It was a grey, dark, dismal, roaring day. The seas rolled in hills of green, and the foam of them, as their heads broke, was blown high up in white smoke. The ship looked strained aloft. Her lee rigging and gear were arched out by the gale; the bands of topsails were dusky with wet, and the wind screamed like children flying in terror. The barricades gave the ship a most miserable appearance. The decks sobbed with the ceaseless soaking, and the white water flashed inboards through the scupper-holes wherever the vessel buried her lee side. At the far end of the poop was the helmsman, sharply rising and falling against the whirling soot of the sky. The officer of the watch, clothed in oilskins, stood grasping a stay near a quarter-boat. A single sentry stood at the head of the poop-ladder. The poor fellow was sodden, and seemed withered by the ceaseless pouring of the blast. One cannot but feel sorry for soldiers at sea. The forecastle sentry looked equally wretched. Those on the main-deck were in some degree sheltered by the weather bulwarks. A strange smell of cattle, hay, poultry, and pigs, came from the long-boat, within and under which the live-stock were stowed. A dismal, wet, roaring, frost-cold picture. The melancholy horror of it is upon my spirits as I talk to you, and yet this was but the first week of what might prove a passage of months. I heard the boatswain’s voice of thunder giving orders to some seamen on the other side of the galley. Presently he came round to my side of the deck, and on seeing me called out, ‘I’ve got some o’ your property. The chief mate says I’m to hand it over to you. Here’s the handkerchief,’ said he. ‘There was two pipes. Well, I can’t return ’em because they’re broke. Here’s yer tinder-box and arrangement, and a pretty contrivance it is. When I get ashore I shall ask my young woman to make me a present of such another.’ ‘You are very welcome to it, Mr. Balls.’ ‘Say you so? Smite me if I haven’t been swearing you was a gentleman born and bred ever since I first lugged you out of the t’garns’l. Well, I’m truly obliged. As pretty a little----’ and he walked off, talking aloud as he looked at the tinder-box.