Chapter V (2)

Within his range his perception of truth was as rapid and unfailing as an instinct. Without difficulty he separated the specious from the solid, gave great weight to evidence, but was skeptical and cautious about receiving it. Though a collector of details, he was never incumbered by them. No one was less likely to make the common mistake of thinking that a particular instance established a general proposition. He sought for rules of universal application, and was industrious in the accumulation of facts, because he knew how many are needed to prove the simplest truth. The accuracy of his mental operations, united with great courage, made him careless of authority. He clung to a principle because he thought it true, not because others thought it so. There is no indication that he valued an opinion the more because great men of former ages had favored it. His self-reliance was shown in his unwillingness to employ servants. Even when very feeble, he refused to permit any one to assist him. He had extraordinary power of condensation, and, always seeing the gist of a matter, he often exposed an argument of hours by a single sentence. Some of his brief papers, like the one on Banking, contain the substance of debates, which have since been made, filling volumes. He was peculiar in his manner of stating his conclusions, seldom revealing the processes by which he arrived at them. He sets forth strange and disputed doctrines as if they were truisms. Those who have studied "The Prince" for the purpose of understanding its construction will not think us fanciful when we find a resemblance between Jefferson's mode of argumentation and that of Machiavelli. There is the same manner of approaching a subject, the same neglect of opposing arguments, and the same disposition to rely on the force of general maxims. Machiavelli exceeded him in power of ratiocination from a given proposition, but does not seem to have been able to determine whether a given proposition was right or wrong.

In force of mind Jefferson has often been surpassed: Hamilton was his superior. As an executive officer, where action was required, he could not have been distinguished. It is true, he was a successful President, but neither the time nor the place demanded the highest executive talents. When Governor of Virginia, during the Revolution, he was more severely tried, and, although some excuse may be made for him, he must be said to have failed.

Upon matters which are affected by feeling and sentiment, the judgment of woman is said to surpass that of our sex,--her more sensitive instincts carrying her to heights which our blind strength fails to reach. If this be true, Jefferson in some respects resembled woman. We have already alluded to the delicacy of his organization; it was strangely delicate, indeed, for one who had so many solid qualities. Like woman, he was constant rather than passionate; he had her refinement, disliking rude company and coarse pleasures,--her love of luxury, and fondness for things whose beauty consists in part in their delicacy and fragility. His political opponents often refused to speak with him, but their wives found his society delightful. Like woman, his feelings sometimes seemed to precede his judgment. Such an organization is not often a safe one for business; but in Mr. Jefferson, with his homely perceptions, it accomplished great results.

The attributes which gave him his great and peculiar influence seem to us to have been qualities of character, not of the mind. Chief among these must be placed that which, for want of a better term, we will call sympathy. This sympathy colored his whole nature, mental and moral. It gave him his many-sidedness. There was no limit to his intellectual tastes. Most persons cherish prejudices, and think certain pursuits degrading or useless. Thus, business-men sneer at artists, and artists sneer at business-men. Jefferson had nothing of this. He understood and appreciated the value of every employment. No knowledge was too trivial for him; with the same affectionate interest, he observed the courses of the winds and the growth of a flower.

Sympathy in some sort supplied the place of imagination, making him understand subjects of which the imagination alone usually informs us. Thus, he was fond of Art. He had no eye for color, but appreciated the beauties of form, and was a critic of sculpture and architecture. He valued everything for that which belonged to it; but tradition sanctified nothing, association gave no additional value. He committed what Burke thought a great crime, that of thinking a queen nothing but a woman. He went to Stratford-on-Avon, and tells us that it cost him a shilling to see Shakspeare's tomb, but says nothing else. He might have admired the scenery of the place, and he certainly was an admirer of Shakspeare; but Stratford had no additional beauty in his eyes because Shakspeare was born and buried there. After his death, in a secret drawer of his secretary, mementoes, such as locks of hair, of his wife and dead children, even of the infant who lived but a few hours after birth, were found, and accompanying each were some fond words. The packages were neatly arranged, and their envelopes showed that they had often been opened. It needed personal knowledge and regard to awaken in him an interest in objects for their associations.

The characteristic of which we speak showed itself in the intensity and quality of his patriotism. There never was a truer American. He sympathized with all our national desires and prejudices, our enterprise and confidence, our love of dominion and boundless pride. Buffon asserted that the animals of America were smaller than those of Europe. Jefferson flew to the rescue of the animals, and certainly seems to have the best of the argument. Buffon said, that the Indian was cold in love, cruel in war, and mean in intellect. Had Jefferson been a descendant of Pocahontas, he could not have been more zealous in behalf of the Indian. He contradicted Buffon upon every point, and cited Logan's speech as deserving comparison with the most celebrated passages of Grecian and Roman eloquence. Nowhere did he see skies so beautiful, a climate so delightful, men so brave, or women so fair, as in America. He was not content that his country should be rich and powerful; his ardent patriotism carried him forward to a time when the great Republic should give law to the world for every department of thought and action.

