Chapter 23

 But now, t' observe romantic method,

Let bloody steel awhile be sheathed:

And all those harsh and rugged sounds

Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,

Exchanged to Love's more gentle style,

To let our reader breathe awhile.

 

HUDIBRAS.

 

 

The damages done on board the Albatross were all repaired before sunset; the dead body of the poor fellow that was killed was committed to its watery tomb with becoming solemnity, and by the next morning the north-east trade-wind was blowing fresh and steady, and, as it usually does in both the Atlantic and Pacific, from almost due east. The ship, with booms rigged out and studding-sails set on both sides, dashed swiftly towards the west, rolling almost gunwales under at every motion, and initiating the two females into all the mysteries of sea-sickness. However, in two or three days the sea, that is always heaviest near the land, subsided into the long, regular undulation peculiar to the ocean, properly so called, and Isabella recovered from her sea-sickness, and, by keeping as much as possible in the open air, and walking the deck almost constantly, assisted at first by the arm of some one of the gentlemen, soon got her sea-legs on.

 

I would substitute some other phrase, if, by so doing, I could make myself intelligible; but as the case is, it is impossible to mince the matter--fashion has not yet, thank God, invaded the "Dictionary of Sea-Terms;" and ladies, when off soundings, must still be content to have "legs" like other folks--on shore they may vote it indecent to have even "ankles," for aught I care.

 

Captain Williams, having neither missionaries nor tracts on board, did not stop at the Sandwich Islands, nor did he even pass within sight of them; but holding on his course, on the fortieth day after leaving St. Blas, he saw Cape Espiritu Santo, the southern extremity of the island of Lugonia, or Lucon, one of the Philippine Islands. Passing through the Straits of Samar, he changed his course to the northward and westward, and steered for Macao, where he arrived six days afterwards.

 

The passage across the Pacific Ocean afforded the two lovers numerous moonlight quarter-deck walks. Morton, as first officer, had the first watch, from eight to twelve, every other night, and on these occasions was invariably accompanied by his fair bride elect, who, wrapped in a cloak or great coat, walked the deck leaning upon his arm; or, seated upon the hen-coop, listened with interest to his descriptions of American, or, more properly, New England, scenery, manners, and history; or gazed upon that lovely object, a moon-lit ocean in fine weather.

 

There is something peculiarly soothing in this scene--something in the soft light of the heavens, and in the dark and dimly-seen ocean, that induces a pleasing melancholy, a pensive tranquillity; the low, gentle murmuring of the waves calms the mind, tranquillizes its angry passions and boisterous feelings, and brings on those dreamy reveries that contemplative people are so fond of indulging. It is then, when the "grim-visaged" ocean has "smoothed his wrinkled front,"--when the winds of heaven are hushed to gentle airs, and the cloudless moon looks down upon the scene, tipping the crests of the lazy waves with silver,--that the memory and imagination of the wanderer are busy; it is then that the scenes of childhood and of manhood--the forms of friends, more loved because sundered from them by thousands of miles of water and land--all rise before him in original freshness and beauty.

 

Isabella also proposed to her lover to accompany him in his middle watch--that is, from midnight to four in the morning--but I grieve to say, that she proved worse on these occasions than an old man-of-war's man, not only "standing two calls," but, in fact, not "turning out" at all. She made some amends, however, by coming on deck at four o'clock frequently, to witness that splendid spectacle, sunrise at sea, which is particularly glorious between the tropics, not only on account of the extreme purity of the air, but from the shortness of the morning twilight; the sun rushing so suddenly from his salt water couch, as to come "within one" of catching the stars napping.

 

On arriving at Macao, Isabella was doomed to undergo another separation from her beloved Morton, whose qualities of head and heart she had had sufficient opportunities of studying and appreciating during the voyage from Mexico, and in the daily and familiar intercourse of a merchant-ship's cabin. As the Chinese eschew the society of foreign women even more rigorously than the children of Israel did that of "strange" ones--and, taking this notion of theirs "by and large" in connection with their laws, and manners, and tastes, we think they are perfectly right--Isabella was consequently landed at Macao, and placed in the care of a venerable and highly respectable Portuguese family, and after having arranged the means of as regular a correspondence as could be carried on in that country, where there are not quite so many mail-coaches and post-offices as with us, she saw with tearful eyes the whale-boat "shove off," containing in its stern-sheets Morton, a Chinese custom-house mandarin, two Chinese pigs, a hind-quarter of Chinese beef, a Chinese river pilot, and sundry baskets of Chinese fowls and vegetables.

