University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

Quoin, the quarter-gunner, was the representative of a class
on board the Neversink, altogether too remarkable to be left
astern, without further notice, in the rapid wake of these
chapters.

As has been seen, Quoin was full of unaccountable whimsies;
he was, withal, a very cross, bitter, ill-natured, inflammable
little old man. So, too, were all the members of the
gunner's gang; including the two gunner's mates, and all
the quarter-gunners. Every one of them had the same dark
brown complexion; all their faces looked like smoked hams.
They were continually grumbling and growling about the
batteries; running in and out among the guns; driving the
sailors away from them; and cursing and swearing as if all
their consciences had been powder-singed, and made callous,
by their calling. Indeed they were a most unpleasant set of
men; especially Priming, the nasal-voiced gunner's mate,
with the hare-lip; and Cylinder, his stuttering coadjutor, with
the clubbed foot. But you will always observe, that the gunner's
gang of every man-of-war are invariably ill-tempered,
ugly featured, and quarrelsome. Once when I visited an English
line-of-battle ship, the gunner's gang were at work fore
and aft, polishing up the batteries, which, according to the
Admiral's fancy, had been painted white as snow. Fidgeting
round the great thirty-two-pounders, and making stinging
remarks at the sailors and each other, they reminded one of a
swarm of black wasps, buzzing about rows of white headstones
in a church-yard.

Now, there can be little doubt, that their being so much
among the guns is the very thing that makes a gunner's
gang so cross and quarrelsome. Indeed, this was once proved
to the satisfaction of our whole company of main-top-men. A
fine top-mate of ours, a most merry and companionable fellow,
chanced to be promoted to a quarter-gunner's berth. A few
days afterward, some of us main-top-men, his old comrades,
went to pay him a visit, while he was going his regular
rounds through the division of guns allotted to his care. But
instead of greeting us with his usual heartiness, and cracking
his pleasant jokes, to our amazement, he did little else but
scowl; and at last, when we rallied him upon his ill-temper,
he seized a long black rammer from overhead, and drove us
on deck; threatening to report us, if we ever dared to be familiar
with him again.

My top-mates thought that this remarkable metamorphose
was the effect produced upon a weak, vain character, suddenly
elevated from the level of a mere seaman to the dignified
position of a petty-officer. But though, in similar cases, I had
seen such effects produced upon some of the crew; yet, in the
present instance, I knew better than that;—it was solely
brought about by his consorting with those villainous, irritable,
ill-tempered cannon; more especially from his being subject
to the orders of those deformed blunderbusses, Priming
and Cylinder.

The truth seems to be, indeed, that all people should be
very careful in selecting their callings and vocations; very
careful in seeing to it, that they surround themselves by good-humored,
pleasant-looking objects; and agreeable, temper-soothing
sounds. Many an angelic disposition has had its
even edge turned, and hacked like a saw; and many a sweet
draught of piety has soured on the heart, from people's choosing
ill-natured employments, and omitting to gather round
them good-natured landscapes. Gardeners are almost always
pleasant, affable people to converse with; but beware of quarter-gunners,
keepers of arsenals, and lonely light-house men.

And though you will generally observe, that people living in
arsenals and light-houses endeavor to cultivate a few flowers
in pots, and perhaps a few cabbages in patches, by way of
keeping up, if possible, some gayety of spirits; yet, it will not
do; their going among great guns and muskets, everlastingly
mildews the blossoms of the one; and how can even cabbages
thrive in a soil, whereunto the moldering keels of shipwrecked
vessels have imparted the loam?

It would be advisable for any man, who from an unlucky
choice of a profession, which it is too late to change for another,
should find his temper souring, to endeavor to counteract
that misfortune, by filling his private chamber with amiable,
pleasurable sights and sounds. In summer time, an æolian
harp can be placed in your window at a very trifling expense;
a conch-shell might stand on your mantel, to be taken up and
held to the ear, that you may be soothed by its continual lulling
sound, when you feel the blue fit stealing over you. For
sights, a gay-painted punch-bowl, or Dutch tankard—never
mind about filling it—might be recommended. It should be
placed on a bracket in the pier. Nor is an old-fashioned silver
ladle, nor a chased dinner-castor, nor a fine portly demijohn,
nor any thing, indeed, that savors of eating and drinking, bad
to drive off the spleen. But perhaps the best of all is a shelf
of merrily-bound books, containing comedies, farces, songs, and
humorous novels. You need never open them; only have the
titles in plain sight. For this purpose, Peregrine Pickle is a
good book; so is Gil Blas; so is Goldsmith.

But of all chamber furniture in the world, best calculated
to cure a bad temper, and breed a pleasant one, is the sight
of a lovely wife. If you have children, however, that are
teething, the nursery should be a good way up stairs; at sea,
it ought to be in the mizzen-top. Indeed, teething children
play the very deuce with a husband's temper. I have known
three promising young husbands completely spoil on their
wives' hands, by reason of a teething child, whose worrisomeness
happened to be aggravated at the time by the summer-complaint.

With a breaking heart, and my handkerchief to
my eyes, I followed those three hapless young husbands, one
after the other, to their premature graves.

Gossiping scenes breed gossips. Who so chatty as hotel-clerks,
market-women, auctioneers, bar-keepers, apothecaries,
newspaper-reporters, monthly-nurses, and all those who live
in bustling crowds, or are present at scenes of chatty interest.

