Commissioner Proby, in charge of Chatham Dockyards and uncrowned king of the Medway all the way downriver to Sheerness, allowed him in for a preparatory meeting. He was, for a very busy man, all affability and hospitality. "Always happy to greet an officer come to take charge of one of our ships, Captain Lewrie." He beamed quite cordially.
"Proteus was refitted here, sir?" Lewrie asked, over a very good cup of coffee. "Or, built here originally, d'ye mean?"
"Just completed," Proby told him, pleased to enlighten him.
"My pardons, Commissioner Proby, I thought no more 5th Rate, 32-gun frigates were to be built… especially the 12-pounder 32s. Most of the Fleet prefer the 18-pounder 36s now. So she's new? Brand-new? Oh, my word!" Lewrie beamed back, most beatifically, soon as he saw how fortunate he was.
"One of the very last to be ordered, and one of the last of her sort constructed." Proby chuckled. "A variation on the Thames class, with but some minor alterations to her forefoot and entry… borrowed from the French. The Nicholson shipyards built her on speculation for a new class of light frigate, later purchased as a one-off under private contract with the Navy Board, sir. Just 'cross the river they are, at Frindsbury."
"A private yard then…" Lewrie sobered.
"Nought to fear, sir," Proby boomed in good humour. "They are completely competent. Nothing done 'at the back o' the beach,' like most new-come builders these days. They built 'Billy Ruff n', one of the finest 3rd Rate 74s in the Fleet."
"The Bellerophon, indeed!" Lewrie brightened.
"Well-constructed… if I do say so myself, sir," Proby went on, pouring them a top-up of coffee. "Saw to that. Nothing but good Hamburg or Baltic oak for scantlings, inner plankings, or riders. And Hamburg oak for second and third futtocks-English oak for her keel, first futtocks, decks, knees, and deadwood. 'Tis gettin' devilish-hard to find enough English oak for complete construction, what with the demand for warships in such numbers. No, just launched one month ago and straight into the drydock for coppering and her masts. She's afloat now. And I expect you're afire to see her, hey?" He winked.
"Most thoroughly aflame, sir," Lewrie agreed.
Over the last of their coffee, Proby filled him in on her specifications: that Proteus was 105 feet on her keel, and 125 feet on the range of her gun-deck, about 150 feet overall from taffrail to the tip of her jib-boom. She was three inches shy of 35 feet in beam, at her widest midship span, and would draw three inches shy of 15 feet when fully armed, stored, and laden-or so Mr. Nicholson predicted. She would weigh around 740 tons, when on her proper waterline, and carry twenty-six 12-pounder carriage-guns of the new Blomefield pattern on her gun-deck, thirteen to either beam broadside. She was allotted six 6-pounders for her forecastle and quarterdeck as chase guns, and six 24-pounder carronades for close action.
"Part of her crew is already aboard, all her officers," Proby remarked, as they gathered hats and cloaks to go down to his coach for the short ride to the waterfront. "Short of crew, naturally, but…"
"And her masts are already stepped, Mr. Proby?" Lewrie asked, creasing his brow in thought. "I thought that was a captain's prerogative… to set her rigging up to his own tastes."
"Masts set up, top-masts standing, and lower yards crossed, sir," Proby said to him as they settled into the leather seats of his coach. "Her previous captain had seen to it… 'fore he departed, poor fellow."
"Sorry, sir, but I was not aware there had been a previous captain," Lewrie said carefully. "He left recent, then, did he? Why?"
"Not a week past, sir," Proby replied, turning sombre, shifting uncomfortably on his seat, the fine leather giving out a squeaking as he did so. He leant forward a bit to speak more softly-guardedly.
"You're getting command of a fine frigate, Captain Lewrie. Oh, a wondrous-fine new ship!" Proby assured him. "But…" he muttered, "there are some things about her a tad… queer-like, e'en so."
"Such as, sir?" Lewrie enquired, crossing his legs for luck-to protect his "nutmegs" against the eerie chill which took him.
Damme, Jester an' her doin's was queer enough! he thought.
