Cuddie the coxswain scampered up aloft, and perched himself in the main-cross-trees.
As the great square mainsails of the frigates fell, they began to feel the full pressure of their canvas, and gathered way; the transient bustle subsided, and as the broad sails swelled out from the yardheads, and the glassy river rippled beneath their sharp and lofty prows, they stood noiselessly down the opening Tay with the ebbing tide, and a western wind, right aft to bear them onward.
With evening a soft opal-coloured light stole over the summer sky. The heat of the day had subsided, and a light breeze stole along the water, wafting from the shores of that majestic river the rich fragrance of the apple-bowers, the ripening grain, and the thousand plants that flourish by its margin.
The great square tower of St. Mary, the pointed spire of St. Clement, the Rock of St. Nicholas, and the little burgh—for it was then indeed but a small but beautiful Dundee,—became shrouded in the haze of the warm summer evening, as the frigates, keeping straight in the fair way, rounded Tentsmuir-point, the sands of Abertay, and then bore away a point or two towards the south, with the western wind upon the quarter, when the sun's rays were fading behind the undulating coast of Forgan, or, as it then was named, St. Fillan.
People supped early in those days; thus, an hour after sunset, the bell in the great cabin announced that the evening meal was ready.
"By Heaven! admiral, I have an appetite for the first time since my father's death!" said Barton, as he took his seat with a flushed brow.
"Gadzooks, Robbie, if Cuddie descries those Englishmen——"
"I will add two hundred angels to thine, admiral, and rig him a crayer of his own—and she shall be the best that ever was launched on the Forth or the Tay!"
Father Zuill, the chaplain, who sat on Wood's right hand, blessed the viands, which consisted of a platter of fried garvies fresh from the Tay, two great pies, one called a gibelotte, which the Scots had adopted from their friends the French, and have now abbreviated into giblet; and the other a tower of paste, containing all the odds and ends the cook could collect in his larder. This was designated a double-decker. There were pies of quinces and orange marmalade for dessert, and cases of sack and canary for those who sat above the salt; with a great leather jack of ale for Archy the boatswain, Willie Wad the gunner, Cuddie the coxswain, the captains of the fore, main, and mizentops, who sat below this line of demarcation, and who, instead of supping off plate and a silk-edged table-cloth like the officers, were bound to content them with a plain bare table and wooden treen-plates, with horn-handled knives, and spoons. The conversation was general and animated, for it ran chiefly on the merits and death of Sir Andrew Barton, the probable strength of the enemy, and the chances of overhauling them. When supper was over, Sir Andrew desired all to fill their cans, for the toast which he invariably gave every night, at the same hour and in the same place, when on board, and had done so for the last thirty years.
"The gude Port o' Leith, messmates—God bless it, and a' our Scottish ships at sea!"