"There—you're out in your chrissening, ould chap, as you'll find presently," asserted the veteran; "and so you've lost your grog. But, d—it! I'd scorn to take a marine's allowance from him, though you richly desarves it."
"Come, heave ahead, Jack!" said the captain of the forecastle; "make a clear run of it, and don't be backing and filling this fashion."
"Ay, ay, Jem, I wull, I wull," answered old Jack. "But, I say, shipmate! just clap a stopper on the marine's chattering-gear whilst I overhaul my log.—Oh, now I have it! Up comes the young woman, and 'Coachman, what'll you charge no take me to ——?'—'Seven shillings, ma'am,' says he.—'Carn't you take me for less?' axes she; 'I've ounly got five, and I am very tired with walking.'—'Not a ha'penny less, ma'am,' says he, just as cool as an iceberg in Hudson's Bay; 'carn't do it, ma'am.'—'Oh, do try!' says she, and I could see sorrow was pumping the tears into her eyes; 'I would give you more if I had it,' says she.—'Carn't help it, ma'am,' says ould surly-chops, 'carn't help it; grub for the hanemals is very dear.'—'Oh, what shall I do!' says she so piteously; 'night is coming on, and it's a long way to travel on foot; I shall sink under it: do take the money!'—'Werry sorry, my dear,' says he, shaking his blubber head like a booby, perched on a ratlin, 'werry sorry, but never takes under price. You must use your trotters if you arn't never got seven bob.'—'Then I'm d—if she does!' says I, 'for you shall carry her.'—'Gammon!' says he, as spiteful as a pet monkey; 'who's to tip the fare?'—So I ups and tells him a piece o' my mind, and axes him if he ever know'd anything unfair by Jack Sheavehole, or if he thought I wanted to bilk him out o' the passage-money.—'Will you stand the two odd bob?' axes he.—'And d' ye think I won't stand as much as Bob or Dick, or any one else?' says I in a bit of a passion. 'Avast, ould chap!' says I; 'humanity arn't cast off the mooring lashings from my heart yet awhile, and I hopes never will;' and so I gives him a seven-shilling bit without any more palaver, and 'Come, my precious,' says I, houlding out my fin, 'mount areevo;' but I'm blessed if she didn't hang back till the pilot rung out for us to come aboard! And 'Lord love you!' says I, 'you arn't afeard of a man-o'-war's-man, are you?'—Oh no,' says she, brightening up for all the world like the sun coming out of a fog-bank,—'Oh no; you have been my friend this night, and God reward you for it!' So we soon clapped one another alongside upon the break of the fokstle, and got to overhauling a little smattering o' larning, by way of being civil, seeing as we'd ounly just joined company. 'I'm thinking that's a pretty village you're bound to,' says I in a dubersome way; 'I was there once,' says I, 'when I was a boy about the height of a tin pannikin;' for, shipmates, I didn't like to overhaul how I'd run away from home. 'Pray, is ould Martin Joyce alive?' says I.—'He was when I left yesterday morning,' says she; 'but he is confined to his bed through illness.'—'And the ould woman.' says I, 'does she still hould on?'—'Yes,' says my companion; 'but she's lame, and almost blind! Well, I'm blow'd, shipmates, if I didn't feel my daylights a-smarting with pain with the briny water that overflowed the scuppers—'cause why? them there wur my own father and mother, in the regard of my having been entered on the muster-books in a purser's name, my reg'lar right-arnest one being Jack Joyce. 'And what makes you cruising so far away from port?' says I, all kindly and messmate-like.—'It's rather a long story,' says she; 'but as you have been so good to me, why, I must tell you, that you mayn't think ill of me. You shall have it as short as possible.'—'The shorter the sweeter, my precious,' says I, seeing as I oughtn't to be silent. Well, she begins—'Sister Susan and I are orphans; and when our parents died, ould Martin and his dame, having no children, took us under their roof.'—'No children!' says I. 'Why, I thought they had a young scamp of a son.' I said this, shipmates, just to hear what she would log again me.—'Oh yes,' says she; 'but he ran away to sea when a boy, and they never heard from him for many years, till the other day they received a letter from Plymouth to say he was in the Tapsickoree frigate, and expected to be round at Spithead before long. So, the day before yesterday, a sailor passing through the village told us she had arrived; and so his parents getting poorer and poorer, with his father sick and his mother lame, I thought it would be best to go to him and tell him of their situation, that if he pleased he might come and see them once more before they died.'