During the time occupied by the incidents that occurred after the Pilot had made his descent on the land, the Alacrity, now under the orders of Mr. Boltrope, the master of the frigate, lay off and on, in readiness to receive the successful mariners. The direction of the wind had been gradually changing from the northeast to the south, during the close of the day; and long before the middle watches of the night, the wary old seaman, who, it may be remembered, had expressed, in the council of war, such a determined reluctance to trust his person within the realm of Britain, ordered the man who steered the cutter to stand in boldly for the land. Whenever the lead told them that it was prudent to tack, the course of the vessel was changed: and in this manner the seamen continued to employ the hours in patient attendance on the adventurers. The sailing-master, who had spent the early years of his life as the commander of divers vessels employed in trading, was apt, like many men of his vocation and origin, to mistake the absence of refinement for the surest evidence of seamanship; and, consequently, he held the little courtesies and punctilios of a man-of-war in high disdain. His peculiar duties of superintending the expenditure of the ship's stores, in their several departments; of keeping the frigate's log-book; and of making his daily examinations into the state of her sails and rigging—brought him so little in collision with the gay, laughing, reckless young lieutenants, who superintended the ordinary management of the vessel, that he might be said to have formed a distinct species of the animal, though certainly of the same genus with his more polished messmates. Whenever circumstances, however, required that he should depart from the dull routine of his duty, he made it a rule, as far as possible, to associate himself with such of the crew as possessed habits and opinions the least at variance with his own.
By a singular fatality, the chaplain of the frigate was, as respects associates, in a condition nearly assimilated to that of this veteran tar.
An earnest desire to ameliorate the situation of those who were doomed to meet death on the great deep had induced an experienced and simple-hearted divine to accept this station, in the fond hope that he might be made the favored instrument of salvation to many, who were then existing in a state of the most abandoned self-forgetfulness. Neither our limits, nor our present object, will permit the relation of the many causes that led, not only to an entire frustration of all his visionary expectations, but to an issue which rendered the struggle of the good divine with himself both arduous and ominous, in order to maintain his own claims to the merited distinctions of his sacred office. The consciousness of his backsliding had so far lessened the earthly, if not the spiritual, pride of the chaplain, as to induce him to relish the society of the rude master, whose years had brought him, at times, to take certain views of futurity that were singularly affected by the peculiar character of the individual. It might have been that both found themselves out of their places—but it was owing to some such secret sympathy, let its origin be what it would, that the two came to be fond of each other's company. On the night in question, Mr. Boltrope had invited the chaplain to accompany him in the Alacrity; adding, in his broad, rough language, that as there was to be fighting on shore, “his hand might come in play with some poor fellow or other.” This singular invitation had been accepted, as well from a desire to relieve the monotony of a sea-life by any change, as perhaps with a secret yearning in the breast of the troubled divine to get as nigh to terra firma as possible. Accordingly, after the Pilot had landed with his boisterous party, the sailing-master and the chaplain, together with a boatswain's mate and some ten or twelve seamen, were left in quiet possession of the cutter. The first few hours of this peaceable intercourse had been spent by the worthy messmates, in the little cabin of the vessel, over a can of grog; the savory relish of which was much increased by a characteristic disquisition on polemical subjects, which our readers have great reason to regret it is not our present humor to record. When, however, the winds invited the near approach to the hostile shores already mentioned, the prudent sailing-master adjourned the discussion to another and more suitable time, removing himself and the can, by the same operation, to the quarter-deck.
“There,” cried the honest tar, placing the wooden vessel, with great self-contentment, by his side on the deck, “this is ship's comfort! There is a good deal of what I call a lubber's fuss, parson, kept up on board a ship that shall be nameless, but which bears, about three leagues distant, broad off in the ocean, and which is lying to under a close-reefed maintopsail, a foretopmast-staysail, and foresail—I call my hand a true one in mixing a can—take another pull at the halyards!—'twill make your eye twinkle like a lighthouse, this dark morning! You won't? well, we must give no offence to the Englishman's rum.”—After a potent draught had succeeded this considerate declaration, he added: “You are a little like our first lieutenant, parson, who drinks, as I call it, nothing but the elements—which is, water stiffened with air.”
“Mr. Griffith may indeed be said to set a wholesome example to the crew,” returned the chaplain, perhaps with a slight consciousness that it had not altogether possessed its due weight with himself.
“Wholesome!” cried Boltrope; “let me tell you, my worthy leaf-turner, that if you call such a light diet wholesome, you know but little of salt water and sea-fogs! However, Mr. Griffith is a seaman; and if he gave his mind less to trifles and gimcracks, he would be, by the time he got to about our years, a very rational sort of a companion.—But you see, parson, just now, he thinks too much of small follies; such as man-of-war discipline.—Now there is rationality in giving a fresh nip to a rope, or in looking well at your mats, or even in crowning a cable; but damme, priest, if I see the use—luff, luff, you lubber; don't ye see, sir, you are steering for Garmany!—If I see the use, as I was saying, of making a rumpus about the time when a man changes his shirt; whether it be this week, or next week, or, for that matter, the week after, provided it be bad weather. I sometimes am mawkish about attending muster (and I believe I have as little to fear on the score of behavior as any man), lest it should be found I carried my tobacco in the wrong cheek!”
“I have indeed thought it somewhat troublesome to myself, at times; and it is in a striking degree vexatious to the spirit, especially when the body has been suffering under seasickness.”
“Why, yes, you were a little apt to bend your duds wrong for the first month or so,” said the master; “I remember you got the marine's scraper on your head, once, in your hurry to bury a dead man! Then you never looked as if you belonged to the ship, so long as those cursed black knee-breeches lasted! For my part, I never saw you come up the quarter-deck ladder, but I expected to see your shins give way across the combing of the hatch—a man does look like the devil, priest, scudding about a ship's decks in that fashion, under bare poles! But now the tailor has found out the articles ar'n't seaworthy, and we have got your lower stanchions cased in a pair of purser's slops, I am puzzled often to tell your heels from those of a maintopman!”
“I have good reason to be thankful for the change,” said the humbled priest, “if the resemblance you mention existed, while I was clad in the usual garb of one of my calling.”
“What signifies a calling?” returned Boltrope, catching his breath after a most persevering draught: “a man's shins are his shins, let his upper works belong to what sarvice they may. I took an early prejudyce against knee-breeches, perhaps from a trick I've always had of figuring the devil as wearing them. You know, parson, we seldom hear much said of a man, without forming some sort of an idea concerning his rigging and fashion-pieces—and so, as I had no particular reason to believe that Satan went naked—keep full, ye lubber; now you are running into the wind's eye, and be d——d to ye!—But as I was saying, I always took a conceit that the devil wore knee-breeches and a cock'd hat. There's some of our young lieutenants, who come to muster on Sundays in cock'd hats, just like soldier-officers; but, d'ye see, I would sooner show my nose under a nightcap than under a scraper!”