SCOURING THE CHANNEL.

“How is the night overhead?” asked Westbrook, as I came down into the mess-room, and, pushing the jug toward me, he added, “you see, we’re going to make a night of it; take a pull at the Jamaica—it’s rare stuff.”

“Misty, with a light breeze; we’ll make the land, if we keep on this course, before morning. We’ve harried the enemy’s shipping enough in the chops of the channel—I can’t see what the skipper means by running in so close to the English coast.”

“Faith! he’s after some harum-scarum prank—blowing a stray merchantman out of water in sight of land, or throwing a shot into Portsmouth by way of bravado to the fleet. Well, what need we care? A short life and a merry one—cut away at the junk, my good fellow; cut deeper—ay! that’s it, a slice like we lawyers take of our client’s money, the better half of the whole.”

“A lawyer!—what do you know of the profession?” said I.

“I was once a lawyer myself,” said he, as he transferred a huge slice of the beef into his mouth.

“A lawyer!—a land shark!—you a lawyer!” were the exclamations of astonishment which burst from every lip.

“Ay! am I the first jolly fellow who gave up a bad trade for a good one? I beg your pardon, Parker—I believe you come from a race of lawyers; but if so, it is no more than happened to myself. My friends made a land shark of me, but as nature intended me for something better, the experiment failed. My first case was enough for me, and I cut the profession, or, rather, it cut me. The court asked me to repeat an authority I had quoted, but I was so taken aback by something that had happened to me just before, and which I’ll tell you by and bye, that, for the life of me, I couldn’t call to mind a single point decided. I grew embarrassed, stammered, looked down, came to a dead halt; and at length, when I heard the spectators tittering around me, I grasped my hat, shot from the court-house, and have never entered one since without an anguish shiver. The judge said I was a fool; my client agreed with him; I never got a cent; everybody laughed at me; and so I kicked Coke and Plowden into the fire, cursed the law to my heart’s content, and took to the service in a fortnight, thinking it better to thrive on biscuit and salt junk, than to work for nothing and starve for my pains.”

“Shure, and a dacent gentleman”—said O’Shaughnessy—“would have been spoilt in making a black-gown of you, Westbrook. But it was a great mistake, that breaking down in your spache; you should have served them like my old chum, Terence McBalawhangle, thricked the tutors of Trinity.”

“How was that?” asked the mess, in a breath.

“Fath, pour us out a brimmer, and I’ll tell you the same. A nate, dacent lad, and a witty, was Terence; and many’s the time he’s made my sides ache for a week, by raison of laughing at his droll sayings, the sinner. And I thought I should have died when the tutor tould him to recite the task from the essay on the human understanding—a crusty, metaphysical work, bad cess to it. Divil a bit did Terence know of the same—he hadn’t a turn, he said, for the dry bones of Ezakiel—but he put a good face on the matter, and ran on, like a petrel over the waves, never halting even to breathe, until the tutor stopped him, and tould him there was nothing in the text-book like what he was saying. ‘Shure, and I know that,’ says Terence, without moving a muscle of his face, ‘but, you see, I didn’t agree with Mr. Locke, so I thought I’d just give ye my own sentiments.’ ”

“Your friend Terence,” said Westbrook, filling a bumper, after the roars of laughter which followed this anecdote had subsided, “ought to have had a New Jersey justice, instead of a fellow of Trinity, to mystify. He might have succeeded better.”

“Maybe they’re like old Sir Peter Beverly, of the county of Clare, one of the quorum, and never right but by mistake. Many’s the poor fellow he’s had transported becase the man was brought up before dinner, when the justice was out of humor. Shure and didn’t he send off Teague O’Daly, the brightest lad at a wake or a fair within thirty miles around, just for no other raison than becase Teague made love to his daughter’s maid?—and didn’t he refuse the testimony of Teague’s cousin, only ten removes off, becase he said the lad was suspected of staling a watch?—and when they all shwore at his injustice—the gouty porpoise—he said, with a big oath that made my hair stand on end—I was younger then ye know—‘Constable, stop that noise; here I’ve had to commit three fellows without being able to hear a word of their defence.’ ”

“Well, I can’t say I ever saw an Irish justice, O’Shaughnessy, at least not one like Sir Peter; but the justice court of New Jersey is almost a match for him.”

“How’s that?”

