"Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint;
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed."
SHAKESPEARE.
The reader will remember that the wind had not become fresh when Sir
Gervaise Oakes got into his barge, with the intention of carrying his
fleet to sea. A retrospective glance at the state of the weather, will
become necessary to the reader, therefore, in carrying his mind back to
that precise period whither it has now become our duty to transport him
in imagination.
The vice-admiral governed a fleet on principles very different from
those of Bluewater. While the last left so much to the commanders of the
different vessels, his friend looked into every thing himself. The
details of the service he knew were indispensable to success on a larger
scale, and his active mind descended into all these minutiæ, to a degree
sometimes, that annoyed his captains. On the whole, however, he was
sufficiently observant of that formidable barrier to excessive
familiarity, and that great promoter of heart-burnings in a squadron,
naval etiquette, to prevent any thing like serious misunderstandings,
and the best feelings prevailed between him and the several magnates
under his orders. Perhaps the circumstance that he was a _fighting_
admiral contributed to this internal tranquillity; for, it has been
often remarked, that armies and fleets will both tolerate more in
leaders that give them plenty to do with the enemy, than in commanders
who leave them inactive and less exposed. The constant encounters with
the foe would seem to let out all the superfluous quarrelsome
tendencies. Nelson, to a certain extent, was an example of this
influence in the English marine, Suffren[1] in that of France, and
Preble, to a much greater degree than in either of the other cases, in
our own. At all events, while most of his captains sensibly felt
themselves less of commanders, while Sir Gervaise was on board or around
their ships, than when he was in the cabin of the Plantagenet, the peace
was rarely broken between them, and he was generally beloved as well as
obeyed. Bluewater was a more invariable favourite, perhaps, though
scarcely as much respected; and certainly not half as much feared.
[Footnote 1: Suffren, though one of the best sea-captains France ever
possessed, was a man of extreme severity and great roughness of manner.
Still he must have been a man of family, as his title of _Bailli_ de
Suffren, was derived from his being a Knight of Malta. It is a singular
circumstance connected with the death of this distinguished officer,
which occurred not long before the French revolution, that he
disappeared in an extraordinary manner, and is buried no one knows
where. It is supposed that he was killed by one of his own officers, in
a rencontre in the streets of Paris, at night, and that the influence of
the friends of the victor was sufficiently great to suppress inquiry.
The cause of the quarrel is attributed to harsh treatment on service.]
On the present occasion, the vice-admiral did not pull through the
fleet, without discovering the peculiar propensity to which we have
alluded. In passing one of the ships, he made a sign to his coxswain to
cause the boat's crew to lay on their oars, when he hailed the vessel,
and the following dialogue occurred.
"Carnatic, ahoy!" cried the admiral.
"Sir," exclaimed the officer of the deck, jumping on a quarter-deck gun,
and raising his hat.
"Is Captain Parker on board, sir?"
"He is, Sir Gervaise; will you see him, sir?"
A nod of the head sufficed to bring the said Captain Parker on deck, and
to the gangway, where he could converse with his superior, without
inconvenience to either.
"How do you do, _Captain_ Parker?"--a certain sign Sir Gervaise meant to
rap the other over the knuckles, else would it have been _Parker_."--How
do you do, _Captain_ Parker? I am sorry to see you have got your ship
too much down by the head, sir. She'll steer off the wind, like a colt
when he first feels the bridle; now with his head on one side, and now
on the other. You know I like a compact line, and straight wakes, sir."
"I am well aware of that, Sir Gervaise," returned Parker, a gray-headed,
meek old man, who had fought his way up from the forecastle to his
present honourable station, and, who, though brave as a lion before the
enemy, had a particular dread of all his commanders; "but we have been
obliged to use more water aft than we could wish, on account of the
tiers. We shall coil away the cables anew, and come at some of the
leaguers forward, and bring all right again, in a week, I hope, sir."
"A week?--the d----l, sir; that will never do, when I expect to see de
Vervillin _to-morrow_. Fill all your empty casks aft with salt-water,
immediately; and if that wont do, shift some of your shot forward. I
know that craft of yours, well; she is as tender as a fellow with corns,
and the shoe musn't pinch anywhere."
"Very well, Sir Gervaise; the ship shall be brought in trim, as soon as
possible."
