But there was some bitter in it. Walters and I never grew to be warm friends, though I did my best. He did not get on with the officers either, but used to seize every opportunity to get away and talk to some of the sailors, particularly with the Frenchman Jarette, who was in trouble with the captain just after our starting, but who, thanks to the severe treatment he had received, now proved to be one of the smartest of the crew.
He spoke English as well as I did, but if ever I drew near when Walters had gone to lean over the bulwarks and talk to him, I could hear that it was in French—bad French, spoken very slowly on Walters’ part, and he used to have to make Jarette say what he had to say two or three times over before he could quite make it out.
“No business of mine,” I thought. “I might do the same and practise up my French,” which needed it badly enough, for I had pretty well forgotten all I had learned.
Things were not quite happy either on deck. I did not thoroughly understand why, and attributed it to Mr Denning’s ill-temper, consequent upon his being unwell, for he was haughty and distant with Mr Frewen whenever he tried to be friendly, and I used to set it down to his having had so much to do with doctors that he quite hated them; but there seemed to be no reason why he should snub Mr Preddle so whenever the big stout fellow approached him and his sister and tried to enter into conversation.
Mr Preddle used to complain to me about it when I went with him to see to the aerating and giving fresh water to the fish, which needed a great deal of attention, and in spite of all our care would insist in turning wrong side up, to paddle about slowly and helplessly for a while, and then make a vigorous effort and swim naturally.
But the next minute they were back down and white up, and so they would go on till they were too weak to move, and a few minutes after they would die.
“Yes, it’s sad business, Alison Dale,” Mr Preddle would say with a sigh, as he lifted a little trout out of one tray, or a tiny salmon from another. “I’m afraid that I shall not have many left by the time I arrive over in New Zealand.”
“Perhaps they will get on better when we are in warmer parts.”
“I’m afraid they’ll die faster then,” he said, taking something out of a locked-up box under one of the water-troughs, and to my surprise I saw that it was an ordinary pair of kitchen bellows.
“What! are you going to light a fire to warm them, sir?” I said.