"Yes, I made a running cruise of it, and didn't anchor till I made my last port in Sydney; so I've brought my own report from there."
We ran into Holmes' Hole and anchored at nine o'clock among a large fleet of coasting vessels, who had made a harbor for the night like ourselves. Before daylight in the morning we were heaving up again, and, with a fair wind, we ran down for Nantucket Bar with all our bunting flying. Down goes our anchor again in the old berth which we left three years ago, the sails are rolled up to the yards in a hurry, and a boat is lowered to pull the captain ashore. The owner is seen with his horse and the inevitable green box on wheels, waiting on the cliff shore to receive him, and take him to the arms of his family. The boat pulls square in, and lands him on the north beach, and returns to the ship, for an immense black Noah's-ark-looking craft is already seen moving out of the docks in the harbor, which the pilot tells us is "the camels." Several boats soon arrive, with friends and relatives of the Nantucket men. Here is our worthy mate's son in one of them, a stout, well-grown lad and evidently a "chip of the old block;" and here in another boat is an embryo "Cape Horner," a young brother of Obed B., who is already shipped, and is to sail in a fortnight.
"Ah, Obed;" he says, as he hops in over the rail, with hands outstretched, and his nut-brown, young face lighted up with pleasure and excitement, "I'm going in the Ranger; and if you hadn't got home just as you did, you wouldn't have seen me for I don't know how many years. Yes, the folks are all well at home, and the camels will have you into the wharf before night. The steamer will be along soon. We've got a new steamboat, too, since you went away. Say, Obed, I got the dollar from Captain Upton's wife this morning. I was the first boy that knew it was the Arethusa. One of the men came down out of the old south tower, and told me what signal the ship had set, and I put for the captain's house. I got the dollar, and then I dug for another, for I knew where the mate's wife lived, too; but some other boys had found it out by that time, and I had a tight race for it with Jack Manter, but I was tired then, I had run so far, and Manter got ahead of me, and sung out first, as he rushed into the front entry, but I tumbled right in after him. Mrs. Grafton was scared half to death at first, till she understood what the matter was, and then she laughed and cried both at once, and handed out a dollar, and said we might divide it, if we liked, but it belonged to Jack, for he was a little ahead of me, and I didn't care much, for I'd got one. Some mates' wives don't give but half a dollar," said he, pausing to get breath.