"Ay, ay, sir, that is what I expect from every vessel, at _all_ times;
and more especially when we are ready to meet an enemy. And, I say,
_Parker_,"--making a sign to his boat's crew to stop rowing again--"I
say, _Parker_, I know you love brawn;--I'll send you some that Galleygo
tells me he has picked up, along-shore here, as soon as I get aboard.
The fellow has been robbing all the hen-roosts in Devonshire, by his own
account of the matter."
Sir Gervaise waved his hand, _Parker_ smiled and bowed his thanks, and
the two parted with feelings of perfect kindness, notwithstanding the
little skirmish with which the interview had commenced.
"Mr. Williamson," said Captain Parker to his first lieutenant, on
quitting the gangway, "you hear what the commander-in-chief says; and he
must be obeyed. I _don't_ think the Carnatic would have sheered out of
the line, even if she is a little by the head; but have the empty casks
filled, and bring her down six inches more by the stern."
"That's a good fellow, that old Parker," said Sir Gervaise to his
purser, whom he was carrying off good-naturedly to the ship, lest he
might lose his passage; "and I wonder how he let his ship get her nose
under water, in that fashion. I like to have him for a second astern;
for I feel sure he'd follow if I stood into Cherbourg, bows on! Yes; a
good fellow is Parker; and, Locker,"--to his own man, who was also in
the boat;--"mind you send him _two_ of the best pieces of that
brawn--hey!--hey!--hey!--what the d----l has Lord Morganic"--a descendant
from royalty by the left hand,--"been doing now! That ship is kept like
a tailor's jay figure, just to stuff jackets and gim-cracks on
her--Achilles, there!"
A quarter-master ran to the edge of the poop, and then turning, he spoke
to his captain, who was walking the deck, and informed him that the
commander-in-chief hailed the ship. The Earl of Morganic, a young man of
four-and-twenty, who had succeeded to the title a few years before by
the death of an elder brother,--the usual process by which an _old_ peer
is brought into the British navy, the work being too discouraging for
those who have fortune before their eyes from the start,--now advanced
to the quarter of the ship, bowed with respectful ease, and spoke with a
self-possession that not one of the old commanders of the fleet would
have dared to use. In general, this nobleman's intercourse with his
superiors in naval rank, betrayed the consciousness of his own
superiority in civil rank; but Sir Gervaise being of an old family, and
quite as rich as he was himself, the vice-admiral commanded more of his
homage than was customary. His ship was full of "nobs," as they term it
in the British navy, or the sons and relatives of nobles; and it was by
no means an uncommon thing for her messes to have their jokes at the
expense of even flag-officers, who were believed to be a little ignorant
of the peculiar sensibilities that are rightly enough imagined to
characterize social station.
"Good-morning, Sir Gervaise," called out this noble captain; "I'm glad
to see you looking so well, after our long cruise in the Bay; I intended
to have the honour to inquire after your health in person, this morning,
but they told me you slept out of your ship. We shall have to hold a
court on you, sir, if you fall much into that habit!"
All within hearing smiled, even to the rough old tars, who were
astraddle of the yards; and even Sir Gervaise's lip curled a little,
though he was not exactly in a joking humour.
"Come, come, Morganic, do you let my habits alone, and look out for your
own fore-top-mast. Why, in the name of seamanship, is that spar stayed
forward in such a fashion, looking like a xebec's foremast?"
"Do you dislike it, Sir Gervaise?--Now to our fancies aboard here, it
gives the Achilles a knowing look, and we hope to set a fashion. By
carrying the head-sails well forward, we help the ship round in a sea,
you know, sir."
"Indeed, I know no such thing, my lord. What you gain after being taken
aback, you lose in coming to the wind. If I had a pair of scales
suitable to such a purpose, I would have all that hamper you have stayed
away yonder over your bows, on the end of such a long lever, weighed, in
order that you might learn what a beautiful contrivance you've invented,
among you, to make a ship pitch in a head sea. Why, d----e, if I think
you'd lie-to, at all, with so much stuff aloft to knock you off to
leeward. Come up, every thing, forward; come up every thing, my lord,
and bring the mast as near perpendicular as possible. It's a hard
matter, I find, to make one of your new-fashioned captains keep things
in their places."
