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has not parted a yarn."
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"Yarns!" repeated the mate, in a tone of strong contempt; "what signify
yarns, when the whole cable is to snap, and in such a fashion as to leave
no hope for the anchor, except in a buoy rope? Hark ye, old Bill; the
devil never finishes his jobs by halves: What is to happen will happen
bodily; and no easing-off, as if you were lowering the Captain's lady into
a boat, and he on deck to see fair play."
"Mr Nighthead knows how to keep a ship's reckoning in all weathers!" said
another, whose manner sufficiently announced the dependance he himself
placed on the capacity of the second mate.
"And no credit to me for the same. I have seen all services, and handled
every rig, from a lugger to a double-decker! Few men can say more in their
own favour than myself; for the little I know has been got by much
hardship, and small schooling. But what matters information, or even
seamanship against witchcraft, or the workings of one whom I don't choose
to name, seeing that there is no use in offending any gentleman
unnecessarily? I say, brothers that this ship is packed upon in a fashion
that no prudent seaman ought to, or would, allow."
A general murmur announced that most, if not all, of his hearers accorded
in his opinion.
"Let us examine calmly and reasonably, and in a manner becoming
enlightened Englishmen, into the whole state of the case," the mate
continued, casting an eye obliquely over his shoulder, perhaps to make
sure that the individual, of whose displeasure he stood in such salutary
awe, was not actually at his elbow. "We are all of us, to a man,
native-born islanders, without a drop of foreign blood among us; not so
much as a Scotchman or an Irishman in the ship. Let us therefore look into
the philosophy of this affair, with that sort of judgment which becomes
our breeding. In the first place, here is honest Nicholas Nichols slips
from this here water-cask, and breaks me a leg! Now, brothers, I've known
men to fall from tops and yards, and lighter damage done. But what matters
it, to a certain person, how far he throws his man, since he has only to
lift a finger to get us all hanged? Then, comes me aboard here a stranger,
with a look of the colonies about him, and none of your plain-dealing,
out-and-out, smooth English faces, such as a man can cover with the flat
of his hand."--
"The lad is well enough to the eye," interrupted the old mariner.
"Ay, therein lies the whole deviltry of this matter! He is good-looking, I
grant ye; but it is not such good-looking as an Englishman loves. There is
a meaning about him that I don't like; for I never likes too much meaning
in a man's countenance, seeing that it is not always easy to understand
what he would be doing. Then, this stranger gets to be Master of the ship,
or, what is the same thing, next to Master; while he who should be on
deck giving his orders, in a time like this, is lying in his birth unable
to tack himself, much less to put the vessel about; and yet no man can say
how the thing came to pass."
"He drove a bargain with the consignee for the station, and right glad did
the cunning merchant seem to get so tight a youth to take charge of the
'Caroline.'"
"Ah! a merchant is, like the rest of us, made of nothing better than clay;
and, what is worse, it is seldom that, in putting him together, he is
dampened with salt water. Many is the trader that has douzed his
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spectacles, and shut his account-books, to step aside to over-reach his
neighbour, and then come back to find that he has over-reached himself. Mr
Bale, no doubt, thought he was doing the clever thing for the owners, when
he shipped this Mr Wilder; but then, perhaps, he did not know that the
vessel was sold to ------ It becomes a plain-going seaman to have a
respect for all he sails under; so I will not, unnecessarily, name the
person who, I believe, has got, whether he came by it in a fair purchase
or not, no small right in this vessel."
"I have never seen a ship got out of irons more handsomely than he handled
the 'Caroline' this very morning."
Nighthead now indulged in a low, but what to his listeners appeared to be
an exceedingly meaning, laugh.
"When a ship has a certain sort of Captain, one is not to be surprised at
any thing," he answered the instant his significant merriment had ceased.
"For my own part, I shipped to go from Bristol to the Carolinas and
Jamaica, touching at Newport out and home; and I will say, boldly, I have
no wish to go any where else. As to backing the 'Caroline' from her
awkward birth alongside the slaver, why it was well done; most too well
for so young a manner. Had I done the thing myself, it could not have been
much better. But what think you, brothers of the old man in the skiff?
There was a chase, and an escape, such as few old sea-dogs have the
fortune to behold! I have heard of a smuggler that was chased a hundred
times by his Majesty's cutters, in the chops of the Channel, and which
always had a fog handy to run into, but out of which no man could truly
say he ever saw her come again! This skiff may have plied between the land
and that Guernseyman, for any thing I know to the contrary; but it is not
a boat I wish to pull a scull in."
"That _was_ a remarkable flight!" exclaimed the elder seaman, whose faith
in the character of our adventurer began to give way gradually, before
such an accumulation of testimony.
"I call it so; though other men may possibly know better than I, who have
only followed the water five-and-thirty years. Then, here is the sea
getting up, in an unaccountable manner! and look at these rags of clouds,
which darken the heavens! and yet there is light enough, coming from the
ocean, for a good scholar to read by!"
"I've often seen the weather as it is now."
"Ay, who has not? It is seldom that any man, let him come from what part
he will, makes his first voyage as Captain. Let who will be out to-night
upon the water, I'll engage he has been there before. I have seen worse
looking skies, and even worse looking water, than this; but I never knew
any good come of either. The night I was wreck'd in the bay of"----
"In the waist there!" cried the calm, authoritative tones of Wilder.
Had a warning voice arisen from the turbulent and rushing ocean itself, it
would not have sounded more alarming, in the startled ears of the
conscious seamen, than this sudden hail. Their young Commander found it
necessary to repeat it, before even Nighthead, the proper and official
spokesman, could muster resolution to answer.
"Get the fore-top-gallant-sail on the ship, sir," continued Wilder, when
the customary reply let him know that he had been heard.
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The mate and his companions regarded each other, for a moment, in dull
admiration; and many a melancholy shake of the head was exchanged, before
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