Well, I did ship with the Seringpatam for Bombay. Plenty of passengers she had, but only clerks, naboobs, old half-pay fellows, and ladies, not to speak o' children and nurses, black and white. She sailed without my seein' Leftenant Collins, so I thought I was to hear no more on it. When the passengers began to muster on the poop, by the time we got out o' Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel. I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy-yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of a collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After a while there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from—mizen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as "Rule Britannia," "Bay of Biscay," "Britannia's Bulwarks," and "All in the Downs." The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and "Well I'm blessed, mates," says he on the fok'sle, "but that chap aft yonder with the lady—he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across! What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallowchops an hour agone?" "What was it, mate?" I says. Says he, "'Do ye know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reely green at the line—green ye know, Sar Chawls, reely green?' 'No, sir,' says the old naboob, ''tis blue.' 'Whoy, ye don't sa—ay so!' says the young chap, pullin' a long face." "Why, Jim," another hand drops in, "that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night! I seed him myself come out o' the mizen-chains!" "Hallo!" says another at this, "then there's some'at queer i' the wind!" I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning! I'll bet a week's grog the chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates! Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff,[A] an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand—for somehow or another, I was always a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past.
Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with him; though, as the naboob had never clapt eyes on him to know him like, 'twain't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways—I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, "As 'twas in the beginning,"—then, in the one key, "Haul aft the mainsheet,"—"is now and ever shall be,"—"Small pull with the weather-brace,"—"Amen,"—"Well the mainyard,"—"The Lord be with you,—Taups'l yard well!" As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being well handled.
'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, to the south-east. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel, and I hears him say to the second how the land-breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard, "Jacobs, my lad," whispers he to me, "how d'ye like the looks o' things?" "Not overmuch, sir," says I; "small enough sea-room for the sky there!" Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. "Sir," says he, "do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?" "No, sir," says the first mate; "what d'ye mean?" "Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point," says he. "Sir," says the Company's man, "if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd larn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort," he says. "Look on the starboard quarter then," says the leftenant, "at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look," says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's look through the mizen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time. "Now," says the leftenant, "d'ye think ye'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'west, sir?" "Well," says the first mate, "I daresay we shouldn't—but what o' that?" "Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done," says the leftenant, "you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky to nor'west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells." "Weather-glass!" the mate says, "why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy." Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the royal navy. "Sir," says the mate again, "mind your business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!" "If I was you," the leftenant says, "I'd call the captain." "Thank ye," says the mate—"call the captain for nothing!" Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. "Why, sir," says the mate, "I'd no notion you was a seaman at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?" "Well, sir," says Mr. Collins, "if you'll do it, I'll tell ye at once."
At this point of old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket-pocket, and got off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a short yarn?" "Can't help it, bo'," said Old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was the up-shot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled already? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several—"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!"
From Fraser's Magazine for June.
SOMETHING ABOUT A MURDER.
FOUNDED ON FACT.
A Fair and gentle girl was Barbara Comyn, the only daughter of one of the strictest and sternest old ministers that ever adhered to Calvin. Yet Mr. Comyn was thoroughly conscientious in all his views; and when he frowned, he did it not through love of frowning, but that he hoped, by gathering a cloud upon his brows, to bring down from those eyes upon which he frowned such showers of repentance as refresh and make green the soul sin-withered and sere from the harsh and hot suns of vice. He was, in truth, a worthy and good man; somewhat narrow of mind and bigoted of creed, it may be, but utterly incapable of committing an ungenerous or dishonorable action. Still, greatly as he loved his winsome daughter, much as he prized her for that dead woman's sake, who, as long as she lay in his bosom, had brought him comfort, and happiness, and honor, he was something over-harsh with her, niggardly in the bestowing of caresses, and liberal in the gift of unnecessary rebuke. Very severe, then, was his displeasure, when she confessed to him, with many blushes, that she loved her young Episcopalian kinsman, John Percival.
The cousins had not been reared together, nor had they even met before the youth had passed his twenty-fifth, the girl her nineteenth year. But we are not of the opinion that young people are the more prone to fall in love with each other for the being educated together in a sort of family domesticity. Such facts are contended for in fiction, but realities have convinced us that such things seldom happen; and if we ever have the fortune to possess children of our own, and wish a son or daughter to wed a particular individual, we shall take good care, not only to conceal our intentions from them, but to keep the pair apart from all brother-and-sister communism, until such time as each heart begins to have its natural craving for a congenial spirit,—when, in sooth, it looks for others than brothers and sisters to cling to. It is a very old, perhaps a very vulgar proverb, that "familiarity breeds contempt;" and we assuredly think, that the constant fireside association of young folks, trained up together in bread-and-butter ease, is more apt to generate calm friendship than warm affection.