two-thirds, and that will nett the handsome sum of, say $4000!"

The deacon rubbed his hands with delight, and having found his voice again, his niece was astonished at hearing him utter what he had to say, with a sort of glee that sounded in her ears as very unnatural, coming from him. So it was, however, and she dutifully endeavoured not to think of it.

"Four thousand dollars, Mary, will quite cover the first cost of the schooner; that is without including outfit and spare-rigging, of which her master took about twice as much as was necessary. He's a capital fellow, is that young Gar'ner, and will make an excellent husband, as I've always told you, child. A little wasteful, perhaps, but an excellent youth at the bottom. I dare say he lost his spars off Cape Hatteras in trying to outsail that Daggett; but I overlook all that now. He's a capital youth to work upon a whale or a sea-elephant! There isn't his equal, as I'll engage, in all Ameriky, if you'll only let him know where to find the creatur's. I knew his character before I engaged him; for no man but a real skinner shall ever command a craft of mine."

"Roswell _is_ a good fellow," answered Mary, with emphasis, the tears filling her eyes as she listened to these eulogiums of her uncle on the youth she loved with all of a woman's tenderness, at the very moment she scrupled to place her happiness on one whose 'G.o.d was not her G.o.d.' "No one knows him better than I, uncle, and no one respects him more. But, had I not better read the rest of his letter?--there is a good deal more of it."

"Go on, child, go on--but, read the part over again where he speaks of the quant.i.ty of the ile he has shipped to Fish & Grinnell."

Mary did as requested, when she proceeded to read aloud the rest of the communication.

"I have been much at a loss how to act in regard to Captain Daggett," said Roswell, in his letter. "He stood by me so manfully and generously off Cape Hatteras, that I did not like to part company in the night, or in a squall, which would have seemed ungrateful, as well as wearing a sort of runaway look. I am afraid he has some knowledge of the existence of our islands, though I doubt whether he has their lat.i.tude and longitude exactly. Something there is of this nature on board the other schooner, her people often dropping hints to my officers and men, when they have been gamming. I have sometimes fancied Daggett sticks so close to us, that he may get the advantage of our reckoning to help him to what he wants to find. He is no great navigator anywhere, running more by signs and currents, in my judgment, than by the use of his instruments. Still, he could find his way to any part of the world."

"Stop there, Mary; stop a little, and let me have time to consider. Isn't it awful, child?"

The niece changed colour, and seemed really frightened, so catching was the deacon's distress, though she scarce knew what was the matter.

"What is awful, uncle?" at length she asked, anxious to know the worst.

"This covetousness in them Vineyarders! I consider it both awful and wicked. I must get the Rev. Mr. Whittle to preach against the sin of covetousness; it does gain so much ground in Ameriky! The whole church should lift its voice against it, or it will shortly lift its voice against the church. To think of them Daggetts' fitting out a schooner to follow my craft about the 'arth in this unheard-of manner; just as if she was a pilot-boat, and young Gar'ner a pilot! I do hope the fellows will make a wrack of it, among the ice of the antarctic seas! That would be a fit punishment for their impudence and covetousness."

"I suppose, sir, they think that they have the same right to sail on the ocean that others have. Seals and whales are the gifts of G.o.d, and one person has no more right to them than another."

"You forget, Mary, that one man may have a secret that another doesn't know. In that case he ought not to go prying about like an old woman in a village neighbourhood. Read on, child, read on, and let me know the worst at once."

"I shall sail to-morrow, having finished all my business here, and hope to be off Cape Horn in twenty days, if not sooner. In what manner I am to get rid of Daggett, I do not yet know. He outsails me a little on all tacks, unless it be in very heavy weather, when I have a trifling advantage over him. It will be in my power to quit him any dark night; but if I let him go ahead, and he should really have any right notions about the position of the islands, he might get there first, and make havoc among the seals."

"Awful, awful!" interrupted the deacon, again; "that would be the worst of all! I won't allow it; I forbid it--it shall not be."

"Alas! uncle, poor Roswell is too far from us, now, to hear these words.

No doubt the matter is long since decided, and he has acted according to the best of his judgment."

"It is terrible to have one's property so far away! Government ought to have steam-boats, or packets of some sort, running between New York and Gape Horn, to carry orders back and forth.--But we shall never have things right, Mary, so long as the democrats are uppermost."