But this sympathetic spirit is most clearly to be seen in that broad humanity which was the source of his philosophy. He sympathized with man,--his sufferings, joys, fears, hopes, and aspirations. The law of his nature made him a democrat. Men of his own rank, when introduced to him, found his manner cold and reserved; but the young and the ignorant were attracted from the first. Education and interest did not affect him. Born a British subject, he became the founder of a democracy. He was a slaveholder and an abolitionist. The fact, that the African is degraded and helpless, to his, as to every generous mind, was a reason why he should be protected, not an excuse for oppressing him.

Though fitness for the highest effort be denied to Jefferson, yet in the pursuit to which he devoted himself, considered with reference to elevation and wisdom of policy and actual achievement, he may be compared with any man of modern times. It is the boast of the most accomplished English historian, that English legislation has been controlled by the rule, "Never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it is necessary to provide." Therefore politics in England have not reached the dignity of a science; and her public men have been tacticians, rather than statesmen. Burke may be mentioned as an exception. No one will claim for Jefferson Burke's amplitude of thought and wealth of imagination, but he surpassed him in justness of understanding and practical efficiency. Burke was never connected with the government, except during the short-lived Rockingham, administration. Among Frenchmen, the mind instinctively recurs to the wise and virtuous Turgot. But it was the misfortune of Turgot to come into power at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. It became his task to reform a government which was beyond reform, and to preserve a dynasty which could not be preserved. His illustrious career is little more than a brilliant promise. Jefferson undoubtedly owed much to fortune. He was placed in a country removed from foreign interference, with boundless resources, and where the great principles of free government had for generations been established,--among a people sprung from many races, but who spoke the same language, were governed by similar laws, and whose minds' rebellion had prepared for the reception of new truths and the abandonment of ancient errors. To be called upon to give symmetry and completeness to a political system which seemed to be Providentially designed for the nation over which it was to extend, to be able to connect himself with the future progress of an agile and ambitious people, was certainly a rare and happy fortune, and must be considered, when we claim superiority for him over those who were placed in the midst of apathy and decay. His influence upon us may be seen in the material, but still more distinctly in the social and moral action of the country. With those laws which here restrain turbulent forces and stimulate beneficent ones,--with the bright visions of peace and freedom which the unhappy of every European race see in their Western skies, tempting them hither,--with the kind spirit which here loosens the bonds of social prejudice, and to ambition sings an inspiring strain,--with these, which are our pride and boast, he is associated indissolubly and forever. With the things which have brought our country into disrepute--we leave it for others to recall the dismal catalogue--his name cannot be connected.

Not the least valuable result of his life is the triumphant refutation which it gives to the assertion, so often made by blatant sophisters, that none but low arts avail in republics. He has been called a demagogue. This charge is the charge of misconception or ignorance. It is true, he believed that his doctrines would prevail; he was sensitive to the opinions of others, nor was he "out of love with noble fame"; but his successes were fairly, manfully won. He had none of the common qualifications for popularity. No glare of military glory surrounded him; he had not the admired gift of eloquence; he was opposed by wealth and fashion, by the Church and the press, by most of the famous men of his day,--by Jay, Marshall, the Pinckneys, Knox, King, and Adams; he had to encounter the vehement genius of Hamilton and the _prestige_ of Washington; he was not in a position for direct action upon the people; he never went beyond the line of his duty, and, from 1776 to his inaugural address, he did not publish a word which was calculated to excite lively, popular interest;--yet, in spite of all and against all, he won. So complete was the victory, that, at his second election, Massachusetts stood beside Virginia, supporting him. He won because he was true to a principle. Thousands of men, whose untutored minds could not comprehend a proposition of his elaborate philosophy, remembered that in his youth he had proclaimed the equality of men, knew that in maturity he remained true to that declaration, and, believing that this great assurance of their liberties was in danger, they gathered around him, preferring the scholar to orators and soldiers. They had confidence in him because he had confidence in them. There is no danger in that demagogism the art of which consists in love for man. Fortunate, indeed, will it be for the Republic, if, among the aspirants who are now pressing into the strife, and making their voices heard in the great exchanges of public opinion, there are some who will imitate the civic virtues and practise the benign philosophy of Thomas Jefferson!

We take leave of this book with reluctance. It is verbose and dull, but it has led us along the path of American renown; it recites a story which, however awkwardly told, can never fall coldly on an American ear. It has, besides, given us an opportunity, of which we have gladly availed ourselves, to make some poor amends for the wrongs which Jefferson suffered at the hands of New England, to bear our testimony to his genius and services, and to express our reverent admiration for a life which, though it bears traces of human frailty, was bravely devoted to grand and beneficent aims.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _The Life of Thomas Jefferson._ By HENRY S. RANDALL, LL.D. In three volumes. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1858.]

A BUNDLE OF IRISH PENNANTS.

"Did you ever see the 'Three Chimneys,' Captain Cope?" I asked.

"I can show you where they are on the chart, if that'll do. I've been right over where they're laid down, but I never saw the Chimneys myself, and I never knew anybody that had seen them."

"But they are down on the chart," broke in a pertinacious matter-of-fact body beside us.

"What of that?" replied the captain; "there's many a shoal and lone rock down on the charts that nobody ever could find again. I've had my ship right over the Chimneys, near enough to see the smoke, if they had been there."

