A Ship of '49 Page #6

"A Ship of '49" by Bret Harte is a vivid and engaging novella that captures the spirit of the Gold Rush era in California. Through the eyes of its characters, Harte explores themes of adventure, ambition, and the complexities of human relationships in a rapidly changing society. The story revolves around the experiences of a ship's crew during this tumultuous time, highlighting the struggles and hopes of those drawn to the promise of fortune and new beginnings. With Harte's trademark wit and rich descriptive style, the narrative offers a compelling glimpse into the lives of those who sought their fortunes on the windswept shores of the Pacific.

• Novel

								

did this with a possible increase of her usual shyness and abstraction,
and apparently more as a duty than a colloquial recreation. But it
pleased Mr. Nott also to give it more than his usual misconception.
"Looking round the ship, was he--eh, Rosey?" he said with infinite
archness. "In course, kinder sweepin' round the galley, and offerin' to
fetch you wood and water, eh?" Even when the young girl had picked up
her book with the usual faint smile of affectionate tolerance, and then
drifted away in its pages, Mr. Nott chuckled audibly. "I reckon old
Frenchy didn't come by when the young one was bedevlin' you there."

"What, father?" said Rosey, lifting her abstracted eyes to his face.

At the moment it seemed impossible that any human intelligence could
have suspected deceit or duplicity in Rosey's clear gaze. But Mr.
Nott's intelligence was superhuman. "I was sayin' that Mr. Ferrières
didn't happen in while the young feller was there--eh?"

"No, father," answered Rosey, with an effort to follow him out of the
pages of her book. "Why?"

But Mr. Nott did not reply. Later in the evening he awkwardly waylaid
the new lodger before the cabin-door as that gentleman would have
passed on to his room.

"I'm afraid," said the young man, glancing at Rosey, "that I intruded
upon your daughter to-day. I was a little curious to see the old ship,
and I didn't know what part of it was private."

"There ain't no private part to this yer ship--that ez, 'cepting the
rooms and lofts," said Mr. Nott, authoritatively. Then, subjecting the
anxious look of his daughter to his usual faculty for misconception, he
added, "Thar ain't no place whar you haven't as much right to go ez any
other man; thar ain't any man, furriner or Amerykan, young or old, dyed
or undyed, ez hev got any better rights. You hear me, young fellow. Mr.
Renshaw--my darter. My darter--Mr. Renshaw. Rosey, give the gentleman a
chair. She's only jest come in from a promeynade, and hez jest taken
off her bonnet," he added, with an arch look at Rosey and a hurried
look around the cabin, as if he hoped to see the missing gift visible
to the general eye. "So take a seat a minit, won't ye?"

But Mr. Renshaw, after an observant glance at the young girl's
abstracted face, brusquely excused himself. "I've got a letter to
write," he said, with a half bow to Rosey. "Good night."

He crossed the passage to the room that had been assigned to him, and
closing the door gave way to some irritability of temper in his efforts
to light the lamp and adjust his writing materials. For his excuse to
Mr. Nott was more truthful than most polite pretexts. He had, indeed, a
letter to write, and one that, being yet young in duplicity, the near
presence of his host rendered difficult. For it ran as follows:--

DEAR SLEIGHT: As I found I couldn't get a chance to make any
examination of the ship except as occasion offered, I just went in to
rent lodgings in her from the God-forsaken old ass who owns her, and
here I am a tenant for two months. I contracted for that time in case
the old fool should sell out to some one else before. Except that she's
cut up a little between decks by the partitions for lofts that that
Pike County idiot has put into her, she looks but little changed, and
her fore-hold, as far as I can judge, is intact. It seems that Nott
bought her just as she stands, with her cargo half out, but he wasn't
here when she broke cargo. If anybody else had bought her but this
cursed Missourian, who hasn't got the hayseed out of his hair, I might
have found out something from him, and saved myself this kind of
fooling, which isn't in my line. If I could get possession of a loft on
the main deck, well forward, just over the fore-hold, I could satisfy
myself in a few hours, but the loft is rented by that crazy Frenchman
who parades Montgomery Street every afternoon, and though old Pike
County wants to turn him out, I'm afraid I can't get it for a week to
come.

If anything should happen to me, just you waltz down here and corral my
things at once, for this old frontier pirate has a way of confiscating
his lodgers' trunks.

Yours, DICK.

III.

If Mr. Renshaw indulged in any further curiosity regarding the interior
of the Pontiac, he did not make his active researches manifest to
Rosey. Nor, in spite of her father's invitation, did he again approach
the galley--a fact which gave her her first vague impression in his
favor. He seemed also to avoid the various advances which Mr. Nott
appeared impelled to make, whenever they met in the passage, but did so
without seemingly avoiding her, and marked his half contemptuous
indifference to the elder Nott by an increase of respect to the young
girl. She would have liked to ask him something about ships, and was
sure his conversation would have been more interesting than that of old
Captain Bower, to whose cabin he had succeeded, who had once told her a
ship was the "devil's hencoop." She would have liked also to explain to
him that she was not in the habit of wearing a purple bonnet. But her
thoughts were presently engrossed by an experience which interrupted
the even tenor of her young life.

She had been, as she afterwards remembered, impressed with a nervous
restlessness one afternoon, which made it impossible for her to perform
her ordinary household duties, or even to indulge her favorite
recreation of reading or castle-building. She wandered over the ship,
and, impelled by the same vague feeling of unrest, descended to the
lower deck and the forward bulkhead where she had discovered the open
hatch. It had not been again disturbed, nor was there any trace of
further exploration. A little ashamed, she knew not why, of revisiting
the scene of Mr. Renshaw's researches, she was turning back when she
noticed that the door which communicated with De Ferrières' loft was
partly open. The circumstance was so unusual that she stopped before it
in surprise. There was no sound from within; it was the hour when its
queer occupant was always absent; he must have forgotten to lock the
door, or it had been unfastened by other hands. After a moment of
hesitation she pushed it further open and stepped into the room.

By the dim light of two port-holes she could see that the floor was
strewn and piled with the contents of a broken bale of curled
horse-hair, of which a few untouched bales still remained against the
wall. A heap of morocco skins, some already cut in the form of
chair-cushion covers, and a few cushions unfinished and unstuffed, lay
in the light of the ports, and gave the apartment the appearance of a
cheap workshop. A rude instrument for combining the horse-hair, awls,
buttons, and thread, heaped on a small bench, showed that active work
had been but recently interrupted. A cheap earthenware ewer and basin
on the floor, and a pallet made of an open bale of horse-hair, on which
a ragged quilt and blanket were flung, indicated that the solitary

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