—I was going to say, 'God A'mighty bless you for it!' but I couldn't, shipmates; she spoke it so plaintively, that I felt sumeut rise in my throat as if I was choking, and I gulped and gulped to keep it down till I was almost strangled, and she went on:—'So yesterday I walked all the way to Portsmouth, and went aboard the frigate; but the officer tould me there was no man of the name of Joyce borne upon the books.'—'It was a d—lubberly thing!' says I, 'and now I remembers it.'—'What,' says she, 'what do you mean?'—'Oh, nothing, my precious,' says I, 'nothing in the world;' for I thought the time warn't come for me to own who I was, and it fell slap across my mind that the doctor's boy who writ the letter for me, had signalised my right-arnest name at the bottom, without saying one word about the purser's consarn of Sheavehole. 'And so you've had your voyage for nothing,' says I, 'and now you're homeward-bound; and that's the long and the short on it. Well, my precious, I'm on liberty; and as ould Martin did me a kindness when I was a boy, why, I'll bring up for a few hours at his cottage, and have a bit of a confab consarning ould times.' And the young woman seemed mightily pleased about it; so that by the time we got to ——, I'm blessed if, in all due civility, we warn't as thick as two Jews on a payday. Well, we landed from the craft, and away we made sail in consort for ould dad's cottage; and I'm blessed if everything didn't look as familiar to me as when I was a young scamp of a boy! but I never said not nothing; and so she knocks at the door, and my heart went thump, thump,—by the hookey! shipmates, but it was just as I've seen a bird try to burst out of its cage. Presently a voice sings out, 'Who's there?'—and such a voice!—I never heard a fiddle more sweeterer in the whole course of my life—'Who's there?' says the voice, in regard of its being night, about four bells in the first watch.—'It's Maria,' says my convoy,—'And Jack Sheavehole,' says I. 'Heave ahead, my cherub! give us a clear gangway and no favour.'—'Oh, Maria, have you brought him with you?' said a young woman, opening the door; and by the light she carried in her hand, she showed a face as beautiful—I'm d—if ever they carried such a figure-head as that, in any dock-yard in the world!—'Have you brought him with you?' says she, looking at me, and smiling so sweetly, that it took me all aback, with a bobble of a sea running on my mind that made my ideas heave and set like Dutch fisherman on the Dogger-bank.—'No,' says Maria, with a mournful sough, just as the wind dies away arter a gale—'No; there was no such person on board the frigate, and I have had my journey for nothing.'—'Nonsense!' says the other; 'you want to play us some trick. I know this is he;' and she pointed to me.—'Lord love your heart!' says I, plucking up courage, for I'd flattened in forud, and fallen off so as to fill again,—'Lord love your heart! I'd be anything or anybody to please you,' says I; 'but my name, d' ye mind, is Jack Sheavehole, at your sarvice in all due civility. But let us come to an anchor, and then we can overhaul the consarn according to Hamilton Moore.' So we goes in; and there sat my poor ould mother by the remains of a fire, moored in the same arm-chair I had seen her in ten years afore, and by her side was an ould wheezing cat that I had left a kitten; and, though the cabin-gear warn't any very great shakes, everything was as clean as if they'd just washed the decks. 'Yo-hoy, dame!' says I, 'how do you weather the breeze?'—'Is that my John?' says she, shipping her barnacles on her nose, like the jaws of a spanker-boom on the saddle; and then Maria brings up alongside of her, and spins the yarn about her passage to Portsmouth, boarding the frigate, finding that she was out in her reckoning, and her return with me; and ould dad, who was in his hammock in the next berth, would have the door open to hear it all. And I felt so happy, and they looked so downcast and sorrowful, that I'm blessed if I could stand it any longer: so I seizes Susan round the neck, and I pays out a kiss as long as the main-t'-bowline, till she hadn't breath to say 'Don't;' and then I grapples 'em all round, sarving out hugs and kisses to all hands, even to the ould cat; and I danced round the chairs and tables so, that some o' the neighbours came running in; and 'Blow me tight!' says I, 'side out for a bend; here I am again, all square by the lifts and braces!'—and then I sings,
'Here I am, poor Jack, Just come home from sea, With shiners in my sack'—
and I whips out a handful of guineas from my jacket pocket, and shows 'em,—
'Pray what do you think of me?'
