“I dare say that would be best,” I said, “and I must say I’m feeling very tired.”
Next day it was blowing a bit, and we had something else to occupy our minds than writing logs. Indeed I never felt so thoroughly bad and unambitious in my life. I did try to eat some breakfast, but the fish got it after. Jill was the same, so ill, and the ship would keep capering about in a way that made me wish I’d been a soldier instead of a sailor.
“How’re you getting on?” Peter often asked kindly. “Oh, you are not nearly so bad as I was at first, and on the day the mate rope-ended me off to my watch.”
“Isn’t it blowing hard?” I ventured to ask.
“Blowing? dear life no, it’s a glorious breeze.”
The glorious breeze—how I hated such glory—kept at it for many days. The sea got rougher and the waves higher, and we got worse. I do not think anything would have induced me to go near a ship again, if a good angel had only put me down then at the door of Trafalgar Cottage.
But every one was kind to us.
Then one day the mate—he was rather a tartar—put us both in separate watches, and after this I think our sufferings began in earnest.
Not a word had yet been written in the log, so that was our third good intention thrown to the winds.
It really seemed to me that the mate was cruel; he did not kick us about, but he sent us flying, on very short notice too. And we dared not say a word. Then we had all kinds of little menial offices to perform, even for the captain’s cat and for two beautiful dogs that belonged to the mate. To be sure, there was a boy or two forward, but the mate told us—Jill and me—that he wanted to make men of us. He explained that no officer could ever know when a thing was well done unless he knew how to do it himself.