The Three Cutters

“Fie! Mr Vaughan,” cried Cecilia Ossulton; “you know it came from your heart.”

“My dear Cecilia,” said the elder Miss Ossulton, “you forget yourself—what can you possibly know about gentlemen’s hearts?”

“The Bible says that they are ‘deceitful and desperately wicked,’ aunt.”

“And cannot we also quote the Bible against your sex, Miss Ossulton?” replied Seagrove.

“Yes, you could, perhaps, if any of you had ever read it,” replied Miss Ossulton, carelessly.

“Upon my word, Cissy, you are throwing the gauntlet down to the gentlemen,” observed Lord B—; “but I shall throw my warder down, and not permit this combat à l’outrance.—I perceive you drink no more wine, gentlemen, we will take our coffee on deck.”

“We were just about to retire, my lord,” observed the elder Miss Ossulton, with great asperity: “I have been trying to catch the eye of Mrs Lascelles for some time, but—”

“I was looking another way, I presume,” interrupted Mrs Lascelles, smiling.

“I am afraid that I am the unfortunate culprit,” said Mr Seagrove. “I was telling a little anecdote to Mrs Lascelles—”

“Which, of course, from its being communicated in an undertone, was not proper for all the company to hear,” replied the elder Miss Ossulton; “but if Mrs Lascelles is now ready,” continued she, bridling up, as she rose from her chair.

“At all events, I can hear the remainder of it on deck,” replied Mrs Lascelles. The ladies rose and went into the cabin, Cecilia and Mrs Lascelles exchanging very significant smiles as they followed the precise spinster, who did not choose that Mrs Lascelles should take the lead merely because she had once happened to have been married. The gentlemen also broke up, and went on deck.

“We have a nice breeze now, my lord,” observed Mr Stewart, who had remained on deck, “and we lie right up Channel.”

“So much the better,” replied his lordship; “we ought to have been anchored at Cowes a week ago. They will all be there before us.”

“Tell Mr Simpson to bring me a light for my cigar,” said Mr Ossulton to one of the men.

Mr Stewart went down to his dinner; the ladies and the coffee came on deck: the breeze was fine, the weather (it was April) almost warm; and the yacht, whose name was the Arrow, assisted by the tide, soon left the Mewstone far astern.

Chapter Two

Cutter the Second

Reader, have you ever been at Portsmouth? If you have, you must have been delighted with the view from the saluting battery; and if you have not you had better go there as soon as you can. From the saluting battery you may look up the harbour, and see much of what I have described at Plymouth; the scenery is different, but similar arsenals and dockyards, and an equal portion of our stupendous navy are to be found there; and you will see Gosport on the other side of the harbour, and Sallyport close to you; besides a great many other places, which, from the saluting battery, you cannot see. And then there is Southsea Beach to your left. Before you, Spithead, with the men-of-war, and the Motherbank crowded with merchant vessels; and there is the buoy where the Royal George was wrecked and where she still lies, the fish swimming in and out of her cabin windows but that is not all; you can also see the Isle of Wight,—Ryde with its long wooden pier, and Cowes, where the yachts lie. In fact there is a great deal to be seen at Portsmouth as well as at Plymouth; but what I wish you particularly to see just now is a vessel holding fast to the buoy just off the saluting battery. She is a cutter; and you may know that she belongs to the Preventive Service by the number of gigs and galleys which she has hoisted up all round her. She looks like a vessel that was about to sail with a cargo of boats; two on deck, one astern, one on each side of her. You observe that she is painted black, and all her boats are white. She is not such an elegant vessel as the yacht, and she is much more lumbered up. She has no haunches of venison hanging over the stern! But I think there is a leg of mutton and some cabbages hanging by their stalks. But revenue-cutters are not yachts. You will find no turtle or champagne; but, nevertheless, you will, perhaps, find a joint to carve at, a good glass of grog, and a hearty welcome.

Let us go on board. You observe the guns are iron, and painted black, and her bulwarks are painted red; it is not a very becoming colour, but then it lasts a long while, and the dockyard is not very generous on the score of paint—or lieutenants of the navy troubled with much spare cash. She has plenty of men, and fine men they are; all dressed in red flannel shirts and blue trousers; some of them have not taken off their canvas or tarpaulin petticoats, which are very useful to them, as they are in the boats night and day, and in all weathers. But we will at once go down into the cabin, where we shall find the lieutenant who commands her, a master’s mate, and a midshipman. They have each their tumbler before them, and are drinking gin-toddy, hot, with sugar—capital gin, too, ’bove proof; it is from that small anker standing under the table. It was one that they forgot to return to the custom-house when they made their last seizure. We must introduce them.

The elderly personage, with grizzly hair and whiskers, a round pale face, and a somewhat red nose (being too much in the wind will make the nose red, and this old officer is very often “in the wind,” of course, from the very nature of his profession), is a Lieutenant Appleboy. He has served in every class of vessel in the service, and done the duty of first-lieutenant for twenty years; he is now on promotion—that is to say, after he has taken a certain number of tubs of gin, he will be rewarded with his rank as commander. It is a pity that what he takes inside of him does not count, for he takes it morning, noon, and night. He is just filling his fourteenth glass; he always keeps a regular account, as he never exceeds his limited number, which is seventeen; then he is exactly down to his bearings.

The master’s mate’s name is Tomkins; he has served his six years three times over, and has now outgrown his ambition; which is fortunate for him, as his chances of promotion are small. He prefers a small vessel to a large one, because he is not obliged to be so particular in his dress—and looks for his lieutenancy whenever there shall be another charity promotion. He is fond of soft bread, for his teeth are all absent without leave; he prefers porter to any other liquor, but he can drink his glass of grog, whether it be based upon rum, brandy or the liquor now before him.

Mr Smith is the name of that young gentleman whose jacket is so out at the elbows; he has been intending to mend it these last two months; but is too lazy to go to his chest for another. He has been turned out of half the ships in the service for laziness; but he was born so—and therefore it is not his fault. A revenue-cutter suits him, she is half her time hove to; and he has no objection to boat-service, as he sits down always in the stern-sheets, which is not fatiguing. Creeping for tubs is his delight, as he gets over so little ground. He is fond of grog, but there is some trouble in carrying the tumbler so often to his mouth; so he looks at it, and lets it stand. He says little because he is too lazy to speak. He has served more than eight years; but as for passing—it has never come into his head. Such are the three persons who are now sitting in the cabin of the revenue-cutter, drinking hot gin-toddy.

“Let me see, it was, I think, in ninety-three or ninety-four. Before you were in the service, Tomkins—”

“Maybe, sir; it’s so long ago since I entered, that I can’t recollect dates—but this I know, that my aunt died three days before.”

“Then the question is, when did your aunt die?”

“Oh! She died about a year after my uncle.”

“And when did your uncle die?”

“I’ll be hanged if I know!”

“Then, d’ye see, you’ve no departure to work from. However, I think you cannot have been in the service at that time. We were not quite so particular about uniform as we are now.”

“Then I think the service was all the better for it. Now-a-days, in your crack ships, a mate has to go down in the hold or spirit-room, and after whipping up fifty empty casks, and breaking out twenty full ones, he is expected to come on quarter-deck as clean as if he was just come out of a band-box.”