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relish, but, at the same time, with immoveable steadiness; and the eyes of the
sergeant, who felt it incumbent to do honour to his own cheer, were already
glistening in his head, when, happily for the credit of his art, a tap at the
door announced the presence of his captain, and relieved him from the
impending disgrace of being drunk blind by a recruit.
As Borroughcliffe entered the apartment, he commanded his orderly to retire,
adding--
Mr. Dillon will give you instructions, which you are implicitly to obey.
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Drill, who had sense enough remaining to apprehend the displeasure of his
officer, should the latter discover his condition, quickened his departure,
and the cockswain soon found himself alone with the captain. The vigour of
Tom s attacks on the remnants of the sirloin was now much abated, leaving in
its place that placid quiet which is apt to linger about the palate, long
after the cravings of the appetite have been appeased. He had seated himself
on one of the trunks of Borroughcliffe, utterly disdaining the use of a chair,
and, with the trencher in his lap, was using his own jack-knife on the
dilapidated fragment of the ox, with something of that nicety with which the
female goule, of the Arabian Tales, might be supposed to pick her rice with
the point of her bodkin. The captain drew a seat nigh the cockswain, and, with
a familiarity and kindness infinitely coftdescending, when the difference in
their several conditions is considered, he commenced the following dialogue:
I hope you have found your entertainment to your liking, Mr.--I must own my
ignorance of your name.
Tom, said the cockswain, keeping his eyes roaming over the contents of the
trencher; commonly called long-Tom, by my shipmates.
You have sailed with discreet men, and able navigators, it would seem, as
they understand longitude so well, rejoined the captain; but you have a
patronymick--I would say, another name?
Coffin, returned the cockswain; I m called Tom, when there is any hurry,
such as letting go the haulyards, or a sheet; long-Tom, when they want to get
to windward of an old seaman, by fair weather; and long-Tom Coffin, when they
wish to hail me, so that none of my cousins of the same name, about the
islands, shall answer; for I believe the best man among them can t measure
much over a fathom, taking him from his head-works to his heel.
You are a most deserving fellow, cried Borroughcliffe, and it is painful
to think to what a fate the treachery of Mr. Dillon has consigned you.
The suspicions of Tom, if he ever entertained any, were lulled to rest too
effectually by the kindness he had received, to be awakened by this equivocal
lament; he, therefore, after renewing his intimacy with the rummer, contented
himself by saying, with a satisfied simplicity--
I am consigned to no one, carrying no cargo but this Mr. Dillon, who is to
give me Mr. Griffith in exchange, or to go back to the Ariel himself, as my
prisoner.
Ah! my good friend, I fear you will find, when the time comes to make this
exchange, that he will refuse to do either.
But I ll be d--d if he don t do one of them; my orders are to see it done,
and back he goes; or Mr. Griffith, who is as good a seaman, for his years, as
ever trod a deck, slips his cable from this here anchorage.
Borroughcliffe affected to eye his companion with great commiseration; an
exhibition of compassion that was, however, completely lost on the cockswain,
whose nerves were strung to their happiest tension, by his repeated libations,
while his wit was, if any thing, quickened by the same cause, though his own
want of guile rendered him slow to comprehend its existence in others.
Perceiving it necessary to speak plainly, the captain renewed the attack in a
more direct manner--
I am sorry to say that you will not be permitted to return to the Ariel, and
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that your commander, Mr. Barnstable, will be a prisoner within the hour; and
in fact, that your schooner will be taken, before the morning breaks.
Who ll take her? asked the cockswain, with a grim smile, on whose feelings,
however, this combination of threatened calamities was beginning to make some
impression.
You must remember, that she lies immediately under the heavy guns of a
battery that can sink her in a few minutes; an express has already been sent
to acquaint the commander of the work with the Ariel s true character; and as
the wind has already begun to blow from the ocean, her escape is impossible.
The truth, together with its portentous consequences, now began to glare
across the faculties of the cockswain. He remembered his own prognostics on
the weather, and the helpless situation of the schooner, deprived of more than
half her crew, and left to the keeping of a boy, while her commander himself
was on the eve of captivity. The trencher fell from his lap to the floor, his
head sunk on his knees, his face was concealed between his broad palms, and in
spite of every effort the old seaman could make to conceal his emotion, he
fairly groaned aloud.
For a moment, the better feelings of Borroughcliffe prevailed, and he paused,
as he witnessed this exhibition of suffering in one whose head was already
sprinkled with the marks of time; but his habits, and the impressions left by
many years passed in collecting victims for the wars, soon resumed their
ascendancy, and the recruiting officer diligently addressed himself to an
improvement of his advantage.
I pity, from my heart, the poor lads whom artifice or mistaken notions of
duty may have led astray, and who will thus be taken in arms against their
sovereign; but, as they are found in the very island of Britain, they must be
made examples to deter others. I fear, that unless they can make their peace
with government, they will all be condemned to death.
Let them make their peace with God, then; your government can do but little
to clear the log-account of a man whose watch is up for this world.
But, by making their peace with those who have the power, their lives may be
spared, said the captain, watching, with keen eyes, the effect his words
produced on the cockswain.
It matters but little when a man hears the messenger pipe his hammock down
for the last time; he keeps his watch in another world, though he does not
here. But to see wood and iron, that has been put together after such moulds
as the Ariel s, go into strange hands, is a blow that a man may remember long
after the purser s books have been squared against his name for ever. I would
rather that twenty shot should strike my old carcass, than one should hull the
schooner that didn t pass out above her water-line.
Borroughcliffe replied, somewhat carelessly, I may be mistaken, after all;
and, instead of putting any of you to death, they may place you all on board
the prison-ships, where you may yet have a merry time of it, these ten or
fifteen years to come.
How s that, shipmate! cried the cockswain, with a start; a prison-ship,
d ye say? you may tell them that they can save the expense of one man s
rations, by shooting him, if they please, and that is old Tom Coffin.
There is no answering for their caprice; to-day, they may order a dozen of
you shot for rebels; to-morrow they may choose to consider you as prisoners of
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