Home as Found Part 62

The widow-bewitched turned to her basket, and raising a piece of calico, to look for the thread "high, low, jack and the game," stared her in the face. When she bent her eyes towards her guests, she perceived all three gazing at the cards, with as much apparent surprise and curiosity, as if two of them knew nothing of their history.

"Awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Abbott, shaking both hands,--"awful--awful-- awful! The powers of darkness have been at work here!"

"They seem to have been pretty much occupied, too," observed the captain, "for a better thumbed pack I never yet found in the forecastle of a s.h.i.+p."

"Awful--awful--awful!--This is equal to the forty days in the wilderness, Mr. Dodge."

"It is a trying cross, ma'am."

"To my notion, now," said the captain, "those cards are not worse than the skipping-rope, though I allow that they might have been cleaner."

But Mrs. Abbott was not disposed to view the matter so lightly. She saw the hand of the devil in the affair, and fancied it was a new trial offered to her widowed condition.

"Are these actually cards!" she cried, like one who distrusted the evidence of her senses.

"Just so, ma'am," kindly answered the commodore; "This is the ace of spades, a famous fellow to hold when you have the lead; and this is the Jack, which counts one, you know, when spades are trumps. I never saw a more thorough-working pack in my life."

"Or a more thoroughly worked pack," added the captain, in a condoling manner. "Well, we are not all perfect, and I hope Mrs. Abbott will cheer up and look at this matter in a gayer point of view. For myself I hold that a skipping-rope is worse than the Jack of spades, Sundays or week days. Commodore, we shall see no pickerel to-day, unless we tear ourselves from this good company."

Here the two wags took their leave, and retreated to the skiff; the captain, who foresaw an occasion to use them, considerately offering to relieve Mrs. Abbott from the presence of the odious cards, intimating that he would conscientiously see them fairly sunk in the deepest part of the lake.

When the two worthies were at a reasonable distance from the sh.o.r.e, the commodore suddenly ceased rowing, made a flourish with his hand, and incontinently began to laugh, as if his mirth had suddenly broken through all restraint. Captain Truck, who had been lighting a cigar, commenced smoking, and, seldom indulging in boisterous merriment, he responded with his eyes, shaking his head from time to time, with great satisfaction, as thoughts more ludicrous than common came over his imagination.

"Harkee, commodore," he said, blowing the smoke upward, and watching it with his eye until it floated away in a little cloud, "neither of us is a chicken. You have studied life on the fresh water, and I have studied life on the salt. I do not say which produces the best scholars, but I know that both make better Christians than the jack- screw system."

"Just so. I tell them in the village that little is gained in the end by following the blind; that is my doctrine, sir."

"And a very good doctrine it would prove, I make no doubt, were you to enter into it a little more fully--"

"Well, sir, I can explain--"

"Not another syllable is necessary. I know what you mean as well as if I said it myself, and, moreover, short sermons are always the best. You mean that a pilot ought to know where he is steering, which is perfectly sound doctrine. My own experience tells me, that if you press a sturgeon's nose with your foot, it will spring up as soon as it is loosened. Now the jack-screw will heave a great strain, no doubt; but the moment it is let up, down comes all that rests on it, again. This Mr. Dodge, I suppose you know, has been a pa.s.senger with me once or twice?"

"I have heard as much--they say he was tigerish in the fight with the n.i.g.g.e.rs--quite an out-and-outer."

"Ay, I hear he tells some such story himself; but harkee, commodore, I wish to do justice to all men, and I find there is very little of it inland, hereaway. The hero of that day is about to marry your beautiful Miss Effingham; other men did their duty too, as, for instance, was the case with Mr. John Effingham; but Paul Blunt-Powis- Effingham finished the job. As for Mr. Steadfast Dodge, sir, I say nothing, unless it be to add that he was nowhere near _me_ in that transaction; and if any man felt like an alligator in Lent, on that occasion, it was your humble servant."

"Which means that he was not nigh the enemy, I'll swear before a magistrate."

"And no fear of perjury. Any one who saw Mr. John Effingham and Mr.

Powis on that day, might have sworn that they were father and son, and any one who _did not see_ Mr. Dodge might have said at once, that he did not belong to their family. That is all, sir; I never disparage a pa.s.senger, and, therefore, shall say no more than merely to add, that Mr. Dodge is no warrior."

"They say he has experienced religion, lately, as they call it."

"It is high time, sir, for he had experienced sin quite long enough, according to my notion. I hear that the man goes up and down the country disparaging those whose shoe-ties he is unworthy to unloose, and that he has published some letters in his journal, that are as false as his heart; but let him beware, lest the world should see, some rainy day, an extract from a certain log-book belonging to a s.h.i.+p called the Montauk. I am rejoiced at this marriage after all, commodore, or marriages rather, for I understand that Mr. Paul Effingham and Sir George Templemore intend to make a double bowline of it to-morrow morning. All is arranged, and as soon as my eyes have witnessed that blessed sight, I shall trip for New-York again."

