Mrs. Budd thought it would be no more than proper for one of her experience and years to rebuke this levity, as well as to enlighten the ignorance her niece had betrayed.
“You should be cautious, my child, how you propose anything to be done on a ship's board,” observed the aunt. “It requires great experience and a suitable knowledge of rigging to give maritime advice. Now, as might have been expected, considering your years, and the short time you have been at sea, you have made several serious mistakes in what you have proposed. In the first place, there should always be a mate on the deck, as I have heard your dear departed uncle say, again and again; and how can there be a mate on the deck if Mr. Mulford 'turns in,' as you propose, seeing that he's the only mate we have. Then you should never laugh at any maritime expression, for each and all are, as a body might say, solemnized by storms and dangers. That Harry is fatigued I think is very probable; and he must set our watches, as they call it, when he can make his arrangements for the night, and take his rest as is usual. Here is my watch to begin with; and I'll engage he does not find it two minutes out of the way, though yours, Rosy dear, like most girl's time-pieces, is, I'll venture to say, dreadfully wrong. Where is your chronometer, Mr. Mulford? let us see how this excellent watch of mine, which was once my poor departed Mr. Budd's, will agree with that piece of your's, which I have heard you say is excellent.”
Here was a flight in science and nautical language that poor Mulford could not have anticipated, even in the captain's relict! That Mrs. Budd should mistake “setting the watch” for “setting our watches,” was not so very violent a blunder that one ought to be much astonished at it in her; but that she should expect to find a chronometer that was intended to keep the time of Greenwich, agreeing with a watch that was set for the time of New York, betrayed a degree of ignorance that the handsome mate was afraid Rose would resent on him, when the mistake was made to appear. As the widow held out her own watch for the comparison, however, he could not refuse to produce his own. By Mrs. Budd's watch it was past seven o'clock, while by his own, or the Greenwich-set chronometer, it was a little past twelve.
“How very wrong your watch is, Mr. Mulford,” cried the good lady, “notwithstanding all you have said in its favour. It's quite five hours too fast, I do declare; and now, Rosy dear, you see the importance of setting watches on a ship's board, as is done every evening, my departed husband has often told me.”
“Harry's must be what he calls a dog-watch, aunty,” said Rose, laughing, though she scarce knew at what.
“The watch goes, too,” added the widow, raising the chronometer to her ear, “though it is so very wrong. Well, set it, Mr. Mulford; then we will set Rose's, which I'll engage is half an hour out of the way, though it can never be as wrong as yours.”
Mulford was a good deal embarrassed, but he gained courage by looking at Rose, who appeared to him to be quite as much mystified as her aunt. For once he hoped Rose was ignorant; for nothing would be so likely to diminish the feeling produced by the exposure of the aunt's mistake, as to include the niece in the same category.
“My watch is a chronometer, you will recollect, Mrs. Budd,” said the young man.
“I know it; and they ought to keep the very best time—that I've always heard. My poor Mr. Budd had two, and they were as large as compasses, and sold for hundreds after his lamented decease.”
“They were ship's chronometers, but mine was made for the pocket. It is true, chronometers are intended to keep the most accurate time, and usually they do; this of mine, in particular, would not lose ten seconds in a twelvemonth, did I not carry it on my person.”