"At her launching day"-Proby squinted as if pained-"a fine day, sir. Sunshine and the high tide… a rare event on the Medway, as I'm certain you'll agree. A retired admiral, come down from London, him and his good lady, to do the actual naming."
"His lady did her naming?" Lewrie puzzled, nigh to gaping. It was rarely allowed-it was bad luck! He constricted his thighs for more protection against such an odd event.
"As good as, in essence, Captain Lewrie. As good as," Proby sighed. "The admiral… a most distinguished fellow; he did the actual honours with the port bottle… his lady by his side, no real role in things, as it should be, no. But she was one of those er, what-you-call-'ems… the romantic, literary sorts. Quite taken with this fellow Ossian, d'ye see…"
"And who's he, when he's up and dressed?" Lewried scowled, in wonder where this was all going.
"Some deuced scribbler… translated a batch of Irish sagas and such… Gaelic myths and legends set to poetry," Proby quibbled, not sounding too impressed himself. "The romantic rage of the moment. So I'm told. Elves and brownies, dancing fairies and magic circles, sword-wielding heroes and Druid magicians conjuring up all manner of spells and potions. Singing swords, so please you! Have you ever heard the like? Irish! They probably take it as history… Gospel!"
"And so this Ossian…?" Lewrie prompted.
"The lady's enthusiasms for all this bilge water got the better of her- and she did strike me, right from the first time I clapped eye on her, that she was the forbidding sort o' mort who'd run her household her way, and Heaven help the husband who gainsayed her-well, it was obvious she'd put a flea in his ear, and him a bloody Rear-Admiral and should have known better. Comes the moment to name her…"
Tell me before I throttle you, you lame twit! Lewrie groaned.
"… stands up there on the platform 'neath her bows, thousands of folk, from Hoo, Rochester, Chalk, and Sheerness watching. Band from the Chatham Marines ready to play her into the water. Officials down from London -Navy Board and all. Bishop of Rochester there too… and that was the worst part."
Lean a tad closer, just a tad, and… Lewrie thought, furious. And his fingers twitching for the leap from his lap to the throat.
"Adrape with flags from bow-to-stern, cradle all that's holding her, and all but the dog-shores removed…" Proby whispered, acting as if, were he a Catholic, he'd be flying over his rosary beads like some Chinee merchant at his abacus. "Should have suspected. Had him a nose on at breakfast, 'fore we rowed over to Frindsbury, and her nudging at him like a fishwife all that time, whispering in his ear…"
Right, you 're for it! Lewrie thought, raising one hand, staring at how strong his fingers flexed.
"Stood up there, 'fore one and all, and called out, 'Success to His Majesty's Ship'… came all over queer he did and waited, with a smirk on his face." Proby all but groaned and wrung his hands. "At last he says… Merlin'
Uhtnhmm, Lewrie thought, feeling an urge to shrug; what's so bad 'bout that? Old King Arthur's pet conjurer. So … ?
"Well, the crowd went dead-silent, and the Bishop of Rochester damn' near swooned away, sir." Proby grunted. "Mean t'say, Captain Lewrie, a pagan religious figure, a Celt Druid! And there right in front of his nose was one of the Chicheley brother's best figureheads of the sea-god, driving his chariot drawn by dolphins and seals…!"
Seals, oh Christ!" Lewrie chilled, dropping his hands to his lap for more protection, all thought oЈ mayhem quite flown his head.
"Well, sir, she slipped away right after," Proby told him, in awe of it still himself. "Dog-shores just gave way, with no one at the saws to free 'em! Everyone whey-faced, and the Admiralty representative steps up and takes the bottle and glass from the admiral. He had drunk off the glass of port but hadn't thrown the bottle to break on her bows, so it wasn't quite done, d'ye see, and could still be salvaged. And the Admiralty man takes a quick slug from the neck, throws the bottle, it breaks on her bow-timbers, and he calls out, 'Success to His Majesty's Ship Proteus, the name they'd already picked. Then the band starts up, and the people start cheering… and…"
"And?" Lewrie pressed, crossing his fingers for good measure.
