Over at the fort, on the opposite side of the river, were groups of soldiers also observing the schooner’s rush up the harbor, and officers were braving the fierce wind to have a look at her.
The reviewing ship, and training ship for the middies, also had their quota of observers, while upon the stately vessel of war anchored in the stream the large crew were riveting their gaze upon the Venture, while the tars were commenting upon the manner in which she was being handled in a manner most complimentary to the helmsman, though with a belief that they would see him come to grief before he reached an anchorage.
Upon the quarter-deck of the vessel-of-war her officers were chatting over the flying craft, and various criticisms were made as to the skill and recklessness of the helmsman.
They, of course, had their own ideas as to what was good seamanship, and expressed them accordingly.
But it is forward, among the men, the bone and sinew, the human machinery of the navy, that I will ask my reader to accompany me.
Among a group of over a score of sailors leaning over the port bulwarks forward was one who was gazing with more than usual interest upon the schooner.
“Mates, I have seen that craft before,” he said decidedly, making a glass of his two hands to look through.
“When, coxswain, and whar?” asked an old salt, with gray hair and a complexion like the hide of an elephant.
“It was when I was on leave some months ago and took a run in my brother’s schooner that trades on the coast of Maine.
“I saw that craft, I am dead certain, come into the port of B----, and she came then in a living gale, and had only two men and a boy on board of her.
“The boy was at the helm, and ran her up to the dock in great shape.
“I was told that he carried the mail between some of the ports on the coast, and generally went in a surf-skiff in any kind of weather, but sometimes came up to the town with a load of fish, which he had that day.
“Several days after he came up to town in his surf-skiff and I made his acquaintance, and if that’s his craft then he’s the one as has the tiller.
“I’ll get my glass and take an observation,” and Coxswain Jack Judson went below, but immediately returned with a very handsome glass, which had been presented to him by his brother of the trading schooner.