"Look for yourself, Sir Gervaise; unless my eyes are good for nothing, Daly is running a kedge up alongside of his woman."
"What, a kedge?—Ay, that is intended for an anchor, and it means Hope. Every body knows that Hope carries an anchor,—hey! Wychecombe? Upon my word, Daly shows ingenuity. Look for the Hope, in that list, Bunting,—you will find the English names printed first, in the end of the book."
"'The Hope, or l' Esperance,'" read the signal-officer; "'36, lee capitang dee frigate dee Courtraii.'"
"A single-decked ship after all! This affair is as bad as the d——d nullus, ashore, there. I'll not be beaten in learning, however, by any Frenchman who ever floated. Go below, Locker, and desire Doctor Magrath to step up here, if he is not occupied with the wounded. He knows more Latin than any man in the ship."
"Yes, Sir Jarvy, but this is French, you knows, your honour, and is'nt as Latin, at all. I expects she'll turn out to have some name as no modest person wishes to use, and we shall have to halter it."
"Ay, he's catted his anchor, sure enough; if the figure be not Hope, it must be Faith, or Charity."
"No fear of them, Sir Jarvy; the French has no faith, nor no charity, no, nor no bowels, as any poor fellow knows as has ever been wrecked on their coast, as once happened to me, when a b'y. I looks upon 'em as no better than so many heatheners, and perhaps that's the name of the ship. I've seed heatheners, a hundred times, Sir Jarvy, in that sort of toggery."
"What, man, did you ever see a heathen with an anchor?—one that will weigh three hundred, if it will weigh a pound?"
"Perhaps not, your honour, with a downright hanchor, but with sum'mat like a killog. But, that's no hanchor, a'ter all, but only a kedge, catted hanchor-fashion, sir."
"Here comes Magrath, to help us out of the difficulty; and we'll propound the matter to him."