"She stuck, sir! Stuck dead on the ways, still cradled. Tons of tallow, so slick a rat couldn't crawl up the slipway, but there she was… stuck firm as anything," Proby whispered. "And the cradle, it usually starts to fall apart once a launched ship gets way on her on the skids… designed to break up once she's afloat. Held like it's bolted together. Not cocked a bit off-centre, not hung up on anything beneath her, Captain Lewrie, but… she just… won't… move!"
"Dear, Lord," Lewrie sighed. Very softly and circumspectly, it should here be noted. "A bad-luck ship… a 'Jonah'?"
"Who's to say, sir?" Proby groaned, sounding a tad miserable. "But here's a stranger part. Good sawyer in Nicholson's yards, he's out on the slipway with his little boy… to cut the dog-shores. Comes 'round afore her bows, trying to think of what to do. She misses that high tide, and it's days more before she's depth enough to launch proper, without damaging her quick-work. Everybody watching, and he just walks up to her forefoot, lays a hand on her cutwater-it appeared that he said something-then… one shove of his little boy's hand and she gives out the most hideous groan, like the cradle is about to give way and break up. But instead… away she goes, smooth as any launch as ever I did see."
"Ah, well!" Lewrie felt reason to say with a relieved chuckle, yet a bit of a shiver. "And here I thought you were about to say how she crushed him and his boy… drew blood on her naming day. Wheew!"
"Ah, but the sawyer and his son, sir… they're Irish!" Proby most ominously pointed out, hunched up in his cloak as if he was fearful of sitting too erect. "Irish, d'ye see. Seen many an odd thing in my time concerning the launching of ships. Most go smooth as silk and no problem, 'cause they're just a 'thing' at that moment and don't get their soul 'til after they've been in saltwater for a spell. Now and then, though, there are the blood-drinkers. A sloop of war once mashed three men when she veered off the straight-and-narrow on her way in, and God help every man-jack who served aboard her, 'til she ran aground five years later and drowned her entire crew off the Hebrides. There's a two-decker 64 from this dockyard that's cost the careers of four captains by now, and she's… I'll not call down bad luck by naming her… had more strange accidents and deaths among her crew than any other of her type. Man-a-month dying, last I heard of her. Even Bellerophon, sir… blowing a perfect gale the night before her launching. Came to see if the shores would hold 'til morning, and there she was afloat… Launched herself, d'ye see? Christened her myself, after the fact. I think she was so eager to swim, Captain Lewrie, that she wouldn't wait. Aye, the 'Billy Ruff n' had an odd birthing, sir. But for the life o' me I cannot recall an event stranger than Proteus, not in years!"
"Well, that's coincidence, surely…" Lewrie objected. "That she came from the same yard. And the matter of the sawyer…"
"Like she approved of Merlin, though the Church wouldn't, then balked at being Proteus" Proby rhapsodised, as if in awe of the odd. "And only a Gaelic blessing made her accept it… groaning over it but going in, at last… at the touch of a mere lad."
"Well, since then at least there's been no sign…" Lewrie said. He thought sign too close to portent, and after a slight cough, amended that to, "There's been no troubles in her or with her?"
Proby shrugged, as if forced to say it, like a reluctant witness giving damning testimony against a friend.
"There is the matter of her previous captain."
"Aye?" Lewrie posed, wondering if his leg was being pulled.
"Captain The Honourable William Churchwell. Man in his earliest four-ties, as best I could judge, sir," Proby went on. "A bit of the Tartar, or so I gathered from others, a real taut-hand. But a most experienced officer. Dined with him several times, once he'd come down to read himself in command-Just after she went into the graving dock for her coppering. A most righteous man too, Captain Lewrie, brought up strict in the Church, and… for a Sea Officer… a very proper and sober Christian. Would have the hide off a seaman did he hear even a slight blasphemy or profane oath. Rare in the Navy, his sort."
Bloody right they are, Lewrie thought, keeping a non-committal glaze to his features; a sea-goin' parson. Damn' rare breed those… thankfully!
