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The Three Cutters

Автор Фредерик Марриет

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Дата написания1970-01-01

Язык книгиen

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“Of two evils choose the least, they say,” observed Mr Hautaine. “Poor Ponsonby could not help himself.”

“That’s a very polite observation of yours, Mr Hautaine—I thank you in the name of the sex,” replied Cecilia Ossulton.

“Nay, Miss Ossulton; would you like to marry a person whom you never saw?”

“Most certainly not; but when you mentioned the two evils, Mr Hautaine, I appeal to your honour, did you not refer to marriage or beggary?”

“I must confess it, Miss Ossulton; but it is hardly fair to call on my honour to get me into a scrape.”

“I only wish that the offer had been made to me,” observed Vaughan; “I should not have hesitated as Ponsonby did.”

“Then I beg you will not think of proposing for me,” said Mrs Lascelles, laughing; for Mr Vaughan had been excessively attentive.

“It appears to me, Vaughan,” observed Seagrove, “that you have slightly committed yourself by that remark.”

Vaughan, who thought so too, replied: “Mrs Lascelles must be aware that I was only joking.”

“Fie! Mr Vaughan,” cried Cecilia Ossulton; “you know it came from your heart.”

“My dear Cecilia,” said the elder Miss Ossulton, “you forget yourself—what can you possibly know about gentlemen’s hearts?”

“The Bible says that they are ‘deceitful and desperately wicked,’ aunt.”

“And cannot we also quote the Bible against your sex, Miss Ossulton?” replied Seagrove.

“Yes, you could, perhaps, if any of you had ever read it,” replied Miss Ossulton, carelessly.

“Upon my word, Cissy, you are throwing the gauntlet down to the gentlemen,” observed Lord B—; “but I shall throw my warder down, and not permit this combat à l’outrance.—I perceive you drink no more wine, gentlemen, we will take our coffee on deck.”

“We were just about to retire, my lord,” observed the elder Miss Ossulton, with great asperity: “I have been trying to catch the eye of Mrs Lascelles for some time, but—”

“I was looking another way, I presume,” interrupted Mrs Lascelles, smiling.

“I am afraid that I am the unfortunate culprit,” said Mr Seagrove. “I was telling a little anecdote to Mrs Lascelles—”

“Which, of course, from its being communicated in an undertone, was not proper for all the company to hear,” replied the elder Miss Ossulton; “but if Mrs Lascelles is now ready,” continued she, bridling up, as she rose from her chair.

“At all events, I can hear the remainder of it on deck,” replied Mrs Lascelles. The ladies rose and 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 rewarded with his rank as commander. It is a pity that what he takes inside of him does not count, for he takes it morning, noon, and night. He is just filling his fourteenth glass; he always keeps a regular account, as he never exceeds his limited number, which is seventeen; then he is exactly down to his bearings.

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