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Updated: June 1, 2025
The former servant to the midshipmen's berth was promoted to the mizzen-top, and Joshua Daunton inducted, with due solemnities, to all the honours of waiting upon about half a dozen fierce, unruly midshipmen, and as many sick supernumeraries; and he formally took charge of all the mess-plate and munitions de bouche of this submarine establishment. There was no temptation to embezzlement.
Perhaps, by this bravado sort of confession, you have endeavoured to give me a worse impression of your character than it really deserves, that you might give me the better opinion of your sincerity. Is it not so?" "In a great measure, it is." "I thought so. Now let me tell you, Daunton, that that very circumstance makes me afraid of you.
If, for a moment, I happened to doze, I was tearing, in my imagination, Joshua Daunton piecemeal, hurling him down precipices, or crushing him beneath the jagged fragments of stupendous rocks. It was a night of agony. The next day we anchored in the Downs. Weak, stiff, and ill, I surveyed myself in my dressing-glass. My battered features presented a hideous spectacle. But I cared not.
During Dr Thompson's short absence, his lordship walked up and down with a contracted brow, and much more than his usual fidgety movements. Not wholly to my surprise, but completely to my dismay, the doctor reappeared with my arch and only enemy by his side Joshua Daunton. The contrast between him and me was not at all in my favour.
Bonny, bairnly braws; it's for the like o' them folk sells the peace of God that passeth understanding; it's for the like o' them, an' maybe no' even sae muckle worth, folk daunton God to His face and burn in muckle hell; and it's for that reason the Scripture ca's them, as I read the passage, the accursed thing.
The fact was, not that he had been flogged, but very nearly frightened, to death. And I was utterly miserable. The words that Daunton had spoken at the gangway, and the strange interest that I had taken in his behalf, gave rise to suspicions that I felt to be degrading. He had declared himself to be of my blood; the officers and crew construed the expression as meaning my brother.
The following curious dialogue ensued: "Daunton, I am ready to hear you." "Thank you, Ralph." "Fellow! you may have heard that I am a prisoner in disgrace but not in dishonour; but know, scoundrel, that if I were to swing the next minute at the yardarm, I would not tolerate or answer to such familiarity. Speak respectfully, or I leave you."
They'd made off, goodness knows where. We couldn't find 'em. "I was driving to Daunton on a very nasty, pitch-black night. You know how beastly dark it is between the woods at Byford Park? Well, I'd just got there when I passed two fellows skulking along under the wall. They stood back it was rather a near shave with no proper lights on and I flashed my electric torch full on them.
So complete was our disorganisation, and so great our destitution as a mess, that, after the first week, the supernumerary sick young gentlemen were relieved from this candlelight den of starvation and of dirt, and distributed among the warrant officers. It was to wait upon our persons, to administer to our wants, and to take care of our culinary comforts, that Joshua Daunton was duly installed.
With an ill-concealed triumph on his countenance, Joshua Daunton bowed submissively to all but myself. To me he advanced with an insulting smile and an extended hand. I shrank back loathingly. "Farewell, brother Ralph. I told you that I should be in London before you. Will you favour me with any commands?
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