The moon shone with a crystalline clearness, and the gentle motion of the frigate threw the shadows of the people in corresponding movements on the deck, resembling the ombres Chinois that delighted us so much in boyhood. The look-outs were posted at their appointed stations; some with a shipmate to bear them company-others alone, and thinking upon merry England.

6

"I say, Bill!" uttered the captain of the forecastle, addressing one of the men, as he was looking to windward from the cat-head-or, as it was more generally termed, Old Savage's picture-gallery,' -"I say, Bill! somehow or another I don't much like the looks o' the sky thereaway; to my thinking it 's some'at fiery-eyed."

"Gammon !" returned the man without moving from his position. "I'd ha' thought you would have known better, Jem! Well, I'm blowed if we mayn't live and larn as long as there's a flurry o' breath in the windsel! Why, that's ounly the pride o' the sun, to show his glory to the last; would you have him go out like a purser's dip,—a spark and away?"

"No, Bill, I loves to see a good sunset," rejoined the other; "and I never see'd finer than what I've see'd in these here seas. It's some'at strange to my thinking, though, messmate, that God A'mighty should have made this part o' the world so beautiful, and yet have put such d―lousy, beggarly rascals to live in it! Look at them there Italians, with no more pluck about 'em than this here cat-head !"

66

Nay, shipmates," said the serjeant of marines, who had just joined them, "you do yourselves injustice. I hope there is some pluck about the cat-head, though there may be none in it. But you say rightperfectly right, as it regards those lazy-roany; they are a d-set, to be sure! But, their women, Jem-their women! Oh! they're dear, delicious, lovely creaturs!"

"Mayhap they may be to your thinking," responded the captain of the forecastle rather contemptuously: "but give me a good, hearty, right-arnest, full-plump, flesh-and-blood Englishwoman; and none o' your skinny, half-starved, sliding-gunter-legged, spindle-shank sinoreas for me!"

"The

"You manifest a shocking want of taste, shipmate," returned the serjeant, proudly, and bringing himself to a perpendicular. Italian women are considered the most lovely women in the world."

"Tell that to the marines, ould chap!" chimed in a boatswain's mate, who now made a fourth in the party. "The most lovely women in the world, eh? Why, Lord love your foolish heart! I wouldn't give my Mrs. Sheavehole for all that Italy could stow, take it from stem to starn."

"She's your wife, Jack, and the mother of your children," argued the serjeant; "but that cannot make her a bit the more of a beauty." "Can't it, though!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate, sharply, and at the same time giving the mountain of tobacco in his cheek a thorough twist. "If it don't, then I'm d-! and, setting a case, it's just this here: when we first came within hail of each other, she was as handsome a craft as ever had God A'mighty for a builder; every timber in her hull was fashioned in Natur's own mould-loft, and she was so pinned and bolted together that each plank did its own proper duty."

"But she's declining in years, you know, Jack," urged the serjeant,

provokingly; "and though she might have been once handsome, yet age is a sad defacer of beauty."

"And suppose it is a facer of beauty, it can't change the fashion of the heart!" uttered the boatswain's mate. "But, that 's just like you jollies all for paint and pipe-clay. Now, Suke's as handsome to me as ever she was; and when I sees her like an ould hen clucking over the young uns, I'm blessed if I don't love her more than when she saved me from having my back scratched by the tails o' the cat! I know, when a craft is obliged to be unrigged and laid up in ordinary, she don't look not by no manner o' means so well as when she was all a-taunto, and painted as fine as a fiddle: but still, shipmates, she's the same craft; and as for beauty, why, setting a case, it 's just this here there's ould beauty, as well as young beauty; and it a'nt so much in the figure-head, or the plank-shear, as having done your duty once, and ready to do it again."

"All that may be very true, Jack," persevered the serjeant; "but then, you must allow there is as great a difference in the appearance of some women when compared to others, as there is in the build or rig of a vessel."

"Hearken to that, now!" responded the boatswain's mate. "Do you think Jack Sheavehole wants to be told that a billy-boy arn't a ninety-eight, or a Dutch schuyt a dashing frigate? But, look at this here craft that now rolls us so sweetly over the ocean: arn't she as lovely now as when she first buttered her bottom on the slips, and made a bed for herself in the water? and won't she be the same beauty when she's put out of commission, and mayhap be moored in Rotten-row? Well, she's stood under us in many a heavy gale, and never yet showed her starn to an enemy,-that's why I love her; not for what she may do, but for what she has done."

