Afloat and Ashore

by James Fenimore Cooper

  "No doubt we are all as well off as most strangers in New York," observed the wife; "still, it ought to be admitted that we may be mistaken. I have heard it said there is an old Mr. Hardinge, a clergyman, who would make a far better match for the lady, than his son. However, it is of no great moment, now; for, when our neighbour Mrs. John Foote, saw Dr. Hosack about her own child, she got all the particulars out of him about Mrs. Bradfort's case, from the highest quarter, and I had it from Mrs. Foote, herself."

  "I could not have believed that a physician of Dr. Hosack's eminence and character would speak openly of the diseases of his patients," I observed, a little tartly, I am afraid.

  "Oh! he didn't," said Sarah, eagerly—"he was as cunning as a fox, Mrs. Foote owned herself, and played her off finely; but Mrs. Foote was cunninger than any half-dozen foxes, and got it all out of him by negations."

  "Negations!" I exclaimed, wondering what was meant by the term, though I had understood I was to expect a little more philosophy and metaphysics, not to say algebra, in my passengers, than usually accompanied petticoats in our part of the world.

  "Certainly, negations" answered the matron, with a smile as complacent as that which usually denotes the consciousness of intellectual superiority. "One who is a little practised, can ascertain a fact as well by means of negatives as affirmatives. It only requires judgment and use."

  "Then Mrs. Bradfort's disease is only ascertained by the negative process?"

  "So I suppose—but what does one want more," put in the husband;—"and that she made her will last week, I feel quite sure, as it was generally spoken of among our friends."

  Here were people who had been in New York only a month, looking out for a ship, mere passengers as it might be, who knew more about a family with which I had myself such an intimate connection, than its own members. I thought it no wonder that such a race was capable of enlightening mankind, on matters and things in general. But the game did not end here.

  "I suppose Miss Lucy Hardinge will get something by Mrs. Bradfort's death," observed Miss Jane, "and that she and Mr. Andrew Drewett will marry as soon as it shall become proper."

  Here was a speculation, for a man in my state of mind! The names were all right; some of the incidents, even, were probable, if not correct; yet, how could the facts be known to these comparative strangers? Did the art of gossiping, with all its meannesses, lies, devices, inventions, and cruelties, really possess so much advantage over the intercourse of the confiding and honest, as to enable those who practise it to discover facts hidden from eye-witnesses, and eye-witnesses, too, that had every inducement of the strongest interest in the issue, not to be deceived? I felt satisfied, the moment Mrs. Greene's name was mentioned, that my passengers were not in the true New York set; and, justly enough, inferred they were not very good authority for one half they said; and, yet, how could they know anything of Drewett's attachment to Lucy, unless their information were tolerably accurate?

  I shall not attempt to repeat all that passed while the ship dropped down the bay; but enough escaped the gossips to render me still more unhappy than I had yet been, on the subject of Lucy. I could and did despise these people; that was easy enough; but it was not so easy to forget all that they said and surmised. This is one of the causes attendant on the habit of loose talking; one never knowing what to credit, and what not. In spite of all my disgust, and a firm determination not to contribute in any manner to the stock in trade of these people, I found great difficulty in evading their endless questions. How much they got out of me, by means of the process of negations, I never knew; but they got no great matter through direct affirmatives. Something, however, persons so indefatigable, to whom gossiping was the great aim of life, must obtain, and they ascertained that Mr. Hardinge was my guardian, that Rupert and I had passed our boyhoods in each other's company, and that Lucy was even an inmate of my own house the day we sailed. This little knowledge only excited a desire for more, and, by the end of a week, I was obliged to submit to devices and expedients to pump me, than which even the thumbscrew was scarcely more efficient. I practised on the negative system, myself, with a good deal of dexterity, however, and threw my inquisitors off, very handsomely, more than once, until I discovered that Wallace Mortimer, determined not to be baffled, actually opened communications with Neb, in order to get a clearer insight into my private affairs. After this, I presume my readers will not care to hear any more about these gentry, whose only connection with my life grew out of the misgivings they contributed largely to create in my mind, touching the state of Lucy's affections. This much they did effect, and I was compelled to submit to their power. We are all of us, more or less, the dupes of knaves and fools.

