_Touch._ Wast ever in court, shepherd?
_Cor._ No, truly.
_Touch._ Then thou art damn'd.
_Cor._ Nay, I hope----
_Touch._ Truly, thou art damn'd, like an ill-roasted egg, all on
one side.
AS YOU LIKE IT.
No one thought of seeking his berth when all the passengers were below.
Some conversed in broken, half intelligible dialogues, a few tried
unavailingly to read, and more sat looking at each other in silent
misgivings, as the gale howled through the cordage and spars, or among the
angles and bulwarks of the ship. Eve was seated on a sofa in her own
apartment, leaning on the breast of her father, gazing silently through
the open doors into the forward cabin; for all idea of retiring within
oneself, unless it might be to secret prayer, was banished from the mind.
Even Mr. Dodge had forgotten the gnawings of envy, his philanthropical and
exclusive democracy, and, what was perhaps more convincing still of his
passing views of this sublunary world, his profound deference for rank, as
betrayed in his strong desire to cultivate an intimacy with Sir George
Templemore. As for the baronet himself, he sat by the cabin-table with his
face buried in his hands, and once he had been heard to express a regret
that he had ever embarked.
Saunders broke the moody stillness of this characteristic party, with
preparations for a supper. He took but one end of the table for his cloth,
and a single cover showed that Captain Truck was about to dine, a thing he
had not yet done that day. The attentive steward had an eye to his
commander's tastes; for it is not often one sees a better garnished board
than was spread on this occasion, so far at least as quantity was
concerned. Besides the usual solids of ham, corned-beef, and roasted
shoat, there were carcasses of ducks, pickled oysters--a delicacy almost
peculiar to America--and all the minor condiments of olives, anchovies,
dates, figs, almonds, raisins, cold potatoes, and puddings, displayed in a
single course, and arranged on the table solely with regard to the reach
of Captain Truck's arm. Although Saunders was not quite without taste, he
too well knew the propensities of his superior to neglect any of these
important essentials, and great care was had, in particular, so to dispose
of everything as to render the whole so many radii diverging from a common
centre, which centre was the stationary arm-chair that the master of the
packet loved to fill in his hours of ease.
"You will make many voyages, Mr. Toast,"--the steward affectedly gave his
subordinate, or as he was sometimes facetiously called, the steward's
mate, reason to understand, when they had retired to the pantry to await
the captain's appearance--"before you accumulate all the niceties of a
gentleman's dinner. Every _plat_," (Saunders had been in the Havre line,
where he had caught a few words of this nature,) "every _plat_ should be
within reach of the _convive's_ arm, and particularly if it happen to be
Captain Truck, who has a great awersion to delays at his diet. As for the
_entremets_, they may be scattered miscellaneously with the salt and the
mustard, so that they can come with facility in their proper places."
"I don't know what an _entremet_ is," returned the subordinate, "and I
exceedingly desire, sir, to receive my orders in such English as a
gentleman can diwine."
"An _entremet_, Mr. Toast, is a mouthful thrown in promiscuously between
the reliefs of the solids. Now, suppose a gentleman begins on pig; when he
has eaten enough of this, he likes a little brandy and water, or a glass
of porter, before he cuts into the beef; and while I'm mixing the first,
or starting the cork, he refreshes himself with an _entremet_, such as a
wing of a duck, or perhaps a plate of pickled oysters. You must know that
there is great odds in passengers; one set eating and jollifying, from the
hour we sail till the hour we get in, while another takes the ocean as it
might be sentimentally."
"Sentimentally, sir! I s'pose those be they as uses the basins uncommon?"
"That depends on the weather. I've known a party not eat as much as would
set one handsome table in a week, and then, when they conwalesced, it was
intimidating how they dewoured. It makes a great difference, too, whether
the passengers acquiesce well together or not, for agreeable feelings give
a fine appetite. Lovers make cheap passengers always."
"That is extr'or'nary, for I thought such as they was always hard to
please, with every thing but one another."
