Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:Afloat and Ashore
.pdf
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
I was advised by Marble; who, though a severe, and so often
seemingly an obdurate man, was in the main disposed to grant
as much indulgence, at suitable moments, as any officer I ever
sailed with. There was an ironical severity, at times, about the
man, which misled superficial observers. I have heard of a waggish boatswain in the navy, who, when disposed to menace
the crew with some of his official visitations, used to cry out,
“Fellow-citizens, I’m coming among you;” and the anecdote
never recurs to my mind, without bringing Marble back to my
recollection. When in spirits, he had much of this bitter irony
in his manner; and his own early experience had rendered
him somewhat insensible to professional suffering; but, on the
whole, I always thought him a humane man.
We went into the lagoon, before the sun had risen; and
before the breakfast hour of those who lived aft, we had everything landed that was necessary, and were in possession of our
tents. I had ordered Neb to attend particularly to the wants of
the Mertons; and, precisely as the bell of the ship struck eight,
which, at that time of day, meant eight o’clock, the black came
with the major’s compliments, inviting “Captain” Wallingford
and “Captain” Marble to breakfast.
“So it goes, Miles,” added my companion, after promising to
join the party in a few moments. “This arrangement about the
schooner leaves us both captains, and prevents anything like
your downhill work, which is always unpleasant business. Cap-
tain Marble and Captain Wallingford sound well; and I hope
they may long sail in company. But natur’ or art never meant
me for a captain.”
391
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“Well, admitting this, where there are two captains, one
must outrank the other, and the senior commands. You should
be called Commodore Marble.”
“None of your pleasantry, Miles,” returned Marble, with a
severe look and a shake of the head; “it is by your favour, and I
hope by your good opinion, that I am master of even that little,
half-blooded, part French, part Yankee, schooner. It is my second, and I think it will be my last command. I have generalized over my life, upon a large scale, within the last ten days,
and have come to the conclusion that the Lord created me to
be your mate, and not you to be mine. When natur’ means a
man for anything partic’lar, she doesn’t set him adrift among
human beings, as I was set adrift.”
“I do not understand you, sir – perhaps you will give me an
outline of your history; and then all will be plain.”
“Miles, oblige me in one particular – it will cost you no
great struggle, and will considerably relieve my mind.”
“You have only to name it, sir, to be certain it will be
done.”
“Drop that bloody sir, then; it’s unbecoming now, as between you and me. Call me Marble, or Moses; as I call you,
Miles.”
“Well, be it so. Now for this history of yours, which you have
promised to give me, by the way, any time these two years.”
“It can be told in a few words; and I hope it may be of service. A human life, properly generalized on, is at any time as
good as most sermons. It is full of what I call the morality of
idees. I suppose you know to what I owe my names?”
392
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
“Not I – to your sponsors in baptism, like all the rest of us,
I suppose.”
“You’re nearer the truth than you may imagine, this time,
boy. I was found, a child of a week old, they tell me, lying in a
basket, one pleasant morning, in a stone-cutter’s yard, on the
North River side of the town, placed upon a bit of stone that
was hewing out for the head of a grave, in order, as I suppose,
that the workmen would be sure to find me, when they mustered at their work. Although I have passed for a down-easter,
having sailed in their craft in the early part of my life, I’m in
truth York born.”
“And is this all you know of your origin, my dear Marble?”
“All I want to know, after such a hint. A man is never anxious to make the acquaintance of parents who are afraid to
own him. I dare say, now, Miles, that you knew, and loved, and
respected your mother?”
“Love, and respect her! I worshipped her, Marble; and she
deserved it all, if ever human being did!”
“Yes, yes; I can understand that,” returned Marble, making
a hole in the sand with his heel, and looking both thoughtful and melancholy. “It must be a great comfort to love and
respect a mother! I’ve seen them, particularly young women,
that I thought set quite as much store by their mothers, as they
did by themselves. Well, no matter; I got into one of poor Captain Robbins’s bloody currents at the first start, and have been
drifting about ever since, just like the whale-boat with which
we fell in, pretty much as the wind blew. They hadn’t the decency to pin even a name – they might have got one out of a
novel or a story-book, you know, to start a poor fellow in life
393
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
with – to my shirt; no – they just set me afloat on that bit of a
tombstone, and cast off the standing part of what fastened me
to anything human. There they left me, to generalize on the
‘arth and its ways, to my heart’s content.”
“And you were found next morning, by the stone-cutter,
when he came, again, to use his chisel.”
“Prophecy couldn’t have better foretold what happened.
