Then I laughed silently to myself as I thought of how fond I was of leaning over the bulwarks and talking to old Bob Hampton when he had the watch, and listening to his sea-tales about storms and pirates.
“How ready one is to find fault with people one doesn’t like,” I said to myself.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr Preddle.
“I didn’t speak, sir.”
“No; but I had gone into a brown study. There, the fish will do now.”
We both went on deck, and somehow when I was alone I too went into a brown study, and began wondering at Mr Preddle’s curious ways, and thinking what a pity it was that a gentleman like Mr Denning, who was on a voyage for the sake of his health, should take such a dislike to Mr Frewen and Mr Preddle too. It hardly seemed to be like irritability, for after all he was as merry and friendly with the officers as he was with me. I never went near him without his beckoning to me to come to his side, and both he and his sister were quite affectionate to me, making my first long voyage wonderfully pleasant, and the captain encouraged it.
“He must have heard something about them,” I thought, and then I began to think about Walters and the French sailor and the other sailors, of those who seemed to form one party all to themselves, and of the others who kept more along with Bob Hampton and his two friends, who had sailed together for so many years.
“There, what does it matter?” I said to myself, as I roused myself from my musings. “Walters doesn’t like Bob Hampton because Bob laughed at him, and that’s why he hangs toward Jarette; pities him, perhaps, because they both got into trouble with the officers, and birds of a feather flock together.”
These were all dreamy thoughts, like clouds in my mind. I could not understand them. I grew wiser later on when the troubles came.