Chapter 32

I'll meet thee at Philippi.

SHAKESPEARE.

Happy is the man who arrives on the coast of New York, with the wind at
the southward, in the month of November. There are two particular
conditions of the weather, in which the stranger receives the most
unfavourable impressions of the climate that has been much and unjustly
abused, but which two particular conditions warrant all the evil that has
been said of it. One is a sweltering day in summer, and the other an
autumnal day, in which the dry north wind scarce seems to leave any marrow
in the bones.

The passengers of the Montauk escaped both these evils, and now approached
the coast with a bland south-west breeze, and a soft sky. The ship had been
busy in the night, and when the party assembled on deck in the morning,
Captain Truck told them, that in an hour they should have a sight of the
long-desired western continent. As the packet was inning in at the rate
of nine knots, under topmast and top-gallant studding-sails, being to
windward of her port, this was a promise that the gallant vessel seemed
likely enough to redeem.

"Toast!" called out the captain, who had dropped into his old habits as
naturally as if nothing had occurred, "bring me a coal; and you, master
steward, look well to the breakfast this morning. If the wind stands six
hours longer, I shall have the grief of parting with this good company,
and you the grief of knowing you will never set another meal before them.
These are moments to awaken sentiment, and yet I never knew an officer of
the pantry that did not begin to grin as he drew near his port."

"It is usually a cheerful moment with every one, I believe, Captain
Truck," said Eve, "and most of all, should it be one of heartfelt
gratitude with us."

"Ay, ay, my dear young lady; and yet I fancy Mr. Saunders will explain it
rather differently. Has no one sung out 'land,' yet, from aloft, Mr.
Leach? The sands of New Jersey ought to be visible before this."

"We have seen the haze of the land since daylight, but not land itself."

"Then, like old Columbus, the flowered doublet is mine--land, ho!"

The mates and the people laughed, and looking ahead, they nodded to each
other, and the word "land" passed from mouth to mouth, with the
indifference with which mariners first see it in short passages. Not so
with the rest. They crowded together, and endeavoured to catch a glimpse
of the coveted shore, though, with the exception of Paul, neither could
perceive it.

"We must call on you for assistance," said Eve, who now seldom addressed
the handsome young seaman without a flush on her own beautiful face; "for
we