“You are wrong there, Ben; I couldn’t speak a word against them. But, I say, do you think we can finish the boat in time to get off and catch some fish this evening? I want to take home a couple of bass or whiting pout for Janet. She likes them better than anything else. Poor girl! it’s only fish and such light things she can eat. She’s very ill, I fear, though she talks as if she was going to be about soon; but the doctor tells mother he has no hope of her ever being well again.”
“That will be a sore pity, for, blind though she is, there’s not a prettier maiden to be found throughout the forest,” answered Ben. “I’ll do my best to serve you, Dick; but there’s two hours’ more work to be done before we can get the craft afloat.” Ben surveyed the boat from stem to stern as he spoke, and then continued boring holes and driving nails as diligently as before.
While he was thus employed, Dick, who was looking towards the Isle of Wight, exclaimed, “See, Ben, see, what a fine ship yonder is, just come in at the Needles!”
The fisherman, clenching the nail he had just driven in, turned his eyes in the direction to which Dick pointed. “She’s only a frigate, though a good big one,” he remarked. “She’s not long since been in action, too, with the enemy. Look at her topsails and top-gallant sails; they are pretty well riddled. I can count wellnigh a score of shot-holes in them; and her side, too, shows the hard knocks she has been getting. Just run to the top of the beach, and see if any other ships are following. Maybe the fleet has had a brush with the enemy, and yonder frigate has been sent on ahead with news of the action.”
Dick, doing as he was bid, soon reached a point of the shingly bank whence he could obtain a view of the sea to the westward. “Hurrah!” he shouted; “here comes another ship under a fore-jurymast and her bowsprit gone. She seems to me to have not a few shot-holes in her canvas, though it’s hard to make out at the distance she is off.”
Ben, in his eagerness, forgetting his work, ran up to where Dick was standing. “Yes, there’s no doubt about it, yonder craft is a prize to the first. When she gets nearer we shall see that her sails are well riddled and her hull battered, too. Those Frenchmen don’t give in till they’ve been thoroughly drubbed; but I doubt whether we shall know more about the matter to-night than we do now, for the wind is falling, and the tide making out strong against her. See, the frigate can only just stem it, and unless the breeze freshens, she must bring up or drift out through the Needles again.”
Such, indeed, was likely to be the case, for though still going ahead, her progress was very slow. She had already got some little distance to the eastward of Hurst Point, when, the wind freshening again, her sails blew out, and, gliding majestically on, she edged over to the Isle of Wight shore.
“She’ll not get to Spithead to-night, notwithstanding,” remarked Ben, “for there’s not a breath of air away to the eastward; see, the sails of that brig out there are hanging flat against the masts.”
Ben was right. The wind again dropping, presently the hands were seen flying aloft, the studding-sails were quickly taken in, the courses brailed up; the topsail yards being rapidly lowered, the ready crew sprang on to them, and in another minute the frigate dropped her anchor in Yarmouth Roads.
“All very fine!” growled Ben, as he saw Dick’s look of admiration at the smartness with which the manoeuvre had been effected; “but if you’d been on board you would have seen how it was all done. There’s the first lieutenant, with his black list in his hand, and the other lieutenants with their reports, ready to note down anything they may think amiss; then there are the midshipmen, the boatswain and his mates, cursing and swearing, with their switches and rope’s ends in their hands, and the cat-o’-nine-tails hung up ready for any who don’t move fast enough. Again, I say, don’t you ever enter on board a man-of-war if you wish to keep a whole skin in your body.”