By Jasus, says Paddy, I wish I was gone,
For your small wooden kingdom I don’t understand.
Musha tudey, etc.
Oh! the first thing they gave me it was a long sack,[[65]]
Which they tould me to get in and lay on my back;
I lay on my back till the clock struck one bell,
And the man overhead he sung out, All is well.
Musha tudey, etc.
We had a very droll midshipman who lately died an old post captain, and was one of the best officers in the service. This gentleman was a kind of ventriloquist, and when we sat in the officers’ seat in Gosport chapel, and opposite to old Paul the clerk, of beer-drinking memory, whenever this man would begin to sing, the other would go Quack, Quack, Quack; sometimes high and sometimes low, according as the clerk would sing the psalm. I have seen the old fellow look round with amazement, the people whispering to one another, while others could not keep their countenance but would hold their heads down and laugh. I remember him coming on board late one night in a wherry from Gosport, and it being calm we could hear him quacking a long way off. We then lay at the Hardway moorings. When the wherry got alongside the waterman swore he would be damned sooner than have that chap in his boat again. Had he known as much, he would not have taken him off for any money; he certainly was the devil or his near relation, for some hell-hound or other had been following him on the water all the way from Burrow Castle (near the Magazine and reported to be haunted) until he got alongside. He said he knew that Burrow Castle was haunted and he’d take good care to return on the other side of the harbour, and blast him if he’d ever come that way at night. I had the watch upon deck at the time and remember every word, and I thought I should have died a-laughing.
Our first lieutenant had an inveterate hatred to the Barfleur (the flagship) for the following reason. The signal was made for all midshipmen, and I had just returned in the long boat from Spithead, where we had been fishing, and was then going to relieve the deck, it being my watch, when Lieutenant Yetts ordered me to answer the signal. On my asking him leave to go below and get ready, as I was certain they would turn me back if I went in the dress I had on, ‘Mr. Gardner, will you dictate to me?’ was his reply; ‘Go as you are, sir.’ When I got on board the Barfleur, Lieutenant Ross (who I knew very well) was commanding officer. The moment he saw me he came up, and with eyes of a dog fish, asked who I was and where I came from. I could hardly help laughing at the question. However, I explained to him the reason, but all to no purpose, as he sent me into my boat saying, ‘Tell your officer that I made the signal for a midshipman, and not for a fisherman, and he ought to have known better from the length of time he had been in the service.’