Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Homeward Bound - or, the Chase by James Fenimore Cooper
page 309 of 613 (50%)


Chapter XIX.



Ay, he does well enough, if he be disposed,
And so do I too; he does it with a better grace, but
I do it more natural.

TWELFTH NIGHT.


The sleep of the weary is sweet. Of all the party that lay thus buried in
sleep, on the verge of the Great Desert, exposed at any moment to an
assault from its ruthless and predatory occupants, but one bethought him
of the danger; though _he_ was, in truth, so little exposed as to have
rendered it of less moment to himself than to most of the others, had he
not been the possessor of a fancy that served oftener to lead him astray
than for any purposes that were useful of pleasing. This person was in one
of the boats, and as they lay at a reasonable distance from the land, and
the barbarians would not probably have known how to use any craft had they
even possessed one, he was consequently safe from everything but a
discharge from their long muskets. But this remote risk sufficed to keep
him awake, it being very different things to foster malice, circulate
gossip, write scurrilous paragraphs, and cant about the people, and to
face a volley of fire-arms. For the one employment, nature, tradition,
education, and habit, had expressly fitted Mr. Dodge; while for the other,
he had not the smallest vocation. Although Mr. Leach, in setting his
look-outs on board the boats, had entirely overlooked the editor of the
DigitalOcean Referral Badge