"You never were more mistaken. I've seen a lover who couldn't tell a sweet
potato from an onion, or a canvas-back from an old wife. But of all
mortals in the way of passengers, the bagman or go-between is my greatest
animosity. These fellows will sit up all night, if the captain consents,
and lie abed next day, and do nothing but drink in their berths. Now, this
time we have a compliable set, and on the whole, it is quite a
condescension and pleasure to wait on them."
"Well, I think, Mr. Saunders, they isn't alike as much as they might be
'nother."
"Not more so than wenison and pig. Perfectly correct, sir; for this cabin
is a lobskous as regards deportment and character. I set all the
Effinghams down as tip-tops, or, A No. 1, as Mr. Leach calls the ship; and
then Mr. Sharp and Mr. Blunt are quite the gentlemen. Nothing is easier,
Mr. Toast, than to tell a gentleman; and as you have set up a new
profession,--in which I hope, for the credit of the colour, you will be
prosperous,--it is well worth your while to know how this is done,
especially as you need never expect much from a passenger, that is not a
true gentleman, but trouble. There is Mr. John Effingham, in particular;
his man says he never anticipates change, and if a coat confines his arm,
he repudiates it on the spot."
"Well, it must be a satisfaction to serve such a companion, I think Mr.
Dodge, sir, quite a feller."
"Your taste, Toast, is getting to be observable, and by cultivating it,
you will soon be remarkable for a knowledge of mankind. Mr. Dodge, as you
werry justly insinuate, is not werry refined, or particularly well suited
to figure in genteel society."
"And yet he seems attached to it Mr. Saunders, for he has purposed to
establish five or six societies since we sailed."
"Werry true, sir; but then every society is not genteel. When we get back
to New York, Toast, I must see and get you into a better set than the one
you occupied when we sailed. You will not do yet for our circle, which is
altogether conclusive; but you might be elevated. Mr. Dodge has been
electioneering with me, to see if we cannot inwent a society among the
steerage-passengers for the abstinence of liquors, and another for the
perpetration of the morals and religious principles of our forefathers. As
for the first, Toast, I told him it was sufficiently indurable to be
confined in a hole like the steerage, without being percluded from the
consolation of a little drink; and as for the last, it appeared to me that
such a preposition inwolwed an attack on liberty of conscience."
"There you give'd him, sir, quite as good as he sent," returned the
steward's mate, chuckling, or perhaps sniggering would be a word better
suited to his habits of cachinnation, "and I should have been glad to
witness his confusion. It seems to me, Mr. Saunders, that Mr. Dodge loves
to get up his societies in support of liberty and religion, that he may
predominate over both by his own inwentions."
Saunders laid his long yellow finger on the broad flat nose of his mate,
with an air of approbation, as he replied,
"Toast, you have hit his character as pat as I touch your Roman. He is a
man fit to make proselytes among the wulgar and Irish,"--the Hibernian
peasant and the American negro are sworn enemies--"but quite unfit for
anything respectable or decent. Were it not for Sir George, I would
scarcely descend to clean his state-room."
"What is your sentiments, Mr. Saunders, respecting Sir George?"
"Why, Sir George is a titled gentleman, and of course is not to be
strictured too freely. He has complimented me already with a sovereign,
and apprised me of his intention to be more particular when we get in."
"I feel astonished such a gentleman should neglect to insure a state-room
to his own convenience."
"Sir George has elucidated all that in a conversation we had in his room,
soon after our acquaintance commenced. He is going to Canada on public
business, and sailed at an hour's interval. He was too late for a single
room, and his own man is to follow with most of his effects by the next
ship. Oh! Sir George may be safely put down as respectable and
liberalized, though thrown into disparagement perhaps by forty
circumstances."
Mr. Saunders, who had run his vocabulary hard in this conversation, meant
to say "fortuitous;" and Toast thought that so many circumstances might
well reduce a better man to a dilemma. After a moment of thought, or what
in his orbicular shining features he fancied passed for thought,
he said,--
"I seem to diwine, Mr. Saunders, that the Effinghams do not much intimate
Sir George."
