Miles Wallingford: Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore"Cooper, James Fenimore
General
Miles Wallingford: Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore"
Cooper, James Fenimore
Merchant mariners -- Fiction; Sea stories; Seafaring life -- Fiction
We had not mistaken the character of the vessel. It was a ship from James'
river, loaded with tobacco, and bound to Amsterdam. Her master heard our
story, believed it, and felt for us. We only remained with him a week,
however, quitting his vessel off the coast of Holland, to go to Hamburg,
where I fancied my letters would have been sent, and whence I knew it
would be equally in our power to reach home. At Hamburg, I was fated to
meet with disappointment. There was not a line for me, and we found
ourselves without money in a strange place. I did not deem it prudent to
tell our story, but we agreed to ship together in some American, and work
our way home in the best manner we could. After looking about us a little,
necessity compelled us to enter in the first vessel that offered. This was
a Philadelphia ship, called the Schuylkill, on board which I shipped as
second-mate, while Marble and Neb took the berths of foremast Jacks. No
one questioned us as to the past, and we had decided among ourselves, to
do our duty and keep mum. We used our own names, and that was the extent
of our communication on the subject of our true characters.
I found it a little hard to descend so much on the ladder of life, but an
early and capital training enabled me to act Dicky over again, with some
credit; and, before the ship went to sea, our chief mate was discharged
for drunkenness, and I got a lift. Marble was put in my place, and from
that time, for the next five months, things went on smoothly enough; I say
five months, for, instead of sailing for home direct, the ship went to
Spain, within the Straits, for a cargo of barilla, which she took up to
London, where she got a freight for Philadelphia. We were all a little
uneasy, at finding that our story, with sundry perversions and
exaggerations, were in the English papers; but, by the time we reached
England, it was forgotten; having been crowded out by the occurrence of
new events of interest, at a moment when every week was teeming with
incidents that passed into history.
Nevertheless, I was glad when we left England, and I once more found
myself on the high seas, homeward bound. My wages had enabled me, as well
as Marble and Neb, to get new outfits, suited to our present stations, and
we sailed for Philadelphia with as good a stock of necessaries as usually
fall to the lot of men in our respective positions. These were all that
remained to me of a ship and cargo that were worth between eighty and
ninety thousand dollars!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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