Perplexed with these cogitations, Mr. Clarke appealed to our adventurer’s own reflection. He expatiated upon the bad consequences that would attend his uncle’s perseverance in the execution of a scheme so foreign to his faculties; and entreated him, for the love of God, to divert him from his purpose, either by arguments or authority; as, of all mankind, the knight alone had gained such an ascendency over his spirits, that he would listen to his exhortations with respect and submission.
Our adventurer was not so mad, but that he saw and owned the rationality of these remarks. He readily undertook to employ all his influence with Crowe, to dissuade him from his extravagant design; and seized the first opportunity of being alone with the captain, to signify his sentiments on this subject. “Captain Crowe,” said he, “you are then determined to proceed in the course of knight-errantry?” “I am,” replied the seaman, “with God’s help, d’ye see, and the assistance of wind and weather”— “What dost thou talk of wind and weather?” cried the knight, in an elevated tone of affected transport; “without the help of Heaven, indeed, we are all vanity, imbecility, weakness, and wretchedness; but if thou art resolved to embrace the life of an errant, let me not hear thee so much as whisper a doubt, a wish, a hope, or sentiment with respect to any other obstacle, which wind or weather, fire or water, sword or famine, danger or disappointment, may throw in the way of thy career. When the duty of thy profession calls, thou must singly rush upon innumerable hosts of armed men. Thou must storm the breach in the mouth of batteries loaded with death and destruction, while, every step thou movest, thou art exposed to the horrible explosion of subterranean mines, which, being sprung, will whirl thee aloft in air, a mangled corse, to feed the fowls of heaven. Thou must leap into the abyss of dreadful caves and caverns, replete with poisonous toads and hissing serpents; thou must plunge into seas of burning sulphur; thou must launch upon the ocean in a crazy bark, when the foaming billows roll mountains high—when the lightning flashes, the thunder roars, and the howling tempest blows, as if it would commix the jarring elements of air and water, earth and fire, and reduce all nature to the original anarchy of chaos. Thus involved, thou must turn thy prow full against the fury of the storm, and stem the boisterous surge to thy destined port, though at the distance of a thousand leagues; thou must”——
“Avast, avast, brother,” exclaimed the impatient Crowe, “you’ve got into the high latitudes, d’ye see. If so be as you spank it away at that rate, adad, I can’t continue in tow—we must cast off the rope, or ‘ware timbers. As for your ‘osts and breeches, and hurling aloft, d’ye see— your caves and caverns, whistling tuods and serpents, burning brimstone and foaming billows, we must take our hap—I value ‘em not a rotten ratline; but as for sailing in the wind’s eye, brother, you must give me leave—no offence, I hope—I pretend to be a thoroughbred seaman, d’ye see—and I’ll be d—ned if you, or e’er an arrant that broke biscuit, ever sailed in a three-mast vessel within five points of the wind, allowing for variation and lee-way. No, no, brother, none of your tricks upon travellers—I an’t now to learn my compass.” “Tricks!” cried the knight, starting up, and laying his hand on the pummel of his sword, “what! suspect my honour?”
Crowe, supposing him to be really incensed, interrupted him with great earnestness, saying, “Nay, don’t—what apize!—adds-buntlines!—I didn’t go to give you the lie, brother, smite my limbs; I only said as how to sail in the wind’s eye was impossible.” “And I say unto thee,” resumed the knight, “nothing is impossible to a true knight-errant, inspired and animated by love.” “And I say unto thee,” hallooed Crowe, “if so be as how love pretends to turn his hawse-holes to the wind, he’s no seaman, d’ye see, but a snotty-nosed lubberly boy, that knows not a cat from a capstan—a don’t.”
“He that does not believe that love is an infallible pilot, must not embark upon the voyage of chivalry; for, next to the protection of Heaven, it is from love that the knight derives all his prowess and glory. The bare name of his mistress invigorates his arm; the remembrance of her beauty infuses into his breast the most heroic sentiments of courage, while the idea of her chastity hedges him round like a charm, and renders him invulnerable to the sword of his antagonist. A knight without a mistress is a mere nonentity, or, at least, a monster in nature—a pilot without a compass, a ship without rudder, and must be driven to and fro upon the waves of discomfiture and disgrace.”
“An that be all,” replied the sailor, “I told you before as how I’ve got a sweetheart, as true a hearted girl as ever swung in canvas. What thof she may have started a hoop in rolling, that signifies nothing; I’ll warrant her tight as a nut-shell.”
“She must, in your opinion, be a paragon either of beauty or virtue. Now, as you have given up the last, you must uphold her charms unequalled, and her person without a parallel.” “I do, I do uphold she will sail upon a parallel as well as e’er a frigate that was rigged to the northward of fifty.”
“At that rate, she must rival the attractions of her whom I adore; but that I say is impossible. The perfections of my Aurelia are altogether supernatural; and as two suns cannot shine together in the same sphere with equal splendour, so I affirm, and will prove with my body, that your mistress, in comparison with mine, is as a glow-worm to the meridian sun, a rushlight to the full moon, or a stale mackerel’s eye to a pearl of orient.” “Harkee, brother, you might give good words, however. An we once fall a-jawing, d’ye see, I can heave out as much bilgewater as another; and since you besmear my sweetheart, Besselia, I can as well bedaub your mistress Aurelia, whom I value no more than old junk, pork slush, or stinking stock-fish.”
“Enough, enough!—such blasphemy shall not pass unchastised. In consideration of our having fed from the same table, and maintained together a friendly, though short intercourse, I will not demand the combat before you are duly prepared. Proceed to the first great town, where you can be furnished with horse and harnessing, with arms offensive and defensive; provide a trusty squire, assume a motto and device, declare yourself a son of chivalry, and proclaim the excellence of her who rules your heart. I shall fetch a compass; and wheresoever we may chance to meet, let us engage with equal arms in mortal combat, that shall decide and determine this dispute.”
So saying, our adventurer stalked with great solemnity into another apartment; while Crowe, being sufficiently irritated, snapped his fingers in token of defiance. Honest Crowe thought himself scurvily used by a man whom he had cultivated with such humility and veneration; and, after an incoherent ejaculation of sea oaths, went in quest of his nephew, in order to make him acquainted with this unlucky transaction.