Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/268

 nightmare. Pitch and toss and freeze was the program that night, and not a man aboard but longed for daylight. Ferris, for once supplied with something to be thoroughly pessimistic about, fairly outdid himself!

The next morning, which dawned bright and frostily clear, the ships sought calmer quarters and in the afternoon liberty was granted and the little city was over-run with Jackies. The attitude of the inhabitants puzzled Nelson. They appeared friendly, or, certainly, not unfriendly, but kept oddly aloof and were uncommunicative to a degree. The men on all ships had been specially and strictly cautioned as to behavior, and as a result the Christiansand folks had nothing to complain of on that score. Ferris remarked gloomily that they were "a frosty lot," and reckoned they never got quite thawed out after the long Winters.

Towards five o'clock word went around that warships were coming up from southward, and there was much activity along the harbor front. A Norwegian gunboat of a very ancient vintage rolled out to sea, apparently, as one of the Gyandotte's crew said, "to give 'em the once over." Evidently the gunboat was satisfied. Or else she thought discretion the better part of valor. In 243