Paddy Finn Part 46

The admiral made no objection, and we accordingly, the next morning, got under weigh, and stood in to Portsmouth harbour, where we brought up some distance from the dockyard. We found two or three other frigates lying there, and several sloops-of-war and corvettes and brigs.

We had not been there long before our captain received invitations from the residents in the neighbourhood, who had known him as a lieutenant and commander, and were accustomed to make much of him. He was acquainted with most of the captains of the other ships, and they were constantly dining on sh.o.r.e in each other's company. They had all been invited to dinner at the house of a baronet some miles out of Portsmouth, and their boats were ordered to be in waiting for them at about half-an-hour after midnight. All the commanders and most of the post-captains were young men, full of life and spirits, two or three of them noted for their harum-scarum qualities.

I had been sent to bring off Lord Robert, and a midshipman was in each of the other boats belonging to the different ships. We waited and waited for our respective captains, sitting in the stern-sheets wrapped in our thick cloaks, afraid to go ash.o.r.e lest our men should take the opportunity of slipping off into one of the public-houses on the Common Hard, standing temptingly open.

At last we heard the voices of a party of revellers coming along, and I recognised among them that of my captain, who seemed to be in an especially jovial mood.

In those days there stood on the Hard a sentry-box, furnished with a seat inside, on which the sentry was accustomed to sit down to rest his legs between his turns.

Presently I heard Lord Robert sing out--

"Hillo! where's the sentry?"

He and the other captains then gathered round the box. The sentry was fast asleep. They shouted to him. He made no reply. There was a good deal of laughing and talking. Then they called several of the men, and in another minute they brought the sentry-box, with the sentry in it still fast asleep--or rather dead drunk--down to the boats. Securing two together, the sentry-box was placed across them, and, the order being given, we shoved off. Instead, however, of returning to our ships, we made our way across the harbour to the Gosport side, when the sentry-box was safely landed, and placed with the sentry, his head fortunately uppermost, and his musket by his side, on the beach.

We then left him, the boats casting off from each other amidst shouts of laughter, and we pulled back to the _Jason_. The captain didn't say much, for the best of reasons, he was not very well able to use his tongue, but rubbed his hands, chuckling at the thoughts of what he had done. I helped him up the side, and a.s.sisted him to his cabin.

I believe most of the other captains were also, as he was, three sheets in the wind, or they probably would not have engaged in the proceeding.

Next morning, soon after daybreak, Nettleship and I were sent ash.o.r.e by the first lieutenant to look out for three men who had not come off on the previous evening, and who, it was supposed, might have deserted.

"Something like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay," said Nettleship, as we pulled towards the Hard. "The chances are we shall find them drunk in some house or other, or perhaps in the gutter with black eyes and broken heads. It's not pleasant work, but it must be done."

I said nothing about the condition in which the captains had come off the previous evening, but I thought to myself if captains set such an example, no wonder if the men follow it in their own fashion.

On landing we found an unusual number of people on the Hard for that early hour, while parties of soldiers, headed by sergeants, were pa.s.sing at the double-quick march. We inquired of one of the men we met what had happened. He said that on the relief coming to the spot where the sentry-box had stood, and finding neither box nor sentry, they had been seized with alarm. The captain of the guard had immediately reported the circ.u.mstance to the fort major, and, forgetting that peace had been established, he roundly a.s.serted that the French squadron was at Spithead, that the Isle of Wight had been captured, and that Portsmouth would be attacked. The whole garrison was aroused, and the telegraphs on the hills set to work to communicate the intelligence far and wide.

As I was the only person in the boat who knew what had actually occurred, I thought it prudent to hold my tongue and let things take their course. Nettleship and I therefore proceeded in search of the men, and before long found them, much in the condition we had expected, though sufficiently recovered to walk. Helped along by their shipmates, we got them down to the boats. The excitement was still at its height, when, just as we were shoving off, a boat arrived from the Gosport side, with the astounding intelligence that the missing sentry-box, with the sentry in it, was standing upright on the beach. Immediately a number of boats, one of which contained the captain of the guard and several other officials, pulled across to investigate the matter.

"We may as well go to see the fun," said Nettleship; "the first lieutenant won't find fault with us when I explain the object."

Away we pulled with the rest, and lay off the beach, while Captain Bouncer and his party landed.

The sentry, who was standing in his box, stepped out, and saluted in due form.

"How did you get here, my man?" inquired Captain Bouncer in an angry tone.

"Faith, captain, that's more than I can be after telling you," answered the sentry, whom I recognised as a countryman.

