Nothing up there, not even his futile trumpeting, could disturb the chill rejoicing beauty of the night. The wind increased, but the moonlight was bland and reassuring. Often the cope of some tall wave would plunge dully over the bows, filling the deck with water that floundered foaming with the ship’s movement or dribbled back through the scuppers into the sea. Yet there was no menace in the dark wandering water; each wave tossed back from its neck a wreath of foam that slewed like milk across the breast of its follower.
The trumpeter sat upon a heap of ropes beside a big soldier.
“The rotten matchbox, did ye ever see the like o’ that? I’ll kill him against the first thing we step ashore, like ye would a flea!”
“Be aisy,” said the soldier; “why are ye making trouble at all? Have ye hurt your little finger?”
“Trouble, is it? What way would I be making trouble in this world?” exclaimed the trumpeter. “Isn’t it the world itself as puts trouble on ye, so it is, like a wild cat sitting under a tub of unction! O, very pleasant it is, O ay! No, no, my little sojee, that is not it at all. You can’t let the flaming world rush beyant ye like that....”
“Well, it’s a quiet life I’m seeking,” interjected the soldier, wrapping his great coat comfortingly across his breast, “and by this and by that, a quiet night too.”
“Is that so? Quiet, is it? But I say, my little sojee, you’ll not get it at all and the whole flaming world whickering at ye like a mad cracker itself. Would ye sleep on that wid yer quiet life and all? It’s to tame life you’d be doing, like it was a tiger. And it’s no drunken boozer can tame me as was with the Munsters in the East ... for seven holy years.”
“Ah, go off wid you, you’ve hurt your little finger.”
“Me little finger, is it?” cried the trumpeter, holding his thin hands up for inspection in the moonlight, “I have not then.”
“You surprise me,” the soldier said, gazing at him with sleepy amused tolerance. “Did you never hear of Tobin the smith and Mary of Cappoquin?”