All hands, under the Mates, are hard driven, sweating on sheet and halyard to make the most of the light breeze. At the wheel I have little to do; she is steering easily, asking no more than a spoke or two, when the Atlantic swell, running under, lifts her to the wind. Ahead of us a few trawlers are standing out to the Skerryvore Banks. Broad to the North, the rugged, mist-capped Mull of Cantyre looms up across the heaving water. The breeze is steady, but a falling barometer tells of wind or mist ere morning.
Darkness falls, and coast lights show up in all airts. Forward, all hands are putting a last drag on the topsail halyards, and the voice of the nigger tells of the fortunes of—
'Renzo—boys, Renzo!'
II
STEERSMANSHIP
Wee Laughlin, dismissed from the wheel for bad steering, was sitting on the fore-hatch, a figure of truculence and discontent, mouthing a statement on the Rights of Man, accompanied by every oath ever heard on Clydeside from Caird's to Tommy Seath's at Ru'glen. It was not the loss of his turn that he regretted—he was better here, where he could squirt tobacco juice at will, than on the poop under the Mate's eye—but, hardened at the 'Poort' as he was, he could not but feel the curious glances of his watchmates, lounging about in dog-watch freedom and making no secret of their contempt of an able seaman who couldn't steer, to begin with.
"'Ow wos she 'eadin', young feller, w'en ye—left?" Cockney Hicks, glancing away from the culprit, was looking at the trembling leaches of top'gal'nsails, sign of head winds.
"'Er heid? Ach, aboot Nor' thurty west!"
"Nor' thirty west? Blimy! Where th' 'ell's that? 'Ere! Give us it in points! None o' yer bloomin' degrees aboard square-sail, young feller!"