'What! mother,' says I, 'don't you know me? Why, I'm your true and lawful son Jack Joyce; though, arter I run away, the purser made twice-laid of it, and chrissened me Sheavehole, in regard of his Majesty liking to name his own children. Never say die, ould woman! there's plenty o' shot in the locker. And come, lasses,' says I to the young uns, 'one on you stand cook o' the mess;' and I empties my bag on the floor, and away rolled the combustibles, matches, and mutton, and mousetraps, and all, scampering about like liberty boys arter a six months' cruise; and I picks up the bladder o' rum, and squeezes a good drain into a tea-cup, and hands it to the ould woman, topping up her lame leg while she drinks. And, my eyes! there was a precious shindy that night: the ould uns were almost dying with joy, and the young uns had a fit o' the doldrums with pleasure. So I gets the big pot under weigh, and shoves in both legs o' mutton and a full allowance o' turnips, and I sarves out the grog between the squalls; and ould dad blowed a whiff o' 'bacca, and mother payed away at the snuff; and nobody warn't never happy if we warn't happy that night. Well, we'd a glorious tuck-out o' mutton, wi' plenty o' capers; and arter that I stows the ould woman in alongside o' dad, kisses the girls in course, and then takes possession o' the arm-chair, where I slept as sound as a jolly on sentry."
"That's libellous!" exclaimed the serjeant somewhat roughly, as if offended; "it is an unjust reflection, and is clearly libellous."
"It's all the same to ould Jack whose bellows it is," returned the boatswain's mate carelessly; "it's no lie, howsomever, for none sleeps so soundly as a marine on duty. But I arn't got time to overhaul that consarn now; I know I laid in a stock of 'hard-and-fast' enough to last for a three weeks' cruise. Well, shipmates, we keeps the game alive all hot and warm, and we sported our best duds, and I makes love to Susan, and we'd a regular new fit-out at the cottage, and I leaves fifty pounds in the hands of the parson o' the parish for the ould folks, and everything went on, in prime style, when one day the landlord of the public comes in, and says he, 'Jack, the lobsters are arter you.'—'Gammon!' says I; 'what can them fellows want with me?'—'Arn't your liberty out?' says he.—'I never give it a thought,' says I.—'Where's your ticket?' says he. So I showed him the chit; and I'm blessed, shipmates, but it had been out two days! Well, there I was in a pretty perdiklement; and the landlord, says he, 'Jack,' says he, 'I respect you for your goodness to the ould uns; though I suspects they arn't altogether the cause of your losing your memory:' and he looks and smiles at Suke. 'Howsomever, the lobsters are at my house axing about you; and I thought I'd slip out and let you know, so that you might have time to stow away.'—'Thanky, my hearty,' says I; 'but I'm blessed, shipmates, if I warn't dead flabbergasted where to find a stow-hole, till at last I hits upon a scheme to which Susan consented! And what do you think it was, shipmates?—but you'd never guess! Why, Suke slips on a pair o' my canvass trousers and comes to an anchor in the arm-chair with a blanket round her, below, and I stows myself under her duds, coiling away my lower stanchions tailor-fashion; and the doctor coming in to see the ould folks, they puts him up to the trick, and so he brings up alongside of her, and they whitens her face, to make her look pale, as if she was nigh-hand kicking the bucket: and there I lay, as snug as a cockroach in a chafing-mat, and in all due decency, seeing as Suke had bent my lower casings hind part afore, and there warn't a crack nor a brack in 'em. Presently in marches the swaddies, and 'Pray whose cottage is this?' axed the serjeant as stiff as a crutch.—'It is Martin Joyce's,' said Maria.—'Ay, I thought as much,' says he: 'pray where is his son, Jack Joyce, or Jack Sheavehole?' says he.—'He left us three days ago,' answered Maria, 'to join his ship: I hope nothing has happened to him?'—'Indeed!' says the serjeant. 'Now, pretty as you are, I know that you are telling me what I should call a very considerable ——' Suke shrieked out, and stopped what he was going to say: for, shipmates, she sat so quiet, that, thinks I to myself, they'll find out that she's shamming; so I gives her a smart pinch in an inexpressible part, that made her sing out. Well, the long and the short on it, is, that the party, who were looking out sharp for 'straggling money,' had a grand overhaul; but the doctor would not let them interfere with Susan, who, he declared, was near her cushionmong; and at last, being unable to find me, they hauls their wind for another port.