Homeward Bound; Or, the Chase: A Tale of the Sea

by James Fenimore Cooper

The young man was one of those who, without principles or high motives, live only for vanity. Of prominent vices he had none, for there were no salient points in his character on which to hang any quality of sufficient boldness to encourage crime of that nature. Perhaps he owed his ruin to the circumstance that he had a tolerable person, and was six feet high, as much as to any one other thing. His father had been a short, solid, square-built little man, whose ambition never towered above his stature, and who, having entered fairly on the path of industry and integrity early in life, had sedulously persevered in it to the end. Not so with the son. He read so much about aristocratic stature, aristocratic ears, aristocratic hands, aristocratic feet, and aristocratic air, that he was delighted to find that in all these high qualities he was not easily to be distinguished from most of the young men of rank he occasionally saw riding in the parks, or met in the streets, and, though he very well knew he was not a lord, he began to fancy it a happiness to be thought one by strangers, for an hour or two in a week.

His passion for trifles and toys was inherent, and it had been increased by reading two or three caricatures of fashionable men in the novels of the day, until his happiness was chiefly centered in its indulgence. This was an expensive foible; and its gratification ere long exhausted his legitimate means. One or two trifling and undetected peculations favoured his folly, until a large sum happening to lie at his sole mercy for a week or two, he made such an inroad on it as compelled a flight. Having made up his mind to quit England, he thought it would be as easy to escape with forty thousand pounds as with the few hundreds he had already appropriated to himself. This capital mistake was the cause of his destruction; for the magnitude of the sum induced the government to take unusual steps to recover it, and was the true cause of its having despatched the cruiser in chase of the Montauk.

The Mr. Green who had been sent to identify the fugitive, was a cold, methodical man, every way resembling the delinquent's father, whose office-companion he had been, and in whose track of undeviating attention to business and negative honesty he had faithfully followed. He felt the peculation, or robbery, for it scarce deserved a milder term, to be a reproach on the corps to which he belonged, besides leaving a stigma on the name of one to whom he had himself looked up as to a model for his own imitation and government. It will readily be supposed, therefore, that this person was not prepared to meet the delinquent in a very forgiving mood.

"Saunders," said Captain Truck in the stern tone with which he often hailed a-top, and which implied that instant obedience was a condition of his forbearance, "go to the state-room of the person who has called himself Sir George Templemore--give him my compliments--be very particular, Mr. Saunders--and say Captain Truck's compliments, and then tell him I expect the honour of his company in this cabin--the honour of his company, remember, in this cabin. If that don't bring him out of his state-room, I'll contrive something that shall."

The steward turned up the white of his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded forthwith on the errand. He found time, however, to stop in the pantry, and to inform Toast that their suspicions were at least in part true.

"This elucidates the circumstance of his having no attendant with him, like other gentlemen on board, and a wariety of other incidents, that much needed dewelopement. Mr. Blunt, I do collect from a few hints on deck, turns out to be a Mr. Powis, a much genteeler name; and as they spoke to some one in the ladies' cabin as 'Sir George,' I should not be overcome with astonishment should Mr. Sharp actually eventuate as the real baronite."

There was time for no more, and Saunders proceeded to summon the delinquent.

"This is the most unpleasant part of the duty of a packet-master between England and America," continued Captain Truck, as soon as Saunders was out of sight. "Scarce a ship sails that it has not some runaway or other, either in the steerage or in the cabins, and we are often called on to aid the civil authorities on both sides of the water."

"America seems to be a favourite country with our English rogues," observed the office-man, drily. "This is the third that has gone from our own department within as many years."

"Your department appears to be fruitful of such characters, sir," returned Captain Truck, pretty much in the spirit in which the first remark had been given.