Tim Fid mounted, as he said, the fo’castle of the next carriage, in which came Mrs Bush and Susan, with Harry, who declared that he didn’t fancy the custom of following in different vehicles, as great folks did.
On Fid’s banner was the device of a ship, with “Hurrah for the Navy of Old England! Hurrah for her Gunners, Past, Present, and Future!”
On the box of the third carriage sat Sam Smatch, fiddle in hand, playing away most lustily, and occasionally firing off a bow or stern-chaser of jokes at the other carriages with a peculiar loud cackling laugh which none but negroes can produce.
Nobody could have behaved better than did the brides and bridegrooms; and when the ceremony was over, the bells set up a peal even more joyous than before. Instead of driving back to Paradise Row, the carriages proceeded to the harbour; and then at the Hard appeared half a dozen man-of-war’s boats, rigged gaily with flags. Sir Henry handed Mrs Billy True Blue Freeborn into one boat, and Mrs Harry Hartland into another, and of course their husbands stepped in after them; and then he performed the same office to all the elder matrons and their younger daughters; and then wishing them all health, happiness, and prosperity, he entered his own boat and pulled across to Portsmouth.
The three godfathers and their mates stepped into another boat, and Sam Smatch and the younger men into the sixth; and thus arranged, away the boats pulled, Sam playing right lustily his merriest tunes. True Blue’s boat led, steering up the harbour, where lay Paul’s and Abel’s and Peter’s ships. As they passed, the people on board came to the side, and cheered over and over again with all their might and main, making up by the vehemence and multiplicity of their vociferations for the paucity of their numbers.
True Blue and Harry got up and cheered too, and so did the matrons in the third boat; and the godfathers made the seventy-fours a speech—it sounded as if addressed to the ships rather than to the people on board. Of course the men in the other boats cheered, and Sam almost sprang his bow with the vehemence of his playing; but all this was as nothing compared to the reception the bridal party met with as they reached True Blue’s and Harry’s own ship.
Up and down the harbour pulled the bridal squadron; and the crews of every ship, as they passed, took up the cheer and welcomed the bridegroom, for True Blue and his deeds were now well-known throughout the British fleet. He had not aimed high, in one sense of the word, and yet he had in another sense always aimed high and nobly—to do his duty.
Right well that duty he had done; he had gained all he desired, and never was there a happier or more contented man.
No pen can do adequate justice to the ball in the barn in the evening. Never were so many warrant-officers collected together with their wives and their families; and never, certainly, had such an amount of gilt buttons and gold lace, and silk and satins and feathers, been seen in such a place. A crashing band overwhelmed Sam Smatch’s fiddle; but he, for his consolation, was requested to play frequent solos; and he far out-eclipsed himself when he struck up “Bill’s own special hornpipe,” as he called it, which, nolens volens, True Blue was compelled to dance.
If the bridegrooms made a tour, it must have been a very short one, as their leave could not have extended to many days. For a short time they lived on shore, when their ship was paid off; but war soon called them afloat.