So opened the series of desultory conversations here set down. It is talk on board ship, or specimen "yarns," such as really are to be picked up from nautical men. The article usually served up for magazine-consumption is, of course, utterly unlike anything here given, and is as entirely undiscoverable anywhere on salt water as the three legendary rocks above alluded to. The place was the deck of the "Elijah Pogram," one of Carr & Co.'s celebrated Liverpool liners, and the time, the dog-watches of a gusty April night; the latitude and longitude, anywhere west of Greenwich and north of the line that is not inconsistent with blue water.

The name "Irish Pennant" is given, on the _lucus-a-non_ principle, (just as a dead calm is "an Irish hurricane, straight up and down,") to any dangling end of rope or stray bit of "shakings," and its appropriateness to the following sketches will doubtless be perceived by the reader, on reaching the end.

The question was asked, not so much from a laudable desire of obtaining information as to set the captain talking. It was a mistake on my part. Sailors do not like point-blank questions. They remind them unpleasantly, I suppose, of the Courts of Admiralty, or they betray greenness or curiosity on the asker's part, and thus effectually bar all improving conversation.

There is one exception. If the inquirer be a lady, young and fair, the chivalry of the sea is bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and often a good deal more than the truth.

And at the last reply a pair of bewitching dark eyes were turned upon that weather-beaten mariner; that is to say, in plain English, a young and rather pretty lady-passenger looked up at Captain Cope, and said,--

"Do tell us some of your sea-stories, Captain Cope,--do, please!"

"Why, Ma'am," replied he, "I've no stories. There's Smith of the 'Wittenagemot' can tell them by the hour; but I never could."

"Weren't you ever wrecked, Captain Cope?"

"No,--I can't say I ever was, exactly. I was mate of the 'Moscow' when she knocked her bottom out in Bootle Bay; but she wasn't lost, for I went master of her after that."

"Were you frightened, Captain Cope?"

"Well, no,--I can't say I was; though I must say I never expected to see morning again. I never saw any one more scared than was old Captain Tucker that night. We dragged over the outer bar and into Bootle Bay, and there we lay, the ship full of water, and everything gone above the monkey-rail. The only place we could find to stand was just by the cabin gangway. The 'Moscow' was built with an old-fashioned cabin on deck, and right there we hung, all hands of us. The old man he read the service to us,--and that wouldn't do, he was so scared; so he got the black cook, who was a Methodist, and made him pray; and every two minutes or so, a sea would come aboard and all in among us,--like to wash us clean out of the ship.

"After midnight the life-boat got alongside, and all hands were for scrambling aboard; but I'd got set in my notion the ship would live the gale out, and I wouldn't go aboard. Well, the old man was too scared to make long stories, and he tumbled aboard the life-boat in a hurry. The last words he said to me, as he went over the side, were,--'Good-bye, Mr. Cope! I never shall see you again!' However, he got up to the city, to Mrs. McKinney's, and there he found a lot of the captains, and he was telling them all how he'd lost his ship, and what a fool poor Cope was to stick aboard of her, and all that. When the morning came, the gale had broke, and the old man began to think he'd been in too much of a fright, and he'd better get the tug and go down to look after the ship.

"I was so knocked up, for want of sleep, and the gale and all, that, when they got down to us, my head was about gone. I don't remember anything, myself; but they told me, that, when they got aboard, I was poking about decks as if I was looking for something.

"'How are you, Mr. Cope?' sung out old Tucker. 'I never expected to see _you_ again in _this_ world.'

"'I can't find my razor-strop,' says I; I've lost my razor-strop.'

"'Never mind your strop,' says he. 'What you want is to go aboard the tug and be taken care of. We'll find your strop.'

"Well, they could hardly get me away, I was so set that I must have that strop; but after I got up to town, and had a bath and some breakfast, and a couple of hours' sleep or so, I was all right again. That was the end of old Tucker's going to sea; and when the 'Moscow' was docked and refitted, I got her, and kept her until the firm built me the 'Pogram,' here."

"Mr. Brown, isn't it about time we were getting in that mizzen to'gall'nt-s'l? It's coming on to blow to-night."

"Steward," (as that functionary passed us,) "put a handful of cigars in my monkey-jacket pocket, and have a cup of coffee ready for me about twelve."

"Then you mean to be up, to-night?" said the father of pretty Mrs. Bates,--the only one of us to whom Captain Cope fairly opened his heart.

"Why, yes, Mr. Roberts--I think I shall. It looks rather dirty to the east'ard, and the barometer has fallen since morning. I've two as good mates as sail; but if anything is going to happen, I'd rather have it happen when I'm on deck,--that's all."

"Wasn't Stewart, of the 'Mexican,' below, when she struck?"

"Yes, he was,--and got blamed for it, too. I don't blame him, myself; he was on deck the next minute; and if he had been there before, it would have made no difference with that ship; but if _I_ lose a vessel, I don't want to be talked about as he was. I went mate with him two voyages, and he'd put on his night-gown and turn in comfortably every night, and leave his mates to call him; but I never could do that. I don't find fault with any man that can; only it's not my way."

"But don't you feel sleepy, Captain Cope?" asked Mrs. Bates.

