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We, that is the gunroom officers, all except the second Lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle, gentleman, pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain; and as the Dragonflies were all red, so we were all seagreen, boat, oars, trowsers, shirts, and nightcaps.
At which I broke through my rule never to lift my fist to the bairn, and gave him such a yerk in the cheek with the loof of my hand, as made, I am sure, his lugs ring, and sent him dozing to the door like a peerie.
"Then pipe belay with breakfast for a minute, will you? All hands make sail!" "Crack on, Mr Yerk, and let us overhaul this small swaggerer." In a trice we had all sail set, and were staggering along on the larboard tack, close upon a wind. We hauled out from the merchant ships like smoke, and presently the schooner was seen from the deck. "Go to breakfast now."
At length the breeze reached us, and we made sail with our convoy to the southward and eastward, the lumbering merchantmen crowding every inch of canvass, while we could hardly keep astern, under close reefed topsails, foresail, jib, and spanker. "Pipe to breakfast," said the Captain to Mr Yerk. "A sail abeam of us to windward!"
Before he had recovered sufficiently to find his tongue, we had pulled fifty yards from the ship, and a little farther on we overtook the captain, who had preceded us in the cutter, into which we transhipped ourselves. But Whiffle never could acquit Yerk of having been, directly or indirectly, the cause of his suffering from the impure shower.
#Yerk.# The intrans. verb is to kick as a horse. The trans. verb is quoted from Massinger, Herrick, and Burns, who has 'My fancy yerkit up sublime': i.e. roused, lashed. 'There seems no heart in wood or wide'. #Wide# as a subst. is hardly recognized. Tennyson is quoted, 'The waste wide of that abyss', but as waste is a recognized substantive the authority is uncertain.
"Did you ever see any thing better done?" said Yerk. "Why he clipped into the water with the speed of light, as clean and clear as if he had been a marlinspike."
However, none of us could laugh now; we parted, jumped into our boat, and proceeded straight to the anchorage, where three British merchantmen were by this time riding all ready for sea. We got on board. "Mr Yerk," said the Captain, "fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter at the fore. Loose the foretopsail."
Presently I heard the word given to take in the two gaff topsails and flying jib, which was scarcely done, when the moaning sound roughened into a roar, and the little vessel began to yerk at the head seas, as if she would have cut through them, in place of rising to them, and to lie over, as if Davy Jones himself had clapperclawed the mast heads, and was in the act of using them as levers to capsize her, while the sails were tugging at her, as if they would have torn the spars out of her, so that I expected every moment, either that she would turn over, keel up, or that the masts would snap short off by the deck.
The Captain, who understood the language, but did not speak it, answered him in French, which Don Ricardo seemed to speak fluently, "No, sir, the Captain is not on board; but there is Mr Yerk, the first lieutenant, at the gangway." He had come for the letter bag he said, and if we had any newspapers, and could spare them, it would be conferring a great favour on him.
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