in a short time be hand and
glove, he has a power of money, and spends it like a prince--that is, in
his own way--for to be sure he is a little humorsome, as the saying is,
and swears woundily; though I'll be sworn he means no more harm than a
sucking babe. Lord help us! it will do your honour's heart good to hear
him tell a story, as how he lay alongside of the French, yard-arm and
yard-arm, board and board, and of heaving grapplings, and stink-pots,
and grapes, and round and double-headed partridges, crows and carters.
Lord have mercy upon us! he has been a great warrior in his time, and
lost an eye and a heel in the service. Then he does not live like any
other Christian land-man; but keeps garrison in his house, as if he
were in the midst of his enemies, and makes his servants turn out in
the night, watch and watch as he calls it, all the year round. His
habitation is defended by a ditch, over which he has laid a draw-bridge,
and planted his court-yard with patereroes continually loaded with shot,
under the direction of one Mr. Hatchway, who had one of his legs shot
away while he acted as lieutenant on board the commodore's ship; and
now, being on half-pay, lives with him as his companion. The lieutenant
is a very brave man, a great joker, and, as the saying is, hath got the
length of his commander's foot--though he has another favourite in the
house called Tom Pipes, that was his boatswain's mate, and now keeps the
servants in order. Tom is a man of few words, but an excellent hand at
a song concerning the boatswain's whistle, hustle-cap, and
chuck-farthing--there is not such another pipe in the county--so that
the commodore lives very happy in his own manner; though he be sometimes
thrown into perilous passions and quandaries, by the application of his
poor kinsmen, whom he can't abide, because as how some of them were the
first occasion of his going to sea. Then he sweats with agony at the
sight of an attorney, just, for all the world, as some people have an
antipathy to a cat: for it seems he was once at law, for striking one of
his officers, and cast in a swinging sum. He is, moreover, exceedingly
afflicted with goblins that disturb his rest, and keep such a racket in
his house, that you would think (God bless us!) all the devils in hell
had broke loose upon him. It was no longer ago than last year about
this time, that he was tormented the livelong night by the mischievous
spirits that got into his chamber, and