"Well, now, Sir Gervaise, I think the Achilles makes as good an
appearance as most of the other ships; and as to travelling or working,
I do not know that she is either dull or clumsy!"
"She's pretty well, Morganic, considering how many Bond-street ideas you
have got among you; but she'll never do in a head sea, with that
fore-top-mast threatening your knight-heads. So get the mast
up-and-down, again, as soon as convenient, and come and dine with me,
without further invitation, the first fine day we have at sea. I'm going
to send Parker some brawn; but, I'll feed _you_ on some of Galleygo's
turtle-soup, made out of pig's heads."
"Thank'ee, Sir Gervaise; we'll endeavour to straighten the slick, since
you _will_ have it so; though, I confess I get tired of seeing every
thing to-day, just as we had it yesterday."
"Yes--yes--that's the way with most of these St. James cruisers,"
continued the vice-admiral, as he rowed away. "They want a fashionable
tailor to rig a man-of-war, as they are rigged themselves. There's my
old friend and neighbour, Lord Scupperton--he's taken a fancy to
yachting, lately, and when his new brig was put into the water, Lady
Scupperton made him send for an upholsterer from town to fit out the
cabin; and when the blackguard had surveyed the unfortunate craft, as if
it were a country box, what does he do but give an opinion, that 'this
here edifice, my lord, in my judgment, should be furnished in cottage
style,'--the vagabond!"
This story, which was not particularly original, for Sir Gervaise
himself had told it at least a dozen times before, put the admiral in a
good humour, and he found no more fault with his captains, until he
reached the Plantagenet.
"Daly," said the Earl of Morganic to his first lieutenant, an
experienced old Irishman of fifty, who still sung a good song and told a
good story, and what was a little extraordinary for either of these
accomplishments, knew how to take good care of a ship;--"Daly, I suppose
we must humour the old gentleman, or he'll be quarantining me, and that
I shouldn't particularly like on the eve of a general action; so we'll
ease off forward, and set up the strings aft, again. Hang me if I think
he could find it out if we didn't, so long as we kept dead in his wake!"
"That wouldn't be a very safe desait for Sir Jarvy, my lord, for he's a
wonderful eye for a rope! Were it Admiral Blue, now, I'd engage to
cruise in his company for a week, with my mizzen-mast stowed in the
hold, and there should be no bother about the novelty, at all; quite
likely he'd be hailing us, and ask 'what brig's that?' But none of these
tricks will answer with t'other, who misses the whipping off the end of
a gasket, as soon as any first luff of us all. And so I'll just go about
the business in earnest; get the carpenter up with his plumb-bob, and
set every thing as straight up-and-down as the back of a grenadier."
Lord Morganic laughed, as was usual with him when his lieutenant saw fit
to be humorous; and then his caprice in changing the staying of his
masts, as well as the order which countermanded it, was forgotten.
The arrival of Sir Gervaise on board his own ship was always an event in
the fleet, even though his absence had lasted no longer than twenty-four
hours. The effect was like that which is produced on a team of
high-mettled cattle, when they feel that the reins are in the hands of
an experienced and spirited coachman.
"Good-morning, Greenly, good-morning to you all, gentlemen," said the
vice-admiral, bowing to the quarter-deck in gross, in return for the
'present-arms,' and rattling of drums, and lowering of hats that greeted
his arrival; "a fine day, and it is likely we shall have a fresh breeze.
Captain Greenly, your sprit-sail-yard wants squaring by the lifts; and,
Bunting, make the Thunderer's signal to get her fore-yard in its place,
as soon as possible. She's had it down long enough to make a new one,
instead of merely fishing it. Are your boats all aboard, Greenly?"
"All but your own barge, Sir Gervaise, and that is hooked on."
"In with it, sir; then trip, and we'll be off. Monsieur de Vervillin has
got some mischief in his head, gentlemen, and we must go and take it out
of him."
These orders were promptly obeyed; but, as the manner in which the
Plantagenet passed out of the fleet, and led the other ships to sea, has
been already related, it is unnecessary to repeat it. There was the
usual bustle, the customary orderly confusion, the winding of calls, the
creaking of blocks, and the swinging of yards, ere the vessels were in
motion. As the breeze freshened, sail was reduced, as already related,
until, by the time the leading ship was ten leagues at sea, all were
under short canvass, and the appearance of a windy, if not a dirty
night, had set in. Of course, all means of communication between the
Plantagenet and the vessels still at anchor, had ceased, except by
sending signals down the line; but, to those Sir Gervaise had no
recourse, since he was satisfied Bluewater understood his plans, and he
then entertained no manner of doubt of his friend's willingness to aid
them.
