Chapter 20 - Page 2

looks he cast, from time to time, on Mrs Wyllys and her fail
and deeply interested pupil, betrayed the workings of the temper of the
inward man. It was only in these brief but comprehensive glances that the
feelings by which he was governed might have been, in any manner, traced
to their origin. Still would the nicest observer have been puzzled, if not
baffled, in endeavouring to pronounce on the entire character of the
emotions uppermost in his mind. At instants, it might have been fancied
that some unholy and licentious passion was getting the ascendancy; and
then, as his eye ran rapidly over the chaste and matronly, though still
attractive, countenance of the governess, no imagination was necessary to
read the look of doubt, as well as respect, with which he gazed.

It was while thus occupied that the sports proceeded sometimes humorous,
and forcing smiles even from the lips of the half-terrified Gertrude, but
always tending to that violence, and outbreaking of anger, which might, at
any moment, set at naught the discipline of a vessel in which no other
means to enforce authority existed, than such as its officers could, on
the instant, command. Water had been so lavishly expended, that the decks
were running with the fluid, even more than one flight of spray having
invaded the privileged precincts of the poop. Every ordinary device of
similar scenes had been resorted to, by the men aloft, to annoy their less
advantageously posted shipmates beneath; and such means of retaliation had
been adopted as use or facility rendered obvious. Here, a hog and a
waister were seen swinging against each other, pendant beneath a top;
there, a marine, lashed in the rigging, was obliged to suffer the
manipulation of a pet monkey, which drilled to the duty, and armed with a
comb, was posted on his shoulder, with an air as grave, and an eye as
observant, as though he had been regularly educated in the art of the
perruquier; and, every where, some coarse and practical joke proclaimed
the licentious liberty which had been momentarily accorded to a set of
beings who were, in common, kept in that restraint which comfort, no less
than safety, requires for the well-ordering of an armed ship.

In the midst of the noise and turbulence, a voice was heard, apparently
issuing from the ocean, hailing the vessel by name, with the aid of a
speaking-trumpet that had been applied to the outer circumference of a
hawse hole.

"Who speaks the 'Dolphin?'" demanded Wilder in reply, when he perceived
that the summons had fallen on the dull ears of his Commander, without
recalling him to the recollection of what was in action.

"Father Neptune is under your fore-foot."

"What wills' the God?"