Captain Mason

“ From this period till the spring of 1810, Captain Mason was employed as senior officer off the Scheldt; and subsequently under the orders of his former Admiral in the Baltic, where he cruised with considerable activity and success, as will be seen by the following abstract of captures made by the Fisgard and her boats previous to his return home at the commencement of the winter season: Juliana, Danish privateer, of 6 guns; a schooner of 1 gun; a French privateer of 2 guns, and fifty-six sail of merchant-vessels, captured; and the Ziska, Danish privateer, of 6 guns and 40 men, destroyed. ”

“ Proceeding thither the convoy encountered most dreadful weather, and the Rattler was at length obliged to bear up for Kinsale, in consequence of her having been ran foul of by one of the merchant vessels. After repairing the damages thus sustained, Captain Mason lost no time in resuming his voyage; but had not been many days out of port when he fell in with a French squadron from Rochefort, and very narrowly escaped capture. ”

“ All about him the sailing-boats headed to the wind, sinking and rising in the furrows, so that Warrisden would just see a brown topsail over the edge of a steep roller like a shark's fin, and the next instant the dripping hull of the boat flung out upon a breaking crest.
"You will have to look slippy when the punt from the Perseverance comes alongside with her fish," the captain shouted. "The punt will give you a passage back to the Perseverance, but I don't think you will be able to return. There's a no'th-westerly gale blowing up, and the sea is increasing every moment. ”

“ Still, as we ran up the Irish Channel and sighted the Welsh coast, I felt very nervous, and could scarcely attend to my duties. At length we entered the Mersey and dropped anchor off Liverpool. As soon as the ship had been taken into dock, and the captain was at liberty, he sent for me, and we walked together to Mr Butterfield’s office, where we were at once shown into his private room. The old gentleman did not recognise me, I was so grown and altered. When Captain Mason said who I was, he started, and, eyeing me keenly, at last took my hand. ”

“ Leaving the cars, we hurry to the landing and take boat to Washington. Sad, pale faces and stricken hearts meet us at every turn. Captain Mason, of the Eighty-first Pennsylvania, is among the passengers. He is on his way to his home in Philadelphia, to attend the funeral of his wife, having received a telegram the day before announcing her death. ”

“ Mr. Mason continued in the Russel, on the Channel and North Sea stations, until the latter end of 1796,when the whole of her officers and crew were turned over to the Impetueux of 78 guns [3] , the command of which ship had been conferred upon Captain Payne, who was subsequently employed as senior officer of a cruising squadron, but whose ill-health obliged him io come on shore in the spring of 1798, without having had an opportunity of adding to his well-earned reputation by the performance of any greater service than that of capturing two French privateers and several Spanish merchantmen. ”

“ She was consequently paid off in July, 1812, and Captain Mason remained unemployed till May 1813, when he was appointed to the President of 46 guns, in which ship he was present at the storming of St. Sebastian [11] ; and afterwards cruised on the Cork station till April 1814; when peace appearing certain, and his lady being in a precarious state of health, as also much afflicted by the recent loss of her gallant brother [12] , he determined upon resigning his ”

“ It is not our own right arm, but God in heaven, without whose knowledge not a sparrow falls to the ground, who preserves us in many dangers. Captain Mason begged for the use of Hassall’s glass, and looked steadfastly through it at the wreck. “It is impossible, yet the figure is like—I cannot make it out,” I heard him say. The success of the first man induced another to attempt reaching the shore. He hurried along to the end of the mast and threw himself into the water. ”

“ It was a lonely, but very beautiful spot, such as a man like Mason would be likely to select as a home for his beloved ones.
Here, in fact, this good man had left his wife and only child, the latter a charming little golden-haired creature of four years old, when he sailed for St. Domingo in the brig Floyd, which we know to have been left disabled and drifting on the ocean. The vessel had been absent six weeks beyond its time, and no intelligence had yet reached her owners or that anxious woman, regarding her fate. This voyage had been Mason's first experience as captain ”

