“There’s a hard streak in all us Griffins; so I suppose there must be in me.”
This was the boy Ned Gates was so much attached to, and helped do his work at the tan-yard, and respecting whom Mrs. Gates said he was too good to go to sea (this good lady seeming to think it best to have only bad men at sea).
Naturally adapted to sea life, he was already (but little more than a boy) acting as second mate, and, by his keenness of perception, was the first to discern the whereabouts of the enemy.
To say that Walter and Ned were intimate, and enjoyed themselves together, would be superfluous. They were fortunately in the same watch, slept in the same berth, and became more attached to each other every day. Ned was smart and ambitious, but light. He always aspired to furl the royal, which he could do well enough, when it was dry, at any rate, by furling the yard-arms first; but when it was wet, and a gale of wind, it was rather more than a match for him. At such times, Walter, who knew the ambition and grit of his little shipmate, and was unwilling to mortify him before the crew, would wait till he saw the sail blow away from him once or twice, and then run up and help him.
Ned was very desirous of raising a cue, and even had dim visions of a beard. He sported a concern about three inches in length, and which very much resembled the appendage of a Suffolk pig. It was so short that Walter, who combed and dressed it for him when the rest of the watch were asleep, found it very difficult to make the eel-skin stay on, even with a clove hitch, and, to Ned’s great indignation, suggested that he should put some tar on it, in order to make the string stick. Walter, on the other hand, boasted a cue nearly a foot in length, and the rudiments of a beard.
Whenever he shaved (which luxury he sometimes indulged in, by the solicitations of Ned, on Sunday morning in port, when the rest were ashore, to avoid disparaging remarks), Ned sat looking at him with the greatest reverence, and indulging in visions of the future, although, as yet, his lip was guiltless even of down.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GRIFFINS.