“And yet the lad holds the ship in hand,” said the oldest of all the seamen, who kept his gaze fastened on the proceedings of Wilder; “he is driving her through it in a mad manner, I will allow; but yet, so far, he has not parted a yarn.”
“Yarns!” repeated the mate, in a tone of strong contempt; “what signify yarns, when the whole cable is to snap, and in such a fashion as to leave no hope for the anchor, except in a buoy rope? Hark ye, old Bill; the devil never finishes his jobs by halves: What is to happen will happen bodily; and no easing-off, as if you were lowering the Captain’s lady into a boat, and he on deck to see fair play.”
“Mr Nighthead knows how to keep a ship’s reckoning in all weathers!” said another, whose manner sufficiently announced the dependance he himself placed on the capacity of the second mate.
“And no credit to me for the same. I have seen all services, and handled every rig, from a lugger to a double-decker! Few men can say more in their own favour than myself; for the little I know has been got by much hardship, and small schooling. But what matters information, or even seamanship against witchcraft, or the workings of one whom I don’t choose to name, seeing that there is no use in offending any gentleman unnecessarily? I say, brothers that this ship is packed upon in a fashion that no prudent seaman ought to, or would, allow.”
A general murmur announced that most, if not all, of his hearers accorded in his opinion.
“Let us examine calmly and reasonably, and in a manner becoming enlightened Englishmen, into the whole state of the case,” the mate continued, casting an eye obliquely over his shoulder, perhaps to make sure that the individual, of whose displeasure he stood in such salutary awe, was not actually at his elbow. “We are all of us, to a man, native-born islanders, without a drop of foreign blood among us; not so much as a Scotchman or an Irishman in the ship. Let us therefore look into the philosophy of this affair, with that sort of judgment which becomes our breeding. In the first place, here is honest Nicholas Nichols slips from this here water-cask, and breaks me a leg! Now, brothers, I’ve known men to fall from tops and yards, and lighter damage done. But what matters it, to a certain person, how far he throws his man, since he has only to lift a finger to get us all hanged? Then, comes me aboard here a stranger, with a look of the colonies about him, and none of your plain-dealing, out-and-out, smooth English faces, such as a man can cover with the flat of his hand.”—
“The lad is well enough to the eye,” interrupted the old mariner.
“Ay, therein lies the whole deviltry of this matter! He is good-looking, I grant ye; but it is not such good-looking as an Englishman loves. There is a meaning about him that I don’t like; for I never likes too much meaning in a man’s countenance, seeing that it is not always easy to understand what he would be doing. Then, this stranger gets to be Master of the ship, or, what is the same thing, next to Master; while he who should be on deck giving his orders, in a time like this, is lying in his birth unable to tack himself, much less to put the vessel about; and yet no man can say how the thing came to pass.”
“He drove a bargain with the consignee for the station, and right glad did the cunning merchant seem to get so tight a youth to take charge of the ‘Caroline.’”
“Ah! a merchant is, like the rest of us, made of nothing better than clay; and, what is worse, it is seldom that, in putting him together, he is dampened with salt water. Many is the trader that has douzed his spectacles, and shut his account-books, to step aside to over-reach his neighbour, and then come back to find that he has over-reached himself. Mr Bale, no doubt, thought he was doing the clever thing for the owners, when he shipped this Mr Wilder; but then, perhaps, he did not know that the vessel was sold to ——— It becomes a plain-going seaman to have a respect for all he sails under; so I will not, unnecessarily, name the person who, I believe, has got, whether he came by it in a fair purchase or not, no small right in this vessel.”