t when he fought a
fight at sea. He fought it uncommonly well, and it was good, and so many
men fell that he picked up his commission, and got into a fifty-two-gun
ship. After several years of service, without promotion--for his
grandfather's name was worn out now, and the wars were not properly
constant--there came a very lively succession of fights, and Carroway
got into all of them, or at least into all the best of them. And he
ought to have gone up much faster than he did, and he must have done so
but for his long lean jaws, the which are the worst things that any man
can have. Not only because of their own consumption and slow length
of leverage, but mainly on account of the sadness they impart, and the
timid recollection of a hungry wolf, to the man who might have lifted up
a fatter individual.

But in Rodney's great encounter with the Spanish fleet, Carroway
showed such a dauntless spirit, and received such a wound, that it was
impossible not to pay him some attention. His name was near the bottom
of a very long list, but it made a mark on some one's memory, depositing
a chance of coming up some day, when he should be reported hit again.
And so good was his luck that he soon was hit again, and a very bad
hit it was; but still he got over it without promotion, because that
enterprise was one in which nearly all our men ran away, and therefore
required to be well pushed up for the sake of the national honor. When
such things happen, the few who stay behind must be left behind in the
Gazette as well. That wound, therefore, seemed at first to go against
him, but he bandaged it, and plastered it, and hoped for better luck.
And his third wound truly was a blessed one, a slight one, and taken in
the proper course of things, without a slur upon any of his comrades.
This set him up again with advancement and appointment, and enabled him
to marry and have children seven.

The lieutenant was now about fifty years of age, gallant and lively as
ever, and resolute to attend to his duty and himself as well. His duty
was now along shore, in command of the Coast-guard of the East District;
for the loss of a good deal of one heel made it hard for him to step
about as he should do when afloat. The place suited him, and he was fond
of it, although he grumbled sometimes about his grandfather, and went
on as if his office was beneath him. He abused all his men, and all the
good ones liked him, and respected him for his clear English.