There I was found, sure enough; and there I made my first escape from destruction. Seeing the basket, which it seems was
one in which he had brought his own dinner, the day before,
and forgotten to carry away with him, he gave it a jerk to cast
away the leavings, before he handed it to the child who had
come to take it home, in order that it might be filled again,
when out I rolled on the cold stone. There I lay, as near the
grave as a tomb-stone, when I was just a week old.”
“Poor fellow – you could only know this by report, however. And what was done with you?”
“I suppose, if the truth were known, my father was somewhere about that yard; and little do I envy the old gentleman his
feelings, if he reflected much, over matters and things. I was sent
to the Alms-House, however; stone-cutters being nat’rally hardhearted, I suppose. The fact that I was left among such people,
makes me think so much the more, that my own father must
have been one of them, or it never could have happened. At all
events, I was soon rated on the Alms-House books; and the first
thing they did was to give me some name. I was No. 19, for about
a week; at the age of fourteen days, I became Moses Marble.”
“It was an odd selection, that your ‘sponsors in baptism’
made!”
394
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
“Somewhat – Moses came from the scriptur’s, they tell me;
there being a person of that name, as I understand, who was
turned adrift pretty much as I was, myself.”
“Why, yes – so far as the basket and the abandonment
were concerned; but he was put afloat fairly, and not clapped
on a tomb-stone, as if to threaten him with the grave at the
very outset.”
“Well, Tombstone came very near being my name. At first,
they thought of giving me the name of the man for whom the
stone was intended; but, that being Zollickoffer, they thought
I never should be able to spell it. Then came Tombstone, which
they thought melancholy, and so they called me Marble; consaiting, I suppose, it would make me tough.”
“How long did you remain in the Alms-House, and at what
age did you first go to sea?”
“I staid among them the public feeds, until I was eight years
old, and then I took a hazy day to cut adrift from charity. At
that time, Miles, our country belonged to the British – or they
treated it as if it did, though I’ve heard wiser men than myself
say, it was always our own, the king of England only happening to be our king – but I was born a British subject, and being
now just forty, you can understand I went to sea several years
before the revolution.”
“True – you must have seen service in that war, on one
side, or the other?”
“If you say both sides, you’ll not be out of the way. In 1775, I
was a foretop-man in the Romeny 50, where I remained until
I was transferred to the Connecticut 74 – ”
395
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“The what?” said I, in surprise. “Had the English a line-ofbattle ship called the Connecticut?”
“As near as I could make it out: I always thought it a big
compliment for John Bull to pay the Yankees.”
“Perhaps the name of your ship was the Carnatic? The
sounds are not unlike.”
“Blast me, if I don’t think you’ve hit it, Miles. Well, I’m
glad of it, for I run from the ship, and I shouldn’t half like the
thought of serving a countryman such a trick. Yes, I then got
on board of one of our sloops, and tried my hand at settling
the account with my old masters. I was taken prisoner for my
pains, but worried through the war without getting my neck
stretched. They wanted to make it out, on board the old Jarsey,
that I was an Englishman, but I told ‘em just to prove it. Let ‘em
only prove where I was born, I said, and I would give it up. I was
ready to be hanged, if they could only prove where I was born.
D – – , but I sometimes thought I never was born, at all.”
“You are surely an American, Marble? A Manhattanese,
born and educated?”
“Why, as it is not likely any person would import a child a
week old, to plant it on a tombstone, I conclude I am. Yes, I must
be that; and I have sometimes thought of laying claim to the
property of Trinity Church, on the strength of my birth-right.
Well, as soon as the war was over, and I got out of prison, and that
was shortly after you were born, Captain Wallingford, I went to
work regularly, and have been ever since sarving as dickey, or
chief-mate, on board of some craft or other. If I had no family
bosom to go into, as a resting-place, I had my bosom to fill with
solid beef and pork, and that is not to be done by idleness.”
396
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
“And, all this time, my good friend, you have been living,
as it might be, alone in the world, without a relative of any
sort?”
“As sure as you are there. Often and often, have I walked
through the streets of New York, and said to myself, Among
all these people, there is not one that I can call a relation. My
blood is in no man’s veins, but my own.”
This was said with a bitter sadness, that surprised me. Obdurate, and insensible to suffering as Marble had ever appeared
to me, I was not prepared to find him giving such evidence of
feeling. I was then young, but now am old; and one of the lessons learned in the years that have intervened, is not to judge
of men by appearances. So much sensibility is hidden beneath
assumed indifference, so much suffering really exists behind
smiling countenances, and so little does the exterior tell the
true story of all that is to be found within, that I am now slow
to yield credence to the lying surfaces of things. Most of all had
I learned to condemn that heartless injustice of the world, that
renders it so prompt to decide, on rumour and conjectures,
constituting itself a judge from which there shall be no appeal,
in cases in which it has not taken the trouble to examine, and
which it had not even the power to examine evidence.
