Channel, I takes a look over the ladies, in coilin' up the ropes aft, or at the wheel; I knowed the said girl at once by her good looks, and the old fellow by his grumpy, yallow frontispiece. All on a sudden I takes a note of a figger coming up from the cuddy, which I made out at once for my Master Ned, spite of his wig and a pair o' high-heeled boots, as gave him the walk of a chap a-treading amongst eggs. When I hears him lisp out to the skipper at the round-house if there was any fear of wind, 'twas all I could do to keep the juice in my cheek. Away he goes up to windward, holding on by everything, to look over the bulwarks behind his sweetheart, givin' me a glance over his shoulder. At night I see the two hold a sort of collogue abaft the wheel, when I was on my trick at the helm. After awhile there was a row got up amongst the passengers, with the old naboob and the skipper, to find out who it was that kept a-singing every still night in the first watch, alongside of the ladies' cabin, under the poop. It couldn't be cleared up, hows'ever, who it was. All sorts o' places they said it comed from—mizzen-chains, quarter-galleries, lower-deck ports, and davit-boats. But what put the old hunks most in a rage was, the songs was every one on 'em such as 'Rule Britannia,' 'Bay of Biscay,' 'Britannia's Bulwarks,' and 'All in the Downs.' The captain was all at sea about it, and none of the men would say anything, for by all accounts 'twas the best pipe at a sea-song as was to be heard. For my part, I knowed pretty well what was afloat. One night a man comed for'ard from the wheel, after steering his dog-watch out, and 'Well, I'm blessed, mates,' says he on the foc'sle, 'but that chap aft yonder with the lady—he's about the greenest hand I've chanced to come across. What d'ye think I hears him say to old Yallow-chops an hour agone?' 'What was it, mate?' I says. 'Says he, "Do you know, Sar Chawls, is the hoshun reelly green at the line—green ye know, Sar Chawls, reelly green?" "No, sir," says the old naboob, "'tis blue." "Whoy, ye don't sa—ay so!" says the young chap, pullin' a long face.' 'Why, Jim,' another hand drops in, 'that's the very chap as sings them first-rate sea-songs of a night. I seed him myself come out o' the mizzen-chains!' 'Hallo!' says another at this, 'then there's some'at queer i' the wind! I thought he gave rather a weather-look aloft, comin' on deck i' the morning. I'll bet a week's grog that chap's desarted from the king's flag, mates!' Well, ye know, hereupon I couldn't do no less nor shove in my oar, so I takes word from all hands not to blow the gaff, 1 an' then gives 'em the whole yarn to the very day, about the Green Hand—for somehow or another I was al'ays a yarning sort of a customer. As soon as they heard it was a love consarn, not a man but swore to keep a stopper on his jaw; only, at findin' out he was a leftenant in the Royal Navy, all hands was for touching hats when they went past.

"Hows'ever, things went on till we'd crossed the line a good while; the leftenant was making his way with the girl at every chance. But, as for the old fellow, I didn't see he was a fathom the nearer with him; though, as the naboob had never clapped eyes on him to know him like, 'twan't much matter before heaving in sight o' port. The captain of the Indyman was a rum, old-fashioned codger, all for plain sailing and old ways—I shouldn't say overmuch of a smart seaman. He read the sarvice every Sunday, rigged the church an' all that, if it was anything short of a reef-taups'l breeze. 'Twas queer enough, ye may think, to hear the old boy drawling out, 'As 'twas in the beginning—'then, in the one key, 'Haul aft the mainsheet——' 'is now, and ever shall be——' 'Small pull with the weather brace——' 'Amen——' 'Well the main-yard——' 'The Lord be with you——' 'Taups'l yard well!' As for the first orficer, he was a dandy, know-nothing young blade, as wanted to show off before the ladies; and the second was afraid to call the nose on his face his own, except in his watch; the third was a good seaman, but ye may well fancy the craft stood often a poor chance of being rightly handled.

"'Twas one arternoon watch, off the west coast of Africay, as hot a day as I ever mind on, we lost the breeze with a swell, and just as it got down smooth, land was made out, low upon the starboard bow, about south-east-and-by-sou', as near as may be. The captain was turned in sick below, and the first orficer on deck. I was at the wheel myself, and I hears him say to the second as how the land breeze would come off at night. A little after, up comes Leftenant Collins, in his black wig and his 'long-shore hat, an' he begins to squint over the starn to nor'west'ard. 'Jacobs, my lad,' whispers he to me, 'how do ye like the looks o' things?' 'Not overmuch, sir,' says I; 'small enough sea-room, leastways for a sky like that 'ere.' Up goes he to the first officer, after a bit. 'Sir,' says he, 'do ye notice how we've risen the land within the last hour and a half?' 'No, sir,' says the first mate. 'What d'ye mean?' 'Why, there's a current here, takin' us inside the point,' says he. 'Sir,' says the Company's man, 'if I didn't know what's what, d'ye think I'd learn it off a gentleman as is so confounded green? There's nothing of the sort,' he says. 'Look on the starboard quarter, then,' says the leftenant, 'at the man-o'-war bird afloat yonder with its wings spread. Take three minutes' look!' says he. Well, the mate did take a minute or two's squint through the mizzen-shroud, and pretty blue he got, for the bird came abreast of the ship by that time.

"'It's a underdrift,' says the leftenant, wonderful knowing-like—'though it's nothing on the surfage, look ye, why, with the draught the ship has it's a-taking her along like a tideway, below! Now, d'ye think you'd weather that there point two hours after this, if a gale come on from the nor'-west, sir?' 'Well,' says the first mate, 'I dare say we shouldn't—but what of that?' 'Why, if you'd cruised for six months off the coast of Africa, as I've done,' says the leftenant, 'you'd think there was something ticklish about that white spot in the sky, to nor'-west! But on top o' that, the weather-glass is fell a good bit since four bells.' 'Weather-glass!' the mate says, 'why, that don't matter much in respect of a gale, I fancy.' Ye must understand, weather-glasses wan't come so much in fashion at that time, except in the Royal Navy. 'Sir,' says the mate again, 'mind your business, if you've got any, and I'll mind mine!' 'If I was you,' the leftenant says, 'I'd call the captain.' 'Thank ye,' says the mate—'call the captain for nothing!' Well, in an hour more the land was quite plain on the starboard bow, and the mate comes aft again to Leftenant Collins. The clouds was beginning to grow out of the clear sky astarn too. 'Why, sir,' says the mate, 'I'd no notion you was a seaman at all! What would you do yourself now, supposin' the case you put a little ago?' 'Well, sir,' says Mr Collins, 'if you'll do the thing, I'll put ye up to it at once——'"

At this point of Old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket pocket, and got up off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a short yarn again?" "Can't help it, bo'," said old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "if the yarn's been overhauled before, what was the upshot of it? I didn't hear it myself." "Blessed if I know," said several—"Old Jack didn't