"Abstemious too, sir. Rarely touched more than a single glass of wine an entire meal, sir, and could only be pressed by the convivial folk to a rare second. Seen it myself," Proby related. And they both shook their heads in wonder at Captain Churchwell's contrary nature; it was a rare gentleman who'd put away fewer than two bottles of wine a day__it was the expected thing, part of a gentleman's ton.
The coach slowed, rocking on its leather straps as it came to a stop just by the King's Stairs, which led to a boat-landing. They alit, which activity delayed the rest of Proby's tale. Below the stairs lay a gaily painted ten-oared barge, Commissioner Proby's own, flying his personal flag; and hard by, a more plebeian hired cutter occupied by Aspinall, Andrews, and Padgett, laden with cabin-stores and furnishings, and Toulon in his wicker travelling basket.
"Ah, there she is, Captain Lewrie," Proby said, filled with pride of his latest creation for the Royal Navy. "A beauty, is she not?"
"All ships are, sir… but aye! This 'un…!" Lewrie swore, at his first sight of her. "She's lovely!"
Tall, erect, trig, and proud, glistening with newness, her tarred and painted sides shining and reflecting back the prismatic light flash of river water, HMS Proteus was indeed a lovely, new-cut precious gem of the shipbuilders' arcane science. Her bowsprit and jib-boom were steeved slightly lower than most frigates he'd seen, the way he liked 'em, for that meant larger heads'ls with more draw, closer to the deck, and more ability to go like a witch to windward. Her entry was not an apple-cheeked bulb from the waterline up, but angled slimmer and tapering narrower, to merge far before her cutwater in an aggressive, out-thrust extension of her sprit and head timbers, her cut-water angled a few degrees more astern than was customary to give her grace. Even at a quarter-mile's distance, without a glass, Lewrie could discern Frenchness in her pedigree, with a touch of stocky English usage aft, where she widened and flared for accommodation space and storage as far forrud as possible. He knew, just from looking at her, that her forecastle could be burdened by a pair of 6-pounder chase-guns and a pair of 24-pounder carronades, and still have the buoyancy and form to her front third to ride up and over even the tallest storm-wave without ploughing under, like a ship with a too-fine entry might.
Tumble-home inward from the chain-wale and gunwale, narrowing to save top-weight, all neatly proportioned like a surface-basking whale, broken by the row of gun-ports and the upper gunwale, which was painted a rather pretty buff tan. There was the glitter of gilt paint 'round her larboard entry-port, which at that angle as she lay bows upriver, streaming from a permanent moor, faced them; gilt glitters too, further aft where the quarter galleries jutted out from her curved sides and nearly upright stern timbers. A commissioning pendant swirled and curled high aloft, a small ensign in the eyes of her bows-a harbour jack-and the Red Ensign of a ship yet to be assigned to a particular squadron or fleet, an "independent ship," now and then outfurled to a lazy breeze. And all as pristine-new as the ship herself.
"I thought you would not mind did we use my barge to take you out to her 'stead of requesting of her to send over your gig," Mr. Proby said, after taking a long, satisfying gander of his own.
"Thankee, Mister Proby, that's most accommodating of you, and I would be honoured," Lewrie said, unable to tear his gaze from her, in a lust to be abroad and too impatient to wait for a boat to row shoreward to fetch him… like a parcel.
My frigate! he exulted, even if she was accursed; my frigate, my first frigate! The freedom, the power… those guns of hers! God help me, but I do love 'em. Ships and guns… and the reek o' both!
"Andrews?" he called over to the hired boat. "I'll go in the barge. Do you see my dunnage to the larboard port?"
"Aye, aye, Cap'um!" his Cox'n shouted back.
They descended the King's Stairs, got into the barge, and were shoved off. It was after Proby's Cox'n had a way on her, and steering clear of shore, before Proby continued his tale.
"Ah, Captain Churchwell," Proby sighed, toying with the lapels of his cloak. "He and his chaplain came ashore to dine with me that last evening. And as sober a lot as ever you could wish for, Captain Lewrie."
"The last evening? You don't mean t'say…?"
