"Now, this moment: and I'll trouble you to come along with me.""Certainly, sir."They got a boat and went out to the ship: on coming alongside, Dodd thought to meet his wishes by going first and receiving him. But the jealous, cross-grained fellow, shoved roughly before him and led the way up the ship's side. Sharpe and the rest saluted him: he did not return the salute, but said hoarsely, "Turn the hands up to muster."When they were all aft, he noticed one or two with their caps on. "Hats off and be ---- to you!" cried he. "Do you know where you are? Do you know who you are looking at? If not, I'll show you. I'm here to restore discipline to this ship: so mind how you run athwart my hawse: don't you play with the bull, my men; or you'll find his horns ---- sharp. Pipe down! Now, you, sir, bring me the log-book."He ran his eye over it, and closed it contemptuously: "Pirates, and hurricanes! _I_ never fell in with pirates nor hurricanes: I have heard of a breeze, and a gale, but I never knew a seaman worth his salt say 'hurricane.' Get another log-book, Mr. Sharpe; put down that it begins this day at noon; and enter that Captain Robarts came on deck, found the ship in a miserable condition, took the command, mustered the officers and men, and stopped the ship's company's grog for a week for receiving him with hats on."Even Sharpe, that walking Obedience, was taken aback. "Stop--the ship's company's--grog--for a week, sir?""Yes, sir, for a week; and if you fling my orders back in my face instead of clapping on sail to execute them, I'll have you towed ashore on a grating. Your name is Sharpe; well my name is Dammedsharpe, and so you'll find."In short, the new captain came down on the ship like a blight.
He was especially hard on Dodd: nothing that commander had done was right, nor, had he done the contrary, would that have been right: he was disgracefully behind time; and he ought to have put in to the Isle of France, which would have retarded him: his rope bulwarks were lubberly:
his rudder a disgrace to navigation: he, Robarts, was not so green as to believe that any master had really sailed sixteen hundred miles with it, and if he had, more shame for him. Briefly, a marine criticaster.
All this was spoken _at_ Dodd--a thing no male does unless he is an awful snob--and grieved him, it was so unjust. He withdrew wounded to the little cabin he was entitled to as a passenger, and hugged his treasure for comfort. He patted the pocket-book, and said to it, "Never _you_mind! The greater Tartar he is, the less likely to sink you or run you on a lee shore."With all his love of discipline, Robarts was not so fond of the ship as Dodd.
While his repairs were going on he was generally ashore, and by this means missed a visit. Commodore Collier, one of the smartest sailors afloat, espied the Yankee makeshift from the quarter-deck of his vessel, the _Salamanca,_ fifty guns. In ten minutes he was under the _Agra's_stern inspecting it; then came on board, and was received in form by Sharpe and the other officers. "Are you the master of this ship, sir?" he asked.
"No, commodore. I am the first mate: the captain is ashore.""I am sorry for it. I want to talk about his rudder.""Oh, _he_ had nothing to do with that," replied Sharpe, eagerly: "that was our dear old captain: he is on board. Young gentleman! ask Captain Dodd to oblige me by coming on deck! Hy! and Mr. Fullalove too.""Young gentleman?" inquired Collier. "What the devil officer is that?""That is a name we give the middies; I don't know why.""Nor I neither; ha! ha!"Dodd and Fullalove came on deck, and Commodore Collier bestowed the highest compliments on the "makeshift." Dodd begged him to transfer them to the real inventor, and introduced Fullalove.
"Ay," said Collier, "I know you Yankees are very handy. I lost my rudder at sea once, and had to ship a makeshift; but it was a cursed complicated thing, not a patch upon yours, Mr. Fullalove. Yours is ingenious and _simple._ Ship has been in action, I see: pray how was that, if I may be so bold?""Pirates, commodore," said Sharpe. "We fell in with a brace of Portuguese devils, lateen-rigged, and carrying ten guns apiece, in the Straits of Gaspar: fought 'em from noon till sundown, riddled one, and ran down the other, and sunk her in a moment. That was all your doing, Captain: so don't try to shift it on other people; for we won't stand it.""If he denies it, I won't believe him," said Collier, "for he has got it in his eye. Gentlemen, will you do me the honour to dine with me to-day on board the flag-ship?"Dodd and Fullalove accepted. Sharpe declined, with regret, on the score of duty. And as the cocked hat went down the side, after saluting him politely, he could not help thinking to himself what a difference between a real captain, who had something to be proud of, and his own unlicked cub of a skipper with the manners of a pilot-boat. He told Robarts the next day: Robarts said nothing, but his face seemed to turn greenish, and it embittered his hatred of Dodd the inoffensive.
It is droll, and sad, but true, that Christendom is full of men in a hurry to hate. And a fruitful cause is jealousy. The schoolmen, or rather certain of the schoolmen--for nothing is much shallower than to speak of all those disputants as one school--defined woman, "a featherless biped vehemently addicted to jealousy." Whether she is more featherless than the male can be decided at a trifling expense of time, money, and reason:
