hipman ordered to take charge of it; but when
he came up, the first lieutenant recollecting that he had come off two
days before with only half his boat's crew, would not trust him, and
calling out to me, "Here, Mr Simple, I must send you in this boat; mind
you are careful that none of the men leave it; and bring off the
serjeant of marines, who is on shore looking for the men who have broken
their liberty." Although I could not but feel proud of the compliment,
yet I did not much like going in my very best uniform, and would have
run down and changed it, but the marine officer and all the people were
in the boat, and I could not keep it waiting, so down the side I went,
and we shoved off. We had, besides the boat's crew, the marine officer,
the purser, the gun-room steward, the captain's steward, and the pursers
steward; so that we were pretty full. It blew hard from the S.E., and
there was a sea running, but as the tide was flowing into the harbour
there was not much bubble. We hoisted the foresail, flew before the
wind and tide, and in quarter of an hour we were at Mutton Cove, when
the marine officer expressed his wish to land. The landing-place was
crowded with boats; and it was not without sundry exchanges of foul
words and oaths, and the bow-men dashing the points of their boat-hooks
into the shore-boats, to make them keep clear of us, that we forced our
way to the beach. The marine officer and all the stewards then left the
boat, and I had to look after the men. I had not been there three
minutes before the bowman said that his wife was on the wharf with his
clothes from the wash, and begged leave to go and fetch them. I
refused, telling him that she could bring them to him. "Vy, now, Mr
Simple," said the woman, "ar'n't you a nice lady's man, to go for to ax
me to muddle my way through all the dead dogs, cabbage-stalks, and
stinking hakes' heads, with my bran new shoes and clean stockings?" I
looked at her, and sure enough she was, as they say in France, _bien
chaussee_. "Come, Mr Simple, let him out to come for his clothes, and
you'll see that he's back in a moment." I did not like to refuse her,
as it was very dirty and wet, and the shingle was strewed with all that
she had mentioned. The bow-man made a spring out with his boat-hook,
threw it back, went up to his wife, and commenced talking with her,
while I watched him. "If you please, sir, there's my young woman come
down, mayn't I speak to her?"