So far as the North Sea goes, which is the principal scene of Norwegian navigation, this mode of reckoning is considerably assisted by the lead,—indeed, it would be hardly too much to say that these timber ships are navigated by the lead alone. The soundings of the whole North Sea are accurately marked, and it so happens that there is considerable variety in the sand which the arming brings up; besides which there are a good many “pits,” as they are called—that is to say, small spaces, some of them not a mile across, in which, for some unexplained reason, the depth is suddenly increased. Should the ship be so fortunate as to strike one of these, they are so accurately noted in the charts, that it is as good as a fresh departure.
It was about a week or ten days after the Naze—the last point of Norway—had faded from their sight, like a dim blue cloud, that the Parson was sitting or lying at the foot of the foremast in a soft niche, which he had arranged for himself among the deck timber, and had called his study. He was reading, for the books which they had brought with them, and which, hitherto, they had had neither time nor inclination to look into, were now very acceptable indeed. The Captain, sitting on the bulwark abreast of him, and steadying himself by the after-swifter, was watching the proceedings of some visitors who had come on board the preceding evening—a kestrel and half-a-dozen swallows. The swallows were so tired when they came on board, that they readily perched on the fingers that were held out to them, and one of them had passed the night on the battens in the mate’s cabin. The hawk did not seem a bit the worse for his journey; he was seated very composedly on the quarter of the top-gallant yard close to the mast, where he was pleasantly occupied in preparing his breakfast off one of the swallows, who had risen earlier than his companions, and who did not exactly realise the proverb about the “early bird finding the worm,”—on the contrary, he had been found himself, and was thus ministering to the wants of the hungry, while his brethren, having now recovered their strength by their night’s rest, were flitting unconcernedly about the masts and yards, just as on shore they had flitted round the church steeple, and were wondering, no doubt, what had become of all the flies.
“As this is only the middle of September,” said the Parson, looking up at the birds, “it is evident that the migration of swallows must begin in the North first, and that previous to their leaving our shores, the English swallows must receive a large addition to their numbers; a fact which, so far as I know, naturalists have not noticed.”
“Or else,” said the Captain, “that they shift their quarters, like a regiment that has got its route, and march by detachments—one relieving the other. Ah!”—with a long sigh—“I wish I had wings like a swallow!”
“Pooh! nonsense!” said the Parson; “we shall get on shore some time or other; everyone does, except the ‘ancient mariner.’ ‘Good times, bad times, all times pass over.’”
“So they do; but all this is so much waste of life. Here am I, sitting dangling my legs over the sides of this cursed brig, knowing all the time that my friends are knocking the partridges about. Who can give me back my 1st of September? Besides,” he added, in a grumbling tone, “I want a clean dinner, if it is only by way of a novelty; I can rough it as well as anyone for the time, as you know, but a course of such living as this will poison a man.”
The Parson laughed.
“It does, I assure you! I have often seen it in the West Indies; when a nigger takes to eating dirt, he always dies, and I should think a little of that would go a great way with a white man.”
“Well, you know it is said that ‘every man must eat his peck of dirt in the course of his life.’”
“That’s exactly the thing; we are allowed a peck of dirt, as you say, to last our lives, but you see if we stay here much longer, we shall soon get to the end of our allowance. What do you think I saw yesterday? When I went below, I could smell the cook had been there; you say yourself that you are always obliged to open the skylight whenever he comes near the cabin. You know what a beastly miserable day it was, and as I had nothing to do, I thought I would turn in and try to sleep away a little time, and get a little warm. I felt the pillow rather too high, and, putting my hand under it, I found the dish of plok fiske we were to have for dinner stowed away there to keep it warm! Bother that skipper, he is going about again,” as the Norwegian equivalent for “raise tacks and sheets” came grumbling on his ear, and the men lounged lazily to their stations; “he’s as frightened at the shore as if it was Scylla and Charybdis, and the Mäelström into the bargain. If he would only hold on three or four hours more, we might sight Flamborough Head, and get on board an English collier and enjoy a little cleanliness.”