“Why, you see, each township has its justice, and when the county court is held, all the justices come up to the county town to preside at the trials. The court-house, however, at Skanamuctum—shove us up the jug—was always too small, and the bench especially wouldn’t hold a quarter of the judges, so that the man who got into court first secured the best seat. Sometimes, however, on a hot day, the old fellows couldn’t hold out, or else they saw a crony in the crowd whom they thought likely to treat, so that, one by one, they would drop off the bench; but as there were always a dozen or two awaiting to get on, the judges’ seats were never empty. As for knowing anything about the case—ah! this is prime!—they never pretended to it. Indeed, I’ve often seen not a single judge on the bench, when the verdict was rendered, who had been there when the trial began.”

“That beats you, O’Shaughnessy,” roared a reefer, almost suffocated with laughter, from the foot of the table.

“Bravo!” said I; “you made a good escape, Westbrook, when you gave up pleading before such Shallows—but you haven’t yet told us what happened to you to embarrass you so at your début.”

“Oh, no! I had forgot. I was just admitted, you must know, and all my friends advised me to make my maiden speech on one of the cases coming up at the next Oyer and Terminer. I looked around for some burglar, horse-thief, or other sort of rascal, for a client, but not a sinner of a one could I find willing to trust himself in my hands. I began to despair, thinking I should never have the chance to figure so again, for the celebrated Judge Traskey himself had come down special, to try a desperate case of murder, and the whole bar were itching to show off before him. He was said to be as sharp as a north-easter, and every other word was either an opinion, a growl, or a witticism. You may judge my joy, when, on walking down to the court-house, and looking very imposing in my own opinion, but scarcely daring to hope for such a God-send as a client, I heard the sheriff tell me that there was a poverty-struck sheep-stealer in the dock, who was in want of a lawyer, and would be glad to get a brisk hand for a trifle of a fee. Such a chance of making a speech wasn’t to be lost, and, thinking all the time what a sensation I should create, I asked to see the prisoner. As the sheriff couldn’t bring him out into the bar, I went into the dock. Well, I heard through the poor rascal’s story—and a long one it was—and I was just about to leave him, when I found that the sheriff had gone, in the mean time, to bring in the judge in procession, and, forgetting all about me, had left me locked in. Here was a scrape with a vengeance. To wait till the judge entered, and then sneak out of the dock, the laughing stock of the bar, was not to be thought of. What was to be done? The railing around the dock was high, and guarded by iron spikes, but over it was my only outlet, and springing up at once, I began to clamber out of the hole. At that very instant his honor entered the court-room, and the first thing that caught his eye was a man leaping the dock. ‘Sheriff, look to your prisoner,’ said he. ‘May it please your honor,’ said I, attempting to explain, and essaying to leap down, in which endeavor the spikes caught in the skirts of my coat, and I hung fast—‘may it please your honor—’ ‘It doesn’t please me, you rascal,’ said the judge, waxing angry, ‘to be bearded by a prisoner.’ ‘It’s all a mistake,’ said I, struggling to get loose, while the perspiration rolled off me, and I heard the suppressed tittering around. ‘So says every thief,’ retorted the judge, in a towering passion. ‘But I’m an attorney!’ I answered. ‘All the worse for you,’ roared his honor. ‘I’m counsel in the case!’ said I, ‘Then, if you defend yourself, you have a fool for a client,’ said the judge, beside himself with rage. At this point the mirth of the spectators could no longer be controlled, but burst forth in roars of laughter which effectually silenced my further explanations. At length the mistake was made clear to the bench, and I was suffered to be taken down. I tried to brave it out, by delivering my speech afterwards, but an unlucky mention of the word ‘mistake’ set the bar in a roar, and so completely confounded me that I talked nonsense at random, until I broke down as I told you, and, since then, I never think of a law-point without a cold sweat all over.”

“By the staff of St. Patrick! and you’re right,” said O’Shaughnessy. “Here’s confusion to lawyers, and a bumper for the girls!”

“The girls—hurrah!” sang the mess in one voice. “No heel-taps!” and it was drank enthusiastically.

“Ah! and Parker has a song on the sweet angels,” said Westbrook; “we’ll all join in the chorus.”

“The song—the song!” roared the mess.

Thus pressed, I had no escape, and taking a pull at the beaker to clear my throat, I sang the following stanzas:

THE GIRLS WE LOVE.

Air—Nancy Dawson.

