“Thunder, mister!” exclaimed the Yankee skipper indignantly. “What d’ye mean with your ‘’nough of the sea,’ when he’s only jest cut his eye-teeth an’ taken to larnin’? Why, mister, it would be a sin to let thet b’y turn his hand to anythin’ else, fur he’s a born sailor to the very backbone!”
“What say you, Eric?” said Fritz to his brother.
“Oh, I’m with the captain,” replied he. “I always loved the sea, and the wreck of the old Gustav Barentz has not altered my thinking about it just the same. I don’t believe I could ever settle down to a shore life now! I have learnt a lot of seamanship, too, with Captain Brown; and he says, that if I will go with him on his next whaling voyage, he’ll make me third mate of the Pilot’s Bride.”
“Jest so, my young cock shaver,” said that gentleman; “an’ what old Job Brown sez, why I guess he’ll stick to! You rec’lect what I told you ’bout wages, hey? We whalin’ men don’t gen’rally give a fixed sum, as we go shares in the vally o’ the venture; but, if yer brother haar likes it better, I’ll give you twenty dollars a month, besides yer keep an’ mess money, thaar!”
“I’m sure, Captain Brown, that is a very generous offer,” replied Fritz, acting as spokesman for his brother; “still, I hardly think my poor mother would like his being away for so long a time as your voyage would last.”
“We’ll be away, I reckon, fur a twelvemonth, countin’ from next month, when we’ll start—thet is if my shep’s ready for the v’y’ge, as I kinder guess she’ll be, with me to look arter her an’ see the longshore men don’t lose time over the job,” interrupted the skipper. “Say now, she sails latter end o’ July, so as to git down to the Forties afore October, or tharabouts; waall, I guess we’ll cast anchor in Narraganset Bay ag’in ’fore next fall—will that du for you, mister, hey?”
“You see,” explained Fritz, “my poor mother thinks him dead; and, of course, after she gets the letter he tells me he has just sent home, it will be as bad as a second death to her to know that he has now started on another voyage without returning to see her first! Besides that, I’ve read and heard that whaling life is terribly dangerous—isn’t it?”
“Not a bit of it,” said the skipper bluntly, in sea-dog fashion. “I reckon it’s nary half so dangerous as sailin’ back’ards an’ for’ards across the herrin’ pond ’twixt Noo Yark an’ your old Eu-rope in one o’ them ocean steamers, thet are thought so safe, whar you run the risk o’ bustin’ yer biler an’ gettin’ blown up, or else smashin’ yer screw-shaft an’ goin’ down to Davy Jones’ locker! Why, thaar ain’t a quarter the per’l ’bout it, much less half, as I sed jest naow! You jest ax my friend haar, whom you seem to hev known afore. Say, Nat, what d’ye think o’ whalin’ life?”
“Safe as the National Bank, I guess, Job,” promptly responded the individual addressed, Fritz’s acquaintance the “deck hand,” whose full name he now learnt was Nathaniel Washington Slater—usually addressed as “Nathaniel W Slater,” or called familiarly “Nat” by his friends!
“Thaar!” exclaimed the skipper, “what more d’ye want than thet, hey? You see, mister, the Pilot’s Bride don’t do whalin’ up in Baffin’s Bay an’ further north, whar I’ll allow the fishin’ is a bit risky. We only makes reg’ler trips once a year to the Southern Ocean, callin’ in on our way at Saint Helena an’ the Cape o’ Good Hope. Thaar, I guess, we meets a fleet of schooners thet do all the fishin’ fur us ’mongst the islands. We fetch ’em out grub, an’ sich-like notions, an’ take in return all the ile an’ skins they’ve got to bring home. In course, sometimes, we strike a fish on our own ’count; but, we don’t make a trade of it, ’cept the black fins comes under our noses, so to speak! The b’y’ll run no risk, you bet, if you’re skeart about him.”