To all this they both smiled very sapiently, and told me they had their reasons.
“Well,” said I, “you are wise, and, compared to me, old men. You cannot think this Daunton a moral character—you cannot think him honest. Still, telling me you are my friends, you champion him against me. And yet I know not how or in what manner. If he should prove my brother, the world is wide enough for us both; let him keep out of my way, if he can. Depend upon it, doctor, he is acting upon an afterthought. He has been forced into a desperate course. You marked his abject cowardice at the gangway. During the many hours that he was in irons, before that punishment he so much dreaded was inflicted, why did he not then send for you, and, to save himself, make to you these important disclosures? Merely because he did not think of it. By heavens—a light rushes on me—he is a housebreaker!—he has committed some burglary, and stolen papers relating to me; and no doubt he has followed me, first, with the intention of selling to me the purloined secret at some unconscionable price, and he has since thought fit to change his plan for something more considerable, more wicked.”
“My poor boy,” said the doctor, kindly, “you are under a delusion. Let me change the subject, and puncture you with my lancet under the eyes—they are dreadfully contused. Well, Rattlin, we are to go to Sheerness directly, and be paid off. You may depend upon it, the captain will think better about this arrest of yours, particularly as the two men at the wheel positively contradict the quarter-master, and affirm that the helm was put hard a-starboard, and not hard a-port. It appears to us that it was of little consequence, when the ship was first discovered, how the helm was put. The fault was evidently on the part of those who so awfully suffered for it. By-the-by, there has been a change among the lords of the Admiralty—there are two new junior ones.”
“Begging your pardon, doctor, what the devil is a change among the junior lords of the Admiralty to a half-starved, imprisoned, blackened-eyed, ragged reefer?”
Much more than I was aware of.
“Now,” said I to the purser, “if you wish to do me a real kindness, change me some of my Spanish for English money, and let the first bumboat that comes alongside be ready to go ashore in ballast, for I shall certainly clear it.”
My request was immediately complied with; and my friends, for the present, took their leave.
Those blessed bearers of the good things of this life, the bum-boats, were not yet permitted alongside. Every five minutes, I sent master Bill up to see. Great are the miseries of a midshipman’s berth, when the crockery is all broken, and the grog all drunk, and the salt junk all eaten. But great, exceedingly great, are the pleasures of the same berth, when, after a long cruise, on coming into port, the first boat of soft tack is on the table, the first leg of mutton is in the boiler, and the first pound of fresh butter is before the watering mouths of the expectants. Aldermen of London, you feed much—epicures of the West-end, you feed delicately; but neither of you know what real luxuries are. Go to sea for six months upon midshipman allowance, eked out by midshipmen’s improvidence: and, on your return, the greasy bumboat, first beating against the ship’s sides, will afford you a practical lesson upon the art of papillary enjoyment.
It is, I must confess, very unromantic, and not at all like the hero of three volumes, to confess that, for a time, my impulses of anger had given way to the gnawings of hunger; and I thought, for a time, less of Joshua Daunton than of the first succulent cut into a leg of Southdown mutton.
The blessed avatar at length took place. The bumboat and the frigate lovingly rubbed sides, and, like an angel descending from heaven, I saw Bill coming down the after-hatchway, his face radiant with the glory of expectant repletion, a leg of mutton in each hand, two quartern-loaves under each arm, and between each pair of loaves was jammed a pound of fresh butter. I had the legs of mutton in the berth, and laid on the table, that I might contemplate them, whilst I sent my messenger up for as many bottles of porter as I could buy. But I was not permitted to enjoy the divine contemplation all to myself. My five messmates came to partake of this access of happiness. As the legs of mutton lay on the table, how devoutly we ogled their delicate fat, and speculated upon the rich and gravy-charged lean! We apostrophised them—we patted them endearingly with our hands—and, when Bill again made his appearance laden with sundry bottles of porter, our ecstasy was running at the rate of fourteen knots an hour.