 

Macao is beautifully situated upon a small island, near the mouth of the river Tigris, commanding a fine view towards the sea, and was, when I had the fortune to visit it, very clean and neat in its streets and the external condition of its houses--a circumstance the more remarkable, as its inhabitants are Portuguese and Chinese, two of the dirtiest people on the face of the earth: to these, of course, numerous other nations and parts of nations may be added; and among them, a very large proportion of the aristocratic and fastidious English, who prefer spitting in their pocket-handkerchiefs instead of the fire-place or the street; all the Spaniards; all the French in their houses, and food, and furniture; all the Dutch in their persons; all the Russians in every thing; nearly all the Irish and Scotch; and a very respectable modicum of my beloved countrymen, the Yankees, together with the greater part of the natives of the southern states, who, being nursed, brought up, and associating with negro slaves from the cradle to the grave, smell dirty, if they are not.

 

After an absence of about six weeks, Isabella one morning received a letter from Canton, informing her that the ship would commence "working" down the river that day, or, according to the date of the letter, two days previous, and that she would be off Macao on the second or third day from said date. Accordingly she made all necessary preparations for another and much longer voyage, and after dinner walked down to the water-side, accompanied by her Portuguese friends. They had been on the look-out for nearly half an hour, when a large ship hove in sight, evidently from Canton.

 

As she approached, steering apparently direct for the town, she suddenly tacked and stood out to sea, or directly away from it. The party had already made out with their glasses that the ship was indeed the Albatross; but poor Isabella, who had seen, on her passage from Mexico, nothing but fair winds, was exceedingly distressed by this last unintelligible manoeuvre. Were they actually going away without her?--the thought was agony. The ship, that was but four miles off when first seen, was now at least eight, and her hull was fast sinking below the line of direct vision. Her companions, who had hitherto been occupied in silently admiring that most splendid effort of human genius, a ship under full sail, were suddenly startled by an exclamation betokening extreme anguish from their lovely friend--"They have gone! they have gone!" sobbed the unhappy girl. The most affectionate kindness, and the most earnest assurances that the apparently unaccountable movement of the ship was no more than was absolutely necessary from the direction of the wind, were equally lost upon her--she "would not be comforted." In a few minutes the Albatross hove in stays (you need not hold your fan to your face, madam), and seemed to approach the shore as rapidly as she had before receded from it.

 

"Look up, my dear child," said M. de Silva; "see, your ship is flying in, and will soon be safely at anchor."

 

Isabella raised her head from the shoulder of Madam de Silva, and applying the glass to her tear-dimmed eye, was convinced of the folly of her grief. They sat down to watch the gallant ship as she rapidly approached the "roads." Before the sun was hid behind the hills in the rear of the town, they had the pleasure of seeing the Albatross commence reducing her sails; presently the topsails were clewed up, and the jib hauled down, the ship "rounded to," her anchor let go, and in a moment the men were seen clustering upon the lower and topsail yards. A minute or two afterwards Isabella plainly distinguished, by the help of her glass, the well-known whale-boat sweeping round the ship's stern, and rowing swiftly towards the shore. A deep blush announced that the glass had also informed her who was, in midshipman's language, the "sitter," the person in the stern-sheets, to wit, and she immediately proposed returning to the house. Morton, on landing, informed her that the ship would get under weigh the next morning at day-break, and that it would be most advisable, as the ship could approach no nearer than five miles to the town when beating out of the bay, to go on board as soon as possible that evening, to which she, of course, assented, and, having taken an affectionate leave of her Macao friends, who insisted upon supplying her with "sea-stores" enough to fit out half a dozen sail of Liverpool packets, she accompanied Morton to the boat.

