TALES OF THE SEA: 12 Maritime Adventure Novels in One Volume (Illustrated)
yes, you were a little apt to bend your duds wrong for the first month or so,” said the master; “I remember you got the marine’s scraper on your head, once, in your hurry to bury a dead man! Then you never looked as if you belonged to the ship, so long as those cursed black knee-breeches lasted! For my part, I never saw you come up the quarter-deck ladder, but I expected to see your shins give way across the combing of the hatch—a man does look like the devil, priest, scudding about a ship’s decks in that fashion, under bare poles! But now the tailor has found out the articles ar’n’t seaworthy, and we have got your lower stanchions cased in a pair of purser’s slops, I am puzzled often to tell your heels from those of a maintopman!”
“I have good reason to be thankful for the change,” said the humbled priest, “if the resemblance you mention existed, while I was clad in the usual garb of one of my calling.”
“What signifies a calling?” returned Boltrope, catching his breath after a most persevering draught: “a man’s shins are his shins, let his upper works belong to what sarvice they may. I took an early prejudyce against knee-breeches, perhaps from a trick I’ve always had of figuring the devil as wearing them. You know, parson, we seldom hear much said of a man, without forming some sort of an idea concerning his rigging and fashion-pieces—and so, as I had no particular reason to believe that Satan went naked—keep full, ye lubber; now you are running into the wind’s eye, and be d——d to ye!—But as I was saying, I always took a conceit that the devil wore knee-breeches and a cock’d hat. There’s some of our young lieutenants, who come to muster on Sundays in cock’d hats, just like soldier-officers; but, d’ye see, I would sooner show my nose under a nightcap than under a scraper!”
“I hear the sound of oars!” exclaimed the chaplain, who, finding this image more distinct than even his own vivid conceptions of the great father of evil, was quite willing to conceal his inferiority by changing the discourse. “Is not one of our boats returning?”
“Ay, ay, ‘tis likely; if it had been me, I should have been land-sick before this—ware round, boys, and stand by to heave to on the other tack.”
The cutter, obedient to her helm, fell off before the wind; and rolling an instant in the trough of the sea, came up again easily to her oblique position, with her head towards the cliffs; and gradually losing her way, as her sails were brought to counteract each other, finally became stationary. During the performance of this evolution, a boat had hove up out of the gloom, in the direction of the land; and by the time the Alacrity was in a state of rest, it had approached so nigh as to admit of hailing.
“Boat, ahoy!” murmured Boltrope, through a trumpet, which, aided by his lungs, produced sounds not unlike the roaring of a bull.
“Ay, ay,” was thrown back from a clear voice, that swept across the water with a fullness that needed no factitious aid to render it audible.
“Ay, there comes one of the lieutenants, with his ay, ay,” said Boltrope—“pipe the side, there, you boatswain’s mate! But here’s another fellow more on our quarter! Boat ahoy!”
“Alacrity”—returned another voice, in a direction different from the other.
“Alacrity! There goes my commission of captain of this craft, in a whiff,” returned the sailing-master. “That is as much as to say, here comes one who will command when he gets on board. Well, well, it is Mr. Griffith, and I can’t say, notwithstanding his love of knee-buckles and small wares, but I’m glad he’s out of the hands of the English! Ay, here they all come upon us at once! here is another fellow, that pulls like the jolly-boat, coming up on our lee-beam, within hail—let us see if he is asleep—boat ahoy!”
“Flag,” answered a third voice from a small, light-rowing boat, which had approached very near the cutter, in a direct line from the cliffs, without being observed.
“Flag!” echoed Boltrope, dropping his trumpet in amazement—“that’s a big word to come out of a jolly-boat! Jack Manly himself could not have spoken it with a fuller mouth; but I’ll know who it is that carries such a weather helm, with a Yankee man-of-war’s prize! Boat ahoy! I say.”
This last call was uttered in those short menacing tones, that are intended to be understood as intimating that the party hailing is in earnest; and it caused the men who were rowing, and who were now quite close to the cutter, to suspend their strokes, simultaneously, as if they dreaded that the cry would be instantly succeeded by some more efficient means of ascertaining their character. The figure that was seated by itself in the stern of the boat started at this second summons, and then, as if with sudden recollection, a quiet voice replied:
“No—no.”
“‘No—no,’ and ‘flag,’ are very different answers,” grumbled Boltrope; “what know-nothing have we here?”
He was yet muttering his dissatisfaction at the ignorance of the individual that was approaching, whoever it might be, when the jolly-boat came slowly to their side, and the Pilot stepped from her stern-sheets on the decks of the prize.
“Is it you, Mr. Pilot?” exclaimed the sailing-master, raising a battle-lantern within a foot of the other’s face, and looking with a sort of stupid wonder at the proud and angry eye he encountered—“Is it you! Well, I should have rated you for a man of more experience than to come booming down upon a man-of-war in the dark, with such a big word in your mouth, when every boy in the two vessels knows that we carry no swallow-tailed bunting abroad! Flag! Why you might have got a shot, had there been soldiers.”
The Pilot threw him a still fiercer glance, and turning away with a look of disgust, he walked along the quarterdeck towards the stern of the vessel, with an air of haughty silence, as if disdaining to answer. Boltrope kept his eyes fastened on him for a moment longer, with some appearance of scorn; but the arrival of the boat first hailed, which proved to be the barge, immediately drew his attention to other matters. Barnstable had been rowing about in the ocean for a long time, unable to find the cutter; and as he had been compelled to suit his own demeanor to those with whom he was associated, he reached the Alacrity in no very good-humored mood. Colonel Howard and his niece had maintained during the whole period the most rigid silence, the former from pride, and the latter touched with her uncle’s evident displeasure; and Katherine, though secretly elated with the success of all her projects, was content to emulate their demeanor for a short time, in order to save appearances. Barnstable had several times addressed himself to the latter, without receiving any other answer than such as was absolutely necessary to prevent the lover from taking direct offence, at the same time that she intimated by her manner her willingness to remain silent. Accordingly, the lieutenant, after aiding the ladies to enter the cutter, and offering to perform the same service to Colonel Howard, which was coldly declined, turned, with that sort of irritation that is by no means less rare in vessels of war than with poor human nature generally, and gave vent to his spleen where he dared.
“How’s this! Mr. Boltrope!” he cried, “here are boats coming alongside with ladies in them, and you keep your gaft swayed up till the leach of the sail is stretched like a fiddle-string—settle away your peak-halyards, sir, settle away!”
“Ay, ay, sir,” grumbled the master; “settle away that peak there; though the craft wouldn’t forge ahead a knot in a month, with all her jibs hauled over!” He walked sulkily forward among the men, followed by the meek divine; and added, “I should as soon have expected to see Mr. Barnstable come off with a live ox in his boat as a petticoat! The Lord only knows what the ship is coming to next, parson! What between cocked hats and epaulettes, and other knee-buckle matters, she was a sort of no-man’s land before; and now, what with the women and their bandboxes, they’ll make another Noah’s ark of her. I wonder they didn’t all come aboard in a coach and six, or a one-horse shay!”
It was a surprising relief to Barnstable to be able to give utterance to his humor, for a few moments, by ordering the men to make sundry alterations in every department of the vessel, in a quick, hurried voice, that abundantly denoted, not only the importance of his improvements, but the temper in which they were dictated. In his turn, however, he was soon compelled to give way,