Afloat and Ashore by James Fenimore Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

know, although we were standing within three or four yards of each
other, the whole time.
    "Write, Miles—write, Rupert," said the sobbing girls leaning forward
from the wharf, as we shoved off. It was not so dark but we could see
their dear forms for several minutes, or until a bend in the creek put
a dark mass of earth between us and them.
    Such was the manner of my departure from Clawbonny, in the month of
September, 1797. I wanted a few days of being seventeen; Rupert was
six months older, and Neb was his senior, again, by near a
twelvemonth. Everything was in the boat but our hearts. Mine, I can
truly say, remained with the two beloved creatures we left on the
wharf; while Rupert's was betwixt and between, I fancy—seldom
absolutely deserting the dear tenement in which it was encased by
nature.

Chapter III
*
    "There's a youth in this city, it were a great pity
That he from our lasses should wander awa';
For he's bonny and braw, weel-favoured witha',
And his hair has a natural buckle and a'.
His coat is the hue of his bonnet so blue;
His pocket is white as the new-driven snaw;
His hose they are blue, and his shoon like the slae,
And his clean siller buckles they dazzle us a'."
BURNS.
    We had selected our time well, as respects the hour of departure. It
was young ebb, and the boat floated swiftly down the creek, though the
high banks of the latter would have prevented our feeling any wind,
even if there were a breeze on the river. Our boat was of some size,
sloop-rigged and half-decked; but Neb's vigorous arms made her move
through the water with some rapidity, and, to own the truth, the lad
sprang to his work like a true runaway negro. I was a skilful oarsman
myself, having received many lessons from my father in early boyhood,
and being in almost daily practice for seven mouths in the year. The
excitement of the adventure, its romance, or what for a short time
seemed to me to be romance, and the secret apprehension of being
detected, which I believe accompanies every clandestine undertaking,
soon set me in motion also. I took one of the oars, and, in less than
twenty minutes, the Grace & Lucy, for so the boat was called, emerged
from between two, high, steep banks, and entered on the broader bosom
of the Hudson.
    Neb gave a half-suppressed, negro-like cry of exultation, as we shot
out from our cover, and ascertained that there was a pleasant and fair
breeze blowing. In three minutes we had the jib and mainsail on the
boat, the helm was up, the sheet was eased off, and we were gliding
down-stream at the rate of something like five miles an hour. I took
the helm, almost as a matter of course; Rupert being much too indolent
to do anything unnecessarily, while Neb was far too humble to aspire
to such an office while Master Miles was there, willing and ready. In
that day, indeed, it was so much a matter of course for the skipper of
a Hudson river craft to steer, that most of the people who lived on
the banks of the stream imagined that Sir John Jervis, Lord Anson, and
the other great English admirals of whom they had read and heard,
usually amused themselves with that employment, out on the ocean. I
remember the hearty laugh in which my unfortunate father indulged,
when Mr. Hardinge once asked him how he could manage to get any sleep,
on account of this very duty. But we were very green, up at Clawbonny,
in most things that related to the world.
    The hour that succeeded was one of the most painful I ever passed in
my life. I recalled my father, his manly frankness, his liberal
bequests in my favour, and his precepts of respect and obedience; all
of which, it now seemed to me, I had openly dishonoured. Then came the
image of my mother, with her love and sufferings, her prayers, and her
mild but earnest exhortations to be good. I thought I could see both
these parents regarding me with sorrowful, though not with reproachful
countenances. They appeared to be soliciting my return, with a species
of silent, but not the less