The Red Rover: A Tale. James Fenimore Cooper
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rear, in his ordinary, quiet, submissive manner.
At the margin of the water they found several small boats, moored under the shelter of a neighbouring wharf. Wilder gave his companions their directions, and walked to a place convenient for embarking. After waiting the necessary time, the bows of two boats came to the land at the same moment, one of which was governed by the hands of the negro, and the other by those of Fid.
"How's this?" demanded Wilder; "Is not one enough? There is some mistake between you."
"No mistake at all," responded Dick, suffering his oar to float on its blade, and running his fingers into his hair, as if he was content with his achievement "no more mistake than there is in taking the sun on a clear day and in smooth water. Guinea is in the boat you hired; but a bad bargain you made of it, as I thought at the time; and so, as 'better late than never' is my rule, I have just been casting an eye over all the craft; if this is not the tightest and fastest rowing clipper of them all, then am I no judge; and yet the parish priest would tell you, if he were here, that my father was a boat-builder, ay, and swear it too; that is to say, if you paid him well for the same."
"Fellow," returned Wilder, angrily, "you will one day induce me to turn you adrift. Return the boat to the place where you found it, and see it secured in the same manner as before."
"Turn me adrift!" deliberately repeated Fid, "that would be cutting all your weather lanyards at one blow, master Harry. Little good would come of Scipio Africa and you, after I should part company. Have you ever fairly logg'd the time we have sailed together?"
"Ay, have I; but it is possible to break even a friendship of twenty years."
"Saving your presence, master Harry, I'll be d----d if I believe any such thing. Here is Guinea, who is no better than a nigger, and therein far from being a fitting messmate to a white man; but, being used to look at his black face for four-and-twenty years, d'ye see, the colour has got into my eye, and now it suits as well as another. Then, at sea, in a dark night, it is not so easy a matter to tell the difference. No, no, I am not tired of you yet, master Harry; and it is no trifle that shall part us."
"Then, abandon your habit of making free with the property of others."
"I abandon nothing. No man can say he ever knowed me to quit a deck while a plank stuck to the beams; and shall I abandon, as you call it, my rights? What is the mighty matter, that all hands must be called to see an old sailor punished? You gave a lubberly fisherman, a fellow who has never been in deeper water than his own line will sound you gave him, I say, a glittering Spaniard, just for the use of a bit of a skiff for the night, or, mayhap, for a small reach into the morning. Well, what does Dick do? He says to himself--for d----e if he's any blab to run round a ship grumbling at his officer--so he just says to himself, 'That's too much;' and he looks about, to find the worth of it in some of the fisherman's neighbours. Money can be eaten; and, what is better, it may be drunk; therefore, it is not to be pitched overboard with the cook's ashes. I'll warrant me, if the truth could be fairly come by, it would be found that, as to the owners of this here yawl, and that there skiff, their mothers are cousins, and that the dollar will go in snuff and strong drink among the whole family--so, no great harm done, after all."
Wilder made an impatient gesture to the other to obey, and walked up the bank, while he had time to comply. Fid never disputed a positive and distinct order, though he often took so much discretionary latitude in executing those which were less precise. He did not hesitate, therefore, to return the boat; but he did not carry his subordination so far as to do it without complaint. When this act of justice was performed, Wilder entered the skiff; and, seeing that his companions were seated at their oars, he bade them to pull down the harbour, admonishing them, at the same time, to make as little noise as possible.
"The night I rowed you into Louisbourg, a-reconnoitring," said Fid, thrusting his left hand into his bosom, while, with his right, he applied sufficient force to the light oar to make the skiff glide swiftly over the water--"that night we muffled every thing even to our tongues. When there is occasion to put stoppers on the mouths of a boat's crew, why, I'm not the man to gainsay it; but, as I am one of them that thinks tongues were just as much made to talk with, as the sea was made to live on, I uphold rational conversation in sober society. S'ip, you Guinea where are you shoving the skiff to? hereaway lies the island, and you are for going into yonder bit of a church."
"Lay on your oars," interrupted Wilder; "let the boat drift by this vessel."
They were now in the act of passing the ship, which had been warping from the wharfs to an anchorage and in which the young sailor had so clandestinely heard that Mrs. Wyllys and the fascinating Gertrude were to embark, on the following morning, for the distant province of Carolina. As the skiff floated past, Wilder examined the vessel, by the dim light of the stars, with a seaman's eye. No part of her hull, her spars, or her rigging, escaped his notice, and, when the whole became confounded, by the distance, in one dark mass of shapeless matter, he leaned his head over the side of his little bark, and mused long and deeply with himself. To this abstraction Fid presumed to offer no interruption. It had the appearance of professional duty; a subject that, in his eyes, was endowed with a species of character that might be called sacred. Scipio was habitually silent. After losing many minutes in the manner, Wilder suddenly regained his recollection and abruptly observed,--
"It is a tall ship, and one that should make a long chase!"
"That's as may be," returned the ready Fid. "Should that fellow get a free wind, and his canvas all abroad, it might worry a King's cruiser to get nigh enough to throw the iron on his decks; but jamm'd up close hauled, why, I'd engage to lay on his weather quarter, with the saucy He--"
"Boys," interrupted Wilder, "it is now proper that you dhould know something of my future movements. We have been shipmates, I might almost say messmates, for more than twenty years. I was better than an infant, Fid, when you brought me to the commander of your ship, and not only was instrumental in saving my life, but in putting me into a situation to make an officer."
"Ay, ay, you were no great matter, master Harry as to bulk; and a short hammock served your turn as well as the captain's birth."
"I owe you a heavy debt, Fid, for that one generous act, and something, I may add, for your steady adherence to me since."
"Why, yes, I've been pretty steady in my conduct master Harry, in this here business, more particularly seeing that I have never let go my grapplings, though you've so often sworn to turn me adrift. As for Guinea, here, the chap makes fair weather with you, blow high or blow low, whereas it is no hard matter to get up a squall between us, as might be seen in that small affair about the boat;"--
"Say no more of it," interrupted Wilder, whose feelings appeared sensibly touched, as his recollections ran over long-past and bitterly-remembered scenes: "You know that little else than death can part us, unless indeed you choose to quit me now. It is right that you should know that I am engaged in a desperate pursuit, and one that may easily end in ruin to myself and all who accompany me. I feel reluctant to separate from you, my friends, for it may be a final parting, but, at the same time, you should know all the danger."
"Is there much more travelling by land?" bluntly demanded Fid.
"No; the duty, such as it is, will be done entirely in the water."
"Then bring forth your ship's books, and find room for such a mark as a pair of crossed anchors, which stand for all the same as so many letters reading 'Richard Fid.'"
"But perhaps, when you know"----
"I want to know nothing about it, master Harry Haven't I sailed with you often enough under sealed orders, to trust my old body once more in your company without forgetting my duty? What say you Guinea? will you ship? or shall we land you at once, on yonder bit of a low point, and leave you to scrape acquaintance with the clams?"
"'Em berry well off, here," muttered the perfectly contented negro.
"Ay, ay, Guinea is like the launch of one of the coasters, always towing in your wake, master Harry; whereas I am often luffing athwart your hawse, or getting foul, in some fashion or other, on one of your quarters. Howsomever, we are both shipped, as you see, in this here cruise,