The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers. James Fenimore Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ knew any good come of it. The men who make the charts are most to be trusted. For my part, I would not give a sixpence for a note made by a man who passes a shoal or a rock, in a squall or a gale."

      "What would you say to the note of a sealer who should lay down an island where the seals lie about on the beach like pigs in a pen, sunning themselves? Would you not call a chart so noted a treasure?"

      "That would alter the case, sure enough," returned Gardiner, laughing; "though I should not think of looking into this chest for any such riches. Most of our masters navigate too much at random to make their charts of any great value. They can find the places they look for themselves, but don't seem to know how to tell other people the road. I have known my old man lay down a shoal that he fancied he saw, quite a degree out of the way. Now such a note as that would do more harm than good. It might make a foul wind of a fair one, and cause a fellow to go about, or ware ship, when there was not the least occasion in the world for doing anything of the sort."

      "Ay, ay; this will do for nervous men, who are always thinking they see danger ahead; but it is different with islands that a craft has actually visited. I do not see much use, Deacon Pratt, in your giving yourself any further trouble. My uncle was not a very rich man, I perceive, and I must go to work and make my own fortune if I wish more than I've got already. If there is any demand against the deceased, I am ready to discharge it."

      This was coming so much to the point that the deacon hardly knew what to make of it. He recollected his own ten dollars, and the covetousness of his disposition so far got the better of his prudence as to induce him to mention the circumstance.

      "Dr. Sage may have a charge--no doubt has one, that ought to be settled, but your uncle mainly paid his way as he went on. I thought the widow who took care of him was entitled to something extra, and I handed her ten dollars this morning, which you may repay to me or not, just as you please."

      Captain Daggett drew forth his wallet and discharged the obligation on the spot. He then replaced the charts, and, without opening the till of the chest, he shut down the lid, locked it, and put the key in his pocket, saying that he would cause the whole to be removed, much as if he felt anxious to relieve the deacon of an incumbrance. This done, he asked a direction to the dwelling of the Widow White, with whom he wished to converse, ere he left the Point.

      "I shall have the questions of so many cousins to answer, when I get home," he said, smiling, "that it will never do for me to go back without taking all the talk I can get with me. If you will be kind enough to show me the way, captain Gar'ner, I will promise to do as much for you, when you come to hunt up the leavings of some old relation on the Vineyard."

      Roswell Gardiner very cheerfully complied, not observing the look of dissatisfaction with which his owner listened to the request. Away the two went, then, and were soon at the widow's door. Here the young man left his companion, having duty to attend to on board the Sea Lion. The Widow White received her guest with lively interest, it forming one of the greatest pleasures of her existence to be imparting and receiving intelligence.

      "I dare say you found my uncle a companionable man," observed the captain, as soon as amicable relations were established between the parties, by means of a few flattering remarks on one side and on the other. "The Vineyard folks are generally quite conversable."

      "That he was, captain Daggett; and when the deacon had not been over to perplex him, and wake up the worldly spirit in him, he was as well inclined to preparation as any sick person I ever waited on. To be sure it was different arter the deacon had paid one of his visits."

      "Was Deacon Pratt in the habit of coming to read and pray with the sick?"

      "He pray! I don't believe he as much as went through a single sentence of a prayer in all his visits. Their whull talk was about islands and seals, when they was by themselves."

      "Indeed!" exclaimed the nephew, manifesting a new interest in the discourse. "And what could they find to say on such subjects? Islands and seals were a strange topic for a dying man!"

      "I know it"--answered the widow, sharply. "I know'd it at the time; but what could a lone woman do to set 'em right; and he a deacon of the meetin' the whull time? If they would talk of worldly things at such times, it wasn't for one like me to put 'em right."

      "Then this discourse was held openly in your presence--before your face, as it might be, ma'am?"

      "I can't say that it was just that; nor was it altogether when my back was turned. They talked, and I overheard what was said, as will happen when a body is about, you know."

      The stranger did not press the point, having been brought up in what might almost be termed a land of listeners. An island, that is cut off from much communication with the rest of the earth, and from which two-thirds of the males must be periodically absent, would be very likely to reach perfection in the art of gossiping, which includes that of the listener.

      "Yes," he answered, "one picks up a good deal, he doesn't know how. So they talked of islands and seals?"

      Thus questioned, the widow cheerfully opened her stores of knowledge. As she proceeded in her account of the secret conferences between Deacon Pratt and her late inmate, her zeal became quickened, and she omitted nothing that she had ever heard, besides including a great deal that she had not heard. But her companion was accustomed to such narratives, and knew reasonably well how to make allowances. He listened with a determination not to believe more than half of what she said, and by dint of long experience, he succeeded in separating the credible portions of the woman's almost breathless accounts, from those that ought to have been regarded as incredible, with a surprising degree of success. The greatest difficulty in the way of comprehending the Widow White's report, arose from the fact that she had altogether missed the preliminary and most explicit conference. This left so much to be understood and inferred, that, in her own efforts to supply the deficiencies, she made a great deal of confusion in the statements. Captain Daggett was fully assured that the deacon knew of the existence of the sealing-island, at least; though he was in doubt whether the rumour that had been brought to him, touching the buried treasure, had also been imparted to this person. The purchase and equipment of the Sea Lion, taken in connection with the widow's account, were enough, of themselves, to convince one of his experience and foresight, that an expedition after seal was then fitting out, on the information derived from his deceased relative. Of this much he had no doubt; but he was not able to assure himself, quite so satisfactorily, that the key was to be looked at by the way.

      The interview between Captain Daggett and the Widow White lasted more than an hour. In that time the former had gleaned all the information the latter could give, and they parted on the best terms in the world. It is true that the captain gave the widow nothing--he had acquitted his conscience on this score, by re-paying the deacon the money the last had advanced--but he listened in the most exemplary manner to all she had to say; and, with a certain class of vehement talkers, the most favoured being in the world is your good listener. Interest had given the stranger an air of great attention, and the delighted woman had poured out her torrent of words in a way that gratified, in the highest degree, her intense desire to be imparting information. When they separated, it was with an understanding that letters, on the same interesting subject, should pass between them.

      That afternoon, Captain Daggett found means to remove the chest of his late kinsman, across the bays, to Sag Harbour, whither he proceeded himself by the same conveyance. There, he passed an hour or two in making inquiries touching the state of equipment, and the probable time of the departure of the Sea Lion. The fitting out of this schooner was the cause of a good deal of discourse in all that region, and the Martha's Vineyard-man heard numberless conjectures, but very little accurate information. On the whole, however, he arrived at the conclusion that the Sea Lion would sail within the next ten days; that her voyage was to СКАЧАТЬ