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- him a home on board till the day previous to the sailing of the ship;
and during the interval, he could not honor any drafts upon the
strength of his wages.
However, glad enough to conclude the agreement upon any terms at all,
my young blade of Bury expressed his satisfaction; and full of
admiration at so urbane and gentlemanly a sea-captain, he came forward
to receive my congratulations.
“Harry,” said I, “be not deceived by the fascinating Riga—that gay
Lothario of all inexperienced, sea-going youths, from the capital or
the country; he has a Janus-face, Harry; and you will not know him when
he gets you out of sight of land, and mouths his cast-off coats and
browsers. For _then_ he is another personage altogether, and adjusts
his character to the shabbiness of his integuments. No more condolings
and sympathy then; no more blarney; he will hold you a little better
than his boots, and would no more think of addressing you than of
invoking wooden Donald, the figure-head on our bows.”
And I further admonished my friend concerning our crew, particularly of
the diabolical Jackson, and warned him to be cautious and wary. I told
him, that unless he was somewhat accustomed to the rigging, and could
furl a royal in a squall, he would be sure to subject himself to a sort
of treatment from the sailors, in the last degree ignominious to any
mortal who had ever crossed his legs under mahogany.
And I played the inquisitor, in cross-questioning Harry respecting the
precise degree in which he was a practical sailor;—whether he had a
giddy head; whether his arms could bear the weight of his body;
whether, with but one hand on a shroud, a hundred feet aloft in a
tempest, he felt he could look right to windward and beard it.
To all this, and much more, Harry rejoined with the most off-hand and
confident air; saying that in his _“guinea-pig”_ days, he had often
climbed the masts and handled the sails in a gentlemanly and amateur
way; so he made no doubt that he would very soon prove an expert
tumbler in the Highlander’s rigging.
His levity of manner, and sanguine assurance, coupled with the constant
sight of his most unseamanlike person—more suited to the Queen’s
drawing-room than a ship’s forecastle-bred many misgivings in my mind.
But after all, every one in this world has his own fate intrusted to
himself; and though we may warn, and forewarn, and give sage advice,
and indulge in many apprehensions touching our friends; yet our
friends, for the most part, will _“gang their ain gate;”_ and the most
we can do is, to hope for the best. Still, I suggested to Harry,
whether he had not best cross the sea as a steerage passenger, since he
could procure enough money for that; but no, he was bent upon going as
a sailor.
I now had a comrade in my afternoon strolls, and Sunday excursions; and
as Harry was a generous fellow, he shared with me his purse and his
heart. He sold off several more of his fine vests and browsers, his
silver-keyed flute and enameled guitar; and a portion of the money thus
furnished was pleasantly spent in refreshing ourselves at the road-side
inns in the vicinity of the town.
Reclining side by side in some agreeable nook, we exchanged our
experiences of the past. Harry enlarged upon the fascinations of a
London life; described the curricle he used to drive in Hyde Park; gave
me the measurement of Madame Vestris’ ankle; alluded to his first
introduction at a club to the madcap Marquis of Waterford; told over
the sums he had lost upon the turf on a Derby day; and made various but
enigmatical allusions to a certain Lady Georgiana Theresa, the noble
daughter of an anonymous earl.
Even in conversation, Harry was a prodigal; squandering his
aristocratic narrations with a careless hand; and, perhaps, sometimes
spending funds of reminiscences not his own.
- title
- Chunk 4