Alida blushed still deeper, hesitated, and then, by a movement that was half involuntary, she waved her handkerchief. The young Patroon arose, and answered the salutation by a courteous bow. By this time the ferry-boat was nearly past the ship, and the scowl was quitting the face of the Alderman, when the mariner of the India-shawl sprang to his feet, and, in a moment, he stood again in the centre of their party.
“A pretty sea-boat, and a neat show aloft!” he said, as his understanding eye scanned the rigging of the royal cruiser, taking the tiller at the same time, with all his former indifference, from the hands of the schipper. “Her Majesty should have good service from such a racer, and no doubt the youth in her rigging is a man to get most out of his craft. We’ll take another observation. Draw away your head-sheet, boy.”
The stranger had put the helm a-lee, while speaking, and by the time the order he had given was uttered, the quick-working boat was about, and nearly filled on the other tack. In another minute, she was again brushing along the side of the sloop-of-war. A common complaint against this hardy interference with the regular duty of the boat, was about to break out of the lips of the Alderman and the schipper, when he of the India-shawl lifted his cap, and addressed the officer in the rigging, with all the self-possession he had manifested in the intercourse with those nearer his person.
“Has Her Majesty need of a man in her service who has seen, in his time, more blue water than hard ground; or is there no empty berth in so gallant a cruiser, for one who must do a seaman’s duty, or starve?”
The descendant of the king-hating Ludlows, as the Lord Cornbury had styled the race of the commander of the Coquette, was quite as much surprised by the appearance of him who put this question, as he was by the coolness with which a mariner of ordinary condition presumed to address an officer who bore so high a commission as his own. He had, how ever, sufficient time to recollect in whose presence he stood, ere he replied, for the stranger had again placed the helm a-lee, and caused the foresail to be thrown aback;—a change that made the periagua stationary.
“The Queen will always receive a bold mariner in her pay, if he come prepared to serve with skill and fidelity,” he said; “as a proof of which, let a rope be thrown the periagua; we shall treat more at our ease under Her Majesty’s pennant. I shall be proud to entertain Alderman Van Beverout, in the meantime: and a cutter will always be at his command, when he shall have occasion to quit us.”
“Your land-loving Aldermen find their way from a Queen’s cruiser to the shore, more easily than a seaman of twenty years’ experience;” returned the other, without giving the burgher time to express his thanks for the polite offer of the other. “You have gone through the Gibraltar passage, without doubt, noble captain, being a gentleman that has got so fine a boat under his orders?”
“Duty has taken me into the Italian seas, more than once,” answered Ludlow, half disposed to resent this familiarity, though too anxious to keep the periagua near, to quarrel with him who so evidently had produced the unexpected pleasure.
“Then you know that, though a lady might fan a ship through the straits eastward, it needs a Levant breeze to bring her out again. Her Majesty’s pennants are long, and when they get foul around the limbs of a thoroughly-bred sea-dog, it passes all his art to clear the jam. It is most worthy of remark that the better the seaman, the less his power to cast loose the knot!”
“If the pennant be so long, it may reach farther than you wish!—But a bold volunteer has no occasion to dread a press.”