Riding with the fleet, we lay to double anchor. Overhead the high wind whistled eerily through spar and cordage—a furious blast that now and then caught up a crest of the broken harbour sea and flung the icy spray among us. Frequent squalls came down—rude bursts of wind and driving sleet that set the face of the harbour white-streaked under the lash, and shut out the near land in a shroud of wind-blown spindrift. To seaward, in the clearings, we could see the hurtling outer seas, turned from the sou'-west, shattering in a high column of broken water at the base of St. Anthony's firm headland. We were well out of that, with good Cornish land our bulwark.
Ahead of us lay Falmouth town, dim and misty under the stormy sky. A 'sailor-town,' indeed, for the grey stone houses, clustered in irregular masses, extended far along the water front—on the beach, almost, as though the townsfolk held only to business with tide and tide-load, and had set their houses at high-water mark for greater convenience. In spite of the high wind and rough sea, a fleet of shore boats were setting out toward the anchorage. Needs a master wind, in truth, to keep the Falmouth quay-punts at their moorings when homeward-bound ships lie anchored in the Roads, whose lean, ragged sailormen have money to spend!
Under close-reefed rags of straining canvas, they came at us, lurching heavily in the broken seaway, and casting the spray mast-high from their threshing bows. To most of them our barque was the sailing mark. Shooting up in the wind's eye with a great rattle of blocks and slatt of wet canvas, they laid us aboard. There followed a scene of spirited action. A confusion of wildly swaying masts and jarring broadsides—shouts and curses, protest and insult; fending, pushing, sails and rigging entangled in our out-gear. Struggling to a foothold, where any offered on our rusty topsides, the boatmen clambered aboard, and the Captain was quickly surrounded by a clamorous crowd, extending cards and testimonials, and loudly praying for the high honour of 'sarving' the homeward bound.
"Capten! I sarved 'ee when 'ee wos mate o' th' Orion! Do 'ee mind Pengelly—Jan Pengelly, Capten!"—"Boots, Capten? Damme, if them a'nt boots o' my makin', 'ee 're a-wearin' nah!"—"... can dew 'ee cheaper 'n any man on th' Strand, Capten!"—"Trevethick's th' man, Capten! Fort—(th' 'ell 'ee shovin' at?)—Forty year in Falmouth, Capten!"
Old Jock was not to be hurried in his bestowal of custom. From one he took a proffered cigar; from another a box of matches. Lighting up, he seated himself on the skylight settee.
"Aye, aye! Man, but ye're the grand talkers," he said.
The crowd renewed their clamour, making bids and offers one against the other.
"Come down t' th' cabin, one of ye," said the Old Man, leading the way. A purposeful West-countryman, brushing the crowd aside, followed close at heel. The others stood around, discussing the prospect of business.
"Scotch barque, a'n't she?" said one. "Not much to be made o' them Scotch Captens! Eh, Pengelly, 'ee knows? Wot about th' Capten o' th' Newtonend, wot 'ee sarved last autumn?"
The man addressed looked angrily away, the others laughed: a sore point!