Our country’s girls have azure eyes,

And tresses like the sunset skies,

And hearts to seek, nor need disguise—

As pure as heav’n above, sir;

With voices like a seraph’s light,

And forms that swim before the sight,

And waists to tempt an anchorite—

They are the girls to love, sir.

Though France may boast her dark brunette,

And Spain her eyes of flashing jet,

And Greece her tones you ne’er forget—

So like the song of dove, sir—

Columbia’s maids have tones as sweet,

And cheeks where snow and roses meet:

Such lips, and then, egad! such feet!

They are the girls to love, sir.

Oh! we are reefers bold and gay;

We brave the storm and court the fray,

Yet ne’er forget the girls away,

However far we rove, sir.

I sometimes fancy they’re decoys

To lure us on to fancied joys;

They’ll be our ruin yet, my boys!—

Here’s to the girls we love, sir.

The deafening chorus of the last three lines of this song, repeated by the whole mess in full voice, had scarcely died away, when the quarter-master knocked at the door, and told us that we had given chase to a strange sail, and that there would soon be hot work on deck. Before he had well finished the room was empty, and we had all sprung up the gangway.

As I stepped upon the deck, I cast my eyes naturally upwards, and, for a moment, was almost staggered at the press of sail we were carrying. My astonishment was, however, of short duration, for when I saw on our bow the distant lights of the English coast, glimmering like stars on the horizon, I knew at once that we must overtake the chase directly, or abandon her altogether. We were already in dangerous proximity to the enemy’s shores, and every minute lessened the distance betwixt them and the Fire-Fly. Yet the skipper maintained his course. The chase was a large brig, running in towards the land with every rag of her canvass strained to the utmost; while we were endeavoring to get to windward of her, and thus force her out to sea. It soon became evident that we were succeeding in our aim. Indeed I had rarely seen the little Fire-Fly do better. Before fifteen minutes, we were well in on the land side of the chase, and had every apparent chance of capturing her without the firing of a shot. Hitherto she had been doggedly silent. But finding now that we had beat her on the tack she had chosen, and seeing no chance of escape but in going off dead before the wind, and spreading the pyramid of light sails in which a brig has always the advantage of a schooner, she put her helm suddenly down, and, throwing out rag after rag, was soon seen speeding away through the twilight like a frightened bird upon the wing. At the same instant she began firing from her signal guns, to warn the coasters, if any there were, in her vicinity.

“By my faith,” said Westbrook, “she makes noise and flutter enough; one would think her a wounded gull, screaming as she flew. But her alarm guns won’t save her. See how our old growler will pick off her fancy yards—there goes one now!” and, as he spoke, a shot from our long gun cut away the maintopmast of the brig just by the cap. She fell behind at once. Another ball or two, sent with unerring aim, was attended with like success, and before twenty minutes we were ranging alongside of the chase, with our ports up, our lanterns lighted, the men at the guns, and everything, in short, prepared to pour in a broadside if the Englishman did not surrender. We saw her ensign come down as we drew alongside, but a jack was still left flying at the fore.

“Have you surrendered?” asked the skipper, leaping into the main-rigging, as we ranged up by the quarter of the foe.

There was a dogged silence of a minute, and the skipper was about waving his hand as a signal to open our fire, when a voice from the quarter-deck of the brig answered—

“We’ve hauled down our flag.”

We took possession of the chase, and found her indeed a prize. She was deeply laden with silks, but we were most pleased with a booty of specie to the amount of several hundred thousands of dollars. I never saw a more cowardly set of men than her crew. They had run below hatches, in spite of all the master could do, almost as soon as we opened our fire on them; and when we boarded her, there was no one on deck except her skipper, a surly, obstinate old Englishman, who was doggedly biting off a piece of pigtail as long as the tiller by which he stood. He told us that he had spoken, but the day before, several outward bound vessels, and that nothing was talked of along shore but the Yankee schooner that was scouring the channel, a craft that, it was whispered, was sailed on account of Davy Jones, and which it would be as impossible to escape from as from a pampero off Buenos Ayres. We could not but smile at this flattering picture of ourselves and craft. The old skipper told us, in conclusion, that no less than two men-of-war, besides the usual channel cruisers, had been despatched in pursuit of us, and he even hinted, coolly turning his quid, that he had little fear of a long imprisonment, for we would be sure to be caught before twenty-four hours should elapse.

