"You may not think very much of your superior officer some day," said Mr. Earle grimly, "but you'll have to obey him, or he'll know the reason why."
"Yes, a much harder nut to crack, as you will find to your cost. If you had a spark of chivalry in your composition, you would know better than to speak slightingly of women. No really brave or noble-minded man ever does that."
Mr. Earle did not spare his pupils; yet in spite of his sharp speeches Pickle and Puck liked him better and better every day, and began to take good care not to get into his black-books. They found that that did not pay at all.
Navigation lessons were not all play, as the boys soon found; and there was some pretty hard work in the way of sums bound up with it, as well as a great deal to notice and remember. But it was the sort of thing that they liked. And later on they were allowed to make rough models of ships themselves, and try to get the ropes and spars right; and this was like a new game, and kept them busy and happy for hours together. And then they were taken up to the Crag to see certain models of ships there; and Mr. Trelawny put them through their paces, and seemed really quite pleased with them, and made them a present of a small model yacht, which became the most prized of their possessions.
Esther did not learn the navigation so thoroughly as the boys, though she began to feel quite knowing on the subject of spars and rigging and nautical terms. She used to sit beside the old fisherman at the helm when the boat went out, and look at the clouds and the sea, and dream her own dreams or get the old man to tell her some of his stories, which he was always ready to do.
Her head hardly ever ached now; and Mr. Earle always seemed to know when it did, and gave her the sort of lessons that did not make it any worse. The boys were very nice too—much more companionable than they had been at first; and she was always ready to cut out and hem the sails for them, and help them with her clever little fingers when they got into difficulties over their rigging. And they soon found that her sharp eyes saw things quite as soon as theirs, and that she could often help them out of a difficulty; so instead of treating her with a sort of boyish contempt, they came to look upon her as a valuable assistant, and included her in their games.
Then about this time another great pleasure and interest came into Esther's life.
It was about a fortnight after the visit to the Crag, when her mother called her one day, and said, with a smiling face,—
"Esther dear, do you think you remember how to drive?"