“Exactly: I’ve often thought about you, and now that I like you so much, I watch the captain for your sake, and listen particularly to what he says after dinner especially, when I’ve the opportunity; for you see, when gentlemen drink wine, they speak more freely as to what they really think, just as we foremast-men do when we get our grog on board. The greatest misfortune which could happen to you in your position would be, the captain marrying and having children on the right side of the blanket as they call it. Now I’ve often heard the captain express a dislike to matrimony, and laugh at people’s getting married, which has pleased me very much for your sake, Master Percival. You see, a man don’t think much of marrying after forty, and the captain must be fifty, if not more.”
“Yes: but if his brother dies—and he is a very infirm man—the captain will then be Viscount de Versely, and inherit very large estates, and then he will marry to have an heir to the title and estates even if there is no love in the case.”
“So he may,” replied Cross—“there’s no saying; but still, even if he does, it ain’t certain that he has a family; chickens must not be counted before they are hatched. All you have to pray for then is, that the brother may prove as tough as our old admirals, whose senses get tired of staying any longer in their bodies, and leave them long before their hulks are worn out.”
“Why do admirals live so long?”
“Well, I suppose it is for the same reason that salt meat keeps so much longer than fresh; they have been forty or fifty years with the salt spray washing in their faces and wetting their jackets, and so in time, d’ye see, they become as it were pickled with brine. Talking about that, how long will it be before you get that tanning off you?”
“I don’t know; but as the captain says I’m to do no duty while it lasts, I hope it won’t wear off too soon.”
“Spoken like a midshipman: now take my advice, although not ordered to your duty, come up on deck and take your spy-glass.”
“I’ve lost it, unfortunately. That was a good glass, for it saved my life.”
“Yes, it turned out as good for you as a Freemason’s sign, which is more than Mr Green can say. I don’t think he’ll ever make a sailor—he’d better bear up for clerk, and then he might do very well for a purser by-and-by. There’s eight bells, Master Keene, so I think we had better say good night.”