Battling with his longing, he contrasted the weevilly biscuits and salt junk of the fo’k’stle with the wholesome damper and fresh mutton and beef of the hut.
He thought of the ‘all night in’ of undisturbed rest, contrasting it with the ‘Watch ahoy! Now then, you sleepers, turn out!’ of each successive four hours.
He thought, too, of tyrannous masters and mates; of drenched decks and leaking fo’k’stles, of frozen rigging, of dark wild nights of storm, and of swaying foot-ropes and thundrous
canvas slatting like iron plates about his ears; of hunger, wet, and misery.
Long and carefully he thought of all these things, and weighed the balance for and against. Then, one [281] ]morning, rolling up his swag hurriedly, he went straight back to them.
Even the thought of his dream had no power to stay him.
But he made a reservation to himself. Said he,—
‘No more deep water! I’ll try the coast. I’ve heard it’s good.
No more deep water; and, above all, no Cape Horn!’
He shipped on board a coaster, and went trips to Circular Head for potatoes; got bar-bound for weeks in eastern rivers looking for maize and fruit; sailed coal-laden, with pumps going clanketty-clank all down the land, and finally, after some months of this sort of work, found himself in Port Adelaide, penniless, and fresh from a gorgeous spree. Here he fell in with an old deep-water shipmate belonging to one of the vessels in harbour.