“And a little bit from her tongue, Jemmy,” observed Coble.

  “Why, perhaps so,” replied Jemmy; “but what was it set her tongue loose but the threat of him to flog me, and what made him threaten that but the ‘peaching of that fat marine?”

  “Very good arguments Jemmy. Well, I will say that for your wife, Jemmy, she does love you, and there’s no sham about it.”

  “Never mind Jemmy’s wife, let’s have Jemmy’s song,” said Spurey; “he hasn’t piped since he was pulled up by the corporal.”

  “No: he put my pipe out, the hippopotamus. Well, I’ll give it you — it shall be about what we are talking of, Obadiah.” Jemmy perched himself on the fore-end of the booms, and sang as follows: —

  I suppose that you think ‘cause my trousers are tarry,

  And because that I ties my long hair in a tail,

  While landsmen are figged out as fine as Lord Harry,

  With breast-pins and cravats as white as old sail;

  That I’m a strange creature, a know-nothing ninny,

  But fit for the planks for to walk in foul weather;

  That I ha’n’t e’er a notion of the worth of a guinea,

  And that you, Poll, can twist me about as a feather —

  Lord love you!!

  I know that this life is but short at the best on’t,

  That time it flies fast, and that work must be done;

  That when danger comes ’tis as well for to jest on’t,

  ’Twill be but the lighter felt when it do come

  If you think, then, from this, that I an’t got a notion

  Of a heaven above, with its mercy in store,

  And the devil below, for us lads of the ocean,

  Just the same as it be for the landsmen on shore —

  Lord love you!!

  If because I don’t splice with some true-hearted woman,

  Who’d doat on my presence, and sob when I sail,

  But put up with you, Poll, though faithful to no man,

  With a fist that can strike, and a tongue that can rail;

  ’Tis because I’m not selfish, and know ’tis my duty

  If I marry to moor by my wife, and not leave her,

  To dandle the young ones, — watch over her beauty,

  D’ye think that I’d promise and vow, then deceive her?

  Lord love you!!

  I suppose that you think ‘cause I’m free with my money,

  Which others would hoard and lock up in their chest,

  All your billing and cooing, and words sweet as honey,

  Are as gospel to me while you hang on my breast;

  But no, Polly, no; — you may take every guinea,

  They’d burn in my pocket if I took them to sea;

  But as for your love, Poll, I indeed were a ninny —

  D’ye think I don’t know you cheat others than me?

  Lord love you!!

  “Well, that’s a good song, Jemmy, and he can’t pull you up for that, any how.”

  Mr Vanslyperken appeared to think otherwise, for he sent a marine forward to say, that no singing would be permitted in future, and that they were immediately to desist.

  “I suppose we shall have a song considered as mutiny soon,” observed Coble. “Ah, well, it’s a long lane that has no turning.”

  “Yes,” replied Jemmy, in an under tone, “and for every rogue there’s a rope laid up. Never mind, let us go below.”

  Mr Vanslyperken’s dreaming thoughts of the fair widow were nevertheless occasionally interrupted by others not quite so agreeable. Strange to say, he fully believed what Smallbones had asserted about his being carried out by the tide to the Nab buoy, and he canvassed the question in his mind, whether there was not something supernatural in the affair, a sort of interposition of Providence in behalf of the lad, which was to be considered as a warning to himself not to attempt anything further. He was frightened, although his feeling for revenge was still in all its force. As for any one suspecting him of having attempted the boy’s life, he had recovered from that feeling; even if they did, who dare say a word? There was another point which also engrossed the moody Vanslyperken, which was how he should behave relative to the widow Vandersloosh. Should he call or should he not? He cared nothing for her, and provided he could succeed with the Portsmouth lady, he would pitch her to the devil; but still he remembered the old proverb, “You should never throw away dirty water before you are sure of clean.” After some cogitation he determined upon still pressing his suit, and hoped at the same time that the widow would not admit him into her presence. Such were the different resolves and decisions which occupied the mind of Mr Vanslyperken until he dropped his anchor at Amsterdam, when he ordered his boat to go on shore, and gave positive directions to Dick Short that no one was to leave the cutter on any pretence, for he was determined that as the widow would not have his company, she should not have the profits arising from his men spending their money at her house.