"It is clearly made out then, that the young gentleman is Mr. John Effingham's son?"

"As clear as the north-star in a bright night. The fellow who spoke to me at the Fun of Fire has put us in a way to remove the last doubt, if there were any doubt. Mr. Effingham himself, who is so cool-headed and cautious, says there is now sufficient proof to make it good in any court in America, That point may be set down as settled, and, for my part, I rejoice it is so, since Mr. John Effingham has so long pa.s.sed for an old bachelor, that it is a credit to the corps to find one of them the father of so n.o.ble a son."

Here the commodore dropped his anchor, and the two friends began to fish. For an hour neither talked much, but having obtained the necessary stock of perch, they landed at the favourite spring, and prepared a fry. While seated on the gra.s.s, alternating be tween the potations of punch, and the mastication of fish, these worthies again renewed the dialogue in their usual discursive, philosophical, and sentimental manner.

"We are citizens of a surprisingly great country, commodore,"

commenced Mr. Truck, after one of his heaviest draughts; "every body says it, from Maine to Florida, and what every body says must be true."

"Just so, sir. I sometimes wonder how so great a country ever came to produce so little a man as myself."

"A good cow may have a bad calf, and that explains the matter. Have you many as virtuous and pious women in this part of the world, as Mrs. Abbott?"

"The hills and valleys are filled with them. You mean persons who have got so much religion that they have no room for any thing else?"

"I shall mourn to my dying day, that you were not brought up to the sea! If you discover so much of the right material on fresh-water, what would you have been on salt? The people who suck in nutriment from a brain and a conscience like those of Mr. Dodge, too, commodore, must get, in time, to be surprisingly clear-sighted."

"Just so; his readers soon overreach themselves. But it's of no great consequence, sir; the people of this part of the world keep nothing long enough to do much good, or much harm."

"Fond of change, ha?"

"Like unlucky fishermen, always ready to s.h.i.+ft the ground. I don't believe, sir, that in all this region you can find a dozen graves of sons, that lie near their fathers. Every body seems to have a mortal aversion to stability,"

"It is hard to love such a country, commodore!"

"Sir, I never try to love it. G.o.d has given me a pretty sheet of water, that suits my fancy and wants, a beautiful sky, fine green mountains, and I am satisfied. One may love G.o.d, in such a temple, though he love nothing else."

"Well, I suppose if you love nothing, nothing loves you, and no injustice is done."

"Just, so, sir. Self has got to be the idol, though in the general scramble a man is sometimes puzzled to know whether he is himself, or one of the neighbours."

"I wish I knew your political sentiments, commodore; you have been communicative on all subjects but that, and I have taken up the notion that you are a true philosopher."

"I hold myself to be but a babe in swaddling-clothes compared to yourself, sir; but such as my poor opinions are, you are welcome to them. In the first place, then, sir, I have lived long enough on this water to know that every man is a lover of liberty in his own person, and that he has a secret distaste for it in the persons of other people. Then, sir, I have got to understand that patriotism means bread and cheese, and that opposition is every man for himself."

"If the truth were known, I believe, commodore, you have buoyed out the channel!"

"Just so. After being pulled about by the salt of the land, and using my freeman's privileges at their command, until I got tired of so much liberty, sir, I have resigned, and retired to private life, doing most of my own thinking out here on the Otsego-Water, like a poor slave as I am."

"You ought to be chosen the next President!"

"I owe my present emanc.i.p.ation, sir, to the sogdollager. I first began to reason about such a man as this Mr. Dodge, who has thrust himself and his ignorance together into the village, lately, as an expounder of truth, and a ray of light to the blind. Well, sir, I said to myself, if this man be the man I know him to be as a man, can he be any thing better as an editor?"

"That was a home question put to yourself, commodore; how did you answer it?"

"The answer was satisfactory, sir, to myself, whatever it might be to other people. I stopped his paper, and set up for myself. Just about that time the sogdollager nibbled, and instead of trying to be a great man, over the shoulders of the patriots and sages of the land, I endeavoured to immortalize myself by hooking him. I go to the elections now, for that I feel to be a duty, but instead of allowing a man like this Mr. Dodge to tell me how to vote, I vote for the man in public that I would trust in private."

"Excellent! I honour you more and more every minute I pa.s.s in your society. We will now drink to the future happiness of those who will become brides and bridegrooms to-morrow. If all men were as philosophical and as learned as you, commodore, the human race would be in a fairer way than they are to-day."

"Just so; I drink to them with all my heart. Is it not surprising, sir, that people like Mrs. Abbott and Mr. Dodge should have it in their power to injure such as those whose happiness we have just had the honour of commemorating in advance?"

"Why, commodore, a fly may bite an elephant, if he can find a weak spot in his hide. I do not altogether understand the history of the marriage of John Effingham, myself; but we see the issue of it has been a fine son. Now I hold that when a man fairly marries, he is bound to own it, the same as any other crime; for he owes it to those who have not been as guilty as himself, to show the world that he no longer belongs to them."