"Good!" I exclaimed, for notwithstanding my sailor's rig, I was supposing a quartermaster must be next to a commodore at least.
"Well, I won't keep ye. Good-luck and good-by," he said, extending his rough hand across the fence.
I shook it warmly, and picking up my small bundle, trotted down the hill. I covered some two miles more before I stopped at a farm-house for breakfast. Here I was received with as much honor as if my short stopping was to cast a blessing. I found that I had to adopt some subterfuge; and when asked what vessel I had served in, I replied, and with truth, "the Minetta, from Baltimore," and that I was bound to join the Young Eagle. Her fame evidently had spread broadcast, and I cannot forget the envious looks that were cast at me by a couple of youngsters, who requested to know if I had any pictures on my arms. As I had none, and had seen them on my voyage, and often before that, pricked into the skins of the sailors on the wharves, I determined to remedy this defect as soon as possible.
The goodwife of the house where I got my first meal insisted upon my carrying away enough to stock me for a voyage of two or three days; but it was mostly pie, for which I care little.
The main road was so well travelled that there was no mistaking it now. My legs, as well as my heart, seemed gifted with a desire to get ahead, and every one I met had for me a kindly wave of the hand, and would have questioned me breathless had I not made haste and hurried on.
By four o'clock that afternoon I had mounted to the top of the hill, and there I caught a glimpse of the ocean, and stretching to the westward, the blue sound. Oh, how the picture comes to me! The wide sparkling sea; here and there a white sail dotted on it, and the breeze, that was from the south, bringing the smell of it to my nostrils and setting my heart beating and thumping in my throat. Overhead a great hawk spun about in widening circles. I knew how he felt, for was not I free, and the world before me at my feet?
Out of pure joy and the loftiness of my spirits, I threw the Portugee cap into the air and caught it as it fell. And nothing would do but I must start at a headlong pace down the hill, jumping the water-bars and kicking my heels behind me as if I were a colt escaped from a pasture. By the time that I had entered the houses that clustered about the outskirts of the town it grew dusky, and I began to feel a trifle tired, for I had covered the distance of some thirty miles that day.
As the dwellings became thicker and I could see the clustering lights of the business portion of the town (it was past twilight), I felt a little trepidation. People had not paid so much attention to me as they had farther up the country, and I had run across one or two sailor-men, dressed much as I was (save the cap), who had hailed me good-naturedly. But I longed for a bed and a warm cup of coffee, and seeing a citizen leaning over a fence, smoking meditatively, I inquired my way to the best inn.
"I should 'a' reckoned that you'd 'a' known them all by this time, lad," he said; "but the best hotel is the United States, down near the wharves. Keep straight ahead."
Now the groups of sailor-men had increased; to all appearances they had gained possession of the freedom of the town of Stonington. They seemed to have captured the prettiest girls, or bargained to drink the place dry, for from a grog-shop a number of them reeled out, arm in arm, singing a song to a tune that I learned to know and sing well afterwards myself—"Hull's Victory"—and the sound of fiddles and dancing were to all sides.