Chapter 3 - Page 2

scar, which was the memorial
of a badly healed gash, that had once threatened to divide that moiety in
quarters; limbs in proportion; the whole rendered striking by the dress of
a sea man; a long, tarnished silver chain, and a little whistle of the
same metal, served to render the individual in question sufficiently
remarkable. Without appearing to be in the smallest decree aware of the
entrance of one altogether so superior to the class of his usual auditors,
this son of the Ocean continued his narrative as follows, and in a voice
that seemed given to him by nature as if in very mockery of his musical
name; indeed, so very near did his tones approach to the low murmurings of
a bull, that some little practice was necessary to accustom the ear to the
strangely uttered words.

"Well!" he continued, thrusting his brawny arm forth, with the fist
clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the
coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead
off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old
fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, sometimes let the
stopper slip through his fingers, and was sometimes fetching it up again
with a double turn round the end of his sack.--You know what a sack is,
brother?"

This abrupt question was put to the gaping bumpkin, already known to the
reader, who, with the nether garment just received from the tailor under
his arm, had lingered, to add the incidents of the present legend to the
stock of lore that he had already obtained for the ears of his kinsfolk in
the country. A general laugh, at the expense of the admiring Pardon
succeeded. Nightingale bestowed a knowing wink on one or two of his
familiars, and, profiting by the occasion, "to freshen his nip," as he
quaintly styled swallowing a pint of rum and water, he continued his
narrative by saying, in a sort of admonitory tone,--

"And the time may come when you will know what a round-turn is, too, if
you let go your hold of honesty. A man's neck was made, brother, to keep
his head above water, and not to be stretched out of shape like a pair of
badly fitted dead-eyes. Therefore have your reckoning worked up in season,
and the lead of conscience going, when you find yourself drifting on the
shoals of temptation." Then, rolling his tobacco in his mouth, he looked
boldly about him, like one who had acquitted himself of a moral
obligation, and continued: "Well, there lay the land, and, as I was
saying, the wind was here, at east-and-by-south or mayhap at
east-and-by-south-half-south, sometimes blowing like a fin-back in a
hurry, and sometimes leaving all the canvas chafing ag'in the rigging and