"You don't mean to tell me that you don't know how you and your sentry-box were transported across the harbour in the middle of the night!" exclaimed Captain Bouncer.

"That's just what I'm saying I can't do, captain dear," replied the sentry.

"You must have been drunk as a fiddler," shouted the captain.

"I can swear, your honour, by all the holy saints, that I was sober as a judge," answered Pat. "Shure it's my belief I was lifted up by a couple of witches riding on broomsticks, and carried across without so much as wetting my feet, for my boots are as dry as if they had been roasting before the fire."

"If witches carried the man across, they must be hunted up and punished," cried one of the bystanders.

"Witches be hanged!" exclaimed the captain; "the man must give a better account than that of the way he came across."

"Then, captain, if it was not witches, it must have been a score of will-o'-the-wisps, who just upset the sentry-box and towed it across the harbour while I was sitting quiet, not dreaming of what was happening, and only just looking up at the stars shining brightly above me," said Pat in a wheedling tone.

"You must have been asleep, at all events, or you would have discovered that your box was being moved," said the captain.

"Asleep is it, your honour!" exclaimed the sentry; "shure Pat Donovan, and that's myself, never went to sleep on guard since he listed in His Majesty's army."

"Whether the sentry was drunk or asleep, whether transported across by witches or imps, we must have the sentry-box back again," said Captain Bouncer, and he gave orders to have it lifted into a boat. This was found, from its weight, not to be an easy matter, confirming the people in their belief that the sentry had been carried across as he stated, for if heavy when empty, it must have been much heavier with him in it.

Poor Pat meantime was placed under arrest, and carried away to be further examined by the town major, and dealt with as might seem expedient, while we pulled back to our ship. There were many among the crowd who believed that Pat Donovan, of her Majesty's 3---th regiment, had been spirited across Portsmouth harbour by a couple of witches riding on broomsticks, though where they were to be found was more than one could say. We heard afterwards that a dozen old women had been seized and accused of the crime, and that had it not been for the interference of certain naval officers, whose names were not mentioned, they would have been subjected to the ordeal of being ducked in the harbour, or tossed in a blanket. It was reported that our captain had seen what he took to be a sentry-box floating across the harbour on the night in question, and he could swear that no such agency as was reported had been employed. Whatever the educated might have believed, the lower cla.s.ses were still forcibly impressed with the idea that the sentry-box and sentry had been carried across by witches; but on board ship the real state of the case was soon known, and the men, who kept the secret, chuckled over the credulity of their friends on sh.o.r.e.

Portsmouth had become very dull, I was told, since the war was over, and we certainly at times found a difficulty in knowing how to pa.s.s our time. Our captain occasionally posted up to London, but, having no business there, received a hint from the Admiralty that he must remain on board his ship, and therefore had to post down again as fast as he could. He consoled himself by spending nearly all the day on sh.o.r.e, generally at the houses of people in the neighbourhood. He had one evening gone to dine at a house situated some way in the country, on the Gosport side, and he had ordered his boat to be waiting for him at the nearest landing-place to it, punctually at ten o'clock. As he had a picked crew, not likely to desert, no midshipman went in the boat. As it happened, the doctor, the second lieutenant, and the lieutenant of marines had been invited to spend the evening close to Gosport, and I was ordered to go and bring them off at half-past ten, not far from the place where the captain had intended to embark. When I got in I found his boat still there. The men had been talking and laughing, and had evidently managed to get some liquor on board. They did not see me, and as I was afraid that they might send over some to my men, I kept my boat as far off as I could get.

Presently the steward came down, and told the c.o.xswain that his lordship had made up his mind to stay on sh.o.r.e, and that the boat was to return to the ship. Just then, however, I saw an animal of some sort, but what it was I could not distinguish through the gloom of night, come close down to the water. A couple of the men instantly jumped ash.o.r.e, and, catching hold of it, lifted it into the boat, laughing and chuckling loudly. I had a short time longer to wait before the officers came down.

Of course I said nothing of what I had seen. We pulled alongside the frigate, the boats were hoisted up, and my watch being over, I turned in to my hammock. I had not been long asleep when my ears were saluted by the most unearthly sounds, so it seemed to me, that ever broke the stillness of night. A universal panic seemed to be prevailing. Men were rushing up on deck, shouting out that Old Nick himself had gained possession of the ship, some carrying their clothes with them, but others only in their shirts, leaving in their terror everything else behind.

