The Congo Rovers | Page 3

hull, my glances now dwelt upon her with tenfold loving interest. She was a ship-sloop of 28 guns--long 18-pounders--with a flush deck fore and aft. She was very long in proportion to her beam; low in the water, and her lines were as fine as it had been possible to make them. She had a very light, elegant-looking stern, adorned with a great deal of carved scroll-work about the cabin windows; and her gracefully-curved cut-water was surmounted by an exquisitely-carved full-length figure of Peneus' lovely daughter, with both arms outstretched, as in the act of flight, and with twigs and leaves of laurel just springing from her dainty finger-tips. There was a great deal of brass-work about the deck fittings, which gleamed and flashed brilliantly in the sun; and, the paint being new and fresh, she looked altogether superlatively neat, in spite of the fact that the operations of rigging and of shipping stores were both going on simultaneously.
Having satisfied for the time being my curiosity with regard to the hull of my future home, I next cast a glance aloft at her spars. She was rigged only as far as her topmast-heads, her topgallant-masts being then on deck in process of preparation for sending aloft. When I had last seen her she was under the masting-shears getting her lower-masts stepped; and it then struck me that they were fitting her with rather heavy spars. But now, as I looked aloft, I was fairly startled at the length and girth of her masts and yards. To my eye--by no means an unaccustomed one--her spars seemed taunt enough for a ship of nearly double her size; and the rigging was heavy in the same proportion. I stood there on the wharf watching with the keenest interest the scene of bustle and animation on board until the bell rang the hour of noon, and all hands knocked off work and went to dinner; by which time the three topgallant-masts were aloft with the rigging all ready for setting up when the men turned-to again. The addition of these spars to the length of her already lofty masts gave the Daphne, in my opinion, more than ever the appearance of being over-sparred; an opinion in which, as it soon appeared, I was not alone.
Most of the men left the dockyard and went home (as I suppose) to their dinner; but half a dozen or so of riggers, instead of following the example of the others, routed out from some obscure spot certain small bundles tied up in coloured handkerchiefs, and, bringing these on shore, seated themselves upon some of the boxes and casks with which the wharf was lumbered, and, opening the bundles, produced therefrom their dinners, which they proceeded to discuss with quite an enviable appetite.
For a few minutes the meal proceeded in dead silence; but presently one of them, glancing aloft at the Daphne's spars, remarked in a tone of voice which reached me distinctly--I was standing within a few feet of the party:
"Well, Tom, bo'; what d'ye think of the hooker now?"
The man addressed shook his head disapprovingly. "The more I looks at her the less I likes her," was his reply.
"I'm precious glad I ain't goin' to sea in her," observed another.
"Same here," said the first speaker. "Why, look at the Siren over there! She's a 38-gun frigate, and her mainmast is only two feet longer than the Daphne's--as I happen to know, for I had a hand in the buildin' of both the spars. The sloop's over-masted, that's what she is."
I turned away and bent my steps homeward. The short snatch of conversation which I had just heard, confirming as it did my own convictions, had a curiously depressing effect upon me, which was increased when, a few minutes afterwards, I caught a glimpse of the distant buoy which marked the position of the sunken Royal George. For the moment my enthusiasm was all gone; a foreboding of disaster took possession of me, and but for very shame I felt more than half-inclined to tell my father I had altered my mind, and would rather not go to sea. I had occasion afterwards to devoutly wish I had acted on this impulse.
When, however, I was awakened next morning by the sun shining brilliantly in at my bed-room window, my apprehensions had vanished, my enthusiasm was again at fever-heat, and I panted for the moment--not to be very long deferred--when I should don my uniform and strut forth to sport my glories before an admiring world.
Punctual almost to a moment--for once at least in his life--Mr Shears sent home the uniform whilst we were sitting down to luncheon; and the moment that I decently could I hastened away to try it on.
The breeches were certainly rather wrinkly above the