"Never, as this is my first visit to America, captain."
"True; well, you will be likely to go there, if you go to Boston, as it is the best way; unless you would prefer to run over Nantucket shoals, and a hundred miles of ditto as Mr. Dodge calls it."
"Ditter, captain, if you please--ditter: it is the continental word for round-about."
"The d---l it is! it is worth knowing, however. And what may be the French for pee-jacket?"
"You mistake me, sir,--ditter, a circuit, or the longer way."
"That is the road we are now travelling, by George!--I say, Leach, do you happen to know that we are making a ditter to America?"
"You were speaking of a church, Captain Truck," politely interposed Sir George, who had become rather intimate with his fellow-occupant of the state-room.
"I was travelling through that state, a few years since, on my way from Providence to New London, at a time when a new road had just been opened. It was on a Sunday, and the stage--a four-horse power, you must know--had never yet run through on the Lord's-day. Well, we might be, as it were, off here at right angles to our course, and there was a short turn in the road, as one would say, out yonder. As we hove in sight of the turn, I saw a chap at the mast-head of a tree; down he slid, and away he went right before it, towards a meeting-house two or three cables length down the road. We followed at a smart jog, and just before we got the church abeam, out poured the whole congregation, horse and foot, parson and idlers, sinners and hypocrites, to see the four-horse power go past. Now this is what I call keeping the church-door open on a Sunday."
We might have hesitated about recording this anecdote of the captain's, had we not received an account of the same occurrence from a quarter that left no doubt that his version of the affair was substantially correct. This and a few similar adventures, some of which he invented, and all of which he swore were literal, enabled the worthy master to keep the quarter-deck in good humour, while the ship was running at the rate of ten knots the hour in a line so far diverging from her true course. But the relief to landsmen is so great, in general, in meeting with a fair wind at sea, that few are disposed to quarrel with its consequences. A bright day, a steady ship, the pleasure of motion as they raced with the combing seas, and the interest of the chase, set every one at ease; and even Steadfast Dodge was less devoured with envy, a jealousy of his own deservings, and the desire of management, than usual. Not an introduction occurred, and yet the little world of the ship got to be better acquainted with each other in the course of that day, than would have happened in months of the usual collision on land.
The Montauk continued to gain on her pursuer until the sun set, when Captain Truck began once more to cast about him for the chances of the night. He knew that the ship was running into the mouth of the Bay of Biscay, or at least was fast approaching it, and he bethought him of the means of getting to the westward. The night promised to be anything but dark, for though a good many wild-looking clouds were by this time scudding athwart the heavens, the moon diffused a sort of twilight gleam in the air. Waiting patiently, however, until the middle-watch was again called, he reduced, sail, and hauled the ship off to a south-west course, hoping by this slight change insensibly to gain an offing before the Foam was aware of it; a scheme that he thought more likely to be successful, as by dint of sheer driving throughout the day, he had actually caused the courses of that vessel to dip before the night shut in.