“ In the execution of this service, although exposed to a heavy fire of round, grape, and musketry, from a castle mounting ten guns, and a battery of three guns, together with some opposition from several armed boats, the British had not a man slain and only 5 persons wounded, one of whom was the gallant leader of the party, who soon after obtained the reward his distinguished conduct had so highly merited. To that officer’s memoir, we must refer the reader for a copy of Captain Mason’s official letter relative to this capture. ”

“ He returned shortly from his inspection.
"Everything is ready for instant use," he reported, "but we must have the flags bent onto a separate piece of rope so that all we shall have to do is to fasten the rope to the halliards and send the flags aloft. And then we must also stow the flags somewhere where we can get at them easily as soon as we see another vessel."
"Leave that to me, captain," said Mason, saluting with a grin. "Right under my bunk is a place. All you fellows watch where I put them, so that if I am not with you when the ship comes along you can do the trick. ”

“ When the boat had been lightened of its unexpected cargo, the voyage across the bay began. The poor darky, however, was no sooner sure that his neck was not broken by the tumble, than he was nearly dead with the fear of drowning. Their boat, a little skiff just big enough for one person, leaked like a sieve, and soon became water-logged in the seaway. Mason's hat was a stiff "plug," a former gift of charity. It had suffered sorely by the plunge down the bank, but its ruin was made complete by the Captain ordering its owner to fall to and bail out the boat with it. ”

“ I want to find a man on the trawler Perseverance."
The captain turned. Warrisden could not see his face, but he knew from his attitude that he was staring at him in amazement.
"Then you must want to see him pretty badly," he commented. "The No'th Sea in February and March is not a Bobby's job."
"Bad weather is to be expected?" asked Warrisden.
"It has been known," said the captain dryly; and before the lights of the Outer Gabbard winked good-bye on the starboard quarter at four o'clock in the morning, the City of Bristol was taking the water over her deck. ”

“ Again they struck, and this time the negro caught and held one of the sailors, held him while the foam fell away, and the succeeding wave swept him over the spiles to safety. Again the resolute man flung his noose and caught the second sailor, whose rope was cut by the leader, the captain, who was last to be saved.
As the negro came back, dragging his third man over the wall, a mighty cry went up, a strange, faint, multitudinous cry, and the negro was swallowed up in the multitude.
Mason turned to Rose and spoke: "Sometimes men seem to be worth while!" ”

“ Seamen are always ready to acknowledge merit, and his attempt to desert was overlooked, especially when it was known among the men that he had been put up to it by Ben Rudall. He was naturally somewhat nervous as to how he might be treated by the captain, not being aware that Lieutenant Mason had spoken in his favour, for he had no hope that Lord Reginald or Voules would have mentioned his conduct on board the cutter. ”

“ Again the captain went off into a paroxysm of laughter. The peals of loud guffaws grated on the ears of the anxious boys.
"He can't be a bad man at heart," whispered [Pg 20] Mason to Harry, "or he wouldn't have taken so much trouble and run so much risk to pick us up after his steamer ran us down."
"No, I don't understand it. I feel as if I were being kidnapped," said Bert. ”

“ Wilbraham resumed, untroubled by Mrs. Warriner's objections. "A pretty careless captain that, eh? A most uncommon careless captain, Mrs. Warriner? For a boat to lose her papers--well, its pretty much the same as when a girl loses her marriage lines in the melodramas. A most uncommon careless captain! Or a most astute one, you say. What? Well, I'll not deny but what you may be right. For that brigantine caught fire and burned her papers just about the date when the Ten Brothers went ashore on Rosevear. How's that for the long arm?"
"But you did not see my husband," said Miranda, stubbornly. ”

“ Five men slept in the bunks--Warrisden made a sixth. At four in the morning the captain joined the party through his love of company. The skylight and the door were both tightly closed, a big fire burned in the stove, and a boiling kettle of tea perpetually puffed from its spout a column of warm, moist steam. Warrisden felt his skin prickly beneath his clothes; he gasped for fresh air.
Living would be rough upon the fish-carrier, Chase had told him; and rough Warrisden found it. ”