  All this, however, was the fruits of several weeks' intercourse, and I have anticipated events a little, in order to make the statements in connection. Meeting a breeze, as has been said already, the Dawn got over the bar, about two o'clock, and stood off the land, on an easy bowline, in company with the little fleet of square-rigged vessels that went out at the same time. By sunset, Navesink again dipped, and I was once more fairly at sea.

  This was at the period when the commerce of America was at its height. The spirit shown by the young Republic in the French affair had commanded a little respect, though the supposed tendencies of the new administration was causing anything but a cordial feeling towards the country to exist in England. That powerful nation, however, had made a hollow peace with France the previous March, and the highway of nations was temporarily open to all ships alike; a state of things that existed for some ten months after we sailed. Nothing to be apprehended, consequently, lay before me, beyond the ordinary dangers of the ocean. For these last, I was now prepared by the experience of several years passed almost entirely on board ship, during which time I had encircled the earth itself in my peregrinations.

  Our run off the coast was favourable, and the sixth day out, we were in the longitude of the tail of the Grand Bank. I was delighted with my ship, which turned out to be even more than I had dared to hope for. She behaved well under all circumstances, sailing even better than she worked. The first ten days of our passage were prosperous, and we were mid-ocean by the 10th of the month. During this time I had nothing to annoy me but the ceaseless cancans of my passengers. I had heard the name of every individual of note in Salem; with certain passages in his or her life, and began to fancy I had lived a twelvemonth in the place. At length, I began to speculate on the reason why this morbid propensity should exist so much stronger in that part of the world than in any other I had visited. There was nothing new in the disposition of the people of small places to gossip, and it was often done in large towns; more especially those that did not possess the tone of a capital. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Horace Walpole wrote gossip, but it was spiced with wit, as is usual with the scandal of such places as London and Paris; whereas this, to which I was doomed to listen, was nothing more than downright impertinent, vulgar, meddling with the private affairs of all those whom the gossips thought of sufficient importance to talk about. At Clawbonny, we had our gossip too, but it was innocent, seldom infringed much on the truth, and usually respected the right of every person to possess certain secrets that might remain inviolate to the world. No such rules prevailed with my passengers. Like a certain editor of a newspaper of my acquaintance, who acts as if he fancied all things in heaven and earth were created expressly to furnish materials for "paragraphs," they appeared to think that everybody of their acquaintance existed for no other purpose than to furnish them food for conversation. There must have been some unusual cause for so much personal espionnage, and, at length, I came to the following conclusion on the subject. I had heard that church government, among the puritans, descended into all the details of life; that it was a part of their religious duty to watch over each other, jog the memories of the delinquents, and serve God by ferreting out vice. This is a terrible inducement to fill the mind with the motes of a neighbourhood, and the mind thus stowed, as we sai
lors say, will be certain to deliver cargo. Then come the institutions, with their never-ending elections, and the construction that has been put on the right of the elector to inquire into all things; the whole consummated by the journals, who assume a power to penetrate the closet, ay, even the heart,—and lay bare its secrets. Is it any wonder, if we should become, in time, a nation of mere gossips? As for my passengers, even Neb got to consider them as so many nuisances.

  From some cause or other, whether it was having these loose-tongued people on board or not, is more than I can say, but certain it is, about the time Salem was handsomely cleaned out, and a heavy inroad had been made upon Boston, that the weather changed. It began to blow in gusts, sometimes from one point of the compass, sometimes from another, until the ship was brought to very short canvass, from a dread of being caught unprepared. At length, these fantasies of the winds terminated in a tremendous gale, such as I had seldom then witnessed; and such, indeed, as I have seldom witnessed since. It is a great mistake to suppose that the heaviest weather occurs in the autumnal, spring, or winter months. Much the strongest blows I have ever known, have taken place in the middle of the warm weather. This is the season of the hurricanes; and, out of the tropics, I think it is also the season of the gales. It is true; these gales do not return annually, a long succession of years frequently occurring without one; but, when they do come, they may be expected, in our own seas, in July, August, or September.

