“Father says she will be as easily sailed with the crew we will have, and with ordinary caution, as our little cutter yacht.”
“Of course,” said Rory, “we will have trial trips and all that sort of thing.”
“Ay, ay, lad,” said Ralph; “but don’t you imagine that my father will trust this fine yacht in such juvenile hands as ours, without an experienced sailing-master being on board.”
“And I wonder who that will be,” said Rory, “for you know we wouldn’t take to every stranger.”
“Boys,” said Allan, “I don’t think we will have a stranger over us as sailing-master. I can tell you a bit of a secret; or perhaps, Ralph, you can guess it, if I ask you a question or two. Well, then, what do you think McBain has been studying his Rosser so earnestly for these last many months?”
“I have it,” cried Rory, “sure he’s going to take out a Board of Trade certificate as master.”
“You’re right,” said Allan, “and I think he could take one now even, for he is well up in navigation. He is well up in logarithms, and a capital arithmetician, I won’t say mathematician, though he knows something of mathematics as well. He can take his latitude and longitude, and can lay the place of a vessel on the chart. He knows how to use his sextant well, and can adjust it by the sun; he can take lunars and find his latitude by a star, and he knows everything about compasses and chronometers, and mind you that is saying a good deal. And he can observe azimuths too, and he knows many things more that I can’t tell you about; he says himself he can work a day’s work well, and I for one wouldn’t mind sailing anywhere with him; but he doesn’t mean going up yet for three months. McBain may be slow, but he is sure.”
“And we know,” said Rory, “he can pass in seamanship.”
“I should think he could,” said Allan; “in that respect I’m proud of my foster-father; he can make sail and take it in, and work a ship in the stormiest weather; he can secure a mast, or cut one adrift, and he can rig a jury, and I needn’t tell you he knows all about the lead and the log-line. Oh yes, he is a thorough seaman, and he is well up in something else too, which I don’t think the Board of Trade ever think of examining people on. He is a good weather prognosticator; he knows the signs of the clouds, and from which direction the wind is likely to blow, and by looking at the sea he can tell you the wind’s force, and whether the sea is going down or rising, and also the rate the ship is going at. Nor is the barometer a mere toy with him, it is a friend in need, and positively seems to speak to him. Well, boys, what else would you have? He is a sailor every inch, and dearly loves the sea; he tells me, too, he can sleep like a sailor.”
“How should a sailor sleep?” asked Ralph.