We were coming back to our homes; and the
signs of civilization, and prosperity, and happiness, from which
we had been so long banished, were multiplying about us.
The high
land of Cape Ann and the rocks and shore of Cohasset were full in
sight, the lighthouses, standing like sentries in white before
the harbors, and even the smoke from the chimney on the plains
of Hingham was seen rising slowly in the morning air. One of
our boys was the son of a bucket-maker; and his face lighted
up as he saw the tops of the well-known hills which surround his
native place. About ten o'clock a little boat came bobbing over
the water, and put a pilot on board, and sheered off in pursuit
of other vessels bound in.
Being now within the scope of the telegraph stations, our signals
were run up at the fore, and in half an hour afterwards, the owner
on 'change, or in his counting-room, knew that his ship was below;
and the landlords, runners, and sharks in Ann street learned that
there was a rich prize for them down in the bay: a ship from round
the Horn, with a crew to be paid off with two years' wages.
The wind continuing very light, all hands were sent aloft to
strip off the chafing gear; and battens, parcellings, roundings,
hoops, mats, and leathers, came flying from aloft, and left the
rigging neat and clean, stripped of all its sea bandaging. The
last touch was put to the vessel by painting the skysail poles;
and I was sent up to the fore, with a bucket of white paint and
a brush, and touched her off, from the truck to the eyes of the
royal rigging. At noon, we lay becalmed off the lower light-house;
and it being about slack water, we made little progress. A firing
was heard in the direction of Hingham, and the pilot said there
was a review there.
The Hingham boy got wind of this, and said if the ship had been
twelve hours sooner, he should have been down among the soldiers,
and in the booths, and having a grand time. As it was, we had
little prospect of getting in before night. About two o'clock a
breeze sprang up ahead, from the westward, and we began beating
up against it. A full-rigged brig was beating in at the same
time, and we passed one another, in our tacks, sometimes one
and sometimes the other, working to windward, as the wind and
tide favored or opposed. It was my trick at the wheel from two
till four; and I stood my last helm, making between nine hundred
and a thousand hours which I had spent at the helms of our two
vessels. The tide beginning to set against us, we made slow work;
and the afternoon was nearly spent, before we got abreast of the
inner light.
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