 

The next morning at day-break she was startled from her slumbers by the clanking of the windlass-pauls, the voices of the officers, and the tramp of feet over her head; and, in a few minutes after, the rushing of the water under the cabin windows, and the "heeling" of the ship, announced that they were under weigh, and dashing out to sea with a fresh breeze. The passage home was, like most passages from the East Indies and China, rather monotonous from the long continuance of fair winds. Isabella gazed with delight upon the unrivalled scenery of the Straits of Sunda, where spring, summer, and autumn reign perpetually in a sort of triumvirate; the same field, nay, in some cases, the same tree, presenting, at one and the same time, blossoms, green fruit, and ripe fruit: infancy, maturity, and decay. She saw, too, in the night the volcano on the Island of Bourbon, afterwards False Cape and Table Mountain, but not the Flying Dutchman, the weather being unfortunately too fine to induce him to put to sea. Next came St. Helena, since so famous as the cage and then the tomb of that most furious and terrible of wild beasts, a great conqueror. Near the fifth degree of north latitude, the south-east trade-wind died away, and was succeeded by four days of light, variable, "baffling" winds, when the north-east trade set in strong from about east-by-north, its usual point near the equator, and they once more flew joyously on their north-west course. A few "regular built" Mudian (i. e. Bermudan) squalls served to vary the scene, and rendered the strong, steady gale from south-west, that succeeded them, peculiarly acceptable.

 

It was just sunrise one lovely morning, near the last of July, when Morton, who had the morning watch, directed one of the men to go aloft, and "take a look round." The seaman had gotten no higher than the fore-topsail-yard, when he shouted "land ho!" at the very top of his throat.

 

"Where away?"

 

"Broad on the larboard bow."

 

"What does it look like?"

 

"Low, white sand-beach."

 

"Cape Cod, by the mortal man that made horn spoons and poop lanterns!" said Jones, springing into the fore-rigging.

 

As the sun climbed higher in the heavens, the liquid blue plain appeared thickly studded with the white sails of vessels of all descriptions, and all steering to the westward. There was the majestic ship from India or Liverpool; brigs from the Mediterranean, from Portugal, South America, and the West Indies; schooners from the southern states, with flour, and from Maine, with boards; packet sloops from New York, Philadelphia, &c.; chebacco-boats from fishing on "Georgis;" and schooner-rigged pilot-boats, darting about under jib and mainsail, and boarding every vessel that carried the star-spangled "jack" at her fore-topgallant-mast head. Nothing could surpass the tranquil life of the scene: more than a hundred vessels, of all descriptions, were gradually but rapidly approaching a common focal point, the narrow entrance of Boston harbor, under the impulse of a fresh breeze from the south-east, that had not as yet brought forward its accompanying fogs and haze. The Albatross, her thin masts clothed from trucks to deck with snow-white canvass, dashed rapidly up the bay, the jack flying at her fore-royal-mast head, passing the low-decked molasses-loaded brigs from the West Indies, or the faster sailing topsail-schooners from the Chesapeake, inquiring the news, and furnishing matter for speculation to their crews.

 

On the passage from China to Boston, Morton expressed some impatience, particularly during the prevalence of calms or head winds; but Isabella, like all young ladies similarly situated, was perfectly composed. Why is it, dear dissemblers, that you always seem to enter the holy state with either reluctance or lukewarm indifference? when every body, with half a head, knows that matrimony is the "hoc erat in votis," the grand object of all your wishes. Strange! that the laws of female modesty should decree it absolute indelicacy for a girl candidly to show her preference for a particular individual before the rest of his sex. Strange! that modern mothers should uniformly caution their daughters against marrying for love, as the most dangerous rock in their voyage through life. Solomon could find but four strange things in his day, and those four I do not care to repeat; if he had lived in these times, he might find a hundred and fifty connected with a single matrimonial engagement.

 

The Albatross arrived at Long Wharf early in the afternoon; and Morton, having deposited his dear messmate and watchmate in the house of a widowed sister of his father, went in search of a messenger to convey a letter to his father; for, unless I am much misinformed, the mail only went at that time once a week to New Bedford.

