TOUGH YARNS.
GREENWICH HOSPITAL,
The grand depository of human fragments,—the snug harbour for docked remnants,—Greenwich Hospital! Who is there that has stood upon that fine terrace, when the calm of evening has shed its influence on the spirit, and nature’s pencil intermingling light and shade has graced the landscape with its various tints, without feeling delighted at the spectacle? No sound is heard to break the stillness of the hour, save when the sea-boy trills his plaintive ditty, studious to grace the turnings of his song, for it was his mother taught it him, and her he strives to imitate. To him the tide rolls on unheeded; he sees not the tall mast, the drooping sail; ah, no! his heart is in the cottage where he knew his first affection, when with a smile of infantile delight he drew his nourishment from that fond bosom lately bedewed with tears at parting.
Who is there that has not exulted in the scene, when the proud ship has spread her canvass to the breeze to carry forth the produce of our country to distant lands? or when returning to her own home-shores, laden with the luxuries of foreign climes, the gallant tars have
“Hailed each well-known object with delight!”
Ay, there they stand! the veterans of the ocean, bidding defiance to care and sorrow, full of mirth and jollity although they are moored in tiers. They are critics too, deep critics; but they cannot fancy the steam vessel with a chimney for a mast, and fifty yards of smoke for a pendant. These are the men that Smollett pictured,—the Jack Rattlins and the Tom Pipes of former years. Ay, those were rattling days and piping times! There is no place upon earth, except Greenwich, in which we can now meet with them, or find the weather-roll or lee-lurch to perfection. They are all thorough-bred, and a thorough-bred seaman is one of the drollest compounds in existence; a mixture of all that is ludicrous and grave,—of undaunted courage and silly fear. I do not mean the every-day sailor, but the bold, daring, intrepid man-of-war’s man; he who in the heat of action primed his wit and his gun together, without a fear of either missing fire.
The real tar has a language peculiarly his own, and his figures of speech are perfect stopper-knots to the understanding of a landsman. If he speaks of his ship, his eloquence surpasses the orations of a Demosthenes, and he revels in the luxuriance of metaphor. The same powers of elocution, with precisely the same terms, are applied to his wife, and it is a matter of doubt as to which engrosses the greatest portion of his affection,—to him they are both lady-ships. Hear him expatiate on his little barkey, as he calls his wooden island, though she may carry a hundred-and-fifty guns and a crew of a thousand men. “Oh! she’s the fleetest of the fleet; sits on the water like a duck; stands under her canvass as stiff as a crutch; and turns to windward like a witch!” Of his wife he observes, “What a clean run from stem to starn! She carries her t’gall’nt sails through every breeze, and in working hank for hank never misses stays!” He will point to the bows of his ship, and swear she is as sharp as a wedge, never stops at a sea, but goes smack through all. He looks at his wife, admires her head-gear, and out-riggers, her braces and bow-lines; compares her eyes to dolphin-strikers, boasts of her fancy and fashion-pieces, and declares that she darts along with all the grace of a bonnetta. When he parts with his wife to go on a cruise, no tear moistens his cheek, no tremulous agitation does discredit to his manhood: there is the honest pressure of the hand, the fervent kiss, and then he claps on the topsail-halliards, or walks round at the capstan to the lively sounds of music. But when he quits his ship, the being he has rigged with his own fingers, that has stood under him in many a dark and trying hour, whilst the wild waves have dashed over them with relentless fury, then—then—the scuppers of his heart are unplugged and overflow with the soft droppings of sensibility. How often has he stood upon that deck and eyed the swelling sails, lest the breezes of heaven should
“Visit their face too roughly!”
How many hours has he stood at that helm and watched her coming up and falling off! and when the roaring billows have threatened to ingulf her in the bubbling foam of the dark waters, he has eased her to the sea with all the tender anxiety that a mother feels for her first-born child. With what pride has he beheld her top the mountain wave and climb the rolling swell, while every groan of labour that she gave carried a taut strain upon his own heart-strings!