“Whirlpools!” replied young Tom, who was watching and mocking him; “yes, that there are, under the bridges. I’ve watched a dozen chips go down, one after the other.”
“A dozen ships!” exclaimed the Dominie, turning to Tom; “and every soul lost?”
“Never saw them afterwards,” replied Tom, in a mournful voice.
“How little did I dream of the dangers of those so near me,” said the Dominie, turning away, and communing with himself. “‘Those who go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters;’—‘Et vastas aperit Syrtes;’—‘These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.’—‘Alternante vorans vasta Charybdis aqua.’—‘For at his word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up the waves thereof.’—‘Surgens a puppi ventus.—Ubi tempestas et caeli mobilis humor.’—‘They are carried up to the heavens, and down again to the deep.’—‘Gurgitibus miris et lactis vertice torrens.’—‘Their soul melteth away because of their troubles.’—‘Stant pavidi. Omnibus ignoiae mortis timor, omnibus hostem.’—‘They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man.’”
“So they do, father, don’t they, sometimes?” observed Tom, leering his eye at his father. “That’s all I’ve understood of his speech.”
“They are at their wit’s end,” continued the Dominie.
“Mind the end of your wit, master Tom,” answered his father, wroth at the insinuation.
“‘So when they call upon the Lord in their trouble’—‘Cujus jurare timent et fallere nomen’—‘He delivereth them out of their distress, for he makest the storm to cease, so that the waves thereof are still;’ yea, still and smooth as the peaceful water which now floweth rapidly by our anchored vessel—yet it appeareth to me that the scene hath changed. These fields met not mine eyes before. ‘Riparumque toros et prata recentia rivis.’ Surely we have moved from the wharf?”—and the Dominie turned round, and discovered, for the first time, that we were more than a mile from the place at which we had embarked.
“Pray, sir, what’s the use of speech, sir?” interrogated Tom, who had been listening to the whole of the Dominie’s long soliloquy.
“Thou asketh a foolish question, boy. We are endowed with the power of speech to enable us to communicate our ideas.”