Saunders looked out of the pantry-door to reconnoitre, and finding the
sober quiet already described reigning, he opened a drawer, and drew forth
a London newspaper.
"To treat you with the confidence of a gentleman in a situation as
respectable and responsible as the one you occupy, Mr. Toast," he said, "a
little ewent has transpired in my presence yesterday, that I thought
sufficiently particular to be designated by retaining this paper. Mr.
Sharp and Sir George happened to be in the cabin together, alone, and the
last, as it suggested to me, Toast, was desirous of removing some of the
haughter of the first, for you may have observed that there has been no
conversation between any of the Effinghams, or Mr. Blunt, or Mr. Sharp,
and the baronet; and so to break the ice of his haughter, as it might be,
Sir George says, 'Really, Mr. Sharp, the papers have got to be so
personally particular, that one cannot run into the country for a mouthful
of fresh air that they don't record it. Now, I thought not a soul knew of
my departure for America, and yet here you see they have mentioned it,
with more particulars than are agreeable.' On concluding, Sir George gave
Mr. Sharp this paper, and indicated this here paragraph. Mr. Sharp perused
it, laid down the paper, and retorted coldly, 'It is indeed quite
surprising, sir; but impudence is a general fault of the age.' And then he
left the cabin solus. Sir George was so wexed, he went into his
state-room and forgot the paper, which fell to the steward, you know, on a
principle laid down in Wattel, Toast"
Here the two worthies indulged in a smothered merriment of their own at
the expense of their commander; for though a dignified man in general, Mr.
Saunders could laugh on occasion, and according to his own opinion of
himself he danced particularly well.
"Would you like to read the paragraph, Mr. Toast?"
"Quite unnecessary, sir; your account will be perfectly legible and
satisfactory."
By this touch of politeness, Mr. Toast, who knew as much of the art of
reading as a monkey commonly knows of mathematics, got rid of the
awkwardness of acknowledging the careless manner in which he had trifled
with his early opportunities. Luckily, Mr. Saunders, who had been educated
as a servant in a gentleman's family, was better off, and as he was vain
of all his advantages, he was particularly pleased to have an opportunity
of exhibiting them. Turning to the paragraph he read the following lines,
in that sort of didactic tone and elaborate style with which gentlemen who
commence the graces after thirty are a little apt to make bows:
"We understand Sir George Templemore, Bart., the member for Boodleigh, is
about to visit our American colonies, with a view to make himself
intimately acquainted with the merits of the unpleasant questions by which
they are just now agitated, and with the intention of entering into the
debates in the house on that interesting subject on his return. We believe
that Sir George will sail in the packet of the first from Liverpool, and
will return in time to be in his seat after the Easter holidays. His
people and effects left town yesterday by the Liverpool coach. During the
baronet's absence, his country will be hunted by Sir Gervaise de Brush,
though the establishment at Templemore Hall will be kept up."
"How came Sir George here, then?" Mr. Toast very naturally inquired.
"Having been kept too late in London, he was obliged to come this way or
to be left. It is sometimes as close work to get the passengers on board,
Mr. Toast, as to get the people. I have often admired how gentlemen and
ladies love procrastinating, when dishes that ought to be taken hot, are
getting to be quite insipid and uneatable."
"Saunders!" cried the hearty voice of Captain Truck, who had taken
possession of what he called his throne in the cabin. All the steward's
elegant diction and finish of demeanour vanished at the well-known sound,
and thrusting his head out of the pantry-door, he gave the prompt
ship-answer to a call,
"Ay, ay, sir!"
"Come, none of your dictionary in the pantry there, but show your
physiognomy in my presence. What the devil do you think Vattel would say
to such a supper as this?"
"I think, sir, he would call it a werry good supper, for a ship in a hard
gale of wind. That's my honest opinion, Captain Truck, and I never deceive
any gentleman in a matter of food. I think, Mr. Wattel would approve of
that there supper, sir."
