The sheet of water called Patuxent Roads is by some considered to be a part of the Clearwater river.
“These men of whom Mr Brown speaks,” continued Captain Dempster, addressing his two friends, “are some newly-discharged United States seamen, whom I am taking to Baltimore. I had a load of freight to carry from Baltimore to Portsmouth. At the latter place these men applied to me for passage to the former city. I told them that I had freight to take from Portsmouth to Benedict, and then a load of wood to carry to Baltimore. As they did not care much for the delay, I bargained to take them to Baltimore, and to charge them only for what their board while on the schooner might be worth, on condition that they would help us to load and to unload. I did not wish so many men to be seen on board of my craft while in the river, since such an incident would probably subject me to the delay of a search by the revenue officer, who, having but very little to do, naturally wishes to make the most of his office.”
About thirty rough, sunburnt and weather-beaten men now came upon the deck. Among them was almost every variety of dress which nautical fashions then allowed; but the cloth roundabouts and tarpaulin hats prevailed. They kept away from the after-part of the deck, gathering in groups amidships and towards the bow. They seemed to be in fine spirits, as frequent bursts of somewhat subdued laughter came from the different groups. Little did young Coe think that he was the subject of their merriment.
It was scarcely half an hour after these men came upon deck when the schooner anchored about fifty yards from the beach, at a point where long ranks of pine and oak cord-wood were ranged along the edge of the cliff, which was here but from twenty to twenty-five feet high. A large flatboat, oblong in shape, and of the kind commonly called “scow,” was lying on rollers far up on the beach and close under the cliff.
As soon as the anchor was dropped overboard and the sails lowered and secured, the row-boat—which had been hanging from the davits at the stern of the schooner since the lad had been taken aboard at Drum Point—was forthwith let down into the water. It had to make three trips from the schooner to the shore before the unusually large number of hands were all landed. Then the scow was at once pushed into the water. Some of the seamen soon ascended the cliff by a small ravine near at hand; and the work of throwing down the wood to the beach, pitching it to the water’s edge, and piling it into the scow was at once commenced.
Our hero and his two friends passed the rest of the day, to all appearances, very pleasantly together; there was so much to say to each other of what young people call, queerly enough, “old times,” so much that each had to tell to the others of what had occurred to himself since their last meeting. About an hour after the schooner came to anchor they took their dinner—which comprised “all the luxuries of the season”—in the elegant little cabin. Mr Bowsprit was present at this meal, and added to the enjoyment of it by his unique and pleasant sallies. This joyous individual was with them only at dinner; his duty required him to attend to the loading of the vessel. The dinner of the hands, by the way, was sent ashore to them, and eaten under the shade of the trees upon the cliff.