Little heed was taken of any thing astern, by those on board the
Plantagenet. Every one saw, it is true, that ship followed ship in due
succession, as long as the movements of those inshore could be perceived
at all; but the great interest centred on the horizon to the southward
and eastward. In that quarter of the channel the French were expected to
appear, for the cause of this sudden departure was a secret from no one
in the fleet. A dozen of the best look-outs in the ship were kept aloft
the whole afternoon, and Captain Greenly, himself, sat in the
forward-cross-trees, with a glass, for more than an hour, just as the
sun was setting, in order to sweep the horizon. Two or three sail were
made, it is true, but they all proved to be English coasters; Guernsey
or Jerseymen, standing for ports in the west of England, most probably
laden with prohibited articles from the country of the enemy. Whatever
may be the dislike of an Englishman for a Frenchman, he has no dislike
to the labour of his hands; and there probably has not been a period
since civilization has introduced the art of smuggling among its other
arts, when French brandies, and laces, and silks, were not exchanged
against English tobacco and guineas, and that in a contraband way, let
it be in peace or let it be in war. One of the characteristics of Sir
Gervaise Oakes was to despise all petty means of annoyance; usually he
disdained even to turn aside to chase a smuggler. Fishermen he never
molested at all; and, on the whole, he carried on a marine warfare, a
century since, in a way that some of his successors might have imitated
to advantage in our own times. Like that high-spirited Irishman,
Caldwell,[2] who conducted a blockade in the Chesapeake, at the
commencement of the revolution, with so much liberality, that his
enemies actually sent him an invitation to a public dinner, Sir Gervaise
knew how to distinguish between the combatant and the non-combatant, and
heartily disdained all the money-making parts of his profession, though
large sums had fallen into his hands, in this way, as pure God-sends. No
notice was taken, therefore, of any thing that had not a warlike look;
the noble old ship standing steadily on towards the French coast, as the
mastiff passes the cur, on his way to encounter another animal, of a
mould and courage more worthy of his powers.
[Footnote 2: The writer believes this noble-minded sailor to have been
the late Admiral Sir Benjamin Caldwell. It is scarcely necessary to say
that the invitation could not be accepted, though quite seriously
given.]
"Make nothing of 'em, hey! Greenly," said Sir Gervaise, as the captain
came down from his perch, in consequence of the gathering obscurity of
evening, followed by half-a-dozen lieutenants and midshipmen, who had
been aloft as volunteers. "Well, we know they cannot yet be to the
westward of us, and by standing on shall be certain of heading them off,
before this time six months. How beautifully all the ships behave,
following each other as accurately as if Bluewater himself were aboard
each vessel to conn her!"
"Yes, sir, they do keep the line uncommonly well, considering that the
tides run in streaks in the channel. I _do_ think if we were to drop a
hammock overboard, that the Carnatic would pick it up, although she must
be quite four leagues astern of us."
"Let old Parker alone for that! I'll warrant you, _he_ is never out of
the way. Were it Lord Morganic, now, in the Achilles, I should expect
him to be away off here on our weather-quarter, just to show us how his
ship can eat us out of the wind when he _tries_: or away down yonder,
under our lee, that we might understand how she falls off, when he
_don't_ try."
"My lord is a gallant officer, and no bad seaman, for his years,
notwithstanding, Sir Gervaise," observed Greenly, who generally took the
part of the absent, whenever his superior felt disposed to berate them.
"I deny neither, Greenly, most particularly the first. I know very well,
were I to signal Morganic, to run into Brest, he'd do it; but whether he
would go in, ring-tail-boom, or jib-boom first, I couldn't tell till I
saw it. Now you are a youngish man yourself. Greenly--"
"Every day of eight-and-thirty, Sir Gervaise, and a few months to spare;
and I care not if the ladies know it."
