Here the veteran ceased, and folding his arms, he held down his head as if communing with his own heart and struggling to dispel the visions which his narration had conjured up. I cautiously refrained from disturbing him, till by a sudden gulp or sea-sigh, like the expiring gale when at its last gasp, he gave indications of having becalmed his feelings, and we moved onwards up the steps into the body of the Hall, till we stood before the fine painting of the Battle of the Nile, by G. Arnald. “There, your honour,” exclaimed the veteran, whilst his eye sparkled with glowing recollections, “look there, your honour; isn’t that a sight to awaken old remembrances! It’s worth a hundred of that yonder, which is neither ship-shape nor Bristol fashion, as I take it, for an officer in boarding to be rigged out as if he was going to a ball. Mayhap, howsomever, it may be all well enough for landsmen and marines to look at, because it’s pretty; but the eye of a seaman only glances at it with contempt.” The subject of his last observations, was a painting of Nelson boarding the San Josef of 112 guns in the battle off St. Vincent. “I told you before I was with him in both _doos_; but, Lord love your heart, it was another sort of a concarn than that ’ere; for there warn’t no fighting on the quarter-deck of the three-decker,--all the fighting were in the San Nickylas as we boarded first. But here’s a pretty picture, your honour,” pointing to a small but beautiful painting of the re-capture of the Hermione frigate by Sir Edward Hamilton, “and it tells a tale too! Well, thank God, I never sailed with a tyrannical captain! and there was one,--a lord,--who used to boast he had flogged every man in his ship.” “I never knew that Sir Edward Hamilton was severe,” said I, “for I had always been given to understand that he was a smart but humane officer.” “I didn’t mean him, sir,” replied the veteran, “it was another sort of person; but he was murdered, and in cold blood too. I have heard the tale often, for old Hughes, who died boatswain of the Laurel frigate, was an old shipmate of mine, and he was in the Hermione at the time of the mutiny. ’Twas a shocking affair,” added the old man, shaking his head, “and who could think that whilst the beautiful moon was shedding her pale light,--not but I’m thinking the moon has no business in that ’ere picture, any more than it had to be up such a night as that at all; but the painters can stick a moon just where they like, though it destroys the tale they have to tell. Besides, captain Hamilton wouldn’t be likely to want even so much as the blink of a purser’s lantern to show the Spaniards he was coming.”