“Yes, uncle; and haven’t they taken to all the arrangements about the tackle!”
“Yes, Pickle. They have all proved themselves not only eager and active, but as much interested as so many boys. Splendid fellows; and old Chubb knows how to handle them too. Fetch my glass up, Pickle. Let’s have a look at the old country as long as we can.”
Rodd darted off to the cabin hatch, but he staggered once or twice, for the schooner as she rose and fell kept on careening a little over to leeward, and in passing one of the sailors—a fine bluff-looking young fellow—the man smiled.
“Here, what are you grinning at, Joe Cross?” cried Rodd, who, after many months of intercourse with the crew, was fully acquainted with all, and knew a good many of their peculiarities.
“Oh, not at you, Mr Harding, sir. It was a little bit of a snigger at your boots.”
“What!” cried Rodd.
“Just a little guffaw, sir. You see, the deck’s as white as a holystone will make it, and your boots is black, and black and white never did agree. It’s beginning to get a bit fresh, sir, and if I was you I’d striddle a bit, so as to take a bit better hold of the deck with your footsies. I shouldn’t like to see you come down hard.”
“Oh, I shan’t come down,” said Rodd confidently; but as he was speaking the schooner gave a sudden pitch which sent the boy into the sailor’s arms.
“Avast there!” cried the man. “Steady, sir!—Steady it is! There, let me stand you up again on your pins. You mustn’t do that, or you’ll have the lads thinking you’re a himmidge, or a statty, a-tumbling off your shelf.”
“Thank you. I am all right now,” said Rodd. “My boots are quite new, and the soles are slippery.”