It was a cold grey day; the deck of the Leucothea was sloppy with melting snow, and littered with chaotic little piles of luggage, among which the passengers wandered up and down like a hundred cats smelling about in a strange garret. Some were still crouched, shiveringly, on the high piles of lumber amid ships, to which they had ascended to take their last view of home; others jostled in the gangways, as they revolved in their uneasy orbits from stem to stern; while a third party, without any ostensible motive, kept running up and down the cabin-stairs. Everybody looked cross and out of sorts, as if he would like nothing so well as to get into a quarrel with everybody else.
After proceeding a few miles down the bay, we put back and anchored, for the night, just out of sight of the city; and the deck being now almost entirely deserted, I groped my way down the winding stairs and into the little cabin. At first, I could see nothing but the misty light of a lantern swinging amidships, faintly illuminating the white-washed beams, and oil-cloth covered table; but, as my eyes became used to the darkness, I discovered a small party gathered round the unsocial airtight, and conversing in a sort of subterranean tones, of their present dismal condition. Sitting down among them, I was not so much occupied with my own bitter and thick-coming fancies, as to take no note of their broken dialogue.
"Ah," said one, with an abortive laugh, "Charley feels bad enough to-night."
"Yes, he wishes he was up to M——, I guess," returned another, whose faltering vivacity plainly declared he wished so himself at any rate.
"Humph," retorted Charley, with something between a whine and a growl, "I think we were all a set of darned fools; if I was only safe back, you'd never catch me in such a scrape again; you'd better believe it."
"Well," said his companion, "there's a chance left yet; you can go back in the pilot-boat to-morrow."
"I ain't quite such a fool as all that comes to" sneered Charley; "we're in for it now, and I mean to put her through."
This speech was followed by a melancholy laugh, and then by a profound silence, in the midst of which, they, one by one, dropped off to bed in the adjoining staterooms; leaving me alone in the dingy little cabin, with the ungenial airtight,—the puffy lantern, with one big, drunken eye in its belly,—and the greasy table, whose pinching, miserly face said, as plainly as words could speak, that if it had ever witnessed one generous feast, it was so long ago that it remembered nothing about it. I was unable to resist these combined influences, and soon slunk away to my berth, with a heart heavy as the gold I was pursuing.
In refitting the Leucothea for a passenger ship, eight supplemental staterooms had been built on deck, covered, as well as the space between, with what is called a poop deck, extending from the stern several feet forward of the mizenmast. My berth was an upper one, and its already alarming elevation was aggravated by a miscellaneous collection of boots, shovels, and pickaxes, which I had stored under the mattrass, partly to economize space, and partly to prepare myself, by this sort of hardening process, for the privations I expected to encounter in the mines. Owing to the hurry of my departure, and the crowded state of my trunks, I had been obliged to resort to a very ingenious expedient to transport my superfluous wardrobe. When one shirt became soiled, I hid it with a second, and this process I repeated till I had no less than six lying one above another. I then improved upon this invention by adding two vests, a frock, a sack, a great coat, and a pea-jacket, so that I might easily have been mistaken for one of those early Dutch navigators immortalized by Irving, who thought it a great hardship to be obliged to go aloft with only five coats apiece. Thus fortified, and having my feet encased in a huge pair of boots, I climbed with infinite difficulty into my berth, where I slept about as securely as an elephant on the roof of a house.
The next morning we stood out to sea, which somewhat revived our drooping courage; as, in battle, it is easier to advance boldly against the enemy, than to remain, a long time, passively exposed to his attacks. But our fortitude was soon to be subjected to a still severer test. Very few of our number had ever been to sea before, and some had never seen any larger body of water than the pond or river in which they had fished and bathed in boyhood. All, however, had heard of the ocean, of its grandeur and sublimity, and, of course, had already made up their minds to be duly affected, as every one possessing the least share of sensibility must be, by its mighty attributes. Accordingly, the sharp outline of the horizon was still broken on one side by the gradually sinking land, when they went to work with most commendable ardour and perseverance to raise their imaginations to the proper level.