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The instant effect was to make her carry a weather-helm, and great care was now required to prevent her flying up into the wind, and being taken aback; a most perilous position to be placed in under the present circumstances. To prevent this, the fore-stay-sail was hoisted.
The frigate of Congress is neither a ballroom nor a church, that is to be thronged with women!" "Ay, ay," muttered Boltrope to his friend the chaplain, "now the old man has hauled out his mizzen, you'll see him carry a weather-helm! He wakes up about as often as the trades shift their points, and that's once in six months.
Steady there!" he continued, to the man at the tiller; "mind your weather-helm, my man, or you'll be having that mainsail jibing over, and I need not tell you what that means in a breeze like this. Don't meet her quite so sharply; if she seems inclined to take a sheer to starboard, let her go; I will take care that the brig does not run over us.
We accordingly shook both reefs out of the mainsail, and got the foresail and working-jib set, with which canvas we rushed along in true racing style, our lee-rail well buried, and the craft taking just enough weather-helm to allow of her being steered to a hair's-breadth.
I was now obliged to take the wheel; but it was not long before I made the discovery that, under the sail now set, the brig was practically steering herself, and by the time that I had been at the wheel half an hour I had contrived to hit off so accurately the exact amount of weather-helm required to keep the craft going "full-and-by," that I was able to lash the wheel, and attend to other matters.
"We had a good land-fall all right, entering the Channel shortly after sighting the Lizard, making the quickest passage ever known for a sailing brig from Fiji; and, in spite of all the dear old craft's shortcomings and temper and weather-helm, myself and the rest of the crew, including of course Pat O'Brien and his `poor feet, were willing, even after all the perils we had passed through, and the dangers we had escaped, every mother's son of us, with Captain Jiggins' permission, and the chief officer's favour, to sign articles, and ship for another voyage in the old Cranky Jane; and, what is more, we did too, sticking to the brig till she went to pieces off Cape Lewis to the south of New Zealand in her last voyage out.
"No, sir," was the reply; "she's `gripin'' awful; it takes a half-turn of the wheel to keep her out of the wind." "Then we'll take in the gaff-topsail and mizzen-topmast staysail as well," said George. "All that weather-helm must make at least half a knot difference in her sailing."
"And so you see, Guinea," he concluded, "in or der to keep a weather-helm in company, you are never to throw all aback, and go stern foremost out of a dispute, as you have this day seen fit to do According to my l'arning, that Master Nightingale is better in a bar-room than in a squall; and if you had just luffed-up on his quarter, when you saw me laying myself athwart his hawse in the argument, you see we should have given him a regular jam in the discourse, and then the fellow would have been shamed in the eyes of all the by-standers.
"She was a decent-sized brig enough, and handy to manage when she had plenty of sea-room, and a wind right aft; but on a bowline, or when the wind was on the quarter, and there was a bit of a sea on, she kept such a stiff weather-helm, and was such a downright cranky vessel, never bending down to a breeze or lifting to the swell, that it was no wonder that as soon as the hands got used to her ways, and tumbled to her contrary points and she was that contrary sometimes as to remind you of a woman's temper on washing days, most ladies then being not particularly pleasant, and feeling more inclined to drive a man mad, rather than to coax and wheedle him as soon as we all got used to her ways, I say, we christened her the `Cranky Jane, and that she was more or less, barring when she had a fair wind, with an easy sea and everything agreeable for her, as I said before.
I was awakened some time during the night I had no idea whatever of the hour by the loud rustling of canvas; and upon starting to my feet I found that the wind had strengthened so considerably that the slight amount of weather-helm afforded by the lashed wheel had at length proved insufficient, with the result that the brig had shot into the wind, throwing both topsails aback and her fore and aft canvas a-shiver.
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