“I see, sir,” said I. “I won’t forget what you’ve told me another time, and shall know in future what the term means, sir, thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome, Graham,” he replied pleasantly as he resumed his walk up and down the deck, with an occasional glance to windward and a look at the compass in the binnacle to see that the helmsman was keeping the ship on the course the captain had directed before going below a short time before—west-sou’-west, and as close up to the wind as we could sail, so as to avoid the French coast and get well across the mouth of the Bay of Biscay into the open Atlantic. “I hope to make a good navigator of you in time, my boy.”
“I hope so, too, sir,” said I, trying to keep pace with his measured tread, although I always got out of step as he turned regularly at the end of his walk, which was backwards and forwards between the cabin skylight and the binnacle. “I will try my best, sir.”
While bearing in mind the “departure point,” however, I must not forget to mention, too, that immediately after Captain Gillespie had taken our bearings off the Lizard, he sang out to Tim Rooney the boatswain to send the hands aft.
“Aye, aye, sorr,” responded Tim, at once sounding his shrill whistle and hoarse shout. “A–all ha–ands aft!”
“Now for a bit of speechifying,” said Tom Jerrold, who was along with me on the lee-side of the poop, watching the crew as they mustered together on the main-deck underneath. “The ‘old man’ loves a jaw.”
But Tom was mistaken; for the captain’s speech was laconic in the extreme, being “much shorter, indeed, than his nose,” as my fellow mid was forced to acknowledge in a whisper to me!
“My men,” said he, leaning over the brass rail at the head of the poop, and gazing down into the faces of the rough-and-ready fellows looking up at him expectantly, with all sorts of funny expressions on their countenances, as they wondered what was to come—“we’re now at sea and entering on a long voyage together. I only wish you to do your duty and I will do mine. If you have anything to complain of at any time, come to me singly and I will right it; but if you come in a body, I’ll take no notice of ye. Ye know when I say a thing I mean a thing.”
“Aye, aye sir!” shouted the hands, on his pausing here as if waiting for their answer. “Aye, aye, sir!”
“All right then; ye understand me, I see. That will do the watch.”