And the skipper, taking the letter ashore to post it, adds upon the margin,—
"I opened the within to see who the boy was; and this is to say, I shall take him aboard, and shall be off Chatham Red Quarries to-morrow night and next day morning, and, if you signal from the dock, can send him ashore. Or, if this don't come in time, my berth is Peck Slip, in York.
"John Saul, Sloop Princess."
Next day they go drifting down the river. A quiet, smoky October day; the distant hills all softened in the haze; the near shores green with the fresh-springing aftermath. Reuben lounged upon the sunny side of the mainsail, thinking, with respectful pity, of the poor fagged fellows in roundabouts who were seated at that hour before the red desks in Parson Brummem's school-room. At length he was enjoying a taste of that outside life of which he had known only from travellers' books, or from such lucky ones as the accomplished Tavern Boody. Henceforth he, too, would have his stories to tell. The very rustle of the water around the prow of the good sloop Princess was full, of Sindbad echoes. Was it not remotely possible that he, too, like Captain Saul sitting there on the taffrail smoking his pipe, should have his vessel at command some day, and sail away wherever Fortune, with her iris-hued streamers, might beckon? Not much of sentiment in the boy as yet, beyond the taste of freedom, or—what is equivalent to it in the half-taught—vagabondage. As for Rose, what does she know of sloops and the world? And Adèle? Well, from this time forth at least, the boy can match her nautical experience with an experience of his own. Possibly his humiliation and conscious ignorance at the French girl's story of the sea were, as much as anything, at the bottom of this wild vagary of his. For ten hours the Captain lies off Chatham Quarries, taking on additional freight there; but there is no signal from the passenger-dock. The next morning the hawsers were cast off, and the mainsail run up again, while the Princess surged away into the middle of the current.
"Now, my boy, we're in for a sail!" said Captain Saul.
"I'm glad," said Reuben, who would have been doubly glad, if he had known of his narrow escape at the last landing.
"I suppose you haven't much of a kit?" said the Captain.
The truth is, that a pocket-comb was the extent of Reuben's equipment for the voyage. It came out on further talk with the Captain; and the boy was mortified to make such small show of appliances.
"Well, well," says the Captain, "we must keep this toggery for the city, you know"; and he finds a blue woollen shirt,—for the boy is of good height for his years,—and a foremast hand shortens in a pair of old duck trousers for him, in which Reuben paces up and down the deck, with a mortal dread at first lest the boom may make a dash against the wind and knock him overboard, in quite sailorly fashion. The beef is hard indeed; but a page or two out of "Dampier's Voyages," of which an old copy is in the cabin, makes it seem all right. The shores, too, are changing from hour to hour; a brig drifts within hail of them, which Reuben watches, half envying the fortunate fellows in red shirts and tasselled caps aboard, who are bound to Cuba, and in a fortnight's time can pluck oranges off the trees there, to say nothing of pineapples and sugar-cane.
Over the Saybrook Bar there is a plunging of the vessel which horrifies him somewhat; but smooth weather follows, with long lines of hills half-faded on the rim of the water, and the country sounds at last all dead. A day or two of this, with only a mild autumnal breeze, and then a sharp wind, with the foam flying over forecastle and wood-pile, between the winding shores, toward Flushing Bay, brings sight of great white houses with green turf coming down to the rocks, where the waves play and break among the drifted sea-weed. Captain Saul is fast at his helm, while the big boom creaks and crashes from side to side as he beats up the narrowing channel, rounding Throg's Point, where the light-house and old whitewashed fort stand shining in the sun,—skirting low rocky islands, doubling other points, dashing at half-tide through the roar and whirl of Hell Gate,—Reuben glowing with excitement, and mindful of Kidd and of his buried treasure along these shores. Then came the turreted Bridewell, and at last the spires, the forest of masts, with all that prodigious, crushing, bewildering effect with which the first sight of a great city weighs upon the thought of a country-taught boy.