(E. Stanley resumes next day.)
A dead calm succeeded to a gentle breeze, and on the soft, sleepy billows we have reposed in the Downs, rolling ever since. To comfort us we have a beautiful Packet and a limited number of passengers.
The discomfort consists in a rapid diminution of all our provisions and the consequent prospect of no Tea, supper, or breakfast, or dinner to-morrow. One sailor said to another as he was skinning some miserable fish, "Aye, aye, they" (meaning the passengers) "will be glad enough of these in a day or two, and I was eleven days becalmed last year."
Kitty, to fill up an hour of vacuity, said she would[252] draw, and to fill up my time this testifies that I have been thinking of you and wishing for your presence, for the Novelty alone would keep you in full effervesence and banish all Tediosity.
I have, moreover, been playing with a sweet little French dog brought by one of the sailors from Boulogne. The sailors have daily given him two glasses of gin to check his growth, and a marvellous dog of Lilliput he is! Pray, my dear Lou, drink no gin, for you see the consequences.
I had retired to bed, when Edward Leycester called me up to admire a beautiful display of Neptune's fireworks; wherever the surface of the waves was agitated, the circles of silver flashed and the drops were scattered far and wide.
The morning dawned upon us nearly in the same position, not a breath troubled the surface, smooth and still as Radnor Mere on the sweetest evening.
Famine began to stare us in the face; our provisions were nearly exhausted; two or more days might elapse before we reached Ostend.
We breakfasted on tea, fried skate and cheese. Breakfast at an end, it was proposed to board the nearest vessel and beg or borrow a dinner. In the tide course appeared a sail, about five miles distant.
The boat was lowered, volunteers stepped forward—Uncle, Edward, Donald, and a gentleman-like Belgian.