Solitude breeds taciturnity; that every body knows; who
so taciturn as authors, taken as a race?

A forced, interior quietude, in the midst of great outward
commotion, breeds moody people. Who so moody as rail-road-brakemen,
steam-boat engineers, helmsmen, and tenders of
power-looms in cotton factories? For all these must hold
their peace while employed, and let the machinery do the
chatting; they can not even edge in a single syllable.

Now, this theory about the wondrous influence of habitual
sights and sounds upon the human temper, was suggested by
my experiences on board our frigate. And although I regard
the example furnished by our quarter-gunners—especially him
who had once been our top-mate—as by far the strongest argument
in favor of the general theory; yet, the entire ship
abounded with illustrations of its truth. Who were more
liberal-hearted, lofty-minded, gayer, more jocund, elastic, adventurous,
given to fun and frolic, than the top-men of the fore,
main, and mizzen masts? The reason of their liberal-heartedness
was, that they were daily called upon to expatiate
themselves all over the rigging. The reason of their lofty-mindedness
was, that they were high lifted above the petty
tumults, carping cares, and paltrinesses of the decks below.

And I feel persuaded in my inmost soul, that it is to the
fact of my having been a main-top-man; and especially my
particular post being on the loftiest yard of the frigate, the
main-royal-yard; that I am now enabled to give such a free,
broad, off-hand, bird's-eye, and, more than all, impartial account
of our man-of-war world; withholding nothing; inventing
nothing; nor flattering, nor scandalizing any; but meting

out to all—commodore and messenger-boy alike—their
precise descriptions and deserts.

The reason of the mirthfulness of these top-men was, that
they always looked out upon the blue, boundless, dimpled,
laughing, sunny sea. Nor do I hold, that it militates against
this theory, that of a stormy day, when the face of the ocean
was black, and overcast, that some of them would grow moody,
and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the
thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many
people, naturally gay and light-hearted, who, whenever the
autumnal wind begins to bluster round the corners, and roar
along the chimney-stacks, straight become cross, petulant, and
irritable. What is more mellow than fine old ale? Yet
thunder will sour the best nut-brown ever brewed.

The Holders of our frigate, the Troglodytes, who lived down
in the tarry cellars and caves below the berth-deck, were,
nearly all of them, men of gloomy dispositions, taking sour
views of things; one of them was a blue-light Calvinist.
Whereas, the old-sheet-anchor-men, who spent their time in
the bracing sea-air and broad-cast sunshine of the forecastle,
were free, generous-hearted, charitable, and full of good-will
to all hands; though some of them, to tell the truth, proved
sad exceptions; but exceptions only prove the rule.

The “steady-cooks” on the berth-deck, the “steady-sweepers,”
and “steady-spit-box-musterers,” in all divisions of the
frigate, fore and aft, were a narrow-minded set; with contracted
souls; imputable, no doubt, to their groveling duties.
More especially was this evinced in the case of those odious
ditchers and night scavengers, the ignoble “Waisters.”

The members of the band, some ten or twelve in number,
who had nothing to do but keep their instruments polished,
and play a lively air now and then, to stir the stagnant current
in our poor old Commodore's torpid veins, were the most
gleeful set of fellows you ever saw. They were Portuguese,
who had been shipped at the Cape De Verd islands, on the
passage out. They messed by themselves; forming a dinner-party,

not to be exceeded in mirthfulness, by a club of young
bridegrooms, three months after marriage, completely satisfied
with their bargains, after testing them.

But what made them, now, so full of fun? What indeed
but their merry, martial, mellow calling. Who could be a
churl, and play a flageolet? who mean and spiritless, braying
forth the souls of thousand heroes from his brazen trump?
But still more efficacious, perhaps, in ministering to the light
spirits of the band, was the consoling thought, that should the
ship ever go into action, they would be exempted from the
perils of battle. In ships of war, the members of the “music,”
as the band is called, are generally non-combatants; and
mostly ship, with the express understanding, that as soon as
the vessel comes within long gun-shot of an enemy, they shall
have the privilege of burrowing down in the cable-tiers, or
sea coal-hole. Which shows that they are inglorious, but
uncommonly sensible fellows.

Look at the barons of the gun-room—Lieutenants, Purser,
Marine officers, Sailing-master—all of them gentlemen with
stiff upper lips, and aristocratic cut noses. Why was this?
Will any one deny, that from their living so long in high
military life, served by a crowd of menial stewards and cot-boys,
and always accustomed to command right and left;
will any one deny, I say, that by reason of this, their very
noses had become thin, peaked, aquiline, and aristocratically
cartilaginous? Even old Cuticle, the Surgeon, had a Roman
nose.

But I never could account how it came to be, that our
gray-headed First Lieutenant was a little lop-sided; that is,
one of his shoulders disproportionately drooped. And when I
observed, that nearly all the First Lieutenants I saw in other
men-of-war, besides many Second and Third Lieutenants,
were similarly lop-sided; I knew, that there must be some
general law which induced the phenomenon; and I put myself
to studying it out, as an interesting problem. At last, I came
to the conclusion—to which I still adhere—that their so long

wearing only one epaulet (for to only one does their rank entitle
them) was the infallible clew to this mystery. And when
any one reflects upon so well-known a fact, that many sea
Lieutenants grow decrepit from age, without attaining a Captaincy
and wearing two epaulets, which would strike the balance
between their shoulders, the above reason assigned will
not appear unwarrantable.