—Well, shipmates, as soon as possible arter they were gone, why, Suke got rid of her trouble, and forth I came, as full-grown and handsome a babby as ever cut a tooth. But I warnt safe yet; and so I claps a suit of Suke's duds over my own gear, and, being but a little chap, with some slutching, and letting out a reef or two here and there, I got my sails all snugly bent, and clapped a cap with a thousand little frills round my face, and a straw hurricane-house of a bonnet as big as a Guineaman's caboose over all, with a black wail hanging in the brails down afore, and my shoes scandaled up my legs, that I made a good-looking wench. Well, I bid all hands good-bye. Suke piped her eye a bit; but, Lord love you! we'd made our calculations o' matrimony, and got the right bearings and distance, (else, mayhap, I should never have got stowed away under her hatches,) and she was to join me at Portsmouth, and we were to make a long splice of it off-hand; but then, poor thing! she thought, mayhap, I might get grabbed and punished. Up comes the coach; but the fellow wouldn't heave to directly, and 'Yo-hoy!' says I, giving him a hail.—'Going to Portsmouth, ma'am?' says he, throwing all aback, and coming ashore from his craft.—'To be sure I am,' says I. 'What made you carry on in that fashion, and be d—to you!—is that all the regard you have for the sex?' says I.—'Would you like to go inside, ma'am?' says he, opening the gangway port.—'Not a bit of it,' says I: 'stow your damaged slops below, but give me a berth 'pon deck.'—'Werry good, ma'am,' says he, shutting the gangway port again; 'will you allow me to assist you up?'—'Not by no manner o' means,' says I. 'Why, what the devil do you take me for! to think the captain of a frigate's maintop can't find his way aloft!'—'You mean the captain of the maintop's wife,' says Susan, paying me back the pinch I gave her.—'Ay, ay, my precious,' says I; 'so I do, to be sure. God bless you! good-b'ye! Here I go like seven bells half struck!—carry on, my boy, and I'm blessed if it shan't be a shiner in your way!' And so we takes our berths, and away we made sail, happy-go-lucky, heaving-to now and then just to take in a sea-stock; and the governor had two eyes in his head, and so he finds out the latitude of the thing, but he says nothing; and we got safe through the barrier and into Portsmouth, and I lands in the street afore they reached the inn,—for, thinks I to myself, I'd better get berthed for the night and go aboard in the morning. Well, shipmates, I parts company with the craft, and shapes my course for Pint,—'cause I knew a snug corner in Capstan-square, and I was determined to cut with all skylarks, in regard o' Suke. Well, just as I was getting to steer with a small helm, up ranges a tall man who had seen me come ashore from the coach, and 'My dear,' says he, 'what! just fresh from the country?' But I houlds my tongue, shipmates, and he pulls up alongside and grabs my arm. 'Come, don't be cross,' says he; 'let me take you in tow; I want to talk with you, my love.' I knew the voice well; and though he had a pea jacket over his uniform-coat, and, take him 'half way up a hatchway,' he was a d— good-looking fellow, yet nobody as ever had seen him could forget them 'trap-stick legs;' and so, thinks I to myself, Jack, you'd better shove your boat off without delay: for, d'ye see, shipmates, I'd sailed with him when I was a mizen-top-mun in the ould Stag, and I well remembered Sir Joseph Y—ke. But I'm blessed if he didn't stretch out arter me, and sailed two foot to my one; and 'Come, come, my darling,' says he, 'take an honest tar for your sweetheart. Let's look at that beautiful face;' and he catches hould o' the wail and hauls it up chock ablock; but I pulls down my bonnet so as he couldn't see my figure-head, and I carries on a taut press to part company. But, Lord love yer hearts! it warn't no manner o' use whatsomever—he more than held his own; and 'A pretty innocent country wench indeed!' says he. 'What! have you lost your tongue?'—'No, I'm d— if I have!' says I: for I forgot myself, shipmates, through vexation at not being able to get away. 'Hallo!' says he, gripping me tight by the shoulder; 'who have we here?' I'm blessed, shipmates, if, what with his pulling at my shawl, and my struggling to sheer off, my spanker boom didn't at that very moment get adrift, and he caught sight of it in a jiffy. 'Hallo!' says he, catching tight hold of the pig-tail, and slueing me right round by it. 