"Not when I'm on deck, Ma'am; though, when I first went mate, I could sleep anyhow and anywhere. I sailed out of Boston to South America, in a topsail-schooner, with an old fellow by the name of Eaton,--just the strangest old scamp you ever dreamed of. I suppose by rights he ought to have been in the hospital; he certainly was the nearest to crazy and not be it. He used to keep a long pole by him on deck,--a pole with a sharp spike in one end,--and any man who'd get near enough to him to let him have a chance would feel that spike. I've known him to keep the cook up till midnight frying doughnuts; then he'd call all hands aft and range 'em on the quarter-deck, and go round with his hat off and a plate of doughnuts in his hand, saying, as polite as you please, 'Here, my man, won't you take a doughnut?--they won't hurt you; nice and light; had them fried a purpose for you.' And then he'd get a bottle of wine or Curaçoa cordial, and go round with a glass to each man, and make him take a drink. You'd see the poor fellows all of a shake, not knowing how to take it,--afraid to refuse, and afraid still more, if they didn't, that the old man would play 'em some confounded trick. In the midst of it all, he'd seem as if he'd woke up out of a dream, and he'd sing out, in a way that made them fellows scatter, 'What the ---- are all you men doing here at this time of night? Go forrard, every man jack of you! Go forrard, I tell you!' and it was 'Devil take the hindmost!'

"Well,--the old man was always on the look-out to catch the watch sleeping. He never seemed to sleep much himself;--I've heard _that's_ a sign of craziness;--and the more he tried, the more sure we were to try it every chance we had. So sure as the old man caught you at it, he'd give you a bucketful of water, slap over you, and then follow it up with the bucket at your head. Fletcher, the second mate, and I, got so we could tell the moment he put foot on the companion-way, and, no matter how sound we were, we'd be on our feet before he could get on deck. But Fletcher got tired of his vagaries, and left us at Pernambuco, to ship aboard a homeward-bound whaler, and in his place we got a fellow named Tubbs, a regular duff-head,--couldn't keep his eyes open in the daytime, hardly.

"Well,--we were about two days out of Pernambuco, and Tubbs had the middle watch, of a clear starlight night, with a steady breeze, and everything going quietly, and nothing in sight. So, in about ten minutes after the watch got on deck, every mother's son of them was hard and fast. The wind was a-beam, and the old schooner could steer herself; so, even the man at the helm was sitting down on a hencoop, with one arm round the tiller, and snoring like a porpoise. I heard the old man rouse out of his bunk and creep on deck, and, guessing fun was coming, I turned out and slipped up after him. The first thing I saw was old Eaton at work at the tiller. He got it unshipped and braced up with a pair of oars and a hencoop, without waking the man at the helm,--how, I couldn't tell,--but he was just like a cat; and then he blew the binnacle-light out; and then he started forrard, with his trumpet in his hand. He caught sight of me, standing halfway up the companion-way, and shook his fist at me to keep quiet and not to spoil sport. He slipped forward and out on to the bowsprit, clear out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, and stowed himself where he couldn't be well seen to leeward of the sail. Then he sung out with all his might through the trumpet, '_Schooner ahoy, there! Port your hellum!--port_ H-A-A-A-RD! I say,--you're right aboard of us!'--And then he'd drop the trumpet, and sing out as if in the other craft to his own crew, and then again to us. Of course, every man was on his feet in a second, thinking we were all but afoul of another vessel. The man who was steering was trying, with all his might, to put his helm a-port,--and when he found what was to pay there, to ship the tiller. This wasn't so easy; for the old man had passed the slack of the main-sheet through the head of the rudder, and belayed it on one of the boom-cleats, out of reach,--and, what with just waking up, and half a dozen contradictory orders sung out at once, besides expecting to strike every minute, he had almost lost what little wits he had.

"As for Tubbs, he was like a hen with her head cut off,--one minute at the lee rail, and the next in the weather-rigging, then forrard to look out for the strange craft, and then aft to see why the schooner didn't answer her helm. Meanwhile, he was singing out to the watch to brace round the fore-topsail and help her, to let fly the jib-sheets, and to haul aft the main-boom; the watch below came tumbling up, and everybody was expecting to feel the bunt of our striking the next minute. I laughed as though I should split; for nobody could see me where I stood, in the shadow of the companion-way, and everybody was looking out ahead, for the other vessel. First I knew, the old man had got in board again, and was standing there aft, as if he'd just come on deck. 'What's all this noise here?' says he.--'What are you doing on deck, Mr. Cope? Go below, Sir!--Go below, the larboard watch, and let's have no more of this! Who's seen any vessel? Vessel, your eye, Mr. Tubbs! I tell you, you've been dreaming.' Then, as he got his head about to the level of the top of the companion-way, and out of the reach of any spare belaying-pin that might come that way, says he,--'I've just come in from the end of the flyin'-jib-boom, and there was no vessel in sight, except one topsail-schooner, _with the watch all asleep_,--so it can't be her that hailed you.'

"That cured all sleeping on the watch for _that_ voyage, I tell you. And as for Tubbs, you had only to say, 'Port your helm,' and he was off."

