The coast of France lay, for all its whiteness, in a pale orange streak upon the edge of the sea, where it seemed to hover as though it were some sunny exhalation in process of being drawn up and absorbed by the sun that was shining with September brightness in the southwest sky. But over that smudge of orange-colored land slept a roll of massive white clouds, the thunder-fashioned heads of them a few degrees high, and clouds of a like kind rested in vast shapeless bulks of tufted heaped-up vapor—very cordilleras of clouds—on the ice-smooth edge of the water in the northeast. The sea streamed in thin ripples out of the west; and upon the light movement running through it the smaller of the vessels at anchor in the Downs were lazily flourishing their naked spars. Captain Spalding called to me.
“I shall bring up, Bill,” said he; for Bill was the familiar name he gave me when we were alone, though it was always “Mr. Fielding” in the hearing of the men. “I shall bring up, Bill,” said he. “I don’t quite make out yet what the weather’s going to prove. See those clouds? Who’s to tell what such appearances signify in these waters? But the westerly wind’s failing. There’s nothing coming out astern that’s going to help us,” and he looked at the horizon that way. “I shall bring up.”
I was mighty pleased to hear this, though indeed I had expected it: for now might I hope to get leave to pay my uncle, Captain Joseph Round, a visit for a few hours. I believe Spalding saw what was passing in my mind; he gazed at the land and then round upon the sea, and fell a-whistling again in a small note, shaking his head. I reckoned that I could not do better than ask leave at once, and said:
“As you intend to bring up, I hope you’ll allow me to go ashore for a few hours to see how Uncle Joe does. He’d not forgive me for failing to visit him should he hear that the Royal Brunswicker had anchored almost abreast of his dwelling-place, and that I had missed your consent simply for not seeking it.”
He sniffed and looked suspiciously about him awhile, and answered:
“Don’t ask me for leave until the anchor’s down and the ship’s snug, and the weather’s put on some such a face as a man may read.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said I.
“Bill,” said he, “go forward now and see all clear for bringing up. There’s a good berth some cables’ length past that frigate yonder—betwixt her and the pink there.”
As I was walking forward a man came clumsily sprawling over the side on to the deck. His face was purple; he wore a hair cap, a red shawl round his throat, and a jersey. I peered over the rail and saw a small Deal galley hooked alongside, with two men in her.
“Going to bring-up, sir?” said the man.