  The wind commenced at south-west, on this occasion, and it blew fresh for several hours, sending us ahead on our course, at the rate of eleven knots. As the sea got up, and sail was reduced, our speed was a little diminished perhaps; but we must have made more than a hundred miles in the first ten hours. The day was bright, cloudless, genial, and even bland; there being nothing unpleasant in the feeling of the swift currents of the air, that whirled past us. At sunset I did not quite like the appearance of the horizon; and we let the ship wade through it, under her three top-sails, single-reefed, her fore-course, and fore-top-mast staysail. This was short canvass, for a vessel that had the wind nearly over her taffrail. At nine o'clock, second reefs were taken in, and at ten, the mizen-top-sail was furled. I then turned in, deeming the ship quite snug, leaving orders with the mates to reduce the sail, did they find the ship straining, or the spars in danger, and to call me should anything serious occur. I was not called until daylight, when Talcott laid his hand on my shoulder, and said, "You had better turn out, Captain Wallingford; we have a peeler, and I want a little advice."

  It was a peeler, indeed, when I reached the deck. The ship was under a fore-course and a close-reefed main-top-sail, canvass that can be carried a long time, while running off; but which, I at once saw, was quite too much for us. An order was given immediately, to take in the top-sail. Notwithstanding the diminutive surface that was exposed, the surges given by this bit of canvass, as soon as the clews were eased off sufficiently to allow the cloth to jerk, shook the vessel's hull. It was a miracle that we saved the mast, or that we got the cloth rolled up at all. At one time, I thought it would be necessary to cut it from the yard. Fortunately the gale was steady, this day proving bright and clear, like that which had preceded.

  The men aloft made several attempts to hail the deck, but the wind blew too heavily to suffer them to be heard. Talcott had gone on the yard himself, and I saw him gesticulating, in a way to indicate there was something ahead. The seas were running so high that it was not easy to obtain much of a look at the horizon; but, by getting into the mizen-rigging, I had a glimpse of a vessel's spars, to the eastward of us, and directly on our course. It was a ship under bare poles, running as nearly before us as she could, but making most fearful yaws; sometimes sheering away off to starboard, in a way to threaten her with broaching-to; then taking a yaw to port, in which I could see all three of her masts, with their yards pointed nearly at us. I got but one glimpse of her hull, as it rose on a sea, at the same instant with the Dawn, and it actually appeared as if about to be blown away, though I took the stranger to be a vessel at least as large as we were ourselves. We were evidently approaching her fast, though both vessels were going the same way.

  The Dawn steered beautifully, one of the greatest virtues in a ship, under the circumstances in which we were then placed. A single man was all that we had at the wheel, and he controlled it with ease. I could see it was very different with the ship ahead, and fancied they had made a mistake on board her, by taking in all their canvass. Talcott and the gang aloft, had not got out of the top, however, before we had a hint that it would be well to imitate the stranger's prudence. Though our vessel steered so much better than another, no ship can keep on a direct line, while running before the wind, in a heavy sea. The waves occasionally fly past a vessel, like the scud glancing through the air; then, they seem to pause, altogether, as if to permit the ship to overtake them. When a vessel is lifted aft by one of these torrents of rushing waters, the helm loses a portion of its power; and the part of the vast machine that first receives the impulse, seems intent on exchanging places with the bows, vessels often driving sideways before the surges, for spaces of time that are exceedingly embarrassing to the mariner. This happens to the best-steering ships, and is always one source of danger in very heavy weather, to those that are running off. The merit of the Dawn was in coming under command again, quickly, and in not losing so much of the influence of her helm, as is frequently the case with wild-steering craft. I understand there is a sloop-of-war now in the navy, that is difficult to get through a narrow passage, in a blow, in consequence of her having this propensity to turn her head first one way, then another, like a gay horse that breaks his bridle.

