“Drop the leg of mutton, Sneezer,” roared the Lieutenant, “drop the mutton-drop it, sir, drop it, drop it.” And away raced his Majesty’s officer in pursuit of the canine pirate.
After a little, he and the Indian returned, the former with the joint in his hand; and presently the dog stole into the hut after them, and patiently lay down in a corner, until the Lieutenant good-humouredly threw the bone to him after our comfortless meal had been finished.
I was so weak that my shipmate considerately refrained from pressing his society on me; and we, therefore, all betook ourselves to rest for the night.
To COMMODORE CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,
Your chief devil has got me into a terrible mess by a misprint in last Chapter—confound my cramp fist—regarding which Old Splinter (erst of the Torch,) has ever since quizzed me very nearly up to gunpowder mark.
To the matter—The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the bowsprit, that “the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters.” Now, I don’t dispute the roaring of sterns-in season. But,—me, if you or any other man shall make Tom Cringle’s stern roar, out of season, on compulsion. I wrote STEM, the cutwater of the ship, the coulter as it were—the head of her, not the tail, as the devil would have it. And again, when the privateer hauls his wind suddenly to let the Torch shoot past him, and thereby gain the weather-gage, when old Splinter should sing out, as it was written—but, confound the fist once more “Give her the stem”—that is, run her down and sink her, the stem being the strongest part, as the stern is the weakest, he, Belzebub, judging, I presume, of the respective strength of the two ends from his own comparative anatomy, makes him say, “Give her the stern,” as if he were going to let drive at her with that end. “Poo, nonsense—it don’t signify.” But it does signify, old man.
To touch you more near—you yourself have been known to get fou and pugnacious on great occasions—the visit of royalty, for instance—it is on record. A mountain foreigner from Rossshire engages you, for some unknown insult, in single combat, and, leagued with John Barleycorn, (let us imagine an impossibility,) floors you by a peg on the gnomon—the wound is in the front—your snout is broken, but your honour is whole. Would it be so, were the Gael to allege, that “her mainsell had coupit you by a pig kick on her preach?” By all the gods, he of the laconic garment, the “thousand hill man,” would have been careering on a cloud after his “freen” Ossian, with the moon shining through him, within that very hour.
Still I would not have bothered you; but I know his Most Gracious Majesty King William, God bless him! (who can forget poor Burns’s “Tarry Breeks?”) either has noticed it, or will notice it, the instant he comes to that part of the Log. Now this, without explanation, is inconvenient, trowsers being likely to come as high up in these days as pantaloons, and I have some claim on him, seeing that my uncle, Job Cringle, some five-and-forty years ago, at Jamaica, in the town of Port Royal, had his headrails smashed, the neb of his nose (stem) bitten off by a bungo, and the end of his spine (stern-post), that mysterious point, where man ends, and monkey begins, grievously shaken in a spree at Kitty Finnans, in Prince William Henry’s company.
“Poo, nonsense.” Indeed!—Why, the very devil himself, the author of the evil, shall be convinced that there is much peril in the transposition of ends. I will ask him—“What is a sternutation?” (words being his weapons) “What is a sternutation?” He shall answer learnedly by the card—“A sneeze,” the nose or stem being the organ. Then he shall ask Jem Sparkle “What is a sternutation?”—You laugh, old gentleman; but your devil’s “mistack” looks every inch as queer to a sailor as our topman’s answer would sound to you.