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Three vessels that had got under weigh in company with the Shakspeare were set fast about a hundred yards farther over than ourselves, and now lay right a-beam of the Coromandel drawing seventeen feet: when she will forge over is past all calculation; our own chance of a speedy move does not appear to me very bright.
Since that time I have never consented to command a vessel that was called after two of our river young women, for I do believe that one of them is as much as a common mariner can manage. You see, Mr. Effingham, we were running along a weather-shore, as close in as we could get, to be in the eddy, when a squall struck her a-beam, and she luffed right on to the beach. No helping it.
The breeze was not a-beam, nor was the hooker close-hauled; but one cannot ascertain the true course made, except when the wind is abaft. When you perceive long streaks of clouds meeting in a point on the horizon, you may be sure that the wind is in that quarter; but this evening the wind was variable; the needle fluctuated; the captain distrusted the erratic movements of the vessel.
The wind was a-beam, and the old schooner could steer herself; so, even the man at the helm was sitting down on a hencoop, with one arm round the tiller, and snoring like a porpoise. I heard the old man rouse out of his bunk and creep on deck, and, guessing fun was coming, I turned out and slipped up after him. The first thing I saw was old Eaton at work at the tiller.
Afterwards she continued her trial trip to Holyhead, where she arrived on the 10th of October. The results of the trial, excepting, of course, the accident, were most satisfactory. Her speed under disadvantageous circumstances had been good, and her engines had worked admirably. Against a gale of head wind she went as steadily as if in harbour, but with the wind a-beam she rolled considerably.
Meantime he was shaking the little vagabond's hand, chuckling and a-beam with hospitality. "Your Grace !" said Damiens, bewildered. "Well, go, in any event," said Ormskirk. "Oh, go anywhere, man! to the devil, for instance." His eyes, followed the retreating lackey. "As I suspect in the end you will," Ormskirk said, inconsequently. "Still, you are a very serviceable fellow, my good Damiens.
"We will not follow his example; for he will wish they were aloft again, the moment we get him fairly under the play of our batteries. By George our King, but he has a pretty moving boat under him. Let fall the main-course, sir; down with it, or we shall have it night before we get the rogue a-beam."
The projectors of that floral tribute cheered us finely as we came dashing toward them; and up in our bows was great excitement which suddenly was intensified into anguish as we perceived that our admirers had made a miscalculation: a fateful fact that was anticipated and realized almost in the same instant as we saw the bouquet level with our deck but forty feet away a-beam!
Off the coast of Cornwall, the swell caused her to roll very considerably, as long as she was a-beam of the long swell. Soon after this a small brig was seen right under the starboard bow.
In the morning, however, only the swelling waves that were rapidly subsiding remained to remind us of the gale; and, from that date, we had fine weather and a good wind "a-beam," until we finally sighted Sandy Hook lightship at the foot of New York Bay. We did this in exactly ten days from the time of our "departure point" being taken, off the Needles.
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