"Perhaps he might, for he has made blunders as well as another man. Go,
mix me a glass of just what I love when I've not had a drop all day.
Gentlemen, will any of you honour me, by sharing in a cut? This beef is
not indigestible, and here is a real Marylander, in the way of a ham. No
want of oakum to fill up the chinks with, either."
Most of the gentlemen were too full of the gale to wish to eat; besides
they had not fasted like Captain Truck since morning. But Mr. Monday, the
bagman, as John Effingham had termed him, and who had been often enough at
sea to know something of its varieties, consented to take a glass of
brandy and water, as a corrective of the Madeira he had been swallowing.
The appetite of Captain Truck was little affected by the state of the
weather, however; for though too attentive to his duties to quit the deck
until he had ascertained how matters were going on, now that he had fairly
made up his mind to eat, he set about it with a heartiness and simplicity
that proved his total disregard of appearances when his hunger was sharp.
For some time he was too much occupied to talk, making regular attacks
upon the different _plats_, as Mr. Saunders called them, without much
regard to the cookery or the material. The only pauses were to drink, and
this was always done with a steadiness that never left a drop in the
glass. Still Mr. Truck was a temperate man; for he never consumed more
than his physical wants appeared to require, or his physical energies knew
how to dispose of. At length, however, he came to the steward's
_entremets_, or he began to stuff what he, himself, had called "oakum,"
into the chinks of his dinner.
Mr. Sharp had watched the whole process from the ladies' cabin, as indeed
had Eve, and thinking this a favourable occasion to ascertain the state of
things on deck, the former came into the main-cabin, commissioned by the
latter, to make the inquiry.
"The ladies are desirous of knowing where we are, and what is the state of
the gale, Captain Truck," said the gentleman, when he had seated himself
near the throne.
"My dear young lady," called out the captain, by way of cutting short the
diplomacy of employing ambassadors between them, "I wish in my heart I
could persuade you and Mademoiselle V.A.V., (for so he called the
governess, in imitation of Eve's pronunciation of her name,) to try a few
of these pickled oysters; they are as delicate as yourselves, and worthy
to be set before a mermaid, if there were any such thing."
"I thank you for the compliment, Captain Truck, and while I ask leave to
decline it, I beg leave to refer you to the plenipotentiary Mademoiselle
Viefville" (Eve would not say herself) "has intrusted with her wishes."
"Thus you perceive, sir," interposed Mr. Sharp again, "you will have to
treat with me, by all the principles laid down by Vattel."
"And treat you, too, my good sir. Let me persuade you to try a slice of
this anti-abolitionist," laying his knife on the ham, which he still
continued to regard himself with a sort of melancholy interest. "No? well,
I hold over-persuasion as the next thing to neglect. I am satisfied, sir,
after all, as Saunders says, that Vattel himself, unless more unreasonable
at his grub than in matters of state, would be a happier man after he had
been at his table twenty minutes, than before he sat down."
Mr. Sharp perceiving that it was idle to pursue his inquiry while the
other was in one of his discursive humours, determined to let things take
their course, and fell into the captain's own vein.
"If Vattel would approve of the repast, few men ought to repine at their
fortune in being so well provided."
"I flatter myself, sir, that I understand a supper, especially in a gale
of wind, as well as Mr. Vattel, or any other man could do."
"And yet Vattel was one of the most celebrated cooks of his day."
Captain Truck stared, looked his grave companion steadily in the eye, for
he was too much addicted to mystifying, not to distrust others, and picked
his teeth with redoubled vigilance.
"Vattel a cook! This is the first I ever heard of it."
"There was a Vattel, in a former age, who stood at the head of his art as
a cook; this I can assure you, on my honour: he may not have been your
Vattel, however."
"Sir, there never were two Vattels. This is extraordinary news to me, and
I scarcely know how to receive it."
"If you doubt my information, you may ask any of the other passengers.
Either of the Mr. Effinghams, or Mr. Blunt, or Miss Effingham, or
Mademoiselle Viefville will confirm what I tell you, I think; especially
the latter, for he was her countryman."
