Roger Kyffin's Ward

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Harry and the other pressed men stood for some time on the deck of the frigate, awaiting the appearance of the commanding officer. Harry dreaded his coming, believing that Captain Everard would immediately recognise him. At length an officer appeared from below, accompanied by the master-at-arms, who held a ship’s lantern in his hand. The officer commenced his inspection at the other end of the line. The light not falling on him, Harry could not see his features, but his figure was like that of the captain.

“I must brave it out,” he thought. “What shall I call myself? It must be a name I can recollect. Andrew Brown will, do as well as any other.”

Jacob was standing at a little distance from him. He had just time to step round and whisper, “I shall take the name of Andrew Brown,” before the officer approached. He was greatly relieved on finding it was not the captain. Jacob Tuttle gave his real name. He entered himself as Andrew Brown.

As soon as the inspection was over, the men were ordered down below, being told that they would be entered more regularly the next morning. They were told that they might lie down between the guns on the main deck, sentries being placed over them as if they were prisoners.

Harry was only too thankful to find a quiet spot where he might stretch his weary limbs and finish his slumbers, which had been so rudely broken during the first part of the night. He was too sleepy even to think. He dreamed that the fray was renewed, for the most strange, wild, and unearthly sounds assailed his ears: shrill whistles, hoarse bawlings, fierce oaths, the stamping of feet and rattling of ropes, and shouts of all sorts, creating the wildest uproar he had ever heard.

“Yes, he’s alive, only drunk, maybe,” said a gruff voice in his ear.

“No, he’s not drunk, only worn out pretty well, as you or I would be if we had not had a sleep for three or four nights. He’s young, you see.”

These words were spoken by Jacob Tuttle, who, putting his arm under Harry’s shoulders, helped him to get up, and saved him from knocking his head against the gun-carriage under which he had been sleeping. For some seconds he felt stupefied. The whole ship, which was so quiet when he lay down, was now in a state of what appeared to him the wildest confusion—officers issuing their orders in no very gentle voices or refined language, and men rushing here and there, stamping along the decks with their bare feet, swaying up yards, and bending sails, hoisting in stores, and lowering casks and cases into the hold. Harry, when he saw the number of men and size of the ship, began to hope that he might avoid the recognition of the captain.

“I’ll keep out of his way,” he thought, “and if Mabel does not tell him of my intention of going to sea, though he may think Andrew Brown very like Harry Tryon, he may possibly not dream of asking questions on the subject.”

After breakfast the first-lieutenant went through the usual examination of the pressed men, and entered them under different ratings in the ship’s books. In those days muscle and activity were the qualifications most valued. Harry was able to answer in a satisfactory way the questions put to him, and was at once rated as an able-bodied seaman, and, greatly to Jacob’s satisfaction, was placed in the same watch and mess with him.