"These here wheeled craft might suit some, but for comfort and safety give me an eight-oared galley!"
CHAPTER XLV
HOW BARNABAS SOUGHT COUNSEL OF THE DUCHESS "BO'SUN?"
"Sir?"
"Do you know the Duchess of Camberhurst well?"
"Know her, sir?" repeated the Bo'sun, giving a dubious pull at his starboard whisker; "why, Mr. Beverley, sir, there's two things as I knows on, as no man never did know on, nor never will know on,—and one on 'em's a ship and t' other's a woman."
"But do you know her well enough to like and—trust?"
"Why, Mr. Beverley, sir, since you ax me, I'll tell you—plain and to the p'int. We'll take 'er Grace the Duchess and say, clap her helm a-lee to tack up ag'in a beam wind, a wind, mind you, as ain't strong enough to lift her pennant,—and yet she'll fall off and miss her stays, d'ye see, or get took a-back and yaw to port or starboard, though, if you ax me why or wherefore, I'll tell you as how,—her being a woman and me only a man,—I don't know. Then, again, on the contrary, let it blow up foul—a roaring hurricane say, wi' the seas running high, ah! wi' the scud flying over her top-s'l yard, and she'll rise to it like a bird, answer to a spoke, and come up into the wind as sweet as ever you see. The Duchess ain't no fair-weather craft, I'll allow, but in 'owling, raging tempest she's staunch, sir, —ah, that she is,—from truck to keelson! And there y'are, Mr. Beverley, sir!"
"Do you mean," inquired Barnabas, puzzled of look, "that she is to be depended on—in an emergency?"
"Ay, sir—that she is!"