Maid Marian, and Other Stories

by Molly Elliot Seawell

One bright day in spring, as bright as the one on which Dicky first met Polly, the Hornet was coming into Portsmouth. There was a spanking breeze from the sea that tossed the white caps high, and the little Hornet was skimming along under all the sail she could carry. Now, although French ships had begun to appear again in English ports by that time, they were rather unusual; so Dicky, who was on the bridge of the Hornet, was rather surprised to see a big French frigate, the Alceste, sailing slowly out of the inner harbor. She was a fine ship, but she was sailing like a hay-stack, one mile ahead and three miles to leeward. The passage into the harbor of Portsmouth is narrow—not more than four or five hundred yards across—and from the lubberly way the Alceste was tacking about, she would probably take all the room there was, and considerably more if she could get it, to come out, and leave none at all for the little Hornet; but Dicky wasn't afraid of that. When it came to navigating a ship in a tight place, young Captain Carew was a match for any man who sailed the seas. In those days England claimed the sovereignty of the narrow seas, and exacted that a man-of-war, of any other nation whatsoever, on meeting a British war-ship in those waters, should salute the British ensign by lowering her topsails. Naturally, this was peculiarly hateful to French captains, who not infrequently omitted it, when the French ship was very big and the British ship very little. Then a long official correspondence would follow, but no French captain was ever punished for this defiance of the might of England. Dicky Carew, however, was not the man to consider the difference between a big ship and a little one where the respect due the flag he carried was at stake. His ensign was set, which was a hint to the French ship that her topsails must come down.

But the Alceste seemed in no hurry to show her manners. The fresh breeze that filled her ill-set sails kept most of her people busy, the sailors bustling about the decks with more chattering and noise than Captain Carew would have allowed on his ship in a month. But not a man went near her topsail halliards.

From the way the Alceste was lurching about, it began to look very doubtful if the little Hornet could pass in the narrow passage to the harbor, where it was plain they would meet; but Dicky Carew had no notion of shortening sail and hanging around outside until the Frenchman had got out. So in contrast to the great lumbering Alceste, the little Hornet came dashing on, with a free wind, making about two knots to the Alceste's one, and her course as straight as the crow flies. The French captain, who was also on his bridge, saw that the Hornet had no mind to stand out of his way, but he laughed as he looked at his own big hull and towering masts, and saw the little Hornet, whose mainmast was no higher than the Alceste's lower spars. And not the slightest sign was made that his topsails were to be lowered.

Now Dicky could stand the Alceste's bad seamanship, but it didn't suit him to take the Alceste's snub, and then sit down and write to the Admiralty and complain about it. He had been used to teaching Frenchmen to behave themselves, and he meant to do so now.

"Barham," said he to his first lieutenant, "the rascals don't mean to salute."

"Report 'em to the Admiralty as soon as we come to anchor," responded Barham.

"Wouldn't it be better to smash his cabin windows, and splinter one of his starboard boats beforehand—eh?"

"Decidedly better," said Barham, whose blood was up too. "With such a lot of landsmen and marines as they've got aloft, it will go hard if the Hornet can't scrape some of the paint off his sides."

By this time the French captain saw what was coming. The Hornet was standing up beautifully to the breeze, and apparently making straight for the Alceste. In two minutes more she was right on his starboard quarter, and the French sailors began to yell. Barham had taken the wheel, and kept his eye on Captain Carew, when, as Dicky waved his hand, Barham threw down the helm, and the little Hornet scraped so close to the Alceste that the quartermaster, taking up a boat-hook, jammed it through the Alceste's cabin windows, bawling:

"Take that for yer manners, ye ornsightly lubbers!"