‘Wife,’ said he to Fanny, ‘let us draw forward and hear the yarn, it will while away the hour.’
‘With all my heart, William.’
The two brought their deck stools further forward, and seating themselves listened to the following yarn. It was told by an old weather beaten mariner who had evidently seen much of salt water, and who possessed no small degree of intellect.
‘Come, Sky Scraper,’ said one, ‘go ahead, all clear’ The crew called him thus, from his being much taller in height than his companions, a man of about six feet.
‘Ay, ay, messmates,’ said he first replenishing his quid.
Sky Scraper after a few preliminary haws and hems, at length commenced. We do not give his precise language, which was so interspersed with nautical illustrations and language, that should we do so, the reader would be unable to understand it.’
‘Well, messmates, you see our laying here just now, with the moon looking out upon us, and this cove and the land hereaway, and the number of bells we count just now—all these have brought to my memory the days when I used to sail from this very anchorage night after night for the Solway, in as staunch a vessel as ever walked the sea. A real snorter was the saucy little Dolphin, I can tell you, messmates.
‘Well d’ye see—it might have been just such a night as this, and so it was, and we lay just here where the land tackle of the Vision now holds, at just about this hour somewhere about the year 1772. It was a three masted lugger, the Dolphin, and she was one of the sweetest things that ever floated, always saving the Vision,’ said the old tar, tipping his tarpaulin in honor of the little craft in which he sailed. ‘She was about a hundred and fifty tons burthen, and sat low and deep in the water. She was painted black, and about her waist ran a single streak of white, broken in both sides by a couple of ports. Our captain was a noble fellow and I remember how he looked as he walked the quarter deck that night. He was rather below the common size, messmates, yet he looked the captain all over. He wore a broad belt about his waist, in which he always wore a couple of boarding pistols, and a short cut and thrust sword.
‘“Unmoor ship,” said the captain through his trumpet.
‘Fifty as fine fellows as ever handled a marlinspike, sprang to execute the order while the boatswain’s whistle rang out on the still night air, and the captain walked the quarter deck.