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- 574
- text
- adepts, since they are forever turning over and over the great globe of
globes, poor Jarl was deplorably lacking. According to his view of the
matter, this terraqueous world had been formed in the manner of a tart;
the land being a mere marginal crust, within which rolled the watery
world proper. Such seemed my good Viking’s theory of cosmography. As
for other worlds, he weened not of them; yet full as much as
Chrysostom.
Ah, Jarl! an honest, earnest Wight; so true and simple, that the secret
operations of thy soul were more inscrutable than the subtle workings
of Spinoza’s.
Thus much be said of the Skyeman; for he was exceedingly taciturn, and
but seldom will speak for himself.
Now, higher sympathies apart, for Jarl I had a wonderful liking; for he
loved me; from the first had cleaved to me.
It is sometimes the case, that an old mariner like him will conceive a
very strong attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate; an
attachment so devoted, as to be wholly inexplicable, unless originating
in that heart-loneliness which overtakes most seamen as they grow aged;
impelling them to fasten upon some chance object of regard. But however
it was, my Viking, thy unbidden affection was the noblest homage ever
paid me. And frankly, I am more inclined to think well of myself, as in
some way deserving thy devotion, than from the rounded compliments of
more cultivated minds.
Now, at sea, and in the fellowship of sailors, all men appear as they
are. No school like a ship for studying human nature. The contact of
one man with another is too near and constant to favor deceit. You wear
your character as loosely as your flowing trowsers. Vain all endeavors
to assume qualities not yours; or to conceal those you possess.
Incognitos, however desirable, are out of the question. And thus aboard
of all ships in which I have sailed, I have invariably been known by a
sort of thawing-room title. Not,—let me hurry to say,—that I put hand
in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging with a
Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better than my vocation; and
mine have been many. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a hand, as
the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine upbraid me
with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me to truck of
main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that ever howled.
Whence then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly
was. It was because of something in me that could not be hidden;
stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise
incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to
Belles-Lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.
But suffice it to say, that it had gone abroad among the Arcturion’s
crew, that at some indefinite period of my career, I had been a “nob.”
But Jarl seemed to go further. He must have taken me for one of the
House of Hanover in disguise; or, haply, for bonneted Charles Edward
the Pretender, who, like the Wandering Jew, may yet be a vagrant. At
any rate, his loyalty was extreme. Unsolicited, he was my laundress and
tailor; a most expert one, too; and when at meal-times my turn came
round to look out at the mast-head, or stand at the wheel, he catered
for me among the “kids” in the forecastle with unwearied assiduity.
Many’s the good lump of “duff” for which I was indebted to my good
Viking’s good care of me. And like Sesostris I was served by a monarch.
Yet in some degree the obligation was mutual. For be it known that, in
sea-parlance, we were _chummies._
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