  “So,” cried Coble, after the boat shoved off, “liberty’s stopped as well as singing. What next, I wonder? I sha’n’t stand this long.”

  “No,” replied Short.

  “Stop till he makes friends with the widow,” observed Bill Spurey; “she’ll get us all leave.”

  “Mein Gott, he nebber say anyting before,” observed Jansen.

  “No; we might almost go and come as we wished. We must not stand this.”

  “We won’t,” replied Jemmy Ducks.

  “No,” replied Short.

  While the crew of the cutter were in this incipient state of mutiny, Vanslyperken bent his steps to deliver up to the authorities the despatches with which he was charged; and having so done, he then took out the letter entrusted to him by Nancy Corbett, and read the address. It was the same street in which lived the Frau Vandersloosh. This was awkward, as Vanslyperken did not want to be seen by her; but there was no help for it. He trusted to her not seeing him, and he proceeded thither: he ran down the numbers on the doors until he came to the right one, which was exactly opposite to the widow’s house: — this was more unfortunate. He rang the bell; it was some time before the door was opened, and while he was standing there he could not help looking round to see if any one saw him. To his annoyance there stood the widow filling up her door with her broad frame, and Babette peeping over her shoulder. Mr Vanslyperken, as there was only the canal and two narrow roads between them, could do no less than salute her, but she took no notice of him further than by continuing her stare. At last, upon a second pulling of the bell, the door opened, and on Mr Vanslyperken saying that he had a letter for such an address, he was admitted, and the door immediately closed. He was ushered into a room, the window-panes of which were painted green, so that no one outside could look in, and found himself in the presence of a tall man, in a clerical dress, who motioned to him to sit down.

  Vanslyperken delivered the letter, and then took a seat. The gentleman made a graceful bow, as if to ask permission to break the seal, and then opened the letter.

  “Sir, I am obliged to you for charging yourself with these packets — infinitely obliged to you. You are in command of a sloop here, I believe.”

  “A king’s cutter, sir,” replied Vanslyperken, with importance; “I am Lieutenant Vanslyperken.”

  “I thank you, sir. I will take down your name. You expect, I presume, to be rewarded for this small service,” continued the gentleman, with a bland smile.

  “Why, she must have told him,” thought Vanslyperken; who replied, with another smile, “that he certainly trusted that he should be.”

  Upon which reply, the other went to an escritoire, and taking out a bag, opened it and poured out a mass of gold, which made Vanslyperken’s mouth water, but why he did so Vanslyperken did not give a thought, until, having counted out fifty pieces, the gentleman very gracefully put them into his hand, observing,— “A lieutenant’s pay is not great, and we can afford to be generous. Will you oblige me by calling here before you sail for England, and I will beg you to take charge of a letter.”

  Vanslyperken was all amazement: he began to suspect what was the fact, but he had the gold in his hand, and for the life of him he could not have laid it down again on the table. It was too great a sacrifice, for it was his idol — his god. He therefore dropped it into his pocket, and promising to call before he sailed, bowed and took his leave. As he went out, there were the Frau Vandersloosh and Babette still watching him at the door, but Vanslyperken was in a state of agitation, and he hurried off as fast as he could. Had he known why they watched so earnestly, and what had occurred, his agitation would have been greater still. As soon as Mr Vanslyperken had arrived on board, he hastened down into his cabin, and throwing the money down on the table, feasted his eyes with it, and remained for nearly half an hour in a state of deep cogitation, during which he often asked himself the question, whether he had not been a traitor to the king and country in whose pay he was employed. The answer that he gave to himself was anything but satisfactory: but the prospect of possessing the fair Portsmouth widow, and the gold displayed upon the table, were very satisfactory, and the balance was on the latter side; so Vanslyperken gradually recovered himself and had risen from his chair to collect the gold and deposit it in a place of safety, when he was interrupted by a tap at the door. Hastily sweeping off the gold pieces, he cried, “Come in;” when who, to his surprise, should appear, in excellent condition and fresh as a peony, but the lost and almost forgotten Corporal Van Spitter, who, raising his hand to his forehead as usual, reported himself man-of-war fashion, “Vas come on board, Mynheer Vanslyperken.” But as the corporal did not tell all the facts connected with his cruise in the jolly-boat to Mr Vanslyperken, for reasons which will hereafter appear, we shall reserve the narrative of what really did take place for another chapter.