"Saw him to his gig, just there at the King's Stairs, as we did just now in my coach," Proby gloomed, turning a weathered face downriver to keep an eye on the ships in his charge, the refits and all of the new construction still skeleton-like on the slipways; and to get a whiff of ocean, Lewrie suspected.
"And not a half-hour later, his chaplain was dead. Drowned." Proby sighed.
Well, a chaplain, that's no loss, Lewrie thought most sourly; a reverend on a ship's a bit gloomy-makin' anyway. Haven't seen one of 'em worth a tuppenny shit, and most vessels sail without 'em.
"How terrible!" he felt compelled to gasp though.
"Dead calm, just at slack water it was, sir," Proby said, with another dis-believing shake of his head. "Not a breath of wind stirring, and no cause for Proteus to roll or toss. Side-party up on her gangway ready to render honours.
"It might have been someone on the main deck took a poke with something through the scuppers, but no one could recall seeing hands on deck that late at night, other than the side-party up above the gun-ports on the starboard gangway. But…"
"But, sir?" Lewrie pressed, feeling his hands twitch once more with impatience, as Proby turned the tale into a two-volume novel.
"For no apparent cause, sir… she heaved a slow roll starb'd," Proby whispered, leaning close to Lewrie on the thwart they shared near the sternsheets. "The chaplain, Reverend Talmidge, was halfway aloft, and Captain Churchwell was just by the lip of the entry-port, when she did her roll. And then, sir!-Captain Churchwell gave out a yelp, like he was stung by a wasp, he told me later-and lost his grasp on the man-ropes. He slipped and fell backwards, slid down into Reverend Talmidge and knocked him loose as well, and they both hit the water and went under. Right 'twixt ship and boat, without touching either, sir… not a mark on the gig, as there would have been had the Reverend Talmidge struck his head on her gunn'ls and knocked himself out. Captain Churchwell came to the surface a moment later, and his boat-crew pulled him out. But the chaplain never did. Now both men were strong swimmers, I was told, since boyhood; and Captain Churchwell thought that the chaplain might be beneath the gig, trapped and unconscious, and he dove under, searching for him, but never found him. He was never found, Captain Lewrie."
"That's odd," Lewrie had to admit aloud. "Usually a drowned man comes up, sooner or later. Downriver, perhaps…?"
"We searched, sir, indeed we did. Captain Churchwell had boats on the river not a half-hour later," Proby told him. "He sent news to me, requesting everything that'd float to search, as far as Gillingham Reach, the first morning and for several days after; but nary a sign of him did anyone see. And even did a man strike his noggin and put himself out well… being 'round ships, ports, and rivers the most part of my life Captain Lewrie, I've seen men fall overside, seen drownings aplenty, God save me. And the most of 'em do come up, right after they fall in. 'Fore their clothes get soaked, they've enough buoyancy for at least a single surfacing, if they've a scrap of air in their lungs."
"Well, perhaps he drew in a breath, but underwater…" Lewrie surmised. So far it was a tragic tale, perhaps indicative of his new ship's__
perverse nature? he shivered-Gaelic, Druidic, and Celtic soul. Certainly there was a frigate near her like, HMS Druid, built back in the early '80s, and there'd been a spot of bother at first over her name, with the Established Church's Ecclesiastical Court upset by an allusion to the old pagan ways and the necromancing Druids. He had never heard, though, that she'd been trouble. Made into a trooper, last he'd heard… with guns removed, en flute, so she could transport a whole battalion at once.
But the way Proby was glooming and ticking the side of his nose, as if in sage warning, he wondered when the other shoe might drop.
"It could be as you say, sir, for I've seen that happen also," Proby confessed. " 'Mongst the drunk-as-lords, the ones who did strike their heads. But, sir… Reverend Talmidge was stone-cold sober when he entered that gig. And no one could recall him striking his head… no dented wood, no smear of blood or hair…?" Proby shrugged. "And may I remind you, noted to be a strong swimmer. I sometimes wish our Lords Commissioners might follow the example of the Dutch Navy. They require every man-jack sent to sea to learn how to swim, or know how before joining. And their surgeons and surgeon's mates can revive a drowned man in almost miraculous fashion by laying him out face-down over a large keg laid on its side. Roll him back and forth and, more than half the time, he begins to cough and sputter and spew up what he swallowed or breathed in. And is returned to the living, Captain Lewrie, like Lazarus called out from his grave by Our Dear Saviour. I have seen that done too, sir, in my time."
