The following is from Messrs. Bennet and Tyerman's _Voyages and
Travels_: "Our chief mate said, that on board a ship where he had
served, the mute on duty ordered some of the youths to reef the
main-top-sail. When the first got up, he heard a strange voice saying,
'_It blows hard_.' The lud waited for no more; he was down in a trice,
and telling his adventure; a second immediately ascended, laughing at
the folly of his companion, but returned even more quickly declaring
that he was quite sure that a voice, not of this world, had cried in his
ear, 'It blows hard.' Another went, and another, but each came back with
the same tale. At length the mate, having sent up the whole watch, run
up the shrouds himself; and when he reached the haunted spot, heard the
dreadful words distinctly uttered in his ears, 'It blows hard.' 'Ay, ay,
old one; but blow it ever so hard, we must ease the earings for all
that,' replied the mate undauntedly; and looking round, he spied a fine
parrot perched on one of the clues--the thoughtless author of all the
false alarms, which had probably escaped from some other vessel, but had
not been discovered to have taken refuge on this. Another of our
officers mentioned that, on one of his voyages, he remembered a boy
having been sent up to clear a rope which had got foul above the
mizen-top. Presently, however, he came back, trembling, and almost
tumbling to the bottom, declaring that he had seen 'Old Davy,' aft the
cross-trees; moreover, that the Evil One had a huge head and face, with
pricked ears, and eyes as bright as fire. Two or three others were sent
up in succession; to all of whom the apparition glared forth, and was
identified by each to be 'Old Davy, sure enough.' The mate, in a rage,
at length mounted himself; when resolutely, as in the former case,
searching for the bugbear, he soon ascertained the innocent cause of so
much terror to be a large horned owl, so lodged as to be out of sight to
those who ascended on the other side of the vessel, but which when any
one approached the cross-trees, popped up his portentous visage to see
what was coming. The mate brought him down in triumph, and 'Old Davy,'
the owl, became a very peaceable shipmate among the crew, who were no
longer scared by his horns and eyes; for sailors turn their backs on
nothing when they know what it is. Had the birds, in these two
instances, departed as they came, of course they would have been deemed
supernatural visitants to the respective ships, by all who had heard the
one or seen the other." W.G.C.
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