“We are all of the same family, my friend,” I answered, with
a good design at least, “though a little separated by time and
accidents.”
“Family! – Yes, I belong to my own family. I’m a more important man in my family, than Bonaparte is in his; for I am all
in all; ancestors, present time and posterity!”
397
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
“It is, at least, your own fault you are the last; why not marry and have children?”
“Because my parents did not set me the example,” answered
Marble, almost fiercely. Then clapping his hand on my shoulder, in a friendly way, as if to soothe me after so sharp a rejoinder, he added in a gentler tone – “Come, Miles, the Major and
his daughter will want their breakfasts, and we had better join
them. Talking of matrimony, there’s the girl for you, my boy,
thrown into your arms almost nat’rally, as one might say.”
“I am far from being so sure of that. Marble.” I answered,
as both began to walk slowly towards the tent “Major Merton might hot think it an honour, in the first place, to let his
daughter marry a Yankee sailor.”
“Not such a one as myself, perhaps; but why not one like
you? How many generations have there been of you, now, at
the place you call Clawbonny?”
“Four, from father to son, and all of us Miles Wallingfords.”
“Well, the old Spanish proverb says ‘it takes three generations to make a gentleman;’ and here you have four to start
upon. In my family, all the generations have been on the same
level, and I count myself old in my sphere.”
“It is odd that a man like you should know anything of old
Spanish proverbs!”
“What? Of such a proverb, think you, Miles? A man without
even a father or mother – who never had either, as one may
say – and he not remember such a proverb! Boy, boy, I never
forget anything that so plainly recalls the tomb-stone, and the
basket, and the Alms-House, and Moses, and the names!”
398
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
“But Miss Merton might object to the present generation,” I resumed, willing to draw my companion from his bitter thoughts, “however favourably disposed her father might
prove to the last.”
“That will be your own fault, then. Here you have her, but
on the Pacific Ocean, all to yourself; and if you cannot tell your
own story, and that in a way to make her believe it, you are not
the lad I take you for.”
I made an evasive and laughing answer; but, being quite
near the tent by this time, it was necessary to change the discourse. The reader may think it odd, but that was the very first
time the possibility of my marrying Emily Merton ever crossed
my mind. In London, I had regarded her as an agreeable acquaintance, with just as much of the colouring of romance and
of the sentimental about our intercourse, as is common with
youths of nineteen and girls a little younger; but as nothing
more. When we met on the island, Emily appeared to me like a
friend – a female friend – and, of course, one to be viewed with
peculiarly softened feelings; still, as only a friend. During the
month we had just passed in the same ship, this tie had gradually strengthened; and I confess to a perfect consciousness of
there being on board a pretty girl in her nineteenth year, of
agreeable manners, delicate sentiments, and one whose presence gave the Crisis a charm she certainly never enjoyed during poor Captain Williams’s time. Notwithstanding all this,
there was something – though what that something was, I did
not then know myself – which prevented me from absolutely
falling in love with my fair guest. Nevertheless, Marble’s sug-
399
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER
gestion was not unpleasant to me; but, on the other hand, it
rather conduced to the satisfaction of my present visit.
We were kindly received by our hosts, who always seemed
to remember the commencement of our acquaintance, when
Marble and myself visited them together. The breakfast had a
little of the land about it; for Mons. Le Compte’s garden still
produced a few vegetables, such as lettuce, pepper-grass, radishes, &c.; most of which, however, had sown themselves. Three
or four fowls, too, that he had left on the island in the hurry of
his departure, had begun to lay; and Neb having found a nest,
we had the very unusual treat of fresh eggs. I presume no one
will deny that they were sufficiently “country-laid.”
“Emily and myself consider ourselves as old residents here,”
the Major observed, as he gazed around him, the table being
set in the open air, under some trees; “and I could almost find
it in my heart to remain on this beautiful island for the remainder of my days – quite, I think, were it not for my poor
girl, who might find the society of her old father rather dull
work, at her time of life.”
“Well, Major,” said Marble, “you have only to let your taste
be known, to have the ch’ice among all our youngsters to be
her companion. There is Mr. Talcott, a well-edicated and mannerly lad enough, and of good connexions, they tell me; and as
for Captain Wallingford here, I will answer for him. My life on
it, he would give up Clawbonny, and the property on which he
is the fourth of his name, to be king, or Prince of Wales of this
island, with such company!”
Now, it was Marble, and not I, who made this speech; and
yet I heartily wished it unsaid. It made me feel foolish and I
400
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]