"But, I say, Jack! it's just the time for a yarn," said the captain of the forecastle. "Tell us how Suke saved you from the gangway." "I wull, messmate-I wull," returned the other; "and then this lubberly jolly shall see if I arn't got a good right to call her a beauty. I belonged to the Tapsickoree, two-and-thirty; and, though I says it myself, there warn't many more sich tight-looking, clean-going lads as ould Jack Sheavehole- though I warn't ould Jack then, but a reg'lar smart, active, young blowhard of a maintopman. Well, we'd just come home from foreign, and got three years' pay and a power o' prize-money; and so most o' the boys goes ashore on liberty, and carries on till all 's blue. This was at Plymouth, shipmates; but, as we wur expecting to go round to Spithead, I saves my cash-'cause why? I'd an ould father and mother, from whom I'd parted company when a boy, and I thought, if I could get long leave-thinks I, mayhap I can heave alongside of 'em, with a cargo o' shiners, and it 'll cheer the cockles o' their ould hearts to see their son Jack togg'd off like a jolly tar, and captain of a frigate's maintop; and, setting a case, why it's just this here: I didn't want anything on 'em, but meant to give 'em better ground-tackle to hould on to life by."

"That was very kind of you, shipmate," said the serjeant.

"Well," continued the boatswain's mate, without heeding the serjeant's observation, "I has a bit of a spree ashore at Dock, in course; but soon arter we goes round to Portsmouth. I axes for long leave; and, as I'd al'ays done my duty to Muster Gilmour's-he was first

leeftenant-to Muster Gilmour's satisfaction, I gets my fortnight and my liberty-ticket, and the large cutter lands me at Sallyport; so I hauls my wind for the Blue Postes on the Pint, and enters myself on the books of a snug-looking craft, as was bound through my native village. Well, shipmates, in regard o' my being on liberty, why, I was a gemman at large; so I buys a few duds for ould dad, and a suit of new sails, and some head-gear for the ould woman: for, thinks I to myself, mayhap we shall cruise about a bit among the neighbours, and I'll let 'em see we arn't been sarving the king or hammering the French for nothin'. And, mayhap, thinks I, they arn't never got too much to grub; so I gets a bag, and shoves in a couple of legs o' mutton and a whole shole of turnips, a full bladder of rum, and, as I knew the old uns loved cat-lap, there was a stowage of sugar and tea, with a bottle o' milk; and, having plenty of the ready, I buys a little. of everything useful in the small way, that the ould chap at the shop showed me: and, my eyes! but there was thousands of packages twisted and twined in true-blue paper;-there was 'bacca, mustard, snuff, salt, soft tommy, pepper, lickerice, matches, gingerbread, herrings, soap, pease, butter, candles, cheese,-in short, something of everything, not forgetting a Welsh wig and a mousetrap; and I'm blowed if I warn't regularly fitted out for a three months' cruise! Well, by the time I'd got all my consarns ship-shape, I twigs the signal for sailing, and so I gets aboard; and in course, in regard o' my station in the maintop, I goes aloft, as high as possible upon the upper-deck, and claps myself upon the luggage; but when the governor as had charge comes to take the twiddling-lines, he axes me to berth myself on the fokstle, and so, not to be outdone in civility, or to make 'em think I'd let slip my edication, I comes down, and goes forud, and stows myself away just abaft the pilot; when we made sail, there was a party o' liberty boys from the ould Hibernia gives me three cheers, and I waves my bit o' tarpaulin, sports a fresh morsel o' 'bacca, and wondered what made the houses and everything run past us so quick; but I soon found out it was the craft-for I remembered the comb of the sea did just the same when the frigate was walking along at a spanking rate. So, for the first hour, I sits quiet and alone, keeping a sharp look-out on the pilot, to see how he handled the braces, rounding 'em in to starboard, or to port-for, thinks I to myself, it's best to larn everything-'cause why? who can tell but Jack Sheavehole mayn't some day or another command just sich a consarn of his own and how foolish he'll look not to know which way to shape his course, or how to steer his craft! But, I'm blowed! shipmates, if the horses didn't seem to savvy the thing just as well as the man at the helm; for the moment he tauten'd the gear, the hanemals slued round o' themselves all ship-shape, and Bristor-fashion."

"Why, it was the reins that guided them," said the serjeant, laughing.

"Then I'm blessed if it was !" returned old Jack; "for there warn't a drop o' rain fell that arternoon-it was a bright, sun-shiny day." "What you call twiddling-lines, they call reins," explained the serjeant; "and the horses are steered by them."

"Mayhap so, brother,-mayhap so," responded the boatswain's mate; "for I arn't much skilled in them matters-'cause why? I never sail'd in one on 'em afore, and ounly once since;-the first was