"Yes, she is a sweet girl!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, not answering me, however. I spoke again.
"Laura Mizen, to be sure," he replied. "Who else? She"s unlike all the rest of our yachting set away at Ryde there. They are all young ladies, cast in the same mould, differing only in paint, outside show; one may be blue and the other red, another yellow, though I don"t think you often find them of any primitive colour; generally they are of secondary, or mixed colours, as the artists say. One again wishes to be thought fast, and another sentimental, another philanthropic or religious, and another literary. I don"t know which of the pretenders I dislike the most. The fast young ladies are the most difficult to deal with. They do such impudent things, both to one and of one. If they knew how some of the fast men speak of them in return, it would make them wince not a little, I suspect, if they have not rattled away from all delicacy themselves. Oh, give me a right honest, good girl, who does not dream of being any thing but herself; who is a dutiful daughter, and is ready to be a loving, obedient wife of an honest man, and the affectionate mother of some fine hearty children, whom she may bring up with a knowledge of the object for which they were sent into the world."
"Well said, my dear fellow," I answered, warmly; for I seriously responded to his sentiments, though, it must be confessed, they were very different to the style which had been usual on board the "Frolic."
"Why did you not ask her, though?" I continued.
"Because I was a fool," he answered. "Those Rattler girls, Masons and Sandons, and that Miss Mary Masthead, and others of her stamp, were running in my head, and I couldn"t believe that Laura Mizen was in reality superior to them. I used to talk the same nonsense to her that I rattled into their willing ears; and it is only now that I have thought over the replies she made, and many things she lately said to me, and that I have discovered the vast difference there is between her and the rest."
"Well, "bout ship, and propose," said I; "though sorry to lose the cruise, your happiness shall be the first consideration."
"Oh, no, no! that will never do," he answered. "I doubt if she will have me now. When we come back next summer I will find her out, and if she appears to receive me favourably, I will propose. Now she thinks me only a harum-scarum rattler. It would never do."
I could say nothing to this. I truly believed that though Hearty"s fortune would weigh with most girls, it would but little with her; and I could only hope that in the mean time she would not bestow her affections on any one else.
Just as we got outside the breakwater we sighted a schooner, standing in for the Sound, which we had no difficulty in making out to be the "Popple." As soon as she discovered us, she bore down on us, signalising away as rapidly as possible.
"What are they saying?" asked Hearty, as he saw the bunting run up to her masthead.
"Heave-to, I want to speak to you," I answered, turning over the leaves of the signal-book.
"Shall we?" asked Porpoise.
"Oh, by all means," replied Hearty. "O"Wiggins may have something of importance to communicate."
"Down with the helm; let fly the jib-sheet; haul the foresail to windward," sung out Porpoise, and the cutter lay bobbing her head gracefully to the sea, while the schooner approached her.
Still they continued running up and down the bunting on board the "Popple." I had some difficulty in making out what they intended to say. "Ladies aboard--trust to gallantry," I continued to interpret, as I made out the words by reference to the book.
"What can they wish to say?" exclaimed Hearty.
"They wish to lay an embargo on us of some sort, and begin by complimenting us on our gallantry," observed Bubble.
"By the p.r.i.c.king of my thumbs, something evil this way comes," exclaimed Carstairs. "As I am a living gentleman, there are petticoats on board.
Who has been acting the part of a perfidious wretch, and breaking tender vows? An avenging Nemesis is in his wake in the person of Mrs Skysc.r.a.per, or the Rattler girls, or Mary Masthead. Even at this distance I can make them out."
So it was, as the schooner approached, the very dames Carstairs had named were seen on board.
We had observed, as we went down the Sound, a large schooner beating up from the westward. There had been discussions as to what she was. Our gla.s.ses had now once more been turned towards her, when we discovered her to be the "Sea Eagle." Seeing our bunting going up and down so rapidly, Sir Charles Drummore, her owner, curious to know what we were talking about, stood towards us.
The "Popple" hove-to to windward of us, and a boat being lowered, O"Wiggins pulled on board. "My dear fellow, I"m so glad we"ve overtaken you," he began. "Your friend, Mrs Skysc.r.a.per, and those young ladies with her, were so anxious to have another cruise on board the "Frolic"
before the summer is over, that I consented to bring them down here, as I made sure that you would be delighted to see them!" Never did Hearty"s face a.s.sume a more puzzled and vexed expression. "Heaven defend me from them!" he exclaimed. "Tell them that we"ve got the yellow-fever--or the plague, or the cholera, or the measles, or the whooping-cough, or any thing dreadful you can think of; make every excuse--or no excuse; the thing is impossible, not to be thought of for a moment: they can"t come. We are bound foreign, say to the North Pole, or the West Indies, or the coast of Africa, or the South Pacific, or to the Antipodes. They don"t want to go there, at all events, I suppose."
"But if you don"t take them, what am I to do with them?" exclaimed O"Wiggins. "I"m bound down Channel, and if they don"t worry me out of house and home, they"ll drive me overboard with the very clatter of their tongues."
A bright thought struck Hearty. Just then the "Sea Eagle" came up, and hove-to on our quarter.
"Much obliged to you for your kind intentions towards us, but, instead, just hand them over to Drummore," said he, rubbing his hands. "If any man can manage so delicate an affair, you can, O"Wiggins, without wishing to pay you an undue compliment."
Sir Charles Drummore was a baronet, one of our yachting acquaintances, and had lately purchased the "Sea Eagle." A worthy old fellow, though he had the character of being somewhat of a busybody. He certainly looked more in his place in his club than on board his yacht. "Well, I"ll try it," answered the O"Wiggins, who was himself easily won by the very bait he offered so liberally to others. "Trust me, I"ll do it if mortal man can. I"ll weave a piteous tale of peerless damsels in distress, and all that sort of thing. Thank you for the hint; it will take, depend on it."
