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"Well," he began, "it is rather a romantic story " "Then, I shouldn't think it can be much in your line," interrupted Mr Stormcock, who somehow or other was always down upon any chap for ever starting a yarn. "You tell very practical ones; only, instead of the term `story' I would use a shorter and more expressive word."
Mr Stormcock proved to be a false prophet with regard to the foul weather that evening; for, when I went up on deck again to have a look round before turning in, although it was still blowing fresh from the westwards, the black cloud that had previously covered the sky had partly cleared away, leaving only a few fleecy flying masses in its stead.
"And did he, sir?" asked little Tom Mills. "Did he stop their grog for it?" "No," replied Mr Jones. "He was too good-natured an old chap for that." "More than you were half-an-hour ago," observed Mr Stormcock, sarcastically, rising up from his recumbent position. "You didn't think of the fellows coming down from their watch on deck, when you drained off the last remains of the milk, eh?
Bang it went off, making the dirt fly from the embrasure opposite, while a cloud of smoke rose up, as if a magazine had been exploded; and so we continued, hammer and tongs, the atmosphere all sulphur and gunpowder, the deck slippery with gore, our ears deafened with the ceaseless discharges of the guns, till it really seemed "as if Hell had broken loose!" as Mr Stormcock said.
While they were talking, I managed to scramble into the bows of the launch unobserved, nobody noticing me till we had left the ship and it was too late; and, though Mr Gilham shook his fist at me and told me I was "acting against orders," he beckoned me to come aft, where Larkyns and Mr Stormcock made a place for me between them in the sternsheets, the rest of the boat being crammed with bluejackets and marines, the latter sitting down on the bottom boards between the thwarts and the knees of those pulling.
"By Jove, she wants to speak us; something must be up!" said the commander who had come on deck in the meanwhile. "Go below, Vernon, and tell the cap'en at once." "Confound those mounseers," I heard Mr Stormcock say to the master as I came out from Captain Farmer's cabin. "I wonder what they want to stop us for now, just as we were getting clear of Ushant? It's sure to bring us bad luck!"
It was not "all work and no play," either, for we had plenty of fun and skylarking down in the gunroom; making the oldsters there, like Mr Stormcock and the assistant-paymaster, Mr Fortescue Jones, frequently wish they, or rather that we, had never been born to come to sea to torment them.
This, the Spanish captain said was quite true, for he had seen the grave himself and the little church erected to their memory, a statement that quite delighted our friend Larkyns, as he was able to throw it in the teeth of Mr Stormcock as soon as he heard it, in refutation of the base calumny of the latter in asserting that he had invented the yarn he told us at mess.
I was pleased to see the bold, masterful missel thrush, the stormcock as it is often called; but this bird breeds and sings in the early spring, when the weather is still tempestuous, and had long been silent when we saw it.
Why, I thought you were chums and both of you in the same watch, the very closest of friends." "Of course we are," said I, laughing at the comicality of the situation, which struck me all of a moment. "Anstruther and I are very good friends. I'm sure I don't want to do him any harm." "So I should think," replied Mr Stormcock, drily.
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