"What's that, O'Brien?" replied I; "I never heard of it."
"Why, Peter," rejoined he, "it's the stuff they feed fools on."
Chapter XXIX
A long conversation with Mr Chucks—The advantage of having a prayer-book in your pocket—We run down the trades—Swinburne, the quartermaster, and his yarns—The Captain falls sick.
The next day the captain came on board with sealed orders, with directions not to open them until off Ushant. In the afternoon, we weighed and made sail. It was a fine northerly wind, and the Bay of Biscay was smooth. We bore up, set all the studding-sails, and ran along at the rate of eleven miles an hour. As I could not appear on the quarter-deck, I was put down on the sick-list. Captain Savage, who was very particular, asked what was the matter with me. The surgeon replied, "An inflamed eye." The captain asked no more questions; and I took care to keep out of his way. I walked in the evening on the forecastle, when I renewed my intimacy with Mr Chucks, the boatswain, to whom I gave a full narrative of all my adventures in France. "I have been ruminating, Mr Simple," said he, "how such a stripling as you could have gone through so much fatigue, and now I know how it is. It is blood, Mr Simple—all blood—you are descended from good blood; and there's as much difference between nobility and the lower classes, as there is between a racer and a cart-horse."
"I cannot agree with you, Mr Chucks. Common people are quite as brave as those who are well-born. You do not mean to say that you are not brave— that the seamen on board this ship are not brave?"
"No, no, Mr Simple; but as I observed about myself, my mother was a woman who could not be trusted, and there is no saying who was my father; and she was a very pretty woman to boot, which levels all distinctions for the moment. As for the seamen, God knows, I should do them an injustice if I did not acknowledge that they were as brave as lions. But there are two kinds of bravery, Mr Simple—the bravery of the moment, and the courage of bearing up for a long while. Do you understand me?"
"I think I do; but still do not agree with you. Who will bear more fatigue than our sailors?"
"Yes, yes, Mr Simple, that is because they are endured to it from their hard life: but if the common sailors were all such little thread-papers as you, and had been brought up so carefully, they would not have gone through all you have. That's my opinion, Mr Simple— there's nothing like blood."
"I think, Mr Chucks, you carry your ideas on that subject too far."