CHAPTER LXXXVII.
OLD USHANT AT THE GANGWAY.
The rebel beards, headed by old Ushant’s, streaming like a Commodore’s bougee, now stood in silence at the mast.
“You knew the order!” said the Captain, eyeing them severely; “what does that hair on your chins?”
“Sir,” said the Captain of the Forecastle, “did old Ushant ever refuse doing his duty? did he ever yet miss his muster? But, sir, old Ushant’s beard is his own!”
“What’s that, sir? Master-at-arms, put that man into the brig.”
“Sir,” said the old man, respectfully, “the three years for which I shipped are expired; and though I am perhaps bound to work the ship home, yet, as matters are, I think my beard might be allowed me. It is but a few days, Captain Claret.”
“Put him into the brig!” cried the Captain; “and now, you old rascals!” he added, turning round upon the rest, “I give you fifteen minutes to have those beards taken off; if they then remain on your chins, I’ll flog you—every mother’s son of you—though you were all my own god-fathers!”
The band of beards went forward, summoned their barbers, and their glorious pennants were no more. In obedience to orders, they then paraded themselves at the mast, and, addressing the Captain, said, “Sir, our muzzle-lashings are cast off!”
Nor is it unworthy of being chronicled, that not a single sailor who complied with the general order but refused to sport the vile regulation-whiskers prescribed by the Navy Department. No! like heroes they cried, “Shave me clean! I will not wear a hair, since I cannot wear all!”
On the morrow, after breakfast, Ushant was taken out of irons, and, with the master-at-arms on one side and an armed sentry on the other, was escorted along the gun-deck and up the ladder to the main-mast. There the Captain stood, firm as before. They must have guarded the old man thus to prevent his escape to the shore, something less than a thousand miles distant at the time.