Just then Mr. Brown came aft to ask if it wasn't time to have in the fore-topgallant-sail,--and a little splash of rain falling broke up our party and drove most of us below. I knew that reefing topsails would come in the course of an hour or so, if the wind held on to blow as it did; so, as I waited to see that same, I lighted a cheroot, and as soon as the fore-topgallant-sail was clewed up I made my way forward, for a chat with Mr. Brown, the English second mate.

Mr. Brown was a character. He was a thorough English sailor;--could do, as he owned to me in a shamefaced way, that was comical enough, "heverything as could be done with a rope aboard a ship." He had been several India voyages, where the nice work of seamanship is to be learned, which does not get into the mere "ferry-boat" trips of the Liverpool packet-service. He had been in an opium clipper, the celebrated ---- of Boston,--and left her, as he told her agent, "because he liked a ship as 'ad a lee-rail to her; and the ----'s lee-rail," he said, "was commonly out of sight, pretty much all the way from the Sand'eads to the Bocca Tigris." He was rich in what he called "'ats," having one for every hour of the day, and, for aught I know, every day in the year. It was Fred ----'s and my daily amusement to watch him, and we never seemed to catch him coming on deck twice in the same head-gear. He took quite a fancy to me, because I did not bother him when busy, and because I liked to listen to his talk. So, handing him a cigar, as a prefatory to conversation, I asked him our whereabouts. "Four hundred miles to the heast'ard of Georges we were this noon, and we've made nothink to speak of since, Sir. This last tack has lost us all we made before. I hought to know where we are. I've drifted 'ere without even a 'en-coop hunder me. I was third mate aboard the barque 'Jenny,' of Belfast, when she was run down by the steamer 'United States.' The barque sunk in less than seven minutes after the steamer struck us, and I come up out of her suction-like. I found myself swimming there, on top, and not so much as a capstan-bar to make me a life-buoy. I knew the steamer was hove to, for I could hear her blow hoff steam; and once, as I came up on a wave, I got a sight of her boats. They were ready enough to pick us up, and we was ready enough to be picked up, such as were left; but how to do it was another matter, with a sea like this running, and a cloud over the moon every other minute. I soon see that swimming wouldn't 'old out much longer, and I must try something helse. Now, Sir, what I'm a-telling you may be some use to you some day, if you have to stay a couple of hours in the water. If you can swim about as well as most men can, you can tell 'ow long a man's strength would last him 'ereaways to-night. Besides, I was spending my breath, when I rose on a sea, in 'ollering,--and you can't swim and 'oller. So I tried a trick I learned, when a boy, on the Cornish coast, where I was born, Sir;--it's one worth knowing. I doubled back my feet hunder me till my 'eels come to the small of my back, and I could float as long as I wanted to, and, when I rose on a wave, 'oller. They 'eard me, it seems, and pulled round for me, but it was an hour before they found me, and my strength was nigh to gone. I couldn't 'oller no more, and was about giving up. But they picked up the cook, and he told 'em he knowed it was Mr. Brown's voice, and begged 'em to keep on. The last I remember was, as the steamer burned a blue light for her boats, when they caught a sight of me in the trough of the sea. I saw them too, and gave a last screech, and then I don't remember hanythink, Sir, till Cookie was 'elping 'aul (Mr. Brown always dropped his aspirates as he grew excited) me into the boat. Now, just you remember what I've been a-telling you about floating."--"_Forrard there! Stand by to clew up and furl the main to'gall'n-s'l! Couple of you come aft here and brail up the spanker! Lively, men, lively!_"--And Mr. Brown was no longer my Scheherazade.

When I got back to the shelter of the wheel-house, I found the captain and old Roberts still comfortably braced up in opposite corners and yarning away. There was nothing to be done but to watch the ship and the wind, which promised in due time to be a gale, but as yet was not even a reefing breeze. They had got upon a standing topic between the two,--vessels out of their course. The second night out, we had made a light which the captain insisted was a ship's light, but old Roberts declared was one of the lights on the coast of Maine,--Mount Desert, or somewhere thereabouts. He was an old shipping-merchant, had been many a time across the water in his own vessels, and thought he knew as much as most men. So, whenever other subjects gave out, this, of vessels drifted by unsuspected currents out of their course, was unfailing. They were at it now.

"When I was last in Liverpool," said the captain, "there was a brig from Machias got in there, and her captain came up to Mrs. McKinney's. He told us that it was thick weather when he got upon the Irish coast, and he was rather doubtful about his reckoning; so he ordered a sharp look-out for Cape Clear. According to his notion, he ought to be up with it about noon, and, as the sun rose and the fog lifted a little, he was hoping to sight the land. Once or twice he fancied he had a glimpse of it, but wasn't sure,--when the mate came aft and reported that they could hear a bell ringing. 'Sure enough,' he said, 'there was the toll of a bell coming through the mist.'

"'That's some ship's bell,' said he to the mate; 'only it's wonderful heavy for a ship, and it can't be a church-bell on shore, can it?'

"And while they were arguing about it, a cutter shot out of the fog and hailed if they wanted a pilot.

"'Pilot!' says the Down-Easter,--'pilot!--where for? No, thank ye, not yet,--I can find my way up George's without a pilot. What bell's that?'

