A VOICE FROM THE DEEP. "WHAT say you, boys, a caulk, or a yarn ?" says one of the "quarter gunners," addressing indiscriminately the watch one night, as soon as they were mustered. "Oh, let's have a yarn, as we've eight hours in," replied one of the top-men. "Bob Bowers will spin us a twist ;" and away to the galley a group of eight or ten instantly repaired. "Well, boys!" says Bowers, "let's see, what'll you have?-one of the Lee Virginney's, or the saucy Gee's?-Come, I'll give you a saucy Gee. Well, you see, I once sarved in the Go-along Gee-Captain D (he as was killed at Trafflygar), aboard the Mars, seventy-four,-ay, and as fine a fellow as ever shipped a swab, or fell on a deck. There warn't a better man aboard, from stem to starn. He knew a seaman's duty, and more he never ax'd; and not like half your capering skippers, what expect unpossibilities. It went against his grain to seize a grating-up, and he never flogged a man, that he didn't wince as if he felt the lash himself!—and, as for starting,-blow me if he didn't break the boatswain by a court-martial for rope's-ending Tom Cox, the captain o' the fore-top in Plymouth Sound. And yet he wasn't a man what courted, as they call it, cocularity; for once desarve it, you were sure to buy it; but do your duty like a man, and he'd sink or swim with you! "He never could abide to hear a man abused -let's see, was't to the first or second leeftenant he says-no, 'twas the second-and blow me, too, if I doesn't think 'twas the third-it was the third, 'kase I remember, now, he'd never a civil word for no one. Well, howsomedever, you see, says the skipper, mocking the leeftenant in a sneering manner one morn, who'd just sung cut, You sir!' you know. to one o' the topmen, -You, sir, I mean, says the skipper, looking straight in the leeftenant's face." Pray, sir,' says he, how do you like to be you sir'd yourself?' "Well, the leeftenant shams deafness, you know; but I'm blowed but he hard every word on't-for never a dolphin a dying tarned more colours nor he did at the time! But avast there a bit-I'm yawning about in my course. Howsomever, you know, 'tis but due to the dead, and no more nor his memory desarves : so here's try againWell, you small heim bo-steady-ey-a. know, the Go-along Gee was one o' your flash Irish cruisers-the first o' your fir-built frigates -and a rare clipper she was! Give her a foct o' the sheet, and she'd go like a witch-but somehow o'noother, she'd bag on a bowline to leeward. Well, there was a crack set o' ships at the time on the station. Let's see, there is the Lee Revolushoneer (the flyer, you know) -then there was the fighting Feeby-the dashing Dry'd, and one or two more o' your flashuns; but the Gee took the shine on'em all in reefing and furling. "Well, there was always a cruiser or two from the station, as went with the West Ingy convoy, as far as Madery or so (to protect 'em, you know from the French privateers) and bring back a pipe of the stuff for the admiral; ay, and I take it the old boy must have bowsed up his jib stay pretty often, for many's the pipe we shipped in the Gee for him. "Howsomdever, you see, we was ordered to sail with one of these thund'ring convoys, the largest as ever was gothered together in Cove-nighnand a hundred and eighty or ninety sail. Let's see-there was the Polly-infamous, sixty-four, was our commodore, you know; and 'sides we in the Gee, there was a ship cravatte, and an eighteen gun brig. Well, we sailed with the convoy from Cove on St. Patrick's day, with a stagg'ring breeze at east-north-east. We was stationed astarn, to jog-up the dulluns, and to "touch'em up in the bunt" with the buntin. "Well, a'ter we runs out of one o' your reg'lar easterly gales, what has more lives nor a cat, and going for ever like a blacksmith's bellows, till it blows itself out, we meets with the tail of a westerly hurricane (one o' your sneezers, vou know). Four or five of our headmost and leewardmost ships, what tasted the thick on it first, was taken a-back; two was dismasted clean by the board;, but the Go-along Gee was |