Volume I Part 5 (1/2)
He found the old tiger on the quarterdeck, and in one of his blander humours. Captain le Harnois was sitting on a coil of rope, his back reclining against a carronade, with a keg of brandy on the dexter hand and a keg of whisky on the sinister. An air of grim good humour was spread over his features; he had just awaked from slumber; was for a few minutes sober; and had possibly forgotten the heterodoxy of his pa.s.senger; whom he saluted thus:
”Well, sweet Sir, and how goes the world with you?”
”Captain le Harnois, I understand that I can have a pa.s.sage in the boat alongside; and I am really anxious to go ash.o.r.e.”
”Well, Tom, and what's to hinder it? The sh.o.r.e's big enough to hold you: and, if it isn't, I can't make it bigger.”
”Then, Captain, I have the honour to wish you a very good evening.”
”The same to you, Tom; and I have the honour, Tom, to drink your wors.h.i.+p's health.”
”I thank you, Sir; and perhaps you will allow me to leave a trifle to drink for the boat's crew that brought me aboard.”
”Do, Tom, leave a trifle: I'll allow you to put fifty francs down on this whisky keg.”
”Fifty francs, Captain le Harnois! Permit me to remind you that I only came aboard this morning, and that----”
”Jessamy, it's no use talking: fifty francs: we give no change here.
And what the d---l? Would you think to treat the crew of the _Fleurs de lys_, four and forty picked men, with less than sixty franks?”
”Sixty! Captain, you said fifty.”
”Did I? Well, but that was the first time of asking. Come, quick,--my young gallant,--or I shall hoist it up to seventy. I say, boatswain, tell the smith to send me a hammer and a few tenpenny nails: I've a customer here that's wanting to cheat me; and I see I must nail him to the mast, before we shall balance books. But stop a minute: I'll tell you what, Jessamy,--if you'll enter aboard the _Fleurs de lys_, I'll let you off for the money.”
”I fear, Captain, that your work would be too much for my const.i.tution: I am hardly strong enough to undertake such severe duty.”
”Not strong enough? Oh! the dragon! my darling, what should ail you?
I'll make you strong enough by to-morrow morning. Just hang him up an hour to the mast head, salt him, take him down, pickle him, hoist him up in the main tops to season, then give him some flap-dragon and biscuit, and I'll be bound there's not a lubber that lives but will be cured into a prime salt-water article. But come, sixty francs!”
Bertram hesitated for a moment: during which Captain le Harnois rose; turned on his heel; placed himself astride the carronade with a large goblet of brandy in his right hand; and with the air of an old Cupid who was affecting to look amiable and to warble, but in reality more like a Boreas who was growling, he opened the vast chasm of his mouth and began to sing a sentimental love song.
Bertram perceived that, as the brandy lowered, Captain le Harnois'
demand would be likely to rise; and therefore paid the money without further demur.
”And now, my sweet boy,” said Captain le Harnois, ”what do you think of the _Fleurs de lys_? Tight sea-boat! isn't she, and a little better managed than the Halcyon, eh?--Things go on in another _guess_ fas.h.i.+on here than they did on board your d---d steam boat? Different work on _my_ deck, eh?”
”Very different work, indeed, Captain le Harnois!”
”Aye, a d---d deal different, my boy. I know what it is I'm speaking to, when I speak to my lads: but I'm d---d if a man knows what he's speaking to, when he speaks to a boiler.”
During this speech Bertram was descending the s.h.i.+p's side: when he had seated himself in the boat, he looked up; and, seeing the Captain lounging over the taffarel, he said by way of parting speech--
”You are right, Captain le Harnois; perfectly right: and I shall always remember the very great difference I found between the Halcyon and the Fleurs de Lys.”
The old ruffian grinned, and appeared to comprehend and to enjoy the _equivoque_. He was in no hurry to clear scores with Bertram; but leisurely pursued the boat with a truculent leer; nailed Bertram with his eye; and, when the boat was just within proper range, he took his speaking-trumpet and hailed him:
”Tom Drum, ahoy!--Take care now, when you get ash.o.r.e, where you begin your old tricks--portmanteaus, old women, tumbling; mind you don't begin _hocus pocus_ too soon: steer large, and leave Walladmor Castle on the larboard tack: for there's an old dragon in Walladmor that has one of his eyes on you by this time. He's on the look-out for you. So farewell: he's angling for you. Good bye, my lily-white Tom! A handier lad has been caught than you, Tom. So let the old women pa.s.s quietly, till Walladmor's out of hearing. I can't cry, Tom: but here's my blessing.”
So saying Captain le Harnois drank up his goblet of brandy; and, tossing his heel-taps contemptuously after the boat, rolled away to his orgies at the carronade. And in this manner terminated Bertram's connexion with the _Trois Fleurs de lys_.
It was not very agreeable to Bertram that the gallant Captain's farewell speech had drawn the attention of all in the boat upon himself, and in no very advantageous way. Most of the party laughed pretty freely: at the bottom of the boat lay a man m.u.f.fled up in a cloak, and apparently asleep: but it appeared to Bertram that he also was laughing. To relieve himself from this distressing attention, he took out his pocket-book and busied himself with his pencil; using it alternately for minuting memoranda of the scene before him, or sketching some of its more striking features.