NIGHTS AT SEA;

Or, Sketches of Naval Life during the War.
BY THE OLD SAILOR.

No. II

THE WHITE SQUALL.

I was born in a cloud of sulphureous hue-
Darkness my mother, and Flame my sire;,
The earth shook in terror, as forth to its view

I sprang from my throne like a monarch of fire!
My brother, bold Thunder, hurraed as, I sped!

My subjects laugh'd wild, till the rain from their eyes
Roll'd fast, as though torrents were dash'd overhead,

Or an ocean had burst through the bounds of the skies!
CHARLES SWAIN.

My last, left the gallant Spankaway with her three topmasts over the side; and a very natural question arises, "How did it happen?" Her commander was as smart an officer as ever lived; an excellent disciplinarian when on duty, a thoroughly brave man, but not much of a seaman ;-he was of a happy turn of mind himself, and nothing afforded him greater pleasure than to see everybody else, happy around him. On service no one could be more strict; but he loved to see his officers surrounding his mahogany; and not one amongst them was more jovial than Lord Eustace Dash.:

On the evening in question, Old Parallel had glanced at the glowing clouds in the west; but the invitation to the captain's cabin had driven the circumstance from his remembrance, and, whilst clinging to port, he thought but little of a storm at sea. Mr. Sinnitt was the lieutenant of the watch; but on such occasions, when there was no apprehension of danger, the mate was allowed to assume the command of the deck, and his superior joined his messmates over the flowing bowl.

The evening was delightfully serene, and groups of seamen clustered together, spinning yarns, conversing on things in general, or singing songs in a low tone, so as not to disturb the sacred character of the quarter-deck; where, however, the young gentleman left in charge was drawing round him a little knot of favourite youngsters, eager to take advantage of the relaxation of discipline. Some were attentively listening to the hilarity going on in the captain's cabin,for the heat had rendered it necessary to open the skylights; others were paying equal attention to the vocal talents of honest Jack, who, if he did not possess quite so much grace or talent as his superiors, made ample atonement for the deficiency by his peculiar and characteristic humour. Here and there, the treasured grog was served out with scrupulous exactness, exciting many a longing and enviAs in communities on shore, every ship had its choice spirits, its particular and especial jokers, songsters, and tale-tellersand, not unfrequently, that pest to society, the plausible pettifogger, whose head, like that of a Philadelphy lawyer, was constantly filled with proclamations.

ous eye.

NIGHTS AT SEA.

The moon shone with a crystalline clearness, and the gentle motion of the frigate threw the shadows of the people in corresponding movements on the deck, resembling the ombres Chinois that delighted us so much in boyhood. The look-outs were posted at their appointed stations; some with a shipmate to bear them company-others alone, and thinking upon merry England.

"I

"I say, Bill!" uttered the captain of the forecastle, addressing one of the men, as he was looking to windward from the cat-head-or, as it was more generally termed, Old Savage's picture-gallery,' say, Bill! somehow or another I don't much like the looks o' the sky thereaway; to my thinking it 's some'at fiery-eyed."

"Gammon !" returned the man without moving from his position. "I'd ha' thought you would have known better, Jem! Well, I'm blowed if we mayn't live and larn as long as there's a flurry o' breath in the windsel! Why, that's ounly the pride o' the sun, to show his glory to the last; would you have him go out like a purser's dip,—a spark and away?"

No, Bill, I loves to see a good sunset," rejoined the other; " and I never see'd finer than what I've see'd in these here seas. It's some'at strange to my thinking, though, messmate, that God A'mighty have put should have made this part o' the world so beautiful, and such d-lousy, beggarly rascals to live in it! Look at them there Italians, with no more pluck about 'em than this here cat-head!”

yet

"Nay, shipmates," said the serjeant of marines, who had just joined them, "you do yourselves injustice. I hope there is some pluck about the cat-head, though there may be none in it. But you say rightperfectly right, as it regards those lazy-roany; they are a d- set, to be sure! But, their women, Jem-their women! Oh! they're dear, delicious, lovely creaturs!"

Mayhap they may be to your thinking," responded the 'captain of the forecastle rather contemptuously: "but give me a good, hearty, right-arnest, full-plump, flesh-and-blood Englishwoman; and none o' your skinny, half-starved, sliding-gunter-legged, spindle-shank sinoreas for me!"

