Chapter 4

Whither away so fast?
O God save you!
Even to the hall to hear what shall become
Of the great Duke of Buckingham.

HENRY VIII.

The assembling of the passengers of the large packet-ship is necessarily
an affair of coldness and distrust, especially with those who know the
world, and more particularly still when the passage is from Europe to
America. The greater sophistication of the old than of the new hemisphere,
with its consequent shifts and vices, the knowledge that the tide of
emigration sets westward, and that few abandon the home of their youth
unless impelled by misfortune at least, with other obvious causes, unite
to produce this distinction. Then come the fastidiousness of habits, the
sentiments of social castes, the refinements of breeding, and the reserves
of dignity of character, to be put in close collision with bustling
egotism, ignorance of usages, an absence of training, and downright
vulgarity of thought and practices. Although necessity soon brings these
chaotic elements into something like order, the first week commonly passes
in reconnoitring, cool civilities, and cautious concessions, to yield at
length to the never-dying charities; unless, indeed, the latter may happen
to be kept in abeyance by a downright quarrel, about midnight carousals, a
squeaking fiddle, or some incorrigible snorer.

Happily, the party collected in the Montauk had the good fortune to
abridge the usual probation in courtesies, by the stirring events of the
night on which they sailed. Two hours had scarcely elapsed since the last
passenger crossed the gangway, and yet the respective circles of the
quarter-deck and steerage felt more sympathy with each other than the
boasted human charities ordinarily quicken in days of common-place
intercourse. They had already found out each other's names, thanks to the
assiduity of Captain Truck, who had stolen time, in the midst of all his
activity, to make half-a-dozen more introductions, and the Americans of
the less trained class were already using them as freely as if they were
old acquaintances. We say Americans, for the cabins of these ships usually
contain a congress of nations, though the people of England, and of her
ci-devant colonies, of course predominate in those of the London lines. On
the present occasion, the last two were nearly balanced in numbers, so far
as national character could be made out; opinion (which, as might be
expected, had been busy the while,) being suspended in reference to Mr.
Blunt, and one or two others whom the captain called "foreigners," to
distinguish them from the Anglo-Saxon stock.

This equal distribution of forces might, under other circumstances, have
led to a division in feeling; for the conflicts