The alarm which had begun forward extended aft; the marines, headed by their sergeant and corporal,--though the sentries still remained at their posts,--ever mindful of their duty, and ready to do battle with foes human or infernal. I and the other midshipmen, thus awakened from our sleep by the fearful sounds, jumped out of our hammocks, and began dressing as fast as we could. It was not until I was half-way up the ladder, and still not quite awake, that I recollected the occurrence at the landing-place. Again the sounds which had alarmed us came forth from the lower depths of the ship. Many of the men in their terror seemed inclined to jump overboard.

Before long, however, old Rough-and-Ready came hurrying on deck, with his small-clothes over his arm and night-cap on head; his voice rang out above the uproar, inquiring what was the matter. The drum beat to quarters, the boatswain's whistle sounded shrilly, piping all hands on deck, though the greater number were there already. No one answered the first lieutenant's question.

Again the sound was heard. The men who were at their stations seemed inclined to desert them, when it struck me that only one animal in existence could make that fearful noise, and as matters were getting serious, I went up to the first lieutenant and said--

"I fancy, sir, that it's a donkey's bray."

"Of course it is," exclaimed Mr Saunders. "How in the name of wonder came a donkey on board the ship?"

I thought it prudent not to reply; and the second lieutenant and other officers who had come off with me of course said that they knew nothing about it.

The first lieutenant, having now got into his breeches, calling the mate of the lower deck, the master-at-arms, and others, to bring lanterns, descended to the fore-hold. None of the men, however, except those who were summoned, appeared inclined to follow them. I, however, expecting to have my suspicions verified, went forward with Tom Pim. We heard old Rough-and-Ready shouting out for a tackle, and in another minute up came an unfortunate donkey. The poor brute, having fallen into the hold, had given expression to its dissatisfaction by the sounds which had driven the ship's company well-nigh out of their wits.

How the donkey had come on board was still to be discovered. My boat's crew knew nothing about the matter; and it was surprising that the captain's crew, including the c.o.xswain, were equally unable to account for the mysterious occurrence. As they had been engaged in transporting the sentry-box across the harbour, it was just possible that they might have taken it into their heads to imitate the example of their superiors, and play a trick on their own account.

Whatever the first lieutenant might have thought on the subject, he took no steps in the matter, but awaited the return of the captain. The first thing the next morning, however, he sent the poor donkey ash.o.r.e.

Late in the afternoon Lord Robert came on board, and received due information of what had occurred. Perhaps he might have suspected how the donkey had entered the ship; at the same time it is possible that his conscience may have smote him for having set the example of practical joking. At all events, he made no strenuous attempts to discover the culprits. The next day he issued an order that, even if his satanic majesty and a thousand of his imps should come aboard, the men were not to turn out of their hammocks till piped up by the boatswain.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A TRIP TO LONDON.

While we lay in harbour, three ships of Sir Edward Hughes' squadron from the East Indies came home and were paid off, the crew not only receiving their pay, but large sums for prize-money. Scarcely had they dropped their anchors than the ships were boarded by hundreds of harpies in all shapes, eager to fleece the crew,--or rather, to win their confidence, in order to fleece them as soon as they had received their hard-earned wages. Pinchbeck watches, copper chains which pa.s.sed for gold, huge rings for the fingers and ears, trinkets of all sorts, and cutlery made of tin, were pressed upon Jack as loans, to be paid for as soon as he landed; and the moment he got his pay, no time was lost in commencing the operation of fleecing him. Some st.u.r.dy fellows, who had been played that trick often before, attempted to resist the importunities of their pretended friends, and kept their hands in their pockets, turning scornful glances on either side, as they rolled along; but most of them, unless they could resist the grog-shop, were very soon doomed to fall into more warily-laid traps.

Tom and I were on sh.o.r.e the day the _Hero_ was paid off, one of the ships which had so often encountered the squadron of the French Admiral de Soufryen. The whole of Portsmouth was in an uproar. We met dozens of stout fellows rolling along, with ma.s.sive chains hung from their fobs, rings on their fingers, their heads adorned with lovelocks, pigtails, and earrings, with female companions hung on to each of their arms, rolling and shouting as they went, paying no respect to anybody out of uniform, in the height of good humour as long as they could have their way, but evidently ready to quarrel with any one whom they might fancy wished to interfere with them.

At the door of one of the princ.i.p.al inns we found a couple of coaches, with four horses each, prepared for starting, and surrounded by some twenty or thirty seamen. Some quickly clambered up on the roof and into the front seats, and others behind; those who had climbed outside shouting out that the ship would be top-heavy if the rest did not stow themselves away below, the last half-dozen or so got inside.

"Drive on, coachee," cried one of the men in front; "let's see how fast your craft can move along."