“I should think, O’Brien, that the very circumstance of having had your feelings so often wounded by such language when you were a junior officer, would make you doubly careful not to make use of it to others, when you had advanced in the service.”
“Peter, that’s just the first feeling, which wears away after a time; but at last, your own sense of indignation becomes blunted, and becoming indifferent to it, you forget also that you wound the feelings of others, and carry the habit with you, to the great injury and disgrace of the service. But it’s time to dress for dinner, so you’d better make yourself scarce, Peter, while I tidivate myself off a little, according to the rules and regulations of His Majesty’s service, when you are asked to dine with the skipper.”
We met at the captain’s table, where we found, as usual, a great display of plate, but very little else, except the ship’s allowance. We certainly had now been cruising some time, and there was some excuse for it; but still, few captains would have been so unprovided. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, you will not have a very grand dinner,” observed the captain, as the steward removed the plated covers off the dishes; “but when on service we must rough it out how we can. Mr O’Brien, pea-soup? I recollect faring harder than this through one cruise, in a flush vessel. We were thirteen weeks up to our knees in water, and living the whole time upon raw pork—not being able to light a fire during the cruise.”
“Pray, Captain Kearney, may I ask where this happened?”
“To be sure. It was off Bermudas: we cruised for seven weeks before we could find the Islands, and began verily to think that the Bermudas were themselves on a cruise.”
“I presume, sir, you were not sorry to have a fire to cook your provisions when you came to an anchor?” said O’Brien.
“I beg your pardon,” replied Captain Kearney; “we had become so accustomed to raw provisions and wet feet, that we could not eat our meals cooked, or help dipping our legs over the side, for a long while afterwards. I saw one of the boat keepers astern catch a large barracouta, and eat it alive—indeed, if I had not given the strictest orders, and flogged half-a-dozen of them, I doubt whether they would not have eaten their victuals raw to this day. The force of habit is tremendous.”
“It is, indeed,” observed Mr Phillott, dryly, and winking to us—referring to the captain’s incredible stories.
“It is, indeed,” repeated O’Brien; “we see the ditch in our neighbour’s eye, and cannot observe the log of wood in our own;” and O’Brien winked at me, referring to Phillott’s habit of bad language.
“I once knew a married man,” observed the captain, “who had been always accustomed to go to sleep with his hand upon his wife’s head, and would not allow her to wear a night-cap in consequence. Well, she caught cold and died, and he never could sleep at night until he took a clothes brush to bed with him, and laid his hand upon that, which answered the purpose—such was the force of habit.”