He had seen some of my family a few days
before. I thanked him for telling me what I should not have dared
to ask; and if--
``The first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after like a sullen bell,''--
certainly I ought ever to remember this gentleman and his words
with pleasure.
The captain went up to town in the boat with Mr. Hooper, and left
us to pass another night on board ship, and to come up with the
morning's tide under command of the pilot.
So much did we feel ourselves to be already at home, in
anticipation, that our plain supper of hard bread and salt beef
was barely touched; and many on board, to whom this was the first
voyage, could scarcely sleep. As for myself, by one of those
anomalous changes of feeling of which we are all the subjects, I
found that I was in a state of indifference for which I could by
no means account. A year before, while carrying hides on the
coast, the assurance that in a twelvemonth we should see Boston
made me half wild; but now that I was actually there, and in sight
of home, the emotions which I had so long anticipated feeling I
did not find, and in their place was a state of very nearly entire
apathy.
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