Snarleyyow or The Dog Fiend   By: Frederick Marryat (1792-1848)

"Snarley yow", or "The Dog Fiend" was published in 1837, the eleventh book to flow from Marryat's pen.

You could say that this book is a chronicle of the doings of various hopeless people, who are constantly being unkind to one another, and in particular, except for his owner, to the rather horrible dog. But no matter what is put in hand to do the dog in, he always somehow seems to survive, and to re appear just as unattractive and nasty as ever.

That might be enough for the story, but in addition it is set in a period of British history when the King was of Dutch origin, and so many of his courtiers, and officials in general, also hailed from the Netherlands. This meant that the naval vessel at the centre of the story was travelling to and from the Netherlands a lot of the time, which gave scope for various activities on the side, as it were.

Created as an eBook in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and reformatted in 2005.

SNARLEY YOW, OR THE DOG FIEND, BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT.

CHAPTER ONE.

INTRODUCTION OF DIVERS PARTIES AND A RED HERRING.

It was in the month of January, 1699, that a one masted vessel, with black sides, was running along the coast near Beachy Head, at the rate of about five miles per hour. The wind was from the northward and blew keenly, the vessel was under easy sail, and the water was smooth. It was now broad daylight, and the sun rose clear of clouds and vapour; but he threw out light without heat. The upper parts of the spars, the hammock rails, and the small iron guns which were mounted on the vessel's decks, were covered with a white frost. The man at the helm stood muffled up in a thick pea jacket and mittens, which made his hands appear as large as his feet. His nose was a pug of an intense bluish red, one tint arising from the present cold, and the other from the preventive checks which he had been so long accustomed to take to drive out such an unpleasant intruder. His grizzled hair waved its locks gently to the wind, and his face was distorted with an immoderate quid of tobacco which protruded his right cheek. This personage was second officer and steersman on board of the vessel, and his name was Obadiah Coble. He had been baptised Obadiah about sixty years before; that is to say, if he had been baptised at all. He stood so motionless at the helm, that you might have imagined him to have been frozen there as he stood, were it not that his eyes occasionally wandered from the compass on the binnacle to the bows of the vessel, and that the breath from his mouth, when it was thrown out into the clear frosty air, formed a smoke like to that from the spout of a half boiling tea kettle.