"I had hoped for better things of the ship, Master Trysail!" said Ludlow,
who had long been seated on a night-head, attentively watching the
progress of the chase. "We are buried to the bob-stays; and yet, there yon
fellow lies, nothing plainer than when he first showed his
studding-sails!"
"And there he will lie, Captain Ludlow, while the light lasts. I have
chased the rover in the narrow seas, till the cliffs of England melted
away like the cap of a wave; and we had raised the sand-banks of Holland
high as the sprit-sail-yard, and yet what good came of it? The rogue
played with us, as your portsman trifles with the entangled trout; and
when we thought we had him, he would shoot without the range of our guns,
with as little exertion as a ship slides into the water, after the spur
shoars are knocked from under her bows."
"Ay, but the Druid had a little of the rust of antiquity about her. The
Coquette has never got a chase under her lee, that she did not speak."
"I disparage no ship, Sir, for character is character, and none should
speak lightly of their fellow-creatures, and, least of all, of any thing
which follows the sea. I allow the Coquette to be a lively boat on a wind,
and a real scudder going large; but one should know the wright that
fashioned yonder brigantine, before he ventures to say that any vessel in
Her Majesty's fleet can hold way with her, when she is driven hard."
"These opinions, Trysail, are fitter for the tales of a top, than for the
mouth of one who walks the quarter-deck.
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