Was _this_ the end of all his
dreams? Well, at least there was that friendly cannon-ball to be prayed
for, or a French cutlass or pike in some boat expedition, if the Fates
were kind.
The frigate's orders were--Halifax with despatches; thereafter, the
West India Station for an indefinite time. Six or eight weeks at
Halifax, varied by some knocking about off the Nova Scotia coast, did
not tend to relax Watty's depression, but rather the contrary. For just
before the frigate took her departure from those latitudes a lately
received Portsmouth journal which reached the midshipmen's berth had
recorded the arrest on a serious charge of, amongst others, a woman
giving her name as "Mrs. Walter Scott, licensee of the Goat's Head
Tavern, Portsmouth." Now the Goat's Head Tavern was that little inn
where in an evil moment the three lads had taken up their abode before
the sailing of the _Sirius_, and to Watty it appeared as if his disgrace
must now be spread abroad by the four winds of heaven.
It was mental relief to get away out to sea, and to feel that now at
least there was again some probability of the excitement of an action.
To Bermuda, thence to Jamaica, were the orders; and surely in no part of
the world was a ship of war more certain of active employment.
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