By sheer force of character he gained the command
of our respect. Though we agreed on deck that
he had bungled his story, it impressed us; we felt
less able to cope with him, and less willing to encounter
a storm.
‘We shall have one, of course,’ Temple
said, affecting resignation, with a glance aloft.
I was superstitiously of the same opinion, and praised
the vessel.
’Oh, Priscilla’s the very name of a ship
that founders with all hands and sends a bottle on
shore,’ said Temple.
‘There isn’t a bottle on board,’
said I; and this piece of nonsense helped us to sleep
off our gloom.
I MEET OLD FRIENDS
Notwithstanding the prognostications it pleased us
to indulge, we had a tolerably smooth voyage.
On a clear cold Sunday morning we were sailing between
a foreign river’s banks, and Temple and I were
alternately reading a chapter out of the Bible to
the assembled ship’s crew, in advance of the
captain’s short exhortation. We had ceased
to look at ourselves inwardly, and we hardly thought
it strange. But our hearts beat for a view of
the great merchant city, which was called a free city,
and therefore, Temple suggested, must bear certain
portions of resemblance to old England; so we made
up our minds to like it.
‘A wonderful place for beer cellars,’
a sailor observed to us slyly, and hitched himself
up from the breech to the scalp.
At all events, it was a place where we could buy linen.
For that purpose, Captain Welsh handed us over to
the care of his trusted mate Mr. Joseph Double, and
we were soon in the streets of the city, desirous
of purchasing half their contents. My supply of
money was not enough for what I deemed necessary purchases.
Temple had split his clothes, mine were tarred; we
were appearing at a disadvantage, and we intended
to dine at a good hotel and subsequently go to a theatre.
Yet I had no wish to part with my watch. Mr.
Double said it might be arranged. It was pawned
at a shop for a sum equivalent in our money to about
twelve pounds, and Temple obliged me by taking charge
of the ticket. Thus we were enabled to dress
suitably and dine pleasantly, and, as Mr. Double remarked,
no one could rob me of my gold watch now. We visited
a couple of beer-cellars to taste the drink of the
people, and discovered three of our men engaged in
a similar undertaking. I proposed that it should
be done at my expense. They praised their captain,
but asked us, as gentlemen and scholars, whether it
was reasonable to object to liquor because your brother
was carried out on a high tide? Mr. Double commended
them to moderation. Their reply was to estimate
an immoderate amount of liquor as due to them, with
profound composure.
‘Those rascals,’ Mr. Double informed us,
’are not in the captain’s confidence they’re
tidy seamen, though, and they submit to the captain’s
laws on board and have their liberty ashore.’
