"'A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep.'"
Just then the schooner gave a lurch and shook her feathers alow and aloft by way of chorus. "I like this kind of life very much; how gracefully this vessel moves; what a beautiful union of strength, proportion, lightness, in the taper masts, the slender ropes and stays, the full spread and sweep of her sails! Then how expansive the view, the calm ocean in its solitude, the receding land, the twinkling lighthouse, the"——
"Ever been sea-sick?" said Picton, drily.
"Not often. By the way, my appetite is improving; I think Cookey is getting tea ready, by the smoke and the smell."
"Likely," replied Picton; "let us take a squint at the galley."
To the galley we went, where we saw Cookey in great distress; for the wind would blow in at the wrong end of his stove-pipe, so as to reverse the draft, and his stove was smoking at every seam. Poor Cookey's eyes were full of tears.
"Why don't you turn the elbow of the pipe the other way?" said Picton.
"Hi av tried that," said Cookey, "but the helbow is so 'eavy the 'ole thing comes h'off."
"Then, take off the elbow," said Picton.
So Cookey did, and very soon tea was ready. Imagine a cabin, not much larger than a good-sized omnibus, and far less steady in its motion, choked up with trunks, and a table about the size of a wash-stand; imagine two stools and a locker to sit on: a canvas table-cloth in full blotch; three chipped yellow mugs by way of cups; as many plates, but of great variety of gap, crack, and pattern; pewter spoons; a blacking-bottle of milk; an earthen piggin of brown sugar, embroidered with a lively gang of great, fat, black pismires; hard bread, old as Nineveh; and butter of a most forbidding aspect. Imagine this array set before an invalid, with an appetite of the most Miss Nancyish kind!