"Poh!--They like us old fellows, half the time, as well as they do the
boys. But you are of an age not to feel time in your bones, and can see
the folly of some of our old-fashioned notions, perhaps; though you are
not quite as likely to understand the fooleries that have come in, in
your own day. Nothing is more absurd than to be experimenting on the
settled principles of ships. They are machines, Greenly, and have their
laws, just the same as the planets in the heavens. The idea comes from a
fish,--head, run, and helm; and all we have to do is to study the fishes
in order to get the sort of craft we want. If there is occasion for
bulk, take the whale, and you get a round bottom, full fore-body, and a
clean run. When you want speed, models are plenty--take the dolphin, for
instance,--and there you find an entrance like a wedge, a lean
fore-body, and a run as clean as this ship's decks. But some of our
young captains would spoil a dolphin's sailing, if they could breathe
under water, so as to get at the poor devils. Look at their fancies! The
First Lord shall give one of his cousins a frigate, now, that is moulded
after nature itself, as one might say; with a bottom that would put a
trout to shame. Well, one of the first things the lad does, when he gets
on board her, is to lengthen his gaff, perhaps, put a cloth or two in
his mizzen, and call it a spanker, settle away the peak till it sticks
out over his taffrail like a sign-post, and then away he goes upon a
wind, with his helm hard-up, bragging what a weatherly craft he has, and
how hard it is to make her even _look_ to leeward."
"I have known such sailors, I must confess, Sir Gervaise; but time cures
them of that folly."
"That is to be hoped; for what would a man think of a fish to which
nature had fitted a tail athwart-ships, and which was obliged to carry a
fin, like a lee-board, under its lee-jaw, to prevent falling off dead
before the wind!"
Here Sir Gervaise laughed heartily at the picture of the awkward
creature to which his own imagination had given birth; Greenly joining
in the merriment, partly from the oddity of the conceit, and partly from
the docility with which commander-in-chief's jokes are usually received.
The feeling of momentary indignation which had aroused Sir Gervaise to
such an expression of his disgust at modern inventions, was appeased by
this little success; and, inviting his captain to sup with him,--a
substitute for a dinner,--he led the way below in high good-humour,
Galleygo having just announced that the table was ready.
The _convives_ on this occasion were merely the admiral himself,
Greenly, and Atwood. The fare was substantial, rather than scientific;
but the service was rich; Sir Gervaise uniformly eating off of plate. In
addition to Galleygo, no less than five domestics attended to the wants
of the party. As a ship of the Plantagenet's size was reasonably steady
at all times, a gale of wind excepted, when the lamps and candles were
lighted, and the group was arranged, aided by the admixture of rich
furniture with frowning artillery and the other appliances of war, the
great cabin of the Plantagenet was not without a certain air of rude
magnificence. Sir Gervaise kept no less than three servants in livery,
as a part of his personal establishment, tolerating Galleygo, and one or
two more of the same stamp, as a homage due to Neptune.
The situation not being novel to either of the party, and the day's work
having been severe, the first twenty minutes were pretty studiously
devoted to the duty of "restoration," as it is termed by the great
masters of the science of the table. By the end of that time, however,
the glass began to circulate, though moderately, and with it tongues to
loosen.
"Your health, Captain Greenly--Atwood, I remember you," said the
vice-admiral, nodding his head familiarly to his two guests, on the eve
of tossing off a glass of sherry. "These Spanish wines go directly to
the heart, and I only wonder why a people who can make them, don't make
better sailors."
"In the days of Columbus, the Spaniards had something to boast of in
that way, too, Sir Gervaise," Atwood remarked.
"Ay, but that was a long time ago, and they have got bravely over it. I
account for the deficiencies of both the French and Spanish marines
something in this way, Greenly. Columbus, and the discovery of America,
brought ships and sailors into fashion. But a ship without an officer
fit to command her, is like a body without a soul. Fashion, however,
brought your young nobles into their services, and men were given
vessels because their fathers were dukes and counts, and not because
they knew any thing about them."
"Is our own service entirely free from this sort of favouritism?"
quietly demanded the captain.
"Far from it, Greenly; else would not Morganic have been made a captain
at twenty, and old Parker, for instance, one only at fifty. But,
somehow, our classes slide into each other, in a way that neutralizes,
in a great degree, the effect of birth. Is it not so, Atwood?"
