In a word, we went all on shore with the captain, and supped together in Gravesend, where we were very merry, stayed all night, lay at the house where we supped, and came all very honestly on
board again with him in the morning.
The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would nver have discovered--the poor people liked it!
There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty.
While this delay took place on shore, the captain was storming on board. This was the third time his orders had been treated with contempt, and the ship wantonly detained, and it should be the last; so he spread all sail and put to sea, swearing he would leave the laggards to shift for themselves.
On board the ship was the nephew of David Stuart, a young man of spirit and resolution.
For example, if I wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I brought it to be thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze.
Some days after this, and after I had been on board the ship, and got all that I could out of her, yet I could not forbear getting up to the top of a little mountain and looking out to sea, in hopes of seeing a ship; then fancy at a vast distance I spied a sail, please myself with the hopes of it, and then after looking steadily, till I was almost blind, lose it quite, and sit down and weep like a child, and thus increase my misery by my folly.
Or perhaps the very novelty of that face, on board a ship where he had seen the same faces for years, attracted his attention.
"It doesn't matter how you came on board," said Anthony.
But the fact is the fellow was not legally qualified for command, and the Consul was bound, if at all possible, to put a properly certificated man on
board. As to the second mate, all I can say his name was Tottersen, or something like that.
They secluded themselves in their staterooms during the greater part of the passage, and absolutely refused, although I repeatedly urged them, to hold communication with any person on
board.
I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and removed it to the pond-side by small cartloads, spreading the
boards on the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun.