"I have seen foul weather in my time, brother," growled Archy of Anster, the boatswain; "and I have seen some gey het work, too, between the English Channel and the Rock o' Lisbon; but I marvel what the deil ye drive at, Gair!"
"May I never drink aught but black bilge-water, if I dinna think him clean daft," added the gunner; "but he canna see the admiral till mid-day, when the kind's council breaks up; sae, Jamie, after Father Zuill hath piped all hands to mass, you had better just take your breakfast wi' us, like a douce man, and meet the admiral after, when tide and time suit."
Aware that he could not entrust his secret with the seamen, among whom it would have spread like wildfire, and cost him, perhaps, his life—for a word from Sir James Shaw, or the tyrannical captain of Broughty, would be sufficient to hang a poor fisherman among the rooks that Borthwick spoke of—Jamie was obliged to exert his patience, and join the seamen at their mess of Lammas ale and porridge in the forecastle, where, after this humble repast was ever, Master Wad produced his fiddle, and, after mass was done and the chaplain gone ashore, sung the famous ditty, still known to our fishermen, of the
"Four-and-twenty mermaids, who left the port of Leith,
To tempt the fine auld hermit, who dwelt upon Inchkeith;
Nor boat, nor waft, nor crayer, nor craft had they, nor oars or sails,
Their lily hands were oars enough, their tillers were their tails," &c.
"I could tell ye something mair wonderful than the mermaiden's voyage, brother," said the grey-haired boatswain, who dearly loved to spin a yarn whenever he could get listeners. He was a rough-visaged Scot, with two great red-spotted cheekbones, a nose that had a sword-cut across it, and which stuck out between two enormous whiskers that mingled with his grisly beard. "Our gude chaplain thinks to discover a process whereby he can make ships proof to the shot of culverins—for so he told me yesternight."
"By my faith, old Ropeyarn," said Cuddie the coxswain, who was his exact counterpart, "that will be better than muddling his brains in trying to mak burning-glasses that will set a fleet in a bleeze at a league's distance."
"Brother," said the gunner, striking his large-jointed hands together emphatically, for between such inventions, it seemed not improbable that his profession would prove a useless one; "brother, I ken navagation as weel as maist men; I have run all Europe down twenty times, frae the North Cape to the Gut o' Gibraltar—ay, I have seen the Rio Grande, and the great peak 'o the Fortunate Isles, that rises right out o' the sea like a spear-head, and flames like a torch; I have seen the sea-devils that swim round the Cape de Verd, where the glinting o' the moon makes men mad, and where St. Elmo's light dances like a will-o'-the-wisp on the main-mast heid: yet it is a blessed light, for it ever precedes a calm: but may I ne'er drink aught but bilge, if I can swallow a yarn like yours. I have seen muckle in my time, but never saw I a ship's side that would turn a cannon-shot, or a sail that had a hole burned in it by a mirror ten miles awa; yet our chaplain pretends to ken o' baith. My word on't, lads, he sails beyond his commission, and will be brought up all standing, some day, by the bishops, for sorcery, maybe."
"He is as gude a man as ever trod a plank," said the coxswain, "but his noddle hath as many crotchets as the dog-star hath rays. Minnows and mackerel! to believe in shot-proof ships!"
"Why not?" asked the boatswain, gruffly. "I'll tell ye what I have seen, messmate—a shot-proof man. Now what think ye o' that; one, at least, who was proof to steel."
"I'll tell ye when I hear, brother," replied the seaman: "was it one o' the antipodes, who walk on their heads?"