“O, Wal, it’s nothing at all to be good here, with such a crew as this, all nice, steady men, well brought up. You never sailed in an old country vessel—did you?”
“No; I have only sailed with just such a crew as we have here, and part of them are the same men.”
“Then you don’t know anything about it. Such a set of reprobates as we had in that ship I was cast away in, cursing, swearing, fighting all the time; the captain never came on deck without his pistols in his pockets; half the crew didn’t know who their father or mother was; the crew were fighting among themselves, and the captain quarrelling with his mates, full of liquor all the time; and such deviltry as they tried to put into my head! I tell you, Walter, there was not the least need of that ship being lost (and I heard Mr. Brown tell Captain Rhines the same thing); the men might have kept her free just as well as not; we were not far from land.”
“Why didn’t they, then?”
In the first place, the men were harassed to death, kept out of their watch, working up jobs all the time, and half starved; the captain’s idea seemed to be to keep them so used up that they wouldn’t have strength or pluck to rise and take the ship from him, and it came back on his own head; they hadn’t strength enough, when the ship sprung a-leak, to work the pumps; and besides, they were so worn out, and hated him so, that they were desperate, thought it was their turn now, and if they could only drown him, they didn’t care what became of themselves. I tell you, Wal, I think, when a boy is away from home, and thrown into bad places and bad company, it makes a good deal of difference how he’s been brought up, and whether he’s come of nice folks.”
“I guess it does, Ned, because he has a good character to sustain, and thinks, when he’s tempted, ‘How can I disgrace my folks? what would my parents, brothers and sisters say? and how would they feel if I should do this thing?’ Then there’s another thing comes of being well brought up.”
“What is that, Wal?”
“A boy that has been well brought up, and has learning, has hopes; he knows he can make something of himself, and means to; whereas those poor fellows, who, as you say, didn’t know who their fathers and mothers were, had no ambition or hope of ever rising, and so made up their minds to enjoy themselves after their own fashion.”
“That’s so, for I’ve heard them say so. There was one of them, my watch-mate, Dick Cameron, a very decent fellow when the rum was out of him, and I used to talk with him; but all he would say was, ‘It’s all well for you, who have learning, and friends, and a chance to be something; but it’s no use for me.’”
“How big a man was Dick Cameron?”