"_Some_ of our classes, Sir Gervaise, manage to _slide_ into all the
best places, if the truth must be said."
"Well, that is pretty bold for a Scotchman!" rejoined the vice-admiral,
good-humouredly. "Ever since the accession of the house of Stuart, we've
built a bridge across the Tweed that lets people pass in only one
direction. I make no doubt this Pretender's son will bring down half
Scotland at his heels, to fill all the berths they may fancy suitable to
their merits. It's an easy way of paying bounty--promises."
"This affair in the north, they tell me, seems a little serious," said
Greenly. "I believe this is Mr. Atwood's opinion?"
"You'll find it serious enough, if Sir Gervaise's notion about the
bounty be true," answered the immovable secretary. "Scotia is a small
country, but it's well filled with 'braw sperits,' if there's an opening
for them to prove it."
"Well, well, this war between England and Scotland is out of place,
while we have the French and Spaniards on our hands. Most extraordinary
scenes have we had ashore, yonder, Greenly, with an old Devonshire
baronet, who slipped and is off for the other world, while we were in
his house."
"Magrath has told me something of it, sir; and, he tells me the
_fill-us-null-us_--hang me if I can make out his gibberish, five minutes
after it was told to me."
"_Filius nullius_, you mean; nobody's baby--the son of nobody--have you
forgotten your Latin, man?"
"Faith, Sir Gervaise, I never had any to forget. My father was a captain
of a man-of-war before me, and he kept me afloat from the time I was
five, down to the day of his death; Latin was no part of my spoon-meat."
"Ay--ay--my good fellow, I knew your father, and was in the third ship
from him, in the action in which he fell," returned the vice-admiral,
kindly. "Bluewater was just ahead of him, and we all loved him, as we
did an elder brother. You were not promoted, then."
"No, sir, I was only a midshipman, and didn't happen to be in his own
ship that day," answered Greenly, sensibly touched with this tribute to
his parent's merit; "but I was old enough to remember how nobly you all
behaved on the occasion. Well,"--slily brushing his eye with his
hand,--"Latin may do a schoolmaster good, but it is of little use on
board ship. I never had but one scholar among all my cronies and
intimates."
"And who was he, Greenly? You shouldn't despise knowledge, because you
don't understand it. I dare say your intimate was none the worse for a
little Latin--enough to go through _nullus, nulla, nullum_, for
instance. Who was this intimate, Greenly?"
"John Bluewater--handsome Jack, as he was called; the younger brother of
the admiral. They sent him to sea, to keep him out of harm's way in some
love affair; and you may remember that while he was with the admiral, or
_Captain_ Bluewater, as he was then, I was one of the lieutenants.
Although poor Jack was a soldier and in the guards, and he was four or
five years my senior, he took a fancy to me, and we became intimate.
_He_ understood Latin, better than he did his own interests."
"In what did he fail?--Bluewater was never very communicative to me
about that brother."
"There was a private marriage, and cross guardians, and the usual
difficulties. In the midst of it all, poor John fell in battle, as you
know, and his widow followed him to the grave, within a month or two.
'Twas a sad story all round, and I try to think of it as little as
possible."
"A private marriage!" repeated Sir Gervaise, slowly. "Are you quite sure
of _that_? I don't think Bluewater is aware of that circumstance; at
least, I never heard him allude to it. Could there have been any issue?"
"No one can know it better than myself, as I helped to get the lady off,
and was present at the ceremony. That much I _know_. Of issue, I should
think there was none; though the colonel lived a year after the
marriage. How far the admiral is familiar with all these circumstances I
cannot say, as one would not like to introduce the particulars of a
private marriage of a deceased brother, to his commanding officer."
"I am glad there was no issue, Greenly--particular circumstances make me
glad of that. But we will change the discourse, as these family
disasters make one melancholy; and a melancholy dinner is like
ingratitude to Him who bestows it."
The conversation now grew general, and in due season, in common with the
feast, it ended. After sitting the usual time, the guests retired. Sir
Gervaise then went on deck, and paced the poop for an hour, looking
anxiously ahead, in quest of the French signal; and, failing of
discovering them, he was fain to seek his berth out of sheer fatigue.
Before he did this, however, the necessary orders were given; and that
to call him, should any thing out of the common track occur, was
repeated no less than four times.