The Three Cutters | Page 6

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