By this remark, which savours very strongly of a species of censure that is much in fashion in the coteries of that Great Emporium, which it is the taste and pleasure of its people to term a _commercial_ emporium, especially among elderly ladies, the reader will at once perceive that the deacon was a federalist, which was somewhat of a novelty in Suffolk, thirty years since. Had he lived down to our own times, the old man would probably have made all the gyrations in politics that have distinguished the school to which he would have belonged, and, without his own knowledge, most probably, would have been as near an example of perpetual motion as the world will ever see, through his devotion to what are now called "Whig Principles." We are no great politician, but time has given us the means of comparing; and we often smile when we hear the disciples of Hamilton, and of Adams, and of all that high-toned school, declaiming against the use of the veto, and talking of the "one man power," and of Congress' leading the government! The deacon was very apt to throw the opprobrium of even a bad season on the administration, and the reader has seen what he thought of the subject of running packets between New York and Cape Horn.

"There ought to be a large navy, Mary, a monstrous navy, so that the vessels might be kept carrying letters about, and serving the public. But we shall never have things right, until Rufus King, or some man like him, gets in. If Gar'ner lets that Daggett get the start of him, he never need come home again. The islands are as much mine as if I had bought them; and I'm not sure an action wouldn't lie for seals taken on them without my consent. Yes, yes; we want a monstrous navy, to convoy sealers, and carry letters about, and keep some folks at home, while it lets other folks go about their lawful business."

"Of what islands are you speaking, uncle? Surely the sealing islands, where Roswell has gone, are public and uninhabited, and no one has a better right there than another!"

The deacon perceived that he had gone too far, in his tribulation, and began to have a faint notion that he was making a fool of himself. He asked his niece, in a very faint voice, therefore, to hand him the letter, the remainder of which he would endeavour to read himself. Although every word that Roswell Gardiner wrote was very precious to Mary, the gentle girl had a still unopened epistle to herself to peruse, and glad enough was she to make the exchange. Handing the deacon his letter, therefore, she withdrew at once to her private room, in order to read her own.

"Dearest Mary," said Roswell Gardiner, in this epistle, "your uncle will tell you what has brought us into this port, and all things connected with the schooner. I have sent home more than $4000 worth of oil, and I hope my owner will forgive the accident off Currituck, on account of this run of good luck. In my opinion, we shall yet make a voyage, and that part of my fortune will be secure. Would that I could feel as sure of finding you more disposed to be kind to me, on my return! I read in your Bible every day, Mary, and I often pray to G.o.d to enlighten my mind, if my views have been wrong. As yet, I cannot flatter myself with any change, for my old opinions appear rather to be more firmly rooted than they were before I sailed." Here poor Mary heaved a heavy sigh, and wiped the tears from her eyes. She was pained to a degree she could hardly believe possible, though she did full credit to Roswell's frankness. Like all devout persons, her faith in the efficacy of sacred writ was strong: and she so much the more lamented her suitor's continued blindness, because it remained after light had shone upon it. "Still, Mary," the letter added, "as I have every human inducement to endeavour to be right, I shall not throw aside the book, by any means. In that I fully believe; our difference being in what the volume teaches. Pray for me, sweetest girl--but I know you do, and will continue to do, as long as I am absent."

"Yes, indeed, Roswell," murmured Mary--"as long as you and I live!"

"Next to this one great concern of my life, comes that which this man Daggett gives me,"--the letter went on to say. "I hardly know what to do under all the circ.u.mstances. Keep in his company much longer I cannot, without violating my duty to the deacon. Yet, it is not easy, in any sense, to get rid of him. He has stood by me so manfully on all occasions, and seems so much disposed to make good-fellowship of the voyage, that, did it depend on myself only, I should at once make a bargain with him to seal in company, and to divide the spoils. But this is now impossible, and I must quit him in some way or other. He outsails me in most weathers, and it is a thing easier said than done. What will make it more difficult is the growing shortness of the nights. The days lengthen fast now, and as we go south they will become so much longer, that, by the time when it will be indispensable to separate, it will be nearly all day. The thing must be done, however, and I trust to luck to be able to do it as it ought to be effected.

"And now, dearest, dearest Mary--" But why should we lift the veil from the feelings of this young man, who concluded his letter by pouring out his whole heart in a few sincere and manly sentences. Mary wept over them most of that day, perusing and reperusing them, until her eyes would scarce perform their proper office.

