"I was travelling through that state, a few years since, on my way from
Providence to New London, at a time when a new road had just been opened.
It was on a Sunday, and the stage--a four-horse power, you must know--had
never yet run through on the Lord's-day. Well, we might be, as it were,
off here at right angles to our course, and there was a short turn in the
road, as one would say, out yonder. As we hove in sight of the turn, I saw
a chap at the mast-head of a tree; down he slid, and away he went right
before it, towards a meeting-house two or three cables length down the
road. We followed at a smart jog, and just before we got the church abeam,
out poured the whole congregation, horse and foot, parson and idlers,
sinners and hypocrites, to see the four-horse power go past. Now this is
what I call keeping the church-door open on a Sunday."
We might have hesitated about recording this anecdote of the captain's,
had we not received an account of the same occurrence from a quarter that
left no doubt that his version of the affair was substantially correct.
This and a few similar adventures, some of which he invented, and all of
which he swore were literal, enabled the worthy master to keep the
quarter-deck in good humour, while the ship was running at the rate of ten
knots the hour in a line so far diverging from her true course.
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