"Tell us when to fire, then," said my two friends, filing themselves in that attitude which the reader may have observed in a regiment of soldiers, when the word is given to "present."
"What!" I cried out, now that I found my senses by the visual elucidation of the threatened evil;
"What! you don't mean to say you are going to fire with a couple of fowling pieces at a water-spout?"
"To be sure, Sir," answered D——, giving me a momentary glance that he ventured to take, clandestinely, from the water-spout. "Don't they fire guns to break them?"
"Yes," I replied, "people do,—cannon!"
However, I could not get any one to agree with me, that a rifle-ball would have just as much effect on the dispersion of the huge water-spout that boiled and waved, like an elastic tower, to and fro with the wind, and roared in the wake of the yacht, as a sigh would arrest the rotation of Sirius; and so, placing my life in the custody of Providence, I went back to my book, and left my companions standing on the poop with guns presented, and the whole crew with leaping hearts and open mouths waiting the efficacy of their artillery. I did not hear the discharge of the two guns; but the water-spout kept them in great trepidation, by approaching within a hundred yards of the cutter, and then resolving into its native cloud and water.
The following day the high lands in the vicinity of Whitby in Yorkshire were seen; and at four o'clock the same afternoon we passed close under the frowning headland, on which the old ruins of the castle stand. A south-west wind appearing desirous to treat us with another gale, we brought up off Scarborough for the night; and notwithstanding the swell which precluded all other boats from intercourse with the shore, we managed to reach the land in a gig, and stretched our legs on English ground again.
Early in the morning P—— left us for London, fearful that the wind might detain us some time at Scarborough; but five hours after his departure, at mid-day, with a fresh breeze, we got under weigh; and, though the wind continued heading us the whole distance, reached Yarmouth as the clocks in the town were striking eight.
Having made up our minds not to remain more than the night at this place, the cutter lay in the roadstead.
We must have arrived at a moment of some gaiety, for on a terrace facing the sea, a band was playing, and all the inhabitants had congregated to converse and walk. What a contrast to the country from which we had just come! No man can judge of the superiority of England, whether in the beauty and elegance of its women, the cleanliness of its towns, the multiplicity and aptness of its comforts, but he who has wandered in other parts of the world. Grumblers are domestic; just the same as spoiled brats cry for the very sake of peevishness, because they know not the pain of denial. As I have not much more time to speak, I would, with my last breath, recommend discontented people to travel; but if they should come back in the same fretful condition, well, let them go to——Bath;—no further.