Hereupon Captain Truck began to stuff in the oakum again, for the calm
countenance of Mr. Sharp produced an effect; and as he was pondering on
the consequences of his oracle's turning out to be a cook, he thought it
not amiss to be eating, as it were, incidentally. After swallowing a dozen
olives, six or eight anchovies, as many pickled oysters, and raisins and
almonds, as the advertisements say _à volonté_, he suddenly struck his
fist on the table, and announced his intention of putting the question to
both the ladies.
"My dear young lady," he called out, "will you do me the honour to say
whether you ever heard of a cook of the name of Vattel?"
Eve laughed, and her sweet tones were infectious amid the dull howling of
the gale, which was constantly heard in the cabins, like a bass
accompaniment, or the distant roar of a cataract among the singing
of birds.
"Certainly, captain," she answered; "Mr. Vattel was not only a cook, but
perhaps the most celebrated on record, for sentiment at least, if not
for skill."
"I make no doubt the man did his work well, let him be set about what he
might; and, mademoiselle, he was a countryman of yours, they tell me?"
"_Assurement_, Monsieur Vattel has left more distinguished _souvenirs_
than any other cook in France."
Captain Truck turned quickly to the elated and admiring Saunders, who felt
his own glory enhanced by this important discovery, and said in that
short-hand way he had of expressing himself to the chief of the pantry,
"Do you hear that, sir; see and find out what they are, and dress me a
dish of these _souvenirs_ as soon as we get in. I dare say they are to be
had at the Fulton market, and mind while there to look out for some
tongues and sounds. I've not made half a supper to-night, for the want of
them. I dare say these _souvenirs_ are capital eating, if Monsieur Vattel
thought so highly of them. Pray, mademoiselle, is the gentleman dead?"
"Hélas, oui! How could he live with a sword run through his body?"
"Ha! killed in a duel, I declare; died fighting for his principles, if the
truth were known! I shall have a double respect for his opinion, for this
is the touchstone of a man's honesty. Mr. Sharp, let us take a glass of
Geissenheimer to his memory; we might honour a less worthy man."
As the captain poured out the liquor, a fall of several tons of water on
the deck shook the entire ship, and one of the passengers in the
hurricane-house, opening a door to ascertain the cause, the sound of the
hissing waters and of the roaring winds came fresher and more distinct
into the cabin. Mr. Truck cast an eye at the tell-tale over his head to
ascertain the course of the ship, and paused just an instant, and then
tossed off his wine.
"This hint reminds me of my mission," Mr. Sharp re joined. "The ladies
desire to know your opinion of the state of the weather?"
"I owe them an answer, if it were only in gratitude for the hint about
Vattel. Who the devil would have supposed the man ever was a cook! But
these Frenchmen are not like the rest of mankind, and half the nation are
cooks, or live by food, in some way or other."
"And very good cooks, too, Monsieur le Capitaine," said Mademoiselle
Viefville. "Monsieur Vattel did die for the honour of his art. He fell on
his own sword, because the fish did not arrive in season for the dinner of
the king."
Captain Truck looked more astonished than ever. Then turning short round
to the steward, he shook his head and exclaimed,
"Do you hear that, sir? How often would you have died, if a sword had been
run through you every time the fish was forgotten, or was too late'? Once,
to a dead certainty, about these very tongues and sounds."
"But the weather?" interrupted Mr. Sharp.
"The weather, my dear sir; the weather, my dear ladies, is very good
weather, with the exception of winds and waves, of which unfortunately
there are, just now, more of both than we want. The ship must scud, and as
we go like a race-horse, without stopping to take breath, we may see the
Canary Islands before the voyage is over. Of danger there is none in this
ship, as long as we can keep clear of the land, and in order that this may
be done, I will just step into my state-room, and find out exactly
where we are."
On receiving this information, the passengers retired for the night,
Captain Truck setting about his task in good earnest. The result of his
calculations showed that they would run westward of Madeira, which was all
he cared about immediately, intending always to haul up to his course on
the first good occasion.