“Hush, dearie, you mustn’t be rude,” said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly; “but sure, Captain, you shouldn’t make game of the child.”
“I assure you, I’m not doing so, ma’am,” he protested, chuckling though still with much enjoyment. “I’ve only told her the simple truth. They are pigs, sea-pigs if you like, commonly called porpoises. But, whales, by Jove, that’s a good joke, ho-ho-ho!”
This time Nellie laughed too, the old sailor seemed to enjoy her mistake with such gusto; and, harmony being thus restored, they all turned to watch the graceful motions of the animals that had caused the discussion, which, swimming abreast of the vessel, were ever and anon darting across her bows and playing round her, describing the most beautiful curves as they dived under each other, apparently indulging in a game of leap-frog.
The Bembridge Belle was now just about midway between Southsea and Seaview, and close upon the buoy marking the spot where the old Marie Rose, the first big ship of our embryo navy, sank in the reign of bluff King Hal, in an action she had with a French squadron that attempted entering the Solent with the idea of capturing the Isle of Wight. The ‘mounseers,’ as the Captain explained to Bob, were beaten off in the battle and most of their vessels captured, a result owing largely to the part played by the gallant Marie Rose; though, sad be it to relate, while resisting all the efforts made by the enemy to carry her by the board, being somewhat top-heavy, “she ‘turned the turtle’ at the very moment when her guns were brought to bear a-starboard, to give a final broadside to the French admiral and settle the action, the poor thing then incontinently sinking to the bottom, where her bones yet lie.”
“Not far-off either,” continued the Captain, “the Royal George also foundered in the last century, with over nine hundred hands, there being a lot of shore folk in the ship beside her crew. Her Admiral, Kempenfeldt, was also on board, and—”
“Yes,” said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him; “and, sure, there’s a pretty little poem my favourite Cowper wrote about it which I recollect I learnt by heart when I was a little girl, much smaller than you, Nell. The lines began thus— ‘Toll for the brave, the brave that are no more,’—don’t you remember them; I’m sure you must, Captain?”
“Can’t say I do, ma’am,” he replied—“poetry isn’t in my line. But, as I was saying, the Royal George heeled over pretty nearly in the same way as the other one did that I just now told you about; and, I remember when I was studying at the Naval College in the Dockyard ever so many years ago, when I was a youngster not much older than you, Master Bob, being out at Spithead when the wreck of the vessel was blown up, to clear the fairway for navigation. I’ve got a ruler and a paper-knife now at home that were carved out of pieces of her timber which I picked up at the time.”
“How nice!” observed Mrs Gilmour. “A charming recollection, I call it!”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” replied the Captain, who seemed a little bit grumpy, and was fumbling in his pockets without apparently being able to find the object of which he was in search—“my recollection is not so good as I would like it!”
On Mrs Gilmour looking at him inquiringly, noticing the tone in which he spoke, the truth came out.