“Why does the mind so glide away to some calm sea of melancholy, when we stand and gaze intently upon flowing water? And the larger the spread of the water is, and the grander the march of the current, the deeper and more irresistible grows the sadness of the gazer.
“That naval captain, so well known as an explorer of the Amazon, who dined with us at Nowelhurst one day last July, was a light–hearted man by nature, and full of wit and humour. And yet, in spite of wine and warmth, he made the summer twilight creep with the sadness of his stories. Nevertheless, we hung upon them with a strange enchantment; we drew more real pleasure from them than from a world of drolleries. Poor Clayton tried to run away, for he never could bear melancholy; but all he did was to take a chair nearer to the voyager. As for me, I cried; in spite of myself, I cried; being carried away by the flow of his language, so smooth, and wide, and gliding, with the mystery of waters.
“And he was not one of those shallow men who talk for effect at dinner–parties. Nothing more than a modest sailor, leaving his mind to its natural course. Only he had been so long upon that mighty river, that he nevermore could cease from gliding, ever gliding, with it.
“Once or twice he begged our pardon for the sweep of hazy sadness moving (like the night on water) through his tales and scenery. He is gone there again of his own free choice. He must die upon that river. He loves it more than any patriot ever loved his country. Betwixt a man and flowing water there must be more than similitude, there must be a sort of sympathy.”
“Tap–Robin, ahoy there! Ahoy, every son of a sea–cook of you. Heave us over a rope, you lubbers. Would yer swamp us with parson aboard of me?”
This was Mr. Jupp, of course, churning up Cradʼs weak ideas, like a steam–paddle in a fishpond. Perhaps the reason why those ideas had been of such sad obscurity, and so fluxed with sorry sentiment, was that the vague concipient believed himself to be shipped off for an indefinite term of banishment, without even a message from Amy. Whereas, in truth, he was only going for a little voyage to Ceylon, in the clipper ship Taprobane, A 1 for all time at Lloydʼs, and never allowed to carry more than twice as much as she could.
How discontented mortals are! He ought to have been jollier than a sandboy, for he had a cabin all to himself (quite large enough to turn round in), and, what of all things we Britons love best, a happy little sinecure. He was actually appointed—on the strength of his knowledge of goods earned at the Cramjam terminus, but not through any railway influence (being no chip of the board, neither any attorneyʼs “love–child”—if there be such a heterogeny), only through John Rosedewʼs skill and knowledge of the world, Cradock was actually made “under–supercargo” of a vessel bound to the tropics.
The clipper had passed Greenhithe already, and none had hailed her or said “Farewell.” The Taprobane would have no tug. She was far too clean in the bows for that work. Her mother and grandmother had run unaided down the river; even back to the fourth generation of ships, when the Dutchmen held Ceylon, and doubtless would have kept it, but for one great law of nature: no Dutchman must be thin. But even a Dutchman loses fat within ten degrees of the line. So Nature reclaimed her square Dutchmen from the tropics, which turned them over. Most likely these regions are meant, in the end, for the Yankee, who has no fat to lose, and is harder to fry than a crocodile.
But who can stop to theorize while the Taprobane is dancing along under English colours, and swings on her keel just in time to avoid running down Mr. Rosedew and Issachar? Mr. Jupp is combining business with pleasure, being, as you may say, under orders to meet the Saucy Sally, and steer her home from Northfleet to the Surrey Docks. So he has taken a lift in a collier, and met Mr. Rosedew at Gravesend, according to agreement, and then borrowed a boat to look out alike for Saucy Sally and Taprobane.
When words and gifts had been interchanged—what Amy sent is no matter now; but Loo Jupp sent a penny ‘bacco–box, which beat fatherʼs out and out (as he must be sure to tell Cradock), and had “Am I welcome?” on it, in letters of gold at least—when “God bless you” had been said for the twentieth time, and love tied the tongue of gratitude, the Taprobane lay–to for a moment, and the sails all shivered noisily, and the water curled crisply, and hissed and bubbled, and the little boats hopped merrily to the pipe of the rising wind.