Salt Water | Page 6

am I to have taught you.
And I'll just tell you, young gentlemen, I'll lay a gold guinea that
Master D'Arcy here would get the rigging over the mastheads of a ship,
and fit her for sea, while either of you were looking at them, and
thinking how you were to sway up the topmasts. No offence, you know;
but as for gammoning--I don't think any one would beat you there."
Several of the midshipmen muttered murmurs of applause at what
Larry and I had said, and in a very short time we were all excellent
friends, and as intimate as if we were shipmates together. They at once
respected him, for they could not help recognising him as a true sailor;
and they also saw that, young and inexperienced as I appeared, I was
not quite as green as they had at first supposed. And we all parted
excellent friends.
We had been waiting some time at the "Star and Garter," and there
were no signs of the Serpent, and from the information Larry gained
from those who were likely to know, he was led to believe that several
days more might elapse before her return; so he proposed that we
should look out for lodgings, as more economical, and altogether
pleasanter. I willingly agreed to his plan, so out we set in search of
them. We saw several which did not suit us. At last we went to
Southsea, which we agreed would be more airy and pleasant; and
seeing a bill up at a very neat little house, we knocked at the door, and
were admitted. There was a nice sitting-room and bed-room, and a
small room which Larry said would do for him. The landlady, who was
a pleasant-looking, buxom dame, asked only fifteen shillings a week,
including doing for us; so we agreed to take it. By some chance we did
not inquire her name.
"Good-bye, Missis," said Larry. "I'll send the young gentleman's traps
here in half an hour, and leave him mean time as security. I suppose
you'll have no objection to stay, Master D'Arcy?" he added, turning to
me.

I had none, of course, and so it was arranged. While Larry was gone,
the good lady took me into the sitting-room, and begging me to make
myself at home, was very inquisitive to know all about me. I had no
reason for not gratifying her, so I told her how my mother and then my
father had died and left me an orphan, and how I had come all the way
from Kerry to Portsmouth, and how I belonged to a cutter which I had
not yet seen, and how I intended one day to become a Nelson or a
Collingwood. Of my resolution the kind lady much approved.
"Ah, my good, dear man, if he had lived, would have become a captain
also; but he went to sea and died, and I never from that day to this
heard any more of him," said she, wiping the corner of her eye with her
apron, more from old habit than because there were any tears to dry up,
for she certainly was not crying. "Those things on the mantel-piece
there were some he brought me home years and years ago, when he
was a gay young sailor; and I've kept them ever since, for his sake,
though I've been hard pushed at times to find bread to put into my
mouth, young gentleman."
The things she spoke of were such as are to be found in the
sitting-rooms of most sailors' wives. There were elephants' teeth, with
figures of men and women carved on them, very cleverly copied from
very coarse prints; and there were shells of many shapes, and lumps of
corals, and bits of seaweed, with the small model of a ship, very much
battered, and her yards scandalised, as if to mourn for her builder's loss.
She was placed on a stand covered with small shells, and at either end
were bunches of shell flowers, doubtlessly very tasteful according to
the widow's idea. The room was hung round with coloured prints,
which even then I did not think very well executed. One was a sailor
returning from a voyage, with bags of gold at his back and sticking out
of his pockets. I wondered whether I should come back in that way; but
as I did not know the value of money, there was nothing very exciting
in it to me. There were two under which was written "The lover's
meeting." In both cases the lady was dressed extravagantly fine, with a
bonnet and very broad ribbons; and the lover had on the widest trousers
I ever saw. Another represented a lady watching for her lover, whose
ship was seen