'You are an ignorant boy, Strale. Do you not know there are as many spendthrifts, rowdies, and scoundrels, on shore, in proportion to their numbers, as on the sea? They have a better chance to keep out of sight, and there is a little more refinement in their vices; but after all, the sailor has more good qualities to counterbalance his bad ones: he is grievously slandered by all sorts of men; as a body they are faithful, obedient, patient and generous, and when you take into view their sufferings and temptations, it is wonderful they do so well.'
'The name of a sailor was once full of terror to me,' returned Walter, 'for in every narrative of piracy I have read, they are fearful agents, and seem to commit murder with as little scrapie as if it were lawful business.'
'So you have judged of the sailor's character from the worst portraits you can find. This is not fair, Walter: if you take this method with landsmen, you will dread them as much as you do the sailor. What do you think of those land pirates, who decoy seamen into their dens of wickedness, and then turn them houseless and penniless upon the world? There are good and bad in all classes: when you are older, you will do justice to the sailor.'
'I would do it now, Capt. Wing. My judgment was hasty and my language rash; my observation must be more extended before I can be a competent judge in this matter; but in the variety of character you have given the sailor, you have placed things so much at opposites, that I must ask you to unriddle the paradox.'
'The necessities of the sailor,' returned Capt. Wing, 'have made him a little of every thing. You can well enough understand why he acts the tailor or the cook, but you cannot connect these humble offices with the higher qualities of the gentleman and philosopher. Now here is Le Moine—our French steward; no one can be more skilful in his office, and yet that lad can tell you the name of every prominent constellation, and with the proper instruments he can measure his latitude with unfailing accuracy. The same is true of many other seamen, upon whom a careless observer might turn an eye of indifference or contempt. But look, Walter! the clouds are heaving up in the west; we shall have a thunder squall, and you will now see how the Sea Gull dances on the water. That is the black flag,' continued Wing, addressing Roberts, the mate; 'there are pirates in the clouds as well as on the water, and old Neptune gets all the plunder; but the wind is fair, and we can run half an hour before we are overhauled.'
'It grows dark already, and the wind lulls,' said Roberts; 'this sky-scraper will board us directly.'
'Let him come,' said Wing; 'he is one of my old acquaintance, but his dress is darker than usual, and he looks more rough and surly than is his wont.'
The wind had now died away, and there was a perfect calm on the water; the Sea Gull was flapping her wings, but had no onward motion. In a few moments the cloud suddenly expanded, and stretched a curtain of terrific blackness from the western limit of the horizon to the extreme north; the air was now excessively sultry, and an ominous silence and gloom hung over the water; it was presently interrupted by a sharp flash of lightning, followed by a deafening peal of thunder. 'Get up the chain, Mr. Roberts,' said Wing; 'the lightning will soon be in chase of us, and we must throw it overboard.' The chain was instantly run up to the mast head, and its lower extremity hung over the tafferel; the sails were furled, except the foresail, which was closely reefed, and under a light breeze the schooner again made some headway.
The whole atmosphere was now veiled in blackness, and as if conscious that some terrible convulsion was at hand, the crew of the schooner stood at their posts in perfect silence, while Capt. Wing paced the deck, with that hurried and tremulous motion, which indicated the anxiety that oppressed him. A few drops of rain now fell on the deck and the surrounding ocean. Another and more vivid gleam of lightning, followed by rapid and still fiercer flashes, announced that the crisis was at hand. The next moment the little Sea Gull was enveloped in a blaze of lurid fire, and she staggered under a shock, which but for the chain at the mast head, would have sent her to the bottom; at the same moment, the roar of the hurricane was heard in the distance, and before the panic occasioned by the lightning had subsided, the foresail was torn from the bolt ropes, and scattered in shreds upon the sea,—and in a cloud of tempest and foam, the Sea Gull was rushing through the water, at the rate of ten knots per hour. The sea and sky were now mingled together in wild and terrible uproar; the constant blaze of lightning, the rapid peals of thunder, the trembling and creaking of the schooner as she dashed on her way, presented a scene which startled and overawed even her daring and experienced commander. But the crisis was soon past, and in the course of forty minutes the violence of the squall was over, and before sunset the Sea Gull, with no other damage than the loss of her foresail, was gliding over the water, with a pleasant breeze from the south.
'I am willing to grapple with anything but lightning,' said Wing, 'thanks to the chain we sent up; but for that, Walter, we should have slept to night in the ocean.'