"'Rather think you can, Captain; but you'll want a pilot here;--that's the bell on the floating light off Liverpool.'

"'What!' says the captain,--have I come all the way up Channel without knowing it? I've been on the look-out for Cape Clear ever since daybreak, and here, by ginger, I've overrun my reckoning _three hundred miles_.'"

"Well," said old Roberts, "one of my captains, Brandegee, you know, who had the 'China,' got caught, one November, just as he was coming on the coast, in a gale from the eastward. He knew he was somewhere near Provincetown, but how near he couldn't say. It was snowing, and blowing, and ice-making all over the decks and rigging, and an awful night generally. He did not dare to run before it, because it was blowing at a rate to take him halfway in Worcester County in the next twenty-four hours. He couldn't stand to the south'ard, because that would put the back of Cape Cod under his lee. He was afraid to stand to the north'ard, not knowing precisely where the coast of Maine might be. So he hove the ship to, under as little sail as he could, and let her drift. I've heard him say, he heard the breakers a hundred times that night," ('I'll bet he did,' ejaculated the captain.) "and it seemed like three nights in one before morning came. When it did come, wind and sea appeared to have gone down. The lookouts were half dead with cold and sleep and all; but they made out to hail land on the weather bow.

"'Good George!' said old Brandegee, 'how did land get on the _weather_ bow? We must have got inside of Cape Cod, and that must be Sharkpainter Hill.'

"'Land on the lee quarter,' hailed the watch, again: and in a minute more, 'Land on the lee beam,--land on the lee bow.'

"Brandegee sung out to heave the lead and let go both anchors, and he said that, but for the gale having gone down so, he should have expected to strike the next minute. Just as the anchors came home and the ship headed to the wind, the second mate came aft, rubbing his eyes and looking very queer.

"'Captain Brandegee,' says he, 'if I was in Boston Harbor, I should say that there was Nix's Mate.'

"'Well, Mr. Jones,' says the old man, dropping out the words very slowly, 'if--that's--Nix's Mate,--Rainsford Island--ought--to--be--here away, and--as--I'm--a--living--man, THERE IT IS!'

"Half-frozen as they were, there was a cheer rung out from that crew that waked half the North-End out of their morning nap.

"'Just my plaguy luck!' said the old fellow to me, as he told it. 'If I'd held on to my anchors another half-hour, I might have come handsomely alongside of Long Wharf and been up to the custom-house before breakfast.'

"He had drifted broadside square into Boston Harbor, past Nahant, the Graves, Cohasset Rocks, and everything."

"I've heard of that," said the captain,--"and as it's my opinion it couldn't be done twice, I don't mean to try it."

"I hear the noise about thy keel,
I hear the bell struck in the night,
I see the cabin-window bright,
I see the sailor at the wheel,"--

repeated Fred ----, in my ear. "Come below out of this wet and rain," added he.

We passed the door of the mate's state-room as we went below, and, seeing it ajar, and Mr. Pitman, the mate, sitting there, we looked in.

"Come in, gentlemen," said he; "my watch on deck is in half an hour, and I'm not sleepy to-night."

F---- took up a carved whale's tooth, and asked if Mr. Pitman had ever been in the whaling business.

"Two voyages,--one before the mast, one boat-steerer;--both in the Pacific. But whaling didn't suit me. I've a Missus now, and a couple of as fine boys as ever you saw; and I rather be where I can come home oftener than once in three years."

"How did you like whaling?" said I.

"Well, I don't believe there's any man but what feels different alongside of a whale from what he does on the ship's deck. Some of those Nantucket and New Bedford men, who've been brought up to it, as you may say, take it naturally, and think of nothing but the whale. I've heard of one of them boat-steerers who got ketched in a whale's mouth and didn't come out of it quite as whole as he went in. When they asked him what he thought when the whale nabbed him, he said he 'thought she'd turn out about forty barrels.'

"There's a good many things about the whale, gentlemen, that everybody don't know. Why does one whale sink when he's killed, and another don't? Where do the whales go to, now and then?--I sailed with one captain who used to say, that, books or no books, can't live under water or not, _he knew_ that whales do live under water months at a time. I can't say, myself; but this I can say,--they go ashore. You may look hard at that, but I've seen it. We were off the coast of South America, in company with five other ships; and all our captains were ashore one afternoon. We had to pull some two miles or so to go off to them, and, starting off, all hands were for racing. I was pulling stroke in the captain's boat, and the old man gives us the word to pull easy, and let 'em head on us. It was hard work to hold in, with every one of the boats giving way, strong, the captains singing out bets, and cheering their men,--singing out, 'Break your backs and bend your oars!' 'There she blows!' and all that. But the old man kept muttering to us to take it easy and let them head on us. We were soon the last boat, and then, as if he'd given up the race, he gave the word to 'easy.'

"'Good-night, Capt. T----! we'll send your ship in to tow you off,' was the last words they said to us.

"'There'll be something else to tow off,' says he. 'It's the race, who shall see Palmer's Island first, that I'm bound to win.'

"He gave the boat a sheer in for the beach, to a little bight that made up in the land,--across the mouth of which we had to pull, in going off.