  The hint given, just as Talcott was quitting the top, and to which there has been allusion, was given under the impulsion of one of these driving seas. The Dawn still carried her fore-topmast stay-sail, a small triangular piece of stout canvass, and which was particularly useful, as leading from the end of the bowsprit towards the head of the fore-top-mast, in preventing her from broaching-to, or pressing up with her bows so near the wind, as to produce the danger of seas breaking over the mass of the hull, and sweeping the decks. The landsman will understand this is the gravest of the dangers that occur at sea, in very heavy weather. When the ship is thrown broadside to the sea, or comes up so as to bring the wind abeam, or even forward of the beam, as in lying-to, there is always risk from this source. Another clanger, which is called pooping, is of a character that one who is ignorant of the might of the ocean when aroused, would not be apt to foresee. It proceeds from the impetuous velocity of the waves, which, rushing ahead so much faster than the vessel that is even driving before the gale, breaks against the quarter, or stern, and throws its masses of water along the deck, in a line with its keel. I suppose the President steamer to have been lost by the first of these two dangers, as will appear in the following little theory.

  There is no doubt that well-constructed steamers are safer craft, the danger from fire excepted, than the ordinary ship, except in very heavy weather. With an ordinary gale, they can contend with sufficient power; but, it is an unfortunate consequence of their construction, that exactly as the danger increases, their power of meeting it diminishes. In a very heavy swell, one cannot venture to resort to a strong head of steam, since one wheel may be nearly out of water, while the other is submerged, and thus endanger the machinery. Now, the great length of these vessels renders it difficult to keep them up to the wind, or head to sea, the safest of all positions for a vessel in heavy weather, while it exposes them to the additional risk of having the water break aboard them near the waist, in running dead before it. In a word, I suppose a steamer difficult to be kept out of the trough, in very heavy weather; and no vessel can be safe in the trough of the seas, under such circumstances; one of great length less so than others. This is true, however, only in reference to those steamers which carry the old-fashioned wheel; Erricson's screw, and Hunter's submerged wheels, rendering steam-ships, in my poor judgment, the s
afest craft in the world.

  The Dawn was overtaken by the seas, from time to time; and, then, like everything else that floats, she yawed, or rather, had her stern urged impetuously round, as if it were in a hurry to get ahead of the bows. On these occasions, the noise made by the fore-top-mast stay-sail, as it collapsed and filled, resembled the report of a small gun. We had similar reports from the fore-sail, which, for moments at a time, was actually becalmed, as the ship settled into the trough; and then became distended with a noise like that of the shaking of a thousand carpets, all filled with Sancho Panzas, at the same instant. As yet, the cloth and gear had stood these violent shocks admirably; but, just as Talcott was leading his party down, the ship made one of her side-long movements; the stay-sail filled with a tremendous report, and away it flew to leeward, taken out—of the bolt-rope as if it had been cut by shears, and then used by the furies of the tempest. Talcott smiled, as he gazed at the driving canvass, which went a quarter of a mile before it struck the water, whirling like a kite that has broken its string, and then he shook his head. I disliked, too, the tremendous surges of the fore-sail, when it occasionally collapsed and as suddenly filled, menacing to start every bolt, and to part every rope connected with block or spar.

  "We must get in that fore-course, Mr. Talcott," I said, "or we shall lose something. I see the ship ahead is under bare-poles, and it were better we were as snug. If I did not dislike losing such a wind, it would be wiser to heave-to the ship; man the buntlines and clew-garnets, at once, and wait for a favourable moment."

  We had held on to our canvass too long; the fault of youth. As I had determined to shorten sail, however, we now set about it in earnest, and with all the precautions exacted by the circumstances. Everybody that could be mustered, was placed at the clew-lines and buntlines, with strict orders to do his best at the proper moments. The first-mate went to the tack, and the second to the sheet. I was to take in the sail myself. I waited for a collapse; and then, while the ship was buried between two mounds of water, when it was impossible to see a hundred yards from her in any direction, and the canvass was actually dropping against the mast I gave the usual orders. Every man hauled, as if for life, and we had got the clews pretty well up, when the vessel came out of the cavern into the tempest, receiving the whole power of the gale, with a sudden surge, into the bellying canvass. Away went everything, as if the gear were cobwebs. At the next instant, the sail was in ribands. I was deeply mortified, as well as rendered uneasy, by this accident, as the ship ahead unquestionably was in full view of all that happened.