Salt Water | Page 5

then
showed an evident disposition to enter into conversation with him to
discover who he could be. This, for my sake, he did not wish them to
do; for, as he was to act the part of guardian, he thought it incumbent
on him to keep up his dignity.
We passed, to me, a very interesting time at Portsmouth. We constantly
visited the dockyard, which was my delight. He took me over the

Victory, and showed me the spot where Nelson fell; and with old
associations many a tale and anecdote which, long since forgotten, now
returned to his memory, he poured into my eager ear.
Some people declare, and naval men even do so, that there's no
romance in a seafaring life--that it's all hard, dirty, slaving work,
without anything to repay one, except prize-money in war time and
promotion in peace. Now, to my mind, there's a great deal of romance
and chivalry and excitement, and ample recompense in the life itself;
and this Larry, who ought to have known, for he had seen plenty of
hard service, had himself discovered. It is that some do not know where
to look for the romance, and if found, cannot appreciate it. The stern
realities of a sea life--its hardships, its dangers, its battles, its fierce
contests with the elements, its triumphs over difficulties--afford to
some souls a pleasure which ignobler ones cannot feel: I trust that my
adventures will explain what I mean. For my own part, I can say that
oftentimes have I enjoyed that intense pleasure, that joyous enthusiasm,
that high excitement, which not only recompenses one for the toil and
hardships by which it is won, but truly makes them as nothing in
comparison to the former. All I can say is, let me go through the world
sharing the rough and the smooth alike--the storms and sunshine of life;
but save me from the stagnant existence of the man who sleeps on a
feather bed and always keeps out of danger.
CHAPTER TWO.
DON THE TRUE BLUE--ROMANCE OF THE SEA--LARRY AND
HIS WIFE.
My uniform was to be made at Portsmouth. Of course I felt myself not
a little important, and very fine, as I put it on for, the first time, and
looked at myself in the glass, with my dirk buckled to my side, and a
round hat with a cockade in it on my head. We were sitting in the
coffee-room, waiting for dinner, on that eventful day, when a number
of youngsters belonging to a line-of-battle ship came into the inn. They
had not been there long, when the shiny look of my new clothes, and
the way I kept handling my dirk, unable to help looking down at it,

attracted the attention of one of them.
"That's a sucking Nelson," he exclaimed, "I'll bet a sixpence!"
"Hillo, youngster! to what ship do you belong?" asked another, looking
hard at me.
"To the Serpent cutter," I answered, not quite liking the tone in which
he spoke.
"And so you are a cutter's midshipman, are you?" he asked. "And how
is it you are not on board, I should like to know?"
I told him that the cutter was away, and that I was waiting for her
return.
"Then I presume that you haven't been to sea at all yet?" observed the
first who had spoken, in a bland tone, winking at his shipmates, with
the intention of trotting me out.
I answered simply that I had not. Larry, I must observe, all the time
was sitting silent, and pretending not to take any notice of them, so that
they did not suspect we belonged to each other.
"Poor boy, I pity you," observed the young gentleman, gravely, and
turning up his eyes. "I'd advise you seriously to go back to your
mamma. You've no idea of all the difficult things you'll have to learn;
of which, how to hand, reef, and steer isn't the hundredth part."
"In the first place, I have not a mamma to go to," I replied, in an
indignant tone; for I did not like his mentioning her, even. "And
perhaps I know more about a ship than you think of."
"You! what should you know about a ship, I should like to know?"
exclaimed the midshipman, contemptuously.
"Why, I know how to gammon a bowsprit," I replied, looking at him
very hard. "I can work a Turk's-head, make a lizard, or mouse a
stay--can't I, Larry?" I asked, turning to the old sailor. "And as for

steering, I've steered round Kilkee Bay scores of times, before you
knew how to handle an oar, I'll be bound--haven't I, Larry?"
The old man, thus appealed to, looked up and spoke. "Faith, you may
well say that same, Master Neil; and proud