"'D'ye see that rock on the beach, boys,' says he, 'in range of that lone tree, on the point? Did any of you ever see that rock before? I wish this bloody coast had a few more such rocks! That's a cow whale, and this bight is her nursery, and she is up on the beach for her calf's convenience. Now, then,'--as we opened the bight and got a fair sight of it,--'give way, strong as you please,--and we'll head her off, before she knows it.'

"We got her and got the calf, and when, next morning, the other ships saw us cutting in, they didn't say much about that race; and 'Old T.'s Nursery' was a byword on the coast as long as we staid there.

"There goes eight bells, and I rather think Mr. Brown will want me on deck." We followed, for there was the prospect of seeing topsails reefed,--the most glorious event of a landsman's sea-experiences. We had begun the day with a dead calm, but toward night the wind had come out of the eastward. Each plunge the ship gave was sharper, each shock heavier. The topmasts were working, the lee-shrouds and backstays straining out into endless curves. A deeper plunge than usual, a pause for a second, as if everything in the world suddenly stood still, and a great white giant seems to spring upon our weather-bow and to leap on board. We hear the crash and feel the shock, and presently the water comes pouring aft,--and Captain Cope calls out to reef topsails,--double-reef fore and mizzen,--one reef in the main. The mates are in the weather-rigging before the word is out of the captain's lips, to take the earings of their respective topsails; and then follows the rush of men up the shrouds and out along the yards. The sails are slatting and flapping, and one can hardly see the row of broad backs against the dusky sky as they bend over the canvas. There are hoarse murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,--"Haul away to leeward!"--repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the glorious thrill of the sea,--to look down the sloping deck into the black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It is but wood and iron and hemp and canvas that is doing all this, with some thirty poor, broken-down, dissipated wretches, who, being fit for nothing else, of course _are_ fit for the fo'castle of a Liverpool Liner. Yet it is, for all that, something which haunts the memory long,--which comes back years after in inland vales and quiet farm-houses like brown-moss agates set in emerald meadows, in book-lined studios, and in close city streets. For it is part of the might and mystery of the sea, the secret influence that sets the blood on fire and the heart throbbing,--of any in whose veins runs some of the true salt-water sympathy. Men are born landsmen, and are born on land, but belong to the Ocean's family. Sooner or later, whatever their calling, they recognize the tie. They may struggle against it, and scotch it, but cannot kill it. They may not be seamen,--they may wear black coats and respectable white ties, and have large balances in the bank, but they are the Sea's men,--brothers by blood-relationship, if not by trade, of Ulysses and Vasco, of Columbus and Cabot, of Frobisher and Drake.

Other stories of the sea are floating through my memory as I write,--tales told with elbows leaning on cabin-tables, while the swinging-lamp oscillated drearily overhead, and sent uncertain shadows into the state-room doors. There is the story which Vivian Grey told us of the beautiful clipper "Nighthawk,"--her who sailed with the "Bonita" and "Driving-Scud" and "Mazeppa," in the great Sea-Derby, whose course lay round the world. How, one Christmas-day, off the pitch of Cape Horn, he, standing on her deck, saw her dive bodily into a sea, and all of her to the mainmast was lost in ocean,--her stately spars seemingly rising out of blue water unsupported by any ship beneath;--it seemed an age to him, he said, before there was any forecastle to be seen rising from the brine. Also, how, caught off that same wild cape, they had to make sail in a reef-topsail-breeze to claw off its terrible rocks, seen but too plainly under their Ice. How, as he said, "about four in the afternoon it seemed to blow worse than ever, and you could see the staunch boat was pressed down under her canvas, and every spar was groaning and quivering, while the ship went bodily to leeward." And next, "how she seemed to come to herself, as it were, with a long staggering roll, and to spring to windward as if relieved of a dead weight; for the gale had broken, and the foam-belt along the cliffs grew dimmer and dimmer, and the land fainter and fainter. And then," he said, "to hear the fo'castle-talk, you would have said that never was such a ship, such spars, such a captain, such seamanship, and such luck, since Father Jason cleared the 'Argo' from the Piræus, for Colchis and a market."

Or I might tell you how Dr. ----, the ship-surgeon, was in that Collard steamer which ran down the fishing-boat in the fog off Cape Race,--and how, looking from his state-room window, he saw a mighty cliff so near that he could almost lay his hand upon it. How Fanshaw was on board the "Sea-King" when she was burned, off Point Linus,--and how he hung in the chains till he was taken off, and his hair was repeatedly set on fire by the women--emigrant-passengers--jumping over his head into the sea.

But not so near a-shaking hands with Death did any of them tell, as Ned Kennedy,--who, poor fellow, lies buried in some lone _cañon_ of the Sierra Madre. Let us hear him give it in his wild, reckless way. Ned was sitting opposite us, his thick, black hair curling from under his plaid travelling-cap,--his thick eyebrows working, and his hands occupied in arranging little fragments of pilot-biscuit on the table. He broke in upon the last man who was talking, with a--

"Tell you what, boys,--I've a better idea of what all that means. I suppose you both know what the Mediterranean lines of steamers are, and what capital seamanship, and travelling comfort, and all that, you find there. The engineers, however, are Scotch, English, or American, always; because why? A French officer once told me the reason. 'You see, _mon ami_,' he said, 'this row of handles which are used to turn these different stops and cocks. Now, my countrymen will take them down and use them properly, each one, just as well as your countrymen; but they will put them back again in their places never.' So it is, and the engineers are all as I say.