'Hallo!' says he, 'I never see an innocent country wench dress her hair in this way afore;—rather a masc'line sort o' female,' he says. 'Who the devil are you?' 'It's Jack Sheavehole, your honour,' says I, bringing up all standing; and, knowing his generous heart, thinks I, Now's your time, Jack; overhaul the whole consarn to him, and ten to one but he pulls you through the scrape somehow or other. So I ups and tells him the long and the short on it, and he laughs one minute, and d—ns me for a desarting willun the next; and 'Come along!' says he 'I must see what Captain B—n will think of all this.' So he takes me in tow, and we went into one of the grand houses in High-street; and 'Follow me,' says he, as he walked up stairs into a large room all lighted up for a sheave-o; and there wur ladies all togged out in white, and silver and gold, and feathers, and navy officers and sodger officers,—a grand dinner-party. 'B—n,' hails Sir Joseph, 'here's a lady wants you;' and he takes me by the hand, all complimentary like, and the captain of the frigate comes towards us, and I'm blessed if every soul fore and aft didn't fix their eyes on me like a marine looking out for a squall. 'I've not the pleasure of knowing the lady,' says the skipper; 'I fear, Sir Joseph, you're coming York over me. Pray, ma'am, may I be allowed the happiness of seeing your countenance and hearing your name?'—'I'm Jack Sheavehole, yer honour,' says I, 'captain o' the Tapsickorees maintop, as yer honour well knows.'—'I do, my man,' says he with a gravedigger's grin on his countenance: 'and so you want to desert?'—'Never, yer honour,' says I, 'in the regard o' my liking my ship and my captain too well.'—'No, no, B—n,' says Sir Joseph, 'I must do him justice. It appears that he had long leave, and onknowingly overstayed his time; so he rigged himself out in angel's gear to cheat them devils of sodgers. I'll vouch for the fact, B—n,' says he, 'for I saw him myself get down from the coach—.'—'All fresh from the country, yer honour,' says I.—'Ay, all fresh from the country,' chimes in Sir Joseph. 'He's an ould shipmate o' mine, B—n, and I want you, as a personal favour to myself to back his liberty-ticket for to-morrow. Such a lad as this, would never desart the sarvice.'—'If I would, then I'm d—! saving yer honour's presence,' says I. Well, shipmates, there I stood in the broad light, and all the ladies and gemmen staring at me like fun; and 'Come, B—n,' says Sir Joseph, 'extend his liberty till to-morrow'—'Where's your ticket?' axes the skipper: and so, in regard of its being in my trousers pocket, I hauls up my petticoats to get at it; and, my eyes! but the women set up a screeching, and the officers burst out in a broadside o' laughing, and you never heard such a bobbery as they kicked up,—it was a downright reg'lar squall."
"Ay, squall indeed," said the captain of the forecastle: "here it comes with a vengeance!" he bellowed out with stentorian lungs. "Hard up with the helm—hard a-weather." In an instant the sea was one sheet of foam; the wind came whistling like the rustling of ten thousand arrows in their swiftest flight; a report like the discharge of a heavy piece of artillery was heard forward, and away flew the jib like a fleecy cloud to leeward. The frigate heeled over, carrying everybody and everything into the lee scuppers; the lightning hissed and cracked as it exploded between the masts, making everything tremble from the keel to the truck; broad sheets of water were lifted up and dashed over the decks fore and aft: indeed, it seemed as if the gale were striving to raise the ponderous vessel from the ocean for the purpose of plunging it into the dark abyss; a thick mist-like shroud hung round her, alow and aloft, as she struggled to lift herself against the tempest. The topsail halliards were let go; but the nearly horizontal position of the masts prevented the sails from running down. Inevitable destruction for the moment threatened to engulph them all, when "crack, crack, crack!" away went the topmasts over the side; the spanker sheet had been cut away, and off bounced the spanker after the jib. The frigate partially righted, and Lord Eustace and his officers rushed to the deck. But the squall had passed: the moon again shone beautifully clear; the deceitful sky and still more deceitful ocean were all smiles, as if nothing had happened,—though the evidences of their wrath were but too apparent in the dismantled state of his Majesty's ship. But we must again leave them, as we did before, to