A few days later the deacon was made a very happy man by the receipt of a letter from Fish & Grinnell, notifying him of the arrival of his oil, accompanied by a most gratifying account of the state of the market, and asking for instructions. The oil was disposed of, and the deacon pocketed his portion of the proceeds as soon as possible; eagerly looking for a new and profitable investment for the avails. Great was the reputation Roswell Gardiner made by this capture of the two spermaceti whales, and by sending the proceeds to so good a market. In commerce, as in war, success is all in all, though in both success is nearly as often the result of unforeseen circ.u.mstances as of calculations and wisdom. It is true there are a sort of trade, and a sort of war, in which prudence and care may effect a great deal, yet are both often outstripped by the random exertions and adventures of those who calculate almost as wildly as they act. Audacity, as the French term it, is a great quality in war, and often achieves more than the most calculated wisdom--nay, it becomes wisdom in that sort of struggle; and we are far from being sure that audacity is not sometimes as potent in trade. At all events, it was esteemed a bold, as well as a prosperous exploit, for a little schooner like the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond, to take a hundred-barrel whale, and to send home its "ile," as the deacon always p.r.o.nounced the word, in common with most others in old Suffolk.

Long and anxious months, with one exception, succeeded this bright spot of sunshine in Mary Pratt's solicitude in behalf of the absent Roswell. She knew there was but little chance of hearing from him again until he returned north. The exception was a short letter that the deacon received, dated two weeks later than that written from Rio, in lat.i.tude forty-one, or just as far south of the equator as Oyster Pond was north of it, and nearly fourteen hundred miles to the southward of Rio. This letter was written in great haste, to send home by a Pacific trader who was accidentally met nearer the coast than was usual for such vessels to be.

It stated that all was well; that the schooner of Daggett was still in company; and that Gardiner intended to get "shut" of her, as the deacon expressed it, on the very first occasion.

After the receipt of this letter, the third written by Roswell Gardiner since he left home, a long and blank interval of silence succeeded. Then it was that months pa.s.sed away in an anxious and dark uncertainty. Spring followed winter, summer succeeded to spring, and autumn came to reap the fruits of all the previous seasons, without bringing any further tidings from the adventurers. Then winter made its second appearance since the Sea Lion had sailed, filling the minds of the mariners' friends with sad forebodings as they listened to the meanings of the gales that accompanied that bleak and stormy quarter of the year. Deep and painful were the antic.i.p.ations of the deacon, in whom failing health, and a near approach to the "last of earth," came to increase the gloom. As for Mary, youth and health sustained her; but her very soul was heavy, as she pondered on so long and uncertain an absence.

Chapter XIII.

"Safely in harbour Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou calledst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid."

_Tempest._

The letter of Roswell Gardiner last received, bore the date of December 10th, 1819, or just a fortnight after he had sailed from Rio de Janeiro.

We shall next present the schooner of Deacon Pratt to the reader on the 18th of that month, or three weeks and one day after she had sailed from the capital of Brazil. Early in the morning of the day last mentioned, the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond was visible, standing to the northward, with the wind light but freshening from the westward, and in smooth water. Land was not only in sight, but was quite near, less than a league distant. Towards this land the head of the schooner had been laid, and she was approaching it at the rate of some four or five knots. The land was broken, high, of a most sterile aspect where it was actually to be seen, and nearly all covered with a light but melting snow, though the season was advanced to the middle of the first month in summer. The weather was not very cold, however, and there was a feeling about it that promised it would become still milder. The aspect of the neighbouring land, so barren, rugged and inhospitable, chilled the feelings, and gave to the scene a sombre hue which the weather itself might not have imparted. Directly ahead of the schooner rose a sort of pyramid of broken rocks, which, occupying a small island, stood isolated in a measure, and some distance in advance of other and equally ragged ranges of mountains, which belonged also to islands detached from the main land thousands of years before, under some violent convulsions of nature.

It was quite apparent that all on board the schooner regarded that ragged pyramid with lively interest. Most of the crew was collected on the forecastle, including the officers, and all eyes were fastened on the ragged pyramid which they were diagonally approaching. The princ.i.p.al spokesman was Stimson, the oldest mariner on board, and one who had oftener visited those seas than any other of the crew.

"You know the spot, do you, Stephen?" demanded Roswell Gardiner, with interest.