"I left Naples for Genoa in the 'Ercolano,' of the Naples line. There were not many passengers on board,--no women,--and what there were were all priests or soldiers. Nobody went by the Neapolitan line except Italians, at that time,--the French company having larger, handsomer, and decidedly cleaner vessels. Of course, as a heretic and a civilian, I had nobody to talk to; so, finding that the engineer had a Saxon tongue in his head, I dove down into his den and made acquaintance. Being shut up there with Italians so much, he thawed out to me at once, and we were sworn brothers by the time we reached Civita Vecchia.

"The 'Ercolano' was as crazy an old tub as every floated: judging from the extensive colonies which tenanted her berths, she must have been launched about the same time as Fulton's 'Clermont,' or the old 'Ben Franklin,' Captain Bunker, once so well known off the end of Newport wharf. You know how those boats are managed,--stopping all day in port and running at night. We brought up at Leghorn in that way, and Marston, the engineer, proposed to me to have a run ashore. I had no _visé_ for Tuscany then, and the Austrian police are very strict; but Marston proposed to pass me off for one of the steamer's officers. So he fished out an old uniform coat of his and made me put it on; and, sure enough, the bright buttons and shoulder-straps carried me through,--only I was dreadfully embarrassed." (Ned never was disturbed at anything.--if an elephant had walked into the cabin, he would have offered him a seat and cigar.) "by the sentries all presenting arms to my coat, which sat upon me as a shirt is supposed to on a bean-pole. I overheard one man attribute my attenuated frame to the effects of sea-sickness. We went into various shops, and finally into one where all sorts of sea-notions were kept, and Marston said, 'Here's what I've been in search of this month past. I began to think I should have to send to London for it. The 'Ercolano' is a perfect sieve, and may go down any night with all aboard; and here's a swimming-jacket to wear under your coat,--just the thing.' He fitted and bought one, and was turning to go, when a fancy popped into my head: 'Marston,' said I, 'is this coat of yours so very baggy on me?' 'H-e-em,' said he. 'I've known more waxy fits; a trifle of padding wouldn't hurt your looks.' 'I know it,' said I; 'every soldier we passed seemed to me to smoke me for an impostor, knowing the coat wasn't made for me. Here, let's put one of these things underneath.' I put it on, buttoned the coat over it, inflated it, and the effect was a marvel;--it made a portly gentleman of me at once. I couldn't bear to take it off. 'Just the thing for diligence-travelling in the South of France,' said I; 'keep your neighbor's elbows from your ribs.' I never thought that I must buy a coat to match it. I was so tickled at my own fancy that buy it I would, in spite of Marston's remonstrance. Then we went off and dined, and got very jolly together,--at least, I did,--so that, when we pulled off to the steamer, I thought nothing about my coat or the jacket under it.

"There was a dirty-looking sky overhead, and a nasty cobbling sea getting up under foot as we ran out of Leghorn Harbor, and a little French screw which we left at her anchor was fizzing off steam from her waste-pipe,--evidently meaning to stay where she was. But our captain, having been paid in advance for all the dinners of the voyage, preferred being at sea before the cloth was laid. That made sure of at least twenty out of every twenty-five passengers as non-comedents, and lightened the cook's labors wonderfully. So we were soon jumping and bobbing about and throwing water in a lively way enough; and our black gowns and blue coats were lying about decks in every direction, with what had been _padres_ and soldiers an hour before inside. I lit a cigar and picked out the driest place I could find, and hugged myself on my luck,--another man's coat getting wet on my back, while the air-tight jacket was keeping me dry as a bone.

"As night fell, it grew worse and worse; and the little Sicilian captain came on deck, looking rather wild. He called his pilots and mates into consultation, and from where I lay I could hear the words, 'Spezzia,' and 'Porto Venere,' several times; so I suppose they were debating whether or no to keep her head to the gale, or to edge away a point or two, and run for that bay. But with a head sea and a Mediterranean gale howling down from the gorges of the Ligurian Alps, that thing wasn't so easy. The boat would plunge into a sea and bury to her paddle-boxes, then pitch upward as if she were going to jump bodily out of water, and slap down into it again, while her guards would spring and quiver like card-board. The engine began to complain, as they will when a boat is laboring heavily. You could hear it take, as it were, long breaths, and then stop for a second altogether. I slipped below into the engine-room, and found Marston looking very sober. 'Kennedy,' said he, 'the 'Ercolano' will be somebody's coffin before to-morrow morning, I'm afraid. I'm carrying more steam than is prudent or safe, and the _padrone_ has just sent orders to put on more. We are not making a mile an hour, he says; and our only chance is to get under the lee of the land. Look at those eccentrics and that connecting-rod! I expect to see something go any minute; and then--there's no use saying what will come next.' He sat down on his bench and covered his face with his hands.