The Last Entry

ter. Buildings, ships, wharves, the further bends of the Reach, stood out with the sharpness and delicacy of ivory work. The movements of the drapery of buntin

the cut-water. These lines flashed in her glossy sides as they trembled past, and her coppered hull was beautified by other lustres than the light

oat. She had beam for stability, a height of side which promised a dry ship, a spring of bow smack-like with its promise of domination. Her copper shone; she was sheathed to the bends; she carri

r at the familiar scene of docks the other side of the river. They looked a rough company of the genuine merchant-sailor type-raggedly hairy, defiant in st

usness of spirits; you felt that in him lay the voice for the back-parlour of the Free and Easy. The owner of the vessel and party were expected on board shortly, and Tweed had clothed himself with car

and at the binnacle, and throwing a look over the little ship and t

-pirating in a vessel of this sort. No, I wouldn't, either; I'd go a-slaving. A hundre

d have been a pirate; the ocean was thick with booty, and you got an estate with ve

e,' said the mate, with a groggy l

r three months the thought of to-morrow morning shan't keep me awake. Holy Jemmy! But it's on the quarter-deck where the hearts of

painted green-green it should be; it's the colour of my life. In that sea-chest is all that I own in the world, saving a matter of a few pounds stowed away ashore. Twenty years of the se

shion connected, had frequently of late met ashore, and had grown intimate during the time occupied by the refitting of the Mowbray. We are not to confound the discipline

in talk indistinguishable t

looks. But when once I've signed a vessel's articles I'm for outweathering the skipper, if he was the devil hims

th a deep and surly smile at the plump figure of Tweed, as he walked, rolling about like a butterbox in a seaway, alongside the captain. 'I never see a face in all my time more beautifu

red-headed seaman. 'I'm a-missing of Sally, m

extended his arms, amidst a rumble of laughter

ng upright with his arms folded. 'If she don't die, she'll make tracks

hing to sit upon?' sai

cely upon the red-headed man. 'I wondered to find her at home last voyage. She'd have found me a true man.

, leaning over the rail, and me

t no ship. Present company's always excepted, too, in po

ssel bound to?'

a cruise,' ans

about the Equator,

o coast,' said t

of, his intellects go wrong. Did ye ever hear of the prices they paid for toolips? I'm the son of a sweep, lads, if some of 'em didn't pay as much as a ￡100 in good money for a durned stalk not worth a cabbage! They was all rich men as bought them bulbs, a

ed them to Greenwich to see them off. Vanderholt shook hands with his captain, nodded to the mate, and cast a look of approval in the direction of the forecastle. He seemed in high spirits. His eyes smiled deep in their little sockets, and the fresh and friendly wind blew his beard into twenty expressions of kindly

In a minute there was a little crowd of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies standing on the quarter-deck, gazing around them and alof

en as grass, with a quivering of weeds here and there, lay off the Docks opposite. Her house-flag blew stately from the lofty masthead; stately and proud, too, she floated, tall and square. She seemed alive, and conscious of victory. The lights of her cabin windows shook th

about the decks of the Mowbray

said one gentleman to another, 'and

German said? "I don't see der use of being see

oth la

gne were beside him. It was a roomy cabin, with plenty of accommodation for eight or nine people to sit at table; brightly lighted, handsomely upholstered, painted and gilded as charmingly as a drawing-room. Some little berths aft

old memories; and his guests laughed when he pointed to a sea-chest, which he said contained nearly th

ssed lady. 'They were caused by my cutting up plug tobacco. I would not have them filled in. On this chest I have sat and blown strong Cavendish tobacco

again?' asked the fas

Vanderholt, bringing his fist down, in a sudden p

attled on plates, the one steward ran about. Mr. Vanderholt was in high spirits; he drank to his dau

feather coiled round a large hat, 'must be saying good-bye to the girls, as I think they call them,' e

f he was buried. Don't you remember what your Richard Steele says? I quote from memory: "The poor fellow who lost his a

pplication,' said o

y plain,' said

t old sailor who used to take a month in making a pair of clews for the ca

is all for speed now, cracking on, carrying away, four months to Bo

ation of Mr. Vanderholt, s

ow of constancy amongst sailors. I remember some years ago being aboard a ship in a collision. The other vessel recei

complication!'

was supposed to be dead

miling. His face, however, was not w

was a man in a cage. Nothing in this or the under world could be more frightful to see than that man. And what had happened to him? He had slept on a

es so drying? Really! How could the poor

to make clove-hitches, I

a cupboard forward annexed to the pantry. Opposite was the mate's. He reappe

t touch at Madeira,

at the Li

leman, 'if you have not seen Madeira, you sho

ns are soft as th

he spirit of ma

t your ship, and the men who salute you when you get ashore, are poisonously hideous. They

When our forefoot cuts the zero of the ch

final glass of champagne to the safety of the voyage, to Vanderholt's health, to the return of the charming Violet Va

hip agitated by leave-taking. Nevertheless, when the company we

carry away his daughter to the ocean, with no other

sand pounds!' said a lady. 'I should have to be run away with to d

their handkerchiefs

in the boat

and gents! You'll be capsizing of

er his services in this capacity should be required, was Jones. No man blew the boatswain's silver pipe more sweetly. He had sent his lark-like carol

their round jackets, sprang, as an echo of the boatswain's roaring cry, to the windlass handles, and in a moment a voice, broken by

f the London mud, and to the impulse of her mounting standing jib, staysail, and gaff foresail, was, with a clipper's restlessness of spirit in the whole length

stood beside the tiller, conning the little vessel. He was qualified as a pilot for the Thames, and boasted that he could smell his way up and down in the dark-and truly perhaps t

u have chosen well. This is

arried topsail, top-gallant-sail, and royal; but there was no good in humbugging with this sort of

would return. When? In all probability before her own arrival; and how maddening that would be! For, oddly enough, though it was a long time since they had parted, Miss Violet Vanderholt was quite as much in love with Captain George Parry as

lect herself and transfer her affection. Though Vanderholt's wealth was not of a size to lead to newspaper paragraphs and to editor

d cock liv

nless it was a barge, or something running in a mile or two of straight water, leaned in shafts of light. You caught the glance of copper sheathing, the sunshine showered in a rainbow glow upon flashes of brackish foam bursting without the life of brine from s

her with crackling jibbooms. The schooner's road was blocked; her helm was shifted swift as the swallow curves in flight, and then followed a pause which enable

two or three of them wearing tall hats, and shawls round their throats, rushing about the decks in agonies of pantomime. It was a saying that there was no better school than the North Country Geordie for seamanship. Certainly there was no school in which a man learnt more quickly

blooming old fool! Don't you s

ng your jib hoisted for? You'

er don't starboard yer 'ellum. Why don't

out because a crew of dairymen do

carrot would snap a yard, or down, torn bodily ou

you scabs! Let go yer taws'l halliards! Don't you see they're b

rus of indistinguishable shouts. The vessels were doomed. They both drifted ashore abreast of Woolwich, and next day a paper described a fight that

ew poets have dealt with subjects of this sort. They write of the splendours of the sunset and moon-rise at sea, and such things. Yet, if I were a poet, I wo

Mowbray let go her a