Hot with rage and agueish with cold, he retired to his cabin, vowing all manner of impossible vengeance, muttering about courts-martial, and solemnly protesting that Mr. Mitchell, the first lieutenant, should pay him for the cow that he had so wantonly shot.
Blank were the countenances of many the next morning. The first lieutenant was not, as usual, asked to breakfast. There was distrust and division in his Majesty's ship Nænia, and the Honourable the Captain Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban had several severe contusions on his noble person, a bad cold, and no milk for breakfast; an accumulation of evils that one of the aristocracy ought not to be obliged to bear. Though Mr. Mitchell did not breakfast with the captain, Jack Small, alias Small Jack, alias Mr. Littlejohn, did. The only attempt of the captain that morning at conversation was as follows. With a voice that croaked like a raven's at the point of death, evidence externe of an abominable sore-throat, the captain merely said to the reefer, pointing his fore-finger downwards as he did the day before, "Milk?"
Mr. Littlejohn shook his head dolefully, and replied, "No, sir."
"My cow died last night," said the afflicted commander with a pathos that would have wrung the heart of a stone statue—if it could have heard it.
"If you please, sir," said the steward, "Mr. Mitchell sends his compliments, and would be very glad to know what you would have done with the dead cow."—"My compliments to Mr. Mitchell and he may do whatever he likes with it. He shot it, and must pay me for it: let him eat it if he will."
The first lieutenant and the captain were, after this, not on speaking terms for three months. Several duels had very nearly been fought about the ghost; those who had not seen it, branding those who had with an imputation only a little short of cowardice; those who had seen it, becoming for a few weeks very religious, and firmly resolving henceforward to get drunk only in pious company. The carcase of the cow was properly dressed and cut up, but few were found who would eat of it; the majority of the seamen thinking that the animal had been bewitched: the captain of course would take none of it unless Mr. Mitchell would permit him to pay him for it at so much per pound, as he pertinaciously pretended to consider it to be the property of the first lieutenant. Consequently, the animal was neatly shared between the midshipmen's berth and the mess of which Joseph Grummet, the captain of the waist, was an unworthy member.
The day following the death of the cow, Joseph Grummet was found loitering about the door of the young gentlemen's berth.
"Any milk to-morrow, Joseph?" said the caterer.—"No, sir," with a most sensible shake of the head.
"Oh!—the cow has given up the ghost!"—"And somebody else too!" This simple expression seemed to have much relieved Joe's overcharged bosom: he turned his quid in his month with evident satisfaction, grinned, and was shortly after lost in the darkness forward.