"So he lost his chaplain, sir. But you said he was her previous captain?" Lewrie urged. "What made Captain Churchwell… 'previous'?"
"Oh, sir," Proby groaned, looking appalled. "Close as brothers they were to each other… cater-cousins from the same county, the same social set. Captain Churchwell was as heartbroken as a man who'd just lost all his brothers and sisters at a single stroke!"
"He threw over his commission due to grief, Mister Proby?" Lewrie frowned. Well, it did take all kinds, he felt like saying.
"I'll warrant there was a certain amount of grief, the cause." Proby nodded, looking seaward once more, towards HMS Proteus, to judge how near she was. "And guilt, for he was the one who'd jostled Talmidge when he slipped and fell. And that was an odd thing too, in addition to her strange roll. The man-ropes were spanking-new manila, hairy as so many badgers and dry as dust. The batten steps had been fresh-tarred, with sand scattered for a good foothold. No cause for him to slip at all. No linseed oil anywhere in sight for him to slip on with hand or foot."
"Prickly strands of manila… that might have been what he said stung him, sir," Lewrie suggested, turning to eye his new ship also.
"Sting a lubber, sir," Proby grunted most querulously. "Or sting a lady's soft hands. But never a tarry-handed sailor like him. Had a bear's grip, he did… and all over rope-handling callouses."
"So?" Lewrie shrugged. "Why that night then?"
"I recall most vividly him saying that it felt like he'd gotten stung by several wasps at once, Captain Lewrie," Proby told him. "At the tail end of winter, when they're still a'nest? No, he claimed the ship… bit him!"
"Beg pardon?" Lewrie gawped. "Bit him, did y'say?"
"Claimed she hated him and was out to kill him too," Proby told him, shrugging. "Not five days later, he wrote Admiralty asking for immediate relief. Aged ten years, he appeared, as haggard as a dog's dinner. Unkempt, his hair turned grey almost overnight, I tell you. And falling-down drunk, sir! Him, so abstemious before, but in his cups right 'round the clock afterwards. Running on deck at all hours, claiming he heard voices warning him to leave or die? Mister Ludlow claims he smelled sober in the beginning, even when he told the most horrendous fantasies and saw things no one else on deck saw, sir. Turned out the Marines to search his cabins more than a few times and claimed there was someone there, but nary a sign of an intruder there was. He began drinking soon after that. After the first two days, I think it was. Babbling to himself, weeping before the hands… 'twas a sorry spectacle Captain Churchwell was when he took the coach back to London. Never seen a man so shattered in body and soul."
"Perhaps he was one of those secret topers, Mister Proby," Lewrie wondered, "who hold it well and hide it well. Does a man play a role well enough in public… and don't most people…?"
"Seen more than my share of those too, in my time, sir"-Proby chuckled-"claiming to be the strictest abstainers… but experience gives the lie to their lies. Didn't look the sort. That sort of lust for drink will show in a man his age. In Sea Officers more than most, as I'm certain you've noted. No, sir, I may attest to you that this demonic craving for spirits was sudden. And the poor devil was quite capsized."
"Well, perhaps she bit him after all, sir. In a way? Bottle-bit?" Lewrie could not help saying, with a quirky smirk.
Proteus was near now-not a musket-shot off-and the barge was steering to pass under her out-thrust bowsprit and jib-boom, about ten yards in front of her bows to gain her starboard side. There was a thunder of feet as her partial crew was mustered, the shrill of bosun's calls to summon a side-party.
"Boat ahoy!" came a shout from her larboard cat-head, from the strange midshipman of the harbour watch.
"Proteus/" Proby's midshipman in the sternsheets cried back, to warn them that their caller was not just any officer, but her new captain. The bow-man thrust four fingers in the air, showing the number of side-men to be mustered.
