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For several terms we sat together on the same uncompromisingly uncomfortable bench, worried over the same boy-maddening problems in "Ray's Arithmetic-Part III.," learned the same jargon of meaningless rules from "Greene's Grammar," pondered over "Mitchell's Geography and Atlas," and tried in vain to understand why Providence made the surface of one State obtrusively pink and another ultramarine blue; trod slowly and painfully over the rugged road "Bullion" points out for beginners in Latin, and began to believe we should hate ourselves and everybody else, if we were gotten up after the manner shown by "Cutter's Physiology."
Then the steer-ropes were passed around a runner support of the cutter and held by the steersman who perched on the front of the bobs. Thus if the bobs upset, or the horse went too fast, he could detach the bobs from the cutter by the simple expedient of letting go the rope. All the others immediately piled on to get the benefit of the ride. Some preferred to stand atop the cutter's runners.
"There lies the canoe of the Sarpent on the cutter's deck; and the chief has got on board, and no doubt has given a true account of our condition; for, unlike a Mingo, a Delaware is sartain to get a story right, or to hold his tongue." "That canoe may not belong to the cutter," said the captious seaman. "Oh-deuce had one on board when he sailed."
"She couldn't, in a light wind," the mate replied; "but with this wind, it will want a fast boat to beat her." The hands were now set to work, shifting the kegs further aft. "That's better," the skipper said presently. "I am sure we are gaining ground, and our masts will stand it, if the cutter's will." With her stern low in the water, the lugger was now tearing along at a tremendous pace.
Sloper and his friends were a little tipsy; it might have been that they were irritated by their feu de joie being interrupted and complicated, so to speak, by the cutter's artillery; it is certain that they continued to load and discharge their guns as fast as they could sponge them out; whilst from the river the cutter maintained a rapid fire at Labour's Retreat.
He went aft as he spoke; and in a few seconds the cutter's head was directed straight towards the English coast, while, crowding on more sail, she seemed to fly through the water.
The wind was from the south-east, and being thus partially off shore, would enable the frigate to stand in closer to the land than she otherwise might have ventured to do. This greatly diminished the chances of the cutter's escape.
"Here, old mother Slush," sung out another of the cutter's crew. "Hand us up a dozen bottles of spruce, do you hear?" "Dozen battle of pruce!" groaned the old woman "who shall pay me?" "Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old canary, you?" "How much, eh?" said the boatswain's mate. "Twelve feepennies," quoth the matron.
The serenity and beauty of the night, the brilliancy of the stars which studded the deep purple vault above me, and the gentle murmur of the wind through the cutter's rigging, combined to produce a sensation of solemnity almost amounting to melancholy within me, and my thoughts flew back to the beloved sister I had so recently parted with, wondering whether she was at that moment thinking of me, or whether we should ever meet again, and, if so, how long hence and under what circumstances; and so on, and so on, until I was recalled to myself by a sprinkling of spray upon my cheek, whereupon I awoke, in the first place, to the fact that the breeze had so far freshened that the Lily was flying through the water with her lee gunwale pretty well under; and, in the second, to the knowledge that I had outstayed my watch a good half-hour.
So great, indeed, had been the additional assistance afforded by the two pairs of strong arms belonging to the cutter's crew, that we considered we now had a sufficiency of material to plank the schooner right up to her gunwale.
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