  Chapter Twenty One.

  In which are narrated the Adventures which took place in the Corporal’s Cruise in the Jolly-Boat.

  Corporal Van Spitter, so soon as he had expended all his breath in shouting for help, sat down with such a flop of despair on the thwart of the boat, as very nearly to swamp it. As it was, the water poured over the starboard gunwale, until the boat was filled up to his ankles. This alarmed him still more, and he remained mute as a stock-fish for a quarter of an hour, during which he was swept away by the tide until he was unable to discover the lights on shore. The wind freshened, and the water became more rough; the night was dark as pitch, and the corporal skimmed along before the wind and tide. “A tousand tyfels!” at last muttered the corporal, as the searching blast crept round his fat sides, and made him shiver. Gust succeeded gust, and, at last, the corporal’s teeth chattered with the cold: he raised his feet out of the water at the bottom of the boat, for his feet were like ice, but in so doing, the weight of his body being above the centre of gravity, the boat careened over, and with a “Mein Gott!” he hastily replaced them in the cold water. And now a shower of rain and sleet came down upon the unprotected body of the corporal, which added to his misery, to his fear, and to his despair.

  “Where am I?” muttered he: “what will become of me? Ah, mein Gott! twenty tousand tyfels — what had I to do in a boat — I, Corporal Van Spitter?” and then he was again silent for nearly half an hour. The wind shifted to the northward, and the rain cleared up, but it was only to make the corporal suffer more, for the freezing blast poured upon his wet clothes, and he felt chilled to the very centre of his vitals. His whole body trembled convulsively; he was frozen to the thwart, yet there was no appearance of daylight coming; and the corporal now abandoned himself to utter hopelessness and desperation, and commenced praying. He attempted the Lord’s Prayer in Dutch, but could get no further than “art in heaven,” for the rest, from disuse, had quite escaped the corporal’s memory. He tried to recollect something else, but was equally unsuccessful; at last, he made up a sad mixture of swearing and praying.

  “Mein Gott — a hundred tousand tyfels — gut Gott — twenty hundred tousand tyfels! Ah, Gott of mercy — million of tyfels! holy Gott Jesus! — twenty millions of tyfels — Gott for dam, I die of cold!” Such were the ejaculations of the corporal, allowing about ten minutes to intervene between each, during which the wind blew more freshly, the waves rose, and the boat was whirled away.

  But the corporal’s miseries were to be prolonged; the flood-time of water was now spent, and the ebb commenced flowing against the wind and sea. This created what is called boiling water, that is, a contest between the wind forcing the waves one way, and the tide checking them the other, which makes the waves to lose their run, and they rise, and dance, and bubble into points. The consequence was, that the boat, as she was borne down by the tide against them, shipped a sea every moment, which the wind threw against the carcase of the corporal, who was now quite exhausted with more than four hours’ exposure to a wintry night, the temperature being nearly down to zero. All the corporal’s stoicism was gone: he talked wildly, crouched and gibbered in his fear, when he was suddenly roused by a heavy shock. He raised his head, which had sunk upon his chest, and beheld something close to him, and to the gunwale of the boat. It was a thin, tall figure, holding out his two arms at right angles, and apparently stooping over him. It was just in the position that Smallbones lay on the forecastle of the cutter on that day morning, when he was about to keel-haul him, and the corporal, in his state of mental and bodily depression, was certain that it was the ghost of the poor lad whom he had so often tortured. Terror raised his air erect — his mouth was wide open — he could not speak — he tried to analyse it, but a wave dashed in his face — his eyes and mouth were filled with salt water, and the corporal threw himself down on the thwarts of the boat, quite regardless whether it went to the bottom or not: there he lay, half groaning, half praying, with his hands to his eyes, and his huge nether proportion raised in the air, every limb trembling with blended cold and fright. One hour more, and there would have been nothing but corporal parts of Corporal Spitter.