 

Though not "so terrible old" as I might be, I recollect when a journey from Boston to Providence, a distance then of forty-five miles, occupied three days: namely, the traveller, leaving Boston in the morning, arrived at Deadham about sunset, and "put up" at the "Gay tavern," or the "Widow Woodward's;" the second hitch carried him to Attleborough; and the third evening saw him snugly seated in the bar-room of the "Old Coffee House," Providence. But a journey to New York, as it was generally supposed that the traveller must "go down to the sea in ships" part of the way, that is, through Long Island Sound in a sloop, was one of the most momentous events of a long life. The traveller "concluded" upon it in the fall, occupied the entire winter and the months of March and April in collecting his dues, paying his debts, setting his house in order, and making his will, before the weather was settled.

 

Two Sundays before starting, a note was "put up" in his parish meeting-house, "desiring prayers," and early on Monday morning, to be sure of reaching Providence before the next Sabbath, he took a weeping farewell of his wife and family, and turned his horse's head towards the "neck," and his bereaved household betook them to their chambers, "sorrowing as those that had no hope" of seeing him again.

 

Morton's messenger, spurred on by the hopes of high pay, made such diligence that he actually arrived at Taunton the first night, the selectmen of which fair town were so indignant at what they conceived barbarous and unparalleled hard driving, that they talked of prosecuting the man; but it appearing from the report of a court of inquiry of ostlers that the horse did not seem distressed by his day's work, but had fallen to work upon his oats and hay, they "withdrew their motion."

 

Old Mr. Morton received the news of his son's arrival with the greatest joy. He sat out the next day in his own carriage, drawn by two noble bay horses, and arrived without "let or hindrance" in Boston. He expected to find Isabella a girl possessed of some considerable beauty, just sufficient to captivate a seaman who for months had seen no women more attractive than the squaws of the North-West Coast or South Sea Islands; and sailors, under such circumstances, are exceedingly susceptible, me ipso testi; he had made up his mind, too, that she could be no other than ignorant and ill-bred withal. When, then, her exquisite beauty, her lovely, retiring modesty of manner, free alike from affectation or sheepishness, her expressive and eloquent features, all burst upon his view at once, his heart was taken "by storm,"--he clasped her to his bosom, and felt towards her in an instant as warm affection as though she was indeed his own child. The banns of matrimony were published immediately, after the manner of the descendants of the pilgrim roundheads, and the marriage solemnized as soon as the legal time had elapsed; and the happy party took up their abode in old Mr. Morton's house.

 

Morton's female friends and acquaintance at first seemed amazingly shy of the new-comer; but at a "numerous and highly respectable" petticoated caucus, a forlorn hope, after repeated declensions of the honor, was chosen to make the first "call." Their report was so very favorable that the newly-married couple were, in less than a fortnight, rather annoyed by too much company.

 

On the passage from Mexico to China, and thence home, Isabella had, in vulgar phrase, "taken a liking" to Jones, the boatswain, and formed, what was probably conceived, at that time, the visionary plan of breaking him from his intemperate habits. She communicated her scheme to her husband shortly after their marriage, who most cheerfully coincided in opinion with her. Jones was accordingly sent for, and regularly installed in the family. The eloquent representations of Mrs. Morton, and the promises of her husband and his father, had the wished-for effect--the old tar consented to "give up grog," and did so, making exceptions only in favor of the "glorious first of June," the anniversary of Lord Howe's victory off Ushant, at which Jones was present, the fourth of July, 'lection days, Thanksgiving days, and the birth of Mrs. Morton's first child. This last event took place, by what modern editors call a "singular coincidence," upon the first of June ensuing; and Jones was sorely puzzled how to "keep up" both days, and, in consequence, got very considerably "corned." It was, however, his last offence; he gradually adopted the temperate habits of the family, and continued in them to his death.

 

We have no farther particulars to communicate, except that Charles Morton was taken into partnership by his father, and became wealthy, and that his wife wrote a long and kind letter to her uncle, which was forwarded by the captain of an outward-bound whaleman, who delivered it into his own hands. The old Don did not answer it, however; and Isabella, in whose heart other affections had taken root, was not, perhaps, much grieved or indignant at his silence; the affection of her husband, her children, and her friends, soon obliterated all melancholy recollections.

 

The End