"You manifest a shocking want of taste, shipmate," returned the serjeant, proudly, and bringing himself to a perpendicular. "The Italian women are considered the most lovely women in the world." "Tell that to the marines, ould chap!" chimed in a boatswain's mate, "The most lovely women in who now made a fourth in the party. the world, eh? Why, Lord love your foolish heart! I wouldn't give my Mrs. Sheavehole for all that Italy could stow, take it from stem to starn."

your

children," argued "She's your wife, Jack, and the mother of the serjeant; "but that cannot make her a bit the more of a beauty." "Can't it, though!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate, sharply, and at the same time giving the mountain of tobacco in his cheek a "If it don't, then I'm d-! and, setting a case, thorough twist. it's just this here: when we first came within hail of each other, she was as handsome a craft as ever had God A'mighty for a builder; every timber in her hull was fashioned in Natur's own mould-loft, and she was so pinned and bolted together that each plank did its own proper duty."

"But she's declining in years, you know, Jack," urged the serjeant,

provokingly; "and though she might have been once handsome, yet age is a sad defacer of beauty."

"And suppose it is a facer of beauty, it can't change the fashion of the heart!" uttered the boatswain's mate. "But, that 's just like you jollies!—all for paint and pipe-clay. Now, Suke's as handsome to me as ever she was; and when I sees her like an ould hen clucking over the young uns, I'm blessed if I don't love her more than when she saved me from having my back scratched by the tails o' the cat! I know, when a craft is obliged to be unrigged and laid up in ordinary, she don't look not by no manner o' means so well as when she was all a-taunto, and painted as fine as a fiddle: but still, shipmates, she's the same craft; and as for beauty, why, setting a case, it 's just this here there's ould beauty, as well as young beauty; and it a'nt so much in the figure-head, or the plank-shear, as having done your duty once, and ready to do it again."

"All that may be very true, Jack," persevered the serjeant; "but then, you must allow there is as great a difference in the appearance of some women when compared to others, as there is in the build or rig of a vessel.”

"Hearken to that, now!" responded the boatswain's mate. "Do you think Jack Sheavehole wants to be told that a billy-boy arn't a ninety-eight, or a Dutch schuyt a dashing frigate? But, look at this here craft that now rolls us so sweetly over the ocean: arn't she as lovely now as when she first buttered her bottom on the slips, and made a bed for herself in the water? and won't she be the same beauty when she's put out of commission, and mayhap be moored in Rotten-row? Well, she's stood under us in many a heavy gale, and never yet showed her starn to an enemy,-that's why I love her; not for what she may do, but for what she has done."

"But, I say, Jack! it's just the time for a yarn," said the captain of the forecastle. "Tell us how Suke saved you from the gangway." "I wull, messmate-I wull," returned the other; "and then this lubberly jolly shall see if I arn't got a good right to call her a beauty. I belonged to the Tapsickoree, two-and-thirty; and, though I says it myself, there warn't many more sich tight-looking, clean-going lads as ould Jack Sheavehole- though I warn't ould Jack then, but a reg'lar smart, active, young blowhard of a maintopman. Well, we'd just come home from foreign, and got three years' pay and a power o' prize-money; and so most o' the boys goes ashore on liberty, and carries on till all's blue. This was at Plymouth, shipmates; but, as we wur expecting to go round to Spithead, I saves my cash-'cause why? I'd an ould father and mother, from whom I'd parted company when a boy, and I thought, if I could get long leave-thinks I, mayhap I can heave alongside of 'em, with a cargo o' shiners, and it'll cheer the cockles o' their ould hearts to see their son Jack togg'd off like a jolly tar, and captain of a frigate's maintop; and, setting a case, why it's just this here: I didn't want anything on 'em, but meant to give 'em better ground-tackle to hould on to life by."

"That was very kind of you, shipmate," said the serjeant.

"Well," continued the boatswain's mate, without heeding the serjeant's observation, "I has a bit of a spree ashore at Dock, in course; but soon arter we goes round to Portsmouth. I axes for long leave; and, as I'd al'ays done my duty to Muster Gilmour's-he was first