“The better the day, the better the deed,” rejoined the captain, rather sternly, I thought. “If you overhaul your Bible you’ll find it was only the Pharisees who objected to any necessary work being done on the Sabbath, and I myself see nothing wrong in our sailing on this day if we have a fair wind, Sunday though it be; besides which, I am obeying the orders of my queen and country.”
“But, sir,” cried Mr Smythe, flushing up again, though now more from the heat of argument than from the feeling of bashfulness which at first oppressed him, “it is my duty to celebrate divine service, and my bishop—”
“Mr Smythe, I’m bishop here; and, as commanding officer, my word is law,” interrupted Captain Farmer. “The next time you may desire to hold service on board this ship, please be good enough to ask my permission first; for, remember, my rule is paramount here over matters spiritual as well as things temporal. No doubt you have erred through ignorance in trying to set your authority against mine, and I’ll not dwell further on the matter. I am sorry there’ll be no time to-day for you to hold any regular service, for I am now going to inspect the men at divisions; but, after that, you may have a short prayer, if you like, before we make sail.”
The Reverend Mr Smythe, I was glad to notice, took this rebuke in dignified silence, standing aside on the quarter-deck while the captain and commander descended the poop-ladder and went their rounds.
He waited until they had passed forwards before he went down the after-hatchway to the main deck; where, on the completion of the inspection, all hands were mustered and he read the form of prayer enjoined by the rubric for those about to travel by sea, which was listened to more attentively perhaps than it is in any church ashore.
Sailors, however, watch as well as pray; so, no sooner had the chaplain finished than his congregation dispersed instantly to their stations, the commander singing out from the poop, the moment he had reached that coign of vantage, the long-delayed but welcome order, for which we had all been waiting in expectancy since the morning.
“Hands, up anchor!” he cried in a brave shout, to which the boatswain on the forecastle gave a shrill response with his whistle, while his mates re-echoed the cry between decks, up and down the ship fore and aft, “All hands, up anchor!”
The capstan was again manned below, and the marines and idlers heaved in the cable to the sound of the drum and fife, as before; although, this time, the tune was “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” the tramp of their feet coming in every now and again as a sort of chorus to the music, while on the forecastle above, the boatswain overhauled the catfalls, and got up the up and down tackle, and the gunner’s crew rigged out the fish davit with its gear.
“The cable’s ‘up and down,’ sir,” presently reported the boatswain to “glass-eye,” our first lieutenant, who passed the word aft in the usual manner to the commander on the poop. “Cable’s up and down, sir!”
The merry sound of the drum and fife, and steady tramp of the men round the capstan on the main deck continued until, anon, the boatswain once again reported to the Honourable Digby Lanyard, as he stood surveying the progress made in heaving in from the knight heads, “Anchor’s weighed, sir.”