TALES OF THE SEA: 12 Maritime Adventure Novels in One Volume (Illustrated)
quiet eye, and a calmer mien. A smile, like that of success played about his lips; and he gave his orders clearly, in a cheerful, encouraging voice. They were obeyed as briskly. The elder mariners pointed to the seas, as they cut through them, and affirmed that never had the “Caroline” made such progress. The mates cast the log, and nodded their approbation as one announced to the other the unwonted speed of the ship. In short, content and hilarity reigned on board; for it was deemed that their passage was commenced under such auspices as would lead it to a speedy and a prosperous termination. In the midst of these encouraging omens, the sun dipped into the sea, illuming, as it fell, a wide reach of the chill and gloomy element. Then the shades of the hour began to gather over the vast surface of the illimitable waste.
Chapter XIV
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
—Macbeth
The first watch of the night was marked by no change. Wilder had joined his passengers, cheerful, and with that air of enjoyment which every officer of the sea is more or less wont to exhibit, when he has disengaged his vessel from the dangers of the land, and has fairly launched her on the trackless and fathomless abyss of the ocean. He no longer alluded to the hazards of the passage, but strove, by the thousand nameless assiduities which his station enabled him to man fest, to expel all recollection of had passed from their minds. Mrs Wyllys lent herself to his evident efforts to remove their apprehensions and one, ignorant of what had occurred between them, would have thought the little party, around the evening’s repast, was a contented and unsuspecting group of travellers, who had commenced their enterprise under the happiest auguries.
Still there was that, in the thoughtful eye and clouded brow of the governess, as at times she turned her bewildered look on our adventurer, which denoted a mind far from being at ease. She listened to the gay and peculiar, because professional, sallies of the young mariner, with smiles that were indulgent while they were melancholy, as though his youthful spirits, exhibited as they were by touches of a humour that was thoroughly and quaintly nautical recalled familiar, but sad, images to her fancy Gertrude had less alloy in her pleasure. Home, with a beloved and indulgent father, were before her; and she felt, while the ship yielded to each fresh impulse of the wind, as if another of those weary miles which had so long separated them, was already conquered.
During these short but pleasant hours, the adventurer who had been so oddly called into the command of the Bristol trader, appeared in a new character. Though his conversation was characterized by the frank manliness of a seaman, it was, nevertheless tempered by the delicacy of perfect breeding. The beautiful mouth of Gertrude often struggled to conceal the smiles which played around her lips and dimpled her cheeks, like a soft air ruffling the surface of some limpid spring; and once or twice, when the humour of Wilder came unexpectedly across her youthful fancy, she was compelled to yield to the impulses of an irresistible merriment.
One hour of the free intercourse of a ship can do more towards softening the cold exterior in which the world encrusts the best of human feelings, than weeks of the unmeaning ceremonies of the land. He who has not felt this truth, would do well to distrust his own companionable qualities. It would seem that man, when he finds himself in the solitude of the ocean, feels the deepest how great is his dependancy on others for happiness. Then it is that he yields to sentiments with which he trifled, in the wantonness of abundance, and is glad to seek relief in the sympathies of his kind. A community of hazard makes a community of interest, whether person or property composes the stake. Perhaps a meta-physical and a too literal, reasoner might add, that, as in such situations each one is conscious the condition and fortunes of his neighbour are the mere indexes of his own, they acquire value in his eyes from their affinity to himself. If this conclusion be true, Providence has happily so constituted the best of the species, that the sordid feeling is too latent to be discovered; and least of all was any one of the three, who passed the first hours of the night around the cabin table of the “Royal Caroline,” to be included in so selfish a class. The nature of the intercourse, which had rendered the first hours of their acquaintance so singularly equivocal, appeared to be forgotten in the freedom of the moment; or, if it were remembered at all, it merely served to give the young seaman additional interest in the eyes of the females, as much by the mystery of the circumstances as by the evident concern he had manifested in their behalf.
The bell had struck eight; and the hoarse long-drawn call, which summoned the sleepers to the deck, was heard, before either of the party seemed aware of the lateness of the hour.
“It is the middle watch,” said Wilder, smiling at he observed that Gertrude started at the strange sounds, and sat listening, like a timid doe that catches the note of the hunter’s horn. “We seamen are not always musical, as you may judge by the strains of the spokesman on this occasion. There are, however, ears in the ship to whom his notes are even more discordant than to your own.”
“You mean the sleepers?” said Mrs Wyllys.
“I mean the watch below. There is nothing so sweet to the foremast mariner as his sleep; for it is the most precarious of all his enjoyments: on the other hand, perhaps, it is the most treacherous companion the Commander knows.”
“And why is the rest of the superior so much less grateful than that of the common man?”
“Because he pillows his head on responsibility.”
“You are young, Mr Wilder, for a trust like this you bear.”
“It is a service which makes us all prematurely old.”
“Then, why not quit it?” said Gertrude, a little hastily.
“Quit it!” he replied, gazing at her intently, for an instant, while he suspended his reply. “It would be to me like quitting the air we breathe.”
“Have you so long been devoted to your profession?” resumed Mrs Wyllys, bending her thoughtful eye, from the ingenuous countenance of her pupil, once more towards the features of him she addressed.
“I have reason to think I was born on the sea.”
“Think! You surely know your birth-place.”
“We are all of us dependant on the testimony of others,” said Wilder, smiling, “for the account of that important event. My earliest recollections are blended with the sight of the ocean, and I can hardly say that I am a creature of the land at all.”
“You have, at least, been fortunate in those who have had the charge to watch over your education and your younger days.”
“I have!” he answered, with strong emphasis. Then, after shading his face an instant with his hands, he arose, and added, with a melancholy smile: “And now to my last duty for the twenty four hours. Have you a disposition to look at the night? So skilful and so stout a sailor should not seek her birth, without passing an opinion on the weather.”
The governess took his offered arm, and, with his aid, ascended the stairs of the cabin in silence, each seemingly finding sufficient employment in meditation. She was followed by the more youthful, and therefore more active Gertrude, who joined them as they stood together, on the weather side of the quarter-deck.
The night was rather misty than dark. A full and bright moon had arisen; but it pursued its path, through the heavens, behind a body of dusky clouds, that was much too dense for any borrowed rays to penetrate. Here and there, a straggling gleam appeared to find its way through a covering of vapour less dense than the rest, and fell upon the water like the dim illumination of a distant taper. As the wind was fresh and easterly, the sea seemed to throw upward from its agitated surface, more light, than it received; long lines of white, glittering foam following each other, and lending, at moments, a distinctness to the surface of the waters, that the heavens themselves wanted. The ship was bowed low on its side; and, as it entered each rolling swell of the ocean, a wide crescent of foam was driven ahead, as if the element gambolled along its path. But, though the time was propitious, the wind not absolutely adverse, and the heavens rather