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Updated: June 18, 2025
So, too, do certain landsmen, of a degraded type, pay homage to their strenuous charms. But a decent man, in the full possession and equipoise of his faculties, can only regard them with sorrow unspeakable, and pity too deep for tears.
Not a man of the crew knew as much about navigation as a schoolboy. They had no idea where they were going, or where the ship was. As day after day slipped past with no sight but the heaving sea, the Russian landsmen became restive. Provisions had dwindled to one fish a day; and scarcely a pint of water for each man was left in the hold.
The sea was running, as landsmen say, mountains high; the winds howled through our rigging; and the giant albatrosses hovered round us, seen indistinctly for a moment through the gloom, and then soaring away on the gale, as if they were floating down a stream their enormous wings extended, but motionless.
Thynne the master gave orders in his rumbling bass, then the drum beat for morning service, and, after the godly fashion of the time, there poured from the forecastle, to worship the Lord, mariners and landsmen, gunners, harquebusiers, crossbow and pike men, cabin and powder boys, cook, chirurgeon, and carpenter all the varied force of that floating castle destined to be dashed like a battering-ram against the power of Spain.
Another night's foray on shore considerably increased our numbers; besides which several volunteers, mostly landsmen, were obtained, and the cutter then sailed to discharge her passengers into the ships most requiring men. I and several others found ourselves going up the side of His Majesty's ship Glutton, of 50 guns, commanded by Captain Henry Trollope.
"That's a very poor consolation," answered Tom to his last remark. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish that I had stayed on shore." Though there was some confusion among the landsmen, a few of whom began to look very white, if they did not actually wring their hands and cry out, the crews of the guns remained at their stations, and hauled away lustily at the tackles to run them in.
A large broadsheet was exposed in the window of this tavern inviting able-bodied seamen and artificers to join the battleship; one of our lieutenants attending each day for a certain number of hours at the little shipping office which was established in the bar parlour of the tavern to inspect the discharge notices and certificates of any sailors or landsmen who might wish to join.
Landsmen might volunteer by scores through the influence of such stirring, patriotic ditties; but seamen, who 'knew the ropes, would never be induced to ship through their agency. Dibdin does ample justice to the bravery, the generosity, the good-humour, the kind-heartedness of sailors; and, as a class, they deserve his encomiums.
Jack Radburn, mate of the "Lily," was as prime a seaman as ever broke biscuit. Brave, generous, and true, so said all the crew, as did also Captain Haiselden, with whom he had sailed since he had first been to sea. Yet so modest and gentle was he on shore that, in spite of his broad shoulders and sun-burnt brow, landsmen were apt to declare that "butter wouldn't melt in his mouth."
Fitz lighted the candles and set the music ready with a certain neatness of hand rarely acquired by landsmen, and then returned to the smaller drawing-room, where Eve was seated by the fire, needlework in hand. He stood for a moment leaning against the mantelpiece. Perhaps he was waiting for her to speak. Perhaps he did not realise how much there was in his long, silent gaze.
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