  The reason why the last movement of the corporal did not swamp the boat was, simply, that it was aground on one of the flats; and the figure which had alarmed the conscience-stricken corporal was nothing more than the outside beacon of a weir for catching fish, being a thin post with a cross bar to it, certainly not unlike Smallbones in figure, supposing him to have put his arms in that position.

  For upwards of an hour did the corporal lie reversed, when the day dawned, and the boat had been left high and dry upon the flat. The fishermen came down to examine their weir, and see what was their success, when they discovered the boat with its contents. At first they could not imagine what it was, for they could perceive nothing but the capacious round of the corporal, which rose up in the air, but, by degrees, they made out that there was a head and feet attached to it, and they contrived, with the united efforts of four men, to raise him up, and discovered that life was not yet extinct. They poured a little schnappes into his mouth, and he recovered so far as to open his eyes; and they having brought down with them two little carts drawn by dogs, they put the corporal into one, covered him up, and yoking all the dogs to the one cart, for the usual train could not move so heavy a weight, two of them escorted him up to their huts, while the others threw the fish caught into the cart which remained, and took possession of the boat. The fishermen’s wives, perceiving the cart so heavily laden, imagined, as it approached the huts, that there had been unusual success, and were not a little disappointed when they found that, instead of several bushels of fine fish, they had only caught a corporal of marines; but they were kind-hearted, for they had known misery; and Van Spitter was put into a bed, and covered up with all the blankets they could collect, and very soon was able to drink some warm soup offered to him. It was not, however, till long past noon that the corporal was able to narrate what had taken place.

  “Will your lieutenant pay us for saving you and bringing him his boat?” demanded the men.

  Now, it must be observed, that a great revolution had taken place in the corporal’s feelings since the horror and sufferings of the night. He felt hatred towards Vanslyperken, and goodwill towards those whom he had treated unkindly. The supernatural appearance of Smallbones, in which he still believed, and which appeared to him as a warning — what he had suffered from cold and exhaustion, which by him was considered as a punishment for his treatment of the poor lad but the morning before — had changed the heart of Corporal Van Spitter; so he replied in Dutch —

  “He will give you nothing, good people, not even a glass of schnappes, I tell you candidly — so keep the boat if you wish — I will not say a word about it, except that it is lost, he is not likely to see it again. Besides, you can alter it, and paint it.”

  This very generous present of his Majesty’s property by the corporal was very agreeable to the fishermen, as it amply repaid them for all their trouble. The corporal put on his clothes, and ate a hearty meal, was freely supplied with spirits, and went to bed quite recovered. The next morning, the fishermen took him down to Amsterdam in their own boat, when Van Spitter discovered that the Yungfrau had sailed: this was very puzzling, and Corporal Van Spitter did not know what to do. After some cogitation, it occurred to him that, for Vanslyperken’s sake, he might be well received at the Lust Haus by Widow Vandersloosh, little imagining how much at a discount was his lieutenant in that quarter.

  To the Frau Vandersloosh accordingly he repaired, and the first person he met was Babette, who, finding that the corporal was a Dutchman, and belonging to the Yungfrau, and who presumed that he had always felt the same ill-will towards Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow as did the rest of the ship’s company, immediately entered into a narrative of the conduct of Snarleyyow on the preceding night, the anger of her mistress, and every other circumstance with which the reader is already acquainted. Corporal Van Spitter thus fortunately found out how matters stood previous to his introduction to the widow. He expatiated upon his sufferings, upon the indifference of his lieutenant, in sailing, as to what had become of him, and fully persuaded Babette not only that he was inimical; which now certainly he was, but that he always had been so, to Mr Vanslyperken. Babette, who was always ready to retail news, went up to the widow, and amused her, as she dressed her, with the corporal’s adventures; and the widow felt an interest in, before she had seen, Corporal Van Spitter, from the account of his “moving accidents by flood and field.”