"Well, be quick about it," we exclaimed, "or Drummore will be topping his boom, and you will miss your chance." Thereon O"Wiggins tumbled into his boat, and pulled aboard the "Sea Eagle." What story he told-- what arguments he used--we never heard; but very shortly we had the satisfaction of seeing the Misses Rattler and Mary Masthead, with their skittish chaperone, Mrs Skysc.r.a.per, transferred to the deck of the "Sea Eagle."
We strongly suspected that the prim baronet had not the slightest conception as to who formed the component parts of the company with whom he was to be favoured. He bowed rather stiffly as he received them and their bandboxes on deck; but he was in for it; his gallantry would not allow him to send them back to the "Popple," and he had, therefore, only to wish sincerely for a fair breeze, that he might land them as speedily as possible at Ryde. The O"Wiggins waved his cap with an extra amount of vehemence, and putting up his helm, and easing off his sheets, stood away for Falmouth. We, at the same time, shaped a course down Channel, mightily glad that we were free of all fast young ladies and flirting widows.
"O"er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home!"
spouted Carstairs, pointing to the wide Atlantic which rolled before us.
"The sea, the sea, the open sea!-- The wide, the blue, the ever free; Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth"s wide region round!
I"m on the sea-- I am where I would ever be: With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe"er I go,"
chimed in Hearty, whose quotations and sketches were always from authors of more modern date.
"You"ll sing different songs to those, gentlemen, if it comes on to blow a gale of wind while we are crossing the Bay," said Porpoise, laughing.
"The sea always puts me in mind of a woman, very delightful when she"s calm and smiling, but very much the contrary when a gale is blowing.
I"ve knocked about all my life at sea, and have got pretty tired of storms, which I don"t like a bit better than when I first went afloat."
"Never fear for us," answered Hearty. "I never was in a storm in my life, and I want to see how the "Frolic" will behave."
"As to that, I dare say she will behave well enough," said Porpoise.
"There"s no craft like a cutter for lying-to, or for beating off a lee-sh.o.r.e; or working through a narrow channel, for that matter, though a man-of-war"s man says it. We have the credit of preferring our own square-rigged vessels to all others, and not knowing how to handle a fore-and-after."
"Come what may, we"ll trust to you to do the best which can be done under any chances which may occur," said Hearty. "And now here comes Ladle to summon us to dinner." To dinner we went, and a good one we ate, and many a good one after it. Many a joke was uttered, many a story told, and many a song was sung. In truth, the days slipped away more rapidly even than on sh.o.r.e.
"Well, after all, I can"t say that there is much romance in a sea-life,"
exclaimed Carstairs, stretching out his legs, as he leaned back in an arm-chair on deck, and allowed the smoke of his fragrant Havana to rise curling over his upturned countenance, for there was very little wind at the time, and from what there was we were running away.
"I can"t quite agree with you on that point: there is romance enough at sea, as well as everywhere else, if people only know how to look for it," observed Will Bubble, who had been scribbling away most a.s.siduously all the morning in a large note-book which he kept carefully closed from vulgar eyes!
"Oh, I know, of course, "Books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in every thing,"" answered Carstairs, who was seldom at a loss for a quotation from Shakespeare. "But I mean, who ever meets a good, exciting, romantic adventure with pirate-smugglers, savages, or some thing of that sort? Perhaps you, Bubble, have got something of that sort in your book there which you will give us, but then it will be only fiction: I want a stern reality. The world has grown too matter-of-fact to keep a fellow awake."
"I"ll own to the soft impeachment," answered Bubble, laughing. "But my story"s real; I"ve been merely putting some notes into form for our amus.e.m.e.nt, and I hope all hands will be duly grateful." We all thanked Bubble for his promise.
"I cannot agree with you, in any way, as to there being no romance in a sea-life," said I. "Only last year I took part in a very pretty little bit of romance, which would have made the fortune of any paper into which it had been allowed to find its way; but for the sake of the actors we kept the affair a profound secret, or you would certainly have heard of it."
"Let"s have it all out now," exclaimed Hearty; "we won"t peach: we"ll be as tight as the "Frolic" herself."
"I wouldn"t trust you in the club," said I. "But, out here, I don"t think it will go beyond the bulwarks, so you shall hear my story."
While the rest of our party sat round, and drew, or netted, or smoked, I gave an account of the incident to which I alluded. As it is an important introduction to our subsequent adventures, it is, I feel, well worthy of a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER TEN.
WHY A BACHELOR TOOK TO YACHTING--THE RIVAL SUITORS--A DOUBTFUL CHARACTER.
Awakened one morning towards the close of the last London season by the postman"s rap, my friend Harcourt found, on reading his letters, that he had become the owner of the "Amethyst" cutter, and a member of the Royal Yacht Club. Possessing an independent fortune, a large circle of acquaintance, several stanch friends, and few enemies, he ought to have been a happy man--but he was not. The fact is, he did not know what to do with himself. He had travelled not only over the Continent, but had visited the three other quarters of the globe. He had gone through several London seasons, and run the rounds of innumerable country-houses where there were marriageable daughters, but had neither fallen in love, nor been drawn into a proposal. In truth, he believed with his friends that he was not a marrying man. He had become heartily sick of dusty roads, pa.s.sage-steamers, hot rooms, dissipation, and manoeuvring mammas, when I, who had of old been his messmate, recommended him to try yachting for the summer.
"What, go to sea for pleasure?" he exclaimed, in a tone of contempt.