The Red Rover & Other Sea Adventures – 3 Novels in One Volume. Джеймс Фенимор Купер
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the little I have heard, I am altogether in favour of scudding.”
He pronounced the latter word with an emphasis which rendered it questionable if he did not mean to pun; the more especially as he threw down his reckoning and instantly left the field to the quiet possession of Nightingale. The latter, after a short pause, resumed his narrative, though, either from weariness or some other cause, it was observed that his voice was far less positive than before, and that his tale was cut prematurely short. After completing his narrative and his grog, he staggered to the beach, whither a boat was shortly after despatched to convey him on board the ship, which, during all this time, had not ceased to be the constant subject of the suspicious examination of the good-man Homespun.
In the mean while, the stranger in green had pursued his walk along the main street of the town. Fid had given chase to the disconcerted Scipio, grumbling as he went, and uttering no very delicate remarks on the knowledge and seamanship of the boatswain. They soon joined company again, the former changing his attack to the negro, whom he liberally abused, for abandoning a point which he maintained was as simple, and as true, as “that yonder bit of a schooner would make more way, going wing-and-wing, than jammed up on a wind.”
Probably diverted with the touches of peculiar character he had detected in this singular pair of confederates, or possibly led by his own wayward humour, the stranger followed their footsteps. After turning from the water, they mounted a hill, the latter a little in the rear of his pilots, until he lost sight of them in a bend of the street, or rather road; for by this time, they were past even the little suburbs of the town. Quickening his steps, the barrister, as he had announced himself to be, was glad to catch a glimpse of the two worthies, seated under a fence several minutes after he had believed them lost. They were making a frugal meal, off the contents of a little bag which the white had borne under his arm and from which he now dispensed liberally to his companion, who had taken his post sufficiently nigh to proclaim that perfect amity was restored, though still a little in the back ground, in deference to the superior condition which the other enjoyed through favour of his colour. Approaching the spot, the stranger observed,—
“If you make so free with the bag, my lads, your third man may have to go supperless to bed.”
“Who hails?” said Dick, looking up from his bone, with an expression much like that of a mastiff when engaged at a similar employment.
“I merely wished to remind you that you had another messmate,” cavalierly returned the other.
“Will you take a cut, brother?” said the seaman, offering the bag, with the liberality of a sailor, the moment he fancied there was an indirect demand made on its contents.
“You still mistake my meaning; on the wharf you had another companion.”
“Ay, ay; he is in the offing there, overhauling that bit of a light-house, which is badly enough moored unless they mean it to shew the channel to your ox-teams and inland traders; hereaway, gentlemen, where you see that pile of stones which seems likely to be coming down shortly by-the-run.”
The stranger looked in the direction indicated by the other, and saw the young mariner, to whom he had alluded, standing at the foot of a ruined tower, which was crumbling under the slow operations of time, at no great distance from the place where he stood. Throwing a handful of small change to the seamen, he wished them a better meal, and crossed the fence, with an apparent intention of examining the ruin also.
“The lad is free with his coppers,” said Dick, suspending the movements of his teeth, to give the stranger another and a better look; “but, as they will not grow where he has planted them, S’ip, you may turn them over to my pocket. An off-handed and a free-handed chap that, Africa; but then these law-dealers get all their pence of the devil, and they are sure of more, when the shot begins to run low in the locker.”
Leaving the negro to collect the money, and to transfer it, as in duty bound, to the hands of him who, if not his master, was at all times ready and willing to exercise the authority of one, we shall follow the stranger in his walk toward, the tottering edifice. There was little about the ruin itself to attract the attention of one who, from his assertions, had probably often enjoyed the opportunities of examining far more imposing remains of former ages, on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a small circular tower, which stood on rude pillars, connected by arches, and might have been constructed, in the infancy of the country, as a place of defence, though it is far more probable that it was a work of a less warlike nature. More than half a century after the period of which we are writing, this little edifice, peculiar in its form, its ruinous condition, and its materials, has suddenly become the study and the theme of that very learned sort of individual the American antiquarian. It is not surprising that a ruin thus honoured should have become the object of many a hot and erudite discussion. While the chivalrous in the arts and in the antiquities of the country have been gallantly breaking their lances around the mouldering walls, the less instructed and the less zealous have regarded the combatants with the same species of wonder as they would have manifested had they been present when the renowned knight of La Mancha tilted against those other wind-mills so ingeniously described by the immortal Cervantes.
On reaching the place, the stranger in green gave his boot a smart blow with the riding whip, as if to attract the attention of the abstracted young sailor, and freely remarked,—
“A very pretty object this would be, if covered with ivy, to be seen peeping through an opening in a wood. But I beg pardon; gentlemen of your profession have little to do with woods and crumbling stones. Yonder is the tower,” pointing to the tail masts of the ship in the outer harbour, “you love to look on; and your only ruin is a wreck!”
“You seem familiar with our tastes, sir,” coldly returned the other.
“It is by instinct, then; for it is certain I have had but little opportunity of acquiring my knowledge by actual communion with any of the—cloth; nor do I perceive that I am likely to be more fortunate at present. Let us be frank, my friend, and talk in amity: What do you see about this pile of stones, that can keep you so long from your study of yonder noble and gallant ship?”
“Did it then surprise you that a seaman out of employment should examine a vessel that he finds to his mind, perhaps with an intention to ask for service?”
“Her commander must be a dull fellow, if he refuse it to so proper a lad! But you seem to be too well instructed for any of the meaner births.”
“Births!” repeated the other, again fastening his eyes, with a singular expression, on the stranger in green.
“Births! It is your nautical word for ‘situation, or; station;’ is it not? We know but little of the marine vocabulary, we barristers; but I think I may venture on that as the true Doric. Am I justified by your authority?”
“The word is certainly not yet obsolete; and, by a figure, it is as certainly correct in the sense you used it.”
“Obsolete!” repeated the stranger in green, returning the meaning look he had just received: “Is that the name of any part of a ship? Perhaps, by figure, you mean figure-head; and, by obsolete, the long-boat!”
The young seaman laughed; and, as if this sally had broken through the barrier of his reserve, his manner lost much of its cold restraint during the remainder of their conference.
“It is just as plain,” he said, “that you have been at sea, as it is that I have been at school. Since we have both been so fortunate, we may afford to be generous and cease speaking in parables. For instance, what think you has been the object and use of this ruin, when it was in good condition?”
“In order to judge of that,” returned the stranger in green, “it may be necessary to examine it more closely. Let us ascend.”
As he spoke, the barrister mounted, by a crazy ladder, to the floor which lay just above the crown of the arches, through which he passed by an open trapdoor His companion hesitated to follow; but, observing that the other expected him at the summit of the ladder, and that he very kindly pointed out a defective round, he sprang forward, and went up the ascent with the agility