When the greetings were over and the boys were changing their clothes before coming down for supper, Clarke Curtis entered their room. "Lads," he said, "I'd advise you to go early to bed tonight. You'll need a long rest, for in the morning you start overland for New York." At Bob's exclamation of surprise he went on to explain that the Indian Queen had weighed anchor two days before for that port, and as there was no other ship leaving the Delaware soon, he wished the boys to board her at New York for the voyage to New England. Both youngsters were overjoyed at the prospect of an early start. Bob, who had been promised that he could accompany his chum, was hilarious over the news, while Jeremy was too happy to speak.
Later, as they were packing their belongings for the trip, Job Howland came in. He, too, looked excited. "Jeremy, boy," he said, "I'd have liked to go north with you, but something else has come my way. Mr. Curtis bought a new schooner, the Tiger, last week, and she's being fitted out now for a coast trader. He offered me the chance to command her!"
"Three cheers!" shouted Bob. "Then New Castle will be your home port, and I'll see you after every voyage!"
The three comrades chatted of their prospects a while and shortly went to bed.
CHAPTER XXV
The boys and their luggage were on their way to Wilmington in the family chaise before dawn, and it was scarce seven o'clock when they bade farewell to the old colored serving-man and clambered aboard the four-horse coach that connected in Philadelphia with the mail coach for New York.
The coaches of that day were cumbersome affairs, huge of wheel, and with ridiculously small bodies slung on wide strips of bull's hide which served for springs. The driver's box was high above the forward running gear. There were as yet no "seats on top," such as were developed in the later days of fast stage-coach service.
In one of these rumbling, swaying conveyances the boys rode the thirty miles to Philadelphia, crossing the Schuylkill at Gray's Ferry about noon. They had barely time for a bite of lunch in the White Horse Tavern before the horn was blown outside and they hurried to take their places in the north-bound coach. Along the cobbled streets of the bustling, red-brick town they rumbled for a few moments, then out upon the smooth dirt surface of the York Road, where the four good horses were put to a gallop.
The Delaware, opposite Trenton, was reached by six o'clock, and there the half-dozen passengers left the coach and were carried across on a little ferry boat, rowed by an old man and his two sons. They spent the night at an Inn and next morning early boarded another coach bound northeast over the sparsely settled hills of New Jersey. The road was narrow and bad in places, slackening their speed. Twice the horses were changed, in little hamlets along the way. In the late afternoon they crossed the marshy flats beyond Newark and just after dusk emerged on the Jersey side of the Hudson. A few lights glimmered from the low Manhattan shore. The quaint Dutch-English village which was destined to grow in two hundred years to be the greatest city in the world, lay quiet in the gathering dark.