As it would be impossible to carry off the prize, and as the conflict had doubtless been heard on shore, the skipper determined to end the adventure as boldly as he had begun it, and, accordingly, he ordered the brig to be set on fire, when we should have removed whatever of the cargo was most valuable and portable. It was accordingly done. When we filled away to leave the chase, the smoke could just be seen, curling in light wreaths up her hatchways, but she presented no other evidence of the ruin that was so soon to overtake her. Her forward sails had been left standing, and her helm lashed down, and she now lay to beautifully, drifting bodily off to leeward like a line-of-battle ship. The utter desertion of her decks, her slow, majestic movements as she rose and fell, the twilight into which she was gradually fading, and the glittering line of lights behind her, along the hostile coast, associated inseparably in our minds with ideas of danger to ourselves, contributed to form a scene as imposing as it was beautiful, and one that raised a feeling of interest in our bosoms, tinged in no slight degree with that awe which always accompanies a sensation of peril. While we gazed breathlessly, however, on the fast receding brig, dark clouds of smoke began to puff up her hatchways, and rolling heavily to leeward, settle on the face of the waters. Directly a forked tongue of flame shot up into the air, licked around her mast, and then went out as suddenly as it had appeared. Soon, however, darker masses of smoke rolled, volume on volume, up the hatchways, and directly, like a flash of lightning, the fire shot clear and high up from the hold, and catching to the shrouds, stays, and every portion of the hamper, ran swiftly across the ship, mounted up the rigging, and licking and wreathing around the spars, soon enveloped the chase in a pyramid of flame, which eddied in the breeze, and streamed like a signal banner far away to leeward. How wild and fantastic, like spirits dancing on the air, were the attitudes and shapes the fire assumed! Now the flames would blaze steadily up for a minute; now they would blow apart like whiffs of smoke; and now they would leap bodily away, in huge and riven masses, into the dense canopy of smoke to leeward. At times they would wind spirally around the hamper; again they would taper off far up into the unfathomable night. On every hand the waves had assumed the hue of fire. The heavens above were lurid. The crackling and hissing of the flames could be heard even at our distance from the brig. Millions of sparks, sent up from the blazing ship, whirled off on the wind, and showered down to leeward. Occasionally a stray spar fell simmering into the water. At length the brig fell off from her course, and drifting broadside on before the wind, came down towards us, rolling so frightfully as to jerk the flames, as it were, bodily out of her. I was still gazing spell-bound on the magnificent spectacle, when I heard an exclamation of surprise over my shoulder, and turning quickly around, I saw the skipper gazing intently over the burning ship, as if he watched for something hidden behind her. He saw my movement, and asked,

“Do you not detect a sail to windward, just in the rear of the brig? Wait till the wind whirls away the fire—there!”

There was no mistaking it. A large man-of-war, to judge by her size and rig, partially concealed by the brig, was coming down to us, with studding-sails all spread, and the English cross flying at her main.

“We are already under a press of sail—as much as we can conveniently spread,” said the skipper, as if musingly, looking aloft; “and the Englishman will have to give the brig somewhat of a berth. Ah! there comes the enemy—a frigate, as I live!”

Every one on board had by this time had their attention turned to the approaching stranger, and now, as she bore away to leave the wreck to starboard, every eye was fixed on her form. She came gallantly out from behind her fiery veil, riding gracefully on the long surges, and seeming, as her white sails reflected back the flames, more like a spectral than a mortal ship. The momentary admiration with which we gazed on her, as she emerged into view, soon, however, faded before the anxious feelings arising out of the extremity of our peril. But there was nothing to be gained by idle forebodings. The frigate was evidently gaining on us, and it became necessary to spread every inch of canvass we had, in order to escape her. Men also were sent aloft, and buckets whipped up to them, in order that our sails might be kept constantly wet; the masts were eased, the water started, every useless thing thrown overboard, and all the exertions which desperate men resort to were adopted to ensure our escape. After an agitating suspense of five minutes, we found that we were slowly drawing ahead of the frigate, and our hopes were still further raised, in a short space afterwards, by the growing thickness of the fog.

“We are not caught this time yet,” said I to Westbrook, “and now for la belle France.”

“Ay! the skipper’s had enough of such hot quarters as these, I fancy; at least, after such a haul of specie, he’ll not run any more risks if he can help it. Depend upon it, we shall be making love to the fair Parisian grisettes before a fortnight rolls overhead.”

