Jorrocks, however, took my patronage in good part, although I could detect a faint cock of his eye, denoting sly amusement at my ridiculous assumption of superiority. This he now proceeded to “take down a peg” in his roundabout way.
“Why, bless you, Master Leigh, I sailed as able seaman in a China clipper afore you were born, and when I were that high!” he replied, laughing, putting his hand about a foot above the deck to illustrate his approximate stature at the period referred to, and representing himself to be at that time certainly a very diminutive son of Neptune.
“You must have been very young, then,” said I, a little bit nettled at his remark—thinking it a slur on my nautical experience, so bran-new as that was!
But Jorrocks went on as coolly as if I had not cast a doubt on the veracity of his statement concerning his early commencement of sailor life.
“Aye, aye,” he answered, quite collectedly, “I grant I were young, but then you must rec’lect, my lad, I got the flavour o’ the sea early in a lighthouse tower, where I was born and brought up, my father having the lantern to mind; and, since then, I’ve v’y’ged a’most to every part you could mention, and shipped in a’most every kind of craft, from an East Indyman down to a Yarmouth hoy. Bless you! I only took to the coasting line two or three years ago, when you and I first ran foul of each other; and the reason for my doing that was in cons’quence of my getting spliced, and the missus wanting me to take a ’longshore berth. Howsomedevers, I couldn’t stand it long, being once used to a decent fo’c’s’le in a proper sort of vessel v’y’ging o’er the seas in true shipshape fashion; and so, I parted company with the brig and came aboard the Esmeralda eighteen months ago come next July—a long spell for a sailor to stick to one ship without changing, but then Cap’en Billings ’s a good sort, and he made me boatswain o’ the craft last v’y’ge but one, so I hopes to remain with him longer still.”
“You like him, then?” I said, tentatively, looking him straight in the face.
“Oh, aye—first-class,” replied Jorrocks to my implied question, with much seriousness, “He’s not only a good skipper—as good as they make ’em, treating the hands as if they were men, and not dogs—but he’s a prime seaman, and knows what’s what in a gale, better nor most I’ve ever sailed with. Howsomedevers, he’ll stand no nonsense; and when he puts his foot down, you may as well give up, as you might sooner soft-sawder a trenail into a two-inch plank as get over him and shirk your duty! The old man, easy-going when you take him right, is as stiff as a porkypine when you runs foul of his hawse; so, you’d better not try on any o’ them pranks o’ yours you told me you and your messmate played off on your old schoolmaster, for Cap’en Billings has cut his eye teeth, my hearty.”
“Why, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” I exclaimed, indignantly, “what Tom and I did to Dr Hellyer was quite different, and served him right for his cruelty.”
“Aye, aye, that may be accordin’ to your notion,” said Jorrocks, sententiously; “but that schoolmaster were the skipper of his own ship, the same as Cap’en Billings is here aboard this here craft, and it ain’t right to trifle with them as is set in authority over us!”
I can’t tell what I might have replied to this appropriate little sermon that Jorrocks delivered about the mischievous and dangerous trick that Tom and I conspired together to commit, and which I have often subsequently reflected might have led to the most disastrous consequences, and perhaps injured the Doctor for life; but, at that moment, Captain Billings, seeing my old friend and I chatting together, came over to leeward, where we were standing.