"
The lieutenant started at this sudden interruption, and casting his
cloak from his shoulders, he looked abroad on the waters, as if seeking
those portentous omens which disturbed the imagination of his cockswain.
"How now, Tom," he said, sharply, "have ye turned croaker in your old
age? what see you, to cause such an old woman's ditty?"
"'Tis no song of an old woman," returned the cockswain with solemn
earnestness, "but the warning of an old man; and one who has spent his
days where there were no hills to prevent the winds of heaven from
blowing on him, unless they were hills of salt water and foam. I judge,
sir, there'll be a heavy northeaster setting in upon us afore the
morning watch is called."
Barnstable knew the experience of his old messmate too well not to feel
uneasiness at such an opinion, delivered in so confident a manner; but
after again surveying the horizon, the heavens, and the ocean, he said,
with a continued severity of manner:
"Your prophecy is idle, this time, Master Coffin; everything looks like
a dead calm. This swell is what is left from the last blow; the mist
overhead is nothing but the nightly fog, and you can see, with own eyes,
that it is driving seaward; even this land-breeze is nothing but the air
of the ground mixing with that of the ocean; it is heavy with dew and
fog, but it's as sluggish as a Dutch galliot."
"Ay, sir, it is damp, and there is little of it," rejoined Tom; "but as
it comes only from the shore, so it never goes far on the water, It is
hard to learn the true signs of the weather, Captain Barnstable, and
none get to know them well, but such as study little else or feel but
little else.
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