“ The Dragonfly passed a German cargo steamer which had sought refuge here at the outbreak of war. She was a large ship, full of oil, and she had been moved from the quay-side to an anchorage in the bay by the captain of the port, lest by design or inadvertence she should take fire and set the town aflame. There she lay, a source of endless misgiving to every allied ship which sailed these waters, kept clean and trim as a yacht, her full crew on board, her dangerous cargo below, in the very fairway of the submarine ”

“ He did not like the name, but as yet he had not found any way of changing it. Captain Bannister was a retired seaman, but I do not know whether he had ever been a full-fledged captain of a ship. In our town it was often the custom to call a man "Captain" if he had ever risen as high as mate. The Captain was a short, red-faced man, with such bowed legs that you could have pushed a barrel, end-ways, right between them. Ed Mason thought that the Captain's legs were bowed like that because he had been made to sit for hours astride a barrel. ”

“ The captain pointed to some birds hovering over the masts of the ketch.
"Those are land birds," said he. "Look, there's a thrush and there's a blackbird. You won't find them so far from land without a reason. There has been a fog, and very likely a storm. They have lost their bearings in the fog."
The birds hovered about the ships of the fleet, calling plaintively--here, at all events, were men recognisably belonging to the land they vainly sought. Stretton, watching them, felt very much like one of those birds. ”

“ If the first or second officer is out in his reckoning, the captain tells him so, but he does not show his own. For at times, no doubt, he is wrong too. So, gentlemen, I criticise your observations, but I do not show you mine."
He took up Ricardo's paper and read it through again.
"Yes," he said pleasantly. "But the two questions which are most important, which alone can lead us to the truth—how do they come to be omitted from your list, Mr. Ricardo?"
Hanaud put the question with his most serious air. But Ricardo was none the less sensible of the raillery behind the solemn manner. ”

“ Hanaud smiled.
"As to that," he said, "remember I am the captain of the ship, and I do not show you my observation." Ricardo was disappointed. Harry Wethermill, however, started to his feet.
"We must search Geneva, then," he cried. "It is there that we should be, not here drinking our coffee at the Villa des Fleurs."
Hanaud raised his hand.
"The search is not being overlooked. But Geneva is a big city. It is not easy to search Geneva and find, when we know nothing about the woman for whom we are searching, except that her hair is red, and that probably a young girl last night was with her. ”

“ This officer entered into the royal navy as midshipman on board the Prince 98, Captain Richard Grindall, in Dec. 1803; and served under that officer at the glorious battle of Trafalgar. Subsequent to that great event, he was placed with Captain William Hoste, in the Amphion frigate, on the Mediterranean station. In Mar. 1809, while conducting a prize to Malta, he was taken prisoner by two French privateers, off the coast of Dalmatia, and placed under restraint at Zara. From thence he was transferred to Ancona, and after a subsequent confinement at Briançon, removed to Verdun-sur-Meuse. ”

“ On the morrow the Admiral headed north for the Great Fisher Bank, and the fleet followed, with the exception of the Willing Mind. The Willing Mind lagged along in the rear without her topsails till about half-past two in the afternoon, when Captain Weeks became suddenly alert. He bore away till he was right before the wind, hoisted every scrap of sail he could carry, rigged out a spinnaker with his balloon fore-sail, and made a clean run for the coast of Denmark. Deakin explained the manoeuvre to Duncan. "The old man's goin' poachin'. He's after soles." ”

“ Thus you avoid much trouble, all chance of detection and you secure skilled workmen. I had no doubt that Warriner had followed this course. So I hired the custom-house officials to tell me the truth, and out it came. The Tarifa had landed its cargo in the bay a mile and a half from Tangier a couple of days before I arrived, and M. Fournier had supervised the unloading, and the captain of the Tarifa was no longer the grizzled sea-dog, Mr. Thomas Discipline, but a gentleman of a slight figure, blue eyes, and fair hair. ”