the wind is fresh from the north-west; flakes of
snow are seen wafting here and there by the wind, the avant-couriers of
a heavy fall; the whole sky is of one murky grey, and the sun is hidden
behind a dense bank. The deck of the cutter is wet and slippery, and
Dick Short has the morning watch. He is wrapt up in a Flushing
pea-jacket, with thick mittens on his hands; he looks about him, and now
and then a fragment of snow whirls into his eye; he winks it out, it
melts and runs like a tear down his cheek. If it were not that it is
contrary to man-of-war custom he would warm himself with the
_double-shuffle_, but such a step would be unheard of on the
quarter-deck of even the cutter Yungfrau.

The tarpaulin over the hatchway is pushed on one side, and the space
between the coamings is filled with the bull head and broad shoulders of
Corporal Van Spitter, who, at last, gains the deck; he looks round him,
and apparently is not much pleased with the weather. Before he proceeds
to business, he examines the sleeves and front of his jacket, and having
brushed off with the palm of his hand a variety of blanket-hairs,
adhering to the cloth, he is satisfied, and now turns to the right and
to the left, and forward and aft--in less than a minute he goes right
round the compass. What can Corporal Van Spitter want at so early an
hour? He has not come up on deck for nothing, and yet he appears to be
strangely puzzled: the fact is, by the arrangements of last night, it
was decided, that this morning, if Snarleyyow did not make his
appearance in the boat sent on shore for fresh beef for the ship's
company, the unfortunate Smallbones was to be _keel-hauled_.

What a delightful morning for a keel-hauling!

This ingenious process, which, however, like many other good old
customs, has fallen into disuse, must be explained to the non-nautical
reader. It is nothing more nor less than sending a poor navigator on a
voyage of discovery under the bottom of the vessel, lowering him [The
author has here explained keel-hauling as practised in those times in
small _fore-and-aft_ vessels. In large and square-rigged vessels, the
man was hauled up to one main-yard arm, and dropped into the sea, and
hauled under the bottom of the vessel to the other; but this in small
fore-and-aft vessels was not so easily effected, nor was it considered
sufficient punishment] down over the bows, and with ropes retaining him
exactly in his position under the ke