“Not so fast, Mr. Westbrook,” said the old quarter-master, who overheard us by chance—“do you see that?” and he pointed to a rocket which that instant shot up from the deck of the frigate, and then arching over in the sky, broke into a thousand sparkles, which fell shivering to the water. “If I know anything of such sky-lighters, that bloody Englishman has a consort somewhere hereabouts—and there he is on our lee-bow, the varmint.”

We both turned around hastily as he spoke, and, sure enough, a rocket was seen streaming, comet-like, through the heavens, apparently sent up from a ship well on our lee-bow.

“By the true cross!” sung out O’Shaughnessy, at this instant, “here’s another fellow wasting his fire-works to windward. Shure, and, as the thief said to the hangman when he saw the crowd, we’re beset—ohone!”

I could scarcely contain my laughter, although by this time rockets were rising into the air on our three sides, with a rapidity which showed that we had got somewhere into the midst of the channel fleet, and that the frigate astern was telegraphing to her consorts of our whereabouts. Our situation was alarming in the extreme. Beset on all sides, we had scarcely the slightest chance of escape, our only hope, in fact, consisting in the darkness of the night, and the ignorance of our position on the part of the men-of-war ahead. For a moment—and it was the only one of the kind in his life—our skipper seemed to be at fault; and he stood near the starboard railing, with his teeth firmly clenched and his brow contracted, gazing vacantly ahead. Suddenly, however, he turned to the man at the wheel, and ordered him to bear up towards the sail on our weather bow. He then sent down into his cabin for a catalogue of the English navy, which we had taken in a prize but a few days before.

Meanwhile the frigate astern had vanished in the gathering gloom, while the man-of-war on our lee-bow was yet unseen. The enemy, however, off our weather cat-head, began to loom faint and shadowy through the fog, and just as he became distinctly defined against the horizon, we heard the roll of the drum beating to quarters, and directly beheld in our foe a heavy frigate, with her ports open and lighted, and a formidable battery frowning across the gloom. We had by this time edged away so as to bring the Englishman a point or two on our lee-bow, and now, running up the British ensign, we bore boldly towards the foe. Every one saw that a ruse was intended, though in what manner it was to be executed we were yet in doubt, and more than one of us trembled for the event. A few moments of breathless suspense brought us up to the Englishman, and as we passed on opposite tacks, and looked up at his enormous hull, and his vast batteries overshadowing us, even the stoutest heart felt a momentary flutter. The captain of the frigate stood in the mizzen rigging, looking down on our little craft, while our own skipper, with hat off, gazed up at his enemy from the quarter-deck larboard gun. It was luckily too dark to see our uniforms from the frigate’s deck.

“What craft is that?” thundered the English captain.

“The Alert, of his Britannic Majesty’s navy—Captain Sasheby,” answered the skipper. “What frigate have we had the honor of telegraphing?”

“The Achilles—Captain Norton. Come to under our lee. You were in chase; at least so we understood the lights. What has become of the enemy?—he was the same one, we suppose, who fired the vessel whose light we saw up to windward.”

“Ay! the scoundrel was the Yankee schooner, whom the admiralty has sent us down specially to overhaul. We lost her in the fog, but thought she had gone down towards you.”

“You’d better keep less away,” said the English captain. “Fill on your course again. We shall beat up on your late track, lest the Yankee may have lain to, as the safest way to get off in this fog. If we throw up three rockets successively, we shall want you to come up towards us. If we fire two guns, the rascal will be to windward; if one, to leeward.”

“Ay, ay, sir!—fill away again!” and, with a courteous wave of the hand, the two captains parted company.

During the whole of this colloquy, we had lain to at but a short distance from the quarter of the foe, and, at any moment, if our disguise had been penetrated, we could have been sunk by a single broadside. Accustomed though we were to peril, our hearts beat at this dangerous proximity, and when at length we filled away on our course, and gradually lost sight of the frigate, the relief we experienced was indescribable. We kept away, cracking on every thing we could, and for nearly an hour our cheat remained undiscovered. At the end of that time, to judge by the rockets on the windward horizon, the three frigates learned that they had been outwitted. They doubtless gave us chase, but we were now clear of the fleet, and, moreover, had some leagues start of them. Before daylight we had made the French coast, and we were safely moored, before forty-eight hours, in the harbor of Brest.