"Perhaps she did, Captain Lewrie," Proby snipped, sounding as if he was put off by Lewrie's cynical comment. "Perhaps she did, at that. And the very oddest thing was, sir, the poor Captain Churchwell and the Reverend Talmidge both, sir… were Anglo-Irish. Son of an Irish peer, Churchwell was, from near Drogheda. And Talmidge the younger son of another, gone into the ministry. Both families were land-owning in the large way," Proby drawled. "The most extensive estates, equal to whole counties, with hundreds, if not thousands, of poor Irish tenants. Absentee landowners, most of the time, with them living well-off in Dublin or London most of the year. Anglo… Irish, sir! Protestant folk. Now were a ship to find her soul and resent her name, it just might be that, does she prefer something Gaelic or Celtic-like some of this fellow Ossian's romancings-she might have resented a Protestant English churchman and a taut-handed Tartar of a captain? Hmmm?"
"Murder, perhaps, sir," Lewrie said, after he'd gotten his jaw re-hinged. "But by someone in the crew. One of those United Irish I'm certain you've heard about. A sea-lawyer Quota Man who'd gotten what he thought was an unfair portion of the 'cat'? Half o' that lot are better off in prison or swingin' from a gibbet at Tyburn. One or more of their poorest tenants come into the Fleet to find him over them and couldn't resist takin' revenge for bein' turfed off their little plots?"
"All those possibilities were considered, Captain Lewrie, but so far, there is no plausible explanation. Oh, but she's a wondrous ship, sir. As lovely as a swan, do you not think? But who ever knows how a ship will turn out? Even more unpredictable than children, sir. And heartbreaking to see them turn off evil, to see them fail to be the sort you'd wished them to be. Ships, sir." Mr. Proby sighed, a bit wistfully philosophical. "I do believe, Captain Lewrie, that ships live, after a fashion. Call it heretical, or pagan… or simple-minded superstition, but being 'round 'em so many years, I've come to believe it. Mariners suspect it, merchant or Navy. As I'm certain you do."
"They're more than oak and iron, Mister Proby, aye," Lewrie was forced to confess. "My last ship, well… there was a spirit to her too. A kindly one. Gad, you make my skin crawl, sir."
"I did not intend to daunt you, sir," Proby insisted, as the barge coasted towards the main-chains, those suspect boarding battens and man-ropes. "There could be a most prosaic explanation for all of the oddities surrounding her…"
Aye, and it could be Lir's work, Lewrie silently scoffed; elves and leprechauns skitterin' about with drawn daggers too! Eeriness, just waitn' for the next… her next victim/ Has he turned on me?
"… either way, sir. This ship has, I must avow, discovered her spirit early. She may be mettlesome, but never dull. And does she have a will of her own, well… it's the most-willful stallions make the best chargers. You'd not take a mare to sea, sir… a dim gelding! No, you'd prefer a fighter!"
Is he tryin' t'sell me a haunted house? Lewrie felt like sneering. Oh, don't mind the old spook by the fire; he's no bother! Ghastly hole in the roof, but I'm sure you 're the sort appreciates fresh air!
"And I'm certain you will have the most splendid fortune with her, Captain Lewrie," Proby concluded, as the barge's bow thumped on her timbers, and the bow-man lanced out with his boat-hook to grab at the chain platform. "And here we are!"
She plan t'murder me too? Lewrie wondered, as he swung his sword to the back of his left leg, stood up, and flung back his cloak to show off his epaulet. / ain 't an Anglo-Irish landowner, so she can forget that score! Callin' me well-churched'd be a real amusement, so that's out. Is she upset with bein' an English frigate, well too damn' bad! Maybe we 'II get on together…?
He eyed the battens: dry as anything, fresh-tarred, sprinkled with grit. The man-ropes rove through the eyes of the battens were as white as snow, served with red spun-yarn, just waiting…
Hell, maybe I'm just as much a pagan as any she could wish! he told himself as he stepped on the barge's gunn'l to step over; I mean, God knows, most people who know me well already think so!