"Her timbers are good, ain't they? If they're good, and will hold together, this lop wont hurt her," observed D——.
"Ja,—goot; but ze vater ville come into moin praam. Moin Got!"
The fellow was glad to take his dollars and his leave, and, as soon as he did so, we shaped our course for the Skaw Point, the most northerly headland of Denmark. The wind now blew strongly from W.S.W., and the Iris tore furiously along, revelling with her favourite breeze, three points on the quarter; and, bounding from wave to wave, she seemed to dally with their soft white crests, which curved half playfully, half reluctantly, as her proud bows met and kissed them lightly, then threw them, hissing, in her wake.
At noon, the latitude observed, was 57.54; and at five o'clock we made the Skaw through the crevices of a fog.
We had run nearly one hundred miles in nine hours, and the reader may easily understand the alarm of the pilot for the safety of his boat. At six o'clock, the fog cleared away, and we discerned with our glasses five vessels which had run ashore during the thickness of the weather. These mishaps frequently occur along this part of the Danish shore, for it is very low, and invariably shrouded in mist.
We did not lack society; as hundreds of vessels of all shapes and sizes, from the lumbering Dutchman to the trim American, were scattered over the surface of the water. We amused ourselves by signalling, first to one ship, and, then, to the other brig, and so on, in rotation, from schooner to smack; and, thus occupied, the afternoon wagged on.
Jacko was convicted of a few misdemeanours to-day, and the principal witness against him was his particular friend, Alfred, the boy. Jacko was seen to descend into the cabin, and, entering my berth, to take thence my best London-made and only remaining tooth-brush; and, after polishing his own diminutive teeth, and committing other pranks with it, such as the scrubbing of the deck, and currying of Sailor's back, left it to batten on the fish-bones in the said Sailor's hutch; and was, moreover, seen by the aforesaid complainant to remove R——'s small ivory box of cold cream from the dressing-case, and, ascending the deck,—not as human creatures do by the companion-stairs, but along the companion-banisters, carrying the purloined article in his tail,—to anoint, in the first instance, his own pugged nose; and, in the second instance, to transfer the obligation to Sailor's (always Sailor!) shaggy ears and shaggier coat; and then, that his guilt might be concealed, till the day of judgment for ring-tailed monkeys should come, the little box itself was sent overboard through one of the scuppers. Jacko was found guilty of these two charges by the steward and helmsman, (whose pipe Jacko had also committed to the waters of the Scaggerack,) and ordered to the mast-head; and there he remained for three hours sitting close to the jaws of the gaff, and chattering, without cessation, his annoyances to the gaff halliard blocks.
At midnight, the Trindelen light-ship bore west, distance six or seven miles. Although Cronenborg Castle had been in sight all day, we did not anchor off the town of Elsineur (the wind being so light) until six o'clock on Friday evening. Immediately on our arrival, a boat was sent ashore to deliver the vessel's papers; for, though the ancient privileges of Cronenborg are not held with such paramount sovereignty as they used to be of yore, some form, and merely form, is, however, observed. For instance—in passing the castle, the ensign of the country to which the vessel belongs must be hoisted at the peak, or at the fore, according to the character of the vessel; and, should this regulation be encroached upon, a gun from the citadel is immediately fired, and is followed by others until the flag is hoisted, and continues to be fired until the flag is seen at its proper place; and, when the commotion is at an end, an artillery officer, or his deputy, boards the refractory vessel and demands payment, (every gun, fired, at so much) for the powder expended in bringing the crew to their senses. Many droll scenes occur between the Castle and the Dutch merchant-vessels going up the Baltic; for the Dutchmen, either from their unwieldiness, or from the confused cargo they carry, cannot always be made, on the instant, to conform to some of these regulations; and the artillerymen, being desirous of profiting by the apparent negligence, knowing well the cause, open an unremitting cannonade on the passive Hollanders, and, in the course of a few minutes, will run up a tolerably long bill.
The night was most beautiful, and the sea calm as death. The fine old Castle of Cronenborg, casting a dark shadow over the water even to the vessel's side, made me dream of days and legends gone by as I remained silently gazing on its elegant tower. My mind, filled with melancholy fancies, flew to centuries long past, when the philosophic Hamlet mused, perhaps, on calm evenings like this, pacing to and fro the very ramparts I was looking on, or sought, on that night of "a nipping and an eager air," the coming of him whose
"Form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable."